And the ones who want to be consumed?
They're always the most delicious.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Elise
Hi, this is Paul, leave a message...
"Paul, what the fuck?!"
Balancing the phone between my shoulder and cheek, I adjust the boxes in my hands. I had taken Rhea’s threat of physically throwing me out seriously since this she-beast had a good fifty pounds and five inches on me.
"You just left me here?!"
My voice rises in pitch, catching the attention of an older couple walking up to the building. My expression must look as unhinged as I feel, because the husband gently pushes his wife behind him as they eye me warily.
Control yourself.
Anger, irritation, and frustration are the negative emotions that will only push Paul further away from you. Be his air, be his peace, be his solace. You need to get back to where you were—those sweet whispered promises of forever, of love, of that escape that only I could provide. The stress-free life that Sophie couldn't give him after the cancer diagnosis.
I need to get Paul back to where he was before he started slipping away.
Not that he's been particularly present or engaged these last few weeks.
If we're being honest, I've felt a distance growing between us, which I had assured myself I could easily fill. But it’s been there since the first night he came to the apartment, the night he told Sophie, and the night his mother kicked him out. Helooked like a broken little boy crying that his mother said she was disappointed.
She would learn. She would grow to love me. They all would.
That night, he was almost feral in his want and need for me, and I thought I had him.
The time we spent together was mostly spent having sex. Paul's been insatiable lately. I've always enjoyed sex, but he seems to be trying to bury sad thoughts in my pussy. Honestly, I'm sick of it.
Not that I was all that interested in what he had to say, either. Paul wasn't completely dull, but his desires and dreams didn't align completely with mine. Yet. He wanted his family and to stay in this town, where he would reign as King forever. I'd work on that. I could convince him otherwise. I just had to have him again.
"I'm worried about you, baby," I coo into the phone, lowering my voice and making it a little breathy the way I know he likes.
My skin prickles as my mother's cackles fill my mind, telling me I'm not good enough to keep a man. She snared my father and kept him for years, and he had power and money. What does it say about me that I can't even keep Paul interested?
Pathetic. Weak. Useless.
I grit my teeth hard enough to crack my veneers as I storm over to my BMW. I had been saving on gas by having Paul drive me around town to work and our dates, so my car has just been collecting more and more seagull shit as it sits in the guest parking lot.
I take another shaky breath and add a quiver to my voice. "Please, call me back. Let me know that you're okay."
Shoving the boxes into the backseat of my car, I plop down into the driver's seat and slam the door closed.
And I scream.
My frustration spills out of me. And I scream and scream andscream, trying to drown out my mother laughing at me in my head, my father telling me I'm his greatest failure, and the fact that I think they're both right.
Paul will call, I assure myself, once he’s calmed down. My throat feels raw, my head heavy, and my body aches. Paul will call me back. He needs me. Right now, he has nothing, nowhere to go, and no job for the next couple of months. This is just a road bump. The universe is testing me to see how badly I want it.
He will call.
???
"Paul, where are you? This is ridiculous, I won't be ignored!"
