The reality of my planned future hits me as I fully take in the idea that people who might want to hurt me could have easier access to me now.
If they figure out who I am.
Daphne eyes me. “You get used to it,” she says.
“Used to what?” Am I that easy to read? Or am I having a normal, natural reaction that she had too?
“Being…alone.” She shoots a look up at a globe in the corner of the elevator ceiling and doesn’t say anything else.
So she’s picking up on my unease and understanding the cause of it.
“How long did it take you to get used to…being alone?” I ask.
If someone overheard us, they’d think we could be discussing anything from a breakup to moving out of a roommate situation.
But I’m certain she knows what I’m thinking.
Shouldn’t be comforting.
Especially not from Daphne.
But it is.
“I still had Lady Catherine Ophelia after my…breakup, but she was old and could only do so much as a…loud companion,” she says.
Right.
Her dog.
Yappy little thing, though it never yapped at me.
It treated me almost like I was invisible.
Hated her father though.
“Had?” I ask.
“She only made it a few more weeks after the grand life change.”
“Sorry for your loss.”
For once, she doesn’t immediately pop back with a grin and a smart-ass comment. Just keeps talking like I didn’t say anything. “And I got some roommates. They knew about my…breakup…so they made sure I wasn’t ever in a position where I felt…lonely.”
This elevator is so slow that I only know it’s moving because of the slight shimmy as we pass the second floor.
“It was probably six months to a year to fully adjust,” she finally says. “Until I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I thought about…him.”
I grunt softly. Long time to adapt to not having security in your life.
Some kind of monitored security system will be a must until I feel comfortable being whoever the new me is.
I don’t feel like aTom, even though that’s what’s on my fake ID.
I should ask Daphne to call me Tom.
To get used to it.
But I don’t want to.
