She blinked away her tears, her breathing calming down, though the anxiety was still left over. “I’ll be ready next time. I can do it next time.”
“You don’t have to be if you don’t like it. We don’t have to do anything,” I assured her, wiping away some of the remaining wetness from her cheeks.
She shook her head quickly. “No, I did like it. I just ... I just panicked. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. There is always next time, and even if you stop it again, I would assure you all the same.”
“I want to ... try again. Not now, maybe another time?” she suggested.
“If that is what you want.”
I kissed her forehead before pulling her to my chest, enveloping her in my arms with my chin resting comfortably on her head, my fingers playing with the hem of her skirt and tracing delicately over her ankles.
“Iamproud of you, you know.”
“For what?” She laughed, a small snort.
“You’re learning to set boundaries.”
“I said ‘apricot,’” she mumbled. “You are making it more than it is.”
“Whether you say the word ‘apricot’ or dictate a contract’s worth of things you will and will not do, it is something you’ve never done before. And for that, I am proud.”
She let out a small laugh, possibly too tired to argue. As long as she knew that I saw her, that was all that mattered.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The Performer
The walls were moving, spinning, on my descent to the first floor, weighed down by my heart. Last night was a warning, the universe telling me I was a drunk walking too close to the water’s edge.
The living room was empty except for the dust and abandoned organization. It was like I cleaned one section, then another would become more cluttered than the last. My own Sisyphean task.
I grasped at my hip.
No chatelaine.
Battling against my vertigo, I stumbled back up the stairs, catching myself with my palm on the step as I scrambled.
I pulled open the drawer to my nightstand, trinkets clattering against the inside before my hands could rummage through. Another minute of frantic clawing, knowing it wasn’t there. The keys weren’t there.
“Shit.Shit!” I cursed, my throat clenching in distress as I already found myself skipping steps on the way back downstairs.
I yanked the miscellaneously shaped pillows and cushions off the sofa. Nothing but spare change and crumbs were revealed before I wasflat on the floor, squinting under the couch at silhouettes of dust and a long-dead insect or two.
I sat up on my knees, raking my nails through my hair.
Slowly, I balanced on my wobbly legs, sore from the sudden burst of panic, undoubtedly expending whatever energy my poor body would have saved for the day.
“Please,” I exhaled up at the ceiling, praying to the cracks in the plaster. “Please let it not be so.”
With steady steps, I stood in the hallway, eyeing the door at the end. As I approached, some details inspired hope. The carpet was unmoved, the floorboard underneath creaked the same way it did before, unfixed.
The padlock on the door was firmly in place, no signs of damage, and still locked.
Arkady’s coat and bag were hanging on the banister, things I wouldn’t imagine he would stray too far from. He would be returning.
If these things were true, I attempted to reassure myself that nothing was amiss.
