Wow, I thought, as his breath rattled and he fell back asleep that easily.
In midconversation.
If I had holy water, I would have put some in a spray bottle and squirted him with it, just to see what happened.
Was talking to me that much torture? I didn’t think I was that awkward or annoying. If I’d been born to any other life, I might have had a lot of friends—if I hadn’t grown up to be so paranoid and watch every word I spoke to strangers. When I tried, I got along with people pretty well. I was trying my best not to talk a lot so that I wouldn’t say something I shouldn’t. I was trying my best to take care of him, the ungrateful….
I peered at his sleeping face.
He wasn’t at all what I’d expected. Not even a little bit. I doubt he was what anyone expected. A crabby, bossy, six-foot-something man. The thought felt like it should have been sacrilegious, but it was the truth.
He was pretty arrogant, and it wasn’t as if he’d talked to me all that much in the first place.
For about the hundredth time, I wondered what exactly I’d gotten myself into.
Lifting my head, I looked around the small bedroom that had been part of my world for the last chunk of my life and remembered how the hell I’d ended up here. No knickknacks, just a single picture of me as a little girl with my grandparents at the park. The rest of my pictures were split between a box in the closet and my safe deposit box. I remembered what had been taken from me before I’d even had a choice.
Everything, that was what.
I would have done anything to be normal. For the chance to have an existence that wasn’t built on so many fucking lies, on bone-softening loneliness that I called privacy to keep my sanity. To be able to totally be myself without fear of repercussion.
Unfortunately, I had to live with the fact that I wasn’t sure that was ever going to be possible.
If I was lucky, dealing with him now might be the most stressful shit I ever went through.
If I wasn’t lucky… I didn’t want to know.
* * *
“Boa noite.Good night,” I told my Brazilian student with a wave before logging out of the chat we’d been in for the last hour.
After rubbing my forehead for a second, I gently tugged my wig off and set it on the mannequin head next to my computer. It had been really expensive, and I babied the crap out of it. I’d underestimated how hard it would be to find a shade of blonde that complimented my skin tone. Then, just as carefully, I took the nylon hose that covered my hair and put it beside the wig so I could have everything ready for my next lesson later tonight; he was a nice man in Seoul who was brushing up on his conversational skills before his job transferred him.
Being an English teacher hadn’t been my dream job, but I was really grateful that I’d grown into it so much. That I enjoyed it. It ate up the worst of my loneliness. Getting to talk to these people who paid to work with me was what kept me going. It was something to look forward to. I rarely got off a lesson with something other than a smile.
It wasn’t like my grandpa had known all those language classes we had taken together, and the years I’d been babysat by the Park family that shared our duplex, would come in handy eventually. But it had. I was so grateful for everything he had done.
Running my fingers through my chin-length, straight black hair, I leaned backward in the chair and let my head drop so I could stare at the ceiling.
The last two weeks had been so tense, I’d started getting headaches every day, and today wasn’t any different. I could already feel the pressure building in my temples. I was trying to be as careful with my words as I could with my guest in the other room, but it was really hard, even though I was a fucking expert at this point.
But I’d never had to be secretive at home before.
Twice, The Defender woke up randomly, always right around the three-day mark. Each time, he stayed up long enough to look pissed, grumble, and eat a meal while glowering at me like I was the reason why he was laid up in my bed. Like I loved sleeping on the lumpy couch and feeling awkward. Then, almost immediately after finishing eating, he fell back asleep.
Somehow, he’d managed to say about ten words in the whole week. I really tried not to talk more than I needed to, and if that was really fucking weird to me, I tried to be relieved that it didn’t seem to bother him. Itwasfor the best. For the most part, my sentences revolved around me reporting Trinity news to him. Nothing bad.
Well, nothing other than another article I’d come across about him and that fire from a year ago that people were still trying to bring up. I remembered enough to know that he had totally fallen off the radar after that—for about half a year, I was pretty sure.
So I wasn’t about to bring that shit up.
While he was asleep, I tried to stick to my normal routine while avoiding the giant elephant in the room still sitting on the coffee table, reminding me that I needed to make some serious plans to leave. Every time I even started thinking about it, my stomach began hurting, which then led to me purposely trying to focus on anything other than moving. I started up my runs again, looking up at the sky every ten seconds, expecting to see something terrifying, but fortunately there hadn’t been anything or anyone. I went grocery shopping and made sure not to make eye contact with anyone.
But I knew in my gut that I really did have to make a decision ASAP.
I had to quit being a chickenshit.
But maybe later, I told myselfagainbefore sitting up straight and rubbing my face some more. I’d get it sorted. I would figure it out as soon as the superbeing quit feeling like such a liability.
