I quickly changed into my favorite old set. My pink silk cami and shorts, lined with lace.
I pulled on my black robe and put my hair up in a messy bun and finally walked back into the room, sending a glance towards Merlin who was, in fact, perfectly fine on the table.
See? I could live without him. I could.
They were all watching me when I walked back in and took my seat back on the couch. I immediately pulled a blanket over my legs, but it was still the right step.
It had to be the right step.
“Okay,” Rae smiled proudly, “let’s get started.”
I made it thirty entire minutes before I started to feel the panic set in. It was a movie I had seen before. An old slasher. A monster stalking a group of people, they were trying to escape, but they kept separating themselves like idiots, and he kept picking them off one by one.
I couldn’t blink as I continued to stare at that screen. I couldn’t breathe, my heart was racing far too fast. I tried to breathe through the panic, but this was a new kind of panic. A panic I had learnedaftergetting out of that room.
I was losing out on one of my favorite genres because of what happened to me.
How was that fair? It wasn’t. It wasn’t fucking fair. I wanted to be able to watch this shit without reacting, without feeling like I was right back in that room.
I didn’t want to be back in that room—
The couch deflated under me, and I gasped, my head whipping around only to freeze when Everett settled just a foot or so away from me.
My heart stuttered as he leaned forward and grabbed a handful of chocolate covered pretzels before sitting back, his eyes catching mine.
Those icy blue eyes warmed my skin, a small smile flicking up one corner of his lips. “Hey, pup.”
And it was as if the fear didn’t have a place to latch onto anymore. Why would it? I was in that death aura again. I was protected.
I turned back to the movie, his presence filling the room so fully, I couldn’t help but breathe again. He brought the oxygen back, just like that.
32
Olivia
November 9th, 2022
He was getting angry, I could feel it.
The morning of November 1st, Evelyn had me move into Everett’s place. She and Everett had hired people to remodel my house. Which I was grateful for but staying here these last few days have been difficult, to say the least.
The main problem was that I didn’t have any wine, so everything that I had been feeling at my house was ten times worse for the first four days before I finally accepted that I would better heal without it. It wasn’t an easy acceptance, but it was one I needed all the same.
I didn’t sleep in the bedroom, I refused to go with him out on his little assignments, I didn’t talk. All I did was eat, watch television, and wake him up in the middle of the night, screaming.
Emily and Greyson had returned home with promises of future visits, not too soon though because next month was their wedding, and while Everett and I did have an open invite, Everett had informed her that there were things we still needed to do, so if we didn’t make it, he apologized.
As guilty as I felt about it, I was glad he declined. If I was still struggling, which I hoped I wasn’t, then I didn’t want to bring down her amazing day with this bullshit. She deserved better. Both she and Grey did.
Rae, Jack, and Zo, who I had met only a couple of times, left to start hunting down the people who sent Tommy those pictures, and everything had almost returned back to normal.
Everything except for me.
While some of it was my choice, not going on assignments, there were other parts of it I still couldn’t figure out.
The talking thing for one.
It was just starting to get irritating. I was supposed to have the ability to control this power of mine, and I couldn’t.
