What will I do if I can’t watch him? If I can’t get into his building, or sleep beside it when I need to? What happens if I can’t come and go as I please and get close to him without him knowing I’m there? What happens if he never looks back accusingly to see if I’m following him again? What happens if he moves on? What happens if he takes it into his head to start annoying the shit out of some other guy?
Dear God, what happens then?
I leave the coffee shop and cross the street, looking up at his building. It’s tall. Mirrored. It’s harsh and unyielding, like him. A gusty headwind blows in my face, whipping its way between skyscrapers tunnelling a path towards me, whispering softly, then louder and louder.
You and me. We’ll be happy.
I look up again. Once more. One last time, to be sure.
Then I turn and head home.
Chapter 30
Demon
“Tellmehisname,Boo,” says Lacey again. “Tell me and I’ll kill him. I mean it. I won’t even pay someone to do it, I’ll do it myself.”
I’d smile at her blind loyalty if I was able to muster a smile. Ordinarily, Lacey is someone who can’t stand physical exertion, she avoids it for all she’s worth, so hearing her offer to take on something like this means a lot. It really does.
Lace has come over every night since the last time I saw Saint. I haven’t fought her on it. I’ve asked her to come. Most days she’s picked me up from the office and has driven me home. She’s slept over a lot, too. I’ve asked her to stay. I don’t want to be alone. She’s been fussing over me like a mother hen. She sleeps in my bed and clutches my hand tightly all night. When I wake up, thrashing and distraught, she holds me until I stop moving and I fall back to sleep. Then she mutters more things about killing and goes back to holding my hand.
“You’re going to be okay,” she whispers over and over, as she rubs an ice roller over the puffy rings under my eyes in the morning. At this point, I don’t know if she’s talking to me, or to herself.
She’s let me rant and rave for hours about what an asshole Asshole is. She’s let me talk until I’ve burnt myself out. Her patience has been unbelievable and her support, unwavering. Her eyes burn like two coals in her head every time I say his name.
Asshole.
How dumb is that?
Even though he’s hurt me more than anyone else in my life, I’m still trying to protect him. I don’t want anyone else knowing who or what he really is. No one. Not even Lacey. I haven’t told her his real name, or how we met. When I tell her what happened between us, I talk about how he made me feel, not about where we were, or what we were doing.
*
“How was your day?” she asks, pulling me in for a hug. I’m home from work. I drove myself there and back today. I think that’s progress. I let myself go limp against her for a little while and try to absorb as much of her strength as I can before I step back.
“Better,” I lie.
I’ve been in physical pain since I limped out of his apartment. I feel like I’m made of thin, hand-blown glass. I feel see-through. Brittle. I feel like I’ve turned myself inside out. I’ve taken all the shit I usually try to keep hidden and I’ve laid it out. After a lifetime of trying to hide the deepest, darkest parts of me, I was dumb enough to show someone, and he took one look at it and said, “Nah.”
So yeah, the pain’s bad, but the humiliation might be even worse. It’s crushing. Threatening to overwhelm me at any given moment. I’d give anything to go back to a point in time where all I had was an unhealthy obsession with Saint. Anything. I’m trying to hold it together, I am, but I’m pretty sure I’d shatter into a million pieces if someone so much as breathed too close to me.
I passionately hate myself for saying anything to him about what I want. If I could, I’d take my words back. I’d take them back in a second. I wouldn’t ask him for more. I wouldn’t. I’d settle for shadows. I’d settle for the night. I’d take whatever he has to give me, because that was so, so much better than a life without him.
Lace doesn’t like it when I say that. She says I deserve better. She’s been extremely insistent about that, to the point she looks like she might lose her temper about it. So I’ve stopped saying it out loud, but it’s how I feel. I’m at the point now where I don’t want to talk about Saint anymore, because I know I’m milliseconds away from asking her if she thinks I should go over to his place and beg him to take back whatever pieces of me he wants. She wouldn’t like that at all. She’d kill me if she knew I was thinking like that.
“Are you sure?” She studies me dubiously.
“Yeah. I am. Much better. Never thought it would happen, but it’s gotten to the point where I’m bored of talking about myself. Let’s talk about you. How are you? How’re things with Jill?”
“Ah,” she says, flopping onto the sofa dramatically. “I dunno. Honestly, I don’t know what’s happening with us. I think she’s getting tired of me.”
“Are you doing that thing where you’re being all distant so if she leaves you, you’ll know you’re the one who pushed her away?”
“Fuuuuck, don’t get all wise on me, Boo. You know I can’t handle that level of introspection. Anyway, I don’t know if thatiswhat I’m doing. Jill’s different. I haven’t been with anyone like her before. I can’t figure her out. She’s blowing hot and cold. I can’t work out if I’m the one playing games, or if she is.” Lacey is quiet for a while. She looks me over, presumably to see if I’m emotionally robust enough for her to confide in me. “It’s kind of getting me down, to be honest.”
“Do you want me to fire her?”
She smiles gratefully and mulls my offer over for a while. “No. But I’ll let you know if I change my mind.”
