My eyebrow cocked as her pretty eyes sided to me. I hoped mine no longer looked cold. She had to believe something other than hatred tied us together. She had to believe her fantasy existed outside her head. That, right now, I was still here.
Big brown eyes pleaded to me, tears falling as she blinked a few times.
“Let yourself out. The door is open. It has been all day.”
More regret washed over her as she suddenly grew colder. Self-irritation painted an expression on her face. She silently fumed as she opened the small door, having not thought to try it earlier. She crawled a few feet to the bed, climbing atop to sit opposite me.
She pulled at a pillow, placing it in front of her, white cotton shielding away the naked body that my eyes had seen so many times before. And yet, I had no memory of any of them.
I tried to pull my eyes away. . . but it was just as hard to do as it was earlier when I wanted so much to pull her out from the cage and tellher she was wrong, that she didn’t feel all the hatred she screamed at me, because she had already told me she’d love me forever.
I’d wanted to hold her.
Remind her.
Force her to believe in us.
But, I didn’t.
And I didn’t do it now as she silently looked around, finding a fork in the cutlery almost instantly.
Her fast fork stabbed into the Disanxian and hurried the food to her hungry mouth.
She hugged the pillow tighter as she continued to eat, feeling my eyes on her as more tears fell.
“Why are you watching me?” she asked with a full mouth as she reached for the bao—the biggest bao.
“I always liked seeing you eat,” I said, taking another spoonful of my soup.
“Can I have this?” she asked, lifting the dumpling into my view.
I encouraged her with two blinks of my eyes, having no idea why she’d even ask.
I watched as her teeth sank through the bao, cutting veggies under their sharpness. And I almost fucking dribbled at what shouldn’t have been such an erotic sight, causing myself to unattractively slurp.
I clutched one of many napkins, wiping the drool from my mouth, and I was about to jump to my feet when I realized, we hadn’t had a sit-down meal together in years.
So, I glued my ass to the bedsheets and stayed put.
My faux leather jacket rustled as I tried to make myself more comfortable in the otherwise quiet room.
Silent treatment. . . I wonder who came up with that term. Silence was no treatment; all therapies required talking. Silence just made all your problems worse, and as if she heard my thoughts, she spoke.
“You'd think I'd be used to the hunger, having lived off scraps for so long. . . but I’m not.” She looked down at her meal, her hungry stomach still rumbling as her fingersdissected the chubby dumpling.
“I’m used to measly meals, but it’s still something. Today was hard. Yesterday was hard. Nothing, not even the smallest crumb crossed my lips for two days. That’s cruelty.”
“I have no intention of starving you. Regardless of what you think, I’m not all bad, Jolie.”
“No. . .?” She stopped talking to crunch another vegetable between her teeth, loaded some rice into bok choi, and then crunched that, too. “Your inner child is fairly sweet,” she worded, her mouth still full. “Do the pills you were taking earlier suppress him, too?”
Ah, fuck. What a question.
“No. Not necessarily.”
“Is that a lie?”
“I don’t like lies.” I followed her lead, also making a move for the rice. I had a question for her, too; one, I’d already brought up, but needed to ask again, as I didn’t get the answer I wanted. “Did you mean what you said earlier? Has life made you that cold that you’d wish for someone’s painful death?”
