"Are you all right?" he asks, like that's all he needs to know, and then he'll hang up.
Do I want him to hang up?
I grind my teeth. "I'm fine."
"Every man with half a brain cell knows what 'fine' means."
I huff out a breath as I sit on the edge of the bed.
"I'm going crazy," I admit. "I can't sit here. I know you already gave me all this shit to prep me for the meeting…"
I look at it all, spread out over my bed, and push the phone to my ear with my shoulder as I start to gather it all back up into the manila envelope it came in. "But I feel so…"
"Restless?" he finishes.
I stuff the envelope under my mattress and bat the annoying flyaway hairs away from my face. "I guess. I should probably go?—"
"Wait," he says, and I bite my lip.
I do wait.
Only for a second, I tell myself. I can always hang up in a second. But something tells me he's exactly who I need to talk to.
I can't tell Elijah I'm freaking out about the meetingtwodays from now. And even though Seven would probably reassure me, it's not really the kind of reassurance I need.
If I tell Atticus, I don't think it'll make him any more worried than he already is. And I don't think he'll try to make me feel better about it, either. I can tell him I'm terrified I'll fuck it all up for them, and not care what he thinks about it. Fuck, he might agree with me. Just…be real with me about how this could fail.
Then we could figure out what to do if it does, because that's one thing wehaven'ttalked about: what happens if Ambrose sees right through me?
I've almost given up on waiting when Atticus finally says, "I know they're not here, but you can still come. I mean, if you want to."
I bite my cheek hard, and the edge of the phone bites into my palm.
"Um, I'll think about it."
It's all I can offer before I bring the phone from my ear and tap the button to end the call, then I'm up and pacing the length of the bedroom.
And hebetterhave removed every single camera and listening device in this room because the idea of him watching me as I struggle to decide if I should go or not makes me shudder.
I don't want him to know he has this effect on me, oranyeffect on me.
It isn't that I'm not still angry.I am. But I've seen the small ways that he's trying. How he hasn't pushed. Not really. Not as hard as I know he wants to.
No. I'm not going. Why would I go?
It would only make him think I've forgiven him, and I haven't.
It still flashes back to me some nights when the silence of lonely nights in this apartment get too heavy. How he made me feel trapped. Scared. Angry. Guilty for something I didn't even do.
I groan in frustration and throw the phone under the mattress. I could take Ellie for another walk. It's barely ten o'clock. We could grab some late-night takeout.
That's what I need. Some carbs. Maybe another shake.
But when I storm into the living room, Ellie is dead to the world. So much so in fact that she only chuffs when she hears me come in and flips partially onto her back in the corner of the fluffy dog bed, looking away from me like evenshe'ssick of my shit.
"So that's out," I mutter to myself and take my regular cell phone from my pocket. I flick to my texts and see a new one from Chris—he's been trying to get me to go up for a visit on break.
Chris
