“Through this darkness,” he whispers. “You’re going to end up hurting yourself, and I—we—love you too much to let that happen.”
“I’m not—”
Connor’s flinch silences my protest. Maybe I have been too rigid. Too focused. Too...everything Alec says I am. He’s been right about so much. He convinced me I feel steadier when I drink decaf coffee. That I like cider better than beer. That popsicles are a healthier choice than ice cream. Maybe he’s right about this too.
Alec smells like every fantasy I’ve ever had, and we spend so much time together, I haven’t seen any of my other friends in months. We said “I love you” after a week, and ever since, it’s been hard to figure out where he ends and I begin.
Maybe it’s because my place is with him. Or maybe I don’t have a place at all.
Chapter Two
Quinton
I haven’t beenable to relax all day. Oh, who am I kidding? I haven’t relaxed in months.
You’re not having a breakdown. You’re not having a breakdown. You’re not having a breakdown.
My newest mantra. Ever since the last big fight I had with Alec.
“I just told you I had to call Jessie to come get the gun out of my apartment! And you don’t even react? You’re so fucked in the head, you don’t care?” he asks in the middle of dinner at a crowded restaurant.
I stare at him, mouth agape, spoon poised over the soup bowl. Who does that? Just casually admits to suicidal thoughts—or a hell of a lot more than thoughts—like they’re saying they like apples with peanut butter?
“Well? You’re still not going to say a word?” he hisses. “God. You’re so close to a breakdown it’d be almost comical if I weren’t so worried about you.”
“I’m not…” I protest quietly. I know I’m not. Or, I hope I’m not.
Thankfully, the server intrudes. “How is everything?” she asks with a bright smile.
“Um, great. Thanks,” I mumble, then stare into the soup I didn’t want to order in the first place. Alec chose it. Like he chooses everything. The restaurants we go to. The movies we watch. When we have sex. And how.
“Quint, I love you. And I thought you loved me too,” he says, now solicitous as he reaches across the table and rests his fingers on my arm.
I want to tell him how much I hate that nickname. How much I hate tofu. And spicy food. And the blindfolds, the cuffs, the way he just expects me to be submissive in the bedroom. But I don’t say a word. Instead, I meet his gaze, and those gray eyes are so desperate for love and acceptance, I force a smile. “I do, Alec. Really. I’m just…shocked. I need to process a minute. Let’s…get out of here, okay? Go back to your place where we can really talk about everything.”
The dark cloud over him lifts, a hint of a smile touching his lips as he signals for the server. “Can we have the check?”
That was a month ago. The last night I trusted him. The last night I didn’t see right through him. Because the next day, I quit going to the therapisthe’dsuggested and found a new one.
One who listened to me empty my soul for fifty minutes, then took out a notebook and wrote down the title of a book. “Read this,” she said. “At least the first two chapters before your next appointment. Then we’ll talk.”
I stayed up all night plowing through the book with Alec sleeping next to me. Every time he rolled over, I panicked and switched over to a card game app, holding my breath, ready to lie and claim insomnia.
The book, all about how to tell if you’re in a relationship with a psychopath or a narcissist, so closely mirrored the past six months of my life, I briefly wondered if the author had been spying on me.
I left for work before Alec woke up, called him from the car, and told him I needed some time alone. To think. He still texted me twenty times a day. Still tried to call. To FaceTime. And more than once, I answered, even though I knew it was a mistake.
But now…? I know what I need to do. Cut him out of my life completely. He’s dangerous. A narcissist and a sociopath, possibly with antisocial personality disorder. And I’m his mark. According to the literature, this is what people like him do. They fixate on one person, changing them, molding them into the perfect partner, and often pushing them to the brink of sanity.
Why didn’t I see it until now?
Alec’s mood swings, his constant, yet subtle put downs, the way he twists the truth to make me look like the unstable one... He’s cut me off from everyone I know. Become my entire life. And when I started to question, to push back, to see the truth, he only tried harder.
I don’t know why he picked me. Or what his end game is. But if I don’t get away from him soon, he’ll use me up and leave me with nothing but the broken pieces of my life.
And there are enough of those already.
The GPS leads me to Highland Park, one of my favorite neighborhoods in Dallas. It was warm today, but now that it’s well after six, the temperature’s falling rapidly. I should have grabbed a heavier jacket. And gloves.
