The secretive midnight phone calls with Emaly using the prepaid phone she’d gotten me when my mind trapped me in nightmares.
I praise Emaly for the work she put into becoming a doctor. There are kids who dream of being under her care. But I don’t offer myself the same courtesy because then I’d have to remind myself of how far I’ve truly come. And that means acknowledging the people who could have prevented me from this path, and the trauma that instilled.
I swallow.
“That’s quite the hypocritical comment,” I tell her, leaning forward and setting my elbows on the edge of my desk. “Since you’ve been lying to yourself this whole time about not wanting me when it’s obvious you do.”
The remark hits exactly where I want it to, and her nostrils flare as she soaks it in.
“You don’t know me,” I inform her. “You will never know me. Not fully. There’s only one person who can.”
I want it to hurt. I want it to make its mark so she stops trying to dig her way in further than she already has. Because if she keeps going, she’ll discover everything I’ve worked so hard to keep hidden away. She’ll hit the vault I’ve let sink into the abyss and try opening it.
Once that happens, I don’t know what will be left of me.
Winter faces me, her shoulders stiff and square. On guard. Mad, perhaps. But her face is softer than it should be. Like she…pities me.
What the fuck?
“The only person who knows the real me is my sister,” she says calmly. “And sometimes, I’m not even sure she knows me at all. Because there are pieces of me that I’m still trying to figure out myself.”
I stare at her.
She stares back.
“You can try to hurt me,” she adds, her voice far too soothing. “But I see right past it. If you wanted to seal yourself off from everybody in the world, you wouldn’t have brought me here. You wouldn’t have hired me. Because you wouldn’t have felt the need to prove anything to anybody. So, you’re lying. You do care. And that pisses you off. But guess what, Thomas?”
I’m silent, fisting my hands together and clenching my jaw as she psychoanalyzes me.
She smiles, but it’s empty. Void of any emotion that’s usually molded into the curve of her lips. “Nobody can hurt me by being cruel and hateful because I already torture myself enough by being the same way.”
A lump in my throat forms that I try swallowing down. “You shouldn’t.”
“I can say the same,” she counters. Then she produces her phone from her pocket and looks down at it. “My Uber is here.”
She ordered a ride? “I could have driven you home, Winter.”
Her empty smile widens only by a millimeter, looking suddenly tired. “You could have,” she agrees. “But I’m saving us both that headache.”
She barely makes it past the threshold of my office before I call out, “You know more of my secrets than I do yours. It’s only fair you even the playing field.”
Winter studies me for a moment before shaking her head. “Who’s to say I haven’t shared just as much with you? It’s about being receptive to the information.”
What does that mean? “One thing,” I all but beg her. “Just one.”
She stares at me for what feels like forever before she looks away. “I miss being hugged. I miss the comfort. I miss feeling…loved. I don’t know what that’s like anymore or if I’m capable of it.”
That’s all she leaves me with before walking out, the front door opening and closing behind her as my front door camera pings from my phone.
I stare at the space she occupied only seconds ago, trying to decipher what secrets she divulged, all while wishing I could chase after her. Beg her to tell me more.Hugher.
But would she let me?
*
Emaly’s gaping facetakes up the phone screen, and I worry her eyes will dry out if she doesn’t blink soon. “You didwhat?” sheasks.
Sighing, I pick up the fussy feline and show her off to the woman on videochat. Oreo has forced me to lie on the couch with her for the last hour because she didn’t want to move from where she’s been curled up in a ball on my chest.
