Agony trickles down my spine.
“Because I couldn’t stop seeing you.”
My sister's best friend laughs, and the sound is one I do not recognize.
She spins around, offering me her back, and I instantly try to swim my way through her wave of levity as she lays her palms flat to the countertop, dropping her head between her shoulders. The sad sound becomes a ghostly echo, and it chills me to the bone.
The small room is eerily quiet now. The only sounds are our breaths, choppy waves we attempt keeping at bay with our hearts.
I cast my eyes to the floor, looking at the shimmering shards of the glass she’d thrown at the wall.
“Get out.” Laiken’s voice is nothing but cold.
I don’t move.
I watch her grind her palms into the broken glass at the countertop, tracking the lines of crimson that follow as she savagely opens the flesh at her hands.
And she doesn’t flinch when she does it, simmering instead, “Right now.”
I stay still, pulverizing my molars.
Laiken had always had a temper, and I had always had a bad way of feeding off it.
I jerk my chin, even though she isn’t looking at me.
“Cut deeper, Laik. I dare you to feel something.”
That got her,there’s the girl I remember.
She spins around, pressing her palms into the glass deeper at her sides, shaking her head.
“You make me fucking sick.” The words hiss through her teeth. They do nothing else but dump adrenaline through me. “In here,” she presses her hand to her flat stomach, then to her temple. “Here.” Laying her palm over her heart, she finishes, “And right fucking here.”
“Do I?” I take one calculated step forward, toward her, lifting my chin higher. “Then why was I your flinch, Laiken?”
She laughs again, pushing off the counter, and when I take another step, reaching for her, she hits my arm away, pointing to the front door.
“Get the fuck out, Chase!” She’s panting, her chest heaving. “Of my house, of my business, of my fucking life. Just get the fuck out!” She screeches now. “You have no right…no goddamn right to pry open doors you…” She points at me now. “Permanently shut.” She wets her lips. Her finger trembles. “I don’t want you, and I don’t…fucking need you. You mean nothing to me.”
Her last few words fall on a whisper, along with a tear she savagely shoves away.
I’m nodding, pressing back, moving away, giving her a once over. Her arms are akimbo, and anger scrawls across her face.
I’m sucking on my teeth, stuffing my hands into my front pockets and when I turn around, I think I almost hear her sigh a breath of relief.
I think she thinks this is over—us, me and her.
I think she has no fucking idea what I’m capable of.
I think she’s underestimating me.
I think she has underestimatedus.
I move without knowing. Two steps toward the kitchen table, where the gun lay. I snatch it up. Working to temper my trembling hands, I turn around, reach into my pocket, load it.
I no longer hear her breathing, and I’m unsure I am myself. And I don’t look at her again; my eyes firmly pressed to the linoleum flooring when I take a step toward her.
I watch her feet shuffle back, then I continue forward until I’ve got her back pressed against the kitchen countertop.
