I tracked the journey of a water droplet that ran down his neck to wet the defined muscles of his chest. I heard him sigh and got up the nerve to raise my head and meet his eyes.
Neil watched me with a furrowed brow; his bright eyes were glassy and obscured by dark thoughts. His full lips flattened into a grim expression, and his jaw was tight.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, reassuring him that no matter what I witnessed, I wasn’t going to judge him. “I just wanted to let you know that I’m going to go talk to Matt,” I informed him, my voice shaking. He took note of it and bent down until our faces were level with each other. He studied me closely, looking for any hint of fear. I wasn’t as skilled at hiding my emotions as he was; he could probably see that I was frightened. He didn’t say anything in response and just inched closer to me until his torso was flush with my chest. I found myself caught between him and the hardness of the wall, squeezed between them with no escape route.
“The Boy is jealous of you,” he murmured, a hot breath against my ear. “But I’ve got him under control. You have nothing to be afraid of,” he continued, his voice low and unsettling.
“And what would he do to me if you didn’t have him under control?” I managed, sounding calm even as my legs began to tremble.
Neil grazed my neck with the tip of his nose and placed his elbows on either side of my head, leaning his whole body into mine.
“He’d destroy you,” he answered, and my blood ran cold. I didn’t say anything out of fear that I might trigger some irrational reaction. Instead, I just tried to keep from crying as Neil backed off a bit to look at my forehead. For a second, I didn’t know what he was looking at, but then I realized it: my scar. He stared at it with absent eyes, the pupils so shrunken that they almost appeared entirely golden. I could hardly recognize him. Something inside told me that this was not the man I loved.
It was a chilling, unsettling sensation, and it raised goosebumps all over me. It felt like I was watching someone else try to seize control of Neil’s mind, and Neil was fighting back. The sight of him, so lost and confused, hit me like a stab of pain to the chest.
“They’re called alters…” he murmured. He wanted to talk, to open up to me. There was something dark, though, that was holding him captive. I could see it in the incredible effort it cost him just to manage those few weak words.
“Who are?” I raised a hand to touch him, but he stepped back. My heart felt like it cracked in two when he shot me a severe look, warning me not to lay a hand on him.
“The people who live inside me…” he answered flatly.
“Are they dangerous?” I managed, sounding uncertain.
“Are you afraid?” He dodged my question, and I held my breath, incapable of admitting that I was. He felt it nevertheless, and it grieved him. Then he blinked rapidly. He had exposed more of himself than he wanted to and obviously felt like he needed to change the subject to avoid showing even more vulnerability.
“Matt’s your father; you can go talk to him whenever you want. You don’t have to run it by me or anything,” he said frostily, his tone even but remote, like he wasn’t really there. He turned then, not waiting for my answer, and returned to the bathroom at a leisurely pace.
The rigid posture, the straight back, the sedate pace…
I cocked my head to one side to get a better look at him: That wasn’t Neil.
He was a robot, devoid of human emotion, not my Disaster.
I watched him, astonished, as he went back to the bathroom and shut the door behind him.
I sighed and stood still for a few seconds.
It was happening more and more often. Neil was having these periods of blackout or confusion where he couldn’t even recognize me. I should have been growing accustomed to it, but instead I grew more and more troubled every time it happened.
I shook my head to clear it and headed out to find Matt.
I rubbed my arms as I hurried around the house to the front door, where I rang the doorbell. I wasn’t sure if my father was still inside—it wasn’t like him to hang out at home when he could have been at the hospital—and I didn’t want to surprise anyone by sneaking in through the kitchen.
After a few moments, Anna opened the door, looking slightly confused.
“Hi, Ms. Anna. Can I come in?” was all I said, giving her a small, friendly smile. When her moment of shock wore off, the older woman stepped aside to allow me in.
“Miss Selene. I saw someone going into the pool house last night, and I thought it was you, but I couldn’t be certain,” she told me, looking me up and down with an expression of concern on her face. “You’ve lost weight…” she elaborated uncertainly.
I had been going through a lot of difficult things recently, and the toll it took on me was obvious.
I had lost a few pounds, but it wasn’t as serious as everyone seemed to believe.
“Yup, it’s me. In the flesh,” I joked to ease some of the awkwardness between us. “Is my father around?”
Anna didn’t even have time to answer before Matt, who had been sitting on the living room sofa, got to his feet and looked miserably at me.
“Selene.” He seemed at first almost awed by my presence, but his face quickly hardened into the severe expression of a disappointed father. All of his muscles tensed under his fancy blazer.
