I need to step into the arena and start to fight.
10
LELANI
Moments later,Rory and I leave the kitchen and blend with the crowd.
As soon as people talk to me, the room begins to spin with me.
After all these months of quietude, predictable life, and swimming in an ocean of solitude, this new environment is overstimulating, a bit too much.
I shouldn’t have agreed to this party for many reasons, not just this one.
Hands connect, and fake smiles stretch across my guests’ lips.
I don’t know half of these people.My family does, though. They’re using them as props while orchestrating my next departure.
Months from now, I could be living in a stranger’s house, under his rules, with not a smidgen of freedom.
The thought makes me queasy, and I grab Rory’s elbow and lean into her.
“Are you all right?” she asks.
“Yeah. I’m fine,” I say, hyperventilating.
A drop of sweat trickles down the back of my neck.
“I need some air,” I murmur. “Can you step outside with me?”
“Yes, of course. Do you want me to grab a drink for you? Water, maybe?”
“No. Nothing for me. Thank you.”
She picks up a lemonade from a server’s tray before we head outside.
The wind does wonders, sweeping my hair away from my face and giving me the much-needed relief I’m longing for.
“I wish this could be over soon,” I murmur, unable to ignore the unease crawling up my chest.
It’s like something bad is about to happen.Something that I don’t already know about.
I blame it on the swirl of panic nibbling at my brain, lacing my blood with adrenaline.I despise these moments when it feels like the end is here, and there’s no way out.
It’s been happening often lately.
Rory thinks it might be hormone-related. I argued that she should experience it as well if that were the case.
We both need men in our lives to take that edge off. It’s just that I need a certain man, while she apparently is doing just fine without one.
I press a warm hand against the pit of my stomach, and my own touch revives the memory of myself earlier this evening, when I climaxed at the thought of him.
It might be men-related, after all.
I can only imagine that having that potent cocktail of good chemicals in my blood after having sex and removing some of this tension would make me see things in a less frightening light.
Maybe I’m just delusional.
One thing is sure.
