Real, Elio, real.
Real shouldn’t feel like a time-lapse.
I was on the bed again, and she was in my shirt as she held a small box in her hand, a shy smile on her lips as she joined me under the covers, tucking her hair behind her ear.
“Your present,” she said, and I lifted myself to my uninjured elbow, collecting the box from her and hoping the smile I gave reached my eyes.
“The whole party wasn’t your present?”
She chuckled. “That was mostly Street’s idea, and getting Casmiro and Angelo to authorize it was a pain. But they did because I kinda bribed them that it might put them in your good graces again.”
“Hm,” I said, opening the box to see a silver necklace. Almost the same pattern as hers, but the silver was darker, and the chain wasn’t as thin as the one I gave her; it was a little thicker. The pendant, though, was what made me stop.
“Do you like it? It took about two weeks, but it was worth it.”
It was the same shape as the tattoo on her shoulder, the heart andEshape, with the littleMby the side.
I looked up at her. “This must have—this must have cost a lot.”
“No, not really… I had some friends make it, and it was discounted.”
I nodded. “It’s beautiful, Zahra, thank you.”
She smiled, taking the jewelry and pulling it out. The chain around it was long enough for the pendant to reach the midpoint of my chest. She hooked it around my neck and snuggled closer, quietly asking, “Are you happy?”
I pulled her close to me. “Hm. Yes, I am. Thank you for everything.”
“Shut up, don’t thank me, it’s kind of my girlfriendly duties.”
After that, we whispered between each other, her going off about how future birthdays would go, and then we slowly went off course, having an out-of-context discussion about how time flies and how far we will be in a matter of years. I honestly didn’t know how the conversation morphed to discussing a possible future together or how we looked at possible reasons for why we would separate if we were ever to separate.
It was primarily meaningless bickering that took us hours into the night until she fell asleep, and my eyes remained wide open.
I hated it. I was so tired and worn out that I just needed to sleep it all off—that void, the out-of-body feeling that still plagued me, and even as I detached myself from Zahra, walked into the bathroom, and fished for my sleeping pills, it felt like someone else was controlling my body.
I popped two pills in my mouth, even though it was prescribed to take only one. But one was never enough to knock me out in a few minutes; it would have taken time before it started working—two did the trick. I swallowed them dry, closed the pill case, and locked the mirrored cabinet.
I returned to the bathroom door and stopped right before I opened it.
There was a silence.
There was a deafening silence inside my head, telling me my thoughts had indeed vacated. In fact, I stopped and tried to listen to myself, but nothing was forthcoming.
I was functioning solely on action and not thought.
Even as I stepped back from the door, once, twice, like my being was in reverse, going back to where I once stood over the mirror cabinet, watching my reflection and seeing a stranger staring right back at me… I tried—I really tried to rememberwho that person was, or what I was, or what my name was, or how I came to be here, what I had done seconds before I came back here to stare at a reflection that didn’t reflect anything back to me.
Robotically, I raised my hand, opened the cabinet, picked up the pill case, and opened the lid before tipping my head back and throwing every pill into my mouth.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Zahra
Not often did I let anger rule my mind or my actions, but that was precisely what thundered through me when I stormed into the room and caught the man who had practically been dead to the world—just yesterday—inserting cuff links into the wrists of his black shirt, not once looking up when I entered the room.
Thiswas when I felt the second tug of tears, ones I had held back for almost a week since I found him.
His hair was brushed back, cut, and tamed. His shirt was tucked into his perfectly fitted black slacks, and his black shoes were spotless. He looked clean—like he was heading out, getting ready to start his day like nothing had happened. Like he still didn’t look pale. Like this was just a typical day when he woke up and dressed to go to some important meeting… like he wasn’t—like this wasn’t—
