The only time his headache let up anymore was when Zyah was talking softly to him, usually in the middle of the night when he couldn’t sleep because his damn head was going to explode and the ticking of the bomb was so loud the entire household could hear it. She would come and lie down on the bed beside him, take his hand and just talk to him.
“Stop thinking about it. You’ll make it happen. I can already feel the illusion building. We’re going for a ride on your motorcycle, and if you can’t handle that, we’ll walk outside for a while in the open air,” Zyah declared.
“I’m sorry I’m putting you in such a bad position,” he said, meaning it. Not meaning it. Rethinking his decision to leave. To give her up. He wasn’t a coward. Her grandmother had given him a lot to think about. “I know every time you have to find the scattered pieces of my brain and glue them back together, it connects us more.” He felt every single one of those ties binding them closer and closer.
Pulling on his gloves, he led the way outside and took his first real lungful of fresh night ocean air. He loved the sea. Living by it. The way it thundered at times, the waves racing toward the cliffs, spraying white water high into the air in sheer defiance of holding back. Water couldn’t be held back. You could try, but it would always find a way to escape. He wanted that. Just to go out peacefully. Smoothly. A rhythm, because he loved that beat, but he’d just drift like that tide out there.
“Stop, Player. What is wrong with you tonight?” Zyah all but stomped her foot. “What happened tonight before I got home to put you in such a melancholy mood?” She caught at his arm and tugged at him until he stopped walking, pulling his gaze away from the ocean and back to her perfect, furious face. Her beauty caught at him every time.
“It’s my head, Zyah, it just keeps coming apart no matter how many times you put it back together. I have this weird affiliation with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and I can accept that. I was reading that story when I was a little kid. We were starving. Freezing. I was fucked up. I’m not going to lie, you’ve seen enough of my memories to know what happened to me.”
He shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and turned away from her, looking out to sea at the angry waves. Now he wanted to feel each of those waves pounding the bluffs, hammering at them the way he wanted to slam his fists into his enemies.
From her front yard, Anat’s Victorian house faced several other homes, but her backyard had only a street between it and a very long strip of headlands. She had a gorgeous view. That piece of real estate was worth a fortune, which made it look as if she were very wealthy and probably brought her to the attention of the gang of thieves still looking to get something valuable they thought she had.
Zyah stepped close to him, so close he could feel her body heat and smell that fragrance that was unique to her alone. Her fingers slipped into the crook of his arm. She remained silent, allowing him to marshal his thoughts. He liked that about her. Their first night together, when they both had been so free with each other, talking and laughing as if they didn’t have a care in the world, she had done that as well, waiting for him to speak, listening attentively.
“Player, tell me about that first time with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I know you detest those characters coming to life. You did when the other children loved it so much, yet you created it for them. I watched your face. I know you hated it. Tell me why.”
They stood together in the dark, the roar of the sea traveling across the waving expanse of grass while he debated whether he was going to tell her the truth. She knew so much about him already, none of it good.
He shook his head. “I hate this, Zyah. I want so much for you to find something to like about me. The more you know, the more you’ll loathe.”
“That isn’t true. You’re in my head as much as I’m in yours, Player. You know I don’t loathe you, or even dislike you. If anything, I have to struggle all the time to try to distance myself from you because you’re the one holding back. You don’t want me, Player, and I don’t want to throw myself at you, but it’s damned hard when I’m so connected.”
She was so fucking honest with him. It was hard not to admire her. She was so much like her grandmother, and that was all good. And she came right out and called him on holding back.