28
Summer
“I’m just going to be out for a few hours then I’ll be back,” Eric rolls up the sleeves to his shirt.
“I’ll be fine,” I assure him, although I feel like hell and I’m on autopilot again, where I just talk and answer questions without really thinking about what I’m saying.
I continue to watch him pace around the room and I can’t believe I feel so weak. So weak I want to ask him to stay, but I know I can’t. I know I shouldn’t do that.
It’s bad enough I’ve been in a semi-catatonic state since my visit with Dad. Eric has literally had to babysit me. That’s why I’m in his room now. He brought me into his room when we came back and every time I try to make it back to my borrowed room, he brings me back here.
This is the aftermath of the disaster. The part where I have to try to be strong on my own and bounce back. Except, I don’t know if I can do it this time.
“I shouldn’t be too long, but Lyssa will stay longer if she needs to.”
“That’s okay. It was nice of you to stay with me.”
“No worries.”
I’m supposed to act like I don’t know he’s been rearranging his schedule to stay with me for the last two days and virtually all of today. It’s nearly five, so the workday is practically gone.
He hasn’t told me I’m the reason he hasn’t left the apartment, but I know. I’ve heard him talking to Lyssa and his men and I know he’s worked from home whenever possible.
He’s taken care of me as if I’m important to him. As if I’m a person who means something to him. No one would guess we’ve only known each other for a day over two weeks.
As sweet as he is, and so different to the control freak he was, I don’t want him to take care of me. He was right when he said I shouldn’t get too attached. I shouldn’t. We’re not anything and I can’t allow myself in my state of weakness to fall for a man who will throw me away when he’s done with me.
He told me so himself. He just pities me and he’s being what he thinks I need him to be until this is over.
Today, I’m just stuck in my feelings and I’m afraid to be left alone to my thoughts.
“Please eat something,” he adds coming over to me.
I straighten and rest my hands on the pillow next to me. I know I’m starting to look thin again and that’s not a good sign.
“Yeah. I’ll try.”
“Good, get Lyssa to call me if you need me to come back sooner.”
“Okay.”
He gives me an uneasy look. The same uneasy look he gave me when I ventured into that dark room that held all those horrific images what the dead that should have terrified me.
He would be surprised to know I felt completely at home in there because I wish I could slay my monsters the same way he annihilated his. He has the means to, whereas I don’t.
With what I saw in those pictures I knew he killed those people. Robert is next. If that was my room, Ted would be on that wall too.
Eric looks away and I watch him go. It feels like if we were an actual couple, he would have kissed me goodbye, but it’s clear we are just screwing around. Like most men, he probably just likes the look of me. I’m just another pretty face and a warm hole to sink into.
I’ve been sleeping in his bed but he hasn’t touched me since that night passion enslaved us on the terrace and spiraled us straight into madness. At least then I felt something other than what I feel now.
I think I sit there in his bed for over an hour staring at the wall.
A myriad of thoughts rush through my mind and I think of the funeral and how final it was. Then I think of how I might have died too if Eric wasn’t there. Dad tried to speak to me, but Eric wouldn’t allow him to.
Given the fact my father threw me out of my own mother’s funeral, and he blamed me for my sister’s death, I’m not sure what the hell he wanted to say to me.
I swear to God if he cast more blame on me, I would have just withered away right there. I wouldn’t have had the strength to come back after. I barely have the strength now. When you blame yourself for something, it’s hard, but when others do it too—especially a parent—it’s enough to push you over the edge.