Page 282 of Heart So Hollow

“There are worse things than dying, Brett,” my voice returns to its normal tone, “like what happens before the lights go out, or living with the aftermath. But I’ll let you kill me over and over if it’ll give you something back that you lost. Fortunately for me,” I slowly reach up and pull the gun from her grasp, “you don’t know what a loaded gun feels like.”

She meets my eyes with a forlorn look that quickly morphs into a scowl. Still stunned and unable to form words, she finally turns and charges out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

Brett’s never been a shrinking violet to be coddled, so I’m not going to start now. I’ll let her sit with her anger. Some people are afraid to do that, they want to ignore it and get rid of it as soon as possible. But anger keeps you hungry, and if you accept it as part of yourself like bones and muscle, eventually it turns into something else. Something you’ll need when the time comes to do what has to be done.

I’ll give her the night to sleep on it—maybe really sleep if she feels safe enough here. She should, because there’s no way anyone’s crossing the property line without getting a bullet through their skull or, at the very least, a limb ripped off by my dog. But she’s still terrified, and no amount of reassurance is going to convince her yet.

That’s why I don’t bat an eye when she hurls her dishes across the kitchen and tries to shoot me in the chest with my own gun. She’s wound so tight, it’s probably the first real outburst she’s had in her entire adult life. She keeps everything under wraps, bottled up until the inevitable explosion. But as long as she doesn’t try to run, everything will be fine. In which case, I’ll have to go after her and carry her ass back here. But when the bedroom door slams and it doesn’t open again until well after dark, I figure she’s not going to.

She doesn’t want to deal with what’s outside the front door, anyway. That’s why she’s here.

I hear soft footsteps move across the hall to the bathroom and then nothing until after I collapse onto my bed, staring at the ceiling fan humming on high until my eyes drift shut. I’m almost asleep when I hear a knock at my door. I lumber across the room, only to find Brett standing in the hallway, waiting patiently with her arms crossed over her chest.

I lean against the door frame, rubbing the side of my face, “What’s up?”

The air conditioner can barely keep up with the heat, but she looks like she’s shivering in her grey sleep shorts and blue tank top. She lets out a weary breath, “Can I sleep in here? Every little sound is freaking me out.”

“Why are you knocking?” I ask, “Just come in.”

“I’m not sneaking up on someone with a sleep disorder who’s prone to violence,” she snaps.

I rake my teeth over my bottom lip, trying not to laugh, you won’t walk through the door uninvited, but you’ll ask to sleep in the same bed as someone with a sleep disorder who’s prone to violence?

After a few moments, I step aside, “Come on.”

Brett slips past me and I shut the door behind her. She steps across the plush carpet gingerly, like she’s trying not to make any noise, but only makes it a few feet before coming to a halt.

She hesitates for a few moments, her hands twitching, “I should be sorry…” she finally says, “for shooting you.”

“That’s why I gave you an empty gun,” I say at her back, “because I knew you would.”

She looks over her shoulder with skepticism, “But what if I’d pistol whipped you instead?”

“That probably wouldn’t have killed me, either,” I reply with a shake of my head, “but I’m sure you’ll have plenty more chances.”

Her head moves gently from side to side as she scans the antique bed frame, with more dings and nicks since the last time she saw it. It’s been in a basement for three years, coveted by Dallas, full of regret that she wasn’t the firstborn to call dibs on one of the last heirlooms from our very German great-grandmother.

“You still have the same bed,” Brett remarks, her gaze climbing the twisted black posts.

She scours every inch, and eventually, her eyes settle on the intricate carvings across the headboard where a frayed, black strap of nylon remains knotted around the center. She stares, motionless, at it, the only sound the hum of the ceiling fan.

“I did love Bowen,” Brett finally says, her voice louder and more resolute, “because somewhere, deep down, I wanted to find you. And I found some parts of you in him.”

I take a step back and settle onto the edge of the dresser.

She doesn’t take her eyes off the knot, left intact for four years now, “I don’t know if I ever knew who he was or if it was all a façade, but even when I felt your gun in my mouth, it didn’t feel like it did with him two nights ago.” She turns over her shoulder with a profound sense of clarity, “Bowen meant to do what he did, from the start.”

“Well,” I shift my weight, crossing my arms, “he was also searching for a ghost, and found you. You just had the misfortune of searching for me and finding a demon.”

“I’ll never escape you, will I?” Brett asks with a faint smile.

My mouth twitches with amusement, “No.”

“I should still want to,” she muses, “you could also just be a really good liar who takes advantage of people’s weaknesses like Bowen does.”

I tip my chin up, “I am your only weakness, Brett, and you’re mine.” I push away from the dresser and close the space between us, my chest nearly touching hers, “We are symbiotic. I don’t just love you. I don’t like watching you just because you’re pretty, I like feeding you everything I have and watching you take it and make yourself stronger and more powerful every day. You bending to my will is only a show of weakness in the same way that a drowning man reaches for a life vest.” I lean down, lowering my voice, “I do what I do because you are, in the truest sense, my Honeybee. You give me life and I give you the same in return. That’s why it doesn’t matter how far you run, I’d rather live half a life only being able to catch you for a few moments before you escape again than a whole life without you.”

She stares up at me, her chest rising and falling with exhausted breaths, “But now I’m hollow, too,” her voice cracks in frustration, “and I didn’t used to be. Now, after all this, I’m half empty and half alive.”

---