Page 108 of Overcast

Unseen.

But in the midst of what things used to be, Emric peers at me all the time like he sees me. Every time—now or then—he’s always detected every emotion written on my face. He read me like a book he’s been studying and reading for years.

And that might be what scares me the most.

I’m used to being on my own—prefer it. However, now, and especially now, I want a new start where no one knows me. I crave to do it on my own.

So when Ermic sits feet away from me and admits that he’s thought about how certain things—ordinary ones—sound or are like, it makes me nervous. I’ve never had to open up to anyone before.

I don’t want to start now.

“Because,” he asserts. “I’ve heard everything else.”

My fingertips tighten around my glass bottle, and my first reaction is to throw it at him. I’d love to see it either hit him or listen to it shatter to allude to how redundant it is for me to be reminded almost every time we speak.

Instead, like the girl I’ve always been, I gently place it on the small wicker table next to my chair. My palms grip the armrests to stand, but Emric beats me to it and blocks my route to go back inside.

“Don’t get upset,” he drones. “It wasn’t meant to insult you.”

“But you mention it every time. Seems like you love to waken past events that I had to go through.”

He moves in front of me, bending over to level with my face.

Propping his palm on my good knee, he pulls back on his beer and keeps his eyes locked on mine.

“I’m sorry...for everything, Stormi. I mean that.”

I don’t know you, so how would I know?

Emric reaches for my beer and offers it back to me. “Alcohol abuse if you don’t finish it. It’s a real thing.”

“What would you know about real?” I appeal back. “What you did... wasn’t what common people do.”

“Apologizing?” I’m awarded with a half-smile, but I guess it’d only be a prize if I wanted it.

I know he’s trying to lighten the mood with what’s happened, but I’m not sure I’m capable of it.

“Stormi,” he sing-songs. “You’re doing it again.”

“Stop trying to read me,” I snap, plucking the bottle from his hand. “I’m not a science project for you to prick and prod then decide you’re done.”

“That’s not what—”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s done now.”

“Is it?” He frowns. “Because you need to keep yelling at me to get it all out. And it doesn’t look like you are.”

“There is no amount of yelling that I can do that would measure up to being equal to what you did.” I tilt my beer, taking a giant gulp and another as I try to drown out the minimal hope I have of being the same again.

I don’t want to be appreciative to him that he made me see the light—literally almost—with the things he did. When his soft lips brought me back to consciousness and coaxed me to come back.

To him, to Earth, to my life, somewhere where I wouldn’t open my eyes again.

“What else would?” he presses. “What would make you feel better?”

“Not you staring at me.”

His intense examination drifts to my lips, and my next inhale is strangled in my lungs. The light weight that he has on my knee sends a small ripple effect of goosebumps up my thigh.

I think he asphyxiated some of my brain cells when he shoved my head into that orange bucket several times.

“Think about it,” he offers, rising from his position. “Nothing is off the table.”

---