Page 72 of Eldritch

His eyes softened with compassion. “I’m glad you’re not holding that against me.”

She took a deep breath and continued. “I met Letisha when I was four. We were wholehearted in our support for each other over the years. She believed in my abilities.”

“That you’re psychic and see dead people.”

“Yes. And I’m an empath. Someone who can feel other people’s feelings and sometimes even detects that person’s feelings before they do.”

“I swear my Aunt Janice is like that.” He smiled, and the warmth in that grin made her feel at ease.

“I kept it to myself. My parents, expressly my father, didn’t believe in it at all. After my father called me an idiot one day when I was six, I just never mentioned it to him again.”

The sympathy in Doug’s eyes put her even more at ease. “Your own father said that to you?”

She looked at the table and heat filled her cheeks. She wrestled with a desire to hide what happened. “Yes. It gets a lot worse. Mom and I didn’t know what Dad was doing when he was out on those long hauls in the semi. But after everything happened and his crimes were out in the open...” She shrugged and looked at him. Dared herself to see if his eyes would reflect the abhorrence she’d seen in so many others’ expressions when she was a teen. All she saw in his gaze was curiosity and genuine concern. Tears tried to flood her eyes.

“Um...” She scooted to the edge of the booth. “I’m going to the ladies’ room. Be right back.”

Sybil didn’t wait to see his reaction and hurried away.

Damn it. You lost control. Lost control of your emotions.

She found the restroom and rushed inside. The large room was empty, thankfully. She used the facilities and washed her hands as she allowed a few tears to fall. She had been told multiple times that embracing the pain, the grief, or any emotion was preferable to stuffing it. Right now, she didn’t want to feel any of it. She dried her hands and face and returned to the dining area.

The noise hit her, her shields not up. Yet unlike when she was a kid, she could notice it all without it always overwhelming her. All around her, people chattered and laughed. She didn’t look at them, choosing not to see them because if she looked around the room, the noise would become louder. She didn’t want to see all the things, because doing that would mean another layer of overexposure, of the potential for overwhelm. The television flashed news of a coming snowstorm with a higher precipitation level than reported earlier. She cut through a gathering of loud families, passed occupied barstools. Finally, her booth came into view.

Doug spied her, and his welcoming smile wiped away some of her lingering emotional sensitivity.

She slid into the booth and said without thinking, “Did I miss anything?”

“Only Clinton. He was worried when he saw me by myself. He asked me if I’d done some boneheaded thing to run you off. I told him no.” He sobered. “Unless I did. Are you okay?”

She gave him an authentic smile and took a sip of her wine. “I’m fine. And no. You didn’t chase me away.”

“Talking about your father upset you.”

She nodded. “It did. But that’s not your fault. I hadn’t talked about him in a long, long time. I was sixteen when we learned killing those women years. There were a lot of horrible details.” She looked at Doug, afraid he’d become bored with the topic and the baggage and trauma. “So, like I said, sometimes the emotions just hit me, and they’re a little hard to control.”

“I understand. Look, you don’t have to control them in front of me. Okay?”

She hadn’t expected that. “Thank you. Not too many people react that way when I talk about this stuff.”

“What if we do this for tonight? Take the pressure off. No more reveals of our past. So it isn’t pressure on you. But you can tell me this stuff anytime.”

“Okay.” She held up her wine. “A toast to transparency.”

“Transparency.”

They clinked glasses and smiled.

“We could talk about what kind of ice cream we like,” he said.

“Great idea. Let’s do it.”

Chapter Thirteen

Road noise lulled Sybil into a sense of peace. So did the comfortable feelings she had in Doug’s calm presence.

After they’d spent another thirty minutes at the restaurant chatting about mundane things, they wrapped up the night. Once in the car, they’d eased into chatting about good times in their lives. She’d learned he liked non-fiction, historical fiction, and sci-fi reading the most. She revealed her eclectic reading preferences, including the ones he mentioned.

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