Page 77 of Hired Help

When dinner comes and goes without a sign of Brooke, a pang of tension winds my stomach tight. After she sends a text message saying change of plan, she’s staying out overnight, it resolves but my mind soon insists on forming images that threaten to send me into a tailspin again.

To counter it, I accept Everett’s invitation to a night out, relaxing with a couple of beers, chatting with my friends and whatever strangers hover long enough to get pulled into a conversation.

I purposely limit my intake, not wanting a fuzzy head tomorrow, not wanting to wake midway through the night with cotton in my mouth and my head spooling images I’d rather not see.

When I get back to my room, I crash, falling straight into sleep like I don’t have a care in the world, and waking so late on Saturday morning, I have to rush to make breakfast.

Afterwards, I head to Brooke’s room, tapping lightly to see if she’s in there. She’s not but I don’t mind waiting. I’m aware my buoyant spirits are down to her, reconnecting with her, even if I’ve been awful. Really, truly awful. Even if I still haven’t discussed the things I need to talk through with her, afraid this reconnection is too fragile to bear the strain. Scared there won’t be a good outcome. Aware that the conversation, what might be the hardest conversation of my life, is ready and waiting in the wings, growing ever more impatient as it listens for its cue.

To stay here, waiting, knowing where she is, who she’s with, what she’s probably doing, is a small penance towards the larger punishment I owe.

And part of the anticipation isn’t punishment at all. It’s losing myself in thoughts of what he might teach her, what she might bring home to me.

Thoughts of indulging more than my surface level desires. Of delving deeper into where a caveman paces, wanting to do more, control her more, leash her, cage her, take her down to the depths of depravity then hold tight to her as we slowly ascend afterwards, bobbing to the surface.

Finally, there’s the scrape of a key in the lock and I sit up on Brooke’s bed as she lets herself through the door, my eyes darting from her clothes to her hair to her hands, trying to decipher any clues.

“Hey,” I say when she doesn’t react beyond a faint sigh. “You’re lucky there wasn’t lasagne, or it would’ve gone rancid by now.”

“Sorry. Things took longer than I thought.” She tosses her keys on the desk and leans against the wall, hugging her arms across her chest. The skin on her cheeks is blotchy, like she’s been crying, but her eyes aren’t red-rimmed or swollen. “Did you want something? I need a nap.”

I had. Until the moment she walked through the door, I had wanted a million things from her, none of them savoury. But seeing her standing there, looking exhausted, I have a rush of my old tenderness and pat the bed. “Come over here. I promise I won’t maul you.”

“That’s what all the lions say,” she mutters, toeing her shoes off and joining me on her bed.

I lie down and, after a moment, she stretches out beside me, arms crossed over her chest like the world’s rosiest-cheeked vampire. I turn onto my side to keep my eyes on her, reading her like I’d scan an escape room for clues.

“Here, I got a breakfast bar for you.” I pull the muesli and chocolate creation from my pocket, tearing open the wrapper to expose the contents before I hand it across.

She frowns at it, hesitating for a second before she takes it from me. “Thank you.”

While she’s eating, I pull her onto her side, too, so she’s facing me. My arm automatically finds its old position around her waist, and I hug her closer, dropping a kiss on the top of her head. “I’m sorry if I went too far the other night. Did I hurt you?”

She wrinkles her nose and I pull up the edge of her hem, lifting the side of her knickers as I roll her farther towards me, blushing at the puffy red flesh surrounding my initials, hoping it’s just irritation from the cut and not an infection setting in.

After chewing her second bite from the bar, she struggles to swallow. There are bruises on her throat, probably bruises on her upper arms.

Shame at the part I’ve played in this goddamn mess overwhelms me, and I shut my eyes, only opening them when she nudges my hand, offering the bar back to me. “I’m not really hungry.”

I finish it for her, tossing the wrapper into the rubbish bin, then hugging her with both arms.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” she murmurs, most of her soft voice lost to the curve of my shoulder. “You won’t like it.”

“You blitzed my history essay from the student portal and I’m about to get booted from the school?”

“Like you did with my English assignment?” She gives me a short sideways punch with absolutely no force behind it. I catch her hand, stroking the knuckles, wishing I still had that white-hot anger I’ve been carrying around since term break.

I thought that rage and despair were torture. But this—being near to her while she seems miles away—this is the true agony.

“I had a long talk with your dad about everything that’s been going on.”

My arms close tighter around her, hugging her against my chest like she’s a giant snuggly, offering her inadequate comfort against the cruelty of the world. “About us double dating?”

She doesn’t respond to that and of course it’s not what she meant. I close my eyes, trying to concentrate on the sensation of her against my body, under my hands, within the circle of my arms.

“Don’t do this,” I beg in a whisper. “Whatever you’re about to say or do… please don’t.”

“I thought we were going to be happy forever,” she says instead, switching tracks to one just as painful but at least a known journey.

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