Page 105 of Cherry Auction

I’m nobody’s good girl now.

For a while, I need to belong just to myself.

It doesn’t make the pain searing through my belly any easier to take as the car pulls out of the driveway.

FORTY-THREE

DOMHNALL

One YearLater

The phone ringsand I snatch it up just as quickly as I’ve done every time it’s rung or pinged for the last year.

The sudden quick beat of my heart dulls when I see the caller ID. I consider not answering but know he’ll just call back. And back, and back, until I do finally pick up.

I thumb the green button.

“Caleb,” I answer without inflection.

“Dom!” he cries, always enthusiastic enough for the both of us and then some. “How the hell are you?”

I roll my eyes. “The same as I’ve been every other time you do these ridiculous check-up calls. I’m fine. I’m alwaysfine.”

“What’s the point of life if you’re just fine, though, eh? I know you’ve gone all celibate monk, but why not come out to the club sometimes? Just to hang out with everybody, maybe watch a scene or two? Quinn’s got a new pain pig, and you know how she likes to make the new piggies squeal.”

“Yeah, uh, thanks. Think I’ll pass.” I rattle the ice in my soda water and stare down at the fat copy of James Joyce’sUlyssesI’ve got open in my lap. I’ll sit here and torture myself with Irish literature instead. I’ve been a hundred pages into this monstrosity of a book for a month and it’s not getting any less painful. Not exactly as satisfying as a lash on the back, but it’ll have to do.

“Come on, man. All you do is work.”

“I do leisure activities. I’m currently reading. Later, I’ll meet with my trainer. We’re working on lats.”

I can all but hear him rolling his eyes through the phone. “Where’s the guy who used to street race to get his jollies off?”

I glare at the floor. “He grew up. Goodbye, Caleb.”

“Wait, wait, wait. Come on, man. You’re my best friend. I’m just worried about you.”

I’m a millisecond away from snapping that we’re not best friends, that we were never best friends; he was always just a means to an end. But then I count to five and breathein and out. Because my other not-so-leisure activities are twice weekly meetings with the therapist Dr. Ezra referred me to.

Fucking therapy. On the bad days, I wish I’d never let any of those fucking vultures into my house. Brooke and I would have found our way if I’d just kept her safe from the world, locked up in my dungeon.

I should have protected her better. My hands clench around the book. I want to rip it apart. Then pick up the chair I’m sitting in and throw it through the fucking window before trashing the rest of my nice, orderly, professionally decorated study.

“Dom? You still there?”

My teeth clench and I close my eyes, trying to remember to breathe. Breathe, breathe—my therapist’s always telling me to breathe before I react; he’s got a fucking hard-on about it.Notice when something triggers you and then breathe through it, so you don’t lash out.

I breathe, but I still want to destroy shit. “I’m here. Thank you for your concern. You’re a good friend, Caleb.” There, no lashing out. “Look, I’ll call you later.”

I hang up before I lose the battle with my temper. Then I pop to my feet and toss James Joyce down into the chair with more force than is strictly necessary. I jog up to my bedroom to change into workout clothes.

When I come back out, I pause in the hallway and look towards my office. God knows I’ve spent enough mopinghours looking over the footage I got of Brooke during those brief weeks I had her back.

But that way lies madness. I lost one whole month like that right after she left, barely eating, barely doing anything else except caressing her face on the screen with my eyes and fighting the impulse to go after her and reclaim what’s mine.

Going no contact was brutal. So of course, I cheated. Not that I tell my therapist, but it was nothing to arrange for a discreet security detail to make sure she’s safe in Chicago. They stay at a distance, so she never knows they’re there. And yes, they send an occasional picture.

All right, they send a picture every day. Look, sanity comes at a different price for different people. The furniture in my house stays intact and I spend an hour every day, usually somewhere around lunchtime, worshiping at the altar of my beloved’s face.

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