Page 55 of Rage

I turn my head, catching the flicker of red and blue before it disappears.

No. Not today.

Whatever Sarah needs, I’ll be.

Buttheyare dead. Gone.

In my head, I am alone.

Alone.

Alone.

Alone.

Sarah

I am fucking fuming!

How dare he?! Today, of all days?

Words fail me, and angry tears sting my eyes, but I refuse to allow them space to exist.

Zaiden should’ve been at home, waiting for me, not collaborating with—No, bad Sarah, I admonish, automatically correcting my thinking.

Zachary—or Dalton, as Nat calls him—has mental health issues, and it’s not my place to judge. But, dammit, I want to, swiping tears from my cheeks.

I’d needed my—my husband. My mind blanks, hands wrapped around the steering wheel and staring blindly at the traffic light.

My husband.

We haven’t tied the knot yet, but that’s how I see him, my husband, the father of my child. My entire damn universe.

And he’s not at home when I’d needed him to be, expecting the monotonous routine we’d established on his days off.

Today, I’d needed routine. Today, I need to feel…

Words get scrambled in my brain and I push my foot on the gas when the light turns green.

Today, I’d needed to be reminded of humanity.

Zaiden is the sweetest, most innocent soul I’ve ever encountered. If the world of medicine hadn’t failed him, we might not have crossed paths.

Iknowthat desperation drove him to kill my coworkers, to connect. Murder is not asymptomof his illness. He thought he had no choice. Could I understand what that’s like, to be completely alone, no family, no friends and everyone in healthcare painting me as a villain? When given the space to be himself, to exist, to nurture the side of him that wants to improve and treat his condition, removes that desperation.

A person that has schizophrenia isnotpredetermined to be a killer. I know that better than anyone from my rotation in mental health. They’re just people, we all are. People who need us to do better, to remove our prejudice. It allows the stigma to grow and take a life of its own. And people like Zaiden suffer because of it.

Today, I’d needed a whiff of Zaiden’s inherent innocence, his childlike joy, to glide my skin across his and soak up the essence that makes himhim. Because, I need him.

Instead of the fantasy I concocted in my head, I’m shifting my expectations, driving to the house Natalia shares with Zachary Lewis, Zaiden’s long-lost twin.

Is it selfish that I wish he’d never encountered or heard of the male?

Zaine and Xavier for the most part, appeared as civil, logical human beings. Zachary wormed his way under my skin and I don’t relish any time spent in his company, on my or Zaiden’s behalf.

And that fucking grin of his says he relishes his effect on people, exploiting it to his advantage. How else did he rope my fiancé into stopping by and participating in whatever depraved act he cooked up?

Mine. Zaiden is mine. And if I have to fight Zachary Lewis for him, I will.

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