Page 257 of Love Me in the Dark
After the yelling. After the slammed doors. After he left. After she broke the last lamp and said it was my fault for making her feel like a bad mother.
I’d lock myself in the bathroom and scrub until my skin turned red. Pretend I could wash it away.
Pretend I could be clean. Good. Wanted.
It never worked.
I don’t know why I still try.
I let the water run down my face and press my forehead to the tile.
I’m not crying.
I’m just tired.
And alone.
Still alone.
I dry off in silence.
Move on autopilot.
The apartment is too quiet when I finally collapse onto the futon. I leave the new laptop untouched on the desk across theroom, its black screen watching me like a second pair of eyes. I don’t close the blinds. I don’t turn on music. I don’t check my messages.
I just lay there in the dark with the heat of the shower still clinging to my skin and my heart thudding too loud in my chest.
Eventually, sleep comes.
It always does.
But tonight… it brings someone with it.
He’s there in the space behind my eyes before I know what’s happening. No name. No voice. Justpresence.
Tall. Shadowed. Devouring.
He doesn’t say anything. Just stands at the edge of the dream, watching me like I’m something valuable he lost a long time ago and finally found again. He doesn’t move, doesn’t touch me. But somehow, I feel him everywhere. Under my skin. In my lungs. A weight that doesn’t press down so much as settle deep into my bones.
I can’t see his face clearly. Just angles. Glimpses. A mouth I think I’ve seen before. Eyes that don’t look away.
I should be scared.
But I’m not.
I should scream.
But I don’t.
He doesn’t touch me.
He doesn’t have to.
I feel him in my blood. In my breath. In the part of me I thought I buried years ago.
And then the room begins to fade. His face melts into shadow. His body with it.
But those eyes stay.
