Page 37 of Starve
“I’ve just been tired.” I sigh, trying to look like I mean it. “Tired after…all of it. I want to move past it, but it’s hard,you know?” I hate that I’ve opened myself up for more of a conversation, but luckily, she just nods and opens the door.
“I want to help you however I can, Fern,” the therapist agrees. “But you have toletme. Otherwise…” She shrugs her shoulders and offers me a plaintive grin, tucking her hair behind her ear even though there’s nothing out of place to tuck back. “Well, I can’t help you if you won’t let me. Have a safe week, all right? We’ll talk more next Tuesday.”
Somehow, I make it out of her office without triggering her suspicions, and down the stairs without falling over myself and tripping. I feel a lot like I did that day at the coffee shop, not that it was the first time, and today I hope there’s no one waiting for me at home.
My hand is out and reaching for the door when it suddenly opens, causing me to stumble unexpectedly. But someone steadies me, their grip firm on my shoulder before I can trip over the threshold and hit my face on the sidewalk.
“You’re all right.” It’s not a question coming from the woman who stood on the sidewalk earlier. Her dark eyes are flat as she looks me up and down, though I can’t read what she could be thinking. “I’ve got you.” The words feel more relevant than just holding me from falling, and she’s slow to take her hand away.
She looks so familiar, though I can’t figure out why. It’s something about her face, but I know I’ve never met her in my life before…probably. “Do I know you?” I ask, still standing in the middle of the door.
Slowly, she shakes her head, eyes on me the entire time. “We’ve never met.” But when I take a deep, shuddering breath, she steps back and pulls me out with her into the sunlight and the cool late summer afternoon. “But you’re okay.”
My soft laugh is derisive, and not particularly amused. “Oh, I’m far from that most days of the week,” I tell the strange lady.In the sun and this close, I guess she’s around my age, if maybe a little older.
“But this day of the week you can be.” She looks up toward the upper floors of the building, her eyes narrowed a little bit. Her mouth opens again, but she only closes it and gives a small shake of her head. “Go home, little bird,” she says with a sigh, dropping my arm. “She can’t follow you home.”
“How do you—” But she doesn’t stick around to answer. She only turns and walks away, her skirt billowing around her thighs and her steps so perfectly balanced and placed that she almost looks like she’s on her own personal runway.
Only then do I realize she’s barefoot on a sidewalk in the middle of town.
Chapter 15
When I make it home,it’s to the sight of a thankfully empty driveway, and a house still standing. I shove myself out of the car and into the house without really seeing where I’m going. Overwhelmed is an understatement, and I can only be distantly grateful when I see no obvious damage to the house. Moro gets up when I come in, approaching me with soft whines and a few touches to my hands.
“I’m fine,” I lie, closing my eyes. I reach up with one hand, pressing my palm to my face. The longer I stand here, the more I feel like I’m going to fall apart. And that’s not acceptable right now, or preferably ever. A few more deep breaths don’t do me much good, and I let out a sharp breath as I walk into the end table by my sofa.
“Fuck.” Biting my lip, I toss my phone and keys onto the counter, though the clatter only makes me wince. It also makes me realize my house is too small, tooclosefor me to stay inside right now. I needout, when I thought I neededin.
My fingers scrabble at the sliding door for a few seconds, until I realize I’m being stupid and that I have to unlock it first. A low, derisive scoff leaves me at my stupidity, and finally I manage to yank it back, the glass slides open to hit the frame andbounce back just a little. But I barely remember to close it before I’m out on the tiny deck that’s only big enough for the small, hardy plants I keep on the wooden railings.
Moro is the first one out onto the grass, but only barely. I’m right behind her and following around the yard, not really caring where we go as long as we’re moving instead of standing still.
I’m okay,I tell myself, and wish I could believe it. I don’t know what has me so worked up, so unwell, this evening, but I can’t help it when I get like this.
Maybe Dr. Radley was worse for me than I thought, or the stress of lying to her finally made me snap for the day. My plans for going to the diner are long-ruined now, and instead of hunger, I just feel the churning of nausea in my gut while I follow Moro.
“I’m fine,” I whisper, my hands twisting together in front of me, barely feeling it when my nails sink into the scar on my palm, and I only belatedly notice tripping over the root of an exposed tree as we walk into the woods. “It’s okay, I’m fine?—”
Moro’s frantic barking edges into my consciousness, but isn’t enough to pull me out of my thoughts. I keep walking, the bird noise strangely dying out from the trees, instead of increasing, until the canopy of leaves overhead makes it look like the sun is close to setting, instead of dusk being hours away. But I just need to move. I just need to keep doing stuff, keep making my legs work to keep my mind off of?—
The thing that steps out from behind a tree in front of me isn’t Moro. It rises on two legs instead of standing on four and surveys me with black eyes set in a hollow, sharp face. Its appearance is enough to break through my almost dissociation, and my lips fall open in a gasp, though I can’t make a sound as my throat closes in fear, stopping anything that might come out.
“Moro?” I finally breathe, but when I don’t hear her, I turn around, afraid that in my haze, she’s been killed. If so, then itwould be all my fault, and the thought causes my fingers to dig deeper into my palm until I hiss with pain. But I see her a second later, her eyes trained on the creature, hackles up in a silent snarl and her ruff raised, fur up all along her spine. Beside her, silent and watchful, is Cairo.
The relief is short-lived when he doesn’t immediately do anything, but when I start to say something, he reaches up and presses a finger to his lips. When I press mine together, he moves forward, Moro coming with him, until he’s standing beside me and looking much better than he did last night.
“You just wander around without thinking. Don’t you, little bird?” he muses. The nickname isn’t new, but something about it makes a part of my brain light up, as if I’m missing something.
“Are you going to?—?”
“Chase him away? No.” He glances down at my hands and makes a noise in his throat before reaching out to pry my hands away from one another. “Though if you bleed out here, he’s going to be a little upset.”
My gaze slides slowly back to the creature standing in front of us in the woods, who stares at me sullenly, like he’s studying me. It hits me that he doesn’t look exactly like the ones I saw at Bluebone Ridge, though I can’t exactly pinpoint the differences, save for the way he looks just a little bit more human.
“Hi?” I offer, suddenly feeling rude. If Cairo is one of them, then that means they aren’t animals. They’re intelligent, and basically people when they want to be, unless Cairo is different. “Sorry, I umm, almost screamed at you.”
He snorts and rolls his dark eyes to Cairo. “You would,” the thing says, in a low voice that soundsexactlylike the man next to me. But Cairo only grimaces back at him. “She’ll break.”
