Page 83 of Finding Her
Hot anger filled my chest. Mykie wasn’t nearlymurderedlast night. I fought back tears of rage as I considered that even after I had nearly died, Graysen still didn’t trust me. After everything we had been through together, he still didn’t see me as someone capable of handling the truth. He trusted Mykie over me.
I rallied what little energy my body had to challenge him. “Since when does Mykie have a say in our relationship and what we talk about?”
“She has experience—” He cut himself off and restarted. “Just please give me a couple of hours to talk to her, and then we can work this out.”
The flames of my anger roared into a blaze. “Let me answer my own question.” I shoved the chair back with more force than I expected and stood defiantly. “She fuckingdoesn’t. I’m sick of you buddying up with her and leaving me alone in the dark.”
His elbows fell to the hard countertop, palms still cupping over his eyes. Fresh blood seeped through his shirt from his injuries, despite my wounds having stitched closed.
“Two hours. Give me two fucking hours to get my footing with the situation. I’m begging you. I don’t know what to do. But I promise, I will doeverythingI can.”
I huffed back into my seat at his defeated posture. “I’m not stopping you from visiting Mykie. Only one of us in this room thinks they can control the other person.”
His muscles tensed in response to my jab. “I’ll be right back. Just, for the love of everything, stay here and rest. I’ll return before the stars have risen above the horizon.”
“Oh, so I can’t leave the house again? What about my job?” I raised a defiant eyebrow. Of course, I had no intentions of going to work, but I needed him to say it. That his control issues were triggered, and he intended to put me back on house arrest.
“That’s not what I said.”
“Well?” I waited.
His eyes glinted bronze, “Obviously you can’t fucking leave the house, Fae.”
I huffed out a horrified laugh and crossed my arms over my chest, watching Graysen swiftly prepare to leave. He pulled his shoes on in a desperate hurry. “Lock all the doors, including the bolts. I’ll knock three times when I return so you know it’s me.” He strode into the kitchen and pulled a large knife out of its wooden block. “Keep this on hand.” He flipped the sharp end into his fingers and passed me the weapon handle first.
I took it reluctantly.
Graysen towered over me, his cool gray eyes gazing into mine with fierce tenderness. “I love you so much, Faeryn.”
His fingers weaved through my hair as he pressed his lips to mine, kissing me with the full intensity of a man who had nearly lost his reason for living. Our mouths exchanged heavy breaths, sharing the same strangled air. Despite my rage, I melted into his embrace. His companionship was the only thing in my life that felt right, even when everything accompanying it felt wrong.
He pulled away slowly, his chest heaving. His thumb ran over my lower lip tenderly.
“I love you too,” I whispered, unable to find kind words to say at the moment but fully committed to the truth of my confession.
Graysen walked with intention around the corner and down the hall, pausing only a moment to call out “lock the door and stay hidden” before closing it behind himself and turning the key.
And there I was, left alone two days after dodging death, covered in scars and bruises, with a plate of increasingly cold eggs in front of me. The meal perfectly represented the dichotomy between Graysen’s penchant for care, and his utter failure to use common sense when caring too much. He tendedto my wounds. He washed me. He made me eggs. He told me to lock the doors. And he left me alone and injured after imposing indeterminate house arrest. I wondered if Trebianna had couples’ therapists. We would be needing one.
My agitation grew the longer I sat, watching my food lose its luster with one and a half functional eyes. The past several days had an increasingly troublesome trajectory of Graysen’s behavior. We had gone from threatening the innocent to killing the incapacitated to controlling my freedom. The red flags were no longer avoidable, his behavior was forcing us into a situation where information was needed. Did I believe him for amomentwhen he said we’d talk upon his return? Sure, just not about what needed to be said.
I got up and locked the front door’s triple bolts, beginning to pace the downstairs while swinging the knife and mumbling out loud to nobody. My heart, gut, and brain were all preaching different courses of action, and it was dizzying. More than anything, I wished I had somebody to lean on during my spiral, but my closest person was currently with my second closest person, discussing my freedom to interact with my any other people.
Who could I go to? Theo, Ragen, Stella… their loyalties all lay with Graysen and Mykie. The only person I knew independent of the circle was Cassius, whom I hadn’t seen since our ice skating date. Maybe I’d visit him at the school. Graysen would probably have a fit about me going to see him.Ugh. There was a reason I had never told him Cassius’s name—it was none of his damn business.
There was the “fwip” of the metal mail slot as I passed the hallway, a hefty newspaper flopping onto the wooden flooring. Graysen always got the mail before I was up, another way he managed the home. Desperate to pass the time until his return,I stomped over to the heap and picked it up, carrying it to the living room.
What was eveninTrebianna newspapers? Mykie had a collection that bordered on hoarding, so they must be somewhat interesting. The front cover was standard enough, a top story about a famous politician visiting our little town. “Residents are hopeful that Dr. Gable will listen to the energy needs of rural citizens” and so on. The energy crisis mentioned was covered again two articles later. “Trebianna Resources: Nonrenewable and Depleting Rapidly.” Most of it was over my head in foreign science jargon, but I did note mentions of the average citizen not being able to afford cars or other basic technology. I had glimpses into this struggle between Graysen’s initial car rant, Theo’s woes over the electric bill, and the school yard’s lack of night lighting as described by Cassius. These articles suggested the crisis was beyond what I assumed. Citizens were worrying about rural regions being thrown into the dark ages.
I was grateful when the paper switched from the political to the community-relevant about halfway through. The local trade section covered furniture, livestock, and artisan goods. The classifieds listed positions open for hire; I tucked that page to the side, should this pub situation with Graysen go south. I didn’t bother looking at the comics, a sense of context-informed humor seemingly one of the last cultural fluencies I would develop. Next was a miscellaneous section of weather forecasting, a “weekly citizen” acknowledgement blurb, and economy updates.
I flipped to the last page, which was titled “Obituaries” in bold. No point in reading those, I didn’t know anyone. Not even an hour had passed since Graysen left, and I was out of things to do. I rose to my feet to recommence my stress pacing, but paused when I glimpsed a familiar face.
Odin M. Donnar
18 Secondary Winter 999,946 -
1 Premier Summer 1,000,005
