Page 164 of Perfect
He gets in and starts driving, heading out of town on a road I’m not familiar with. I look out the car window, trying to figure out where we’re going, but I have no idea where he’s taking me. We’re quiet for a while, and I can tell he’s working himself up.
Fuck, I shouldn’t have fought back. Fighting back is only going to make this worse for me.
“I don’t understand why you did this to me,” Danny says, his voice hurt.
Great – he’s kidnapped meandhe’s playing the victim.
“I was scared, Daniel,” I say slowly, using his full name the way I do when I’m trying to make him listen to me. “You pointed a gun at me and threatened to kill me.”
“It’s your fault I even got that angry,” he says petulantly, and I roll my eyes because I know he can’t see me. I keep my voice low and soothing when I talk to him.
“I was telling you how I felt. I’m allowed to have feelings.”
“Bullshit,” he spits. “You were drunk, and you were saying insane things to me.” I grimace. I saida lotof things to him that I shouldn’t have. “I’m a good guy, Alice. I didn’t ruin your life, and I didn’t fucking take advantage of you, I tookcareof you.”
He’s more delusional than Theo ever was.
“You took care of yourself,” I mutter before I can stop myself.
“What the fuck did you just say?” Shit, I can’t talk back like this with Danny.
“Nothing.” Danny’s quiet for a few minutes, and I can tell he’s trying to calm down, but the air in the car is tense, and I start curling in on myself, making myself smaller.
I remember this. Ihatethis.
“You know, I’m surprised you could disappear like this. You’re not that smart.”Because I play dumb to placate you, you fucking prick, I think bitterly.
“I saw something like it in a movie.” He shakes his head, exhaling hard.
“Yeah, well, you shouldn’t have done it,” he says, and I can hear how furious he is. “You should have just let me apologize to you, and everything could have gone back to normal.” That’s exactly what I was running from, but I can’t tell him that.
“You’re right,” I say quietly, trying to appease him.
We’re quiet for the rest of the drive, but I can feel him getting angrier and angrier in the front seat. I breathe and tell myself it’ll all be okay. I can handle Danny. I did it for nine years, I can do it again until Theo shows up, or until I can run again.
We pull down a long dirt road and park in front of a tiny little red cabin along a small river, and I get a bad feeling. I need tobe really fucking careful with him if we’re going to be so far away from other people.
“What is this place?” He parks the car and turns around to glare at me. I force myself to smile at him and I watch him relax a little. Good, okay, I can still handle him.
“I thought we should have some time together before going home, so I picked something nice for you.” I can hear how tight his voice is, but I know he likes to provide, so I lean in towards him to de-escalate.
“That sounds nice, Danny. Thank you,” I say, trying to sound sincere and smile at him more. It works, because he seems less angry when he gets out of the car.
He doesn’t uncuff me, but he pulls me out of the car more gently and leads me inside, sitting me down on a couch. He looks down at me, his thick arms folded across his chest, and it’s obvious he’s barely restraining his anger.
“We need to talk about something, Alice.”
Shit, he hasn’t called me Bunny once.
This is really fucking bad.
Danny sits down next to me, his hand gripping my knee hard. When I look up at him, his face is that same sort of anger tempered with concern from earlier. “You’ve been gone for a year. Why haven’t you come home?” I take a deep breath and nod, knowing I need to placate him.
“I wanted to come home, but I was scared you’d be mad. It’s been so hard without you.” It should be the right thing to say, but it’s not. I watch rage flash over his face, and I know it’s coming a second before he slaps the back of my head hard, causing me to pitch forward and my vision to swim for a second. He launches off the couch and disappears for a second, placing a thick folder on the coffee table when he comes back, like he’s about to interrogate me.
When he flips open the folder to a photo of Theo and I tangled up together, I know I’m fucked. Theo’s face isn’t visible, but the overwhelming love is evident in my expression as I look at him.
My body goes ice cold.
