Page 121 of Unorthodox
Even what he did to me...it was another moment of weakness. A crack in the mask he’s probably been wearing for most of his life.
“Addison, I…” He picks his head up, reaches for me with one hand, gun still in the other. I flinch, rearing back, shifting on the bed.
He drops his hand.
His gun is still against his temple, and I hate it, how I feel about it. How I want him to put it down. How, even after everything he just did, I don’t want him to die.
I hate him, and I hate myself for it. For feeling.
“Max,” I whisper.
He stares at me, the barrel still pressed against his head, one hand on his knees, squeezing as if to keep himself grounded.
“Addison.” His voice is rough, and he says my name like it’s a lifeline.
He buries his head against his knees again, an anguished sob coming from his throat.
I have the strange urge to reach for him, and I think again how I hate myself. How I hate what I am. How I can long to comfort a man who only wishes to hurt me.
But I don’t reach for him, because I know that I can’t help what I want. I can’t help my thoughts, my pity, myempathyfor a man like Max. But I can help what I do.
I keep my hands by my sides.
Another way I’m stronger than him. Another way I can control myself, where he can’t.
“I’m sorry,” he finally says again, opening his eyes and lifting his head to take me in.
He stands and I tense, waiting for his next move.
But he just walks out, slamming the door closed as he does without another word.
For five days,he disappears again.
Another guard watches my every move.
After he left my room, I spent the night crying myself to sleep.
I haven’t cried since.
The nightstand that he destroyed was cleaned up, gone the first morning after breakfast.
I eat in the dining room three times a day, but I’m still not allowed out of the house. The new guard tells me all of this impassively, and I know without trying there will be no manipulating my way out of this house by inviting him into my bed.
The days pass in a haze of routine. Boredom interspersed with threads of fear that I can do nothing about.
Fear, and a longing that I refuse to dwell on.
But the fifth night, after a dinner in which I picked at my food but ate little to nothing, I realize as I lie in my bed that I’m thinking about him.
Him.
I know I shouldn’t, and I try to reason that perhaps I only miss speaking to anyone at all. I haven’t seen Mamie since before the party, and the guard I’m with is mute, save for issuing his orders passed down from Max.
I try to tell myself I’m thinking of him because I hope he stays far the fuck away from me.
I try to tell myself that I hate him.
That I hope he’s dead.
