Page 40 of Sweet Like a Psycho (Secrets of Suburbi 2)

“Please, please, please.”

He was pulling me out of the car. I felt the sunshine on my skin and the air I desperately needed filled my lungs.

“Violet, take a deep breath for me.”

I inhaled so fast it felt like I was choking.

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to upset you. Are you okay?” His voice still sounded far away.

The word “please” was echoing around in my head but I swallowed it before it came out again.

“Violet, are you okay?” He ran his thumbs underneath my eyes, wiping away my tears.

Suddenly I could feel him everywhere, like I had just awoken from a dream. His hands were on my face. His breath was intertwining with my own in clouds from the cold. My back was pressed against the side of the car, sandwiching my body between him and the cool metal.

I finally found my voice. “I’m not having a good morning.”

“Okay.” His hands didn’t move from my face. “I’m sorry. I should have just taken you to the mall like you asked, but I wanted to have a nice afternoon with you. I thought that maybe if we were even…” his voice trailed off. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

My mind had slowed down, but my heartbeat was still racing. I wished that everything we had shared up until this point hadn’t been pretend, because there was no denying the fact that I liked the way his hands felt on me. I liked being sandwiched here. And he wasn’t looking at me like I was crazy even though I had just had a nervous breakdown in his car. He was looking at me like I mattered. Like I mattered to him. I wanted to tell him everything. I wanted him to understand.

“It wasn’t your fault,” I said. “I got…stuck this morning. And sometimes when I start the day stuck it’s hard for me to step out of it.”

He didn’t understand. I could see it in his eyes. How could I make him understand?

“I was upset all weekend about having to lie to Zeke. And sometimes it feels like I have too much on my shoulders and that makes my…compulsions worse. Doing things repeatedly calms me down. Specifically in sets of three. But when I’m really upset, I do it over and over again. Always in multiples of three but sometimes it’s hard to stop.” I was blabbering on and on. It felt like I was having another episode, but that wasn’t it. He was just making me nervous holding my face like this. I was about to start talking about how I had basically murdered a throw pillow this morning when he fortunately broke the silence.

“Are you okay now?”

“I think so.” It’s easier when you’re here to calm me down. “I’m sorry…”

“You don’t have anything to apologize for. It was my fault, I should have just done what you wanted me to.”

“A change in plans wouldn’t have mattered to a normal person.”

“Normalcy is a little overrated, don’t you think?”

I couldn’t count how many times I wished I could go back to the way I was when I was young. Before I started having this problem. All I wanted was to blend into a crowd again. But when he was holding me like this, that desire mattered a little less. If he didn’t mind that I wasn’t normal, did it really matter so much? Maybe all I really craved was being loved again. I liked that he showed up today. It had been a long time since someone had shown up when I needed them.

It was okay if he didn’t like me. Honestly, it was easier if he didn’t. But it would be nice to have a friend for once, someone to talk to.

His hands fell from my face as he took a step back from me. It was as if he suddenly realized that the way he was holding me was awkward. That I’d read into it as something more. I felt my cheeks flushing.

“I’ll drive you to the pet store now, alright?”

“Yeah.” I took a second to soak in my surroundings before I turned back to the car. We were out front of a row of cookie-cutter townhomes on the outskirts of town. I had driven past this street on my way to far away stores countless times. It was the last stretch of homes before you entered a new zip code. “Why did you bring me here?”

He opened his mouth then closed it again, before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a set of keys. “Here.” He handed me the keys.

“You’re letting me drive?” I laughed. “I trust you not to go on a detour again.”

“They’re keys to my house.” He nodded to the townhome we were parked in front of. “Go look around at whatever you want. I’ll be waiting right here to take you to the pet store when you’re done.”

“What?”

“I want to have a nice afternoon with you. So we need to be even. You were right, I looked around your house. I can’t exactly undo what I’ve done, but I can give you the same opportunity. You get to look around mine without me there. It’s only fair.”

I looked down at the keys. “This is a weird way to apologize.”

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