Page 57 of Insatiable

“Dad…” I stop, a lump strangling me. Everything is hitting me at once.

“Son?”

My eyes close. “Can… Can anyone hear me?”

“Just me.”

I grit my teeth, unsure how much I can say. He doesn’t know that I’m tied to Bernadette and her fucked-up world, and I don’t think even the institution could keep him on a leash if he found out.

He would start with Archie, and decapitate him while Bernie watched in horror. I want to be the one to end her though.

The crushing pressure against my chest amplifies, and I’m certain my team sitting in the SUV across the car park can see me hunching over my steering wheel.

I take as much of a deep breath as I can. “We missed our flight. The next one is tomorrow.” I pause, gulping, sweat breaking out all over me. “We need to share a hotel room with only one fucking bed.”

“Language.” He sighs. “What did you do?”

“Too much.” I manage another gulp as sweat drips down the side of my face. “Dad… I can’t breathe properly and my… my chest is killing me. My lips are tingling and so are my hands. The way it used to happen when I was a kid.”

We haven’t talked in a long time. Nearly two years. But I know he can talk me out of this. He always did before.

Dad hums, and a few seconds go by. I can hear the thundering of my erratic heartbeat in my ears. “Can you see?”

My jaw clenches and unclenches repeatedly, fingers obsessively tapping on my steering wheel. The coke should be slowly leaving my system now. “Yeah. I can see.”

“Five objects you can see. Tell me.”

I exhale, my eyes scanning the area. “Other cars. A lamppost. The hotel car park sign.”

“Good. Keep going.”

Dad stays silent while I try to concentrate. Slowly, the pain in my chest eases a touch, but not fully. “A fox just ran across the small hill in front of me.”

“Do you remember Luciella wanted a fox as a pet when she was ten?”

A smile tugs at my lips. “Yeah.”

“One more, son.”

My mind isn’t against me. All this panicking is just in my head. “I can smell her in the car. She’s still wearing the same perfume.”

I know he’s nodding. “The one you bought her?”

“Yeah.”

I stare at the passenger seat and imagine her soft legs, toned from years of dancing, and her hair flying around her face as I drive faster. She’s giggling, then crawling into my lap.

“Same one. Flowerbomb.”

“You’ve had to spend time with her.”

I look away from the hallucination of her beside me. “Yeah.”

“And how does that make you feel?”

“That I was okay with breaking the first four rules. But now I regret it, because at the end of the day, she doesn’t deserve for me to break the fifth.”

Dad helped me form the five rules. I was spiralling right after we broke up, and he knew I was seconds from losing it. He thought it would help me get off the booze, completely unaware of all the drugs I was consuming.

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