Page 53 of Dark Knight

Maybe it has more to do with how distracted I am. By what? Ironically enough, by him. I was too busy thinking about him to hear him. Go figure.

How many times do you have to hit something to bruise your knuckles the way he bruised his? It’s been four days since we fought here in the kitchen, and his hand is still purple and swollen when he slides past me to open the cabinet above the stove. I only watch from the corner of my eye – I don’t know why, but I don’t want him to know I care. It’s not like I really care, anyway. I’m more curious than anything else. I mean, I won’t make him an ice pack or something like that. He’d have to admit he needs help first, and he would rather cut out his own tongue than ever act like a normal human.

At the edge of my curiosity is a slight sizzle of fear. His knuckles prove he is nowhere near as controlled and disciplined as he pretends to be. I know there’s something a lot darker inside him. Something so powerful it could flatten everything in a mile radius when it explodes.

“I’m gonna be busy the rest of the day. Work stuff.” He pulls a box of bran flakes from the cabinet and a bowl from the one next to it. It’s early afternoon, and he’s eating breakfast. As far as I know, this is the first time he’s emerged from his office since he holed himself up there before dawn.

“That’s not unusual,” I point out, because it isn’t. He’s busy all the time. What’s the big difference? As far as I’m concerned, it’s another day ending in the letter Y, though the schedule seems a little long. I’d ask what my dad is putting him through, but I know better than to think I’d get an answer.

“I’m just letting you know we’re getting close to shutting Jeff and his supposed attorneys up for good.”

“You’re going to kill them?”

His head falls back so he can stare at the ceiling. “Why would you immediately jump to that?”

“Hmmm, I can’t imagine.”

“You’re wrong.” He looks past me toward the bright, sunny afternoon beyond the kitchen window. “I want you to stay inside today.”

Also, it’s not unusual, but he doesn’t usually come out and announce it like that, either. It’s sort of one of those unspoken things. I know he doesn’t want me to go out. He doesn’t need to say it. But obviously, all that does is make me itch in anticipation of getting out of the house.

“Why?’

His nostrils flare as he pours milk into the bowl, then slams the drawer shut after pulling out a spoon. “Does it make a difference? I’m telling you, do not go outside.”

“Is there some big event that I don’t know about today? An alien invasion? Are all the birds going to suddenly drop dead and start falling out of the sky? Wait, is it going to start raining pancakes?”

Irritation fills his dark features, “Why is it not enough for me to ask you to do something? Why do you always need an explanation?”

“Perhaps I only want an explanation when it seems ridiculous what you’re asking of me. What if I want to sit out on the porch?”

“I’m telling you to stay inside. End of story.” The cabinet door bangs hard enough to make me flinch before he takes his bowl, his feet landing heavily on the floor as he marches off. “I have enough on my mind. The least you can do is give me one less thing to worry about, okay? For fuck’s sake.”

Once he’s gone, I can breathe again. He sucks all the air out of the room. He sucks every rational, clear thought out of my head, too. My life has devolved into doing everything possible to avoid him while cleaning this house like it’s my sole mission. What else is there? Too much time has passed since Chaz’s offer for me to call him and accept the job offer—and I don’t want to, anyway. I get the feeling I’d spend most of my time pretending not to notice him hitting on me.

It’s easier if we see each other as little as possible. All it took was a few moments in the kitchen for us to start bickering. I don’t have the first clue what to think about him anymore. I should be disgusted by him after he was so threatening and almost violent. But no, my screwed-up self can’t help wanting to get close to him because, damn it, I felt more alive when he threatened me. Even more than when I had at the club.

In other words, he makes me feel alive again, and I don’t know what to do about it.

I take my tea to the living room, where my gaze falls upon the urn on the mantle. It’s stupid. I would never tell anybody about this, not even Bianca, and she pretty much knows everything there is to know about me. But I would never admit even to her that I have this habit now of talking to Mom’s urn.

Now that she’s dead, I can talk to her whenever I want. Access was the one thing she never gave me when she was alive. Over the years, I got used to it, but when I was a kid? All these years later, I still shiver when I remember the nights I cried myself to sleep. Like my senior prom. High school graduation. Dance recitals, birthdays, Christmas. Sometimes, I would get a call, though most of the time, I’d sit up and wait until my eyes burned and my head nodded. No matter how hard I fought to stay awake.

Now, I look back and wish she had never called, since she only gave me hope that she would call again. It’s pitiful, but I was just a little girl who wanted her mom. I wanted what other kids had. That’s probably why I grew so close to Bianca. She didn’t have a mom, either. She knew without me having to say the words what it felt like to be the kid in class who didn’t have anybody to make a Mother’s Day card for.

I mean, I could have, but it hurt when she never came around to collect the card. Most of the time, she wasn’t even in town. I stopped around fourth grade. That doesn’t mean I stopped caring and wishing for more.

The sapphire blue vessel won’t talk back, but that’s all right. At least it’s something to talk to rather than a vague mental image that only got weaker as time went on without a visit from her. Eventually, she was more of an idea that I knew looked a lot like me.

I’m careful as I lift it from the mantle, holding my breath and listening for a sound from upstairs. All I need is for him to come down and see me with the urn and call Dad and tell him I’m having a breakdown.

He wouldn’t understand. I can’t shake the sense that he’s haunted by this house, but God forbid he would admit it even to himself. He’d need to break down and admit weakness to relate to me.

There’s a soft, warm throw blanket folded in one corner of the sofa. I wrap it around myself and get tucked in with the urn in my lap. It’s nice here, by the window, where I can look out and at least watch the world, even if I can’t be part of it. I’m turning into an old recluse. Maybe one day soon, they’ll have videos of me on the internet, waving to school kids when they get off the bus. I am twenty-two years old, and this is all I can do with my time.

“I don’t know what to do,” I whisper, looking down at the urn. “What do I do about him? I can’t decide how I feel. One minute, I want to kill him. The next minute, I want to kill him because he doesn’t want me. I’m starting to think that’s always been the problem. I want him, but he doesn’t want me back. Or he only says he doesn’t, and somehow, that’s even worse. I don’t need that in my life. I don’t need him in my life. I’ve got enough shit to deal with. But for some reason…”

My chest aches, and there’s a sudden stinging sensation behind my eyes. “For some reason, he makes me feel better. He makes me feel like myself again. And it’s sort of like when I was a kid, and I would just get used to not hearing from you before you would call all of a sudden, or take me shopping, or you would send me a present. And I would get all caught up in you again. All I could think was, this time would be different. This time, it means something. I think it would’ve been easier if you had forgotten me, and I had forgotten you. I really do.”

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