Page 18 of Eyes in the Shadows
Then, I do what I usually do when I have the time and energy to kill. I go into the kitchen to start some projects.
I feed my starter. Then I start taking everything out of everything until the counters, table and floor are covered with boxes, bags, jars and cartons. Then, I start to clean. I wipe, I disinfect, I scrub. I check expiration dates and create aUse Nowpile.
When everything is returned to its place, I start cooking. I mix together a sourdough loaf. I combine the freezer-burned bags of vegetables and sausage with the nearly-expired cans of beans and the half an onion going soft that was hiding in the back of the crisper into a soup. Then I make a casserole. Then a galette. Then another casserole.
Suddenly, I’m out of ingredients but I’ve got a freezer packed with leftovers—gifts for a future me, too tired to do anything after her shift but throw something in the microwave.
It occurs to me distantly, though I have no way to check without my phone, that this is a pretty standard response to a traumatic event. What starts out as a distraction—a way to occupy my mind with something that soothes me, like food preparation—becomes my sole focus. I can be in total control of this. I can choose to add something or not. I decide the flavors. I say how long it cooks.
I start cleaning the rest of the apartment as the sourdough loaf finishes in the oven. The day creeps away and I have to stop when I can’t see much anymore. I’m too afraid to turn on the light, so I sit in the middle of the freshly scrubbed floor and wish my brain was as tired as my body now is so I could just sleep and escape all the thoughts that way.
But I’m wired. And I need something to do that won’t require me to turn on the light. I don’t have a laptop because I haven’t needed a computer since school and I can do pretty much everything I need to on my phone these days, but I havethe most basic model of e-reader available and a library full of high fantasy, smut and cookbooks.
I give a fantasy book a try first—dragons and fairies feel like the right thing to take me away—but I can’t get into it. Their problems seem too foreign, too unreal. I want their fantastical adventures when I’m sick of my own boring existence.
But I also can’t focus on the cookbooks. Most cookbooks aren’t meant to be read front to back, and it’s frustrating when you read something and your first reaction is to go try to make it, but you can’t because you’re completely out of ingredients.
I hesitate before selecting what I hope will be an innocuous enough romance, but the second the chemistry starts between the main characters, my mind starts to wander. To the feel of his fingers on my leg. The commanding way he acted, bossing me around about the flare up on my knee. The possessive way he talked about me to Harrison.
I shouldn’t like that he did that.
I let the e-reader fall into my lap and stare, unseeing, at the blackout curtains. And as I sit, as I finally slow to a stop, everything comes flooding in. I wait for the tears, but they don’t come. I’m upset, sure, but I’m also frustrated that I’m not upset about the right stuff.
I deserve this cry. I deserve to feel safe in my own home. I deserve to self-soothe after being scared out of my mind.
So why does it feel more like I want to cry because I lost something? Like my feelings are hurt? Like I’m mourning a relationship that never even started and was never going to be? Like some part of me—so deep down I could convince myself it didn’t exist—thought maybe I had a chance with him?
Because he touched me. And I let him. And,God help me, I liked it.
Ugh. Am I that starved for attention and touch? No. He was fucking with me. Keeping me off balance, keeping me scared and submissive. Threatening me with… rape…
I brush my fingers against my hip, hoping to feel some lingering twinge—something that would remind me of what his hands felt like.
No, that moment… it wasn’t a threat. And maybe, if I hadn’t stopped him, it wouldn’t have been totally on my terms, but it really wouldn’t have been rape either. At one point, when he was leaning over me, staring at my body with such hunger and focus, I was so wet that I ached with it.
I wanted him to kiss me, to take me. I wanted him to devour me.
I wanted to know what it felt like to be the object of desire of a man that powerful and that attractive. And—fuck him—he really made me feel like I was.
This really isn’t a helpful spiral, though I suppose if it were helpful, it wouldn’t be called spiraling. I need to do something else. I need to occupy my mind and exhaust myself.
After some debate, I decide to brave the abandoned hallway and stairwell to exhaust myself in the basement gym. Only once I’m dripping in sweat and so tired I can’t see straight, I head back upstairs for a fumbled shower in the dark, and a half-assed tooth brushing using my finger while wearing pajamas that are probably inside out. I set the couch cushions on the floor, curl under a blanket, and close my eyes for the worst night’s sleep of my life.
The sound of a door slamming shut wakes me, and I realize it must be 8 AM and people are returning. I moan, rolling onto my back and wince at the stiffness. I am not made to sleep on the floor, even with cushions.
I stretch it out, and realize the stiffness is also self-inflicted. Too many squats. I throw open the curtains, blinking at the light, and set about getting the couch back in place. The clock on the microwave confirms my suspicion; it’s 8:35. I need to go get my stuff from the motel and I’m pretty sure that EZ checkout is by 10, so I change into clothes to go outside.
But before I can leave, there’s a knock at the door. My heart jumps and I freeze, then roll my eyes at myself. It’s not him. Even if he actually were watching—and the more I think about it, the more I have my doubts—he wouldn’t be back now that everyone else is, too.
It’s Harrison. He looks a bit more rumpled than usual, and he’s shifting from foot to foot in an antsy, uncomfortable way. His tone is apprehensive, too. “Hey. I checked us out and packed up your stuff for you.”
He hands me my duffel and I’m almost giddy with appreciation. That was so thoughtful. I take the bag. “Oh my God, thank you, Harrison. You’re thebest.”
“Why didn’t you come back for it? Is everything okay? I’ve been texting you.”
“Oh, I lost my phone,” I say. It’s not technically a lie, but it feels like one. “I was just about to swing by the motel for my stuff… and hey, I’m sorry about bailing—”
I turn to toss the duffel on the ground behind me, and Harrison steps inside and closes the door behind him. “All right, spill.”
