Page 119 of Insidious Heart
And I ignore the way I want nothing more than to believe that man, because despite everything, I really do love him.
I just don’t know if I’m going to be able to get past being used by him.
* * *
“Stevie, are…”
“Hmm?” I look up from my book to find a pair of curious blue eyes staring at me. “What was that, bud?”
Prince purses his lips a bit as he shrugs. “I dunno.”
“I didn’t hear you, that’s all, buddy. Ask me again.”
“Never mind.” He goes back to the movie on TV, but after a few seconds Prince mumbles, “It was dumb.”
With a frown, I set my book in my lap and try again. “I’m sure it wasn’t dumb, Prince. I didn’t hear what you said because I was a little distracted.” Ora lotdistracted, to be honest.
It’s been nearly two days since Victor dropped me off at home, two days since I’ve seen any sign of him, and I’ve spent every minute going over the last couple months and all of our interactions.
And I’ve finally come to a few conclusions about my relationship with the murderer I’ve fallen in love with.
The first being I genuinely miss him more than I have yet to miss him.
We’ve gone days without contact before, almost a week the last time I had the boys, and while I missed him more each time we went without seeing each other, this time feels different because of how I left things.
I meant what I said. I needed space to figure things out, but I can’t get the sound of his voice while he begged for me to listen to him out of my head. Victor was upset, panicked, he even sounded hurt. Those are things I’ve only caught glimpses of before, like in the hallway at The Dollhouse or the bathroom the last time we spent the night together. He’s been vulnerable with me and allowed me to see different sides of who he is but Victor still had his guard up to a degree, as if he was almost waiting for me to start treating him the way I suspect everyone else has.
Which led me to my second conclusion, I guess.
Victor hasn’t lied to me because in his way, he actually cares about keeping me around.
He doesn’t know how to properly convey it, not with words, and I’m sure he doesn’t really understand the feeling either, but after hearing so much of his story and putting it together with the man I’ve gotten to know, I don’t think Victor is capable of lying in order to keep people in his life.
I’m pretty positive he can’t, actually, and I think it’s because the vigilante ghost expects everyone to treat him like shit or walk away so he puts zero effort into what he views as something pointless. If people stay, they’ll do it on their own and accept the things that make him who he is, or they’ll leave and pretend they never knew him to begin with. And if Victor doesn’t try then he’s less likely to get hurt, even though he doesn’t see it that way. Hell, he probably doesn’t even realize that’s what he’s doing.
And despite the revelation that my ghost was putting effort into our relationship, or whatever you want to call it, in his own unorthodox ways, I realized that I’mstilldoubting him.
I shouldn’t be, not after he’s shown me time and time again that he will never hurt me, never bullshit me in order to placate or protect me, and he’stryingto let me into his world without having the slightest clue on how to do that. All in all, Victor has never given me a reason to doubt him, serial killing be damned, since he’s been totally transparent about that too, and I shouldn’t question him now because doing so is rooted in allmyinsecurities and fears.
My fears that Victor will get tired of me, abandon me, that he’ll turn on me or become the only kind of guy that would want me—touse mefor my connection to the Demon Seeds because I wasn’t good for anything else, just like my father always said. I’m still letting those kinds of thoughts rule my mind even though Victor has proven he’s not doing any of those things and swore he never would.
But here I am, sitting in my living room with the boys, kid’s Halloween movies playing on TV while I flip through a book I’m not really reading because I’m too busy questioning everything that’s happened over the last couple months. And trying to figure out how to move forward has been distracting as hell, especially since there’s still no sign of Beau and I’m getting far too comfortable with his absence.
Prince shrugs again before his eyes drift from the TV to look out the window over the back of the couch where he’s sitting. “It was dumb.”
“What was dumb?” King asks as he enters the room with a huge bowl of popcorn in one hand and a few sodas in the other. “I know you’re not talking about the movie, little dude.Beetlejuiceis one of your favorites.”
“Not the movie, Kingy.” The five-year-old sighs, apparently annoyed his big brother would even suggest such a thing. “It’s a good one.”
King flops down onto the couch next to him and pops the top on a can before handing it to Prince. “Then what was dumb?”
“Your brother asked me a question but I didn’t hear him and now he’s refusing to ask again because he thinks it wasdumb.” I smirk as Prince rolls his eyes, making King chuckle.
“Gotcha. Musta been a pretty silly question then.”
Now I’m rollingmyeyes because he’s trying to get his baby brother to open up by getting under his skin, and while it drives Prince crazy, it always works.
“It was notsilly, Kingy,” the little boy huffs. “It was serious.”
