SIX
Duke
Everything in her house is either white, or a shade of grey. It’s so light, so deceivingly peaceful. Yet I get the sense this woman projects her clean and crisp image to hide something else.
I wasn’t blind to the way she purposefully turned her head and shoulders as she walked down the hall to avoid the pictures on the wall. How she paused and swallowed after she opened the cabinet, and then gently pushed a plastic dinner set aside to get the plate out for me. How her fridge seemed to be stocked with kid-sized juice boxes, yoghurt snack-packs, and the individually wrapped cheese bites you see plastered on a poster in the supermarket with some overly happy kid biting into them.
Details, that I suspect have nothing to do with a small appetite.
“You live here on your own?”
She places her rubbish into the trash, and then hesitates with her hand on the pantry door. “Yeah.”
Interesting. “Well”—I check the time on my phone—“it’s already after ten, so I guess I better start making some calls before all the motels are done for the night.”
“Yeah. I didn’t think about that.” Her gaze slides somewhere else for a while, and then snaps back to the here and now with scary urgency. “You could just stay here.”
“Pardon?” I mean, she’s a nice woman and all, pretty, but that’s the kind of intimacy I reserve for only my closest friends.
The dead ones.
“I can make up the sofa for you.” She shoots out of the kitchen into the adjoining open-plan living room. “It’s not the biggest three-seater out there, but if need be I could sleep on it, and you can have my bed. I’ve got blankets in the hall cupboard, maybe a spare pillow. I can go check if you like, make it comfortable. I mean, you’re probably dog tired anyway …”
I lose focus on her incessant rambling, blinded instead by the crazed focus in her eye as she comes up with a thousand things to keep her occupied by fussing over me. Classic avoidance. Seen it, know it, swore not to embrace the fall-back trait.
And yet, here I stand in the kitchen of a woman who’s consumed by it.
“Cammie?”
She keeps talking, even as she disappears into the hallway, her body twisted yet again, and collects a blanket from the linen cupboard.
“Cammie.”
She mutters to herself, battling with getting the blanket evenly spread over the sofa.
“Cammie!” Fuck—that’s the loudest I’ve heard myself speak since I got back. I close my eyes and shake away the memories that come with me using my voice to command attention in such a way.
“Oh my God, I’m sorry. I was doing it again, huh?”
“If you mean getting lost in your own little world, yeah.”
She looks taken aback by the observation, her lips curling downward at the corners.
“I’m sorry. I just wanted to get your attention.”
“Well,” she says sharply. “You have it.” She slams both hands on her waist, only accentuating how narrow it is and her classic hourglass figure.
“I don’t feel comfortable in your bed, or on your couch—even in your house. I don’t know you.”
Her nose crinkles adorably as she seems to think the problem over. “So let’s get to know each other. I don’t sleep much anyway.”
And there it is: the reason why she’s keeping herself busy with my problems.
“Neither.”
Her brow softens, the smile returning to her darkly coloured lips. “Well, we’ve got that in common then. See? We’re becoming friends already.”
A rare smile pulls my lips apart as she chuckles at her own joke. What is this woman doing to me? I never find reason to smile. At least, not anymore.
“I guess I can make an exception for one night.” Even though my head screams no. “Keep your bed; I’ll sleep out here.”
“So no bestie chat then?” She pouts, mischief in her eyes. “I was looking forward to the popcorn, too.”
“Not tonight.” I rub my hands across my thighs, fighting the urge to grip something, to tether myself. “Bathroom’s at the back of the house?”
“Yeah. Straight down and second to last door on your right.”
“Thanks.” I head for my bag, and then pause, turning back to her. “Turn the lights off and take yourself to bed. I’ll sort myself out.”
“Sure.” She glances around, probably unsure if she can trust me.
“Thanks, Cam,” I murmur as I turn away and head for the bathroom.
For seeing me.
For helping.
And for not asking questions.
By the time I emerge with brushed teeth, and a healthy few litres of water splashed over my face to snap me the fuck out of this funk, she’s in what I guessed was her bedroom when I passed by the open door earlier.
The door is now shut, the gaps around it dark, and all is quiet. If only her cop cousin could see me now.
I smirk at the thought and make my way back to the living room using my phone as a torch, grateful she took my hint and went to bed so it didn’t seem odd that I would turn another light on when she flicked the others off. Even with the glow beside me, the distinct pitch black that comes from being in the country hits me hard. There are no streetlights, no houses nearby to light up the night, and no cars passing by within view.
The darkness unsettles me, which, for a guy who loved to play hide and seek as a kid, says something. I can’t see what’s around me—who’s around me. There’s no mental safety map, and no reassurance that I’m okay.
That I’m home. That I’m not there anymore.
The way Cammie set the sofa up has my head at the window end—first problem to rectify. I switch the blanket around, and then settle on the cushions with my phone laid on the floor beside me. The low-battery icon flashes up as I lie back and blink up at the ceiling. I reach out and dismiss it; the race is on to get to sleep.
But how can I when all I hear in the darkness are the echoes of the man I used to be?
Coward.
Weak.
Hopeless.
The words I lull myself to sleep with every night. And yet, tonight, they yell louder than ever before, deafening me with their truths.
I can’t be this man forever: a guy who relies on the strip of light from a slim piece of technology to hold his nightmares at bay. I can’t spend my life checking under the bed, and looking for trouble at every turn.
I just can’t.
There’s a life on the other side of the canyon of my fears, yet no matter how hard I try, I can’t find the bridge to get there.
Which leaves me with only one option: build my own.
Yet I don’t know if I can.