CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Tank
There she went again. Asking, but not asking. Leaving it open for me to make up what I wanted to say to her. Only this time her voice was the slightest bit shaky.
I wondered if I captivated her as much as she did me. I couldn’t look away from her. I didn’t want to leave this space and stop breathing the same air as her.
Her scent was overpowering all around me, like a fucking angel wrapping me up in her wings. An odd mix of sweet and bitter. Almost like smooth leather and wild frozen blackberries. It was a strange combination, but that was what it smelled like to me. And on her, it fucking worked.
I may not have known her, like at all, but from what I had seen it was confusing as hell. She was cold and calculated. Her movements were never rushed or hurried. Her words were well thought out and almost nonexistent. She held herself at a distance.
Then there was the fact that she didn’t leave me in a passed out lump outside the door of the bar. No, she went through the effort of getting me upstairs, into her apartment, onto her bed, and then watched over me all night. As if that wasn’t enough, she fucking fed me.
Sure, it was horrible as fuck.
Who messed up macaroni and cheese? Out of a box, with liquid cheese?! She fucking did. I was thinking that at worst, the noodles would be overcooked and soggy. That I could deal with, would have made it easier to go down. However, that was not the case. The noodles were just plain underdone. Like they crunched loudly when you chewed them. She tried and that was what I kept having to tell myself as I struggled to finish it all.
See, with all that, I was just really having a bit of whiplash. I couldn’t get a read on her. That bothered me. But what bothered me more was that I cared. Not like deep, in my soul, care-for-her-wellbeing cared. I knew that wasn’t going to happen. Maybe it was more of an intense curiosity. I just wanted to know. Knowing was half the battle, right? If I knew and maybe even understood what she was like and what she was thinking, then the puzzle was solved and I could walk away. Carry on like normal and return to my miserable hiding.
But when she smiled, it did something weird in my gut. It wasn’t much, but it was there, and I could tell it was something she didn’t do often. The thing was, I wanted her to do it more. I wanted to see what her face looked like when she relaxed and let herself be free. I fucking craved to see that little sparkle in her eyes that I’d gotten tiny glimpses of a few times. And I found myself sitting there, confused as hell and comfortable at the same time.
All of that ran through my mind as she waited for me to speak. It was taking too long for me to answer and I didn’t have the first clue on what to say. She had already dug the worst out of me. Maybe not the whole thing, but the general idea and I had no need to delve deeper into all of that right then. I just wanted to forget for five minutes. I didn’t want to hurt. I didn’t want to remember. Most of all, I didn’t want her to know how much I had failed.
I had done a lot of good in life, but I didn’t think that negated the bad. I often wondered if Logan’s death was the universe calling me out, pointing its long finger at me and making an example out of my life.
“I hate tomatoes,” I said, my gaze drifting off down to the arm of the chair. “I was always trying to find new ways to get Logan—my son—to eat his veggies. To be fair, he was always good about eating them. But I never wanted him to get bored with the things that I made. Anyway, I made this one salad, it was simple really. Tomatoes and cucumbers in an Italian dressing. I always added fresh fennel and he thought that was the best damn thing. He was forever asking me to make it. And because I never wanted to let him know I hated it out of fear that he would stop eating it, I choked it down. Every damn time.”
I chuckled at the memory. I’d almost forgotten that I was talking out loud and that there was a quiet mystery woman sitting only a few feet away.
I cleared my throat, bringing myself back into reality. I looked up to see Dya intensely watching me, no clear expression on her face. I had a damn lump in my throat and I could feel a stinging in my eyes.
“Bathroom?” I asked to break the tension floating in the air. I also just needed a few minutes to myself. She jerked her chin to something behind me. I turned and saw a door just a few feet from the bed. “May I?”
She nodded, her eyes tracked my every move. And even though I was behind a closed door, I could still feel her eyes on me.
I let out a hard sigh as I leaned my hands on the edge of the sink. My head hung heavy against my chest. I needed a moment. Hell, I probably needed an hour. I closed my eyes and tried to pull myself together. It was the first time in a long time I’d felt the memory so vividly. I was there, remembering all those times. I was thrown back to a time when things were good and for a second I felt a little lighter. Remembering hadn’t been as tortuous as it had been since the tragedy had happened. Instead, it was just what I’d been trying to hold onto ever since I woke up after the explosion. But it still was like a knife in my side. They were just memories and that was all they would ever be. I still didn’t have my son and I never would again.
I peed, finding that I really did have to go. Then I grabbed the mouthwash from the side of the sink and swished out my mouth. Furry was a nice way of saying how my mouth felt. I wished more than anything I had a toothbrush, but I wasn’t that much of a dick that I would use hers, especially without her permission. Something told me that she wouldn’t let me even if I did ask. Then again, she almost scared me in a way that I would be too afraid to even try. I wasn’t afraid of many things, but there was just something about Dya that set me on edge. In good ways and bad. But it wasn’t anything that I could specifically point out.
“Well,” I said after I walked out of the bathroom and stood awkwardly in the middle of her so-called space for a second. “I’ll just…” I motioned to the door.
She sat in the same position as she had been in the whole morning. An image of her sitting just that way all night as I slept a few feet away filled my mind and something in my chest fluttered. It was almost like I took a small amount of comfort in the thought.
After getting no response from her I headed for the door. Something stopped me. I had this strange pull and I had no idea what that meant. Truthfully, I wasn’t in the right head space to really give a fuck about it though. I turned back to her as I gripped the handle of the door.
“Tell me something…” I said looking deep into her eyes.
She shifted ever so slightly. It was obvious then that she wasn’t used to having the spotlight on herself and for some weird reason, I found that interesting. She had such a strong and magnetic personality, but at the same time, she seemed like someone who wanted to be invisible. She was strong, her head held high, back straight, and a take-no-shit look on her face constantly. Yet, she was dark, just like the shadows.
“The thing about being lost is that it doesn’t have to mean it is the end. It just means you have a starting point for a new journey.” She spoke clearly and almost seemed to punctuate every word as she said them. It was like she was having a hard time speaking those words. Almost like she couldn’t believe that she was even talking to me.
I clamped my mouth shut, her words like a sweet whisper in my head, repeating themselves over and over again as I walked out the door.
That definitely wasn’t what I expected her to say. In truth, I had expected her to remain silent. But she spoke. The words were some kind of strange wisdom that I had a feeling fit her all too well. Maybe that was why I was drawn to her. She had a heaviness weighing on her shoulders much like me, only she kept hers hidden.
I let my steps fall heavy on the stairs as I descended. What the hell was I doing? My head was all over the place, and yet, I felt stuck. I felt like I had to force myself forward, the next step becoming harder to take than the last one. But I kept going. The air was cold around me, reminding me of how I felt on the inside.
In the cab of my truck, I took in a deep breath but it didn’t quell the inner pull I had. I refused to let myself go down any sort of new path. I was the one keeping myself stuck.
That was the point that her words rang out in my head again. She may have been right. Hell, it sounded like a good enough line. For anyone else but me, though. No, I wanted to be lost. I wanted to be stuck. I deserved all the loneliness and loss I brought on myself. I didn’t deserve to find a new fucking path and I didn’t want to move forward.
“Fuck it,” I muttered to the empty space around me as I started my truck and drove off.
It was only when I got back to the cabin that I realized that I was out of booze. I had meant to get some when I went out last night but I never made it that far. I wondered what the hell was wrong with me and why I’d ended up passed out at that bar. Twice now.