I feel strangely calm. Blank. Emotionless.
Sitting in the middle of the hotel bed, I stare at the TV, but not actually watching anything. I can’t. My mind is numb.
There was a rush of emotions an hour ago, and now there’s nothing. In those moments, in that rush, the scariest part of it all was seeing the look on King’s face. The terror. He was scared. I was scared because he was scared. Now there’s nothing. I feel nothing.
“You okay, cousin?” Lilly asks, touching my arm.
She’s lying next to me on the bed, her head resting on her hand.
“I’m hungry,” I hear myself tell her. I think I’m hungry. I’m not sure how I can be, but I am. I’m hungry and I’m tired.
She chuckles. “Salad hungry or burger hungry?” She knows me too well.
“Burger.” Definitely a burger.
Lil gets off the bed and slips out the door, saying something to who I’m sure is a prospect standing guard at the door, on her way out.
Thank God for Lilly.
King’s in the lobby, or at least that’s where he told me he’d be. I don’t know what’s going on, and I’m not sure I want to.
Reliving those moments an hour ago, the only emotion I can dredge up is anger. Anger for having my day ruined. Anger for being followed. Anger for being targeted. This whole situation is shit. Complete fucking shit.
I know I should be feeling something besides anger, but nothing comes up. I want to feel something. Worry, scared—something, but I feel nothing but anger.
Leaning back against the headboard, I stare at the TV, some game show on the screen. I focus, tuning everything out.
I’m not alone long.
King’s back in the room five minutes after Lilly leaves, carrying a white to-go container and wearing a frown.
“Here,” he says, setting my food on the bed in front of my crossed legs.
“Thank you,” I tell him, peeking inside the container. A bacon cheeseburger and curly fries, and a side of fry sauce. Thank God for Lilly.
King doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t sit next to me, or lean in and kiss me. He sits across from the bed in a small chair by the window and stares at me.
He’s rigid. Still. Solid.
“Are you okay?” I ask him, watching his face for any sign of anything. Any sort of emotion. I get nothing.
“You need water?” He looks at the burger and fries, and back up at me.
Something feels off. Different. Wrong.
He’s detached, and that scares me more than anything.
“I’m fine.” I abandon my burger and the bed, crawling toward King.
He’s watching me with those bottomless ocean blue eyes. Soulless and cold. “I’m okay,” I reiterate, saying it again. “I’m good.” I say it for him. I say it for me.
He nods, leaning back in the chair, scrubbing at his beard. He looks tired. “You’re alive.”
“I am.”
“But shit could’ve gone differently.”
“But it didn’t.” Putting my hands on his thighs, I lean in toward him.
He sighs, head shaking slowly. “I’m fine,” I say again, hoping he hears me—really hears me.
Grabbing my jaw, he looks me in the eye and says seriously, “But it could’ve gone differently.”
“King.”
“I keep seeing you with that motherfucker’s hands on you, covered in his blood. It’s on fucking repeat, Princess,” he growls, tapping on his head violently. “Over and over. Every fucking time I look at you.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell him, but I don’t know why. I did nothing wrong.
King just keeps shaking his head, his elbows rested on his knees, and his tattooed fingers steepled in front of his lips.
“Don’t be sorry.”
“Be careful,” I add, repeating his words from days ago.
We go home and nothing is the same. King’s distant, and not with the usual distance he used to give me, but with something much deeper, much wider. Something that scares me.
He’s cold, detached, uncaring, but he’s still here, still with me, and that’s worse than the cold and uncaring I used to get when he’d leave. Now I have to live with it. See it.
“I’m goin’ to bed,” I tell King, standing in the doorway that leads to my yard and small covered patio out back.
King nods, staring out into my back yard, watching the rain fall. Holding a bottle of Jack, he doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t say anything, and I can’t accept it.
Walking out onto the patio, I step around in front of him and crouch down, hands on his thighs. “I know what happened at the rally bothered you. Still bothers you.”
“You were almost taken.”
“I know.” I’d argue that I wasn’t, but there’s no point. In King’s mind, I might as well have been. He keeps seeing me gone and I get it, but… “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Go to bed.” He dismisses me, taking a drink from the bottle.
“You’re scared because you love me,” I tell him, feeling brave, feeling strong. I might be right, I might be wrong, but I’m tired of the in between.
“I don’t know what love is, Samantha. Go. To. Bed.”
“I love you, and I know in some fucked-up way you love me,” I whisper, getting up and walking back toward the door. Stopping, I add, “It’s fucking scary. You scare me, but I love you.” I go to bed, alone.