Learning How to Bend

NaNo Day 9 - Hey, look, I wrote more!

Footsteps. Constriction. The smell of a dry mouth with putrid breath. The sensation of the quick words being whispered past my ear. Running but not far enough or fast enough. Yelling, the voice echoing and growing ever louder like someone kept turning up the volume of a megaphone. I could not breathe. I lost the ability to run, the ability to do anything at all. I could do nothing but stand, paralyzed by the voice which haunted this particular series of nightmares.

"You think you can move on from me?"

"You think you can forget me?"

"You can't leave me."

"I own you."

When I felt something press against my left shoulder—the one with the scar—I immediately jolted awake as though struck by an unseen force. My breathing, once shallow, quickly normalized as I tried to calm my rapidly beating heart. I swallowed, blinking several times to try to reestablish to myself where I was...speaking of which, where on earth was I? And what was I holding onto like my life depended on it?

"Liliana."

I was holding a hand. The voice instantly made me remember who I was with. I did my best not to yelp by holding my breath, quickly removing my hand from his. Every single finger ached; how tightly had I been grasping Thaddeus's hand? I clicked to see where he was. He had pulled Antonia's chair over to the couch, leaning toward me with his legs slightly apart in a relaxed manner. His elbows were resting on his knees. I said nothing, merely shifted on the couch into a sitting position, my bare feet against the floor. I pulled my hair over my shoulder then grasped my forearms tightly, refusing to turn my face in Thaddeus's direction for fear of him seeing how pale my face probably was.

"Don't ask," I said. "Please."

He said nothing. I sensed him leaning toward me and stiffened in anticipation, but he did not touch me. Instead, he draped something over my shoulders and very quickly sat back against the chair. It was his jacket, I came to realize. He had tossed his jacket over me last night, and now he had settled it around me once more. Who on earth was this man seated near me? Because it was not Thaddeus. It could not be.

But then again, it could not be anyone else.

"What time is it?" I asked.

"6:00AM," he said.

"Come again?"

"I am not in the habit of repetition, Miss Hamill."

"6:00AM. Why didn't you wake me?"

"I just did."

"I need to go home," I said. I moved my hands from my arms to my lap, fingers shaking. "I need to feed Chelise. I need my dog." He did not need to know the last sentence referenced my stuffed animal, not the live one.

"I'll have Mike drive you."

"I need to get up. I need to take a walk. Something." I stood up, forgetting in my somewhat fragile state that he sat directly in front of me. I almost walked right into him, but he shoved away on the wheels of the chair to avoid the contact. "How long until Mike gets here?"

"He's already on his way."

I nodded.

"Who is Marcus?"

Hearing the name paralyzed me, my shoulders and chest rising with an abrupt inhale yet not relaxing, as I held my breath until my lungs burned.

"Liliana, who is Marcus?"

"Remember what I said at dinner? About not talking about things? This is one of those things. Drop it." My tone was very sharp. Irritated. I must have said his name in my sleep, betraying myself.