Crazy = Genius

Chapter 14: SELF-SABOTAGE

'To get away from you, I'll self-sabotage, If you like when we talk I'll dislocate my jaw.'

Terrence opened the door to his bedroom as slowly as possible, hoping he could enter without alerting Lilianna to his presence. It was over an hour after she had fled the kitchen. He knew what he had done was wrong, but she was his and there was nothing anyone could do to convince him that kidnapping her wasn't his only option.

Now, standing in his bedroom, a devious grin on his face, he was high off the anticipation he would find her sleeping in his bed. But his face fell.

His bed was made, untouched, the tray of food he had left for her earlier scattered across the floor and the note crumpled amongst the mess. Lilianna's Stanford hoodie was in a heap next to the washroom and a cool breeze swept through the room from the open terrace doors.

The moonlight glinted off her blonde hair from where she sat on the terrace, balled up in one of the lounge chairs. She was wrapped up in a blue blanket pulled from the basket of cozy throws in the corner of his room where he often read on weekend mornings before his prison days.

A glass of water, almost empty, sat on the glass coffee table in front of her next to her glasses. Her cheeks were streaked with dried tears and her eyelids puffy and tinted pink.

Not only had she refused to sleep in his bed but she had cried herself to sleep on his balcony, curled up in a lounge chair like an angry housecat.

At first, he was angry. Terrence just wanted her to be in his bed, food eaten and silent treatment over. He wanted her to just accept the fact that this was her life now and finally fall for him the way he had fallen so hard for her.

Then he remembered the way she backed away from him in the kitchen. A flash of fear in her eyes as he drew closer to her. It almost made him stop in his tracks when he first clocked it. She was scared of him.

He crossed his arms over his chest and watched her closely as she slept on the terrace. Despite the obvious sadness that had coursed through her before falling asleep, she looked at peace now. The fine lines of her face were relaxed, the rigidity of her shoulders and posture whenever she was in his presence had melted away and left her a squishy ball in the wicker chair.

Truthfully, Terrence had never seen Lilianna look like this. Even after he drugged her and watched her sleep in his bed, she never looked unbothered. Maybe crying herself to sleep was what her body needed to get out all of the pent-up feelings she couldn't cope with.

It dawned on him then just how different she was from the last woman he had fallen in love with. The lover he had lost.

Lilianna was a little pessimistic, a cynic at times. She was a little rain cloud, floating through life with her nose stuck in the pages of a book.

His lost love was a ray of sunshine, always determined to show everyone how much fun she was having in her life. She liked to show off her smile and scream out for all to hear how happy she was.

They were opposites, no matter how similar they looked. Terrence could still see the differences between them and Lilianna's gloomy personality weighed on her physical features too. She was softer, not as harsh or forward with how she presented herself. She was muted and quiet just like a book.

And Terrence craved that more than he ever did with Annalise.

He took his time cleaning up the room and placing everything back where it belonged. He picked up her hoodie, folding it up delicately and leaving it on the bench in the closet in case she wanted to wear it again.