Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
LEGS
I put on a fake smile and take the offered tip, wishing the couple a good day before heading back to the counter to replace the coffee pot.
“Okay, spill. Something has been going on with you lately, and don’t say nothing. You’ve been quiet for weeks.”
I sigh, looking at Susie. I know she means well, but how do I tell her I’m being stalked by a shadow? I know it’s Midas, though I’ve not seen even a glimpse of him since that night in the hallway. I swear someday I’ll step outside my door and catch a whiff of his aftershave.
Vases of dandelion seed heads keep showing up on my doorstep, so I know he’s hand-delivering them.
I’ve always been attuned to him, sensing when he entered a room or if he was nearby.
It hasn’t changed, even with the animosity between us.
We’re like a fucked-up and twisted yin and yang, two opposites eternally drawn to the other.
So though I haven’t seen him, I know he’s there. I still don’t know why.
My neighbor hasn’t bothered me since that night.
I hear him in the apartment occasionally, but not once has he blasted his music since his confrontation with Midas.
The man must have put the fear of God into him.
That’s the only blessing to come from all this.
Though I suspect it was the jerk off next door who stole all my underwear from my laundry before putting the rest outside my door.
It’s not like I can prove it, though, and I’m not exactly going to knock and ask.
“I’m just not sleeping well, and some days it’s harder than others to make it through without falling over,” I tell her a half-truth.
On the days I feel Midas is around, I sleep better, which leaves me pissed off when I wake up.
The whole thing is taking its toll on me.
No matter how I try to justify it in my head, this has moved beyond casual curiosity and into stalker territory.
I don’t care what romance books say, there is nothing sexy about being stalked.
I feel like prey being hunted. I can never fully relax and I’m always on edge, waiting for something to happen.
My anger at him has grown into this huge ball in my stomach that I swear is contributing to my morning sickness.
But my growing hatred toward the man I still love doesn’t stop me from slipping my fingers between my legs and getting myself off to images of him fucking me hard.
My crazy hormones are out of whack, and picturing Midas is the only thing that gets me to come.
And even this, I see as a betrayal. It’s like he’s got my body on his side, making me a traitor to myself.
“Hazel?”
I jolt, realizing she’s said my name more than once. “I’m sorry, what?”
She looks concerned before she nods to the back. “Go take a break. Del wants to see you anyway.”
My shoulders drop, hoping I’m not about to get fired. I’ve been off my game lately, but dammit, I’m trying.
“Okay,” I whisper as I turn and head to Del’s office.
I tap on the door and wait for her to tell me to come in. When I do, she looks me over from head to toe before crossing her arms over her chest. “Okay spill, what the fuck is going on?”
I open my mouth to give her the same speech as Susie, but instead, a sob slips free. Her eyes widen before she scrambles out of her chair and runs to me.
“Don’t cry. I mean it, Hazel. Do not cry or I’ll fire you. You’ll set me off and I don’t cry, ever.”
I snort out a laugh as she guides me to the empty chair and makes me sit.
“Talk to me,” she urges. I’m so damn tired from trying to figure it all out on my own that I do. I let it all hang out, from the issues with my neighbor to Midas showing up and my suspicion that he is following me. By the time I’m done, I feel wrung out.
“Jesus, I don’t even know what to say. Actually, yes, I do. First things first, do you think you’re in danger?”
“From Midas? No.”
“No, Hazel, don’t just answer on instinct. Put how you feel about the man aside and go off his actions and reactions to you, especially the ones that led you here. Now I’m gonna ask you again: are you in danger?”
I close my eyes and think about my interactions with Midas over the years, all the times he’s hurt my heart and bruised my soul.
I think about when I’ve yelled at him and when he’s yelled at me, and then I think about that day on the compound when everything came to a head, when he spewed his venom at me and irrevocably changed our future forever.
I open my eyes and look into hers when I answer. “Midas won’t hurt me. Not physically.”
“How can you be sure—”
“Because I know. I can’t say he wouldn’t hurt anyone else, because he absolutely would, but never me.”
She looks at me, and I can see she isn’t as sure as I am, but she takes in my resolve and sighs. “Okay, Hazel, I’m going to trust your instincts here. They seem to be better than mine. But I’ve gotta ask, if he’s not a danger to you, why the tears?”
“He might not be a danger to my body, but he’s a danger to my sanity. I don’t know how to put it into words. It’s like…an alcoholic who has just started recovery being forced to work in a bar.”
She winces, so I guess my point hit home.
“I’m pathetic. I swear the craving I have for him is so all-consuming that some days, it’s hard to think of anything else.”
“You’re not pathetic. You’re in love. It’s not you who is flawed for loving him. It’s him for not loving you back, and yet refusing to walk away. That’s not love, Hazel. That’s possession,” she says to soften the blow, but I still feel the weight behind the punch of her words.
“I just don’t understand why. Sometimes I wonder if there is another us out there in a parallel universe living the storybook version of the happily ever after he tore up.”
When Del remains silent, I look back up at her and see anguish all over her face.
“Del?”
She shakes her head and puts on a grin, but a lone tear slips over her cheek. She quickly wipes it away, but her heartbreak is not hidden.
“You know this friendship of ours works both ways. You’re always listening to my woes, but you never talk to me. I’m not saying you have to, but the option is always there. I swear I don’t judge, and your secrets are always safe with me.”
She sighs and walks around her desk before collapsing into her seat. She stares at the window, but I have a distinct feeling that what she’s seeing is something far beyond the alleyway.
“Someone hurt you,” I say softly.
She blows out a shuddering breath. “Lots of people hurt me.” She looks over at me, considering her next words. “Did you know I used to be married?”
I shake my head. She’s like a closed book, and I’m not one to dig.
“He’s dead now, and that makes a lot of people very happy.”
I swallow. “He was a bad husband?” I hedge, not wanting to ask outright if he abused her, though I can read between the lines. Her answer shocks the shit out of me though.
“No. He treated me like a queen. Not a single day went by that I questioned his love or commitment to me. He was sweet, kind, and protective. He listened when I spoke, really listened, you know? He was one of those guys who pulled his weight without being asked. He took the trash out, loaded the dishwasher, folded the laundry—nothing was beneath him even though some of his brothers deemed it women’s work. ”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I, Hazel. Neither do I. To me, my husband was the kind of man every woman coveted. I couldn’t have dreamed up a better version of the ideal man, but to everyone else, he was a monster.”
Another tear slips free, but this one she leaves as she gets lost in her memories.
“I loved him. Even after I found out the truth about him. I still loved him, but I hated myself for it, and it seemed to be a theme. He wasn’t there for anyone to blame anymore, so they turned on me like a bunch of rabid dogs looking to tear their pound of flesh from my bones.
The irony isn’t lost on me that the one person who would have protected me from them was the same person who made them hate me to begin with. ”
“I’m sorry, Del.”
“Nothing to be sorry for. It is what it is. I’m not sure I’ll ever truly understand what happened.
Maybe one day I’ll be able to look back and pinpoint moments where there were signs that I missed, but for now, I just have to keep moving forward.
Because if I don’t, if I stay still enough for the memories to catch up, then the past will slowly kill me. ”
I reach over the desk and grab her hand.
“When I say I get it that you can’t just turn your emotions off, I get it.
Life would be so much fucking easier if I could just hate Midas.
And lord knows, part of me does. But a part of me loves him, even now.
He’s entrenched in the fabric of what makes me, me, I don’t know how to unstitch him from my life… ”
“Without unraveling completely,” she finishes.
Her words validate my feelings. For a time, I thought I was going crazy.
I know the shit Midas pulled would have turned most people’s love to hate.
I thought there was something wrong with the way I’m wired.
Maybe that’s not it at all. Perhaps some people just love differently.
For some of us, we love so wholeheartedly that no magic switch turns the feelings on and off.
For me, there is the person I was before Midas and the person I am after.
Two vastly different people irrevocably changed by the same man.
“I say screw what anyone else says or thinks. I’m so damn tired of trying to please everyone at the expense of myself. I’m exhausted, Del, and it has fuck-all to do with being pregnant.”
Her eyes drift to my stomach behind the desk briefly before back to mine. For a second, she forgets to mask her pain. There’s more to her story, which is already a shitty one.