Chapter Sixteen #3
When I break out into the hall, the crowds have already thinned. A movement catches the corner of my eye: two figures, one tall and broad, the other small and slight, turning into a dark alcove labeled “Exit.”
I know I shouldn’t follow them. Two close friends wanting to have their tiff in private isn’t anything out of the ordinary, and if I can’t trust Julian alone with Leila I shouldn’t be messing with him at all.
But something in my body wants to come between them, and without thinking about it, I follow them.
The alcove leads to a stairwell, all concrete and rusting iron that looks nothing at all like the cheerily painted walls of the atrium. I slip inside.
I hear them before I see them, furious whispers echoing against the concrete walls. I can tell they are a floor or two below, out of sight but just barely. Quietly, I settle into a squat, straining to listen.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Julian?”
That is Leila’s voice, all right, but it sounds different—higher, harsher, and ringing with a level of fury I didn’t know she was capable of.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Julian says.
“Oh, save it, asshole. I have eyes. And a brain. I know you. You’re pulling the exact same shit as last time. Maybe even worse.”
“Don’t…I…” I don’t think I’ve ever heard Julian sound so completely lost for words. He clears his throat, says more firmly, “I’ve got this under control, Leila.”
Leila laughs out loud, a sharp, singular hyena’s bark that bounces against the concrete like a scream.
“Do you,” she says mockingly. “Because I don’t think there’s any controlling that one, and I think you get off on that.”
I freeze. There it is, a veer in their conversation that makes me feel like there’s a red honing laser burning between my brows.
The sound Julian makes is curiously close to a growl.
“You’re being a hypocrite,” he says. “It’s quite clear that you don’t have much of a handle on your business either.”
Leila doesn’t respond right away, and when she does, she sounds agitated.
“I don’t know what’s wrong. It wasn’t supposed to happen this fast.” She pauses. “This is your fault.”
“My fault?” Julian whispers, incredulous. “Now how did you figure that?”
“You’re eating out of my bowl.” Her voice is vicious. “And if you’d been quick about it, I might have let it go. But I’m telling you now that it’s getting in my way. So clean up your shit, or I will.”
My body seizes at her words. It occurs to me, suddenly, that the one who can’t be controlled, that the shit Julian needs to clean up, might be me, and that what I’ve just heard is a threat.
My brain screams back denials, tells me my reaction is overreaching and overdramatic—Be serious, Sean, they could be talking about anyone—but it’s too late.
My instincts scream danger, and for once, I listen. I stand up abruptly, poised to run.
Then my phone slips out of my pocket and clatters to the floor.
The stairwell goes deathly silent. There is a shift in the air, like a subtle breeze. The lights flicker. For one torturous second, my body locks, and I am held captive.
And then, suddenly, release.
There is no time to think, no time to breathe. I bend to grab my phone and sprint through the open door.
Back out in the atrium, I feel like I’ve reentered the real world, one bustling with warmth and color.
I stand, disoriented, as smiling families course past me, discussing where they’re going for dinner or what piece they’ll be practicing next.
I can feel the residual effects of my fear, jittering teeth and pinpricks of sweat on my brow, but it all feels silly and unfounded now.
And yet. I can’t ignore it anymore, can’t convince myself that the danger I’d felt in that stairwell was imagined.
I squeeze my eyes shut, and burning ones stare back.
Someone touches my arm, and I almost flail away.
“Whoa,” Winona says. “I was just going to tell you we were leaving—”
“Can I come home with you?” The question comes out in a rush.
Winona blinks owlishly at me. I know she wants to ask me why I’m not going back with Julian, but I’m grateful that she doesn’t.
“Of course,” she says.
We are in her car and on the way five minutes later.
Sophie sits in the back seat, jabbering happily about a song she’s going to suggest to her instructor for the next recital, while I try to figure out what the hell just happened.
Then I remember what Julian said, the frown that had crossed his face.
Your hair.
My hand dives into my locs. I’d just had them retwisted before the conference—yet my fingers don’t slide against exposed scalp, but into dense, compacted curls.
My stomach leaps. Swallowing, I reach for the car visor and sweep open the mirror.
The woman staring back at me looks hollow and shell-shocked. Her mouth is drawn tight, and her catlike eyes widen in horror the longer I stare. It is most certainly my face, but it is not the one I’m used to. That Sean’s roots are tight and laced with gray.
This one’s are grown in and stark white.