Chapter 3
THREE
ANNA
I wake up and, like always, look for Domhn beside me. He's not there, and I sigh a little, but I'm not really fussed. I know he has to wake up early to work. He took so much time off right when I got back. I'm glad that we're settling into a routine.
I flop my head back on the pillow and grin like a goose. Am I actually allowed to be this happy?
I look over at Domhn's side again and touch the pillow lingeringly where it dips from his head.
He could obviously afford any size bed, but he keeps it to a queen so we stay close while we're asleep.
Often I wake up to him still bear-cuddling me, but I'm not sure where he thinks I'd be wandering to, anyway.
He swears he doesn't even mind my kicking, which is something I had no idea I even do.
I stretch my arms up over my head. I feel well-rested for the first time in forever. For once, did I not have a nightmare? Oh please, oh please, oh please.
I never want to deny Mads any time with Domhn, but Dr. Ezra and I are also hoping she won't only come out at night without me being aware of what's going on. Sometimes there aren't such hard memory blocks between us, but not always. Lately, she's been blocking me out more.
I bite my bottom lip.
I'm sure it's nothing to worry about…
It's still enough to have me hopping out of bed, anyway.
I always feel better once I've kissed Domhn good morning.
Then I can get on to my schoolwork. Domhn says I don't ever have to work, but I want to.
And more than that, I want to be educated in the way I was never allowed my whole life.
I'm starting with just online classes, but maybe after I get a little more confidence, I'll try in-person ones.
I skip down the hall, about to head to the stairs toward Domhn's office, when I hear clattering in the kitchen that diverts my path.
"Baby!" I declare excitedly once I get to the kitchen. "I found you."
He immediately puts down the milk he was just holding up to the espresso maker to steam and jogs across the kitchen to me, wrapping his arms around my waist and hugging me so hard he lifts me up off my feet.
"Oh!" I gasp. "Baby!" I laugh. "What's gotten into you this morning?"
"I love ya for always is all," he says through his low, rough brogue. And then he clears his throat as he sets my feet back on the ground. "And I need to tell you about last night."
"Last night?" I ask, surprised. "I just went out with the girls…" I say, but even as the words come out of my mouth, I pause, searching for memories… and come up blank.
"Mads?" I say, trying not to audibly sigh.
"Mads," he confirms.
I wag my eyebrows at him. "Did you fuck? Was it hot?" I'm always telling him he doesn't have to feel guilty about that, but he always comes to me with such hangdog expressions the next day. I hope that asking him to tell me about it will make him feel like we're all in this together.
His hands slide away from my hips as he pulls back.
"Why do I feel like I'm in a poly relationship with my own fiancée?"
That, of all he's said, is what makes my heart clench.
My words stutter as I whisper my worst fear out loud, but I have to know: "Is this too much for you?" Am I too much for you?
"What? No. Of course not!" He comes back and wraps his arms around my waist, hugging me but keeping enough distance so he can look me in the eye.
"I can only imagine how hard this is on you.
I'm afraid this is upsetting you, but you're trying to cover it up and not telling me because you don't want to upset me. "
I'm the one pulling back this time. I stamp my foot in frustration.
"What else can I do to convince you? All I have are my words.
It's all me. I'll never get upset when you connect with her.
We're not just in one body—it's one mind, too.
Why won't you trust me when I tell you it's okay to sleep with her?
It's still me expressing my love for you. "
"I hear you, I just—"
"This is so frustrating! Do you think I'm a liar?"
"What? No! Of course not." He steps closer.
I lift my hands to settle them on his chest. "Then believe me when I say things."
"Okay, okay," he says, voice softening. He strokes his fingers through my hair, tucking it behind my ears.
I look him in the eyes, trying not to feel exasperated as I repeat what I've been saying for months now. "Then believe me when I tell you it's all me. She is me. I am her. We're all just facets of the same me."
Domhnall nods, but I still don't think he understands.
I get it. I really do. I can barely keep everything straight in my head about how all this works some days.
And others, I feel her and me co-existing in the same space, like we're in parallel universes that are becoming almost parallel.
Like, in my timeline, I didn't experience as horrific a childhood, and I'm who we could have been.
And she's the me from the universe where we did have a monstrous father.
But in that case, I'm the trespasser.
I stole her happiness after everything she endured to get us here. So, of course, I want her to have Domhn and her happy ending. I want that for her so fervently.
Almost as much as I want him for myself.
Because that's the rub. For all my altruistic feelings and good wishes, I won't give up Domhn for her. I won't… go away.
"Mads went to the club when it was closed, then messaged pretending to be you, wanting me to meet her there."
"We only have one phone number."
"Then you should start signing your texts as you or her."
I look at him impatiently. "She'll still just lie and say she's me."
"Doesn't that feel like a problem for you?"
"No." I swear it's like he doesn't listen. Still, I curl my fingers into his shirt. I hate any space between us, even if it's just the kind born of misunderstanding. So I try to explain. "Domhn, she spent her whole life with him. Good and bad don't mean the same things to her."
"You grew up with him, too," Domhn whispers, and I hear the furious heartbreak in his voice. I know there's still some ridiculous part of him that blames himself for not being able to find me and rescue me from the big bad wolf.
"Not the worst part," I say back, swallowing hard so my voice doesn't crack. "Yes, Mads might lie and scheme, but in her heart," I grab his hand, "we're still the same person."
I see his eyes cloud over.
No matter how many times I tell him, he doesn't believe me. What the hell did Mads say or do to him last night?
I stiffen. "Did she hurt you?"
"Of course not."
I breathe out. I didn't think so. Mads and I might argue in therapy, but if there's one thing we always agree on, it's that we love Domhn. Passionately. Obsessively. Single-mindedly.
Even when we disagree about everything else.
During the year in Chicago, I did a lot of work to find myself.
I tried different foods. Went to different kinds of movies and shows. There was always some sort of music playing downtown. I met people. Read books. Watched TV.
I tried to answer the question: what do I like, with no one else around to be influenced by or to try to please?
Mads kept busy, too, though I don't think she was "finding" anything except trouble.
Sometimes I'd wake up in strange places: in a twenty-four-hour diner at four-thirty in the morning, in a club bathroom being asked to leave by an impatient cleaning crew, curled up on a stranger's couch as the barest bit of morning sunlight peeked in through the windows.
That one freaked me out the most. I was only slightly relieved when a petite but absolutely naked woman gave me a wink and a finger wave as she walked past me and calmly started making a cup of coffee.
I'd scrambled for my purse and keys and got the hell out of there, taking the Red Line straight home to scribble in the journal that acts as a means of communication between me and Mads:
What the hell was that? I thought we agreed on no sharing this body with anyone except Domhn! If you don't love him as much as I do, fine, but that doesn't mean you get to—to—be a hoe with my body!
I waited on pins and needles until waking up the next day to find a response from her.
Don’t get it twisted, little girl. I’m the one who fought for all this time for him, so don’t you dare question the love I have for him ever again.
I loved him deeper than your little pea brain could ever imagine.
But this is my first time being free, too, bitch, and I’ll explore whatever I want to explore.
No fluid exchange, fine? That’s all the assurance you get from me.
‘Cause let’s not forget it’s you who’s keeping us from being with Donny right now. So stick that up your ass and smoke it.
Speaking of the journal…
"Mmmm, that coffee you're making smells delicious, babe. But I'm going to put on some real, human clothes before breakfast."
"Breakfast can wait," Domhn says, eyes dark. "I'm happy to help you take off all your clothes and keep them off for a while."
I laugh and put my hands on his chest, feeling both giddy and anxious like I do every time he expresses desire for me.
I go up on tiptoes and kiss him, lingering for longer than perhaps I should. Because naturally, he starts to deepen the kiss, and it makes my belly flip in ways I both want and have been afraid of ever since I got back from Chicago.
"I'll be right back!"
I pull out of his arms and skip away from him down the hallway to our bedroom.
As difficult as I'm making things for him, I just don't yet know how to tell him that I switch every time things start to get intimate between us. That it's Mads he's having sex with each time, and I—
I don't begrudge them that. After my year of finding out what I liked and didn't like, discovering opinions I think are actually mine—
I think I'm afraid…
I love Domhn, but what if I'm not what he needs? And she is?
I hurry into the bedroom and then into the large, oversized walk-in closet. But not so I can change. Instead, I get on my knees and crawl toward the very back to pull out several boxes of ridiculous shoes Domhn bought me.
At the bottom of the last box is the journal.
I yank it out to see what she's written. If she's even written, because she's notoriously bad at remembering to write me back.
You know it’s ridiculous to have to hide this journal back here like this. Don’t you trust Domhn? Why not leave it out in the open and trust him not to read your personal thoughts if you ask him not to?
My hands fist. My therapist says it's good to let myself feel anger.
And on rare occasions, I do feel anger, or at least frustration, at Mads.
But then, she's always goading me, isn't she?
She knows it's not that I don't trust Domhn.
It's just that anyone faced with the conundrum he is would be tempted to read the journal.
And God knows the man loves surveillance.
He thought I didn't know he had me under surveillance while I was in Chicago, but his photographers weren't always as slick at blending in as they thought they were.
I just didn't mind because then I knew he was thinking of me.
I force myself to read on.
Had a fun night out. You should try it sometime.
I flip the page.
But there's nothing else there. What the fuck? I slam the journal shut.
Then I yank it back open and write furiously with the pen clipped in the spiral.
Please write more next time. Something obviously happened between you and Domhn last night, and yes, he'll tell me about it, but I wish you would, too! This only works if we trust each other and the process.
Of course, that's part of the problem. She doesn't always care to engage with me and my therapist in the process. Back in Chicago, we worked with Dr. Kim, who was amazing, and now that we're back in Dallas, we're working with Dr. Ezra again. He says to be patient, but I'm shit at patience.
I just want us to be happy. I shove the journal back in the shoe box and the box back at the end of the closet.
Why can't she just let us be happy now?
"Love?"
Domhn suddenly appearing in the doorway holding two coffees has me shrieking and bringing my hand to my heart.
"Fuck, I didn't mean to scare you."
"It's all right," I breathe out, grabbing some jeans I haven't worn in forever off the bottom shelf as a pretense for being on the floor.
I slip off my sleeping shorts and shimmy into the jeans. Domhn watches on, and I laugh at him. But he turns his back as I change my shirt, which makes me frown. Why on earth would he do that?
"I take it that's mine?"
He nods when I sidle up beside him, and he hands me my coffee, made just the way I like it with hazelnut creamer.
I take a sip and peek over the rim. "I love you, you know that?"
A grin lights his face. "I do, but I'll never get tired of you sayin' it, Mrs. Callaghan."
I shake my head with a laugh. "You know that's not official yet."
He takes the mug from me and immediately wraps a hand around my waist to bring me into him, eyes burning as he looks down into mine. "Then when can we make it official? Let's go to the courthouse this morning."
Now I'm really laughing. "I think you're the crazy one. I thought you wanted a big wedding with all the trimmings so our friends can come and dance?"
"Just 'cause it's what you deserve," he growls, "but I might be too impatient for it. Come on, you've got that sparkly dress in the back of the closet. We can take fancy pictures later, and isn't that all brides care about anyway?"
I scoff but look up into his eyes. He's entirely serious.
Okay, for real. What the hell happened last night between him and Mads to set a fire under his ass like this?
I break his gaze and nestle my face sideways against his chest. "We can move the date up, but that's all you're getting," I murmur into his chest.
As he squeezes me, I wonder about the triangle of secrets between my alter, my lover, and me. What aren't we telling one another? And how can we even think of getting married before we've begun to settle it and drag everything out into the light?
I try to bury the questions from my mind as I snuggle closer into Domhn's chest and lose myself in the strong, sure warmth of his grip on me.