7. Leave. Me. Alone.
7
Leave. Me. Alone.
Ever
I dropped the phone on the table and ran to my door, checking to make sure the locks were still in place, and the peephole was covered. I dashed around my small apartment, meticulously ensuring that the windows couldn’t be opened and that the shades were drawn.
Should I call the cops? Tell them that a crazed doctor from the hospital was obsessively calling me and offering to — what? Get me a black market heart? Who in the fuck would believe that? I hardly believed it myself and I was the one shaking in fear.
Was it fear?
Dr. Hawthorne continued to draw me in, despite how much he scared me. Every time I closed my eyes, it was him who I saw pressing me into the earth. Two pools of obsidian and a mask of perfection. I had searched him online, looking into any and all Dr. Hawthornes in Boston and found two results: one was a graying man who’s private medical practice had been retired years ago, and the other was his son.
Theron Hawthorne.
He’d attended Tufts University right here in the city and now worked as a trauma surgeon at the Boston Medical Center where we had met. There wasn’t much more I could find, even with a first and last name. No social media, a few peer reviewed medical journals and that was it.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked aloud, sinking onto the couch and burying my face in my hands, knees tucked close to my chest.
Dr. Hawthorne presented himself as an average doctor with a well-paying job and comfortable career in medicine, but beneath it all was a wolf with dripping teeth. Was he bored? What was it in me that made his body warm, and cock harden against me?
What did it say about me that a part of me was excited by him? It’d been years since I had allowed anyone close enough to hurt me, and it hadn’t been lonely per se, but the nights had been long and there was only so much I could do myself. Not that I could feel much pleasure anymore. One of the shit side effects of antidepressants is that they affect all forms of stimulation, and yeah — I can feel pleasure but it’s hard to reach completion.
Something told me that Theron Hawthorne wouldn’t have a problem with that. His tongue on my neck, and hand on my waist were almost enough to have me seeing stars. He had actually spit into my mouth! In my dreams, he chased me through the empty halls of the hospital, taunting me and calling my name. Every night, he chased me, and every night, I let him catch me.
Theron Hawthorne was something I had never experienced before. My sexuality had been coaxed out of me at a rather young age, exploring subjects far beyond my comprehension through books and media, before I was able to see a PG-13 movie with my friends at the theater. Hawthorne had picked up on my Anne Rice references, and constant journal entries about the books I was reading. Her Sleeping Beauty series had been placed in my hands far too young, and I soon started to wander into the more taboo forms of sex and pleasure .
A perfect storm whilst entering high school, allowing teenage boys to play my feelings and body like I was a cheap instrument. Everything was for them, and I always ended up feeling empty and used. Alone.
Looking down at my body, I was disgusted. I wanted to rip the flesh clean from my bones, tearing away everything that made me who I was in hopes of new skin making me feel whole again. I imagined a carving knife in my hand, taking chunks at a time away until I was the sculpture I wished for myself. Maybe if I just…
No, I couldn’t pick up the blade again. I forced my legs to move, getting off the couch to put on my clothes and winter coat. Maybe a little fresh air and a new book would take my mind off things. I’d been hiding under the covers with my kindle for nearly a week, but I craved the feeling of ink beneath my fingertips and the weight of a hardback on my lap. There was a certain level of calm that a physical book provided, a kind of tether to reality, that a kindle just couldn’t match.
The sun was long gone by the time I disappeared into the T stop, waiting for the next train to take me towards the seaport and my favorite antique bookstore . I’d been going there since I was a girl, letting my eyes roam over the falling stacks of classic literature, Harvard journals and thrifted books. It was a haven for me when the days seemed most bleak.
It had since become increasingly popular with tourists during the summer months, everyone wanting to funnel into the alleyway bookstore that reminded them of Diagon Alley. They were more likely to stand outside and pose for photos than buy something they could take home and cherish.
The train came later than scheduled, quite normal for Boston transit, and I rode it to State street, emerging back into the fading daylight at the Boston Massacre historic site. Why they decided to stack a train station under a tourist-packed historic site is beyond me.
Commonwealth Books was still quiet, but it was almost spring and soon it’d be filled with loud tourists and disinterested mood readers. The bell chimed above me as I pushed through the door and smiled at the owner from behind his leaning tower of new arrivals. By new, I meant new to the store, not new releases. Their covers were all worn canvas, ripped paperbacks and the occasional dictionary that he meticulously researched before adding to the vast collection.
I traveled to the back of the store where the fiction section was housed, and let a genuine smile tug at my lips when I saw a volley of Anne Rice novels and decades old copies of Dracula . I must have owned a dozen different copies of the beloved vampire opus, but they all held different memories from stages of my life. There were nineties paperbacks I could use and abuse, unafraid of snow and rain wetting the covers as I read near the train station. I couldn’t forget my first copy, stolen from the public library when I was twelve because the librarian told me I was too young to check it out.
My fingers rested on a copy of The Vampire Lestat , and I bit the inside of my cheek as I thought of the charismatic Lestat de Lioncourt — so self assured and wildly obsessive with everything that caught his eye. Debate raged among readers over the legitimacy of Lestat’s love for Louie, questioning whether his obsession could translate into love. I think it could.
I left the shop with the book held tight to my chest, thanking the owner as he locked the door behind me for the night. It had gotten late, and I was anxious to get back home as the winter wind swept down the alley and blew my hair around my face like a veil. Pulling my scarf tighter around my neck, I started the short walk back to the T stop.
The station was busy with commuters on their way home from a long day in the city, most of them would get off near a Park and Ride to head out of Boston. If you were within the city, you were either incredibly wealthy or in subsidized housing units — I fell into the latter group.
I was shoulder to shoulder with others as the slow train headed back towards my stop. Most people had their heads down buried in their phones, unwilling or unable to to communicate with anyone these days. I couldn’t blame them — I hardly spoke to anyone either. I looked up, eyes scanning across the disinterested passengers when a pair of dark eyes caught my own and my mouth went dry.
Hawthorne.
His smile grew knowing as he caught my attention, both of us on opposite sides of a crowded train. I was frozen in fear and shock, wondering how long he had been following me, or if this was truly by coincidence.
Oh shut up, Ever. Nothing with Hawthorne was a coincidence.
Hello, little rabbit. He mouthed to me with a smirk.
The crowd of passengers continued to thin with each stop, and with each rush of cold air from the closing doors, Theron Hawthorne moved towards me. I had one hand wrapped securely around the book, the other clutching a handrail, slick with sweat. We never broke eye contact as the train car grated and jostled, the high pitched clacking of the wheels and low rumble of conversation feeling distant. It all faded away.
A burst of static overhead announced that my stop was next, and though habitual impulse — ingrained from years of watching CSI and SVU — told me that I shouldn’t get off here lest he follow me home, I shook the thought away. I knew for a fact that Hawthorne already had my address. If he had my psychiatric journals and phone number, I bet he could point to which window was mine from the sidewalk outside my building. It was pointless to pretend otherwise.
Leave. Me. Alone. I mouthed back to him as the train rumbled into my station, our eyes locked for dominance as neither wanted to be the first to move. Predator and prey. Who would run first?
The moment the doors opened, I tore my gaze from his like breaking a spell and dashed through them, my shoulders knocking into others as their curses followed me up the stairs. It wasn’t until I reached street level that I turned to appraise the crowd funneling up the cement platform and disappearing to wherever their life had them going next. I didn’t see his midnight eyes, or dark locks in the crowd and had to wonder if the pit in my stomach was from relief or disappointment.
I took a shaky breath and walked the rest of the way home, stopping every few feet to scan the faces of the people behind me. By the time I made it back to my apartment my book was damp from the wet snow, and my nose felt cold to the touch. I buried myself under the covers with a book from my kindle and didn’t pick up The Vampire Lestat .
It reminded me of him .