8. I’m Lonely （But I Ain’t That Lonely Yet）
EIGHT
I’M LONELY (BUT I AIN’T THAT LONELY YET)
HARKINS
I’m closer to her than I’ve been in days. Over a week, she’s been in this asylum, and all I’ve craved is her touch, her voice, her warmth. Now, I’m here, and everything around us is cold, lifeless, and dull.
There’s comfort in watching her sleep, in seeing some sign of existence remaining in her. It feels as if all of me is gone, buried somewhere in the rubble beneath her ribcage. I watch her chest rise and fall, sometimes stuttering on the way up before she releases all the air in her lungs.
I have less than eight minutes until the next bed check. That’s hardly enough time to satiate the deep longing in my very soul that can only be relieved by Camila. I’m not stupid enough to think I can get away with being here. I don’t need to get away with it.
I just need to see her.
Lucky for me—and my current circumstances—the extra containment provisions they’ve demanded have given me the luxury of no roommate and instead, round-the-clock vigilance. My own personal orderly guard dogs at my side to keep me from any sort of freedom.
To keep me from her.
The one benefit? I’m exempt from bed checks with two orderlies camping out next to me.
Outlasting them in staying awake was hardly a challenge.
Once the sedatives left my system, I felt like I could tear the place apart with my bare hands.
The reminder that one of my wrists is still useless quickly humbles me, but it matters very little in this moment.
Even at night, my arms are bound in this medical constraint.
Only twice a day does the nurse free me from the straitjacket to change my bandages.
It’s uncomfortable, the way the mechanism forces my shoulders down, pulling my muscles and straining my back. It’s a constant agony, a burning and scorching I get little relief from.
“Maybe a few days in the jacket will cool you off,” the good doctor had threatened after my altercation with Fred.
Still, I don’t regret it.
Nothing else could have brought me this close to her.
Camila mumbles something in her sleep, the sound of her voice making me desperate for another word, for more of her, for anything she can give me that will make me whole again.
I am echoes of the man I used to be.
The version of myself I loved best is still at home—our home—kept in a glass case where it can never change or grow. It’s safe, though, and that’s enough. This version of me might not make it out of this place.
But it will take me to her.
I take solace in that, in knowing the lines I’ve crossed and will continue to cross will eventually bring me to her. Because at the end of all things, Camila is my sun, and there is no beginning or end until she rises and sets on my horizon.
Footsteps sound just on the other side of the door, much earlier than I’d expected or calculated, throwing off every part of my plan. I take swift steps back, placing myself into the darkest corner of the room and hoping for the best.
“Check.” The door barely cracks open, but when neither girl rouses from their drug-induced sleep, the masculine voice on the other side tries again. “Check.”
I feel myself losing everything before I’ve gained anything at all, my pulse quickening as a grotesque lump forms at the base of my throat. I watch the door open the rest of the way.
Pressing my back into the corner, I stay in the shadows, knowing I’m far too large to go unseen but doing my best to try anyway.
The orderly enters slowly, his flashlight shining at Camila’s face first and then her roommate’s. He doesn’t notice me somehow—he’s too focused on them to see I’m just a few steps behind him. The little man walks toward my girl’s bed, the glow of his light aimed at her chest.
He takes another step, then two more until he’s standing right above her. Every muscle in my body shakes, self-control a losing battle that I fight with every molecule and atom. His fingers reach for her blanket, and my right foot moves on its own.
The orderly tugs it down just enough so her breasts are exposed—she’s still covered by a t-shirt, but her nipples poke through the fabric and make themselves known. I move to take another step, but he moves backward, an inch at a time, until he lowers himself to sit on the edge of her bed.
There’s a pressure in my skull I can’t escape from, a ravenous need to remove the fingers that got too close to her and make every single one of them bleed and break.
It’s not enough; the fantasy and imagery only makes me crave the real thing. I stop myself, my only savior the passing reminder I’m not well enough to handle this creep quietly enough on my own.
I don’t expect it when he pulls his dick out of his pants, though, and even less when he starts jerking it furiously to the sight of the two sleeping girls in the room.
My rage is a boiling fever, and it only further builds the inescapable pressure inside my head.
There’s a high-pitched humming I can’t escape, can’t tune out, and it screams to be silenced.
It begs me to make him pay.
My own weakness eats at me, my inability to protect her from this pervert and the way he uses her image for his own fantasies.
The orderly tucks himself back into his pants to come, probably because he doesn’t want to risk his own DNA being found when the janitors make their rounds and strip the sheets for laundering.
He’s a pathetic, small man, not worth ruining all the work I’ve put into getting down here with her.
Next time, asshole, I’m taking your cock from you.
I make a silent promise to myself.
The orderly leaves just as quickly as he came, but not before flashing his light on their faces again and bothering their sleep for a bed check. The girls mumble something that satisfies his objective, and he closes the door behind him when he leaves the room.
That’s when Camila’s eyes find mine.
They go wide, full of fear and surprise and lacking any recognition.
“Go away,” she whispers. “Go away, go away, go away,” she murmurs repeatedly, every word a stab to my heart, and what comes next twists the blade deep. “I don’t want you here.”
I’m desperate for any piece of her she’ll grant me, even rejection.
I swallow my own heartache down, feeling something real for the first time since Halloween.
I do as she wishes tonight, and I leave.