Chapter 16
Sixteen
MARIS
Isound like a weirdo freak when I open the door to Julian. You came back? Really? God, what the fuck, Maris. Of all the damn things I could have said when I opened the door, I said that. It isn’t even so much that I said it, it’s that I asked it.
I asked it.
I wince at how pathetic and lonely the question no doubt makes me seem but it’s true.
I didn’t expect him to come back, not after I saw Mrs. Bernaden stop him.
She calls herself Mrs. Owens, which is just weird.
She isn’t even a real Owens, she married into the family and took to calling the real Mrs. Owens her sister.
She had a few kids before Mr. Owens kicked the bucket and that kind of sealed the deal, I guess.
She swore she was an Owens, so much so that I can’t even remember what her maiden last name is.
She’s remarried now to Mr. Bernaden who owns the real estate agency but still claims Mr. Owens’ as her husband.
I didn’t think I’d see her. I never see her anymore, not since she re-married and moved to the south end of town in one of the newer developments.
She’s hardly ever around, only coming by when there’s someone renting that she thinks is worth it.
Of course she’d mark Julian as someone worth a visit.
He's the handsome new doctor in town and she’s got a desperate aging daughter at home to marry off.
Jane is okay, or she was when we went to school together.
I never really knew her and she joined the Maris hate train as soon as everyone else turned on me.
I’ve seen her hanging out with Minnie on socials.
From the look of it, Jane’s replaced me as Minnie’s best friend.
Whatever. I don’t care. Minnie is a bitch and so are all my old friends. Jane is welcome to them.
But what Jane is not fucking welcome to is Julian. Jane and Julian, even their names sound cutesy and perfect for a couple. Fuck that.
I went upstairs to spy on him after I definitely saw him looking at me through the kitchen window, I think Mrs. Bernaden saw me too. Rookie fucking mistake, Maris. I’m lucky the old bat didn’t wave at me, but that would require her acknowledging me, something she’d never be caught doing.
She’s not her kindly sister, she’s some weirdo social vampire that tries too hard to look younger than she is and who knows better than to topple her precarious deck of cards in town by talking to me. I’m social suicide in a place like Vesper Point.
I keep watching while they talk. Whatever Mrs. Bernaden is saying isn’t sitting well with Julian.
That’s the only thing that keeps me from locking the door and crawling back into bed.
The safest thing to do would be to go back to bed but I don’t move.
I watch Julian and Mrs. Bernaden talk for a few more minutes and it’s obvious that he’s done with the conversation when he turns away from her but he only makes it a step or two before Mrs. Bernaden opens her big, fat mouth.
I can read her lips from how she spits her words at Julian’s back. “She’s a murderer, you know.”
My insides shrivel and go to ash. There’s no way Julian is going to come back here.
He won’t. He’ll turn his back on me like everyone else in this town, he’ll probably go to some stupid dinner party Mrs. Bernaden is throwing to pawn her daughter off on him and they’ll talk about how unfortunate it is that the property he is renting is next to me, a murder.
“She wasn’t always like that…she used to be normal. Sweet.”
“She’s not right, not since her grandmother died. God rest her soul.”
“She used to go out with my friend’s fiancé. He said he couldn't look at her after what she did and not get sick.”
I can hear it. I have heard it. I’ve seen variations of it in the comment section of social media posts and even in the newspaper comment section.
I deleted those for a while until Josie started doing it for me.
Now the rest of the staff cycles through so it’s not just her.
I saw Mary and Lyle, heads together, fingers clicking and whispering at breakneck speed this week.
I hadn’t realized why until I went through to check out the back end of the website to update our hours and saw the removed comments in the history.
None of them were worth remembering but for some reason the mention of Billy in those comments got under my skin.
I bet it was Minnie commenting under a fake profile but still. It sucked.
I sigh and lean my head forward against the window sill, fully prepared to watch Julian turn back to his house and accept Mrs. Bernaden’s bullshit but that doesn’t happen.
One second passes, and then another. I watch him speak and then he’s on the move again towards my back door.
For a nanosecond I sit in stunned silence.
He didn’t leave.
“He’s coming back.”
It’s probably just because he has some guilty conscience about being a doctor and it’s obvious I’ve been beat to shit. He wouldn’t be able to turn his back on me and not carry out his doctorly oath or something….but still…
It doesn’t matter why, he’s coming back.
I rise up from my knees and rush downstairs as fast as I can.
I practically trip over my own feet when I hit the stairs but I catch myself.
Thank god. Can you imagine the fucking headlines if I fell and broke my neck while a doctor waited outside?
I scowl just thinking of how happy that would make some people.
“Fuck that,” I growl and right myself. I make it down the stairs in record time and I’m in the hallway when I hear the knock at the back door. A second later I’m in the kitchen and opening the door, and fucking saying that stupid thing.
“You came back?”
“I did.”
Julian’s answer is easy, warm, the smile on his face doesn’t betray the fact that I saw him with Mrs. Bernaden or that he knows I saw him with her. He looks like Prince Charming standing at my door with his shining golden hair and broad shoulders. Like a hero come to rescue the princess.
Too bad I’m not a fucking princess.
I open the door wider for him. I hear the break in my own voice, how small I sound when I speak and I hate it. My face burns hot and I look away from him when he enters. I’m the villain of the story. Since when do I get to feel like I’m being rescued?
I’m silent while Julian goes to the table and begins to unpack his bag. I close the door and hesitate to turn around, but I do when Julian speaks.
“I brought painkillers and enough salves that I’ll have your face healed by tomorrow.”
I look at him in surprise. “Tomorrow? But how?” I raise a hand to touch my face, the bruised and swollen flesh is tender to the touch. The second my fingers make contact, it’s like my cells remember they’re in pain. My face throbs and feels like it’s on fire.
“There’s no way you can heal this by tomorrow,” I say because it’s true. He can’t. “No one can.”
Julian smiles and sets a jar down on the table. “Oh, but I can. Trust me, Maris. Doctor’s orders.”
There’s something about the soft smile, the slight upturn of his lips that hits with the way his voice drops.
Just an octave. Low enough that I feel it.
Something shifts inside of me, like a switch flipped deep down and I know that I want Julian.
I want the way he looks at me to go on forever. I want him to kiss me.
To fuck me.
“Maris?”
I suck in a deep breath because once again I’ve zoned the fuck out when I should have been answering him like a normal person.
“I-I, yeah, okay, I trust you.”
Julian’s smile glows brighter. “That’s what I like to hear.” He pulls out a chair from the table and motions for me to take a seat. “Sit for me?”
I nod but don’t say anything and cross the room and slide into the seat shakily.
I’m not used to wanting a man, not like this.
There’s been no one in my love life except for Billy.
I’ve never even had a one night stand. Me wanting Julian the way I do is so out of character for me.
And killing a man isn’t? My traitor bitch subconscious asks me.
“Now this may sting a bit,” Julian tells me.
He’s pulled out a chair to sit in front of me, close enough that our knees brush, even more so when he scoots closer a second later and his knee slides up mine to my inner thigh.
I almost forget how to breathe just from the pressure of his body so close to mine.
It’s not much, just the feel of his leg against mine but it’s enough to send my body into a full on spiral.
“Okay,” I tell him, when I realize he’s waiting for me to answer him.
The smell of antiseptic hits my nose a second later and then he’s moving closer still to start swabbing my wounds.
My whole face is stinging by the time he starts to apply a healing salve with the same light touch.
I let out a sigh of relief, grateful that the stinging is…
well, less. It’s not gone, not by a long shot but it’s a dull throb rather than a painful throb.
I can take this. The antiseptic stings, the light touch of the swab followed by the cool salve marks the time as Julian works.
Swab. Sting. Salve. Repeat.