3. Chapter Three
Chapter three
Hummingbird
I had that drink she suggested… and several others that day.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw his face, his smile, his eyes. I heard his voice the same way he said it the day he walked out the door to collect the supplies. My heart felt like it was in a vice, gripped tight by grief, anger, and rage that he had been taken from me.
Again.
By the time the bottle was empty, I had a raging headache, and not from the alcohol. I couldn’t stop crying. I really thought this house would have been our salvation. Was the lockdown setup ideal? No, but it meant I stayed alive.
Me and not him.
On the counter was the box holding his boring ass cereal.
As if called to it, I took one agonizing step after another toward it and ran a finger over where it was closed at the top.
Despair washed over me again, and I didn’t fight it.
I hugged it to my chest and fell to the floor, tears streaming down my face, letting the misery overtake me.
There wasn’t going to be anyone to hold me when I was having a rough day.
No one to bring me chocolate and the heating pad when my cramps were ridiculous.
No one to laugh at my stupid jokes. No one to assuage my fears.
The next day, I managed to drink some water, make myself grilled cheese, and heat up tomato soup. I even ate most of it. There was also a half-eaten bag of chips I picked at.
I kept catching myself wandering back to the security room, watching the camera feeds, waiting for any sign of Derek coming back, and then would promptly burst into tears when I remembered he never would.
It sucked.
Several days passed like this, and then one morning, a ding from my phone caught my attention.
It wasn’t a text sound. There was only one app that made that noise.
The super secure, double encrypted messaging app Lynette’s tech guy had convinced me to use.
Granted, his version of convincing was sending me a cell phone preloaded with it, complete with written out instructions.
It also came with a note from Lynette asking me to use it, as it would make everything easier.
Right now, I was grateful for it. Hell, the phone was the reason I even had a voicemail from Derek I could listen to… on repeat.
I unlocked the phone and tapped on the screen to open the message.
Tech:
There was no real reason for him to be contacting me about my surveillance.
If there was a problem, he usually knew about it well before I did and often had it fixed by the time I noticed it.
He was likely worried about me. It was sweet.
A sad smile tugged at the corner of my mouth.
Derek would have loved that someone was checking in on me.
Ever since Lynette brought on a new person onto the team protecting me, he’d been checking in with me, making sure Derek and I were good, and helping me update parts of my security system programming.
I’d been trying to figure out exactly who it was.
Lynette refused to use real names in writing, so everyone involved with keeping me alive had code names.
So far, I’d only been able to figure out his initials were RS, and that had been a process in its own right.
It had been a long time since I’d been at the Agosti house, but the only tech people I knew of on payroll with those initials were Ross and Ryan Smith.
I’d met and chatted with them at a couple of parties hosted by the Agostis, but it had been part of a group introduction, and I never had the chance to chat one-on-one.
Hummingbird:
Tech:
I glanced up at the small hummingbird painting on the wall and let out a weary sigh.
Hummingbird:
Tech:
What has he gone through? Has he lost someone?
I had so many questions, but barraging him right now was not the answer.
Hummingbird:
Tech:
Why is he asking and not Edith? What happened to the stuff Derek picked up?
I had to force myself to take a few calm breaths, and then a wry laugh came out as I typed my response.
Hummingbird:
Tech:
A thought popped into my head.
Hummingbird:
Tech:
A tiny smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. It was nice to receive such a positive reaction to one of my favorite snacks.
Hummingbird:
My heart went out to the woman who had been more of a mother to me than my biological one. She was probably hurting as much as I was.
Tech:
Hummingbird:
Tech:
I let out a sigh.
Hummingbird:
Tech:
The last thing I wanted to be was a burden, but he was offering, and the silence was becoming too much. I settled in on the couch, glad to have someone to talk to, even if it was only for a couple of minutes.
Hummingbird:
Tech:
Hummingbird:
Tech:
My heart somehow soared and broke a little more at the same time. Wait. Ross is with Jess… is this Ryan? I shook my head. It didn’t matter who it was right now.
Hummingbird:
Hummingbird:
Tears rolled down my face as I typed.
Hummingbird:
Hummingbird:
Tech:
Tech:
Tech:
Hummingbird:
Tech:
When he didn’t say anything else for a couple minutes, I assumed he had been pulled away or moved on to whatever else he needed to work on.
The small, very normal-feeling conversation had me tearing up again, but I took a deep breath and made myself get up and into the shower.
I couldn’t just sit on the couch, crying forever.
While I did end up crying in the shower, I pulled myself back together before the water ran cold and felt better once I was out and dressed again.
There was a message waiting for me on my phone when I finally picked it up.
Momma E:
I let out a sigh as I stared at the wall. With being lost in a fog of grief, I’d completely forgotten about my birthday. After checking the calendar on my phone, I realized it was tomorrow.
Do I even want to celebrate? It felt wrong.
Hummingbird:
Momma E:
Momma E:
Momma E:
A genuine smile appeared on my face.
Hummingbird:
Momma E:
Tears flowed freely again.
Hummingbird:
Momma E:
Knowing I was going to have a visitor gave me something to look forward to instead of the unending silence, grief, and loneliness. It was only then, when I looked around, that I realized just how much of a squalor I was living in.
She can’t see the place like this.
I knew Edith would be the last person to judge me, especially after the past week, but I didn’t want this mess to be what she saw.
The drive to clean up my space and get ready for company shoved everything else out of my head.
It took several hours, and by the time I stopped to get something to eat, I was almost proud of my home again.
After a dinner of more grilled cheese, I finished the last of the cleaning, vacuuming, and mopping, and headed into the bathroom. I didn’t need to stink out the woman.
After taking a bath and using one of the hydrating facial masks Derek had bought for us, I put on clean pajamas and one of his hoodies, crawled into my nest I’d made on the couch, and for the first time in almost a week, I actually slept.