Chapter 4
Robbie had grown accustomed to how his skin felt two sizes too small, to how he was on alert at all times, how impossible it had felt to sleep for weeks.
He was exhausted but wired, starving but without an appetite.
He felt as if he was always on a taffy puller, stretched too thin over and over but never allowed to break.
He’d almost gotten used to the feeling of boiling in his own panic.
But the heat was new. The shower water beating against his back was ice cold, and still he felt as if he were sweating amongst the droplets clinging to his shorn head.
It was a nauseating sort of heat, and he’d been swallowing bile since opening his eyes that morning.
The small bathroom echoed with loud, bouncy pop music that blared from the portable speaker on the counter.
Walter rested in the soap dish attached to the shower wall, looking wet and disgruntled, his yellow fluff plastered against his tiny body.
Robbie turned off the water and pulled back the shower curtain.
Walter shook himself, sending tiny droplets of water flying before flitting over to the counter, where he rolled around on top of a folded washcloth.
The mirror was fogged up, but Robbie could see himself, his body covered from chin to toes in bright tattoos.
He looked at himself in the mirror, taking in the dark circles under his eyes and hollow look in his cheeks.
Last night, Callum had video-chatted him from Scotland.
When the call connected, he said, “God’s bones, Robbie, ye look like shite.
Ye were a chef, for fuck’s sake. I know ye know how to cook. What the hell happened?”
Robbie hadn’t had a good answer, but he also hadn’t wanted to worry his friend. “I’m bingeing this show, and I keep staying up too late watching. I’ll go to bed on time tonight. Promise.”
He hated lying to his best friend, but he knew Callum, and if Callum suspected he was unwell, he would cut his trip short and come home. Robbie refused to let him do that, not when Callum was happy for the first time in a nearly a millennium.
“Alright, alright,” Callum had said, satisfied. “But drink an electrolyte water and eat a banana, too.”
Before Callum had started a company to create a synthetic blood replacement, Robbie had been Callum’s blood donor.
Before every feed, Callum demanded that Robbie drink electrolytes and eat a banana.
Callum had never eaten a banana himself, as he’d been turned into a vampire long before he would have had access to one, but he was a consummate researcher and had read multiple studies about the importance of potassium and sodium in regulating a body’s hydration post blood donation.
“Yes, Grandpa,” Robbie had said, which never failed to send Callum muttering curses under his breath.
When they’d ended the call, Robbie had rubbed his knuckles over his aching sternum, and then stared at his ceiling for hours until sleep had finally overtaken his racing brain.
Robbie looked in the foggy mirror and scrubbed a hand over his jaw, feeling the prickle of stubble and briefly wondering if it was worth shaving.
Just how much did a first impression matter to a therapist?
It was therapy, not a date. Technically, he imagined he could show up in his pajamas and she would still talk to him.
Deciding against the shave, he slathered on the face cream that Esther had made him buy, wrapped a towel low around his hips, and shut off the speaker before leaving the bathroom.
Fully dry and looking once again like a canary yellow dandelion with wings, Walter flew after him.
He wasn’t accustomed to worrying about how he looked. Jory didn’t care what he wore to the store, as long as he was clothed, and his other job, the one that actually made money, involved his voice and voice alone.
Still in his towel, he went to his laptop on the dresser to check on the status of his upload. He’d written the copy and simply needed to press publish on the newest recording from Sleepless in St. Giles.
“Let’s get right to it, lovers,” he’d said, using what he thought of as his narrator voice.
His narrator voice was clipped and vaguely British-sounding, his mountain twang smoothed over and erased.
“Chapter 10. Benjamin pulled the collar of his coat higher over his ears, not sure what was worse—the icy wind or the stink from the alley he passed before coming to a stop in front of Lady Honora’s infamous establishment.
Benjamin cursed himself for returning here, feeling embarrassed and ashamed in equal measure for how excited he was to be back.
He knocked and had barely lowered his arm to his side when the door opened to reveal the lady herself, dressed as Marie Antoinette, her bosom dangerously spilling over the top of her bodice.
She raked her cold, calculating eyes over Benjamin before calling over her shoulder, ‘Prudence. Your tomcat is back.’”
Ignoring the pit in his stomach, he hit publish. After all, the pit was always there and at some point, the panic over whether people were liking the book had melded into the general panic that coated him like an oil slick.
It was just bad luck—and his shaking hands—that had his coffee mug knocked over and spilling all over the keyboard of his laptop.
“Fuck!” he shouted, reaching for anything he could find to sop up the mess.
But the screen had gone dark and, no matter how many times he pressed the power button, the laptop would not turn on. Cloud storage was a wonderful gift for peace of mind, but it did less than nothing for broken hardware.
Cursing, he carried his laptop to the kitchen and put it in the biggest baking dish he could find before dumping two bags of rice on top. Maybe the trick would work as well for laptops as it always had when he dropped his phone in various bodies of water.
There was nothing to do then but give it time. The laptop could wait, Nadja Stonebreaker could not.
Ten minutes later, he was armored up, or as close to armor as he had.
Black jeans, black tee, black boots. He wanted to wear his black hoodie, but he was suddenly so hot that the thought of long sleeves made him itchy.
He locked the cabin and slouched down the stairs to the small SUV that Callum had insisted upon buying for him even though Robbie had protested loudly that he could more than afford to pay for it himself.
His phone automatically connected to the Bluetooth in the car, the same pop song from the bathroom continuing.
He shut it off, more forcefully that was necessary, as a wave of nausea rolled through him.
He should go get that banana before leaving.
At the very least the electrolyte drink.
But he didn’t want to drink it, didn’t want what had become a vaguely metallic aftertaste.
And he couldn’t even stomach the idea of chewing a banana right now, though a rare steak sounded divine.
He shook his head and backed out of the gravel parking space, turning his car down the access road that led to World’s End’s Main Street.
The town was small that it took him as long to drive down the gravel road to the paved one as it did to drive from the start of the pavement to Nadja Stonebreaker’s small office.
He parked the car, his hands shaking and his breathing getting out of control. Walter came to sit on his shoulder.
Not another panic attack. Not here. Or maybe this was better. Maybe he should stumble through the door mid panic attack so that she could see for herself that it wasn’t all in his head, that he wasn’t making it up, and that he most certainly wasn’t fine.
But he knew he wouldn’t need to do that.
According to Hank, Nadja had listened. She hadn’t told Hank his depression was all in his head.
She’d helped him. Hank had assured Robbie that she could probably help him, too.
He scooped Walter off his shoulder and put him in the cupholder, where he’d stuffed a woolen mitten that was missing its mate.
“You have to stay,” he said when Walter rose up as if to follow him. “You can’t go in there. She’s normal. Regular. A nice human lady. She doesn’t know anything about Brightling Beetles, and it needs to stay that way.”
Walter protested, which sounded like air being let out of a very tiny balloon. Robbie shook his head.
“No. Stay,” he said firmly. He climbed out of the car, shutting the door quickly behind him. Then, with trembling hands and knees that felt like they could give out at any moment, Robbie went to the door and knocked.
“Come in,” a voice called from the other side, and he did, closing the door quickly behind him against the damp.
He didn’t know what he’d expected, but it hadn’t been this. The space was small but warm, with plants on the tops of shelves and worn, mismatched Turkish rugs overlapping on the floor. Bookshelves lined a whole wall, filled with books and knickknacks and boxes and boxes of puzzles.
There was a desk under the window, occupied by who he presumed to be his new therapist. She had dark hair and dark eyes and moon-pale skin.
She wore a chunky turtleneck sweater that Robbie suddenly wanted to climb inside of.
Not with her, just on his own, because it looked like something that would make you would sigh in comfort as soon as you pulled it over your head.
“Robbie Cain?” she said, rounding the desk, and he saw that she wore wide-legged jeans and boots. “Wow, it’s a little cold for just a T-shirt.” It was a comment that didn’t really require a response from him. He cleared his throat, his affirmation sounding more like a croak than an answer.
“Would you like to sit?” she asked, gesturing at one of the two armchairs in front of him.
“I’m early,” he said, finally able to use his voice.
“Oh, that’s alright,” she answered, picking up a banana-yellow travel mug that said There are only two times I feel anxious: day and night. “My last appointment cancelled.”