6. Only You
6
Only You
Theron
I had her in my arms, and I let her go.
I wouldn’t make the same mistake again, but this was all a part of the chase. Ever wouldn’t be an easy catch — that’s what made me crave her so ardently. The smell of lavender and books brought a groan to my lips, and the taste of her skin below my tongue was enough to have me question my faith in God. If there was a higher power, then it existed in her veins.
If I was made in his image, then what supreme Venus was Ever? A celestial being of light and darkness, good and evil wrapped up in a decadent package. I’d almost lost control that day, feeling her warmth pressed against me like a lifeline I almost refused to let go of. But she would come back, because she was more curious than scared. She was a brave girl. I just needed to give her time before the chase. I didn’t want to scare her away for good.
Ever Knight presented herself as an incredibly complex woman — so she would like all of her doctors and therapists to believe. It only took me an hour with her files to see through all the bullshit excuses of generalized anxiety disorders and teenage angst to see the truth.
She was hurt by someone. Badly. Ever Knight was living with PTSD, brought on by abuse and further abandonment after the trauma.
Knight, Ever
Patient presents with bouts of isolating behavior, lack of appetite and self-harm. Start date for symptoms is unknown. Patient’s first attempt on her life was made at fifteen. Patient school records note above average grades, accelerated classes and an enthusiastic attitude towards the arts and reading. Knight is reluctant to share her social or romantic habits with any of her doctors, though she briefly mentions a romantic relationship in high school that predates her first sign of depression.
Family medical history unknown.
Emergency contact: Knight, Jane // (617) 536-5400
I smirked to myself as I read the number for the Boston Public Library and an obviously fake name that the doctors were either too stupid to see or didn’t care enough to call out. My smile faltered, though, when I realized it was either because she really didn’t have anyone or she had distanced herself from anyone who might have cared.
Even a psychopath like myself had a father who mildly cared about my well-being enough to call me every few months and adopted brothers who sent Christmas cards. I couldn’t find much about her family, only the name of her mother from her juvenile records, but that all dropped off when she was emancipated at seventeen.
“What are you hiding from me, little rabbit?” I tutted as I flipped to another page of her psychiatric evaluation. This one was from her first hospital stint at sixteen, and parts of her day journal were photo copied into the reports.
January 17th, 2017
Have you ever hated someone so much that you couldn’t imagine a world without them in it? Felt a rush of pain so immense that it reminded you of them, and then you wanted to cut and tear them from your body? I hate him it here.
I took the poorly copied paper between my fingers and sat back in my desk chair. The sun had already set, my large office cast in light and shadow from the warm glow emitted by the lamp on my desk.
“Him,” I muttered to myself as I let my eyes scan over the other papers. I’d uploaded all her files to a drive that could be reviewed in my home office, but this was a page I hadn’t gotten to last night. I couldn’t believe that despite years of therapy and psych stents and a doctor hadn’t picked up on the connection between whoever he was and her one romantic relationship from high school.
Maybe it was because this state brushed underprivileged and saddened youth under the rug like insects. Laying out sticky traps, like highly addictive painkillers and antidepressants rather than trying to identify and address the underlying issue. But why would they? Pharmaceutical companies need depressed people. They need you to feel just numb, just dependent enough to keep refilling your prescriptions.
This wasn’t to say that I disagreed with the use of medications to help those who really needed them, but I was much more interested in the underlying cause of the mental illness. The life experiences that had driven someone to chemical dependency. I knew that Ever was someone who had relied on those drugs for years, and having to suddenly come off of them because of her heart condition was not ideal for her poisonous thoughts. I wished more than anything in the world that I could write her a script for something that would make her pain go away, but it was too dangerous. Until she had a new heart, and she had kicked her substance abuse issues, I needed to find another way to stave off her darkness.
I’d looked into her charts and saw that Warren had prescribed Eszopiclone for insomnia, something she’d taken before and expressed adverse effects to. If my Ever was willing to take it again, it meant she was faring far worse than I’d imagined. It also meant she was probably searching out street drugs to fill the gaps where Warren — and myself — were unwilling or unable to prescribe her.
I took out my phone and looked down at the photos I had found on her social media, most of them older and with an obviously forced mask of happiness. Pictures of her in high school with her shoulders folded inward, face gaunt and pale. She’d had a history of eating disorders as well, though not caught until much later. As the years progressed, even the mask fell, like she was too tired to hold it up anymore.
I quickly dialed her number, and when she picked up on the first ring I felt heat bloom in my chest like someone had carved me open. Torn through my skin and muscles and etched her into my heart.
“Little rabbit,” I cooed. “You picked up.”
“What do you want, Hawthorne?”
I swallowed the groan that threatened to emerge at the sound of my name on her lips. I would rather her call me Theron, but this was a start. I would take anything she could give me, and in time, I would take everything.
“How are you feeling tonight?” I could tell from her voice that she wasn’t high — not yet. She was either feeling well enough to avoid the Hydrocodone or it was too early in the evening. I checked my watch and saw that it was a quarter to six and hoped that I was just catching her on a good day.
“I’m dying. How do you think I’m feeling?” She bit out, and my hand flexed under the table with an urge to spank her attitude out of her. Not so much that it doesn’t return, but just the right amount to have her pliable and eager for more like she was in the office.
“I won’t let that happen, Ever. Now, what are you wearing?”
A choking sound came from the other line, and she sputtered before the phone went dead. I laughed and immediately redialed. She answered right away.
“Is this all a game to you? Stalking dying women and forcing them into abandoned offices where you can have your way with them?
“Not women , little rabbit. Only you.”
She was quiet.
I glanced over at the papers on my desk, choosing another journal entry that I had looked over this morning. “Tell me about your favorite Anne Rice novel,” I asked and knew she would bristle at my request. “You seem to be drawn towards complicated characters.”
I could almost see her expression from here — a little deer-in-the-headlights, and my fingers made lazy circles over the desk as I imagined her soft skin and how she tasted. How full of life and anger. I wanted to own her anger. Her hate.
“Reading my journal entries is really fucked up, you know? What else do you think you know about me from old scribbles in a notebook I was forced to write? Can you tell me my favorite color?”
She was seething on the other end, and my cock hardened at the idea of her standing in front of me, her wild curls bouncing around her shoulders. I imagined what it would feel like for her hand to strike me and the marks she could leave with her nails and teeth.
Oh, Ever. We could make such beautiful art out of one another.
I laughed. “Ever, you’re not so hard to read when you know what to look for, and I just want to get to know you. You’ve been screaming into the void for so long that I can imagine it’s hard to think someone will actually hear you. But I can hear you, rabbit. I see through the scribbles , and I know what you need. Will scream for me, Ever?”
“What I need is to change my phone number so I can die in peace.”
My shoulders tensed. “I’ve told you, you’re not going to die, rabbit. Once you give me what I want, I’ll hand you the world on a silver platter.”
“And what is it that you want, Hawthorn? Not enough women throwing themselves at you, so instead you go after those who are dying? Alone?”
“I want you, little rabbit. All of you — venom and all.”
She was quiet again, and I could hear the very faint sound of a stereo playing in the background of her apartment. Her files had detailed that music therapy had been a huge help in her overall progression through the programs. She was drawn to literature, art and theater.
I could make a symphony out of your pain and your pleasure, little rabbit.
“And why is that? Why me?” Her voice was quiet, and unsure. Anxiety and shame were life-long friends in her life, and they wielded their ugly heads more than I cared to see.
“Because I’ve been screaming into the void as well, Ever, and you’re the first one to scream back.”
“You’re psychotic,” she whispered like she was telling me something I’d never heard before. A revelation she was hand delivering. “I don’t even know you, and you sure as hell don’t know me just because you have access to my medical records and felt me up at the hospital.”
“Maybe we’re both a little crazy, Ever. Would that be such a bad thing?”
She was breathing heavily, the phone moving around in her hand. “And what makes you think that I want you, hm? Why would I give myself to a stranger who makes promises he can’t keep? No doctor can bypass the board and get me on the transplant list. I’m not stupid.”
I tsked. “Oh, I know you want me, Ever. I could feel it in your pulse, in the way your body pressed into mine. And I never said you were stupid — just mistaken. I have no intention of getting you on that transplant list, but I can still get you a heart. A perfect little ticker, but it’ll cost you more than you might be willing to give me right now.”
“I don’t have any money. Didn’t your fucking file tell you that? I’m on State benefits.” I could almost feel her anger vibrating through the phone. Ever, like many others in this broken system, were forced to stay on State benefits in order to keep their healthcare, which meant almost zero financial mobility and complete dependence on the State.
I sighed, wishing that I could just throw her over my shoulder and lock her away until she was ready to see the bigger picture. “I don’t want your money, Ever.”
She paused. “You want me,” she repeated. “To do what?”
“To let me chase you, little rabbit. It’s almost time.”