Chapter Eleven
Theodore
I don’t want her story, real or fictional. It won’t change mine. It won’t bring back the lives that have been taken. I cannot change who I’ve become, what I need, and where I’m going.
Nolan letting her live here is like someone offering me a chip. I say, “No, thank you.” But they insist. Finally, I give in and take a chip. Now I want to eat the whole fucking bag of chips and rip Nolan apart for offering me the stupid chip to begin with.
“Aaaah!!!”
I spit out my toothpaste and wipe my mouth. “For the love of god, woman,” I mumble to myself.
“Theo!”
Two seconds after I open my bedroom door, Scarlet is stuck to me like a koala to a tree. “What the fuck?”
“There’s … there’s …” With her face buried in my neck, she fights to speak each labored word. “An angry lizard in my room!”
“Off. Me. Now.”
She shakes her head, tightening her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist. I walk down the hall with a complete nutcase in a dinky T-shirt and threadbare panties, clinging to me.
“Where?”
“Bathroom.” Her nails dig into my skin as I approach her bathroom.
“It’s an anole.”
“What are you doing?” Her shrill voice pierces my ear.
I bend over, koala still attached, and grab the lizard. Then I walk out onto her balcony and give it a toss. “Gone. Now get off me.”
“What if there’s more?”
“Then toss them over the balcony.”
Her head jerks up, eyes ready to pop out of her head. She smells like all the girly crap I hate. Her skin is too soft. Her lips are too full. Her breath is too warm against my face.
Why is she looking at me? Why isn’t she climbing down?
One of her hands releases my neck as her gaze moves along my face, following her hand that brushes along my cheek, her fingers ghosting over my eyebrows, down my nose and over my lips.
My eyes close and my dick hardens. I don’t care if she can feel it.
Damn chips. I could fucking eat her up in more ways than one right now.
“Tell me …” I whisper, “… tell me a lie.” I need her to talk, anything to keep from stripping her and taking what I want. I thought once would scare her. I thought it would satiate me. It didn’t and I’m not sure it ever will. So, this can’t happen.
She swallows hard. “When I leave here, I’m going back to London to get married. I’ve picked out a lovely forty-five piece handmade tableware set with cobalt blue trim. The guest list is two-hundred and seventy-three.”
My hands go from limp at my sides to wrap around her, but I don’t open my eyes. “What’s your fiancé’s name?” If she hesitates, then it’s made up.
“Daniel.” She doesn’t hesitate.
He’s real. Where the fuck is this guy and why is he allowing this woman to have her body wrapped around mine?
“What does he do?”
“He’s a highly-sought-after wildlife photographer and videographer.”
“Did he give you that necklace.”
I don’t have to open my eyes to know that her hand moves to the ruby pendant dangling from the gold chain around her neck. I’ve never seen her not wearing it, but when she gets nervous, her hand moves to it, like a talisman.
“No.”
“What’s the most valuable thing you’ve ever stolen?”
I can’t remember the last time I felt someone’s heartbeat against mine. Why is she here? I get it, God. You know what I’m planning and you think she’s going to distract me. It’s too late.
She releases her grip on me, and I let her slide to her feet. Letting her go isn’t easy, but it’s necessary. That single, most unexpected thought gives me pause. Leaving behind an unsettling pain that I fucking hate.
I open my eyes to the many flecks of brown and gold in hers.
After several blinks, she whispers, “A life.”
*
Days and weeks pass in more silence. Scarlet seems to disappear emotionally.
After days of nonstop jabbering, she closes off from the world.
She spends more time with the crazy Asian guy, takes longer walks, and devours more books that have cluttered the house, only outnumbered by the fucking plants.
I don’t say anything about the mess, it’s a fair trade for her silence.
She’s all skin and bones. I haven’t seen her eat solid food in weeks.
She drinks juice, lots of juice, and really potent teas that she makes from some weird weed-looking crap brewing in a ceramic pot.
Clearly, she has an eating disorder, but it’s none of my business.
If she wants to starve to death, who am I to change the course of her life.
I sure as hell don’t want anyone trying to change the course of mine.
However, the most disturbing part is how much she watches me.
When I work around the house, I feel her eyes on me.
She thinks I don’t see her, but I do. I see her peeking over the top of a book, giving me quick glances at the kitchen table, and I feel her footsteps in the sand a safe distance back every morning when I return home after my swim.
She’s everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
In my head.
On my nerves.
Gnawing at my conscience.
I hope she’s not waiting for me to save her. I’m no one’s savior.
“Where are you going?” Her voice halts my forward motion.
I’ve succumbed to the real possibility that one day I’ll come home to her wasted-away body dead on the floor.
I slowly look back over my shoulder to her standing at the bottom of the stairs in a white beach-looking dress, hair curly, like what black women look like when they don’t try to deny the fact that their hair is meant to have life.
It distracts a bit from the gauntly look in her face, much like the loose dress hiding her bony body, except her arms. They still look like a skeleton covered in a thin layer of brown skin.
“I’m going to town for some supplies.”
“Mind if I ride along?”
Of course I mind if she rides along. “It’s just the hardware store.”
“Works for me.” She smiles.
She has no life.
As soon as we pull out of the drive, she slips off her sandals and tucks her legs underneath her, staring out her window. Since weeks of silence has been broken, I expect her driveling to commence, but she seems quite enamored with the view as we make our way off Tybee.
“So beautiful,” she whispers. I don’t think her comment was meant for me to hear.
I clear my throat along with the unwelcome thoughts of her in my head. “I’ll be starting on the upstairs in a few days. It’s the last project before I leave. So all of our bedroom furniture will need to be moved out so I can work on the floors. You can take the sofa sleeper.”
She turns to me. “Where will you sleep?”
“I’ll stick a cot in the kitchen.”
She laughs, looking back out the window. “You can put your ‘cot’ by the sofa. I’m used to your snoring.”
“I don’t snore.”
“You do. I hear it when both of our bedroom windows are open.”
“I don’t—”
“You totally do. It’s so loud it could be its own instrument in your imaginary band.”
Rolling my lips together, I keep my focus on the road, but I can feel her looking at me, and I know she’s smiling.
“Oh, Theodore Reed …” She sighs and leans back, seemingly quite content. “You are a labyrinth—an onion with infinite layers. If given the chance, I think I could really miss you someday.” Her eyes close with a soft smile gracing her face.
What does she mean by that?