Текст книги "The Monster Within"
Автор книги: Kelly Hashway
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Kelly Hashway
The Monster Within
To Ayla with love.
CHAPTER ONE
MY life began again the second I pulled myself out of my grave and looked into his beautiful blue eyes. This was my second chance, and he was the one who had given it to me. I wasn’t sure if I was a living being in the traditional sense. What did you call someone who came back from the dead? A zombie? Undead? I wasn’t happy with either term. I certainly didn’t feel like a zombie. I still had all of my own thoughts and memories. It was nothing like I imagined it would be.
“Sam.” My name was barely a whisper on Ethan’s lips. Even in the dim lights of the cemetery, I could see his eyes watering at the sight of me. “It worked. You’re you again.”
I looked down at my body, inspecting every limb. I was wearing a black dress. Mom’s favorite, so I understood why she’d had me buried in it. I stared at my casket, unable to get over the fact that I’d been dead.
I raised my eyes to Ethan’s. “How did you do it?”
“It doesn’t matter. All that matters is you’re here.” He stepped forward and pulled me close to him, running his fingers through my long, dark hair.
I rested my cheek on his chest, wondering what lengths he had gone to in order to bring me back. Before I died, Ethan said he’d find a way for us to be together again. That he refused to lose me so soon. I had shrugged them off as the desperate words of a guy watching his seventeen-year-old girlfriend die of cancer. He’d been so amazing through all of it. He’d never left my bedside, and I remembered he’d been holding my hand when I took my last breath.
I tilted my head back to look at his tear-streaked face. “I have to know how you did it.”
“Shh,” he said softly. “I found someone who could help me, who knew what to do. Besides that, there’s nothing you need to know.”
He was keeping something from me, and that could only mean he’d done something big. Big enough that I would get upset if he told me. Still, being in his arms again was heaven. He’d given me the gift of life. How could I question that?
“How do you feel?” He held me by my shoulders and looked back and forth between my eyes. “You look like you. Everything seem okay?”
“Yeah. I feel like me. Not like a zombie or anything.”
He squeezed my shoulders. “You’re not. You’re you. I promise. I made sure of it.”
“But—”
He raised a finger to my lips. “We have to go. We can’t stay here where someone might see you.”
I hadn’t thought about that. To everyone else, I was dead. My parents, my brother Jacob, my friends—they all thought I was dead. If I waltzed back into my old life, they’d think they were seeing a ghost. That, or they’d have me turned into a lab rat to figure out how I’d come back to life. Even I didn’t have the answer to that. Only Ethan did. And what if they figured out he was responsible for me being alive again? What if they locked him up for messing with the laws of nature?
“Where are we going?” I was suddenly determined to leave as soon as possible.
“My cousin has a little cottage in the Poconos. He never uses it. It’s not in the best shape, but we’ll be okay there.” Ethan let go of me long enough to close my casket and grab a shovel. “I have to get this back the way it was. No one can suspect your body isn’t inside this grave.”
“How long was I gone?” I had no sense of time, but the flowers on my grave were fresh, so I was guessing only a matter of days.
“Four days. The four longest days of my life.” He dropped the shovel and wrapped his arms around me again.
I breathed in his scent, not even caring that he smelled mostly of dirt and sweat from digging up my casket. Besides, I couldn’t smell much better. Nobody ever made a perfume in “Dirt-Covered Corpse” scent. “I’ll help you cover the grave again.”
“No.” He let go of me and picked up the shovel. “You’ve been through enough. I’ll do it. You go wait in the car. I can’t risk anyone seeing you.”
If Ethan got caught shoveling dirt back onto my grave, he’d be in serious trouble. But he was right. If he got caught and I was standing there with him, we’d both be totally screwed. I nodded and walked to his red Mazda 6. I had always loved his car. He used to take me for long drives down back roads, where we could pretend we were the only people in the world and there was no such thing as being terminally ill at seventeen.
I watched Ethan shovel the dirt back onto my grave, and it was surreal. I couldn’t get past the feeling that I didn’t belong here. I’d been dealt my hand, and yes, it sucked, but that should’ve been the end of it. I should’ve been in the ground or in the afterlife. Ethan walked back to the car, wiping his forehead with his sleeve. He threw the shovel in the trunk and got in the car in a hurry.
“Ready?” he asked, out of breath.
Was I? I wasn’t sure, but I had to at least pretend for Ethan’s sake. Whatever he’d done, it was huge. I owed him my life.
I forced a smile. “Ready.”
He started the car, and as soon as we were out of the cemetery and on the road, he took my hand in his. Our fingers laced and rested on the middle console below the gearshift. Ethan’s car operated as either an automatic or manual. When he was alone, he always drove it manually. But when I was with him, he kept it set to automatic so he could hold my hand while he steered.
I rested my head back on the seat and took a deep breath, wondering how long it would take for me to get used to being here again. I should’ve been happy, but something was nagging me. Pulling at my thoughts and screaming, “Look out!” Maybe it was just leftover anxiety from my illness, from knowing any moment could be my last. The final days had been awful. I hadn’t been able to get out of bed. Mom and Dad had let me stay home because I hated being in the hospital. I’d spent too much time in a hospital for one lifetime. Ethan slept over every night. My parents had practically adopted him by that point. He loved me and refused to leave my side, except to use the bathroom.
Mom always said what Ethan and I had was more than high-school sweetheart stuff. Maybe she was right. Maybe the universe decided that, since I wasn’t going live long enough to get married, have kids, and grow old, I should at least get to have the love of my life before I died. I was thankful for that much.
“What are you thinking?” Ethan asked, invading my thoughts.
“You were so amazing. Through everything. You were stronger than I was.” I choked back the tears.
“Hey.” He turned to face me, lifting our hands to his mouth and kissing my fingers. “Don’t think about that. We have a second chance. This is our life now.”
I didn’t want to break his heart with all my questions about how we would survive on our own, how we would support ourselves when we hadn’t even finished high school, but I couldn’t say nothing, either.
“What’s it going to be like? Our life? Will we be hiding out in the cottage?” Coming back to life to live in fear of being seen wasn’t my ideal.
“No. We’re going to get fake IDs. We’ll enroll in school and do everything we would have if—”
“I hadn’t died.” I swallowed hard, remembering the pain the cancer had caused. “Will I have to change my name?” I never liked anyone calling me Samantha, but I’d grown fond of Sam, especially the way Ethan said it. It always sounded like a sigh. A happy, content sigh.
“You can keep Sam if you want. It’s not like anyone is going to come looking for you.”
That was true. As far as everyone knew, I was six feet under. “So you’re not keeping Ethan?” I couldn’t imagine calling him by any other name.
“Would that bother you?”
“A little.” I knew I was being a baby, wanting him to keep his name, but he was my Ethan. He always would be.
“Okay, I’ll keep Ethan then. We’ll both just change our last names.”
I nodded and gave him a weak smile. Somehow I knew a lot more than our last names was about to change. Samantha Thompson and Ethan Anderson would never be the same; to the rest of the world, we wouldn’t even exist.
It was about a five-hour drive to the cottage, not too bad. In the past, a long drive with Ethan had been heaven, but since I’d come back to life, things seemed different. Maybe Ethan thought I was the same old Sam—minus the cancer—but I wasn’t. I couldn’t shake this feeling that something was wrong. Wrong with me.
It was late, and a light rain dotted the top of the car, lulling me to sleep. You’d think after being dead, I’d feel refreshed. But I didn’t. It seemed so hard to focus on things. The streetlights were bright. The air was damp, and even though it was early fall, I was chilled.
The car stopped, and Ethan’s hand slipped from mine. I turned to him, blinking against the fluorescent lights of the gas station.
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to wake you. I just need to get some gas and a few things from the convenience store. There’s no food at the cottage. I thought I’d grab some crackers and soda. Stuff like that. I’ll even see if they have black licorice for you. I know you love it.”
I nodded and started for my seat belt.
“No. You stay.” Ethan opened his door and stepped outside. I let my hair fall across my shoulders, trying to warm myself against the night air. “I’ll be right back.”
The trunk opened, and a moment later, Ethan opened my door, handing me one of his sweatshirts. “Here, you look cold.”
I smiled. “Thanks.” He knew me so well. I watched him walk inside the store and heard the soft click of the car locking again. He wasn’t taking any chances with me. I knew he’d protect me from anything. He’d already protected me from death. He was my everything now. I would never see my family or friends again. I had to start over. The thought terrified me, but at least I had Ethan by my side.
I hugged the sweatshirt to my body. I was too tired to actually put it on, and this way I could breathe in Ethan’s scent while I kept warm. I inhaled deeply at first, and then my breaths became shallow, which was weird considering how tired I felt. I yawned. Exhaustion overwhelmed me. Apparently it took a lot of energy to return from the dead.
I leaned my head on the window, hoping the cool glass would keep me awake, but my head spun, making me dizzy. My arms and legs tingled with the sensation of pins and needles. I felt like I had a million spiders crawling all over me. I threw the sweatshirt off me and onto the floor. My arms were bare. No spiders. But the feeling didn’t go away. I panicked. The walls of the car were caving in on me. The air around me was tight, strangling me.
I searched the convenience store windows for Ethan, but all I saw was a guy in a cowboy hat and a woman taking her little boy to the bathroom. Where was Ethan? The lightheadedness was getting worse—more intense. My breathing was labored. In a panic, I reached for the door handle. It took me a moment to remember it was locked, but when I finally got it open, I stumbled out of the car into the fresh air. I gulped oxygen into my lungs, hoping it would make me feel better, but it didn’t.
I was suffocating. Life was draining out of me. I collapsed to my knees, skinning them against the pavement. Wheezing, I crawled forward, trying to reach the convenience store door. Trying to reach Ethan. I needed help. I didn’t know what was happening to me, but it felt like I was dying…again.
The gas station was almost empty at this hour. No one was pumping gas. No one was around to help me. I lifted my head, searching the windows of the store once more. The man with the cowboy hat was at the register. That meant he’d be leaving soon, and he’d have to walk past me. I pushed myself forward more, but my arms buckled under my weight, and I fell.
“Ethan,” I choked out. This couldn’t happen again. I’d just gotten my life back. How could I die again so soon?
I pushed my foot against the pavement in an effort to creep toward the door, but my black high-heeled shoe fell off, leaving me slumped on the ground with one bare foot. I inhaled, willing my lungs to fill with air, but I only coughed in response. At least the first time I’d died, I’d known it was coming. But now…this was a shock. I didn’t know how to fight it, or if I even could.
The bell above the convenience store door jingled, and I raised my head slightly to see the man in the cowboy hat walking out. He was putting his change into his wallet and didn’t even notice me in the dark parking lot.
“Please.” My voice was barely audible.
He kept walking, removing his car keys from his pocket.
“Help,” I tried again, but he unlocked his car with a high-pitched beep of the alarm disarming.
His foot was inches from me, yet he had no idea I was there. I reached my hand toward his leg and managed to grab hold of it. The second I made contact with him, I felt his blood coursing through the veins in his leg. It tingled beneath my fingers with a warmth that felt incredible on my freezing cold hand.
He jumped and looked down at me. “You scared the hell out of me! What are you doing down there?”
“Please.” This time my voice was a little stronger. “I need help. I can’t breathe.” I released his leg, and my coughing started all over again.
“Whoa, easy there.” He bent down and studied me for a moment before reaching for my shoulders and sitting me up. “Try to calm down. Are you here alone?” He fumbled for my missing shoe and put it back on my foot.
I tried to shake my head, but I wasn’t sure if it moved at all. I felt like I was drowning. The life was draining out of me again.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s get you to the hospital. I’m going to bring you to my car.”
Before I could protest or try to mention Ethan, the man scooped me into his arms and carried me to his car. I was too weak to fight him, and he was trying to help me, so I wrapped my arms around his neck as best I could. My fingertips grazed his neck, feeling the blood coursing through his veins once again. Instinctively, my other hand reached for his neck, but this time, I traced the line of his carotid artery, letting my fingers follow it down to his chest, where I felt his heart pumping beneath his clothes. Warmth washed over me.
“Don’t panic. I’m going to get you help.” He must have been confused by what I was doing. Hell, I was confused by what I was doing, but somehow, I knew it was helping me. My breathing wasn’t as labored. The dizziness was subsiding.
He opened the rear door and started to lower me onto the back seat, head first. I slipped my fingers through the opening in his button-down flannel shirt and felt the heat of his skin.
“It’s okay,” he reassured me.
My hand was above his heart now, and I flattened my palm against his chest. My right hand remained on his neck, resting on his carotid artery. Suddenly, an intense surge of energy flowed from the man to me. His blood was pumping life into me. My lungs filled, and my chest heaved. I felt more alive than I had when Ethan brought me back. My eyes closed in response to the relief I felt. I wasn’t going to die. Whatever it was that had threatened my life was gone. I was alive again.
A wheezing sound forced my eyes open. But this time, I wasn’t the one wheezing. I stared at the man leaning into the car, hovering above me. He was no longer holding me. My back was resting on the seat. His hands gripped the seats. His face was red, and he gasped for air. He looked down at my hands, and my eyes followed his.
I could see the color returning to my limbs, but at the same time, the color was leaving the man’s face. He turned from red to purple to white. Ghostly white. Deadly white. Corpse white.
The cowboy hat fell from his head, revealing gray hair. I was sure he’d had dark hair. Why was it completely gray now? His skin felt softer under my fingers. His neck was wrinkled and aged. I was about to pull away and ask him if he was okay, when, with one final gasp, he slumped forward onto me. I let go of him and stifled a scream. What had just happened?
“Sir?” My voice was strong again but filled with fear. “Sir?”
I tried to move him, but his face was buried in the fabric of my black dress. I pushed myself up onto my elbows, and the man shifted slightly to my right, falling into the small space between the front and back seats.
His eyes stared up at me, completely devoid of life.
He was dead.
I had killed him.
CHAPTER TWO
I STARED at his wrinkled form for a moment, unable to believe what had happened. My hands shook. I turned them over, examining both sides, horrified that I had somehow ended this man’s life with my bare hands. I wasn’t sure how it had happened, what I’d done. All I knew was I was to blame. I was a killer. The sound of the bell above the convenience store door brought reality slamming back to me. I raised myself up in the back seat to look out the window. Ethan was walking back to the car with a bag in one hand and a tray with two cups of coffee in the other.
I couldn’t stay here. I couldn’t let Ethan know what I’d done. I scrambled across the seat and out of the car, keeping low so Ethan wouldn’t see me. As he fumbled with his keys, I ran around to the side of the store. I took a deep breath and patted the front of my dress, trying to regain my composure. Stepping out from the shadows, I called Ethan’s name. He looked up at me in surprise.
“Where were you?”
“I had to use the bathroom.” My voice shook as I motioned over my shoulder, hoping he hadn’t noticed the bathrooms were inside the store, not around the side of it.
He narrowed his eyes at me. “You left your door open.”
“Yeah, sorry. It was an emergency.” I got back in the car and helped him with the bag and coffees, trying to push the image of the dead man out of my mind. “I guess my body is functioning properly.” I forced a little laugh, but inside, I was crying, crying for the man I’d killed.
Ethan smiled and leaned over to kiss me softly on the lips. “I told you. You’re just fine. Completely you again. Everything is functioning exactly as it should be.”
Then why had my body given out on me? Why had I felt like the life was draining out of me until… I wondered how long it would take someone to find the man slumped in the back seat of his car. If I was normal again, alive, then how had I killed him? Drained the life out of him?
Ethan tapped my forehead. “Where did you go?”
I shook my head. “Sorry. Being back takes a little getting used to, I guess.”
A woman screamed, and Ethan and I turned to see what was going on. The woman was standing by her car. The same car I’d gotten out of only moments ago. The car where the man was dead in the back seat. I looked around the parking lot, noticing there were no other cars. Of course the woman and the little boy were with the man who’d tried to help me. My heart tore to pieces as I watched the woman try to shield the little boy’s eyes from the sight of his dead father.
“Stay here,” Ethan said. “I’m going to see what’s wrong.”
I grabbed his arm, squeezing his wrist as if my life depended on keeping him in this car. Maybe it did. “Don’t. We can’t draw attention to ourselves. We don’t even have our fake IDs yet. Please, Ethan.”
He looked at me with such love in his eyes. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Too late. Something already had. Something I didn’t understand.
Ethan started the car and pulled out of the parking lot without another thought about the woman or why she was screaming. I felt awful. I’d played the helpless damsel in distress card. That wasn’t me at all. I was a killer, a monster. And I hated that Ethan was willing to forget about the poor woman and little boy just because I’d asked him to.
“Hey, what happened to your knees?” Ethan reached over and pushed up the hem of my dress, exposing my skinned knees.
“Oh, it’s nothing.” I gently pushed his hands away. “I fell when I got out of the car. It’s these high heels. I’m not sure why Mom had me buried in them. I’ve never worn high heels a day in my life.” I was babbling to cover up how much I was freaking out on the inside.
Ethan rubbed my cheek with his thumb. “Aw, sweetie, why didn’t you rinse the cuts in the bathroom? They could get infected.”
Damn it. I didn’t even think about my little lie leading to more questions. I wasn’t used to lying, not to Ethan.
“I guess I wasn’t thinking clearly. I wanted to get back to the car as quickly as possible. I don’t like being away from you.” I hoped that sounded believable and not too needy. Ethan and I had always been together, but we weren’t exactly codependent. We were fine on our own, too. Only that wasn’t true for me anymore. The first time Ethan left me alone, I’d done something horrible, unforgiveable.
“Give yourself time. You’ll see there’s nothing to be afraid of. Everything is like it was before, only without the—”
“Cancer,” I finished for him. No, I didn’t have cancer anymore, but I did have some sort of disease. One that kept me on the verge of death. One that made me feed off another human being’s life. I was like some zombie-vampire hybrid. This was so much worse than having cancer.
Ethan kept stealing sideways glances while he drove. Finally he said, “New rule. No one uses the C-word anymore. It doesn’t exist. It’s all in the past.”
I nodded. There wasn’t really a word to accurately describe what I’d become now.
We drove the rest of the way in silence. Ethan seemed to know I needed time to process things. He was always good at reading me. Only this time, I hoped he couldn’t read too much. What would it do to him to know he’d brought back a monster? I had to protect him from that. He was all I had.
I nodded off again, most likely because my brain couldn’t handle what I’d become, and when I woke up we were parked in a gravel driveway. A rundown old shack stood in front of us. The roof looked like it was about to cave in, and the front door was hanging crookedly. I could tell the cottage—at least that’s what Ethan had called it—had once been white, but the paint was almost completely peeled off. The only way to describe the color now was rotten wood tone.
Ethan shut the car off and turned toward me. “Well, this is it. I know it isn’t much, but I can fix it up a little. My dad always made me help him when he did stuff around the house. I’m sure there are some tools in the shed around back, and we have a little money if we need to buy paint or wood.”
“We have money?” Where did he get money from?
“I emptied my bank account before—” Before he’d brought me back from the dead. “It’s enough to get us going. I’ll find a job once we get settled. Something to pay the electric and water bills.”
“I can get a job, too.”
He opened his mouth to protest, but I shot him a look. I was not going to sit holed up in this cottage while he worked. I’d never been that kind of girl, and I wasn’t about to start now. Besides, sitting would give me too much time to think about that poor man and what I’d done to him.
“Maybe we can find something at the same place. We only have one car, so it would be easier if we could drive to and from work together.”
That seemed like a lot to ask—a place looking for two new employees to work the exact same shift. But I didn’t want to be negative, so I just nodded.
“Well, should we go inside?”
I swallowed hard, wondering how much worse the inside could be. I forced a smile and opened my car door. Ethan met me at the hood of the car and took my hand. I didn’t say anything, but I had a feeling he was afraid one or both of us would end up going through the front steps. They definitely needed to be replaced. I walked up the edge by the railing, hoping it would have the most support.
Keys weren’t going to be an issue. The door was open. Who would lock a place as decrepit as this? Ethan held the door for me as I slipped inside. I stepped just far enough for him to reach behind me and fumble for a light switch. A single bulb went on in the center of the living room. The fixture had four bulbs, but only one was working. And for that, I was thankful. Seeing this place in better lighting would’ve been even more depressing.
The living room consisted of a worn-out couch and a wooden table with a broken leg. To the left of the living room was a tiny kitchen with a sink, stove, refrigerator, and table for two. Beyond that was a bathroom too dark to see into, but I could imagine the horrors waiting for us in there. Beyond the living room was a door, which I could only assume led to a bedroom.
That sent shivers down my spine. Ethan and I had the best relationship I could imagine. We couldn’t have been closer. But…we hadn’t exactly slept together. We almost did once. When I stopped my treatments, and we knew the end was near. It was one of the things I wanted to do before I died, but I was too weak. Now Ethan and I would be living in this tiny cottage with one bedroom. One bed. I loved him. I didn’t doubt that. But I was scared. I didn’t know what was going on with me. What was wrong with me? I’d already lied to Ethan. I couldn’t be that intimate with him when I couldn’t even tell him the truth about what happened at the gas station. Tears welled up in my eyes. I couldn’t stop picturing that man’s wrinkled face.
“Hey.” Ethan rubbed my arm. “I know it’s pretty bad, but I promise I’ll fix it up. The sun is already coming up, so I’ll check the shed and see what I can get started on right away.”
“You haven’t slept. You must be exhausted.”
He smiled. “Are you kidding me? I got you back. I’m so energized I could repaint the whole place and fix that table without taking a break.” He kissed my forehead. “How about you? Are you tired?”
I wasn’t. Ever since the incident at the gas station, I’d felt full of life. I hated that I felt so good, knowing I’d been responsible for that man’s death. I pushed the thought away. I couldn’t deal with it right now. “I’m fine. I’ll see what I can do in here. You know, start cleaning.” I looked around, not a clue where to start.
“Good luck.” Ethan squeezed my elbow gently before heading back outside.
The entire place was covered in about five inches of dust, so I figured I should open some windows and start wiping everything down. The sun poured into the kitchen window, and I blinked against it. My eyes weren’t used to the brightness anymore. I turned away, my eyelids fluttering with a flurry of black spots. My legs wobbled, and I staggered back, bumping my hip against the cabinet under the kitchen sink.
“Ow.” I was reaching for my hip when my vision went black. I couldn’t see a thing. Only darkness. “Ethan!” I called out. Before I could say another word, my vision returned. But it wasn’t the cottage I saw. It was a garden with flowers and a long, red carpet. A couple stood under a beautiful wooden archway with roses woven around it. I turned my head, searching for something familiar, something that would tell me what this place was and why I was seeing it. My eyes scanned the crowd sitting in the white seats. Rows of dresses and suits. Finally I saw a man with gray hair. He was dressed in a nice black suit, but he wore a black cowboy hat on his head.
Oh, God. It was him. The man I’d killed. I knew it was.
He took his wife’s hand and squeezed it. “Can you believe our son is twenty-seven years old and getting married?”
His wife turned and smiled at him. “Yeah, twenty-seven. That makes us pretty old.”
He patted her hand. “No, it makes us lucky.”
Everything went black again. I blinked my eyes, begging my sight to return. Even seeing the dilapidated cottage would’ve been better than this. The darkness reminded me of death. Forms started to take shape as my vision slowly returned.
What was that? How had I seen that man? And on his son’s wedding day? Maybe I hadn’t killed him. Maybe he’d just fainted in the car, and I was too scared to notice. Maybe the universe was trying to let me know I wasn’t a monster after all.
“Hey, babe.” Ethan opened the door, letting the sunlight filter into the room. “Do you want—” I must have looked awful, because the second he saw me, he rushed to my side. “What’s wrong?”
How did I answer that? I didn’t want to lie to him, not after all he’d done for me. I put my hand to my hip. “I hurt myself. It was stupid. My eyes are still a little sensitive to the sun. You know, from—”
“Sure.” He didn’t let me finish my sentence. “Let me see. Did you cut yourself?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t look at it yet.”
He started lifting the hem of my skirt, trying to see how bad my hip was, but I stepped back.
“What?” He looked hurt.
“I—I’m sorry. Everything is making me jumpy.”
“Including me?”
That had been the wrong thing to say. Now I’d insulted him. “No.” I reached for his hand. “You know I love you.”
“But you don’t want me to see you…naked.” He nodded, but I could tell he didn’t really understand.
“I know we almost…once, but things are different now. I’m different.”
He cupped the side of my face in his hand. “No, you’re not. What do I have to do to make you believe that?” He searched my eyes for an answer, but I didn’t have one to give. “You’re the same, and so are we.”
“I just don’t know if I can pick up where we left off. I need a little time to adjust. This is a lot for me to take in all at once.” That was only half of it, but I couldn’t bear to tell him the rest.
“Do you want me to sleep on the couch or something?”
“No.” I took his hand again. “We can sleep in the same bed, but let’s take things slow, okay?”
“Is that all that’s bothering you?”
No, but I didn’t say that. Instead I leaned forward and kissed him softly on the lips. “What did you want to ask me when you came in?”
I could tell he didn’t want to drop this, but he wasn’t going to fight with me over it. “I found some paint in the shed. It’s off-white. Do you want me to paint anything?”
“Everything. This place needs a major face-lift.”
“Okay. I’ll get started on the outside first while you finish cleaning up a bit in here.”
“Thanks.” He started to walk away, but I held on to his hand, making him turn back to me. “I promise I’ll be okay, and we’ll get back to where we were. I just need time.”
“You have a lifetime.”
Yes, I did. Thanks to him. But after the incident at the gas station, I wasn’t sure that was what I wanted.
I went back to the cabinet below the kitchen sink. It had come open when I bumped into it. I figured it was as good a place as any to store cleaning supplies, so I started digging through it. I found some old sponges, an almost-empty bottle of dish detergent, a few pans, and a wooden box. I shimmied forward, trying to reach the wooden box. My scraped knees rubbed against the edge of the cabinet, making me wince. I really needed to clean out those cuts and bandage them. This place was dirty enough to infect any open wound.
