Page 80 of Bound to a Killer

I’m part of what had harmed her. The reason her head still whips back anytime a car speeds past her on the road. It all feeds the self-contempt I already feel, the guilt, the pressure, all racked up and weighing me down.

I can’t just leave. But I also can’t be part of her life, either.

So where does that take us? Besides me slipping through her house when it’s unoccupied or watching her from a careful distance?

I’ve screwed up so much before, in so many different ways, and I deal with it the only way I know how—by disconnecting. Locking up the feelings and shoving them deep down.

Aria’s the exception to that.

I can’t act right when it comes to her. These unruly feelings always resurface, pulling me back in. If I were even a little superstitious, I’d say she bewitched me the day I first saw her, tying our fates together in a way that’s impossible to break, try as I might. I’ll ultimately have to learn to sever that tie.

It’s what’s best forher.

She wouldn’t want me here, standing in her room, touching her things, spamming her phone with calls that usually go to voicemail.

I head over to her bed, sit on the edge, and tap her number from my call history. The mattress dips beneath me, her pink duvet soft but uneven, faded from too many washes and frayedat the corner, a quiet contradiction to the version of her I built in my head from our time in the woods.

It rings, slow and drawn out, my jaw stiff as I brace myself for the familiar beep I’ve become accustomed to, but she answers on the fourth ring.

My grip tightens over my phone, but I don’t move as her voice comes through the speaker. Even my breath is held back, afraid it’ll give me away.

“Hello?” she says, her sweet voice floating into my ear, low and hesitant.

My airways narrow to a stifling pinpoint, spine straightening, each heavy thump in my chest growing louder the longer she stays on the line.Don’t hang up.

“Hello?” she says again. “Anyone there?”

I part my lips. The urge to respond scrapes my throat, but nothing comes out besides air, trailing from me like bubbles above a sinking ship.

“Aria, come pick out a movie,” another girl calls out nearby.

Instantly, my shoulders relax. The tension that infiltrated my muscles and joints eases away. She’s just spending the night at a friend’s. See? She’s fine.

That’s all I ever wanted for her to be. Fine.

So why aren’t I hanging up yet?

“Aria,” the other girl calls out again, louder this time. She says something back, but it’s warped into static before the line goes dead. The room’s silence takes over.

I lower the phone between my legs, watching the screen slowly dim to black.

This should be the part where I get up to leave, now that the mystery’s resolved. Only something still holds me back, like an unsent text left to rot on my phone.

My attention snaps back to the bed, on how out of place I look sitting here, my clothes stark and heavy against the pinksoftness of her bedding, like a moldy spot that needs to be scrubbed out.

She’s slowly getting better day by day. This is proof of that.

With time, I’ll become nothing but a faded memory, hazy, half-formed, not something she’ll recognize as real, but as a fragment from a distant dream.

I want that for her. She deserves at least that from me.

That’s why I’ve sworn I’ll stay away, only keeping an eye out on her from afar until she’s secure enough to be on her own.

Pushing off the bed, I realize the panties remain bundled in my grasp. I swallow hard, my thumb grazing the soft fabric as I cast a quick glance at the laundry basket. But I don’t toss it in like I should.

My fingers stall before I slip it into my pocket alongside my phone, telling myself it isn’t a big deal. That it means nothing. It’s as close to her as I can get, just enough to appease the beast inside me without causing any harm.

Nothing wrong with that. It’s not crossing the line.