Page 18 of Breaking the Dark

“Yeah. Sure. I’m great.”

“You seem, I don’t know. Troubled.”

Jessica flinches slightly at this uncannily perfect descriptor of the state she currently finds herself in.

“No. Really. I’m good.”

“I would, you know, I’d want to help. If I could. If you wanted—”

“I told you. I’m good.” Jessica wears a stiff smile. “But thanks. And I’ll call you later about Malcolm.”

“Who’s Malcolm?”

“My assistant. Have a great day.”

“Jessic—”

But Jessica turns abruptly and leaves, her heart lurching in her chest.

She feels the pall of the closing moments of her conversation with Amber lowering over her as she heads home. Amber has made her think of him and now she feels that always-present threat of him in the air, tastes him in the back of her throat. She wonders if she’ll ever feel truly safe in this world.

Back at her desk, Jessica calls Malcolm. “I have work for you. Can you come in now?”

“I’m in class,” he whispers.

Jessica groans and rolls her eyes. “When do you get out?”

“Two thirty. I can be at yours at three.”

Jessica groans again. “How are you going to work for me if you’re in school all day?”

“I’ll find a way! Trust me! I’ll see you at three. Should I pick you up a coffee?”

She sighs. “Sure. Large black. See you later.”

As she ends the call, she’s already glancing around her office.

She took out a long lease on this place a couple of years ago. She was desperate at the time. She hadn’t noticed the cracks in the windowpanes, the smell of must and damp, the curls in the linoleum, the green stains in the washbasin, the mildew in the fridge. She’d needed a place where she was safe, where she could rest her head at night and not feel his eyes on her, not hear his voice in her head. She has not thought beyond the next moment of her life since she got here, has lived in hourly increments: wake, eat, drink, work, survive. She has left behind most of her close friends from her years as a—admittedly below par—super hero. They exist on another plane now, far above her, with their costumes and their glamour and their mystique. She is a scruffy second cousin in comparison, not thought of nor remembered from day to day. And she has felt for so long that this is where she belongs, here in this nasty apartment, doing this nasty, messy job, alone, drunk, empty inside. But surely, she wonders painfully, surely there must be more than this.

Her hand goes to her abdomen, and she cups it for a moment, tenderly, tries to imagine a baby in there, and then gasps softly, because she can’t. She just can’t.

She picks up her phone and scrolls down to Luke’s number. She should call him. She should see him. Maybe if she saw him, then she might be able to formulate some kind of adult response to what is currently happening to her. Her thumb hovers over the call button and she sighs gently. She thinks of his voice, his skin, his smell, the way he holds her so tenderly and makes her feel normal. He is literally the only person in the world who can make her feel normal. She hits the call button and holds her breath.

The call rings out to his voicemail. She stays on the line for just a moment or two before hanging up.

“Wow, your hair looks…different.”

Malcolm, fresh from school, his bag slung across his chest and clutching two paper cups of coffee, hovers in the doorway.

Jessica steps aside and touches her hair absentmindedly. She’d forgotten about it. “Yeah…I went to a salon.”

“What the hell.”

“It was for the undercover thing.”

“It looks pretty.”

“Whatever. Right.” She walks behind her desk and gestures to him to take a seat. “I need to know a few things about you.”