Page 42

36

DELILAH

M y thoughts are a dangerous place to exist with the continued confusion in my every waking moment pulling at my flesh and I can’t find anything to stop it all drowning me.

The loneliness is worse since Ghost has left. He’s done what I asked for and I hate it. Two weeks without him and my mind is deteriorating faster. The house is too big, and it feels like a zoo with all the windows, an enclosure for other people to stop by and examine me at their leisure while I’m left to wander within the same prison day after fucking day.

I have no life. I’m caged in the middle of nowhere with nothing other than trees and a freak who I’ve pushed away, and the phone I have only has one number programmed into it, which is Asher’s. After Ghost’s random bullshit, I don’t know who to believe. There’s nothing to indicate that Asher and I have spent a moment apart since I left my parents.

My eyes close as the thoughts I had at seventeen come back. That was the last time I was hopeless and confused. There was only one way out then and it landed me in that godforsaken hospital my parents chose. Each moment of confusion and not really being able to live is pushing me closer to the edge and the plummet is enticing, the pull of it all ending and being blanketed in the peace that death can offer is so fucking strong. But I didn’t want to die then, and I still don’t. I just want to understand the world around me.

I fall to the side beside the piano and curl up in a ball with my knees tucked to my chest. The roses Ghost made me out of my sheet music are in front of me and I trace the curled edges with the tip of my finger. I know the pages, I wrote the notes, and they are real. The sun begins to rise on another day, but I haven’t moved from this spot for two sunrises, and I don’t foresee that changing any time soon. This spot beside the piano is the one I know. I can play without any confusion and I crawl forward to hide under it within reach of the roses.

My only goal is to stay awake to stop the vivid dreams plaguing me. The creepy eyes are too realistic, too bright in all the darkness, and I don’t know what type of person dreams about their father fucking them, but I cannot be that person. I refuse to. Because if that’s what my mind holds when it’s relaxed and supposed to provide me peace then I’m wired wrong, and no pills will fix me. I take them even though they make me feel like shit and all the leaflets and forums say that it will get better, they talk about how everyone is different and there’s no predefined number of days where they’ll magically begin working, but I crave the feeling of being normal and they don’t offer that. All the pills do is highlight that there’s something different about me, something in need of fixing. Worst of all, they remind me of my mother. Each time I push a pill through the metallic tab and hear the foiled cover crinkling, it’s like being transported back to my childhood and watching her swallow them dry so she can be the queen of the wealthy socialites and the powerful wife who does it all beside an equally powerful husband.

The rest of the world blurs as I remain focused on the sheet music in front of me. I don’t need to gather any energy to play to obtain the same sense of numbness it used to give me, it already exists, and I can hold it in the palm of my hand as long as I have the roses. The roses tell me this is real, that I have a connection with Ghost and that I’ve shared things with him. If I keep taking the pills, it might help me sort through my memories and uncover exactly what that connection is. Or if I take them all it can all stop.

Something touches my shoulder, and the piano shadow rolls away from me, unveiling me and refusing to let me hide. I blink and look up. There’s no mask and I blink again. Asher. He lowers to his haunches and his hand is on my shoulder. Worry lines his face and he slowly looks at every inch of my body as he gently pushes his arms under me.

“It’s okay, baby.” He whispers the lie. “You’re okay.”

Hard plaster presses against the back of my thighs as he drops down to sit on his ass with his knees up. Cradling me to his chest, he kisses my forehead, but it’s all numb as he hugs me closer with one arm.

I wrap my arms around him. Not to return the embrace, but to find answers. Tracing the scar on his back over his t-shirt, I feel him harden. I never asked how he got it before and now I can’t stop thinking about it.

My voice is muffled into his chest as I feel some of the numbness leave. “I missed you.”

It’s a partial lie. I missed the feeling of knowing who I was. Before he left I was grounded, and I had things to prove my brain wrong. In his absence, all I had were the false memories of living a life where he died.

“I missed you too,” he whispers into my hair, kisses my crown, and holds me tighter.

I press my middle fingers to each point of his scar, testing Ghost’s information and I look up as I ask, “How did you get this?”

He strokes my hair back and restrains his anger. It consumes his eyes and turns the soft green to a harsh jade, but his voice remains soft.

“I was leaving the gym when she attacked me.”

My voice is barely audible as I repeat, “She?”

I rock against his chest and hide with my head under his chin as he nods, takes in a deep breath, and says, “Yes.”

“Was she ever caught?”

“No.”

It was me. I hurt him and he’s protecting me, so I punish myself and ask, “When?”

Air brushes the top of my head as he strokes my back and vaguely answers, “About f-fourteen years ago.”

Fourteen years ago.

Before we got married.

I stabbed him as he was leaving the gym.

That was just before I was admitted to the hospital and my memories of that time aren’t clear due to the mix of chemicals that were flooded through my body. But I wouldn’t have stabbed someone. I don’t think I would have. I wouldn’t hurt the man I love. Yet I’m still doing it now; the only difference is that he doesn’t know and there’s no scar he’ll be carrying with him when he finds out.

I just want to know who I am.

I try to hide in him and grab his arms, wrapping them even tighter around me. The hard shell covering shouldn’t be there and I turn my head to see what it is. There’s a cast wrapped around his hand leading up to his elbow. The residual numbness slows me down and everything sounds like it’s underwater.

“What happened?”

Asher’s reply is no different as I watch his face and try to focus.

“I told you the roof tiles slipped. I fell when I was fixing it and ended up with this. I’m not fifteen anymore and able to climb through the window as easily.”

“When did you tell me?”

My voice is distorted like someone is slowing it down and every blink makes me dizzy.

“That night when I promised to sit you on my face and eat my way to your heart,” he says and my vision blurs at the edges.

Knots form in my stomach at the reminder of that night. The night Ghost fucked me while Asher was on the phone unaware. Even now he’s not aware of anything and he softly kisses me and I cling to him.

I know I need to tell him the truth, but I just want the comfort and stability a little longer. He’ll hate me, rightfully so, and I won’t have time to prepare for his reaction, but he deserves to know the truth and he deserves to hate me as much as I hate myself.

He breaks the kiss and I keep my eyes closed as he kisses my forehead. His palm is warm against my cheek, and he slowly strokes his thumb side to side. A little longer I tell myself. I can drown in my self-loathing, then take his hate once I’ve memorized all the smaller details to keep me balanced.

Tears burn the back of my nose as I beg him to forgive me before telling him my sins.

“I’m sorry about ev—everything I’ve done to you.”

My voice cracks halfway through and he turns rigid.

“What have you done to me?” His voice is stilted and my eyes open to see all of his anger directed at me. His nostrils are flared, jaw tensed, and a crease forms between his brows. It makes my throat constrict and this Asher is the one from my memories. The anger and the violence are what I remember. But I have to continuously remind myself that it’s not real, he wasn’t that person.

I still divert the truth in fear of it becoming a reality.

“I don’t even know anymore. I just realized that you’re not close to your family and you had to leave them to come home. How’s your mom?”

He doesn’t answer and stares at me. I blink to break up his search while he keeps his hard stare on my eyes. Whatever he finds stops the examination and he smiles softly. “Fine. She’s awake and told me to leave.”

I already know what answer he’ll give me when I ask him why his mother sent him away, the same one as anything relating to his family and I parrot it mentally as his lips move.

“It’s hard for her,” he says at the same time as I do in my head.

Slipping off his thighs, I kneel in front of him and hold his shoulders to go some way to correct my wrongs.

“What about you?” I ask and he gives me a tight-lipped smile. I don’t let him lie to me and add, “You keep talking about how hard things are for everyone else, but what about you ? You were never a selfless person, Asher, so this must be hard on you too.”

The smile grows slightly but it doesn’t reach his eyes as he softly jibes, “Yeah, looks like you changed me.”

Is that why he doesn’t match my memory? Did he actually change and become this gentler person who is supportive of everyone in his life rather than controlling them all?

Even his touch is softer as he moves my hair over my shoulder. He catalogs each point of my features as he whispers, “Do you miss it?” He wraps both arms around me and rests his forehead on mine. “The old me?”

“I don’t know which memories are real and which aren’t, so I’m not sure who I’m missing,” I whisper my confession back.

Here is safe. It’s not violent or lonely with my confusion. Asher helps me navigate it without complaint or expectation.

“I can tell you,” he says.

Shaking my head, I accept who we are now rather than whatever has happened previously. Those versions of each other don’t exist and this is who we are.