The Fall(23)

In any other circumstance, I might have asked if he was hungry, or made something for him too. After all, I was already making something for myself, so it wouldn’t be any extra effort. But I didn’t. Partly because I thought he would see kindness as weakness, but more importantly, because he hadn’t deserved it. It made me feel better that I was able to make the distinction and more importantly make the choice.

When I’d finished and cleared my dishes—even though I didn’t have the same neat freak tendencies, I played nice—I retreated back to my room. Which was actually his room, and just the space I was currently occupying.

There was nothing to do. Nothing. No internet, no phone—no link to the outside world. Just the walls and my own thoughts.

Did everyone think I’d died?

Did my father tell my mother I was safe? My brothers?

Or was I being mourned?

The truth was I couldn’t be sure. Part of me was gutted that I could potentially be wiped from existence and no one would really miss me. I couldn’t think of anyone who would even be sad, and certainly no one who would cry at the loss. Instead their lives would continue without little interruption.

My own thoughts were torturing me more than being confined within the four walls. And it was utterly ridiculous that, considering the kind of trouble I was facing, I was sad about not feeling loved. And despite all of that, I still held hope that I had the ability to love. If not, then what was all of it for?

I had been in a few relationships, but something always felt off. My dedication to my job was blamed, my single-eyed focus on my career, with most guys checking out after a few months. One even made it an entire year, but like the others, he felt he never had my full attention.

I’d hoped someday to find the right person. It’s what we all wanted deep down, I think. To know that there was someone out there who would love us with every fiber of their being.

“They were right,” I said, even though there was no one to hear me. I had never really given myself to them. “They hadn’t been a priority.”

As the hours melted into the next, I stayed in the room. Not because I had been instructed to, but because I had nowhere else to be.

A couple of times when I needed the bathroom, I’d glanced down at the stairs. There had been virtually no sound, nothing more than occasional shuffle of fabric to indicate he’d moved.

He didn’t come upstairs.

I didn’t see him eat, or drink or sleep. Nothing. Just the constant low hum on his computer screens, which I had to strain my ears to even hear.

It was much later when I’d realized it was no longer day. The small stream of light that cut through the tiny crack between the drapes was no longer there, the sun setting without me stepping one foot outside.

My hands fumbled against my neck, my fingers finding the gold crucifix I’d always worn. And I closed my eyes and prayed as I did every night. Only tonight I wasn’t exactly sure what those prayers were for.

“Help me, Lord,” I whispered as my fingers lifted the cross to my lips. I wasn’t sure if I’d said it out loud, or if it had been part of the continual silent litany. And I wasn’t sure if it was because of the words or the routine, but I felt calmer, my body slowly rising off the mattress I’d been sitting on for most of the day.

My feet tiptoed over to the window, pulling the drapes aside as I rested my hand on the cold glass. The glow from the nearby streetlight illuminated the view—the back garden, the garage and the back alley.

The even thuds of heavy boots echoed from the other side of my door making me jerk my head around. Each of Michael’s footfalls was weighted and steady as I heard them move closer. I waited, my eyes glued to the wooden rectangle that separated us, but he didn’t seem to stop. The sound remaining even as he walked past, the noise dimming when I heard a door close.

Without heading out into the hall, there was no way to tell where he’d gone, and it was only after I heard the spray of water hitting tile that I was able to pinpoint his location. The bathroom. His need to shower reminding me he was in fact human, even if he didn’t act like it.

As the water ran, I didn’t bother leaving the room. The simple act of him getting clean could have been a test, seeing if I would go and search for the drive. Then like some B-Grade movie he’d catch me in the act, rifling through his drawers when the whole time what I had been looking for was locked in the bathroom with him. It was too predictable, and he wouldn’t make it that easy.

So instead I stayed in the room, my forehead pressed against the glass staring at the blades of grass that moved in the breeze.

The light from the hallway flooding the room was the first sign he’d entered. Like everything else in the house, doors and windows had been WD-40’d to within an inch of their life so there would be no telltale creek.

His towel was slung around his waist as droplets of water clung to his chest. It looked like stone. Hard lines converged in angles, the corded muscles defined even at rest. His skin was almost entirely bare except for a smattering of hair across his pecs, marks and scars marring what would otherwise be a torso rivaling the perfection of a renaissance master.

And despite all those blemishes—all of which I’m sure he’d earned doing horrible things—with the light behind him, he looked beautiful.

His dark eyes caught mine, their glare lacking any warmth. “I told you to keep away from the windows.”