Destiny Mine (Tormentor Mine #3)(23)
“Sara, honey… you don’t have to be here all the time,” Mom says when I come to visit her one chilly December morning. “Your dad can entertain me just as well, and I know you have things you’ve been putting off because of this.” She waves her uninjured hand at the leg casts that keep her immobile.
Smiling, I shake my head. “There’s nothing that can’t wait, Mom. Thanks to the sale of the house, I have money in the bank, and I like living with Dad. Unless he’s tired of having me underfoot?”
“Of course not,” Mom says right away, as I knew she would. “He loves having you back home. You have no idea what a relief it is to have you back. If you want to live with us forever, you are more than welcome. I just know that you’ve always been independent, and I don’t want you to feel obligated to take care of us instead of getting your life back on track.”
Life back on track. I bite back the urge to tell her that I don’t know what that means anymore. That there’s no “track” for me, no straightforward path that I can see. My future, once so clear and linear, is now shrouded in darkness, full of twists I can only guess at.
“Don’t worry, Mom,” I say, shaking off the gloomy thought. “I’m happy to be here with you and Dad.”
And smiling, I gently steer the conversation away from me.
Away from the future I can no longer envision.
We celebrate Hanukkah at the Levinsons’, then Christmas and New Year’s at the hospital with Mom. At the celebrations, I laugh and smile, exchange gifts and pretend I’m back for good. I tell my dad that, yes, I will look for a new job soon, and I discuss the purchase of a new house with Joe Levinson. He recommends a good real estate agent to me, and I write down the name, as though it matters.
As though any of it matters when, at any moment, I might disappear again.
By the time mid-January rolls around, the strain of waiting and pretending, of constantly juggling all the half-truths and lies, takes a toll on me. Peter’s absence is a raw gash in my heart, and no matter how hard I try to focus on my family and friends, I miss him all the time, so much that he’s all I can think about throughout the day. I know how wrong that is, and I kick myself for it, but at this point, I’m so used to the smothering guilt that it doesn’t feel as awful as it once did.
Wanting my tormentor doesn’t feel as heavy of a betrayal.
I still can’t forget that Peter killed George and held me captive for months, or that he murders people for money, but when I think about him, it’s the sweet, tender moments that come to mind, all the little ways he demonstrated daily how much he cares. I catch myself daydreaming about how he’d rub my feet and bring me breakfast in bed, how he’d take care of me when I wasn’t feeling well.
How I’d fall asleep in his arms instead of in my cold, empty bed.
The nights are definitely the worst. That’s when my longing for him is most acute, my need crossing over into the physical. Every evening, I toss and turn, struggling to fall asleep while my body burns for a man who’s thousands of miles away. I try playing with toys, reading erotic stories, even watching porn, but nothing quenches that aching emptiness inside me. It’s like that time when Peter was away on his Mexico gig, only a thousand times worse, because back then, at the very beginning of our strange relationship, he was still a terrifying stranger. Now, however, he’s a part of me, having wedged himself into my heart and mind to the point that life without him feels as empty as my bed.
It’s so bad that I consider giving in to my parents’ urgings and actually looking for another job. Instead, however, I decide to go back to volunteering at the women’s clinic.
To my relief, they are more than happy to have me back.
“We missed you so much,” Lydia, the receptionist, tells me. “We didn’t even realize how much we needed you until you were gone. Is everything okay now? The FBI showed up, questioning all of us, and—”
“Yes, everything is fine. It was just a misunderstanding about the guy I went on vacation with,” I say, not wanting to do the whole song and dance here as well. “It’s all resolved now, don’t worry.”
I can tell that Lydia is dying of curiosity, but she holds her tongue, sensing my reluctance to discuss things further. I have no idea what rumors were going around here, but luckily for me, the clinic staff and volunteers deal with sensitive situations all the time, and they know when to pry and when to leave things alone. After one round of “what happened” and “where have you been,” everyone leaves me to focus on the patients—which I do full time and then some.
Basically, whenever I’m not with my parents.
“How the hell are you managing to overwork yourself while unemployed?” Marsha complains a month later when I call to decline her invitation to go out yet again, claiming exhaustion from a night shift at the clinic. “Seriously, hon, I haven’t seen you outside of the hospital hallways in weeks. First, it was your mom who needed you twenty-four-seven, now it’s this. We haven’t hung out at all after that one time at Patty’s.”
“I know, I know.” I sigh into the phone, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I’m sorry, Marsha. Maybe next week will be easier.”
It won’t be—I’m on schedule at the clinic for over sixty hours next week, including two nightshifts—but I will make time for Marsha regardless. I’ve been avoiding her after learning about her involvement with the FBI, and I’m starting to feel bad about that. What she did felt like a betrayal, but that’s not an entirely rational reaction. She was probably doing what she thought was best, maybe even imagined she was helping me. In any case, cooperating with the Feds is generally the right strategy for the average law-abiding citizen—which is something I can no longer consider myself to be.