Experiment in Terror 09 Dust to Dust(44)

I could only shake my head and try to take in air. My breaths were ragged, my lungs feeling shallow. As much as I tried, I felt like I was a just above this moment, feeling it but not really in it.

She placed her hand on my shoulder and it seemed to ground me, tether me to the time and place. Perry prevented me from flying away. And what did I do to her?

I heard her sniff, as if taking in tears and she crouched down beside me, not wanting anything from me but trying to bring me comfort. I opened my eyes and stared down at the white carpet, spying flecks of blood that stood out like red graffiti. What was that from? My nosebleed? Her neck? How could so much blood have spilled in such a short amount of time.

“I am so sorry,” I said, but it was barely a whisper. I couldn’t even find my voice. It was such a pale substitute for what I was really feeling. I knew no matter what I did, I could never make it up, never take it back.

“I know,” she said softly. “It wasn’t you, Dex.”

How could she be so good to me? “If it wasn’t me, who was it?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “But I looked into your eyes and you weren’t there. I don’t know who was in your place, but I hope to God I never see them again. You tasted…foreign.” She trembled a bit over those last words. I wanted nothing more than to pull her into my arms and hold onto her, never let her go.

But now I was afraid. Afraid to see her flinch from my touch. Afraid that I would no longer be me.

But who was I?

“We have to go to the house today,” I said. I raised my head and looked right at her. My beautiful woman. The wife I would spend my life with. She came all the way here for me. I needed to prove it wasn’t for nothing. I needed answers. The answers were in those walls, I swore they were.

“Do you even know if your house is still standing?” she asked gently. She was treading so carefully around me. Each cautious tiptoe was like a dagger to my heart.

I pushed past the pain. “No, but it’s a brownstone. Townhouse. No one tears that shit down in the city, especially not in this neighbourhood.” Besides, I knew it was there. It’s not that I had been there since I was a kid, but for some reason I knew it. I could almost see it, like I’d been inside it recently.

“Are you certain that you need to go there?” she asked. She had settled down into a cross-legged position, her hand still on my shoulder, as if to steady her or steady me. I wanted nothing more than to kiss the fear from her lips and take away everything that happened. But I was as scared of myself as she was.

I nodded. “I just…I think I’ll be able to move on. Or…get some closure in some way.”

“You don’t think Michael is there?”

“He could be,” I said. “I don’t know. Maybe that’s the closure I need.”

Her eyes were glued to mine, growing grave and hard. “And you don’t think you need to be afraid of him?”

I could see why she felt that way. I couldn’t blame her. I shook my head. “I’m not afraid of him until I have a reason to be.”

She stared at me for a few beats and if I concentrated hard enough, I could hear her thoughts. Just pieces of it. I hated doing it, so I always pulled back the moment I heard her.

You have all the reasons, she thought.

And yet I couldn’t quite agree. Not yet.

I sat back on my ass. “I think it’s just your mom who wants to see it for nostalgia sake.”

“You’re not going without us,” she said quickly, as if she had readied herself for that.

I eyed her neck and again felt like a hand had reached into my chest and ripped out my heart from the bottom. How was I even going to get on with the day with the knowledge that those marks were from my fingers, my teeth?

“Baby,” she said, and the purity of her voice brought me out of my spiral. “It wasn’t you, okay? I’ll be fine. Ada will lend me a scarf, no one will know.”

“Ada knows?” I spat out, horrified that her little sister knew what happened to her.

“My parents won’t though,” she said.

“And Maximus?” I asked, my nerves on fire.

She was reluctant to meet my gaze. “I turned to him first.”

I held her eyes with mine and let that sink in. She turned to him first. Another kick to my gut, a steel-toe going in deep.

I let out a puff of air, nearly doubling over again. I guess I deserved that.

“He has experience,” she said.

I frowned at her. “With what?” I cried out. “Being your shoulder to cry on?” And yet I realized how right my question was the minute I said it and how petty I was for even considering it.