I didn’t have to hear him say he’d see me after that. It conflicts with the original plan. It makes the two clash and butt heads, which has my skin crawling.
“Mika? Mika, what’s wrong?” Aidan asks, concerned, but it sounds like he’s farther away now.
My head is spinning as the words conflict and I try to make them work together. I’ll see you after work. After work not after beers. Be there after we finish up. After. After. After.
“Mika!” Aidan yelling my name has me snapping out of my thoughts, and I feel the cold sweat that has gathered on my skin.
“I need to go to the office,” I say through a strained whisper while getting up and sprinting up the stairs.
I dive behind my desk and anxiously await my laptop to cut on. Aidan comes in just as it does, and my fingers start flying over the keys. I can handle this. I’m better. I have my control. I can fix this and it’ll be fine.
See? I can be with Chase and handle the normal interactions between couples. I can be normal enough.
“Mika! Damn it, answer me. What happened?”
Chase showed up directly after work and wrapped me up in his arms, holding me to him before kissing my lips and carrying me inside. It was perfect.
The itch is still there, the heaviness in my chest gets stronger, making it hard to breathe as I continue typing, changing the scene when it doesn’t work.
Chase showed up after work, but he had to hurry and change before going to have a drink with a friend. He knew he had to fulfill the original promise, and didn’t mind the way I held onto him for a moment, letting my mind accept and sate the need for him to carry through.
“Mika!”
I swallow hard, trying not to start clawing at my skin. Tiny prickles are running up and down my arms, gathering to be uncontrollable in my center as my stomach starts to itch fiercely. No. No. No!
It’s not supposed to be like this. It doesn’t get this bad this quickly. No. I’m in control!
“I need to write,” I tell him, not wanting Aidan to see me start clawing at my stomach through my shirt.
The feeling in my arms dulls as more and more sensations swarm my abdomen, making it almost unbearable as my fingers start striking the keys with more fervor, desperate to regain control. Frenzied and wild, I write incoherent sentences as my mind struggles to find the proper structures and necessary release.
“Damn it!” he yells before storming off.
The sound of the front door slamming barely registers, as does the sound of a car squealing away.
Chase… He didn’t go for beers. He’s here. He’s in my house. He’s here. He’s here. He’s here. He’s here. He’s here. He’s here.
My mind stutters, breaking out of the loop as I stare helplessly at the screen. It’s not working. It’s a simple miscommunication. This should be working.
My eyes flit to the glass of water behind me, as rage burrows in my core, forcing me to start scratching the phantom bugs that are crawling all over my stomach, fighting to break into the skin. The pressure starts mounting, growing painful.
“Stop!” I scream, feeling the hot tears lick at my cheeks as I grab the glass and launch it across the room. It shatters, but there’s no release. None at all. Not even a little bit of the pain inside me starts to ebb.
The pressure continues to build in my middle, making it feel like something is trying to get out while the bugs try to get in. It’s maddening and I start rocking, pleading with my mind to understand it’s okay.
After beers. After work. After. After. After.
The pressure gets too harsh, building up to be too agonizing as I crawl toward the scissors off to the side, needing to release the pressure. Needing the other pain. Needing the other pain to make the unwanted pain go away.
My heartrate feels like it’s hammering against my chest, striking with enough force to punch through the skin. I have to save it. I have to save it. I have to…
The first slice breaks some of the fuzz, and a high fills me as the pain travels up and releases the other pain. The pressure eases, but it tries to build again. Reaching over, I cut another strip, watching as the red spills across my stomach, feeling more of the pressure slowly slip away.
Breath fills my lungs as my head falls back, and white specks flutter through my eyes. So good. It’s the right pain. It’s the good kind.
Another cut. Another streak of red.
“You know you can’t take her out of my care. It’d be a disruption!” Dr. Kravitz yells at Aidan.
“Fuck you and the disruption. Read the fucking paper. It’s signed by a judge. I’m taking her home!”
“She wants to be here.”
“No, she doesn’t. She just wants to be better, and all you’re doing is making her worse. You’re torturing her.”
Another cut.
“It’s all in your mind,” Dr. Kravitz says as I scream, restrained to the bed. “The pressure isn’t real.”
“It is. It hurts. Make it stop. Cut it. Just cut it and let it out! Please!”
“It’s not real, Mika. Play the story out in your head. Finish it. Let it work the way you need it to. Get control.”
Another cut.
“Her heartrate is too high. Someone call an ambulance,” a woman yells.
“No! She can do this. She just has to get control.”
“Dr. Kravitz, she needs a hospital!”
Another cut.
“Stop! No!”
“Tell me a time, Mika. Tell me a time to be here. I might show up early or I might show up late. You have to break past this barrier. It’s the biggest trigger.”
“No. No times. Please no. Please don’t. I can’t do it again. It gets worse.”
Another cut.
Another.
Another.
Another.
Chapter 38
CHASE
The second Blake told me he was having a drink with Moose Knuckle because he just got back into town, I knew it was time to get some answers. Yeah, it’s shady as shit, but I don’t care.
We’re at the bar in the bowling alley, and I’m staring over at the lone bald eagle near the entryway.
Hunter and Blake act like they’ve been best friends for years, but I have a reason for being here, and I’m impatient.
“What’s up with Mika?” I blurt out. In my head, it had more finesse than that.
Hunter’s drink pauses in front of his lips, and he slowly shifts his gaze toward me.
“What about her?” he asks warily, lowering his drink as he studies me.
Blake’s eyebrows knit together like he’s confused.
“When I knew Mika, she loved numbers. She kept a strict schedule, and she was a major control freak. Now… things are different. What happened?”
He shifts uncomfortably, and Blake studies him.
“Not my shit to tell. If Mika wants you to know, she’ll tell you herself.”
“I want to be with Mika, but she’s holding back,” I explain, trying not to feel like a prying bastard.
He looks down like he’s sad or something. Before he says anything else, I look up as something moving toward us quickly draws my attention.
Aidan.
Shit.
He looks furious, but he stops just in front of us, clenching and unclenching his fists.
“Should have known I’d find you at a bar. Just two in town to search for the James boy,” he growls.
It doesn’t even faze me. I’ve heard a hell of a lot worse.
“Look, I get why you hate me, but—”
“No, you don’t fucking get it!” he yells, drawing everyone’s attention.
Hunter jumps up and gets in front of me when it looks like Aidan is about to lunge. Blake looks wary, slowly standing off the stool. I stand up as well, trying to figure out why Aidan looks like a rabid beast right now.
“Then explain it to me,” I tell him coldly, ignoring all the nosy eyes on us.
“Stay the fuck away from her. She’s not some chick you can reel in and cast out. She doesn’t work like that. Mika is a full-time commitment. What the hell did you do to her today?”
He’s not making a damn bit of sense.
“Nothing. I kissed her bye and went to work.”
His brow furrows for a second, but he still looks like he’s ready to punch me.
“Something happened,” he snarls. “What did you do? She was upset.”
I grab my keys immediately from the counter and sprint outside, but Aidan is in front of me before I reach my truck, shoving me hard.
“Answer me!” he roars.
“Don’t fucking touch me,” I warn him.
Hunter is back between us, and so is Blake, who is holding me back as Aidan seethes at me for no fucking reason.
“What did you say to her? Did you text her? Was that you? I know it was. I could tell by the way she immediately went to her laptop. What happened?”
“Nothing happened! All I said was that I was having some beers and I’d see her after. I was trying to get Hunter to give me some insight into Mika, because I can tell something is going on that she’s not telling me.”
More confusion crosses his features, and a bit of his color pales.
“Did you tell her you’d see her at a certain time?”
The hell?!
“No. She doesn’t like exact times or even real estimates.”
He visibly relaxes, confusing me more.
“After beers is a real estimate,” he states, pausing to study me. “Why did you text her?” he asks, looking at me like he’s trying to solve a puzzle.