Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 129027 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 645(@200wpm)___ 516(@250wpm)___ 430(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129027 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 645(@200wpm)___ 516(@250wpm)___ 430(@300wpm)
And really, it’s completely fair. He never promised me anything else. We were both clear on what we were doing when we fell into bed together. It was a rush of mad chemistry, and like anything that combustive, it quickly burned itself out.
Except… nothing’s burned out for me.
This is why we don’t listen to the voices in our head.
Because consequences are a bitch. But being so close to Isaak without being able to touch him these last weeks…
He doesn’t even call me annoying nicknames or verbally poke at me anymore. He’s just turned into a security robot like I expected him to be at first. He’s still here, but he’s also already gone.
If I stopped running around with my mile-a-minute life for two seconds, the urge to cry would overwhelm me. Which is why I’ve stayed very, very busy.
Neither of us has said it, but I’m pretty sure Isaak’s leaving when I get married. This was all just a favor to Domhn. It’s not like I’m going to keep living at Domhn’s place. Drew and I always planned to move in together after the wedding.
After all my bold self-talk about being able to change and the possibility of rewiring neurons, when Isaak basically broke up with me—pathetic but that’s how it feels even though we were never officially together—I just shrank back into myself. Like the coward I am, I’ve kept going along with all the wedding preparations.
In a week, I’ll walk down the aisle. I’ll live inside the box forever. Safe. Small. Never knowing what else I might have been.
My stomach churns at the thought.
And Isaak will be gone for good. Drew will take care of any security issues if the stalker is still around. In fact, considering how connected his dad is, it’s weird I didn’t go to Drew in the first place. But I couldn’t be sure that Drew’s security wouldn’t report my every move to him just like the first one did to Carol.
Will it be any different after you’re married?
I guess it won’t matter if he knows where I’m going now. I’ll be boring again. I don’t have an excuse to keep going to Carnal anymore. I’ve gathered all the research I need.
Now it’s just time to write my dissertation. Subspace and the Neurobiology of Surrender: An Examination of Power, Pleasure, and Dissociation.
I tap my red pen against the student’s paper, eyes straying back to Isaak as he mumbles something in his sleep. His face contorts in a pained expression, eyes bouncing frantically beneath his eyelids.
He’s having another nightmare, even while sleeping in that uncomfortable chair.
Oh, Isaak.
My chest aches for him. Why won’t he ever let me comfort him after a nightmare? It’s fine if he doesn’t want to cuddle me.
But I wish sometimes he would just let me hold him. He’s obviously experienced something really difficult. Was it the war? Or something from the group home from his childhood? Both?
Why won’t he just talk to me?
“Elma!” he shouts, the leg he has propped up on one knee falling to the floor.
I drop the paper I’m holding and shove back my chair, rushing the couple of steps it takes to get to him. But he’s settled back into sleep. His eyelids continue fluttering furiously in REM sleep, brow furrowed.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to call his name and try to wake him up like I did the night I ended up on the floor.
I bite my lip to stop myself. That night ended so disastrously.
The truth is, I’m not sure how I actually ended up on the floor. But I know one thing for sure: Isaak didn’t hit me. He wasn’t even awake. He was thrashing, and I yanked backward to avoid his flailing arms. My momentum took me the rest of the way off the bed.
But it was my fault for grabbing his shoulder and jostling him like that in the first place. I woke him up mid-nightmare right as he started screaming. The exact wrong thing to do, likely. I just... When I woke up groggily and saw him so distressed, I just reacted.
He’s clearly carrying around so much invisible pain.
I wanted to help. To make it stop.
It’s why I’m trying to be a therapist in the first place. I want to help people with the kind of pain that constantly lives in our minds.
It’s so fucking insidious and taints every other thing in our lives like a pollutant if we don’t get help. But I guess… you have to be ready for help. You have to ask.
I slowly step back to my desk. For a second I just hover there, my heart feeling like it’s weighed down by a thousand-pound chain, before I flop back into my chair and stare listlessly at the stack of essays.
My eyes lift again when Isaak suddenly snorts loudly and then his eyes pop open wildly, whole body on alert.