So Be It
I was about to have a breakdown. I could feel it. Or at least a meltdown. A temper tantrum. A hissy fit. Any of them would have been inappropriate, though.
I just couldn’t take it anymore. If one of them wasn’t crying, the other one was. If one of them wasn’t hungry, the other one was. They rarely slept at the same time. Jeremy was a big help and did half the work with them, but if we’d only had one child, I’d at least have gotten a break. But there were two, so it was as if we each were full-time single parents of an infant.
Jeremy was still selling real estate at the time the girls were born. He took two weeks off to help me with the girls, but his two weeks were up, and he needed to go back to work. We couldn’t afford a nanny because the advance I had recently received for the sell of my first manuscript was small. I was terrified of being left alone with the babies while he was away from the house for nine hours every day.
However, once Jeremy returned to work, it ended up being the best thing that ever happened to me.
He would leave at seven in the morning. I would wake up with him so he could see me caring for the girls. After he was gone, I would put them back in their cribs, unplug their monitors and go back to bed. From the day he started back to work, I began getting more sleep than I think I’d ever gotten. We were in a corner apartment, and their room didn’t butt up to any other apartment, so no one could hear them cry.
I couldn’t even hear them when I put my earplugs in.
After three days of Jeremy being back at work, I felt like my life was returning to normal. I was getting so much sleep during the day, but before Jeremy would come home, I’d feed them, bathe them, and start on dinner. Every night when he would walk in the door, the babies would be calm from finally being tended to, the smell of dinner would be coming from the kitchen, and he’d be blown away by how well I was tackling life.
Nighttime feedings didn’t even bother me at that point, because my sleep schedule had shifted. I was doing most of my sleeping while Jeremy was at work. And the girls would sleep fairly well at night due to the exhaustion from
crying all day. But the crying was probably good for them. I was able to write most nights while everyone slept, so I was even ahead career-wise.
The only place I was lacking was in the bedroom. I hadn’t been cleared to have sex from my doctor yet, as it had only been four weeks since their births.
But I knew if I didn’t keep that part of my marriage alive, it could quickly spread into other areas of our marriage. A terrible sex life is like a virus. Your marriage can be healthy in all other aspects, but once the sex dies out, it starts to infect all the other parts of your relationship.
I was determined not to let that happen to us.
I had tried the night before to have sex with him, but Jeremy was worried he would hurt me. Even though it had been a cesarean, he still worried about the incision. He had read online that he couldn’t even so much as finger me until we got the okay from my doctor, and that appointment was still two weeks away. He refused to have sex with me until a medical professional approved it.
I didn’t want to wait that long, though. I couldn’t. I missed him. I missed that connection with him.
Jeremy woke up that night at two in the morning because my tongue was sliding up his dick. I’m almost positive his dick was rock hard before he was even fully awake.
The only reason I knew he was awake is because his hand moved to my head and his fingers snaked through my hair. That’s the only movement he made. He didn’t even lift his head off his pillow to look at me, and for some reason, I liked that. I’m not even sure he opened his eyes. He remained still and silent while I drove him mad with my tongue.
I licked him, teased him, touched him for fifteen minutes without ever putting him inside my mouth. I knew how much he wanted me to, because he was growing restless and needed that relief, but I didn’t want him to get relief from my mouth. I wanted him to get it by fucking me for the first time in weeks.
His hand was impatient, squeezing the back of my head, pressing me down on his dick as he silently begged me to take him in my mouth. I refused and continued to fight against the pressure of his hand as I kissed and licked him, when all he wanted to do was shove it into my mouth.
When I was certain I had driven him so crazy that his desire outweighed his concern for me, I moved away from him. He followed. I fell onto my back, spread my legs, and he was inside me without a second thought about whether or not it was too soon for him to be there. He wasn’t even gentle. It was as if my tongue had driven him to a point of madness, because he was pounding into me so hard, it actually did hurt.
It lasted almost an hour and a half because as soon as he finished, I sucked
him off until he was hard again. Both times we fucked, we never said a word.
And even after it was all over and I was crushed beneath the weight of his exhausted body, we still didn’t speak. He rolled off me and wrapped himself around me. Our sheets were covered in sweat and semen, but we were too consumed with sleep to care.
I knew then that it was okay. We would be okay. Jeremy still worshipped my body as much as he always had.
The girls might have taken a lot from us by then, but his desire was the one thing I knew would always be mine.
This chapter has been the most difficult to continue reading by far. How a mother could sleep soundly down the hall from her crying infants baffles me.
She’s callous.
I’ve been under the impression that Verity might have been a sociopath, but now I’m leaning more toward psychopath.
I put the manuscript away and use Verity’s computer to refresh my memory of the exact definition for psychopath. I scroll through every personality trait.
Pathological liar, cunning and manipulative, lack of remorse or guilt, callousness and lack of empathy, shallow emotional response.
She displays every characteristic. The only thing about her that makes me question if she was a psychopath is her obsession with Jeremy. Psychopaths find it more difficult to fall in love, and if they do, it’s difficult for them to retain that love. They tend to move on quickly from one person to the next. But Verity didn’t want to move on from Jeremy. He was Verity’s entire focus.
The man is married to a psychopath, and he has no idea because she did everything she could to hide it from him.
There’s a soft knock on the office door, so I minimize the screen on the computer. When I open the door, Jeremy is standing in the hallway. His hair is damp and he’s wearing a white T-shirt with a pair of black pajama bottoms.
This is my favorite look on him. Barefoot, casual, easygoing. It’s sexy as hell, and I hate how attracted to him I am. Would I even be attracted to him if it weren’t for the intimate details I’ve read about him in that manuscript?
“Sorry to bother you. I need a favor.”
“What’s up?”
He motions for me to follow him. “There’s an old aquarium somewhere in the basement. I just need you to hold the door open for me so I can bring it upstairs and clean it out for Crew.”
I smile. “You’re gonna let him have a turtle?”
“Yeah, he seemed excited today. He’s a little older now, so hopefully he’ll remember to feed this one.” Jeremy reaches the basement door and opens it.
“The door was installed backward. It’s impossible to come up the stairs with your hands full or you can’t open the door to get out.”
Jeremy flips on a light and begins to descend the stairs. The basement doesn’t feel like an extension of the house. It feels abandoned and uncared for, like a neglected child. Creaky steps and dust on the handrail attached to the wall.
Normally, I would have zero desire to walk into a basement this unwelcoming.
Especially in a house that already terrifies me. But their basement is the only place in this house I’ve yet to see, and I’m curious what’s down there. What kind of things could Verity have packed away?
The stairwell leading into the basement is dark because the light switch at the top of the stairs only powered a light that was inside the actual basement. When I reach the bottom step, I’m relieved to see the room isn’t at all as eerie as I had expected. To the left is an office desk that looks to have gone unused for quite some time. There are stacks of files and papers all over the desk, but it looks more like a corner used for storage than a place where a person could actually sit and get work done.
To the right are boxes of things accumulated over the years they’ve been together. Some with lids, some without. There’s a baby video monitor sticking out of one of the boxes and I cringe, thinking about the chapter I just read and how Verity admitted to unplugging it during the day so she couldn’t hear them crying.
Jeremy is sorting through a collection of things behind and in between the boxes.
“Did you used to work down here?” I ask him.
“Yeah. I owned a realty firm and brought a lot of work home most days, so this was my office.” He lifts a sheet and tosses it aside, revealing an aquarium that’s covered in a layer of dust. “Bingo.” He begins to rummage through the contents inside the aquarium to ensure he has all the pieces.
I’m still thinking about the career he casually mentioned giving up. “You owned your own firm?”
He lifts the aquarium and walks it to the desk on the other side of the room. I make room by pushing papers and files out of the way so he can set it down.
“Yep. Started it the same year Verity started writing books.”
“Did you love it?”
He nods. “I did. It was a lot of work, but I was good at it.” He plugs the lid to the aquarium into an outlet, checking to see if the attached light still works.
“When Verity’s first book released, we both thought it was more of a hobby than an actual career. When she sold it, we still didn’t take it very seriously. But then word started to get out, and more copies of her books were selling. After a
couple of years, her checks started to make mine look cute.” He laughs, as if it’s a fond memory and not one that bothers him at all. “By the time she got pregnant with Crew, we both knew I was only working for the sake of working. Not because my income had a real impact on our lifestyle. It was the only choice, really. For me to quit, since the job required so much of my time.” He unplugs the light to the aquarium, and when he does, there’s a popping sound behind us, followed by the escape of the only light we had in the basement.
It’s pitch black now. I know he’s right in front of me, but I can no longer see him. My pulse quickens, and then I feel his hand on my arm. “Here,” he says, bringing my hand to his shoulder. “Must have flipped a breaker. Walk behind me, and when we make it to the top of the stairs, just slip around me and open the door.”
I feel his shoulder muscles contract as he lifts the aquarium. I keep my hand on his shoulder, following closely behind him as he makes his way toward the stairs. He takes each step slowly, probably for my benefit. When he stops, he moves so that his back is against the wall. I slip around him and feel around for the doorknob. I pull the door open and a flood of light pours in.
Jeremy walks out first, and as soon as he’s out of my way, I pull the door shut quickly, causing it to slam. He laughs when I release a shaky breath.
“Not a fan of basements, huh?”
I shake my head. “Not a fan of dark basements.”
Jeremy walks the aquarium to the kitchen table and looks at it. “That’s a lot of dust.” He picks it up again. “Do you mind if I wash it in the master shower?
It’d be easier than trying to do it in the sink.”
I shake my head. “Not at all.”
Jeremy carries the aquarium to the master shower. Part of me wants to follow him and help, but I don’t. I go back to the office and do my best to focus on the series I’m supposed to be working on. Thoughts of Verity continue to distract me like they do every time I finish a chapter in her autobiography. Yet, I can’t stop reading it. It’s like a train wreck and Jeremy doesn’t even realize he was mangled in the wreckage.
I choose to work on the series rather than read more of the manuscript, but I’ve gotten very little done by the time Jeremy finishes up in the master bath. I decide to call it a night and head back to the bedroom.
After I’ve washed my face and brushed my teeth, I stare at the handful of shirts I brought with me that are hanging in the closet. I have no desire to wear any of them, so I begin to rummage through Jeremy’s shirts. The shirt he lent me smelled like him the entire day I wore it. I thumb through them until I find a T-Shirt of his that’s soft enough to sleep in. In small print over the left breast, it
I pull the shirt on over my head and then walk over to the bed. Before climbing into it, I focus on the bite marks on the headboard. I walk closer to them, running my thumb over them.
I look down the length of the headboard and notice there is more than one imprint of teeth. There are five or six areas where Verity bit the headboard, some not as noticeable as the others until you’re up close.
I crawl onto the bed and lift up onto my knees as I face the headboard. I straddle a pillow and imagine being in this position—sprawled over Jeremy’s face as I grip the headboard. I close my eyes and slide a hand up into Jeremy’s T-shirt, imagining it’s his hand that drags up my stomach and caresses my breast.
My lips part and I suck in air, but a noise above me breaks me out of the moment. I look up at the ceiling and listen to the sound of Verity’s hospital bed as it begins to hum and move.
I pull the pillow out from under me and lie on my back as I stare up at the ceiling, wondering what—if anything—goes through Verity’s mind. Is it complete darkness in there? Does she hear what people say to her? Does she sense the sunshine when it’s on her skin? Does she know whose touch is whose?
I put my arms at my sides and lie still, imagining what it would be like not to be able to control my movements. I remain in the same position on the bed, even though I’m growing more and more restless with each passing minute. I need to scratch my nose, and it makes me wonder if that bothers Verity, not being able to lift a hand to scratch an itch. Or if her condition even allows her to feel an itch.
I close my eyes and all I can think about is that Verity possibly deserves the darkness, the stillness, the quiet. Yet for a psychopath, she certainly has so many still wrapped around her immobile finger.
The smell is different when I open my eyes. So are the noises.
I’m not confused about where I am. I know I’m in Jeremy’s house. I just…
I’m not in my room.
I’m staring at a wall. The wall in the master bedroom is light grey. This wall is yellow. Yellow, like the walls in the upstairs bedrooms.
The bed beneath me begins to move, but it isn’t because someone in the bed is moving. It’s different…like it’s…mechanical.
I squeeze my eyes shut. Please, God. No. No, no, no, please don’t tell me I am in Verity’s bed.
I’m trembling all over now. I open my eyes, slowly, and turn my head at the slowest pace possible. When I see the door and then the dresser and then the TV
mounted to the wall, I roll out of the bed, falling to the floor. I scramble to the wall and slide up it with my back against it. I squeeze my eyes shut. I can hardly hold myself up I am so hysterical.
My body is shaking so badly, I can hear it when I breathe. Whimpers at first, but as soon as I open my eyes and see Verity on her bed, I scream.
Then I slap my hand over my mouth.
It’s dark outside. Everyone is asleep. I have to be quiet.
It’s been so long since this has happened. Years, probably. But it’s happening and I am terrified and I have no idea why I ended up here. Was it because I was thinking about her?
“Sleepwalking is patternless, Lowen. It has no meaning. It is unrelated to intention.”
I hear my therapist’s words, but I don’t want to process them. I need to get out of here. Move, Lowen.
I slide across the wall, keeping as far from that bed as I can while I make my way to Verity’s bedroom door. I’m flat against the door, tears streaming down my cheeks as I turn the handle and open it, then flee the bedroom.
Jeremy flings his arms around me, pulling me to a stop.
“Hey,” he says, turning me to face him. He sees the tears on my face, the
terror in my eyes. He loosens his grip, and as soon as he does, I run. I run down the hall, down the stairs, and I don’t stop until I slam the bedroom door and I’m back on my bed.
What the fuck? What the fuck?
I curl up on top of the covers, facing the door. My wrist begins to throb, so I grip it with my other hand and tuck it against my chest.
The bedroom door opens and then closes behind Jeremy. He’s shirtless, in a pair of red flannel pajama bottoms. It’s all I see, a blur of red plaid as he rushes toward me. Then he’s on his knees, his hand on my arm, his eyes searching mine.
“Lowen, what happened?”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, wiping at my eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
I shake my head and sit up on the bed. I have to explain it to him. He just caught me in his wife’s bedroom in the middle of the night, and his head is probably swarming with questions. Questions I don’t really have answers to.
Jeremy takes a seat next to me on the bed, lifting a leg so he can face me. He puts both his hands on my shoulders and lowers his head, looking at me very seriously.
“What happened, Low?”
“I don’t know,” I say, rocking back and forth. “Sometimes I walk in my sleep. I haven’t in a long time, but I took two Xanax earlier and I think maybe…
I don’t know…” I sound just as hysterical as I feel. Jeremy must sense that, because he pulls me to him, putting pressure around me with his arms, trying to calm me. He doesn’t ask me anything else for a couple of minutes. He runs a comforting hand over the back of my head and as good as it feels to have his support, I feel guilty. Undeserving.
When he pulls back, I can see his questions practically spilling from his mouth. “What were you doing in Verity’s room?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know. I woke up in there. I was scared and I screamed and…”
He grabs my hands. Squeezes them. “You’re okay.”
I want to agree with him, but I can’t. How am I supposed to sleep in this house after that?
I can’t count how many times I’ve woken up in random places. It used to happen so often, I went through a period where I had three locks on the inside of the bedroom door. I’m not unfamiliar with waking up in strange rooms, but why, out of all the rooms in this house, did it have to be Verity’s?
“Is this why you wanted a lock on your door?” he asks. “To stop yourself
I nod, but for whatever reason, my response makes him laugh.
“Jesus,” he says. “I thought it was because you were afraid of me.”
I’m glad he finds levity in the moment, because I can’t seem to.
“Hey. Hey,” he says gently, tilting my chin up so that I’ll look at him.
“You’re okay. It’s okay. Sleepwalking is harmless.”
I shake my head in profound disagreement. “No. No, Jeremy. It’s not.” I hold my hand up to my chest, still clutching my wrist. “I’ve woken up outside before, I’ve turned on stoves and ovens in my sleep. I even…” I blow out a breath. “I broke my hand in my sleep and didn’t even feel it until I woke up the next morning.”
A rush of adrenaline surges through my body as I think about how I can now add what just happened to the list of disturbing things I’ve done in my sleep.
Although unconscious, I still walked up those stairs and crawled into that bed. If I’m capable of doing something that disturbing, what else am I capable of?
Did I unlock the door in my sleep or did I forget to lock it? I can’t even remember.
I push off the mattress and head for the closet. I grab my suitcase and the few shirts I brought with me that are hanging up. “I should go.”
Jeremy says nothing, so I continue to pack my things. I’m in the bathroom gathering my toiletries when he appears in the doorway. “You’re leaving?”
I nod. “I woke up in her room, Jeremy. Even after you put a lock on my door. What if it happens again? What if I scare Crew?” I open the shower door to grab my razor. “I should have told you all this before I ever stayed the night here.”
Jeremy takes the razor out of my hand. He places my bag of toiletries back on the counter. Then he pulls me to him, wrapping a hand around my head as he tucks me into his chest. “You sleepwalk, Low.” He presses a comforting kiss into the top of my hair. “You sleepwalk. It’s not that big of a deal.”
Not that big of a deal?
I laugh halfheartedly against his chest. “I wish my mother would have felt that way.”
When Jeremy pulls back, there’s worry in his eyes. But is he worried for me or because of me? He walks me back into the bedroom, where he motions for me to sit down on my bed while he begins to hang up the shirts I shoved into my suitcase.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks.
“Which part, exactly?”
“Why your mother thought it was a big deal.”
I don’t want to talk about it. He must see my expression change because he pauses as he’s reaching for another shirt. He drops it back into the suitcase and sits on the bed.
“I don’t mean to sound harsh,” he says, pegging me with a firm stare. “But I have a son. Seeing you this worried about what you’re capable of is starting to make me worry. Why are you so scared of yourself?”
A small part of me wants to defend myself, but there’s nothing to defend. I can’t tell him I’m harmless, because I’m not sure that I am. I can’t tell him I’ll never sleepwalk again, because it just happened twenty minutes ago. The only thing I could probably say to defend myself is to tell him I’m not nearly as horrific as his own wife, but I’m not even sure if I believe that.
I’m not horrific yet, and I don’t trust myself enough to say that I never will be.
I drop my eyes to the bed and swallow, preparing to tell him all about it. My wrist begins to throb again. When I look down at it, I trace the scar over my palm. “I didn’t feel what happened to my wrist when it happened,” I say. “I woke up one morning when I was ten. As soon as I opened my eyes, I felt this intense pain shoot up from my wrist to my shoulder. And then it was like a bright light exploded in my head. I screamed because it hurt so bad. My mother ran into my bedroom, and I remember lying on the bed in the most pain I’d ever been in, but in that second I realized my door had been unlocked. I knew I had locked it the night before.”
I look up from my hand, back at Jeremy. “I couldn’t remember what had happened, but there was blood all over my blanket, my pillow, my mattress, myself. And dirt on my feet, as if I’d been outside during the night. I couldn’t even remember ever leaving my room. We had security cameras that monitored the front of the house and several of the rooms inside it. Before my mother checked them, she took me to the hospital because the cut on my hand needed stitches and my wrist needed an X-ray. When we got home later that afternoon, she pulled up the security footage of our front yard. We sat on the couch and watched it.”
I reach to the nightstand and grab my water to ease the dryness in my throat.
Before I continue, Jeremy places a hand on my knee, his thumb rubbing back and forth reassuringly. I stare at it as I finish telling him what happened.
“At three o’clock that morning, the footage showed me walking outside, onto the front porch. I climbed up on the thin porch railing and stood there. That’s all I did at first. I just…stood there. For an hour, Jeremy. We watched the entire hour, waiting, hoping to see if the footage was broken because no one should be able to remain balanced for that long. It was unnatural, but I never moved. I
never spoke any words. And then…I jumped. I must have hurt my wrist in the fall, but in the footage I showed no reaction. I pushed off the ground with both hands and then walked up the porch steps. You could see the blood already coming from my hand and dripping onto the porch, but my expression was dead.
I walked straight back to my room and I fell asleep.”
My eyes return to his. “I have no recollection of that. How can I inflict that much pain on myself and not be aware of it? How can I stand on a railing for an entire hour without swaying, not even a little bit? The video frightened me more than the injury did.”
Again, he hugs me, and I am so grateful that I cling to him tightly. “My mother sent me away for a two-week psychiatric evaluation after that,” I say into his chest. “When I returned home, she had moved farther down the hall, into a spare bedroom where she placed three locks on the inside of her bedroom door.
My own mother was terrified of me.”
Jeremy buries his face in my hair and sighs heavily. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”
I squeeze my eyes shut.
“And I’m sorry your mother didn’t know how to handle it. That had to have been hard for you.”
Everything about him is exactly what I needed tonight. His voice is calm and caring, and his arms are protective, and his presence is comforting. I don’t want him to let go of me. I don’t want to think about waking up in Verity’s bed. I don’t want to think about how much I don’t trust my own mind in my sleep, and even when I’m awake.
“We can talk more tomorrow,” he says, releasing me. “I’ll try to come up with a plan to make you feel more comfortable. But for now, just try to get some sleep, okay?”
He squeezes my hands reassuringly and then goes to the door. I feel panicked by the thought of him leaving me alone in here. Of going back to sleep. “What do I do about the rest of tonight? Just lock my door?”
Jeremy looks at the alarm clock. It’s ten minutes to five. He stares at the clock for a moment and then walks back to me. “Lie down,” he says, lifting the covers. I crawl into the bed and he scoots in behind me.
He wraps his arm around me, tucking my head under his chin. “It’s almost five, I won’t go back to sleep. But I’ll stay until you do.”
He’s not rubbing my back or soothing me in any way. If anything, the arm that’s holding me is stiff, like he doesn’t want me to misconstrue our position on this bed in any way. But even with how uncomfortable he is right now, I appreciate he’s making an effort to make me comfortable.
I try to close my eyes and sleep, but all I see is Verity. All I hear is the sound of her bed upstairs, moving.
It’s after six when he assumes I’m asleep. His arm moves and his fingers end up in my hair for a moment. It’s quick, as quick as the kiss he plants on the side of my head, but his actions linger long after he leaves the bedroom and closes the door.
I never fell back asleep, which is why I’m pouring my second cup of coffee and it’s just after eight in the morning.
I stand at the sink, staring out the window. It started raining around five o’clock this morning while I was in my bed with Jeremy, pretending to be asleep.
April’s car pulls up into the muddy drive as I’m staring out the window. I wonder if Jeremy will tell her what happened.
I haven’t seen him this morning. I assume he’s upstairs, where he usually remains until April arrives. I don’t want to be in the kitchen when April walks in, so I turn to head toward my office. I unexpectedly bump into Jeremy, but he cushions the blow by taking a step back and grabbing my shoulders. Thank goodness because it saves my precious coffee from spilling.
He looks tired, but I can’t judge him for that since it’s my fault. “Good morning,” he says it like it’s anything but.
“Morning.” I’m whispering. I don’t know why.
He moves so that he’s right next to me, leaning in as if to shield anyone from hearing what he’s about to say. “How would you feel if I put a lock on your bedroom door?”
His question confuses me. “You already did.”
“On the outside of the door,” he clarifies.
Oh.
“I can lock it after you go to sleep. Open it before you wake up. If you ever need out, you can text me, call me, and I’ll open it in two seconds. But I think you’ll sleep better, knowing you can’t leave the room.”
I’m not sure how I feel about that. I don’t know why it feels more drastic than a lock on the inside of the door, when they’d both be used for the same purpose: to keep me in my room. Even though the thought of it makes me uncomfortable, I’d be more uncomfortable knowing I could possibly get out of the room again. “I’d like that. Thank you.”
April enters the house, pausing when she passes the kitchen. Jeremy is still
looking at me, ignoring her presence. “I feel like you need to take a break today.”
I look away from April, back to Jeremy. “I’d rather stay busy.”
He regards me for a silent moment before nodding in understanding.
“Good morning,” April says, kicking her muddy shoes off at the door.
“Morning, April.” Jeremy says it so casually, as if he has nothing to hide. He walks past her, toward the back door. She doesn’t move. She stares at me with her glasses at the tip of her nose.
“Morning, April.” I don’t look as innocent as Jeremy. I head back to Verity’s office and start my day, despite not being able to get over what happened last night.
I spend the morning online, catching up on emails. Corey has forwarded a few interviews, something that’s never been requested of me. A lot of the questions are similar, wanting to know why Verity hired me, what I plan to bring to the table, how my past experience has put me in the position to write for her. I copy and paste a lot of the answers.
After lunch, I focus on developing an outline for the seventh book. I’ve given up on finding one, so I work on building the novel from scratch. It’s hard because I’m exhausted from last night. I’m unsettled. But I try not to think about last night.
It’s afternoon when I smell tacos. It makes me smile, knowing he’s making them because I requested them. I’m sure he’ll save me a plate like he always does. I’m just not in a position where I feel comfortable eating dinner with them when April has Verity at the table.
I spend the next several minutes thinking about Verity, wondering why I’m so scared of her. I stare down at the drawer that contains her manuscript. One more chapter and I’ll stop. That’s it.