Desperate to Touch

Laura

My shift is over but I can’t leave this place. I can’t walk away knowing Melody’s in there and she just confessed to murder. I can’t call Walsh. I can’t bring myself to do anything but sit in my car. It’s on and the heat is blasting since I was freezing when I got in.

Seth hasn’t called or texted. I thought he’d be waiting up for me, but when I messaged him, realizing how late I was, he didn’t respond.

That alone and lost feeling I felt earlier today returns. When you’re with someone, shouldn’t you feel it? I remember, years ago, feeling that security and knowing he was there always when I had Seth. This is different.

I don’t really have Seth right now though, do I? I have him in only two ways. He wants my body and my obedience.

I put my phone away. 9-1-1 was waiting for me to press send. All I had to do was push send and ask to speak to Walsh. I assume this late though, he’s not working. I was ready to leave a message, but I don’t want to do that. I don’t owe anyone anything. I’ll write Melody’s confession down on the charts. I’ll let Aiden deal with it. I already called him and left a voicemail. I already filled out all the necessary paperwork per protocol.

It’s not relief I feel when I put the car into drive and pull off onto the main road. There’s this gnawing hurt that eats away at me. It points out that I’m not enough. I’ve never been enough.

I’m too weak to handle any of it. I always have been. Does Seth really want me? How could he when he knows more than anyone how little I can handle?

The green light and white streetlights blur as I drive by them.

I turn on the radio and put the volume up then roll down my window and turn off the heat. A shaky breath leaves me and then another.

I miss my grandma. I miss my father too.

Memories of the two of them flicker through my head as I drive, desperately trying to think of anything but my present situation.

I remember one night my dad told me he had to make a stop before going home. I never liked it when he had to make stops at this “friend’s” house. He wasn’t a bad guy. My father really wasn’t a bad guy at all. There wasn’t a day that went by where I didn’t know he loved me. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for me. The thing is though… he did bad things and he got himself into bad situations.

I knew that he peddled pills. I wasn’t that naïve. So when he stopped in front of an apartment complex I’d never been in, I was already on edge.

He leaned over and told me, “If you hear bullets, drive away as fast as you can.” He made me say I would and then he went inside. I still remember his smile and that should have given it away. I was fifteen, I didn’t even have a driver’s permit, but I got in the driver seat and stared at the front glass door on high alert the second he was out of view.

My father laughed and laughed when he saw me after he’d been inside for only a couple of minutes. After all, he was just joking. He gave me a kiss on the cheek when I settled back into my seat, and the smile he’d left with was wider than before. He would never know how scared I was.

Not at the thought of hearing bullets or having to drive away. But at the thought that I’d have to drive away without him. My father wasn’t a bad man at all and I love him still, but damn did he put bad things in my head.

I don’t even realize I’ve driven to Seth’s house until I put the car in park. I pull up next to his, noting that the headlights are still on. Did he just get in?

As I’m walking up to his door, the headlights go out. That’s the first thing that startles me. It’s always an uneasy feeling when lights go out and leave you in the dark.

The second thing that nearly gives me a heart attack is when Seth opens the door without any notice at all. I choke on my scream and my hand holding the keys flies up to my throat. It’s such a jarring quick response, I almost jab myself with the key I’m so on edge.

“Fuck,” I sputter, my heart pounding in my chest so hard, it makes me question if I remembered to take my medicine this morning. “You scared the shit out of me.”

Seth’s grip isn’t gentle when he pulls me into his house. “Where were you?” he demands in a low, threatening tone. Ripping out of his grasp, I look at him like he’s lost his mind.