“It wasn’t a dream, okay?”
“He wasn’t there, Constance. You need to trust me.”
I wiped the tears away even though they continued to come.
“If there was a freak outside my house where my daughter sleeps, trust me, he’d be dead. There was no one there.”
“I’m sorry…” My hand cupped my mouth, and I silenced my emotion, doing my best to bring myself back to calm. “This isn’t me. I don’t do this…I don’t cry. I don’t panic. I’m not weak—”
“I don’t think you’re weak.”
My eyes lifted to his, and those words brought me calmer than anything I could have said to myself. My hand left my mouth, and I gave a sniff.
“Your mind protects you in the battle, in the moment, by keeping you calm, keeping you focused. But once the moment has passed, your mind can’t protect you anymore. I understand.”
I gave a nod and loosened the hold on my knife, finally believing that I didn’t need it.
His eyes glanced down for just a brief instant, looking at my nearly naked body.
It didn’t bother me. “I…I’m gonna sleep with Claire.”
His eyes met mine again.
“Can you…stay?” It was pathetic and needy, but there was no way I’d be able to close my eyes and drift off without him there.
He held my gaze for a long time, his thoughts a mystery behind that hard expression.
“I know it’s a weird thing to ask, but I just—”
“Let me get my things.” He departed down the dark hallway and moved through the house until he was gone.
I tucked myself into Claire’s bed, not disturbing her because she liked to sleep up against the wall. I pulled the blankets over my shoulder and turned to face the room, the opposite way of the window.
Benton arrived a moment later, dropping his pillow on the floor in the center of the room. He was in his sweatpants and t-shirt now, and he got comfortable on the floor, flat on his back, the blanket at his waist.
I stared at him, watched him stare at the ceiling. With one hand on his stomach and the other on the floor beside him, he lay still, his breathing calm and easy, like he hadn’t just searched the darkness for a man who believed he was a demon.
I watched his breath and tried to match it.
Once I did, I fell asleep.
Even days later, I was still shaken.
Benton was right. It was a dream.
Just a dream.
I’d have to tell myself that a million times before I believed it.
When I took Claire to school in the morning and Benton was sleeping, the knife was tucked away somewhere. The walk home was worse than the walk there, because I knew I was the one he wanted—not Claire.
But nothing ever happened.
I looked across the street, scanned the windows, searched for signs of him everywhere.
Never happened.
If he were going to take me, it would be then and there.
It consoled me, but only briefly, and once I was back at the apartment alone, my mind ran wild. Anytime Benton wasn’t in the apartment, I felt like bait on a hook. Forneus was the trout that could smell me a mile away.
Would this paranoia ever pass?
Would I ever feel better?
I sat on the couch in the living room, the TV off, the fireplace cold. When Claire wasn’t home, I just sat there and waited until it was time to pick her up again. I could walk to the café and get a coffee, catch a movie, do anything I wanted…but I always stayed home.
Until he was dead and that place was burned to the ground, I would never be okay.
Nadine and Laura came into my mind all the time, and the guilt consumed me.
But what could I do?
The locks turned in the door before it opened. Benton’s heavy feet announced his presence down the hallway where the garage connected to the house. I waited for that sound every day, waited for that relief, so I could recognize it anywhere at this point.
He emerged a moment later, in a black jacket and a white t-shirt, black jeans, and boots. His eyes went to me on the couch, our gazes locking.
I stared back, releasing the tension in my shoulders with my exhale.
He stared a while longer before he stripped off his jacket and tossed it on the back of one of the dining chairs. His body stretched the cotton fabric of his shirt, tight across his shoulders, loose on his lower back, cinched around his arms. There was a weight room upstairs, so he must hit it every day.
He opened the fridge and grabbed the glass container of leftovers before he plopped it onto a plate and ate it cold. His jaw had been hair-free when he left last night, but now it was covered in dark stubble. There were times when his eyes were angry and times when they were tired. Right now, they were tired.