Total pages in book: 767
Estimated words: 732023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 3660(@200wpm)___ 2928(@250wpm)___ 2440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 732023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 3660(@200wpm)___ 2928(@250wpm)___ 2440(@300wpm)
“Ah.” He seems to accept my answer at face value. “And how did it make you feel, having ‘a good time?’”
“It made me feel… great.” I think back to dancing at the club, letting the beat of the music thump through me. “It made me feel alive.”
“Excellent.” Dr. Evans scribbles down some notes. “And have you gone out again since?”
“No, I haven’t had the opportunity.” It’s a lie—I could’ve gone out with Marsha and the girls this past Saturday—but I can’t explain to the therapist that I’m trying to protect my friends by minimizing contact with them. Doctor-patient privilege has its limits, and disclosing that I’ve been in contact with a wanted criminal—and that I witnessed two murders last week—could prompt Dr. Evans to go to the police and endanger us both.
In general, coming here today was a bad idea. I can’t talk about the things I really need to discuss, and he won’t be able to help me work through my complicated feelings without understanding the full story. That’s why I’m feeling uncomfortable, I realize: I can’t let Dr. Evans in anymore.
My phone vibrates in my bag, and I eagerly pounce on the distraction. Fishing the phone out, I see it’s a text from the hospital.
“Please excuse me,” I say, getting up and dropping the phone back into my bag. “A patient has just gone into premature labor and needs my assistance.”
“Of course.” Unfolding his lanky frame, Dr. Evans rises to his feet and shakes my hand. “We’ll continue next week. As always, it’s been a pleasure.”
“Thank you. Same here,” I say and make a mental note to cancel my next week’s appointment. “Have a wonderful rest of the day.”
And leaving the therapist’s office, I rush to the hospital, for once grateful for the unpredictability of my work.
* * *
I don’t know if it’s the session with Dr. Evans or the better sleep in the last few days, but that night, I find myself tossing and turning, drifting off only to jerk awake, heart hammering from some undefined anxiety. The emptiness of my bed grates at me, my loneliness a painful hole in my chest. I want to believe that I’m missing George, that it’s his arms I’m longing for, but when the uneasy sleep claims me, it’s steel-gray eyes that invade my dreams, not soft brown ones.
In those dreams, I’m dancing, performing in front of my tormentor like a professional ballerina. I’m dressed as one too, in a light yellow dress with stiff, feathery wings in the back. As I twirl and fly across the stage, I feel lighter than fog, more graceful than a wisp of smoke. But inside, I burn with passion. My movements come from deep within my soul, my body speaking through dance with the raw honesty of beauty.
I miss you, this plié says. I want you, that pirouette confirms. I say with my body what I can’t say through words, and he watches me, his face dark and enigmatic. Red droplets decorate his hands, and I know without asking that it’s blood, that he took another life today. It should disgust me, but all I care about is whether he wants me, whether he feels the heat that devours me from within.
Please, I beg with my movements, hinging in a graceful arc in front of him. Please give me this. I need the truth. Please tell me.
But he doesn’t say anything. He just watches me, and I know there’s nothing I can do, no way I can convince him. So I dance closer, pulled by a dark attraction, and when I’m within his reach, he lifts his arms, his blood-splattered hands closing around my shoulders.
“Peter…” I sway toward him, that terrible longing twisting my insides, but his eyes are cold, so cold they burn.
He doesn’t want me anymore. I know it. I see it.
Still, I reach for him, my hand lifting to his hard-edged face. I want him—I need him—so much. But before I can touch him, he murmurs, “Goodbye, ptichka,” and shoves me away.
I tumble backward, falling off the stage. My dress flutters in the air for a brief second, and then my wings crumple as I hit the floor. Even before the shock of the impact reverberates through me, I know that this is it.
My body is broken, and so is my soul.
“Peter,” I moan with my last breath, but it’s too late.
He’s gone for good.
I wake up with my face wet with tears and my heart heavy with grief. It’s pitch black in the room, and in the darkness, it doesn’t matter that I can’t rationally miss a man I hate. The dream is so vivid in my mind it feels as if I truly lost him… as if I died from the rejection at his hands. I know what I’m grieving must be my real losses—George and the life we were supposed to have—but with my bed empty and my body aching for a hard, warm embrace, it feels like I miss him.