Empathy (27 page)
We make it back to my new apartment, my footing stalling when a broken Blake is sitting on the floor, his back against my front door. His rises to meet me.
“Oh, this is embarrassing. I thought you just weren’t opening the door. I’ve been talking to myself.”
My neighbor’s door opens, she’s cuddling her cat, her hair in rollers. “I tried to tell him and then threatened to call the police but he said he is the police and he showed me a badge and everything. That must be how he made it past the front desk.”
“Thanks, Linda,” I murmur, waving her in to her apartment. I give my keys to Sean and tell him to wait inside. He nervously eyes Blake before complying.
“What are you doing here? How did you even find me?”
He reaches into his pocket, pulling out his phone. “GPS.”
Of course he would hack my GPS.
It hurts to even look at him. My heart is a stampede of wild horses, their stomps echoing through me, making every hair rise from the surface of my skin. “I can’t do this, Blake. Say what you need to and leave.”
He shakes his head. “I’m not leaving.” I open my mouth to reply but he holds up his hand to mute me. “When the sun sets, you can’t hold on to the dying light as the darkening shadow approaches. You either hide from it or become it. I can’t make excuses, you know them all anyway. I’m not a perfect person, not good enough for you by a long shot. I have done some horrible shit and witnessed evil in its truest form but you awoke a side of me I didn’t know existed anymore. You reassembled a part of me I thought disintegrated into dust. You gave me a reason to seek out the soul that once lived here.” He thumps his fist against his chest. “The heart that once wasn’t so fucking cold and...” His eyes drop to my feet. “Lonely, Mel. God, it’s a lonely cold place to be. Locked inside my head. The anger. The regret. I didn’t expect you. I didn’t know I was capable of loving you. I didn’t realise amongst the beckoning night the sun can rise again, chase out the darkness, teach the damned to be less lonely, to find love so empowering it makes everything in your life before it obliterate.”
Tears burn a trail down my cheeks, igniting a fire beneath them. I need to wake up.
“I don’t know who I am without you. I’m sinking, drowning in the truth of everything that passed. I loved him, Mel. I raised and killed for him and it was all a game. He was pulling me like a rubber band to see how far he could stretch me before I snapped.”
He’s breaking right in front of me. I could reach out and reconstruct the soul fraying into tethers with nothing to latch onto. I could offer him my heart to bleed into, letting my pulse power us both. He was choking but I could breathe for him, if I could forgive myself for loving him. It still felt like a betrayal to my parents. He wasn’t their killer but he could have been.
“You absorbed my soul, Puya, and I don’t want it back. I want to be the pulse in you. I miss you, it’s killing me. I’m dying without you. I don’t want to exist in a world where you’re not loving me.”
That’s the thing. It doesn’t matter about anything else. The only thing that matters is that I love him and I can’t stop. He owns me and I own him.
“DADDY…DADDY!”
Every single day this is how she wakes me up. Her little feet trample over my calves as she clumsily climbs over my body to sit on my shoulders and whisper in my ear despite the shouting not seconds before.
“Guess what?” Her hushed little breath warms my ear.
“What?” I grumble into the pillow
“Aunt Ruth is here and she said she’s sending the boys up here in ten minutes if you’re not up and dressed.”
Damn that witch of a sister of mine. It took a couple of years but the bond with my sisters and father was one built on tragedy, guilt and lost time made up tenfold by unconditional acceptance and love.
“The boys? Nooooo please not the boys.”
The boys are my nephews and they, unlike my little angel, wouldn’t just trample my calves, they would dive bomb me until I fell from the bed.
Her giggles sound through the room, igniting light in me I never knew I could harbor. When Melody fell into my arms at her apartment, she never left them. I put a ring on her finger a month later and this little cherub now tracing the ink of her name, Cereus, over my shoulder came a year later.
We grew and learned, coped and breathed together. Ryan changed us both for the worst but we changed each other for the better. Fate entwined us and although the devil led me down many sinful paths, God could be the only reason I met Melody. She was a saint sent to save me and she did. We survived, I awoke. I feel. I love. I have empathy.
EIGHTEEN YEARS OF BEING TRAPPED inside a place full of people so broken, manipulation is like child’s play. Nurses working long hours on poor money with husbands not showing them interest ate me up when I arrived. The funny thing is, we’re called the insane ones yet how crazy do you have to be to yearn for someone like me? But they do. This face can melt the panties off a nun. Who’s the broken one, people?
Melody played roles in here she didn’t know about. I’m still a little bitter how things played out in the end. See, when I claim someone they stay in me forever, an obsession if you like. They live in my skin, in the blood that pumps through my veins. I don’t like losing and that was exactly what it felt like when she plunged that knife in me.
My mind relives everything that happened; killing her parents, bashing that cunting vermin’s head in who called me a punk ass faggot when I passed him in the alley behind Club Blue. Clive and the filthy whores from Club Nine, the blood flowing from them in rivers of wine. Mmmm, breaking Sean. He was in love with me and dreamed about me taking him. I watched his elation when I told him I wanted him too, then took him so brutally with my fist he cried and squealed like a baby pig being strangled. I offered to walk him home afterwards because he was too sore to sit in the seat of my car. He was so upset with himself for not being able to handle my type of sexual needs, repeatedly apologising to me. How pathetic. It was almost no fun playing with him; I prefer a stronger mind. The disbelief and fear that flitted across his face when I shoved him into the oncoming traffic is a memory I savor though. I let those memories get me through this pit stop in my life.
They think they cure you but this is me, no matter how many doctors, how much medication, they can’t cure someone who isn’t ill. I’m not ill. I didn’t break. I was never whole to begin with.
“Are you ready to start your new life, Ryan? You’re about to become a part of the world again, be an upstanding civilian and then in a year you won’t even have to come to visit me.” My psychiatrist beams.
“Live amongst the normal people?” I quipped.
“You’re normal Ryan.” God how wrong he is.
I slip on my jacket and tug down the picture that plays host to dissolute dreams. Something they tried to hide from me but only goaded me to play the recovered patient.
My lovely niece, a perfect mix of Melody and Blake.
My voice replies, “I’m ready.” My mind is saying, “I’m not normal. I don’t feel. I don’t love.”
I don’t have empathy."
The End
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Ker Dukey – Author
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This book wouldn’t have been possible without the amazing support I receive so I would like to take a moment to thank a few people.
My family who sacrifice time with me so I can spend half my life in the writing cave, living the life’s of many characters to bring you these stories. Thank you to my amazing street team who pimp me hard through pure passion for my books. Your dedication, loyalty and love, means the world to me. My incredible beta readers who drop everything to read my work and encourage and support me to keep writing. Michelle McGinty, Vikki Ryan, Vicki Leaf, Kristin Bairos, Terrie Arasin and Jillian Crouson Toth. I love you girls so much, your friendship above everything else is selfless and loyal thank you. My other half, Dawn Stancil aka D.H.Sidebottom! She is a lifeline I would drown in this market without. She is an incredible author who I look up to and who inspires me but she is also an amazing woman. Life likes to kick her around but that woman gets back up and shows it the middle finger. She is a strong, beautiful, loving friend who I cherish. Thank you to all the incredible blogs that support me. To all the authors who inspire me. Thank you to my amazing editor and friend Kyra! My incredible formatter Stacey, who always makes room for me on her busy schedule. This book is at its best because of you two. Thank you to the beautiful, Collin for gracing my cover and his super talented photographer, Clyph for capturing a perfect shot. Cover it designs for making it into the perfect cover. Thanks to my publicists and friends Judi and Kiki and my wonderful friend and hard worker at pimping my butt! Crystal Solis, I love these women hard.