Page 38 of Ladybirds

She doesn’t—she can’t. Behind him, she can hear the door handle shake violently and her breath catches in her throat. Something cold coils in her gut as she recognizes with growing horror the amount of force on the other side of the door. “David would never hurt me,” she whispers, but her voice is as wavering as her faith. The sound changes—he’s switched from fists to feet. Sara wonders how bruised his hands will be in the morning. “He just wouldn’t...”

For a long moment, Seth is silent—David’s drunken curses slipping through the silence like a knife. “Ask him, then.”

“Ask him?” The words feel heavy, cloying and awkward as stale taffy on her tongue.

“Before you open that door, ask him why he’s here.”

Sara swallows, throat tight—raw. David tries the handle again.

She can’t. Something in Seth’s eyes, in his voice, rings true enough to make her afraid of what answer she would receive if she found the courage to ask. “I hate you,” she whispers, eyes burning.

The tension in his shoulders eases, melting under her scathing words as if they were balm. “I know.”

The softness in his expression, the gentle acceptance, only serves to make her hate him more. Angry tears roll down her cheeks, blurring her vision, but she gives him the darkest glare she can muster before retreating to her room—the door slamming behind her.

She screams—crying—into her pillow until her voice goes hoarse, and the insistent pounding on her door goes quiet.

There’s no missed calls when she wakes up. No voicemails. She wishes she could claim to be surprised, but the truth is she’s just numb. Seth gives her space. For someone who exists to annoy her, he’s shockingly adept at making himself scarce when she needs him to. Sara thinks of the bruises on her knuckles, the feel of his jaw beneath them, and tries to convince herself he does it for his sake more than hers. But then she remembers the openness of his expression, the softness, when she told him she hated him.

“I know.”

Sara wraps Oma’s blanket around her more firmly, warding off the chill.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

She doesn’t tell Miles, or even Jen, about David’s late night visit. She doesn’t tell anyone. Sometimes, it feels more like a bad dream than a memory; a trick of her imagination to keep her nerves strung tight. Sara knows the moment she puts what happened into words, is the moment it will all feel real.

Which, with finals and the holidays looming around the corner, is literally the last thing her sanity needs.

Shockingly, Seth doesn’t push it. Perhaps—no. He must see the way she jumps at every sudden sound. He has to. Seth sees her flaws and vulnerabilities as easily as if she were wearing each one pinned to her sleeves.

She tries to push it to the back of her mind, bury it under all the things she needs to do and the tests she needs to study for, but it keeps wriggling free. Teasing her until she surrenders and finally brings herself to ask, “How do you know?” It had been bothering her all day, a thought she couldn’t escape no matter how much she tried to swat it away.

“I’m old and therefore know a lot of things,” he drawls. “I’m afraid you’ll have to be a touch more specific.” His chin rests on the heel of his hand, expression bored as he watches the tv. It’s a hot dog commercial; Sara wonders how many times he must have already seen it today.

“That he—” she stops, forces herself to say his name, “that David would hurt me.”

He stills, his gaze piercing. “Be careful of what you ask, Princess.”

She stands, temper rising, and turns the tv off before setting her hands on her hips. “Why? Because you don’t want to talk about it?”

Seth’s glare is equal parts annoyed and exasperated. “Because you won’t want to hear it.” His voice is smooth but firm; leaving no room for her arguments. “Some things are better left buried.”

“Yeah, well, David isn’t buried,” she snaps, hand gesturing to her front door. “He’s very much alive!”

Seth’s lips parts, a retort ready on his tongue, but he closes his mouth before it can escape him—his jaw straining from the effort of holding it in.

“What? What were you about to say?”

His jaw works, a grimace tightening his features as his words hiss past his lips. “His body is alive,” he says. The syllables sound forced, as if they’re being ripped from his throat. “There is a difference.”

Sara stills, heart stuttering in her chest. “What does that mean?”

A growl, deep and guttural, slips between his teeth—knuckles white as his hands clench over the upholstery. Suddenly he’s standing, towering over her and way too close for comfort, but the look in his eyes—the manic gleam—pin her in place. “It means we are more than just flesh and bone,” he snarls, lips pulled back and teeth gleaming in the light. His long, tapered fingers splay over his heart. “It isn’t our bodies that make us, you foolish girl. Just because that, that thing, wears your dear David’s face doesn’t mean they are one and the same!”

His words strike like a blade, cutting sharp and deep. “That thing?” she echoes, voice as thin as the air feels. She takes one breath, then another, but each one feels more empty than the last. Swaying, her hand reaches for the wall to steady herself, shaking her head. What he’s suggesting… it’s too terrible to believe. “No. You’re wrong.”

The curled sneer shaping his lips softens; melting until it looks more like a grimace. “Maybe,” he murmurs, but the shape of the syllables are too soft, too heavy. Pity masquerading as acceptance.

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