Page 42 of Perfect
I pull away from him and curl up, crying harder. He sits on the rim of the tub and stares at me, opening his mouth and closing it like he’s searching for something to say. I’m so drunk all of a sudden, and I drop my head onto my knees, moaning.
How am I still not numb?
“I never would have left if I’d known I was going to end up back here,” I slur out.
“What are you talking about?”
“I don’t want to do this again,” I sob, letting my tears drip into the bathwater.
“Do what?”
“I’m going to have to start over.” I really shouldn’t be saying this to him.
“Oh, sweetheart, we can try again tomorrow. Today went better than yesterday, right? Tomorrow will be better, too. You’re just adjusting.We’readjusting.” I sob harder.Adjusting. I adjusted to Danny, but I refuse to adjust to this. A familiar wash of despair rises inside me, and I let it take me back to an old place.
“I should have been in that fucking car.”
“What car?” I shake my head, my vision tunneling a little and my mouth watering. I gag and lean over the side of the tub, vomiting up wine and bile. Theo pulls my hair back withone hand and reaches away from me with the other to pull the plug and turn on the cold tap. Once my stomach is empty, Theo gets me a glass of water and I take small sips, lying back in the cooling bathwater, my head spinning.
I can see my mother’s painting behind my eyes, the rabbit’s beady red eyes judging me, young me staring at me with disappointment, and I pass out thinking about that fucking rabbit, trapped in my arms, desperate to be free.
14
THEO
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 24
Alex passes out and I push down my panic as I get her cleaned up and dried off and tucked into bed. I ignore the pit in my stomach as I clean the bathroom. I swallow the creeping nausea as I methodically comb through her house, checking for loose baseboards and tiles, looking under every piece of furniture, and going through all her clothes and bags.
It takes me an hour to find everything.
Small piles of cash are hidden throughout the house in obvious places, amounting to just over seven thousand dollars. A platinum diamond ring is tucked away in an empty bottle of aspirin, and my first thought is that it doesn’t look like something Alex would wear, even though she doesn’t wear anyjewelry besides small gold hoop earrings. Her driver’s license takes me the longest to find, because she taped it underneath the bottom of the bookshelf.
I put it all in a neat pile on the table and stare at it, panic overtaking me.
I never would have left.
I don’t want to do this again.
I’m going to have to start over.
Oh, fuck, she’s going to run from me.
I know what I have to do to stop her, I just don’t like it.
It’s the middle of the night and Alex is passed out drunk, so I have hours. I grab everything and head to my house, taking everything into my office. I pull up the camera feeds of Alex’s room on one monitor and pull up search engines on the other two, grabbing her license and looking up her real name.
The first thing that pops up is a homemade missing persons poster from March. The photo looks like it was taken at a holiday party, and I barely recognize her. She’s thinner, with waist-long honey-colored hair styled in a wavy, layered blowout, and she’s wearing heavy makeup.
Her smile is wide, but it looks wrong to me somehow.
She’s got on a tight, short dress and leans against the arm of a tall, muscular man in a dark blue suit, a thick platinum band on his left hand. He’s maybe my height or a little taller, built much broader than I am, with sandy hair, blue eyes, a ruddy complexion, and a very square jaw.
He’s not unattractive, he just looks like a fucking asshole.
I look at the information on the missing poster, nausea churning in my gut.
MISSING PERSON:
