Page 64 of House of Pawns
I can’t do this.
I’m going to be alone the rest of my life.
I don’t want this.
Further and further down the property I trudge. I have to leave. I have to get away. I need to go back to Colorado. I can hide there. I can just keep being a baker there. With my few friends who’ve never once called me since I left. With my old crappy apartment. I can go back and be normal there. I can live out a mundane life and then…
And then I can die an old woman. Only to resurrect four days later, and live an eternal life as an old, wrinkled woman.
I can’t ever, ever run away from this life.
I collapse in front of the small fence that surrounds the three-person graveyard.
My uncle. My mother. My father. They’re all here. I need them. So very much.
“Henry,” I cry out into the empty, still air as I collapse into the snow on my knees. Tears overtake me and I let them come out in sobs. “Henry. Why? Why did this have to happen to us? Why aren’t you here? I need someone to tell me how to do this, because I can’t. I just…” I suck in air as the tears continue to roll down my face and I let the monster of the panic attack eat me alive. “This is too much.”
I fall forward, barely catching myself on my hands as I sob, my hot tears dropping into the snow and melting it. My face begins to numb and I can’t feel my knees or hands as the snow and the temperatures freeze them.
Minutes, hours. I don’t know how long passes, but it’s all just one long circle of self-loathing and pain and uncertainty.
And I just cry all the harder when a semi-warm hand rests on my back. I don’t turn to see who it is. I don’t want it to be anyone because someone’s presence means I have to be Alivia Conrath again, and I have to be strong and lead and I just can’t do it this second.
But the owner of the warm hand doesn’t say anything. No words of concern or comfort come. The hand just stays there as I continue to cry. My shoulders shake and my nose runs and soon I’ve got hiccups.
Slowly, the hand pulls more and more of me to them until I’m cradled against a warm body. I don’t open my eyes, though,because as soon as I do, I’m going to have to feel shame that one of my House has seen me weak. I’m going to have to return to the reality I cannot run from.
So I keep them closed. Even as I feel us stand. Even as I feel us start walking back for the House.
Even when we walk back inside, and up the stairs.
And I keep them shut when I’m laid on the bed, and someone pulls my boots off. When that someone crawls back in the bed with me, tucks their arms around my trembling frame, and pulls me close.
I keep my eyes shut and pretend I’m nothing at all.
Chapter
Twenty-Three
ALOW HUMMING PULLS ME from sleep. It’s deep and reverberates from a large chest through my own. It’s exotic and foreign and completely beautiful.
I lay on my side, facing the window that looks out over the river. The curtains are pulled back just slightly, letting in a small sliver of gray light. Warm arms still encircle me, holding me firm, but gently. I’m tucked in tight, warm all the way through.
The humming once again pulls my focus to the person spooned against me.
I roll toward them, my heart picking up speed.
Raheem’s black as night eyes stare down at me. But where there has been so much danger in them since we met, now there is softness. They are open, and they do not judge me.
“Welcome back,” he says with that beautiful accent.
I stare at him, analyzing this moment.
He did not ask what caused my break. Or if I’m feeling better. He didn’t criticize me for having a mentalshutdown.
Welcome back.
He just accepts.
