Page 110 of Make Me Sin (Bad Habit 2)
or two or ten later, a loud pounding noise wakes me.
The clock on my nightstand reads four p.m. I have no sense of how long I’ve been in bed, of how much time has passed. When I lift my head and look around, I’m dizzy.
I can’t remember when I last ate.
The pounding comes from my front door; someone is furiously knocking.
Go away. I’m not here. Send flowers to my funeral and go the hell away.
“Chloe! Are you in there? It’s Kat! Honey, please, if you’re in there, open the door!”
Her voice is muffled, but the frantic tone is clear enough. I can’t muster the energy to feel sorry that I’ve worried my friend. I can barely muster the energy to sit up in bed, but I do because she won’t stop her insistent hammering. I run a hand through my hair, shuffle to the bathroom and get my robe, and shrug it on while moving like a zombie through my apartment.
When I open the door and she gets a good look at me, Kat cries out in shock.
“Chloe,” she says, her eyes huge, “my God, honey! What’s happened? Where’ve you been?”
“I’ve been here. I’m fine. Don’t worry. I need to go back to bed now.”
My voice is strangely flat. I try to close the door, but Kat slams her hand against it and pushes it wide open. She takes me by the shoulders, steers me to the couch, makes me sit, then goes back and shuts the front door. She returns and kneels on the floor in front of me, taking my hands in hers.
“Chloe, you’ve been missing for four days. No one knows where you’ve been. You haven’t been answering your phone. You haven’t showed up for work. You haven’t called anyone.”
She speaks to me slowly and with very clear enunciation, as if to someone with a shaky grip on the English language.
“Your parents are freaking out. They thought Eric . . . well, you can imagine what they thought. They filed a missing person’s report. When the police came by, all your neighbors said you hadn’t been here in months, but the building manager was going to check on the apartment later today to make sure there wasn’t a dead body in here.”
There is a dead body in here, I think.
When I don’t respond, she repeats more forcefully, “Where have you been?”
“I was here,” I repeat woodenly, staring past her at the wall. “I’ve been here the whole time. I’m fine.”
She sits beside me on the sofa. “You’re not fine, obviously! What on earth happened?”
I think about it for a moment, and arrive at the only logical conclusion. “I died. And now I’m in hell.”
When I turn my head and look into her eyes, all the color drains from her face. “You’re scaring me.”
My stomach growls. I try to swallow but my throat is so dry I can’t. I’m dizzy again, so I close my eyes so the room will stop spinning. “I need to be alone now, Kat. Please tell everyone I’m fine. I just need to be alone.” I try to stand, but my knees give out and I end up sagging back to the sofa, breathless, the room spinning.
“That’s it,” Kat says firmly. “I’m calling your father.”
My eyes fly open. “No! Kat, no, please, don’t call anyone. I can’t see anyone. I can’t . . . I just can’t . . .”
Suddenly I’m struggling for breath. I feel as if all my organs are failing. I look at her, at her worried eyes and pale face, and realize with a painful intake of air that I don’t want her to leave.
I’m afraid of what will happen if I’m alone for much longer.
I gasp, gulping air, beginning to shake all over. I blurt, “He doesn’t love me, Kat. It’s over. It was all a lie. I found him with Heavenly . . . I walked in and he was . . . they were . . .”
Her face goes through a number of expressions before it settles on fury. Her lips thin to a pale, hard line. “Don’t think about it right now. We can talk about it later. Or not, whatever you want. Just lie back and rest.” She gently pushes me back onto the sofa, and covers me with my fluffy chocolate cashmere throw. Suddenly I can hardly keep my eyes open.
“I need to make a few calls, but I’m staying here with you. I’m not leaving, okay?”
You’ll never have to be alone again, not if you don’t want to be.
I remember A.J.’s promise, and all the broken things inside me grind together, making me bleed.
