by C. E. Wilson
“Thanks.” I spun back to the computer and saved my progress, too tired to correct him. My ex whistled again.
“She stared at her daddy and the position of his head. Just one little push and the falling bookshelf would stave in his skull, ending one nightmare. But the other would remain. Not yet, she told herself...” he read out loud before I shut the laptop. “Wow. That’s pretty rough even for you. You sure you want to publish something so gristly?”
I shrugged. “My editor will remove half of all the good stuff anyway.” My head pounded now that I was no longer looking at the screen. “Ugh, I need a drink.”
“I never thought I’d say it, but I think I agree with you. I brought over some wine. Figured we could sit down and watch a movie. Give your brain a break unless...”
“Unless... what?”
“You want me to read over what you’ve written so far? I know you like having a second pair of eyes on your work. And judging by how tightly you’ve holed yourself up for the past week, I bet this one is going to be a doozy.”
A careful smile cracked through my dry lips. I wondered where my Chapstick went before I shook my head. “This is going to be the one, Kevin. I can feel it. I swear, I’ve never felt like this before.” As though realizing I felt happy enough to take a small break, I stretched out and shuffled towards my mirror. “Oh shit! I do look like crap!”
“Still gorgeous,” Kevin said.
“Shut up. I’m going to take a shower.”
“So can I read what you’ve written so far?” he asked, already taking a seat at my desk as I grabbed a somewhat clean towel and CD.
“Knock yourself out.” I was still smiling as I turned on the hot water to singe off the stink of a week without bathing.
This was it. This was fucking it. I could feel it.
Jessen Blake, you are not going to beat me this time. This is the book that’s going to steal your number one slot.
Chapter Three
“This is disgusting.” Kevin wore a dark frown.
“Don’t be such a pansy.”
“I’m serious. This story is depraved. Even for you, Emma.” He shuddered slightly. “Even for Shade.”
I was toweling myself off as Kevin sat at the desk, still staring at the computer screen. I felt eyes watching me suddenly, but decided to ignore them.
“Yeah, I know,” I said. “Isn’t it great?” He didn’t answer, and I stopped patting the terrycloth against my damp skin. Dragging my fingernails over my thigh, I noticed there was still a thin layer of grime coating me. But no matter. “Did you hear me?”
“I heard you.”
“So don’t you think it’s great?”
“I dunno, Emma.” He shrugged a second time. “This is... it’s a lot. That guy, the main guy, he sounds a lot like your dad, doesn’t he?”
“Does he?” I pretended not to make the connection, but my ex-husband was simple, not stupid. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“Bullshit.” He pursed his lips as he stood up and walked towards me.
Yes, I was naked under the half-open towel, but I wasn’t feeling weak enough to debase myself with him right now. Shaking my head at him, I took a step back. I wasn’t drunk. I wasn’t high. I wasn’t tired from lack of sleep, and I wasn’t hungry from lack of eating. I didn’t want him touching me.
I told him so.
The look on his face after one of my rejections still hurt after all these years, but it was a look he practically signed up for. Kevin. He was the one who cheated. Kevin. Instead of owning up to it, he said it was my fault that he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants. Apparently, I was too obsessed with being a famous author. Too driven to give him enough attention.
But she had. She had been there when Kevin needed a body to hug at night. She was there for him when I was up writing until four in the morning trying to make our lives better. She always answered his calls and responded to his texts. She didn’t disappear into a writing cave for days without a word or sign of affection. She gave him everything he wanted, but when I told him I wanted a divorce, he suddenly couldn’t live without me and would never know happiness with another person. Barf.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Kevin asked stupidly, probably not having the slightest idea of the turmoil boiling in my head.
“No. If you don’t like the book, then you can get the fuck out. You said you wanted to make sure I was alive and you have.”
“I didn’t just come here to check if you were dead.”
“What?”
“I’m not an idiot. We’re still married, you know.”
“Divorced.”
“Separated,” he corrected me. “I haven’t signed the official papers. And honestly, I’m still convinced that this will all work out.”
“Trust me; it won’t.” Without bothering to tell him to turn away, I dropped the towel and started to get dressed. Nothing fancy, just something to get me through the next few days. I would probably only need three or four more to finish the book if I didn’t bother to sleep. And then after a week’s worth of sleeping and tearing my text apart, I could send it to the editor.
Daddy, Don’t Sleep was going to make it to number one, so help me God.
“You still look good,” Kevin murmured as I tossed a loose sweater over my black leggings.
“You’re still here?” I pushed wet hair away from my face and strode up to the computer. “I need to sit there. I’m going to finish my book.”
“Let’s go.” He reached forward and grabbed my arm, preventing me from taking a seat. His touch wasn’t rough. It never was. Kevin was always gentle with me. He never laid a violent hand on me, and he rarely raised his voice.
But he cheated. He was a cheater.
I wrenched my arm free. “Seriously, Kevin. What do you want? You already said you hated my book and—”
“I never said I hated it,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I only said that it’s a lot.”
“I’m a horror writer. What do you expect?”
“I know you are; it’s just... this seems kinda personal.”
I frowned. “It’s about a girl who can read minds and realizes that she has to kill her dad after he’s done destroying the evil in the haunted town where they live. It’s not exactly my autobiography.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I don’t, Kevin. Either state your actual reason for being here or get out. Don’t you have a dinner reservation with one of your whores?”
His hurt expression deepened. “I wish you wouldn’t say things like that. One time. It was one time, Emma. And it didn’t mean anything. I told you why I did it—”
“I know why you fucking did it. And don’t say it didn’t mean anything. It meant everything.” I took a seat at my computer.
“Emma, she means nothing to me.”
“I could care less about her,” I snarled. “I’m saying that what you did – the thing that you said meant nothing? That ruined us. It ruined everything. You ruined everything.”
He took in a deep breath. I heard his throat shake. I felt more eyes on us. Someone was watching us. Looking at me. I shook it off.
“We’re ruined because of you. You broke us, Kevin. Not me. You.” I spun around in the chair. “I may have made you feel alone, but you made me feel like a piece of shit who wasn’t worth a little patience. I didn’t go out and bang random strangers while we were married. That was you. And yes, while I wasn’t the best wife, I thought I could trust you to wait for me to build my career for a few years. But no, you got impatient about sex.” My lower lip trembled. It was because I felt eyes on my back. Not because I cared about him. “You fucked someone else, you moron. Because... because of...” I trailed off and spun away. “Just get out.”
“Emma—”
“Get out!” I screeched – hoping, begging, and praying that he would do it. I couldn’t have another one of these conversations. I was so tired of talking about that slut and his fucking needs. He cheated.
What else was there to say
?
What was he even still doing here?
Why was I always so willing to let him back into my life?
“Get out!”
“I’m going,” he murmured.
I listened as he stumbled back a few feet to the doorway. “And as for the reason I was here—”
“I don’t care.”
“I wanted to know if you wanted to get a good meal.” I didn’t answer. He stopped moving. “I thought you’d like that. Getting out of this stuffy townhouse filled with blood and horror and maybe have a good steak or something.”
I pressed my lips together. “I like my steak bloody, anyway,” I murmured. “Thanks for the offer, but no thanks. I’ll just stop at the convenience store. I’m almost out of cigarettes.”
“You want me to get them?”
“I’d like you to get the fuck out before I call the police on you. Again.”
He didn’t say another word, and the familiar sound of him putting his coat back on and opening the door filled my ears. I wanted to shout for him to leave the key behind this time. I wanted to tell him that I would never forgive him because deep down I would never forgive myself.
He cheated. But I... I made him cheat. He cheated because he felt neglected. It was never for lack of physical attraction. He said he loved me. He wanted me. That he counted down the minutes until he could be inside me.
But despite all of that, I hadn’t been there enough for him. And so he cheated.
I didn’t call the police, and I didn’t ask for my keys. And when the door shut I pinched my eyes shut. Hot tears threatened to fall, but I was so tired of crying over unchangeable things. Kevin would never be the same man I fell in love with in high school. He would never again be the one who encouraged me to write after he snuck looks at what he thought were journals and threatened to have me institutionalized. Kevin said I was a maniac and he still loved me. He worried about me like no one else would. He kissed me like there wasn’t anyone else in the world. He wanted to get married young and start a family so we could be the cool young parents. He had wanted to protect me. Protect me from me.
I slammed the laptop shut.
We could have done all of those things. Kevin was to blame. Not me. I didn’t cheat. Yes, I wasn’t perfect, and yes, I was career-driven, but I didn’t cheat. He was bad. Not me.
Kevin had to be a bad person because I didn’t know how else to look at him anymore.
My laptop begged to be opened, but I couldn’t bring myself to write. I was so angry that I was afraid of what I would write. I could kill every main character in my work-in-progress and not give two shits. Part of me wanted to create a little boyfriend for my child mind reader. Someone she could kill to pass the time until her dad was finished helping out the town.
But I wouldn’t do any of those things.
And so I stood up and staggered to the kitchen.
I kept an emergency pack of cigarettes behind the stove.
I kept the emergency vodka hidden in the back of the freezer.
The weather was decent, not that it made a difference.
But drinking and smoking in bed sounded more fun. I’d just have to remember to take the comforter and sheets down to the laundromat over the weekend. Maybe take another shower before I went to bed. I drug my nail where my breasts met and saw more grayish grime under my fingernails and flicked it away.
There was no shower. There was no laundromat. And there was no answer when Kevin called me as I was passing out in bed with a damp towel bunched next to my head. More eyes were watching me and I only just managed to close the curtains and bind them with a hair tie before I collapsed back in bed. Staring at the ceiling, I watched the ceiling fan lazily spin over my head. Could someone die because of a ceiling fan?
“Stop judging me,” I said to no one in particular, rolling on my side.
It was always the same. My life was boring. I was dull. Just another face in the crowd. Nothing ever surprised me. And though I prepared for another night of darkness and silence, something happened that I hadn’t expected.
I dreamed.
And that fucker Jessen Blake came to me in a dream. Apparently, he wasn’t satisfied with only stalking my daytime thoughts.
***
I blinked slowly as white heat pierced my eyelids. It was a searing pain that I wasn’t used to. I’ll admit, despite being a horror and gore lover I never really got into the idea of hurting myself to understand pain. I struggled to sit up but found that my wrists and ankles were bound and panic washed over me. I popped my eyes open and blinked against the blinding white light glaring down at me like a watchful and hateful eye. The air felt damp and moist. Thick enough to drag my fingers across it if my hands were not bound to the cold metal cot. I licked my lips, tasting the strange place. It tasted like sucking my finger after a brutal papercut.
“Hello?” I called into the dank air, finding some relief in being able to turn my head from side-to-side. It was a room right out of one of my horror novels. Simultaneously chilled and sweaty with the smell of blood and iron. This room felt like the flu. Footsteps from a place I couldn’t see moved slowly and methodically in my direction. They sounded like loafers with man-heels. The shoes men wore in movies where they were about to kill off a cute teenager. Feeling somewhat crazed, I looked at my surroundings with a closer eye. No creepy tables filled with rusty tools. That should have made me feel better, but I think I felt worse.
The hollow steps drew closer as I struggled against the restraints.
“Just a dream,” I chanted. “Just a dream, just a dream, just a dream, just a dream—”
“Ahh! You’re awake! I was hoping you would be soon.”
The warmth and jarring familiarity of the deep, masculine voice made the hairs on my arm stand at complete attention. It was a sound I’d heard before on TV and in audiobooks. I jerked my head towards the direction of the voice, hardly surprised to find a slim, athletic frame filling the doorway. I swallowed.
“You...” I struggled to breathe. “You’re...”
“I am.” He smiled.
Jessen Blake didn’t look like a horror writer. Where my skin was pale and sunken in from lack of sunlight, his was healthy and toned. Where I was thick from living off a diet of crisps, Cheetos, cigarettes, and vodka, he was trim. A detached, masculine face with intelligent eyes looked on as he pushed his glasses further up his nose – the only thing that hinted he was an artist and not an athlete – as he casually strolled over to me.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said.
“You’re... you’re Jessen Blake,” I said again, staring up into those warm, hazel eyes. I couldn’t believe how attractive he was.
“I am.”
“You’re dead.”
“Right again.” He walked around the cot to which I was bound. “I have to say... you dream of some nasty things at night, don’t you?”
I struggled against the restraints. “You mean, this isn’t you? You’re not doing this?”
He smiled an oddly chilling closed-lipped smile. “This is your dream, not mine. If you want to be free, simply wish it so.”
So I did. And yet, I was still bound. Jessen’s grin flashed into a puzzled frown.
“You must not want to be free,” he said, stopping close to my head. “It’s all those horror movies that will do that to you.”
“Let me out of here,” I snapped. “Dream or not, I don’t like being tied up.”
“Then you must wish it so.”
“I’ve tried! It’s not working.” I struggled harder as Jessen turned away and melded into the shadows around the edge of the room. “Please. This is weird as fuck.”
“You curse like your characters, too. I’m hardly surprised.”
The dull clanking of metal brought a bead of sweat to my hairline, and I couldn’t stop my eyes from widening as I stared into the darkness toward where I thought Jessen Blake was. “You... you know who I am?”
“I do.” More dull clanking. “I kno
w all up and coming writers. You’re Shade – young upstart horror writer. New York Times and USA Today top seller. Top ten overall on Amazon. Mind like a violent killer with the face of an angel. Your actual name is Emma Ross. You struggled early on and after a few pathetic, derivative attempts at paranormal romance with your original name, you changed it to Shade, started writing horror tales, and haven’t looked back since. Am I correct?”
“Y-yeah,” I said, unable to stop my voice from shaking.
“Have I missed anything?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“And you... you’re Jessen Blake?”
“In the flesh... well, not actually.” He let out a throaty laugh, then emerged back into the light with a large chef’s knife in his right hand. It gleamed under the sterile white light above us and his smile was no less calm or warm as he came back over. “As you stated earlier, I am dead. Taken at thirty-three. What a shame. I had so much promise. Too ambitious, they said. My drive always took a toll on my personal relationships, they said. You know they say that most authors are at least partially insane? Horror writers, especially.” He laughed, testing the tip of the chef’s knife with the pad of his pointer finger. “And you? You’re not that much different than me.”
I frowned. “I’m not half as prolific as you were—”
“I mean personally, not professionally!” he barked, surprising me with the intensity of his tone. Gone was the warmth. He was serious now, staring from above with the knife. I struggled and the corner of his mouth crooked upward. If it was meant to be a smile, it certainly didn’t come across that way. Jessen Blake didn’t look like the type who genuinely smiled too often. “If you don’t want to escape, you might as well not bother trying, Shade.” He lifted the knife in the air and brought it dangerously close to my face, causing me to scream as he pulled it away. He didn’t even react to my fear. “Crazy, they said. Now, where were we? Ahh, yes! The similarities between you and I. Personally, not professionally.” He winked.
“Are you... are you going to kill me?” I asked, nervous for that knife to come close to me again.
“This is a dream, Shade. My God. Don’t be ridiculous.” He rolled his eyes as he strode to the front of the steel cot. “Now, you have a husband, yes?”