The Danger You Know

by Lily White

  I can’t be there during the day to see what is packed and what was thrown away, but my cameras are still installed, and I’ve watched from afar.

  Some of her clothes are zipped in garment bags and stacked to be taken. She tossed the majority of it, the crop tops and short skirts she often wore to go clubbing.

  Most of the electronics were donated, I assume since Grant has his own in the sprawling mansion twenty minutes from her former home. But she made sure to pack all her photography equipment. I am happy to see she won’t give that dream up.

  It breaks my heart to watch her stand aside while movers from a charity also take the instruments she played and loved.

  Why? I wonder. She should be taking them with her.

  I expect to see a real estate agent walk through in the following weeks, but none show.

  Curious about Adeline not selling the home, I check her phone conversations often. She never mentions it. Not that she talks to many people anymore. Just her husband and his sister.

  Five Months Post Marriage:

  Unsure what Adeline will eventually do with the house she’d lived in since the day I first saw her, I remove most of my equipment. And while I would love to transfer it to Grant’s estate, I don’t risk attempting to sneak past the security he has in place.

  It shouldn’t matter.

  Almost half a year since the day she gave her life to another man, I should be over the woman that was never mine to begin with.

  Still, my thumb swipes the screen of my phone, my eyes studying a photo she recently posted of a dinner party they threw to welcome their return home.

  Grant stands proudly with his arm around Adeline’s shoulders, a table set with the finest settings.

  Adeline’s smile beams at the camera, her blue eyes bright, her hair falling in waves down her back.

  She is happy, I tell myself. I have to let her go.

  It’s the same thing I tell myself every night before falling in bed. The same lie I force myself to choke down.

  Six Months Post Marriage:

  Four more dinner parties.

  A new post every day about her new life.

  In each of them, I don’t recognize the person she is becoming.

  Still, her smile is genuine.

  So, I behave myself.

  Take more contracts.

  Refuse to let this obsession rule me.

  Refuse to slip into my old skin.

  Seven Months Post Marriage:

  Leaning against the large windows facing out over a waterlogged city, I enjoy the cool glass against my back. I would feel relaxed if not for the thunder that rattles the sky and the lightning that flashes.

  Rain lashes at the buildings and streets, the wind howling as it whips through the narrow alleys and through the trees.

  But rather than witnessing the power of a storm that ravishes the city beneath me, my stare is glued to a still image glaring up at me.

  Another dinner party.

  Another new dress.

  Another pair of expensive shoes Adeline made fun of once upon a time.

  But it isn’t the clothes she wears that bothers me. Isn’t the table settings or the arm draped across the back of her chair by the man that calls her Wife.

  It’s the smile I know so well.

  The one she gives to all the assholes she doesn’t like.

  The fake one that means she’s dying inside.

  Tearing my eyes from the photo, I glance up at an empty penthouse filled with all the things she used to love.

  It has to be a fluke.

  She will flash that real smile again in the next post.

  She has been happy up until now.

  Eight Months Post Marriage:

  “Son a bitch. Please tell me you’re not looking at her posts again. I thought you got over that crap four months ago.”

  My tongue is scraping my teeth as I turn my head to see Lincoln stepping up to me. We are on our weekly date as I started calling them, two to four hours spent with him grilling me. His questions are always the same.

  How many women have you fucked?

  Plenty.

  How many contracts did you complete?

  Also plenty.

  How close have you gotten to the Cabot estate?

  Nowhere near it.

  How many times have you checked her social media pages?

  Only once.

  All lies, every time he asks a bunch of questions that are butting in to my life.

  I’d been too distracted this time. Anger a vibration beneath my skin. Concern like ice water dripping down my spine. I hadn’t noticed when he walked up beside me. Lincoln saw the screen before I could turn my phone off and slip it away.

  “What is that?” he asks, his brows tugging together much like mine do. “Why is she holding so many pills?”

  It’s a photo of her hand, six pills held in the palm of it. No chipper message with a thousand exclamation points and a hundred different emojis. No explanation as to why she’s holding a combination of pills that look like a drug addict’s wet dream.

  I close the app and open another, a chain of text messages flying past as I scroll through them, my muscles locking even tighter over my shoulders with each one.

  A low whistle blows over Lincoln’s lips as he shakes his head.

  “It’s not your problem, Ari.”

  She doesn’t text her husband often, which is why I don’t know how they’ve reached this point. And since I’ve been unable to get close to their house, I wasn’t able to watch what went on in the bedroom of a wealthy man and his blushing bride.

  I’d given her that privacy.

  And look what happened.

  Lincoln’s voice is a low rumble barely breaking through the white noise in my head.

  “Maybe she needs it. We both know she had a problem. Maybe this is what’s best for her.”

  I flip back to the image of the pills.

  Uppers. Downers. Antidepressants.

  “At least four of those are addictive.”

  “It’s not your problem,” he reminds me.

  “She doesn’t want to take them.”

  The texts read like a child begging her parent to love her again.

  She has narcolepsy, the sleep study she underwent proved it. Her neurologist just gave her the diagnosis.

  I knew it had to be something. I’d seen the signs of it.

  But based on the argument between the supposedly happy couple, she didn’t show symptoms during the first few months of their marriage.

  Not until the fake smile reappeared.

  Not until she’d given up everything she once was.

  And now, Grant refuses to sleep next to her. Demands that she take whatever the doctor gave her. Spends too many hours at the office, and Adeline complains when he doesn’t come home.

  He blames her condition.

  What the fuck is he doing?

  Not even a year since I allowed him to marry her and he is already screwing it up.

  She is begging him to understand that she doesn’t want to live her life dependent on pills.

  He doesn’t care.

  But I do.

  Lincoln pushes my phone away, his intelligent brown eyes pinning mine.

  “It’s not your problem.”

  I nod my head as if I agree with him. We both know I’m full of shit.

  Adeline is crying in her sleep again.

  Fighting.

  Screaming.

  Only this time, there is no longer a protective presence standing over her. No longer a darkness that keeps watch.

  It appears it’s time for me to come out of retirement, if only to talk to her once and see what new nightmares the little monster is facing.

  Fuck what Lincoln says about it.

  And it doesn’t matter that he would be right to tell me to back off.

  I haven’t pulled that girl’s ass out of the fire more times than I can count just to let her sink beneath the waters to drown.

&n
bsp; Slipping my phone into my pocket, I try not to think that I am happy Grant has given me a reason to draw close.

  And how interesting is it that this moment should happen only a week before the anniversary of her father’s death?

  It feels like coming full circle.

  Adeline

  He doesn’t see me.

  I thought he did. At one time. At first. But, the more time I spend as the wife of Grant Cabot, the more I feel like that’s all I am:

  The wife of Grant Cabot.

  It took a few months for Adeline to slip away, for the woman I once was to respectfully bow out and allow this new person to step in with her expensive clothes and red soled shoes, with her China patterns and flower arrangements.

  Now I spend more time arranging dinner parties than I do anything else. I haven’t taken a single photograph that wasn’t on my phone. I gave up my music. I haven’t danced.

  All of that was in the past as Grant so often tells me, habits of youth that do nothing to enhance his image.

  I understand he needs a wife that will help represent him when it comes to business and the social obligations it entails, but did he have to take everything?

  In only a few months, I’d disappeared. Become unrecognizable. Saying and doing things I never would have done before I married him.

  And I feel like a brat for even thinking these thoughts. I’d wanted to grow up, and he was helping me, but I didn’t think it meant so much would change. I didn’t believe he’d disapprove of so much about me.

  Maybe he never saw me to begin with?

  He saw a shell. Something that could be molded into what he wanted. Grant had looked at me and recognized potential, but he never wanted the girl I’d once been.

  It’s my life now, regardless, and one I am determined to make the best of. He isn’t abusive or cruel. Isn’t neglectful or unattached. He just wants a wife that represents him, one who will make him proud when surrounded by his associates and friends.

  Maybe this is what growing up means.

  I fucking hate it.

  But still, it is what it is, and despite our problems, I feel fortunate that I have a man like Grant. He takes care of me. Shelters me. Does what I assume husbands are supposed to do, even though I have no one to talk to or no experience to fall back on.

  It’s what my father always did for my mother, and she’d been happy.

  I think.

  Grass blades run under my hands as I stare at the marble tombstone with my parents’ names carved on it. It is the anniversary of the night my father died, and I try to ignore the anger slithering inside me.

  He was upset, that’s what I try to believe. Not in his right mind when he’d pulled that trigger. He’d left me without any family I really knew, my aunt officially fostering me until I was eighteen, even though she never spent many nights in the house.

  It felt like a life spent horribly alone.

  Now I have a husband. The promise of a family. So, why does it still feel like I’m standing in the center of nothing, my arms outstretched, heart begging for someone to take hold?

  I am floating away from Earth again, almost sucked in by the black hole.

  It must be why I am screaming in my sleep again.

  Crying.

  Fighting.

  Reaching for something that isn’t there.

  The symptoms hadn’t been there for the first couple months we were married. Hadn’t happened at all while we traveled for our honeymoon. I’d been in newlywed bliss and must have done a damn good job convincing myself I was happy.

  Within a week of coming back home, I was empty again. Falling back on old thoughts and habits, behaviors that I never thought I’d escape.

  Grant tried to understand at first, but after a few nights of it, he’d leave to sleep in the guest bedroom. I’d tried to explain to him what an old friend of mine would do to stop me, but rather than listening to what I was telling him, he got more upset that I was talking about being in bed with another man.

  He was just a friend.

  Grant didn’t care.

  It’s been two months since he slept in the same bed as me. One since he stopped bothering to come home at all many nights.

  He forced me to go see a doctor, to get tested, and now he is trying to force me to take a cocktail of pills I don’t want.

  It’s been a week since I filled the prescriptions. I haven’t swallowed the first pill.

  I lean against my parents’ headstone, the hard marble cool against my skin. Around me the day is beautiful. Clear blue skies stretch out, calm and languid, endless in every direction. Birds fly from one tree to the next, the sun a golden glow across the manicured lawns of the cemetery.

  It’s comforting here. Quiet. Solitary. And while others might find it odd that I love this place so much, I try to explain it off as an appreciation for the sculptures and art, for the large mausoleums with their crawling ivy and ornate iron gates. It feels like walking into history.

  This is also a place where I can think and have an excuse not to be home planning the next social gathering.

  Grant has taken a lot from me, but not this. I often wonder if he saw it as too far a line to cross.

  “You look like I feel.”

  Twisting around at the deep voice, I see a man backlit by the sun, his face obscured by shadow where he stands in the next row of headstones.

  Tall with dark hair, the man has broad shoulders and is dressed in a dark suit, his hands tucked in his pockets.

  I don’t immediately say anything, and he shifts his feet, glancing up at the sky and back to me.

  “Sorry, I just saw you sitting there and you look-“

  His voice trails off as he shrugs a shoulder.

  “I shouldn’t have disturbed you.”

  “No,” I say, turning more so that my back isn’t to him.

  “It’s fine. I didn’t know you were standing behind me.”

  I think he smiles, but I’m not sure, the shadows across his face too thick. “These places tend to make people oblivious.”

  A thread of recognition coils through me, of what, I’m not sure. Something about him is so familiar. “Do I know you?”

  A shake of his head, black hair falling across his forehead. “I wouldn’t know from where.”

  Neither would I. But still, there is something. “Do you come here often?”

  He’s quiet for a second, but when he speaks again, his voice is playful, his head cocking to the side.

  “Kind of an odd question to ask here, don’t you think?”

  Well, crap. It did sound like a pick up line, in a cemetery of all places. My cheeks heat.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “It’s fine. And yes. I’m here once a month at least. Sometimes more.”

  That explains where I’ve seen him before. “Are you visiting family?”

  “A friend. He died young and didn’t know many people, so I feel I owe it to him to be here.”

  “Oh. Was he sick?”

  Shit...Shut up, Adeline. You’re being rude.

  I can’t help it, though. I’m drawn to this stranger, aggravated at the shadow that keeps his eyes hidden, that obscures his lips. Squinting doesn’t help, the sun is a fireball behind him, a brilliant light that edges around his body as if scared or unable to touch him.

  “Mentally, maybe.” A pause as he takes a step closer. “He killed himself.”

  I have an immediate visceral reaction to what he says, my body flinching, pain spreading out like a slow, agonizing rot through every cell. I try to ignore the slap of memory across my face, images of the night I found my father dead at his desk. The blood had been so thick across his desk.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “No,” I say, interrupting him with a fake smile that I can barely force. “It’s not what you said. Well, it is. But -“

  Breathe, Adeline...

  “It’s just that we have that in common. My father
-“

  I can’t finish the thought, not sure that I’ve ever admitted the truth out loud.

  “It’s an unfortunate thing to have in common,” he says, voice careful, quieter than it had been before.

  What is it about tragedy that can pull two people together? A barrier has been dropped, and the man steps closer to me, the shadows finally slipping away to reveal a face that traps the air in my lungs.

  I know him.

  I am sure of it.

  And if his friend is only a few feet from where my parents are buried, I must have seen him before without registering it.

  It’s not a stretch to say I am always off in my own little world. I’m good with faces, though. Not so much with names.

  But his face, it isn’t something easily forgotten.

  The golden color of his skin is the only feature that proves he is alive and not a sculpture created by an artist’s loving hand.

  His square jaw is strict, his skin dipping beneath cheekbones that are a blade beneath his eyes. A perfectly straight nose leads to a set of lips that are full on the bottom and carved on top. Cruel lips. Seductive.

  I drag my gaze up to his eyes to see a grey so light and clear it is staggering against his dark hair. He has a stern expression, careful. Hesitant in a way.

  Blaming the scenery around us for that hesitancy, I smile.

  “My name’s Adeline Cabot.”

  “I’m Ari.”

  Another step and he is close enough to offer his hand. It’s a mistake to reach out and touch him, a shock of electricity shooting down my arm that forces the breath from my lungs.

  His grip is strong yet gentle, fingers holding mine in such an intimate way that my gaze drops down to where our bodies meet, my skin tingling with...

  Tugging away faster than is polite, I watch him pull his hand away, slowly tucking it into his pocket again, his body straightening, the shadow of it falling over me.

  Slowly, I drag my eyes up to his, and I know I’ve lost the ability to hide my reactions from him. Ari is too strong of a presence, as if his energy can reach across the distance to whisper against your skin.

  That energy doesn’t speak of anything easy or safe either, the hair on my arms rising in response to it.