My breath caught sharply and I found myself at a loss for words as I leaned forward and buried my head into his shoulder, squeezing tighter around his broad shoulders, which were rife with tension. Tension that had clearly been building, unchecked for years.
“It was on that winding road outside of town,” he says, draping his hand over mine on his shoulder. “The weather was fine, so maybe she swerved for an animal, but there were no witnesses, so my questions went unanswered. She was just gone.”
“You’ll never know what happened. I can’t put into words how horrific that must be,” I say, swallowing hard.
“But then here comes Juniper, saying my fiancée and child were murdered by this fucking phantom,” he blurts out angrily. “The very first thing she says, in fact. No ‘sorry’ or questions. Just a quick and cold declaration.”
“Oh,” I say, voice trailing off.
“Juniper says she distracted her, or scared her or took her over or something equally crazy.” His voice is thick with resentment, and I recognize it as the glue in the taut tension floating between him and Juniper. “As though that’s what I needed to hear right then. As though it means anything when I’ve lost...everything.”
“That is extremely hurtful,” I agree, feeling caught between loyalties. Juniper lost her eyes, her parents and gained a reputation as a lunatic. Her actions were clearly mired in trauma of her own, and who am I to say Mary wasn’t capable of it as I sit here about to engage in a seance?
“So yes, it’s complicated but I know that she is extraordinary. I just don’t want to hear it every day like a mobius strip of doom,” he sighs and leans back. “I want an ordinary life that I can never, ever have.”
“And she’s a symbol of that fact,” I say, watching him nod, his eyes glinting with guilt at his agreement.
“And she will NOT let me forget it,” he blows out a resigned sigh. “So if this will finally stop it, I’ll do it. I give up. Fuck it.”
“Stop Mary?” I say, whispering the name.
“Or Juniper and her visions. Whichever and whatever,” he pulls away to face me, his expression is a potent mixture of weariness, sadness and frustration, like emotion stew this time.
“You’ve been through a lot, Erik. I’m sorry I wasn’t here,” I say regretfully. He is still facing me and our faces are so close, his orbit pulling me in closer.
“I should have never let you go,” his eyes lock on mine and the intimacy is overwhelming.
“Erik…” I trail off, mesmerized by the curve of those soft, inviting lips.
“You know it’s true. The feelings are all still there, aren’t they?” he murmurs as his hands rise to the crest of my cheek, lightly caressing the apple there.
“Yes, they are,” I whisper, moving a hair closer, letting my hand travel up the defined ridges of his arms to rest on either side of his face, the stubble there tickling my palms.
“I want you, Kat,” his hand moves gently to my hair where he caresses. I watch as his eyes become bemused and he pulls his hand away steadily, staring at it as though it were some foreign thing.
I follow his gaze and see a clump of long, black strands weaved around his fingers, hanging there like a shadow canopy.
I grab it and stare at it disbelievingly before flicking it onto the table and frantically feeling into my hair. As I rake through, I pull more and more loose black strands out until there is a darkened pile sitting innocently on the table.
“Oh my god,” I whisper, looking down at it accusingly. “This hair has been everywhere, Erik.”
“Is this her?” he chokes out, eyes unsure and glinting with a new emotion. Dread.
“I think so,” I say, still staring at the clump of silken hell. “It’s been appearing everywhere.”
“This is the type of hair she has?” he asks, poking it uneasily.
“Yes, dark, long and plentiful,” I say with a shiver. “Please, tell me more about your life since I left. There is nothing we can do about her or her hair at this moment, and the more I think about it the more I dwell on my cold feet.”
His eyes look far away as he starts talking again, sweeping the hair onto the floor. “I’d started to drink heavily after mom died, but it was still relegated to evenings and weekends. When Monica died I started hitting the bottle daily, starting when I woke up and ending only when I passed out at night. When I was trashed enough I felt as though I could finally drown out Juniper’s voice and Monica’s face and be able to finally just disappear into the black, and not feel the pain for a precious few hours.”
“My god,” I mutter. “I can only multiply my own pain by a million to be able to grasp it at all.”
“I was just killing time, wasting my life, waiting for the moment when I wouldn’t feel like breathing was a labor,” he sank back into his chair, staring forward at the door, face stricken with the memory of it. “I almost ended it, Kat. One day I had the horrific idea that breathing would always be painful. Existing would never get easier and the thought was too much to bear.”
“No,” I say, shocked. “Oh, Erik.”
“Juniper saved me,” he says with a slight melancholy smile. “She knew, knew my mind and felt what I was going to do. This girl who hasn’t left the house in years got into an Uber and took it to the shore, where I was filling my pockets with rocks, as she stumbled out, screaming my name. She was so frantic that she tumbled
