Today's Reading
"This was supposed to be our week," she said. "You were going to tell Myra. I was—"
"You should go home, be with your family."
"You're my family."
"Your kids at least."
"What is this, Kiernan?" She could feel an angry knot bulging in her throat. "Are we not in this together? Are you having second thoughts—"
"It's not that."
"Do you have any concept of what I've already sacrificed for you?"
She couldn't see all of his face in the mirror on the opposite wall, but she could see his eyes. Gaping into nothing. A thousand-yard stare. He was someplace other than this room. He'd gone deep, and she'd sensed it even before this moment, in the way he'd made love to her. Something held back. Something missing.
She climbed out of bed and walked over to her dress, where she'd thrown it against the wall two hours earlier.
"You don't feel it?" he asked. "Not at all?"
"Feel what?"
"Forget it."
"Kiernan—"
"Fucking forget it."
"What is wrong with you?"
"Nothing."
Dee pulled the straps over her shoulders as Kiernan glared at her through the cloud of smoke around his head. He was forty-one years old, with short black hair and a two-day shadow that reminded her so much of her father.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked.
"You and I are not the same anymore, Dee."
"Did I do something or—"
"I'm not talking about our relationship. It's deeper. It's...so much more profound than that."
"You're not making sense."
She was standing by the window. The air coming in was cool and it smelled of the city and the desert that surrounded it. A pair of gunshots drew her attention, and when she looked through the glass she saw grids of darkness overspreading the city.
Dee glanced back at Kiernan, and she'd just opened her mouth to say something when the lights and the television cut out.
She froze.
Her heart accelerating.
Couldn't see anything but the flare and fade of Kiernan's tobacco ember.
Heard him exhale in the dark, and then his voice, all the more terrifying for its evenness.
"You need to get away from me right now," he said.
"What are you talking about?"
"There's this part of me, getting stronger every time I breathe in, that wants to hurt you."
"Why?"
She heard the covers rip back. The sound of Kiernan rushing across the carpet.
He stopped inches from her.
She smelled the cigarettes on his breath, and when she touched his chest, felt his body shaking.
"What's happening to you?" she asked.
"I don't know, but I can't stop it. Remember that I loved you."
He put his hands on her bare shoulders, and she thought he was going to kiss her, but then she was flying through darkness across the room.
She crashed into the dresser, stunned, her shoulder throbbing from the impact.
Kiernan said, "Now, get the fuck out while you still can."
...
