SLEEPSONG (BoyxBoy)✔️

Chapter 37

Chapter Thirty-Seven

"You're in NORTH CAROLINA?!" Louise screeched in a voice that shook with rage. "DO YOU EVEN KNOW HOW WORRIED I'VE BEEN?! I ACTUALLY THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD! I REALLY THOUGHT THAT CRAZY FUCKER KILLED YOU AND RAN OFF! WHY DIDN'T YOU GET IN CONTACT WITH ME?! AND WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING, LEAVING THE STATE WITH A PSYCHO?!"

I cringed inward with every venomous syllable that came across the hologram, and I couldn't look her in the eyes since she was positively fuming. The level of rage being directed at me far surpassed anything I would have expected from her. The moment I'd turned my PSXL7 on, I'd been bombarded with hundreds of Skype notifications.

When I'd called her, she'd answered half-way through the first ring, panicking, almost on the verge of hysteria. I'd managed to calm her down by telling her I was safe, that I was okay and in a safe place, but when I'd tried to fill her in about my current situation, she'd lost her mind.

"Where are you?!" she cried, zooming up to my face with frantic eyes. "Where in North Carolina?! Are you okay?! He isn't hurting you again, is he?!"

"I don't know where I am, specifically, but I'm currently in Sebastian's house," I proffered, chin tucked against my collar like a kid who'd just been scolded for being bad. "It's a huge colonial-style mansion right next to the ocean."

"Oh my God..."

"Look, I'm sorry, okay?" I pleaded. "I know I should have contacted you sooner but there was a lot going on and things have changed immensely, Lou."

"You think I don't know that?" she wheezed, running a hand through her curly hair. "I've never been this worked up over any of my other clients, Aerin. I swear, you're going to make my hair turn completely grey before I'm thirty."

"You care that much?" I asked, oddly touched by the level of concern; she, on the other hand, gave me a very evil, very angry looking glare that made me shrink again.

"No... how'd you guess?" she mock-whispered, then shook her head and sighed. "There's a strict decorum that goes along with my profession and I'm not supposed to get involved with the personal lives of my clients. It's an unspoken rule. Therapists exist to help people work through their psychological struggles, not to become friends, although in some cases the illusion of friendship is necessary to get certain people to open up."

I remained silent since I knew there was truth to her words.

Strictly speaking, she was too involved with me and I definitely knew it but I was too selfish to put distance between us now that she knew everything. She was, for better or worse, the first normal person in the entire world who'd ever accepted me for what I really was.

A monster.

"Your case is different, though," she said a little more quietly, and I blinked. "You can't have friends the way normal people do because you're not normal."

"Gee, thanks," I deadpanned, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh, hush, you know what I mean," she snipped. "You aren't a human like the rest of us, Aerin... you can't have human friends because doing so would put you at extreme risk, and that's why I want to be somewhat involved with your life. That way, you'll always have someone to talk to."

"I'm not sure how to take that," I hesitantly informed her.

"Take it as me saying you scared the hell out of me," she countered, narrowing her eyes, "and that I sincerely hope you never do it again."

"Fair enough."

We sat there for a long time, staring each other down, neither one of us really saying anything. I didn't know where to even begin after all that since so much crap had happened to me that I was sure she would explode again. The last thing I wanted was to get yelled at some more.