LEVI 🔞

( 16 )

She's going to talk. No, she won't. She knows better. What if she does? What if she tells someone about me? Where I stay? The things she's witnessed? She's probably hated me. She's going to talk if she's hated me this whole time...

I glimpse up at the knife holder beside the sink.

Even if she did tell someone, would I be able to find her in time? First person she'd go to is the police, right? But what if she didn't. Maybe she just decided to return to how she used to live. Both of us can do that, go back to how it was before. But I can't be too sure. I have to make sure she can't. She made her choice.

I grab the largest chef knife, watching the light glisten off of it as I examine how sharp it is.

I can't. I won't. I gave her the choice. It wasn't a test. She's smart, and non-confrontational for the most part. She wouldn't try me like that. It was me that caused all of this, so I won't punish her for it. I can't punish her for making her choice.

I return the knife to the holder and grab the edge of the counter.

I trust her.

I sigh deeply and tense my shoulders up before relaxing them and letting my head fall forward lazily. I trust Euphoria enough to know she will go on with her life as if she never knew me, as if she never had anything to do with me. She'll never tell a soul about my career, those deaths. The way I strangled her with that coil wire, the way my hands squeezed her throat, or how they touched her at all. Fuck. She'll never tell anybody about the things I did to her in my bedroom. I could no longer exist to her since she was gone.

After that little self-reassurance settled, I began to feel that relief I was talking about earlier. A relief of responsibility, that failure on my part to protect what was mine. A relief of any attachment I started to have. I could just... go back to how it was before her.

I check the small fridge, seeing it's empty and wondering why I expected any different. I roll my eyes and decide to sleep off my hunger. I go to the bedroom and undress to my boxers, rolling into the bed and setting my hand behind my head. I stare up at the ceiling, lacking any emotion at all and waiting to eventually fall asleep.

That was until I heard a soft beep against the blatant silence and the villa door quietly opening. My brows slightly furrow as I get up walk over to the open door, looking down the hall towards the living room where Astraia now stands, closing the door behind her and taking off her shoes. I see her notice mine as she holds an open honeybun in her left hand, most of it gone and only a bite left.

She glances over at me, swallowing the food in her mouth before speaking. "You're back."

I walk to her as she walks across the living room to the trash can in the kitchen, eating the last of her snack.

I seem to instantly dismiss her obvious observation. "Why'd you come back?" I was confused.

She throws the plastic wrap in the trash before rinsing her hands in the sink and drying them with the backs of her pants. "I never left," She shrugs, "Besides to go get something from the vending machine. There's nothing to eat in the cooler."

I watch as she so casually walks pass me and towards the bedroom, "You don't have any money for something in the vending machine."