"Come here," his voice is gentle again.
She gives in, placing her small hand in his. Lifting the cloth, he sees her blood spill out from her palm. He inhales sharply through his teeth and presses the rag back down. They sit there like that for abo...
She watches him shift his weight from one foot to the next. She has never seen him look so...awkward. Not that she knows him all that well to say for sure that this is unusual behavior, of course. She is starting to sense that she knows him even less than she'd previously thought, like she misread entirely what she thought were clear signs. In one hand, she still has two wine glasses dangling from between her fingers by the stems, and suddenly it feels as though each is a ten pound weight she is desperate to make disappear. She sets them down herself, moving her now curled hands to her stomach, scanning the room, anything to prevent looking at him. That's when she notices the folded up lined paper and what appeared to be a printout of a photograph with moody lighting. She leans forward in space an inch or two, tilting her head to one side.
He follows her motion, his eyes landing on Sandra's letter that he'd set down at the same time he'd set down the wine bottle. With a quick, shallow breath, he remembers the photoshopped picture enclosed in the letter, the one with Sandra's head, and...
Aitana's body! Omigod, no.
He dives forward, snatching the letter off the table. If she hadn't noticed it yet, she certainly notices it now, he realizes. No matter, there's no turning back now. He turns on his heel and, with two large strides, he is at his nightstand, opening the drawer and shoving the letter in, before pushing the drawer shut with a thud.
Real smooth, he chides himself, slowly spinning back to face her...
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Sandra's whole body feels heavy. She has toweled off, thrown on some sweats, and her freshly shampooed hair is now pulled into a low, messy ponytail. She holds a small glass of whiskey in her hand. Who is she kidding? It is not small, it is no longer full, and it is not even her first since she'd gotten out of the tub. Rather than the numbness she was hoping for, though, every strand of hair feels like a piece of lead pressing down against her head. It is the strangest sensation: chills on her arms, hot flashes in her chest, pain at her temples and the feeling you get in the pit of your stomach right before the biggest dip on a rollercoaster, when if you were given the opportunity at that moment you most certainly would choose to get off. But rollercoasters come up after they go down, and this weighted feeling isn't likely to ease anytime soon.
She knows she shouldn't have fallen for it, believed everything is as it seemed. She knows she shouldn't have trusted. She knows she should get up right now and go for a run, or eat something more than the handful of saltine crackers she'd eaten since she'd seen that magazine at the newsstand a few days ago. She feels exhausted, yet unable to sleep, not sure if she'll sleep ever again.
Don't be ridiculous, she tries to tell herself. It's not like she'd spent four years investing in this one. In him. Shake it off! she continues to berate herself. What does it matter anyway? Her mother is right, the only person she can truly count on is herself. Who cares what he is doing or with whom?
