The Emotional Children

XXXVIII

"You don't seem to need me anymore."

He opened his eyes, but moved not an inch. Lying flat on his bed, the sound of the voice in his mind palace set his heart swimming in his chest. It echoed inside the dark recesses of his cold, bitterly lonely head.

"You're never around to visit like you used to. I must not be so very important anymore, am I?" it asked, this time in a sarcastic tone.

Sitting up in bed, he saw the slim figure of his wife sitting in the open window sill. Her hair was gently dancing around her shoulders as a delicate breeze sailed through the room. She was wrapping one long, thin strand of hair around her index finger and looking at him from behind eyes that looked almost...wounded.

"I don't want to jump to conclusions, but I'd say you were avoiding me."

He came out of bed, and without the delusional swagger of a junkie, he walked with careful, consciously chosen steps toward the sill. As the base of the window was about level with his stomach, he had neither to stoop nor look up to easily find her gaze.

Putting a gentle hand at the small of her back to support her (though he knew she was well off without it), he could feel his mind working furiously to put together an accurate representation of those hard, wintry eyes brimming with will, strength, and thirst.

"Not as though you've carried on well without me," she said, and he felt the full weight of the rebuke, albeit only a mental picture. "I had expected so much. Is my memory not enough for you?"

"Memory is not reality, Miss Adler," he said.

"But memory is kind, Mr. Holmes. You of all people ought to know that by now."

He said nothing, only stared at this mind palace manipulation of what was once her. And yet the memory was so vibrant, poignant, and refreshing. It may as well have been her. Every feature, limb, expression, and quibble were her own. She was here to stay—in his mind—and she would never leave. He had delayed this meeting for so long, but now it was inevitable.

"But that must be why you've chosen to see me in this mind palace of yours...reality is not kind, as it never has been. And this memory is...far more pleasing, isn't it?" she asked, ruffling his hair gently with her thin fingers.

He didn't smile, but only continued to stare, and he felt her eyes trying to find something inside his own...whatever it was he was unaware of. She only continued to smile, and the smile was almost too unnerving for him to endure.

"What do you want, Mr. Holmes? Tell me...and I might just give it to you."

"I ought to ask you to read my mind. As you're always telling me, you're good at that sort of thing," he said, reminding himself of what it was to toy with her.

"Then I should think," she said, each word falling out of her mouth as if it was made of a silken thread, "that you want me. And I should think that I am not wrong in assuming so."

"Where are you?"

"I'm here, see? Just where you want me: in your head."

"God knows I never wanted you here."

"Why?"

"I've confined you, and you are something of a distraction when there are more pressing matters at hand."

"I'm flattered," she said, her lips smushing into that same coy smile she always hid behind. Her eyes communicated professional coquetry.

It left a white-hot burn in his brain.

"Don't do that," he said, his one hand holding tightly to her, the other awkwardly brushing her cheek.

"Why?" she asked, studying his hand out of the corner of her eye.