Apathy by L.K. Reid

Skylar

It was weird how everything looked the same when we pulled in front of our house, yet I knew that nothing was as it used to be. Or maybe I wasn’t who I used to be.

Dylan turned the ignition off, staring at the house just like I did, as if it was some entity that could hurt me. Truth be told, I wasn’t afraid of the house. I wasn’t afraid of anything right now, and that was bad.

Fear, anger, love, happiness, all those were part of us so that they could guide us, show us the way, steer us in the right direction, and without them, we wouldn’t be able to function like normal human beings. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to run away from people that were dangerous, because our senses wouldn’t be functioning properly.

Well, my senses were obviously fucked up.

“We don’t have to go inside if you don’t want to,” he mumbled.

I knew I didn’t have to. Dylan would never make me do anything I didn’t want to do, but if I didn’t overcome this, I would let the monster win. I would give the nameless, faceless person power over my life, and I didn’t want that.

I didn’t want to live a life filled with regrets, with fear, and thinking about that night. I didn’t want to let fear rule my life. There were already things I couldn’t control. Things I couldn’t escape, and I wouldn’t let this be another.

The problem was, I didn’t feel anything. I should’ve been afraid, terrified even, because that bastard carved me up in the foyer of my own house.

Instead, I was… I was calm.

Since we left the hospital, I kept expecting the nausea to hit. I kept pressing my palms together, thinking they would be sweaty, that my hands were going to shake, or that my eyes would sting from the unshed tears, caused by fear.

But none of that happened.

Apathy took a hold of my body, and I couldn’t escape its vise-like grip. Not that I wanted to.

Being apathetic was better than being terrified, and right now, I would take any win possible. If I could continue feeling like this, empty and cold, I wouldn’t have to deal with the mess I was now keeping locked away in the back of my mind.

If I could continue being empty, I wouldn’t have to think about other things. The things that, up until three days ago, haunted my days and my nights. The things a seventeen-year-old girl shouldn’t have to worry about.

I shouldn’t have to worry about my phone ringing in the middle of the night, because I always knew it was my father calling for me to play out his sick fantasies. I shouldn’t have to worry about a killer on the loose, who was obviously fixated on me.

“Sky?” Dylan started again, agitation obvious in his voice.

I moved my eyes from the house in front of us—the house that should’ve been my personal nightmare, but it wasn’t—and took his hand in mine, squeezing it tight.

“I’m fine, Dylan,” I muttered as I looked him in the eyes.

Pain. So much pain was reflected in those blue orbs, and for a moment, my breath caught in my throat, hating the vision in front of me. Hating the worry etched in the corners of his eyes, or the dark circles marring his perfect face.

I both hated and loved that he cared about me, because I was a train wreck, a disaster waiting to happen. And Dylan… Dylan was heaven in hiding. He was the pure light, and I was the pure dark.

Some people might say it was poetic, seeing the two of us as opposite sides of the same coin, but in reality, it was nothing but tragic. Life had a fucked-up way of throwing yin and yang references at us, and Dylan and I were the best example of it.

I didn’t hate it because I envied him, no. I hated it because caring for me would only destroy him. Loving me would devastate him because I was a bomb waiting to explode.

As he gripped my hand tighter and placed his other one on my cheek, words weren’t needed for me to know how much he cared about me. He didn’t have to give me a speech. He didn’t have to tell me that everything was going to be okay, considering that we both knew none of this was okay.

But I knew he was there for me. He was the shoulder I could lean on. He was the person I could count on when everything else went up in flames.

“Are you ready then?” he asked, while his thumb slowly worked over my cheek. I leaned into his touch, relishing in the warmth of his hand, of this safe cocoon he was providing me with.

I closed my eyes and slowly exhaled, letting myself feel. Letting myself remember how to be me again, how to live and love and be afraid. And maybe it was a process now. Maybe I would never be who I used to be prior to the entire ordeal, but I could try.

And I would have Dylan, even if I didn’t have anyone else.

“Let’s go inside,” I whispered, opening my eyes. “Let’s go home.”

A smile played on the edges of his lips, braving me to open my door, to go out. He exited first and went around the car from the front, all the way to the passenger side, and opened my door, holding his hand out for me. It was these small things, small deeds that made me feel better.

I placed my hand in his, letting him lead me out of the car. I was still feeling dizzy from the three days of doing nothing but lying in the bed and the medication they gave me, but as the brisk air caressed my cheeks, and the wind started playing with my hair, I knew I was going to be okay.

I looked around our front yard, while Dylan took my bags out of the trunk, and I smiled for the first time in three days.

I was stronger than this. I was stronger than I gave myself credit for.

The air smelled like rain—cold and damp, yet somehow freeing and almost nostalgic. I could see the white clouds gathered on the darkened sky, and I hoped we would get rain tonight. Everything always seemed fresher, newer, better after the rain.

As if it somehow managed to wash away everything bad that has happened in the past. Or maybe it was my wishful thinking, but whatever it was, I wanted it tonight.

I wanted to be freed of this darkness in my bones. I wanted to feel like a new person.

“Ready?” Dylan came from behind, placing a hand on my upper back.

Was I ready? Not really.

I looked toward the front door, and I feared that once we entered inside, this wall I somehow built up would come down, shattering, and my broken mind would attack me. But I lied to him.

“Of course, I am.” I lied when I talked. I lied as I smiled, trying to reassure him that everything was fine. I lied to myself as we started walking toward the front door, up the three stairs and two steps over the porch.

I lied to myself as I kept that smile on my face, even though my heart started thundering in my chest. I lied when Dylan looked at me again, unlocking the front door, that line of worry back on his face.

But when he stepped in, when he left me outside to gather my thoughts, I realized something.

I still wasn’t afraid.

Even when I took the first tentative step inside, seeing the marks on the floor where he let my blood fall, I wasn’t afraid.

I was angry, so fucking angry.

But I didn’t know if I was angry at that man, or at myself for not being able to outrun him.

“Little One.” Dylan was suddenly in front of me, blocking the view of where that chair he had tied me to used to be. “Hey.” He took my hand, and only then did I realize how hard I was pressing my nails into my palm. “It’s okay. Everything is going to be okay.”

But it wasn’t going to be okay.

Nothing would ever be okay unless I found out who the golden mask was, and what the fuck that letter I found in my locker meant. Nothing would ever be okay if I turned a blind eye to this, just like I did to a million other things.

I always thought it was better to pretend that you didn’t see anything, but I was wrong. I had to do something, seeing that nobody else was going to do anything.

“Skylar.” His voice trembled, but I couldn’t move my eyes from the spot behind his back.

Somebody dared to violate me in such a way. To enter my house, to enter my life, and make all these demands, and they had no right.

“I think I’m gonna go to bed.” My voice sounded robotic even to me, and I knew that he wouldn’t let me go that easily. “I’m fine, Dylan.” I looked at him. “Trust me, if I start breaking apart, you’ll be the first one to know.”

Probably the only one to know. I could see he didn’t believe me, yet instead of questioning me, and having a full-blown discussion about what happened here, he let me go. He took a step back and nodded before disappearing into the kitchen.

Maybe I should’ve stayed. Maybe I should’ve talked to him about these things, but how could I talk to him when even I couldn’t understand what was going on in my head? Normally, I would’ve been terrified of being back here, but the only emotion I could feel right now was anger.

So much fucking anger, and I knew what I was going to do with it.

I was going to unravel all the secrets of Winworth.

* * *

It was the sound of rain that pulled me out from a deep slumber.

As soon as Dylan disappeared around the corner, going to the kitchen, I took my bag upstairs and took a shower, careful with the bandages on my left arm. Dylan didn’t come up before I went to sleep, and I had a feeling it was better that way.

He wanted to talk, and I wasn’t ready to relive that night all over again. He wanted me to tell him all my worries, all my issues, as if that would help any one of us. If I burdened him with my secrets, he would end up with the same scars I had, and that was the last thing I wanted.

This pain was mine to carry. These scars were mine to deal with, and brother or no brother, he didn’t deserve to feel like I did.

Helpless.

Scared.

Angry.

I didn’t want him to lose the good in him, and if he knew what our father was doing to me, the picture he had of him would shatter into a million tiny pieces, and I didn’t want that.

No matter what, our father was there for Dylan. He was teaching him about the family business, about other things he needed to know, and I didn’t want to destroy the idyllic picture Dylan had of him.

I shivered and pulled the covers higher up, covering my neck, only to realize that this wasn’t the usual temperature of the room. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I turned to the side, seeing the open balcony door and hearing the downpour of rain outside.

I definitely didn’t open my balcony before I went to sleep.

Maybe I should’ve learned from my past mistakes. As soon as I saw that door open, I should’ve run away from the room, but that anger was still coating my insides. Instead of calling for Dylan, calling for help, I threw off the covers from my body and stood up, going straight for the balcony.

“You seem okay,” a voice boomed through the night, mixing with the sound of the rain.

I all but jumped around, ready to face the intruder, and froze in my tracks when I realized who it was.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” That anger I talked about? That suffocating feeling, the one keeping me afloat right now, wasn’t just directed at the faceless man who destroyed my body and soul.

No. It was also directed at him—at Ash.

Sitting on the floor, in the corner of my room, his back pressed against the door, was a boy, a man—whatever you wanna call him—who wasn’t there when I needed him the most. Day and night, I waited for him to show up in the hospital.

I waited for him to bring his moody ass inside, to tell me that everything was going to be okay. I just wanted to see him, to feel him, to have that smell of pine trees, cigarettes, and rain infiltrate the entire room, to replace that horrible, horrible hospital smell of antiseptic and coldness.

But he never came.

Every time Lauren came to me, I expected him to be right behind her. Every night, when everybody else cleared out, when I was left alone with my thoughts, I expected him to sneak in, to do anything, really.

To fucking call me if nothing else.

But nothing. One big, fat nothing, that’s what I got from him.

I assumed he cared about me, at least enough to see if I was still fucking alive, but I guess that I wasn’t that important. Just another wrong assumption, another disappointment in my life.

He slowly stood up and walked to the bed, staring at the spot where I slept.

“I asked you a fucking question, Ash.” I slammed the balcony door shut and took a step toward him. “What are you doing here?”

But just as usual, I didn’t get an answer. Talking to him was like pulling teeth—painful and exhausting. I had enough time while in the hospital to really think about this shit that was going on between us.

I tried telling myself that what we had was nothing more but meaningless sex that one night, but I lied to myself. Nothing new there, except that I didn’t want to keep lying.

I cared about him. I cared if he was happy or sad.

I wanted to hear his thoughts on random subjects. I wanted to talk to him about his past, his parents, where he grew up, because I didn’t know anything about him.

I knew the color of his eyes, and that dark, dark hair. I knew how he made me feel, but I didn’t know anything else, and it fucking sucked.

I knew that he made me feel like I was floating on air, that every second I spent in his company felt like an eternity because he made me forget about other things in my life. I knew he loved nature and the wilderness and that he carried violent things inside his heart, but I didn’t know why.

I knew that his lips tasted like sin, but it was the kind of sin I didn’t mind committing.

He knew everything about me, which made me feel like I had a disadvantage from the very start.

“Ash,” I started again, approaching him slowly. Sometimes it felt like he was a wild animal, just waiting to attack. One wrong move, a wrong word, and he could destroy me in a second. “Can you, for the love of everything, just answer one simple question?”

Thunder sliced through the air, angry and devastating, just how I felt right now.

“Ash!” I whisper-yelled, pushing his shoulder, but he wouldn’t move.

His head was hanging down, his forearms firmly placed on his knees, and that dark hair I loved so much was dripping wet. I knew that if I touched it, even as wet as it was, it would feel like silk beneath my fingers. I also knew if I allowed him to stay like this, we would never get out of this vicious circle, and I would allow myself to get sucked into yet another toxic situation.

I couldn’t.

I had to choose myself this time.

“You know,” I took a step back, “the first time I saw you, I felt like I knew you from somewhere. Maybe it was just my mind playing tricks on me, which wouldn’t be the first time, but in the eternity of sorrow, I saw you. And I thought you saw me, the real me.”

“Sky—” He lifted his head and looked at me, but I wasn’t finished.

“And you looked beautiful, even with all that pain swirling in your eyes. You felt like mine, and God knows that I kept looking for something or someone that would feel like mine. But I was wrong, wasn’t I?”

“I don’t—”

“You made me forget, Ash. You made me think about something else—about you—but I can see now that what I started to feel for you wasn’t the same as what you felt for me. I can see now that you won’t be my salvation. You will be my destruction. I was looking for paradise, but I found hell instead.”

“Hey, that’s not—” He stood up, and I took another step back, putting much-needed distance between us.

“When I woke up in the hospital, the first person I thought about was you,” I whispered, my voice breaking. My chest hurt, tearing me apart as all the things I kept locked up for the last three days started tumbling out. “I was terrified, and you weren’t there.” I placed a hand to my chest, as if I could keep myself from falling apart right in front of his eyes. “Why weren’t you there, Ash? Do I mean nothing to you?”

“Skylar, please,” he choked out, reaching for me, but I couldn’t handle his touch on me until I was finished, until I knew the whole truth.

“Don’t touch me,” I gritted out. “You don’t get to disappear from my life when I needed you the most and then show up here as if nothing happened. As if I wasn’t attacked by a maniac in my own house, thinking I was going to die. You don’t get to fucking touch me! Not now, not ever.”

“No, baby—”

“Where were you, Ash?” I broke down. “I-I know…” I hiccupped. “I know we aren’t together, but I thought that you at least cared about me.”

“I do.” He grasped one of my hands, his touch burning my skin.

“Then fucking show it!” I pushed him away. “I don’t care about words, Ash. I don’t care about any of these things, but I do care about deeds, about things you would do to show me you care.”

I thought he would argue with me. I thought he would try to make me believe in another lie, but he said nothing. He kept standing in front of me, tilting his head to the side, hiding his truths behind those eyes.

“I think you should leave,” I mumbled, taking a step to the side, and showed him the balcony door. “Now!”

“No!” he roared.

“What do you mean, no?” I asked. “Get out of my house.”

“Goddammit, Skylar.”

One minute he was aggravated, and in the next one, I was airborne over his shoulder as he started walking to my bed.

“Let me go!” I hit his back. “This is fucking idiotic.”

“No,” he fired back and dropped me to the bed. Towering over me, he started removing his shoes and then climbed onto the bed, hovering over me. “I’m not going anywhere, and you’re just gonna have to deal with it.”

“The fuck I will.” I pushed at his shoulders. “If you don’t leave—”

“You’ll what?” he bit back. “You’ll call the cops? Or what, you’re gonna yell for your brother to save you.”

“No, you fucking asshole. I don’t need my brother to punch you in that pretty face.”

“You think I have a pretty face?” He smirked.

“That’s not the point!” I started getting up, but he pushed my hands above my head, holding them down.

“I fucked up!” he bellowed. “I fucked up badly because I was scared. When I saw the message from Lauren, I headed toward the hospital.”

“Don’t f—”

“I was! But I couldn’t come and see you, Skylar. I couldn’t because I tried telling myself that this thing between us means nothing, and I was wrong.” He breathed heavily. “I drank myself to oblivion because I tried to forget you. I tried to forget how you made me feel. I tried to erase you from here.” He pulled my hand and pressed it against his head. “But you’re not only in my head, you’re here as well.” He then pressed my hand against his chest. “You’re in my veins, in my mind, in my heart, and I didn’t want this. I didn’t want to feel this way, but I don’t wanna fight it anymore. I don’t want to lose you.”

Did he just… Did he just admit that he… “Ash—”

“No, I don’t wanna put a label on these feelings, because I don’t know what they are. I don’t know what to call them or what to call us, but I know I want to be with you in every way possible.” He dropped his forehead to mine, making me close my eyes. He let go of my hands and placed both of his against my cheeks, holding me steady. I wrapped my free hand around his head, entwining my fingers with the strands of his hair. “I. Want. You.”

And that was when the dam broke. When everything I tried suppressing, everything I didn’t want to think about, started coming out. My throat constricted as the first sob tore out of my chest.

“I’m terrified,” I cried out. “H-he… He broke into the house, and… and—”

“Shhh.” He pressed his lips against my forehead and moved to the side, hugging me. I pressed my face against his pectoral muscles, letting myself cry over everything that had happened. “It’s going to be okay, Sky.”

“How?” I cried out. “How is everything going to be okay?”

“I don’t know,” he mumbled, brushing the hair from my face. “But it has to be. I want to believe that we will be able to catch this guy, whoever he is.”

“I just… I’m so angry. And I’m scared, and sad, and it’s like I’m going to explode from all these things I’m feeling inside.”

“Then let it all out. Let them all out and tell me how you feel. I’m here now and I’m not going anywhere. Not tonight, not tomorrow. I’ll be here for as long as you want me to be.”

And I somehow knew that he would be here with me no matter what. Maybe I knew because what he felt for me was very similar to what I felt for him.

Maybe it was because my soul finally recognized its equal.

Or perhaps it was because he made me feel things I didn’t think I was capable of feeling. Whatever it was, I trusted him almost as much as I trusted Dylan.