Famished - Meghan O'Flynn (learn to read books TXT) 📗

I chewed on my cheek, trying to ground myself in the pain of it. The thought of leaving tonight and having to find another shelter in another city made me sick to my stomach. I just had to save a little more cash so I could legitimately start over on my own two feet. Because whether or not Jake was killed by the same person as those other women, someone killed him. Someone who could be watching me right now. I felt like I was losing my mind. Maybe I was paranoid, but that didn’t mean that someone wasn’t out to get me.

The owls smirked at me from under my pointless blank corkboard. No puppies, no babies, and I had never even picked my nose behind the partition. I should start, so that when I was old and gray in a rocking chair on a porch somewhere with an owl on a perch next to me, I would at least have this one small thing I could say I took advantage of when the rest of my life fell apart. I looked at my finger.

“Ms. Montgomery?”

The finger disappeared under my desk.

“May I sit down?”

“Yes. I mean, yes, sir.” My heart quickened and slithered up my throat like an agitated python.

He took the seat across from me, his black suit and lavender tie too good for here. He stuck out like a penguin at a barbecue.

An incredibly handsome penguin. Do people fuck penguins? That seems ill-advised, and yet…

Weeks of subpar sleep were creeping up on me and manifesting as slaphappy absurdity.

“Something funny?” he asked.

I had not realized I was smiling. I really am losing my mind. “No, sir.”

“Please call me Dominic.”

“Yes, sir…I mean, Dominic.” I put my fingers to my mouth to stop the goofy-ass grin.

“I hope you have been able to cope with the events of the last couple weeks satisfactorily.”

“Uh…I’ve been okay.”

“I notice you didn’t take any time off. I was frankly surprised that you came back so quickly.”

“I know, I just…feel better staying busy.”

“If you need more time, a week, a month, the offer still stands.”

“Thank you. Thank you for the flowers, too. They were gorgeous.” Oh my god, Hannah, stop babbling.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” he said.

Yeah, teleport me out of this state. Maybe out of the country. Or off the planet. “No.”

He studied my face. “Let me know if you think of anything,” he said quietly.

“Yes, sir. Thank you.”

“Dominic.” He smiled. His teeth were the straightest I had ever seen.

“Dominic.”

And as abruptly as he’d arrived, he was gone. My stomach dropped a little. I told myself it was hunger and not disappointment.

“Hannah! What did he say?” Noelle’s head appeared over the cubicle. Would she miss me after I packed up and left? Maybe I would call her one day, years from now, from another state. From another life. More likely, I’d stare at her number and wonder what ever happened to her.

“Hannah?” She was watching me, eyebrows raised.

“He didn’t say much. Just wanted to remind me that I could take time off if I needed to. You know, with all the…stuff that’s happened.”

“He came down here personally for that?”

“I guess.”

Noelle pursed her lips.

“He’s just being nice. He cares. He’s a good boss.”

“Yeah, he is. But the way he looks at you is a little more than standard employee appreciation.”

“It’s not like that.” But something flitted around in my belly as I said it. Excitement? Fear? Hope?

Noelle reached down for the owls and tapped Horny on the top of his fake head. “You still have these things?”

“Yes, I—” My sinuses tingled with something subtle and sweet and familiar. The back of my neck was suddenly very hot. “New lotion?”

Noelle put a hand to her nose, apparently unaware of the quaver in my voice. “Yeah, you like it?”

A hornet in my ear buzzed angry, violent songs of love notes and cheating and perfume. Noelle had always put Jake down. Always tried to get me to go out, knowing it would make him angry, knowing it would pull me away from him. Because she was…what? Sleeping with him? But that didn’t make sense.

“Hannah, you okay?”

“I—” No. “Not really. I feel sick.”

“I know you’ve had a rough few weeks, but come out with Thomas and me tonight. Jim will be there too. Maybe it will get your mind off of everything.”

“I can’t.” Last time I went out, someone filleted my boyfriend.

“You’re going. Don’t leave me with two strange men at a dark Greek restaurant.”

Sweat leaked from under my bra and trickled down to my belly button. “I can’t, okay?” But uncertainty nagged at me. Noelle was dating Thomas. She hadn’t been after Jake. She hated Jake. And already Noelle had the same look that acquaintances got in elementary school when I told inappropriate jokes. I could see it like a rocket ship countdown: confusion, irritation, disconnection, and bam! I was alone.

I couldn’t lose her, not yet. Not before I had to. Surely it was possible that a skincare company might have made more than one tube of citrus-scented lotion in an insane attempt to turn a profit? I mean, duh, as the kids would say.

A few more weeks, that’s all I needed. A few more weeks to suck everything I could out of our friendship so I could wrap the memories around me like a blanket when I was in some new, lonely place. If I made it that long.

Noelle pulled her hand back, and the smell of oranges bombarded my nose like someone had thrown a bushel of them at me. My heart ached from pumping so furiously.

It was crazy anyway, to think Noelle would ever do something like that. I needed to stop looking for reasons to mess up the few good things I had left. God knows I had messed up enough already.

I inhaled through my mouth. It isn’t her. It wasn’t her. And going out is safer than hanging out at home, right? I pulled a pencil from the drawer, trying to hide my quaking hands by tapping it on the desktop. “You know what they say about the Greeks,” I said.

Her eyes danced. “Big kabobs, small olives?”

“You got it.” I swallowed hard.

“I’ll pick you up at eight.”

I watched her walk away, convinced I was finally, officially, going insane. I needed help. I glanced at the owls, and they glared back. I flicked Horny in the head and watched him topple over the edge of the desk. We were all just one good push away from breaking.

“You’re sure I’m not crazy?” I asked, though I knew the answer and further knew that Tammy Bransen, shrink extraordinaire, didn’t have enough information to make any kind of accurate assessment at all.

“Magical thinking, anxiety, depression.” Tammy ticked them off on her fingers. “They are all part of the normal grieving process, and you need to give yourself permission to move through those feelings. You need time to heal. Your wounds are still fresh.” She pushed her horn-rimmed glasses up her nose and tucked a lock of straw-colored hair behind her ear.

We had met at the shelter after one of the monthly group sessions Ms. LaPorte arranged for the women. Ms. LaPorte had thought it might help me after the abortion. Her relief when I agreed was a good enough reason to show up. Sometimes I even felt good coming here, like I was doing something, despite the fact that I hid the stuff that really mattered.

“I just feel so…paranoid. About everything.”

Tammy shook her head. “Hannah, it is expected that you would have strange reactions to other people, what with the way your relationship with Jake ended. The fact that it was a sudden death makes it all the more difficult to bear, and the type of demise, and the police questioning, well—”

“The