reply than that. Finally, I set my laptop on my bed and stood up with a noise of frustration, unable to bear sitting even one minute longer. I went into the living area, where Chelsea and Christina sat streaming Hulu on a laptop and Lisette puttered around in the kitchen. She’d announced over dinner her intention to make oatmeal-raisin cookies “as brain food, because they’ve got oatmeal and raisins, so that’s healthy, right?”
It was, by all accounts, a completely normal Wednesday night. So why did I feel so anxious that I wanted to climb out of my own skin?
I prowled around the room, stopping occasionally to peek at the parking lot between the metal slats of the miniblinds before starting up again. I could feel the gazes of my roommates on me, but I couldn’t stop moving as a sense of urgency built stronger and stronger inside of me.
Finally, Christina snapped the laptop closed with a noise of frustration. “I can’t even look at the screen with you circling around the room like a vulture,” she said. “Come on, Chels.”
Chelsea followed her into her bedroom, my weak apology following behind.
But even that didn’t make me stop until Lisette put the metal mixing bowl into the sink with far more force than was required. “Look, did something happen between you and Dorian?”
I shook my head, unable to put what I felt into words much less come up with a justification for it.
“Are you upset about your grandmother?” she hazarded.
I shook my head again.
“Okay, then I’m not being a jerk to let you know that I can’t cook in my bedroom, and you’re driving me nuts, too,” she said. “Either put a lid on it or go for a walk or something.”
But I couldn’t go for a walk—or at least I shouldn’t, not without my full complement of bodyguards.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ll go to my room, okay?”
She gave me a thumbs up. “Awesomesauce. I’ll see you when the Adderall you’ve OD’d on wears off or whatever.”
But once in my room, I found myself making tiny circles in the small clear space in the center of the floor. I took a deep breath and forced myself to stop with all my will, and then I just stood there, quivering, until my eyes landed on one of the boxes from my Gramma’s house that still crowded the room. Boxes that were mostly full of things that were of no use to me anymore, now that I was marrying Dorian.
I started by dragging them all out, pulling them off my desk and my dresser and out from under my bed to pile them on the floor and on top of the mattress where I could sort through them.
Most were household goods that I’d kept in anticipation of living in an apartment or unfurnished grad housing next year, things I’d need when starting out in my own place—dishes, pots and pans, kitchen tools, linens, and the like. With the roiling feeling deep in my gut deadening me to everything else, those were easy enough to choose to discard. I grabbed the first one and marched into the living area with it. Lisette looked up from the kitchen with a deep frown and started to speak, but when she saw what I had in my arms, she stopped herself and pretended to be absorbed in flipping the cookies onto a kitchen towel to cool.
I stacked the boxes up against the window in the living room, and before I could change my mind, I sent a message through the house app to the butler Rojek to arrange for them and my Gramma’s old sofa and chair in the living area to be donated and the extra mattress stacked on my bed to be discarded.
Lisette probably thought that the boxes themselves and their contents were the source of my keyed-up state. But they weren’t. They were just a distraction from the gnawing, irrational fear that came from somewhere else.
From Dorian.
I let myself think it for the first time. I had no objective reason to believe that anything had happened to him, but what I felt ran deeper than reason. If he could feel strong emotions through our bond, why couldn’t I?
It was, by all accounts, a completely normal Wednesday night. So why did I feel so anxious that I wanted to climb out of my own skin?
I prowled around the room, stopping occasionally to peek at the parking lot between the metal slats of the miniblinds before starting up again. I could feel the gazes of my roommates on me, but I couldn’t stop moving as a sense of urgency built stronger and stronger inside of me.
Finally, Christina snapped the laptop closed with a noise of frustration. “I can’t even look at the screen with you circling around the room like a vulture,” she said. “Come on, Chels.”
Chelsea followed her into her bedroom, my weak apology following behind.
But even that didn’t make me stop until Lisette put the metal mixing bowl into the sink with far more force than was required. “Look, did something happen between you and Dorian?”
I shook my head, unable to put what I felt into words much less come up with a justification for it.
“Are you upset about your grandmother?” she hazarded.
I shook my head again.
“Okay, then I’m not being a jerk to let you know that I can’t cook in my bedroom, and you’re driving me nuts, too,” she said. “Either put a lid on it or go for a walk or something.”
But I couldn’t go for a walk—or at least I shouldn’t, not without my full complement of bodyguards.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ll go to my room, okay?”
She gave me a thumbs up. “Awesomesauce. I’ll see you when the Adderall you’ve OD’d on wears off or whatever.”
But once in my room, I found myself making tiny circles in the small clear space in the center of the floor. I took a deep breath and forced myself to stop with all my will, and then I just stood there, quivering, until my eyes landed on one of the boxes from my Gramma’s house that still crowded the room. Boxes that were mostly full of things that were of no use to me anymore, now that I was marrying Dorian.
I started by dragging them all out, pulling them off my desk and my dresser and out from under my bed to pile them on the floor and on top of the mattress where I could sort through them.
Most were household goods that I’d kept in anticipation of living in an apartment or unfurnished grad housing next year, things I’d need when starting out in my own place—dishes, pots and pans, kitchen tools, linens, and the like. With the roiling feeling deep in my gut deadening me to everything else, those were easy enough to choose to discard. I grabbed the first one and marched into the living area with it. Lisette looked up from the kitchen with a deep frown and started to speak, but when she saw what I had in my arms, she stopped herself and pretended to be absorbed in flipping the cookies onto a kitchen towel to cool.
I stacked the boxes up against the window in the living room, and before I could change my mind, I sent a message through the house app to the butler Rojek to arrange for them and my Gramma’s old sofa and chair in the living area to be donated and the extra mattress stacked on my bed to be discarded.
Lisette probably thought that the boxes themselves and their contents were the source of my keyed-up state. But they weren’t. They were just a distraction from the gnawing, irrational fear that came from somewhere else.
From Dorian.
I let myself think it for the first time. I had no objective reason to believe that anything had happened to him, but what I felt ran deeper than reason. If he could feel strong emotions through our bond, why couldn’t I?
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