Safe Haven Page 5

  Rex came to the doorway of the dining room, and I held still as he looked up at me. I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my hands around my toes as he came away from the doorway and came closer to the bottom of the stairs. I had the sudden urge to turn around and run the several feet back to my rooms and slam the door behind me.

  “You’re not supposed to look at me,” I grumbled.

  He just smirked at me and leaned against the banister. “You didn’t say that this time.”

  That was true. “Consider it a blanket rule—not that you’ll follow it or keep your promises.”

  Now Rex was laughing at me and I really did want to run away. He took a step toward me, and I held still, so he took two more and sat down on the steps below me. “Is this too close?” he asked.

  I nodded. It was. And yet I slid on my butt down the stairs to be one step closer to him, too. “It’s way too close,” I told him as I continued to hold my toes.

  “Are you afraid of us?” he asked.

  I nodded. I was afraid of everybody.

  “Why?”

  I just shrugged. I went one more step closer to him.

  “Do you think we’re going to murder you in your sleep?”

  “Not really. It’s more of a general sort of fear. And if you three tried to come through those doors, I’d be able to get to the panic room upstairs before you’d even reached the first layer of locked doors.” I was going to go down another step toward him, which would have put me three steps away from him, but I found that I couldn’t do it. “What’s your relationship with CJ and Malcolm like?”

  They came out of the dining room, as if I’d called them, and I wished I had the hood of my sweatshirt up to hide behind so that they couldn’t see me, too. I felt their stares on me, those curious gazes looking up at me like I was the circus freak suddenly let out of my cage. I wanted to go right back up to my rooms and swear off trying to be around people forever.

  Rex smiled up at me. “What do you think it’s like?”

  I shrugged.

  “Well, they’re my best friends, but we’re also together. We share the same bed and do everything together. Sometimes, though, just two of us do stuff.”

  Like when I’d seen them kissing. I nodded. “It doesn’t make sense to me.”

  CJ came toward me and I watched him warily as he approached the bottom steps. Malcolm hadn’t moved. “You’re not alone in not understanding how three people could have a loving, committed relationship together. Most people don’t get it. Are you having trouble accepting us?”

  I quickly shook my head. That wasn’t it at all. “I was curious.”

  Both CJ and Rex smiled up at me. I shifted my attention over to Malcolm. “Hi.”

  He nodded to me. “Hey. Do you want to watch a movie down here or something?”

  I wanted to. I really did. But I was pretty sure that this was my limit for being social before I started to feel sick. I shook my head and his expression hardened, like I was rejecting him or his…partners, I guess I should call them. I needed to clear that up. “I’m not good at being around people. Even this is a lot for me, more than I’ve done in…” Actually I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been in the same room with three other people. It had been back when I’d gone outside, for sure, but I had blocked out most of the time before my life now. “It’s been a while. I don’t think I’ll last much longer.”

  Malcolm didn’t look annoyed with me anymore, which was nice. And CJ’s expression softened. “Can I get you anything?” CJ asked.

  Robert used to get my hot chocolate all the time, but I didn’t expect anything like that from these three. “That’s not your job.”

  CJ shook his head. “I’m not asking because it’s my job. I’m wondering if you would like anything, because I’d like to get it for you.”

  Oh. In that case, maybe I could ask him for something. “Hot chocolate? Please? There’s a tin on the countertop and milk in the fridge, and I like three scoops of cocoa from the tin and—” It was too much. That was taking advantage of CJ. Maybe he was just asking if I needed anything like people asked each other if they were fine in movies, like they didn’t actually care but they felt like they should be asking anyway. “Never mind.”

  CJ kept smiling softly at me, though. “It’s fine. I want to help. Will you be here when it’s done?”

  If he was indicating the stairs where I was sitting, then no, I wouldn’t be. I shook my head. “I’ll be in my rooms. Right outside the door is fine.” I blushed deeply. I felt like such a fool.

  CJ nodded then headed into the kitchen. “Hot chocolate coming right up. Anyone else want one?” Rex and Malcolm both did and I felt a little better about asking CJ to make it since his partners were having some too.

  Rex moved one step closer to me and I shrank back a little.

  “Rex…” Malcolm warned him in a rough voice.

  But Rex wasn’t focused on him. He was looking right at me. “It’s okay. I won’t hurt you.” He came up another step and reached out to try to touch my hand, which was over my foot, but before he came within a few inches of me, I was already crawling up the stairs backward until I hit the landing, then I ran into my rooms. I closed the door tightly behind me then leaned against it as I panted.

  “Was that too fast?” Rex called up to me.

  “Yes!” I yelled at him.

  “Someday you’re going to have to let us touch you. Everybody needs to have physical contact with other people,” he told me. He was outside the door now. I could imagine him sitting right on the other side of it.

  I snorted. That was a crock of shit right there like I’d never heard. “First of all, I don’t have to do anything,” I told him, which wasn’t technically true. “And second, I’ve gone the last twenty years without the kind of touch you’re used to, so no, I don’t actually think I need it.”

  “You haven’t been touched by anybody in twenty years?” Malcolm asked. I could hear the disbelief in his words, and I knew I’d said too much then.

  “Not like you’re all used to,” I clarified for him.

  I could hear one of them, I guessed Malcolm, coming up the stairs. “But you’ve been hugged? Kissed? Something, since you were a child. Right?”

  “Yes.” It was only mostly a lie. Kissing? Definitely not. But Uncle Phin had given me a hug only the day before, so I did know what those felt like.

  “That’s really sad,” Rex said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Come on. Let’s go walk around and check things out for a bit and leave him alone while CJ makes the hot chocolate for us all,” Malcolm said.

  “But—”

  “He’s not a puppy that you can save. If he doesn’t want to be friends with us or even spend any time with us, then you can’t force him to. He’s not okay with that, so leave him alone before you hurt him.”

  I heard Rex sigh. Then he stood, and I was left alone as I leaned against the door. Malcolm was right. None of them could force me to do anything. I’d hide in my panic room and lock myself away if it came to that. It was my one room in the whole house where no one else could get to me. There was an emergency override, but that only worked if there was no heat signature in the room, in the event that I died in there. Otherwise, once that door was shut with me inside, there was no way to get me out without my permission.

  But Malcolm was wrong, too, because it wasn’t that I didn’t want to have friends or even that I didn’t want to be friends with them. It just had to be on my terms and in my time, and I wasn’t nearly ready for that yet.

  Chapter Five

  I couldn’t skip dinner again, since my sedatives had to be taken with food, so I grabbed my pill, put it into my pocket, then headed downstairs about six when I knew they were all in the pool. I missed swimming, even after just a day, but I wasn’t ready to swim around them yet. I figured the pool would keep them occupied long enough for me to make stuffed chicken breasts. Luckily I had enough for four portions, and I started cooking while I heard
them splashing around.

  I hummed when I cooked sometimes. It helped me focus and not freak out. I didn’t like that being at the stove meant the entrance to the pool was behind me, so if they came out, I wouldn’t be able to see them before they saw me. But I needed to eat and the granola bars I had stashed in my office weren’t going to cut it for dinner. I’d tried having my sedative on just two bars before, and I’d gotten sick. I threw up enough from my panic attacks that I didn’t need to be getting sick from my pills too.

  Within half an hour, I had the stuffed chicken, the Brussels sprouts and the rice done. The plates were beautiful, thanks to a show I’d watched that afternoon about making the plates look amazing because people ate with their eyes, their noses, then their mouths—in that order. I set the dining room and put the three other plates in there. I considered going upstairs, but I’d brought down a bunch of dirty dishes when I’d come down, and I didn’t want to take more up. Sophia would start lecturing me about ants getting into my rooms if I didn’t keep things clean there.

  I was halfway through my chicken breast when the splashing stopped. They were still in the pool room laughing, though, and I hurried to eat my dinner, bent over the island. I’d managed to get it down and had taken my pill before Rex came through the door. I wasn’t sure if he’d seen me or not before I’d ducked down and crouched against the side of the island, but he had to have heard my fork drop, and he could easily see the plate of food on the island.

  “Blake?” he called out. CJ and Malcolm stopped talking.

  “Dinner’s in the dining room,” I called back to him.

  “Smells great,” CJ said. “Thank you for making dinner. Do you want to join us?”

  No chance in hell, even if I wasn’t practically done eating. “No.”

  “Okay. But we’re soaking wet, and our bedroom is on the other side of the kitchen from where you’re kneeling there next to the island. I can see your feet. So if we go dry off and get changed, we’re going to see you. How do you want us to proceed?” That was Rex.

  “Close your eyes and walk over to your room,” I told him. That should have been obvious.

  Malcolm chuckled and I heard his wet feet slapping against the tile floor. I was glad that Sophia wasn’t here to see that. She would have been upset and probably tried to get him to wipe up the floor on his hands and knees. She’d tried that with me once. I’d been a teenager and I’d promptly run to my rooms. She had surprised me by even being there since it had been an hour before she was supposed to arrive. She hadn’t asked me to do that again. Now she just told me how dirty I was and how I would attract bugs or get the tile floor spotty.

  “How about you stay right where you are and we pretend that we can’t see you?” Malcolm offered me. “We won’t look at you or talk to you, and you can go back to pretending that we’re not here until you’re done with dinner. By then, we’ll be ready to come out and we’ll eat the delicious smelling food that you made us. Does that work for you?”

  It would, in a way, but he didn’t really get it either. I decided to share a little bit with them and I thought maybe it would help. It could also make them think I was even more messed up, but I was trying to go for helping instead of them thinking that I was psychotic, like I probably came across. “It’s not that I’m pretending that you’re not here. It’s that I can’t handle people being so close to me. I know you’re here. I actually like that you’re here. I like that you’re all friends and I like that you tease each other and play. I haven’t seen that, from anyone, in years. But having me in that same equation with you all doesn’t work.”

  Malcolm leaned on the island above my head and I knew that if I looked up, I’d see him looking down at me. So I kept my head down and pretended that he wasn’t so close or that I couldn’t smell the chlorine from the pool on his skin. “Want to tell us what happened to you? Or were you born with this much social anxiety?”

  I heard CJ and Rex walking through the kitchen and I stayed small, so that in my mind at least, they couldn’t really see me. Malcolm stayed with me, though. I could practically feel him looming over me. “Blake?”

  “No.” I wanted to be able to run up to my room and not ever see them again. But then I wanted to stay right here and keep talking to Malcolm too, as long as he stopped asking about my childhood and what had made me so screwed up.

  “Okay. So how about you tell me something about yourself. Like…what’s your cat’s name?”

  I relaxed a little, even though he was still there, just because she was a very safe subject for me. “Bandit. She’s ten.”

  “Where did you get her?”

  Talking about Bandit was working as the tightness and panic in my body slowly eased. My food was getting cold, but I figured I could live with that to be able to get a handle on my need to run upstairs and hide again. “Uncle Phin adopted her for me for my seventeenth birthday. I’d just finished my online high school, and she was my graduation present. He thought she’d be a good friend for me.”

  “Because at some point in there you’d decided that people were dangerous and no one could be trusted?” he guessed.

  I slowly nodded. “It’s the truth.” For most people, at least.

  He sighed. “Okay. I’m going to go clean up for dinner. We’ll come out in half an hour. Will that give you enough time to finish?”

  “Yes.” I wrapped my arms around my knees and glanced up at him. I had been right. He was looking right down at me. I looked away again quickly. “I’m sorry your food will be cold by the time you get to eat it. I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

  “You being afraid with us close by isn’t your fault. We’ll respect your space and your boundaries. You don’t have to apologize for being how you are. Just know, though, that if you ever want to stretch yourself a little bit and spend some time with us, in whatever way you feel comfortable, we’d welcome your company.”

  I smiled down at my hands over my knees. “Thank you. I appreciate that.”

  “Good, well, talk to you later then.” He knocked on the marble surface of my island, once, then I heard him walking away. I waited a few minutes before I got off the floor and quickly scarfed down the rest of my barely warm dinner. That only took me ten more minutes and Malcolm had promised me half an hour. I could hear their muffled voices as they talked in their bedroom, so I figured I did have the rest of that time.

  I wanted to make them dessert, to make up for their food being cold, so I quickly baked up some chocolate chip cookies from the cookie dough I’d made the week before and frozen into little, ready-to-go balls. That idea was from a show on easy weeknight dinners, and I’d thought it was genius since I loved cookies. They were out of the oven with five minutes to spare, and I left them cooling on a rack as I headed upstairs and back to my rooms.

  An hour later I heard a knock on the outer door and I looked at the feed to see CJ leaving a mug of hot chocolate and a plate full of cookies for me on the landing. That made me smile. I went to get them from the landing, but when I’d thought that he’d walked away, he was actually still sitting on the wood floor and looking at the door as I opened it. I really should have checked to make sure he was gone.

  “Hi,” I said as I quickly crouched down and brought the treats he’d given me into my hallway where I felt safe. I was tempted to close the door between us, but, for some reason, I left it open just a few inches so that I could see him too. “Thank you for bringing these to me. You didn’t have to.”

  He smiled at me. “I know I didn’t, but I wanted to. Malcolm told us how you got Bandit, and I wanted to ask you why you named her that.”

  I sipped my hot cocoa, which he’d made perfectly for me, again. “I didn’t. That’s the name she came with from the shelter.”

  “Why did your uncle choose a cat for you instead of a dog?” CJ asked.

  I ate one of the cookies before I answered him. “Dogs are supposed to be louder, and I can’t handle loud, sharp noises like a dog barking. I grew up with a do
g, though, and I miss it. Bandit wasn’t supposed to be as loud or as obnoxious as she is.” She was always acting like she was pissed off at me. Since I’d never had a cat before her, especially not a Siamese, I hadn’t been sure if this was how they all were or if I’d received an especially horrible one. Even now she was meowing loudly at me as if she thought she deserved some cookies too. I rolled my eyes and smiled at her as I finished off another.

  “We’re about to start watching a movie. Do you want to come down?”

  For once I thought I might have been able to say yes. I could have maybe sat in another room, listened to the movie going, and known that they were about five feet from me. That would have been progress worthy of telling my psychiatrist about. But even as I started to say that I could, the words died in my throat, and I shook my head. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

  CJ nodded. “I understand. It’s okay. You don’t have to be sorry. I just thought I’d ask.”

  His acceptance of the way life was for me and of my limits made me happy. I smiled down at the quickly emptying plate of cookies. “Thank you for saying that.”

  CJ chuckled. “From what your uncle told us to expect from you and from Robert’s letter that he left for us, explaining how you are, I’d say we’re doing really well for getting you to talk to us and be in the same room with us within a week.”

  It was a freaking miracle, more likely. “I might regress,” I warned him.

  “As long as you don’t overdo your pills again, you can do whatever you need to in order to feel safe around us.” CJ stood up, straightened out his shirt, then started heading down the stairs. “Talk to you later.”