Nothing matters anymore. Nothing matters but this.
The images are swirling around me like bathwater slowly circling its way down the drain: those dirty footprints on the carpet and the fingermarks beneath my ear; the open window and the smell of the marsh and that stuffed dinosaur covered in mud. It’s getting harder and harder to separate fact from the fiction; dream from reality. Then from now.
Margaret from Mason.
I hear a knock at my door, cautious and slow, and turn to the side. Waylon is in the hallway.
“Isabelle?” he calls. “Is everything okay? I thought I heard the door—”
I curse beneath my breath and consider staying quiet, letting him just wait for a while before being forced to walk away. I can feel him on the other side of the wall, hesitant. Five seconds go by, then ten, but I can still see his shadow beneath the door, unmoving. He knocks again.
“Isabelle,” he says, firmer now. “I know you’re awake.”
Roscoe jumps off the bed, walks over to the door and starts to scratch. I sigh, lean my head back, and take a few steps forward, steeling myself before I thrust it open.
“Hi,” I say. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to disturb you.”
“Why were you outside?” He looks disheveled, his hair a nest of tangles and his eyes coated with sleep. There’s a strange intimacy to seeing people teetering on the edge of consciousness like this, knowing that they’re vulnerable. Like the first time a new partner unwittingly falls asleep in your bed and you lie next to them in the dark, watching the gentle rise and fall of their chest, the bare skin of their neck. Knowing that, in those precious moments, they are completely defenseless. Completely exposed. “It’s”—he glances around, looking for a clock, but unable to find one—“I don’t know, two in the morning?”
“I just had to get some air,” I say. “I’ve been shut in here all day.”
I can tell he doesn’t believe me, but it’s the best I’ve got.
“Is everything okay?” he asks. “I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me. You’re … sweating.”
I lift my hand to my forehead, feeling the cold slick of my skin. I had practically run home from Paul’s house, too afraid to turn back around. To see the gaze of that man on my back; to face the accusations I could see twirling in his eyes.
“I’m fine,” I say. “It’s just this bug.”
“Do you need me to take you to the doctor? You really aren’t looking good … no offense.”
I glance to the side, to the mirror hanging above my dresser, and almost recoil at my reflection. He’s right. My skin is sallow and pale, like I just ingested something rotten; my eyes are sunken in, exposing the gentle slope of my skull. His expression is making me remember the way Dr. Harris had looked at me earlier today—or, I suppose that was yesterday; it’s all starting to blur together now—that same sense of concern.
“You know what’s more dangerous than sleepwalking? Sleep deprivation.”
“I’m fine,” I repeat. “Really.”
“Okay.” He looks at me, unconvinced, and I think I see a flicker of sadness appear on his features before it disappears just as fast. Or maybe it’s pity. The thought of how easy it was for him to snake his way into my life like this; how he only needed to say the right things at the right times in order for my guard to drop completely.
He takes a step closer to me, and I flinch.
“Isabelle … you know you can trust me, right? You can tell me if there’s something else going on?”
I don’t know how to respond to that. I don’t know if I can trust him after what I discovered—but I don’t know if I can trust myself, either. So instead, I look at my feet, my eyes drilling into the carpet. I can hear the tick of the clock in the living room and Roscoe’s tongue working its way over his fur as he lays on my bed, a methodical licking. The gentle buzz of the overhead light, like a swarm of flies circling something dead.
“What did Dozier tell you?” I ask at last, my voice a whisper.
“What?”
“At the station.” I look up, trying to read his expression. Trying to stay firm and focused when, really, the fear coursing through me makes me feel like I might faint. “Today. You said you talked to him.”
“Oh,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah. Let’s not get into that right now, okay?”
“But you said—”