And maybe Dainn was the man. Maybe he wasn’t.
She shook her head. Who the hell was she kidding? She knew he was the man for her, had known for many years. Had she been trained by her brain to believe it? Probably. Was it ‘healthy’ like she’d read in articles? Probably not. But again, as Dr. Manson reminded her, other people's definition of healthy couldn't be hers. Her experiences were different, her past was different, and whatever made her grow and heal was healthy for her. All the information she’d been consuming over the days had been doing was simply making her think—think, so she could follow different directions of thought and decide for herself which she agreed with and which she didn’t. She was discovering herself, slowly but surely, and that was all she could do. The knife on the counter still looked inviting sometimes, but she was working on it.
Getting up from the comfortable, plush armchair in the study, she went to the table and picked up the small notebook she had claimed for herself, opening it to the last entry.
‘Cook pasta for dinner’。
One step at a time.
That’s what she had begun to do at Dr. Manson's suggestion. Every morning, she wrote a task for herself to be done that day, and throughout the day, she focused on it. She’d read about it in one of the more useful articles on how to prevent suicidal thoughts as well, and it had been centering her more. Now, every time she had a thought, she opened the notebook and checked what she had to do that day, and eventually, the thought passed.
Checking the time, seeing the sun was setting already, she headed to the kitchen, the one place in the house she was slowly making her domain. Though she still wasn’t an expert, she was experimenting more and more, looking up recipes online, seeing videos on how to cut a vegetable or slice the chicken, and she was becoming more and more confident about the simple, basic things. But only she had tasted her food, and it was the first time she was planning on making a full meal.
Dainn—she was still getting used to calling him that, both inside and out—wouldn’t return home until late in the night. They had begun to share meals together, but if he was away, she usually ate and went to bed, mainly because she’d started waking up at the crack of dawn to simply enjoy the sunrise on the deck every morning. By the time she had dinner watching TV on those nights, she was droopy. Last night, she’d fallen asleep on the couch, only to come awake when he’d picked her up and carried her to bed, tucked her in, and left her sleeping.
She wanted him back in the master bedroom. She wanted to have sex with him, yes, but she also wanted more, much more. She wanted to fall asleep in his arms and wake up in them, she wanted to talk to him in the dark of the night and memorize his words for the day, she wanted to find his hypnotic, intense gaze on her in the morning and give him the reactions he wanted. She wanted it all with him. And maybe she was foolish—she more than likely was—but the desire to have him, to hold him, to hug him was a constant hunger under her skin.
She wanted to belong.
So, she got to work.
Putting her tablet on a stand in the corner of the kitchen, she put on a tutorial video even though she had practiced making it, and brought out the big pan. Putting the water on boil, she opened the fridge and brought out the eggs, tomatoes, cheese and butter.
Knowing what she knew about him being Shadow Man, she didn’t expect him to come back early, but she was willing to sit up and wait for him. She did want to ask him what else he did and how he had all this wealth, ask him why he became the Shadow Man in the first place, ask him about what his big plan was that he’d once talked about. But he was closed off about those subjects, so she let him be for now.
Watching the video and following the steps, she lost herself in the motion of creating something. It soothed something inside her, just the simple act of cooking something from the scratch, and it excited something inside her, just knowing she was going to make someone beside herself eat it.
“Lyla.”
The voice behind her made her turn. Nikki was putting on her coat, still aloof toward her. “Do you need anything before I leave?”
Lyla hadn’t even known she’d been in the house. She shook her head, having brushed up on some basic manners. “No, thank you. Have a good night.”
A smirk lit the other girl’s lips. “Oh, I will.”
Okay. That was odd.
“Oh, and whatever you do, please don’t go into the greenhouse tonight.” Nikki said on her way. “There’s a storm coming.”
There was something off about the way the girl said it. A weight that hadn’t been there in days settled in her stomach. Her mood dampened, she quietly cooked her way through the meal, the scent making her mouth water. She put the servings on two plates and popped them in the oven to keep them hot, putting the rest in a serving bowl that she placed in the oven too. Then she cleaned all the pots and pans she’d used, setting them aside to dry.