Genevieve
THE SILENCE IS FUCKING DEAFENING.
That's the only way to describe it. Everyone has to have experienced it at least once in their life. I believe the last time I can remember experiencing exactly this was when I was young, but it had been since moving to Westville. I'd had a vivid nightmare of some sort, and while the details have long since been lost in the hazy memories that accumulate over the years, I remember waking up and being so lost in a thunderous silence, so powerful that I covered my ears with my hands.
Terrified, I submerged myself under the comforter, but it did nothing to dull the loudness. My thoughts seemed to scream at me in painful reminders of what my nightmare had entailed. Darkness devoured me, and I was lost in the sea of blindness and roaring musings.
The house is quiet and empty. Officers patrol the street and nearby vicinity. But no one's stationed directly outside the house because at the end of the day, as Detective Needham explained it, they want to catch Carson, and I'm being offered up as bait. While he assured me that no harm will come to me with the multitude of protection outside, I'm sceptical. Carson is a trained and successful assassin, and married up to the fact that it's night, he can weave between the shadows stealthily.
Along with my wariness, Detective Needham provided me with some sort of rape alarm on steroids. It appears exactly as a rape alarm would, but the alarm is painfully blaring, and the officers outside will undoubtedly hear it and come running. He demonstrated it to me for a split second, and that was sufficient time for me to reassuringly accept the offering. And tell him to silence the damn thing.
But I can't relax. As my rape alarm sits proudly on my bedside table, I'm lying in bed, donning yoga pants and an old T-shirt that's way too small for me now where the hemline sits just on top of the waistband of my pants. My phone sits closer to me than the rape alarm, and my eyes keep returning to the messages from Ford.
Does he expect me to respond? The lack of follow-up messages or calls seem to suggest otherwise, but I know Ford. I know he's not as knowledgeable with relationships as he is with literally everything else. He's probably just believing he's giving me space to digest everything I've learnt today, mourn my faux life, and try to shift into a place where I can hopefully learn to trust him again.
Besides, I understand why he didn't tell me. Wrong decision, don't get me wrong, but I understand it. That makes it a little easier to not be so infuriated by him, and I miss him like hell. I wish he was with me right now. At least then I'd feel safer, more secure.
Soon enough, my eyes are closing. My mind still seems like it's racing and while I don't move, I warrant myself to succumb to the temptations.
I don't know how much time passes before my eyes open again, and now my body feels alert, for some peculiar reason. I take a moment as I glance at the clock—it's only been a few hours as it's nearing three in the morning now—to identify this bizarre sensation. When recognition dawns on me, I freeze.
My gut's telling me something's wrong.
We're all supposed to trust our guts, aren't we?
Now I can't settle and relax again, and as I push myself off the bed, I thread my fingers quickly through my hair. They catch the knots and I wince. Standing up, I beeline to my floor-length window and sneakily glance out of it from the side, but nothing captures my focus. While it's still so fucking dark out there, I can't perceive anything deemed untoward. Seems safe. For now.
Wheeling around, my eyes latch onto my bedroom door. It's shut. It felt intrinsic to shut it when I returned to my bedroom earlier, even if I'm alone. There's something about the normalcy of being behind my closed door that provokes some sense of reassurance for me, but right now, it makes me feel trapped. If Carson's here and manages to slip into my bedroom, I have nowhere to go.
