A/N: Any ill feelings towards this chapter and its direction are well-deserved. Here's your trigger warning: there's a
sprinkle
of graphic nonconsent/horror. Part of the reason I submitted then took it down was because of the inward confliction on whether I should censor some things, cut them out entirely, or just say fuck it. Obviously I said fuck it. Enjoy!
*****
Trust. It was a concept more sacred than love itself. It was the core of all emotions, the safety-net our minds fell back onto.
I felt nothing but vacant space behind me, horror vacui woven in its finest shade.
What's wrong, Grace? Just tell him. You can tell him.
Simplicity came in strides, half measures, and it could only be crafted by those of simple minds. Those who kept from spinning terrors in the corners of their head. As I stood there, Mr. Ryne filling the threshold of the doorway, I was beyond seeing him as something terrible, rather he was everything terrifyingly beautiful. Everything I wanted to believe in.
His eyes on me, I feared the sense of freedom to be dark. To demand then and there he tell me who the woman in the photo was. To be openly jealous of the past. To unconditionally sink myself into the unnerving portraits in the basement.
The only thing stopping me was him. If he had wanted me to know either discovery, he would have told me.
Two could play the game of secrets.
I mastered the nervous smile, endeavored upon my habit of wrapping my arms around my middle. I was the colors of frail he knew me as. "It's been a long day. I guess I'm still trying to get past the talk with my mother."
"Is that what we're going with, Miss Larson?" he asked no sooner than I'd spoken.
Confusion was trapped on my tongue as he stalked in close, fingers brushing over my forearms. I was half expecting them to wrap around me, pull me close so that I might fully experience whichever brand of displeasure crept from lips slowly forming a smile before me.
"Lies don't look good on you."
I gave him no satisfaction of an outward reaction, even if inside I became reaquainted with fear. One day spent in his company had me falling in line with his ways, much like an eager pupil to their flawless master. Except, the takeaway assimilation was by no means anything to be proud of. I was learning the game of deceit.
"I have to shower," was my only standing response.
"Mm," was his.
We regarded one another, both our lips sealed tight, thoughts locked away in our heads. Some things didn't require words. He doubted me, distrusted. It was a statement authored by his silence, the way he stepped back, refraining from challenging my words. Good, we were on the same page.
Then, with one last sidelong look that cavorted down my spine, he was gone.
I watched his shadow recede down the hall, down the stairs. The dim hands of the bathroom's light was my lasting company. For a long time, I didn't move. I wasn't in control of the replay of events. The gallery kiss, the unnerving portraits, the photo nestled in the book, word from my family, what had just been done in the kitchen . . . My next breath was an unstable rattle entering and exiting.
I hated it. I hated the triangular slant of light stretching from the bathroom. I hated the chosen forlorn bronze of its shade, how it spilled softly into the bedroom, allowing an obscure visual of plush gray duvets billowed over a California king. I hated the melancholy reach of this home, and the way it forced me into introspection.
The lives of those around me were often meaningless. I didn't make friends easily. I was too quiet, inside and outside, and I knew it. I embraced it, because never did I have a reason to be loud. To draw attention to myself. Relationships were demanding. Friendships were exhausting. Why put forth an effort for a social lifestyle when the byproduct was so enervating? Often, people confused my apathy with respect. The quieter I was, the more acquaintances around me whispered their secrets and trusted me not to spill, or, like Becky, didn't bother with a computer password because she regarded me in a deferential light. Today altered everything.
Because today I cared.
The longer I stood, saturated in the dark blue smell of Mr. Ryne and his history, the more frustration conquered me. The sea of unknown, its waters rose higher with the rain of my imagination, increasing the itch to unburrow more, to coax his mysteries into the light and decide for myself exactly who it was I found myself pining after so wholesomely.
My decision was made, possibly inevitably. I needed to know.
I stepped out of my reverie, studying the black empty hallway a moment longer. Nothing could be heard aside from the complaining howl of wind and snow careening outside.
This time would be different. The discovery of the portraits and photo had been accidental. Blameless. But this?
I closed the bedroom door and, feeling every bit as ignoble as the situation called for, I turned the lock. Dimitri Ryne's room was mine to exhume. Now was a matter of whether or not he kept anything worth uncovering within the room he laid his head at night.
In the event he decided against his earlier decision to let the matters rest and come back demanding to know everything, which I didn't think he would, I headed into the bathroom to turn the shower on. At least have him think I was underneath it, not snooping. Surprisingly, everything was disturbingly neat, down to the even stacking of heavy white towels, washrags, new toothbrush and loofah settled on the lowered hood of the toilet. Unsurprisingly, the shower was absolute black marble with an overhead stainless steel rainfall showerhead. I sighed, and after a minute of searching for the shower's handles, only to find out they were digital buttons, I spent another minute trying to figure out how to turn the thing on.
