Someone I Used to Know - By Blakney Francis Page 0,51
on with you two?” Madeline asked, stealing my relief.
“You’re his friend. You would know better than me,” I countered, needing desperately to push the attention elsewhere.
“Friend?” she rolled the word off her tongue like it was as foreign as the concept itself was to her.
I seethed. Declan really cared about her in his own, twisted way. He’d sure shamed me like I’d offered a sixth grader a cigarette when he’d thought she’d gotten drunk with me.
I’d never disliked her as much as I did in that moment. She was just standing there in her stupid little silk robe completely oblivious to anything and everyone that didn’t forward her goals. Declan deserved better than that…at least from her he did.
“Yes, Madeline, as crazy as it seems that someone could actually care about something other than themselves, Declan considers you his friend.”
She frowned at my outburst, like I’d disappointed her in some way, and I got the distinct feeling it wasn’t because I’d basically called her selfish.
***
The next week, things took a turn for worst. Declan resorted to a new tactic to break my stony resolve. Having gotten bored of waiting for my attitude to wane naturally, he decided that if I was going to ignore him anyways, he was going to do his damnedest to really piss me off…and, apparently, soothe his own curiosity in the process.
“Do you ever think about her?” His body was turned to greet me fully as I climbed into the car. It was like he was an eager dog waiting for my attention. All he was missing was a tail wagging against the leather upholstery under our rears.
I shrugged. It didn’t matter who he was talking about. My answer would have been a shrug even if he’d asked me if I worshipped the devil or was a transvestite. I didn’t look at him. I hadn’t been able to since the sex scene.
“Your daughter. Do you ever think about her?” There wasn’t even the slightest bit of confrontation in his words, and that almost made me angrier.
My hand flew to the door handle, but it was locked and the car had already picked up a good bit of speed. I swear anything slower than fifteen miles per hour, and I would have risked the jump.
I could feel his gaze calling me to look at him, but I stayed strong in my resolve and my eyes stayed where they were, glued to my interlocking hands in my lap.
He didn’t say another word. He didn’t do anything but stare at me while I summoned up every bit of strength I possessed, to suppress the trembling that begged to take hold of me. He wasn’t playing fair.
The next day, he came back swinging.
“Did you name her?”
I’d pinched my leg so hard it left a bruise for a week.
The fact that I had never once answered one of his questions didn’t seem to discourage him, and the following day, he threw two at my silence. I blocked him out, counting in my head.
On the third day, he didn’t say anything, oddly distracted, and I thought that maybe he was giving up. On the ride home he proved to me I couldn’t have been more wrong. If anything, the brief reprieve had been an attempt to lure me into a false sense of security. I was ashamed at how well it worked and how ruffled I was when the purposeful steel of his irises drilled into me.
“Why didn’t you want to see her?”
The coppery aftertaste of blood filled my mouth as I bit the inside of my cheek.
“What could it have hurt to see her just once?” He’d grown used to my shrugs and silence, not even anticipating a reply anymore. He didn’t even wait for me.
Raindrops raced one another down the panes of tinted glass as the car endured the steady stop-and-go flow of traffic that clogged our route home.
“You don’t even know what color hair she has. What if you were standing right beside her at the grocery store or the zoo and you never even knew it.” His voice was building in wonder, like his mind cluttered with possibilities and his intention had nothing to do with me anymore, but instead all the curious wonderments our predicament presented.
My blood pumped thick and hot through my veins as my vision sharpened, only blurring at the edges with the red hue of rage.
“She, literally, is half of you – DNA-wise. She was inside of you and –.”