Chapter 5

Dan, please don’t!he’d cried. For a moment, I feel true fear. My stomach aches with it, and the good feelings from tonight leech out of me on a sea of bile.

“Dan.” Aaron’s voice is strangled, like he’s trying to control the emotion escaping into his words. “This is too much.”

I know it is. I can’t reply. I can’t speak to him without increasing my self-loathing tenfold.

“Why?” he whispers, but I don’t think he’s expecting a reply. He sits up and starts rummaging at the foot of the bed in the half-darkness, presumably looking for his clothes. He pulls his shirt back on over his head and tugs up his briefs and trousers. Then he pauses, his back turned to me, his head very still and straight, a statue in the darkness. But whatever it is he’s waiting for, it doesn’t arrive, because then he gets up and leaves the bedroom.

By the time I fall asleep, tired out from wallowing in my misery and fright, he still hasn’t returned.

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