The gesture amuses me.
Even while there are many childlike gestures in her repertoire, she’s the most sensual creature I’ve ever known.
She’s so at ease with her body that I don’t think I’ve met a temptation more powerful than the one she offers without even really offering it. It just exudes from her, and because I’m so close, it’s like that’s all I can breathe.
“I see things.”
“What things?”
“Details. Stuff most people don’t notice.” She turns her head on the pillow to look at me. “I see someone’s pain. Someone’s fear. Someone’s anger.”
“You’re empathic,” I guess.
“Maybe. But not really. I don’t feel what they feel, I just see it. I notice what they’re going through, and instead of bypassing them, instead of just moving on, I figure out what’s going on and I help them.”
Her words have me tensing. “What do you see in me?”
After all, I have to assume that’s why she’s here.
“All three. Pain, fear, and anger. But that’s not why I’m here,” she murmurs, like she read my mind. It’s uncanny how she can do that.
Okay, that’s an understatement. It’s fucking freaky.
“Why are you here then?”
“I already told you that—I’m yours.”
“I’m not yours.”
Her lips twitch. “So stubborn. You are, you just haven’t figured it out yet. But I’m okay with that.” She gives a happy sigh. “I’m with you. I can wait. I’m patient.”
I blink at that.
“Can I sleep with you tonight?”
“You have a bed down the hall,” I rasp, my body tenses at the notion of us sharing a bed until morning.
Temptation.
I’ll be lying beside it.
“But this is nicer. You’re here, and it smells of you.” Her brow furrows deeper than before. “Why does nowhere else smell of you?”
“I clean it?”
“Is the mattress covered in blood?”
The question surprises me, even if I tell her, “There are stains I can’t get out, yes. Whenever I move, I always buy a new one and burn the old one.”
“How are you going to burn it in Rome? Do you have a backyard?”
“No.” I hum. “I don’t know how I’ll destroy it. I guess I’ll figure something out if the time comes.”
She pauses. “You see yourself being here for a while?”
I nod. “I do.”
“You moved a lot before. Why?”
“It never gelled.”
“Here does?”
“Yes.”
Andrea rubs her face into the sheets again. “I think that’s why I can smell you here. Your blood is in the mattress.”
“Blood doesn’t smell.”
“It does to me.” She purses her lips. “That’s why it surprised me how nothing else smells of you.”
I already know she’s crazy, but that confirms it again.
Still, I don’t leap out of bed, don’t drag her out too.
Instead, I roll onto my side and turn to face her.
“You said you see details and you act on them. How?”
“I befriend people. I watch them at first, then I get closer to them so I can help them.”
“From what?”
“The source of their fear,” she explains patiently.
“Give me an example.”
“I have friends all over the world now,” she says proudly. “I’ve helped a lot of people over the years. Whatever anyone says, they can’t take that away from me.”
I frown. “Why would they?”
“My parents tried to say that I was weird, strange even. But I was just helping people.”
“You told them about what you did?”
“Yes. I shouldn’t have. That’s why my father asked to be transferred closer to me. It’s why they were selling their house—”
“Okay, you’re going too fast. Start at the beginning.”
She heaves out a sigh. “If I have to.”
“You do,” I confirm, oddly amused by her.
Andrea rolls toward me, her body shifting on the sheets as she arcs into me. “Like, Diana. She was outside one of my classes. I saw her on the phone. I knew she was scared. Everyone treated her like she was a bitch, and they avoided her like she had the plague. Her dad was the mayor of the town where we lived— I couldn’t figure out how he could be so popular, and she was the opposite. No one saw the reality. No one but me.”
“He was hurting her?” I guessed.
“Yes. Badly. So I got close to her, befriended her, made her move in with me.”
“You took her away from him.”
“I did.” She smiles, her pride evident. “We even managed to get him in jail. She was brave. She went to the police. Sadly, they don’t always do that.” Her frown turns gloomy. “I’ve helped men and women alike, and they all love me. Each of them would lay down their lives for me—”
“I’ll bet. You saved them from themselves.”
“I saved them from their monsters,” she corrects.
I shrug. “Same difference. A monster is only in our life because we let them in.”
“Once they’re in, it’s hard to get them out again. It can be impossible too, depending on how tangled your life is with theirs. If you have a child or if your money is tied up with theirs—”
“I wasn’t arguing,” I appease softly. “I was just saying... you save them from themselves.”
“And their monsters,” she tacks on stubbornly.
I nod rather than argue. We can agree to disagree on this score. “Were you always this way?”
“No. It started when I was seventeen, and according to the specialists, that’s when the cyst started to become large enough to impair my brain function.” She makes a scoffing noise. “How does that sound like it’s impairing it? They’re trying to make it sound like I was crazy or something. Like I made it up—”
Because she’d lost me for real this time, I squeezed her wrist—yeah, I was still holding it, and I didn’t want to let go. Her pulse had increased, throbbing with her exasperation, and I liked the insight into her responses. She didn’t react like a regular person, and this gave me more of a clue about her.
“Explain.”
“I was having psych evaluations after the surgery,” she mutters. “They were making me talk about that period of time. I had to lie in the end. Or they’d never have let me out. They’d have locked me up just to stop me from harming myself.
“That’s how I knew it was meant to be. When I learned you were in Rome? I had to come here.”
“That’s what brought you here?”
“Yes. I finally found out where your new parish was. Not all of your archdioceses would tell me what was going on with you, some were trickier than others.”
“So the catalyst for you leaving the hospital was me?” I question, aghast at the prospect.
“Yes,” she murmurs, her eyes soft as her graze drifts over me. “It’s always you.”