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“Assuming you aren’t a masochist, what is it that has you interested in me when I’m not a very enjoyable person to be around?”
“Who told you that?”
“Literally everyone but my parents and my two friends.” Her head tilts. “Scratch that. Literally everyone but my two friends. My parents tried to fix me, like good parents do in an effort to create suitable members of society, but eventually they realized I was a lost cause. The blunt meanness was in my veins.” A cynical smile twists her lips. “Get this, periodically throughout my kid years, Mom would do little at-home tests to check that I wasn’t a sociopath. I’ll never forget the conversation we had about all of it once I was older. I guess she thought I struggled with empathy.”
“Do you?”
A funny look weasels its way into her eyes as she fixes her attention outside. “I don’t think so. I feel so much when I choose to. I have empathy. It’s just that, most of the time, I don’t really care. Why should I? If I tried to care about everything all the time, I’d destroy myself. It’s better to care a whole lot about the few people who have proven themselves worthy of that energy.” Relaxing, she shrugs. “I don’t know. That’s what I think, anyway. Who knows…maybe I am a sociopath, and I’m just fooling myself because I have a good enough grasp on the logical progression behind emotional expression to respond correctly and I do occasionally go out of my way to do so.”
My heart constricts, dully thudding in my ears. This woman… My lips part. “What makes someone worthy of your care?”
She scoffs. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Yes. I really would.”
Her eyes roll; the action reflects in the sunlit window. “Well, I can’t tell you. Part of being enough for me is being enough for yourself, which means you aren’t allowed to teach yourself how to be someone else.”
I arch a brow. “Unless…a paycheck’s involved.”
She sniffs. “That is the notable exception, yes. I’ve deduced that it is likely hard to be yourself when you’re starving in a cardboard box off main street.”
The incessant pound of my heart in my head grows stronger with every moment. “If it would help, I think I could change at least a little. For you.”
She doesn’t even bother looking at me. “That is not how anything works. People don’t change; they grow. Sadly, that means you’re only going to get happier and more energetic.” Her voice takes on tragic airs. “I pity my future, should my employment last.”
Strange. I pity my future should it not.
Before her, my assistant was an amicable young man who couldn’t maintain the demand of working for me when his wife got pregnant. Before him, it was a woman who saw her chance to take advantage of me at the height of my grief after my father passed.
Once I’d managed to turn that woman down with a smile, I threw furniture.
I can hardly remember a time I’ve been so mad. So…disappointed. So hurt.
Even if Marcella hasn’t been acting like herself for the past two months, her professional consistency has always been comforting and reliable. Now that she’s transparent, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone half so secure.
I’ve come to value her presence and the peace her capable airs bring.
Being around her has let me be myself without worrying how she’d respond.
Being around her, from the first day, has been safe.
No.
– Marcella
Chapter 9
I should have pushed you down the stairs.
– Marcella
He’s…lingering.
There are approximately seventeen million bags of extravagant clothes in the castle room I have claimed as my own. They drown out my little lump of Walmart bag familiarity quite considerably, and I am not looking forward to sorting through them. I’m already drowning in a puddle of foreign luxuries.
The only reason I’m not sobbing and puking is because—sweet baby of air condition—there are vents. In the ceilings. And multiple thermostats. Including one in the room I picked.
It is literally the only reason I picked the room I did last night. I stomped right through this extravagant mansion, stopped at the first room I found with a thermostat in it, and dumped my stuff on the bed before curling up on the couch that also happened to be in the room I picked.
