Page 7 of Scar

When I first come down the main steps, it has a movie room. A large TV, far too many comfortable recliners, a stereo, a fridge. Everything you'd need to host movie night, but I've never actually invited anyone here. All hookups are done at their house or a hotel. This home, this sanctuary. My sanctuary is for me and someday for my wife.

I wonder if Maeve would like my house? Fuck, there I go again.

But the best part, the fun part, of my basement is in the back. I have a massive soundproof room with a thick metal door and no windows. The autopsy table is built to be hidden in the wall. That's where the table lives when it's not in use. It gets rolled into the wall, locked shut, with a comfortable chair sitting in front of it.

When it's not in use, this room looks like an at home therapy office, except it's cold and clinical. It's more like a place where you'd have a lobotomy instead oftalkabout your feelings. But if by some chance the cops showed up, I'd rather them think I'm a heartless psychiatrist instead of a serial killer. I can deal with their false opinions of me, I refuse to deal with prison.

Chapter 8

Maeve's POV

I walk home pretty quickly. These shopping bags are heavy. I don't want to drag my butt and have it take twice as long before I can sit them down. Plus, I have cold things, and in this heat? They'd melt by the time I walked a mile. So, a brisk walk it is. Somewhere between a walk and a run. I'm sure to anyone watching, I look like a crazy person. I'm walking like those old people that power walk through the mall at sunrise. All I'm missing is a multi-colored track suit.

Picturing myself in a neon purple tracksuit, huffing every breath and swinging my arms, has me laughing to myself the rest of the way home. Some guy walking his dog even stops to stare at me. But that just makes me laugh again.

I'membarrassing.

No wonder my friends never demand and beg me to go out drinking with them. Nope, I tell them no, and they just go without me. Carlie told them no once, and like three girls cried until she changed her mind. It should hurt my feelings that I'm not as much in the group as she is, but it doesn't. Two years at this school has cemented it into my brain that I am only in the group because of Carlie. I'm glad we're as close as we are, or I'm sure she would have ditched me by now.

I finally get home to an empty house and a sticky note on the counter that reads, "At the bar, meet us if you want." No thanks. I know what kind or drunk Carlie is, a loud one. I'm not even old enough to drink anyway. She just keeps promising me that she'd get me in. I don't doubt her. It's just not my scene. So, instead, I unload the groceries and get ready for an evening alone.

Leon gave me both gallons of apple cider. Nobody has ever done something so simple, yet so kind, towards me before. I wish I knew more about him, so I could thank him properly. But all I know is that he makes more money than I'll ever see and his name is Leon.

I know he's a clean freak.

His entire cart was full of cleaning products and far too much bleach. I know I've seen him near campus twice now, so I assume he works here. Not everyone that comes near campus works or goes here, but he looks like a professor. Maybe English literature? Or something cool like engineering? I don't know, but he looks smart. And he smells amazing. Like some kind of spicy cologne mixed with a hint of leather and maybe an overly expensive bourbon. He smells like all man and sin.

Maybe we'd talk about conspiracy theories or the universe while we sat in front of a fireplace or a marble table together. Shoot, why am I thinking like this? There is no way that the professor is into me. He's too attractive, he makes too much money, and he's older than me. No, he gave me that apple cider because I looked pathetic, crawling around on the pavement to pick up my stuff. I'm a charity case. That's actually really embarrassing to think about. Too bad I can't stop thinking about it. I probably looked like a crazy person crawling around for my stuff. A sane person would've left it there to avoid embarrassment. But not only am I not that sane or have that much dignity, but I can't afford it. To anyone else, that was a mid week shopping trip to pick up a few things. To me, it was my entire month of food, stored in two embarrassingly small bags.

Thanksgiving break was nice, I made a massive batch of my sautéed cabbage, onions, and peppers. I was able to eat that the entire time I was off. This week was for relaxing, so I did. I painted my nails, and I caught up on studying. Heck, I even planted the buds of my cabbage heads in my garden. It would be amazing if it actually grew. We'll see.

While my time alone was nice, I'm lonely. I know I'm a bit of an outcast, but I do like being around people. I'm just not good with being the center of a conversation. I wonder if Shelby is available? I kind of doubt it. She seems like the type with two loving parents who would jump at any opportunity to see their child.

My mom... she fits in the middle. She claims she wants to see me as often as possible, but when I visit, she's just annoyed.

I surprised her last Christmas after she complained that I never surprise her. She was upset that the house wasn't clean to her standards for guests. It's always something with her, I'm never enough, or I'm too much. I'm too quiet, I'm too skinny, my diet is too expensive, I'm too picky. Yet somehow I'm not enough. The neighbor's daughter is in medical school, her brother's son is going to be a lawyer, and a woman at work, her daughter is marrying an engineer.

I never measure up. So I stopped trying. I stopped putting effort into a relationship with my mom, and I stopped letting her disappoint me. I stopped letting her make me feel small for being me.

I refuse to let my mothers insecurities make me feel small anymore. Never again. That's why I picked a school outside of Louisiana. I wanted to be away from my mother. I had to. When Carlie suggested Texas. She said that she'd be going too and offered that we rent an apartment together, I jumped on it. Yeah, the out of state tuition fee sucked, but it got me away from my family, and I got to keep the warm weather year round.

I hate the heat, I sweat too easily, but I prefer that to snow. My family and I went to New York one Christmas, and it was horrible. Snow and ice everywhere, car crashes, planes being delayed due to weather. I don't see why anyone would want to live where the wind hurts your face. But I bet people say the same thing when they get down here and deal with the heat. Heck, I've lived with the heat my whole life, and I still sweat when I go outside.

Chapter 9

Leon's POV

I feel like a pervert.

Seriously, someone should put a fucking warning poster about me around campus. It's been six months since I saw Maeve at the grocery store and all I've done since is fucking stalk her.

I learned her routine, Istudywhere she goes during the day when she's not in class, Ifollowher home andsitoutside of her apartment. I should be worried about myself, I'm a psychiatrist for fuck sake. Yet here I am, stalking someone fourteen years younger than me. Fourteen! Yeah, she's legal. She's actually turning twenty-one soon, but I still feel kind of gross for being so enamored with this woman.

I can't help it. Maeve is amazing. She's kind, she's smart, she's funny, she's quiet when she's around friends. But there's something about her, something buried deep that I wish I could dig out. Something dark. If I was a worse man, I'd let myself poison this girl just so I could be around her. But I can't. I can't let myself take someone so beautiful, a light, and dim her. I can't drag her into my darkness forever.

That's why I stay away. I know if I had even a taste of that girl, I'd never let her go again. She'd be mine. She'd have to die to get away from me, and even then, it would only be until I joined her in death. Maeve seems to love nature. She's studying botany, and all her classes are about plants, the environment, and how to save it. So I bet she would want some burial that gives her back to the earth or some shit. I can give her that. I can love her until her last breath and then bury her under a gorgeous tree. I could climb in the dirt with her and hug her corpse while I put a bullet through my skull, letting the tree have our bodies. We could rot together until I followed her into the next life and every life after that.

But I can't do that to her. I can't take the most beautiful soul I've ever seen and destroy it. So I have to watch from afar. I have to love this gorgeous creature from a distance.