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SEVEN
Kayla
The morning sunshone through curtains I hadn’t opened for two days.
“Ugh,” I muttered, turning over and pressing a pillow against my face.
Before the Petrosyan family, I’d been an early bird. Now, I was a when-Elias-demanded bird, and my natural rhythms had been thrown completely off.
That thought made me drop my arms, and I lay there, staring at the ever-brightening sun.
And made a decision.
For two days, I had been on pins and needles, waiting for the phone to ring, knowing that Elias would call.
Was terrified of what my reaction would be when he did.
Even more terrified of what I would feel if he didn’t.
Would he want to finish what he’d started?
Would I have the strength to resist him if he did?
Was I brave enough to admit how much I wanted him to?
I didn’t have the answers to any of those questions, but I knew one thing for sure.
I wasn’t a coward.
Not ever.
And hiding in this apartment wouldn’t solve anything.
I pushed myself out of bed, moving on pure stubbornness.
Whatever Elias said or did, I was in control of my life, and I would start acting like it.
First thing I did was clean my apartment top to bottom.
It was small, the smallest in this building, but I still tried to keep it nice. My mother had always kept our surroundings tidy, no matter how modest they might have been, and I’d picked up the habit.
And a clean environment helped me focus, so I tried to maintain it.
Next, I cleaned myself, taking a long, unhurried bath. I was more of a shower and go type, but I took my time this morning and spent extra time on moisturizing my skin and doing a deep conditioner on my hair.
I smiled in the mirror, then laughed out loud at my silly face. When I was a kid, I used to wish I’d wake up one day and be beautiful like my mother. I’d gotten over that but had occasionally felt a twinge of pain at the fact that the face that stared back at me would never be more than average.
My mind flashed back to that night, to the intensity on Elias’s face. The way he’d looked at me, touched me, hadn’t felt average.
I pushed the thought away.
What I looked like didn’t matter.
With Elias, it was about control, and I would do well to remember that.
I stared at myself again and then nodded.
Despite the circumstances, I knew the woman in the mirror tried her best and did what she needed to in order to protect those that she loved.
