Famished by Meghan O'Flynn (latest ebook reader .TXT) 📕

office door too hard, caught it, and closed it gently, glancing over my shoulder through the glass wall at Ralph and Tony and Noelle. No one looked up. I ran to the staircase and ascended, my shoes on the metal steps almost as fast as my heartbeat.

The top floor was another world—leather armchairs and cherry wood furniture, and abstract art. Doubt seeped into my chest like a river of burning oil. Desperation burned hotter.

What’s the worst that can happen?

He’ll think you’re crazy.

So what?

He’ll fire you.

Joke’s on him—I quit!

The secretary had steel gray hair and black-rimmed glasses like an old-fashioned schoolmarm. Her bony fingers kept typing away on her keyboard even as she stared me down.

I smoothed my hair. “I need to speak to Mr. Harwick, please.”

“Name and appointment time?”

“Hannah Montgomery. I don’t actually have an—”

She smiled, but her gaze was one you’d give a naughty child. “Then, I am afraid he cannot see you.”

My body felt suddenly heavy like I was wrapped in a wet blanket of hopelessness. Of course, he can’t see me. I was an idiot. “Can I make an appointment to see him today?”

The woman punched a few buttons on the keyboard and squinted at her screen, eyes flat and disinterested. “How about three weeks from tomorrow?”

I put my hands on the desk to steady myself. I couldn’t breathe.

I’ll be gone by then.

Or gutted like a fish.

“Please, I just…please—” My voice rang shrill, foreign, hysterical. Black spots floated around the edges of my vision. My lungs were on fire.

“Ma’am, you’re going to have to—” The secretary’s voice grew distant. My fingers, splayed on the cherry wood, slid toward me in slow motion as I gasped nonexistent air and fought the haze at the edges of my vision. Everything went black.

He held me, cradling me like a child as he walked me to my bedroom.

Shhh, it’s ok, baby…

I opened my eyes with a start. I was half lying, half sitting in a leather armchair, knees over the arm. Near my feet, a sculpture made of colored glass reached toward the ceiling with intertwined bands of red and yellow.

“You’re awake.” Mr. Harwick rose behind an enormous desk of glass and stone.

I tried to pull myself up, but my sweaty hands slipped on the leather.

“Just relax for a moment.”

I stopped struggling and wilted in the chair.

“Are you hurt?”

I shifted in the seat. My legs were asleep, but I only felt pins and needles, not pain. My elbow stung with what was probably rug burn. My lungs were working again. Nothing felt too sore or wrong, though I did seem to have a mass of creepy crawly things teeming in my stomach.

Then everything came back to me.

I need help. My father killed my boyfriend, and it’s all my fault.

Shit! Don’t say that!

He perched on the arm of the other chair, concern etched across his features.

I swung my feet to the floor.

Tell him.

I don’t know what to say.

“I…need help.” It came out a whisper.

“What can I do for you?”

His cologne was biting, earthy, masculine. “Uh…” In all the hoping I’d done, I had not thought to plan out what to ask of him. I wanted to punch myself in the head.

You can’t tell him.

You have to tell him. You can always deny it later if he tells anyone.

“I…my um…father…” I looked down. “He wasn’t very nice when I was growing up. I ran away.” Why are you still protecting him?

I took a deep breath. “I…I’m afraid he may be trying to find me. I am… I don’t know what to do, but I can’t… I think he’s been following me.”

“Did you call the police?”

My heart caught in my throat. They’ll arrest me for not telling them who killed Jake.

“No. I mean, I think I might be in trouble too. I…uh…I took some things from the house when I left.” Yeah, like your clothes. Look at you, super thief! First, your clothes, then an old cafeteria table, and tomorrow a bank so you can actually manage to avoid homelessness wherever you end up.

His forehead wrinkled. “I see.”

“Maybe…maybe I can take out a loan against my next paycheck? Or I can just borrow a little bit so I can get started in another state? I’ll pay you back, every cent. I’ll work two, three jobs if I have to. I just need enough to get away and set up somewhere else.”

Here it is. Now he’ll tell me to get out, and I can go pack my apartment.

“I can help you.”

You can…what? I blinked at him.

“You don’t have to leave, Hannah. If he found you here, he’ll find you there. Then in another year you’ll be back in the same position. Let’s give it a week or so to assess the situation.”

“But—”

“Did he come to your home?”

Not yet. “He will.”

“I can help you get an apartment in another name.”

“He’s been following me. He knows my car.” Oh, God. He probably knew where I ate dinner, where I shopped for groceries.

“I’ll drive you, or I will have a car sent.”

I did a double take, heart twitching. “What?”

“Or you can stay with me for a few days. I’ve got an alarm and a big dog.”

You can’t help me; no one can help me. You’ll die just like Jake did. “Mr. Harwick, I—”

“Dominic.”

“Dominic. We don’t even… I mean, we don’t know each other all that well.”

“I know you’re scared, but I can help you. And if in a week you still want to run, I will give you some cash and a new license plate.”

Something was obviously wrong with my ears. He doesn’t understand the gravity of the situation. If he did—

“Are you sure you don’t want to call the police? We can do it from here.” He reached for the phone.

“No! I mean… I don’t know.”

They’ll lock me up too, just for knowing about Jake. They’ll blame me.

Would Dominic?

I had nothing to lose anymore. My eyes filled with tears. “I just feel so…broken. Like I don’t even know what to do to be normal anymore.”

His eyes were far away. “My dad always used to say, ‘Pretending to be normal is the best way to make people think you are.’”

I wrung my hands, every nerve in my body twitching. Pretending, I could do. It was what came after the pretending that worried me.

“You’re strong. You’ll get past this.” He touched my arm softly. “Everything will be okay.”

Everything will be okay. Was that true? Everything encompassed so very much, and it felt like it was all flowing through me in that moment—the unrelenting stress of the past few months, the pain of my childhood, the guilt and the grief and the panic—until I feared I would burst or lose my mind completely. Everything. I needed everything to be okay, if only for a moment.

His eyes bored into mine. “Hannah, you’re shaking. It’s all right. I’ll help you.” He was so…confident, his eyes calm, patient, understanding.

I threw myself into his arms and sobbed into his shirt as he stroked my hair.

“I… Thank you.”

I’m safe here.

Then, there was more than gratitude. It began like a fire in the pit of my stomach and crept lower, heating the space between my thighs. Something’s wrong. I pressed my legs together, but the smoldering ache swelled and spread.

I tilted my face upwards, and he captured my mouth with his, silencing the remnants of fear. But then the fear reemerged, burning panic mingling with something feral, clawing at me to get out.

I can’t do this.

I put a hand on his chest, prepared to pull away, but he wrapped an arm around my back, and liquid warmth spread through me.

He’ll hurt me too.

But his hand in my hair was soft, gentle, kind. He did care for me. Maybe he always had. I could hear my heartbeat in my ears, feel the throbbing of it between my legs, sweet and unrelenting.

He had come to the funeral. Not for Jake, not for just another employee, but for me. He’d sent me flowers. Came to see me in the office. He cared, and not because I was an employee, not even because I was pretty—I surely hadn’t been ten minutes ago with snot streaming down my face. No, he cared about…me.

I clutched his shoulders as if letting go might cause him to disappear, and I would be left desperate and lonely again. I was so focused on his mouth, his scent, the hardness of him against my pelvis that I