Eternal Longing ✓

58. Denial

FINLEY

"She'll be back."

Silence.

"I promise, little man. For all we know, she'll be ringing that doorbell any minute now, asking for her pancakes and eggs." I chuckle to myself as I push the scrambled eggs around the pan with a spatula.

More silence.

"Yeah, she's mad." I frown and turn to look at the little guy. "But she just needs a bit of time to work the frustrations out."

I don't expect the little guy-an inanimate object-to respond with his two cents, but something about the silence feels accusatory and disbelieving.

"I'm not in denial," I mutter under my breath, scrambling the egg with more vigor as Charmless just keeps sitting down on the counter, silent yet somehow mean. "She will come back, Char. She's coming back to me."

I can practically hear him snorting at my words and contradicting my claims, and the silent denial pisses me off more than it should. My scrambling gets more aggressive, and I try to control myself, but I can't help scowling at the doll.

"She is coming back, you asshole. She didn't say it yet but I know she loves me and-" I stop the forthcoming rant and throw a rueful smile at him. "Okay, bud. Okay. You almost got me there." I chuckle humorlessly and turn off the stove.

He says nothing, just keeps on living his plastic existence with a permanent semi-smirk on his face.

"I might as well set up a plate for her, right?" I ask the unresponsive doll. "Saturdays are pancake days, her favorite, so she'll know to come."

But the doll remains unresponsive. Staring straight ahead, that damn self-satisfied smirk on his face taunting me.

"Asshole," I mutter under my breath, careful so he can't hear me. Jaya hates when I insult the thing, and right now, I need her to be as happy with me as possible.

On the counter, I place two plates filled with pancakes, eggs, and sausages, one for her and one for me.

Somewhere, deep in the part of my brain that I'm choosing to ignore at the moment, I realize that this is not normal. That setting up a whole plate for a woman who is not here, who more than likely will not be stepping foot into this apartment, is nothing quite short of insane.

"You think I'm pathetic, don't you?" I chuckle humorlessly, using my fork to push the food on my plate around. "She hates me, and here I am, surviving on delusion and pancakes, letting out my frustrations on a male doll."

The back of my head hurts, my neck is sore, and the silence is killing me.

Silence, as it has for the past day, is the only thing that greets me. I sigh and stand up, abandoning the food on the breakfast counter to go in search of my phone.

Crossing the living room, I avoid stepping on glass and various objects broken on the floor, pulling blankets away from the couch and patting the corners of it to see if my phone is anywhere.

When the couch proves to be a waste of time, I use my eyes to visually scan for the device among the scattered books on the ground, wondering if I should raise the bookshelf from its toppled position in case the phone slid underneath there.

I attempt to crack my brain, to try and trace the path that my phone could have taken from the day before yesterday when I left the room she was staying in, heart shattered and head hung low, a wave of brewing anger within me, to this morning when my alarm woke me up and my head felt like blowing up from the hangover.

Then I remember.

"Shit." I almost step on the glass from one of the knick-knacks my mother and sister used to decorate the living room, but I correct my footing before the floor is not only a chaos of broken objects but a pool of blood and torn skin. "I threw it at the wall."