Page 2 of PS: I Hate You
“What are you doing in here?” Dom asks, his voice a raspy rumble that gives me chills.
“Plotting world domination, obviously. Josh was supposed to handle the foreign policy, but now he’s left me with double the workload. Rude of him. I plan on filing a complaint.”
Did I mention inappropriately timed humor runs in the family?
Arguably, hiding myself in a closet is in everyone’s best interest. These strangers want to watch me cry prettily. (But is that even physically possible? Who can have saltwater leaking out of their eyes and not look like a flushed, snotty mess?) No one came to this depression parade to hear my morbid sarcasm about my dead brother.
This whole funeral was my mother’s requirement. Cecilia Sanderson needed the pomp and circumstance of tradition to mourn the son she never spent much time loving while he was alive. Some of the throng outside this closet are Josh’s friends, but most people are here because of her and the articles she’s been writing and posts she’s been curating about her son’s inspiring yearlong battle against cancer. His death tripled her followers.
Somehow, I’ve ended up alone in a closet with the only person I want to avoid more than my selfie-obsessed mother.
“Noted,” Dom says, taking my ridiculous statement in stride. He looms over me. “I was looking for—”
“For some toilet paper?” I cut him off. “You found the right place. Don’t be ashamed. I hear grief often causes diarrhea. I’ll let everyone know you’re indisposed.” Taunting him is the best way to distract myself from how my body reacts to his proximity. Going hot, then cold, then tingly and tight.
Like getting a disease. Dom is infectious.
He’s also immune to me and my verbal barbs.
“Thanks for that,” he deadpans, then his voice softens. “How are you doing?” Dom crosses his arms as he stares down at me. I can see his chin tilt and feel the weight of his eyes on my face. There’s an air of demand in his posture, as if he expects me to answer with a thorough outline of my emotional state.
Dominic Perry is used to taking control of a situation.
This room—which was too tiny before he shoved his way in—now feels like his more than mine. The space is claustrophobic enough for my fingers to stretch for my inhaler. I shimmy around him, needing out. Needing to breathe air that’s not infused with his essence.
“Spectacular. Like I’m the only survivor at the end of a slasher movie.” In an effort to ignore the overpowering man, I check my laptop, making sure nothing got damaged on my short trip into the toilet paper box. Everything seems in working order. I close thecomputer, slip it into the padded pocket of my bag, and sling the strap over my shoulder as I reach the door.
All the while, Dom turns with me, tracking my every movement.
“I know it’s been a while, but I’m here for you.” His voice rasps over my nerves, leaving me raw and my fingers cold as they grasp the doorknob. “You can talk to me.”
Been a while.
That’s one way to refer to the night we spent together, and the day after where he…
Don’t think about that.
I might finally start crying if I do. And if any tears come out of my eyes today, they better be for Josh and not some asshole who regretted me.
“That’s so sweet of you, but I’m good.” I shove out of the suffocating closet. “Got a few other one-night stands I like to call for deep, emotional conversations. You’re low on the list.”
Leaving him, I stalk down the hallway, toward the sounds of a gathering I do not want to join. But uncomfortable chatter with strangers is better than spending another minute in an enclosed space with bad memories personified.
If anyone at my day job heard the way I just spoke to Dom, they’d think I got bit by a bitchy zombie. But I don’t care. No way in hell or any other dimension will I ever be vulnerable for that man again.
Younger Maddie had a different mindset.
There was a time I would’ve done anything to claim the smallest sliver of Dominic Perry’s attention. He was the star of all my teenage fantasies. The guy I imagined would someday see me as more than his best friend’s kid sister.
When I was nineteen, my dream came true.
But it quickly turned into a nightmare that sent me packing, escaping to the other side of the country just so I never had to see his handsome, heartbreaking face again.
Avoiding the thick crowd of unfamiliar attendees, I slow at atable covered in framed photos of my brother. There’s so many. A few are of him and me. But a lot are of Josh with friends. Josh in beautiful locations. Josh on adventures. Josh traveling. Always smiling.
Always leaving.
The table is like a fun-house mirror of all the times he went so far and I didn’t see him for so long.