Binding Me

Adrian watched after Evan screamed at him. He listened to every insult, and with every degrading word spewed toward him, his eyes narrowed, his nose crinkled up, his lips pulled back over his teeth. “Perhaps it is you who shouldn’t come around her, for perhaps it is you who will wish for death.”

Evan stared at the looming man for one more moment before he was pulled away and retreated back through the house. Adrian watched long after the flimsy screen door crashed closed with a bang, watched the vacant house. He recalled moments earlier how he sent his apparition into her bathroom, gave the illusion of touch, hearing and sight, happily noticing how she didn’t realize there was no aroma to him, or that she tried to go in for some sort of kiss, for she wouldn’t be able to taste anything from him. Those moments alone with her, the filled his body with something that he’d never felt before. It was something more than lust, something more than greed, it was something more than possession he felt towards Emily Banks.

Adrian listened, heard their conversation as they walked out of her driveway, walked away from her house. All the time she thought about him touching her, kissing her, thought about what it meant to be in the security of his arms. Security? Adrian laughed, shaking his head as he relished the ludicrous thought. Slowly, he walked around his house and into the winding forest that surrounded all of the houses that circled the lake.

There was no clear path, but he knew where he was heading – this wasn’t the first time he walked to her house. This wasn’t the first time he broke into her house. He actually did it nearly every day – sometimes multiple times a day. He walked the path and made it to her house in less than five minutes, which was almost a new record for Adrian.

He walked up to the door, pulled it open easily, and walked into her scent. Benji, her Border terrier mutt came barking at him the moment he walked in through the back door. Holding his hand up, palm towards the dog, he slowly bent his fingers in and turned his hand toward the dog. Finally, his dark amethyst eyes flashed black, blazing from the pupil of the eyes outward before they returned to their next-to-black shade, the purple iridescence glowing like the hiding moon. Benji let off a weak growl and shrunk back against the wall.

“Good boy.” Adrian muttered to the dog as he bent to pat him on the head, like he did every day.

Walking through the somewhat small house, he took a quick turn from the kitchen, past the bathroom, and straight into the living room. Emily had pictures of her late parents set up above the mantle. She had a couple pictures of her mother and father when they were dating as well as in the prime of their marriage, before they showed signs of sickness. Her father never really showed signs of sickness; he just appeared fatigued, slow, and short of breath. His last two weeks of life, he was bedridden. Her mother suffered from Leukemia, lived with it for over three years before it too took her life. Her mother passed away, and her father followed after her only after three days. Her father suffered a life of lung cancer. He often told young Emily that it wasn’t a life at all, but he refused to waste it.

The center picture was of Emily and her boss/caretaker Shelly Hues. Shelly took care of her house and Emily’s house ever since her father was bedridden. It was her parents’ dying wish that Shelly take care of Emily like she was her own. This wasn’t much of a challenge for the young woman because she already thought of Emily as her own.

Emily lived here by herself, but every Sunday, Shelly would take her out to lunch and then they’d go grocery shopping, stocking the house with its obvious necessities. Emily was well off with money, she didn’t need a job. Her parents left their large lump of money to her, and she was over eighteen, so she was allowed to access it, and sometimes she did. The mortgage was mostly paid off, and the bills didn’t cost her an arm and a leg like most people, so she knew that this money was more or less considered Safety Money. She could use it to buy a new house, if she ever wanted to move, which was a negative.

That as one of the many things that Adrian found admirable about Emily. She wasn’t needy. She didn’t need to have nice things, big flashy things. She chose to be humble and live humbly, and didn’t mind wearing second-rate clothes or jewelry, she didn’t need to have a huge TV or have a flashy nice car. In fact, she did have a car, but she didn’t like to drive it a quarter mile to work. It was a hand-me-down Jeep Wrangler that she rarely drove.

Adrian moved away from the living room and took a quick turn past the bathroom, exiting into Emily’s bedroom. He stayed just at the threshold, his hands pressing against the wood as he looked into her room. He’d been in there so many times in the past four months that it was well more than criminal. Adrian moved into the room slowly, inhaling the scent of which his girl belonged to.

“Mine,” Adrian whispered as he tentatively touched the jewelry hanging on the mirror, the dream catcher above her bed, and the soft linens of her bed spread.

He walked back over by the mirror a moment later, looking at the many pictures of her and friends, and the two pictures of her and Evan together. Adrian wanted nothing more than to rip the pictures to shreds, burn them and watch his face burn. If there was anything at all in this world that he hated, it was Evan. He hated the way he looked at Emily, the way he talked to Emily, the way he pressured Emily, the way he put his hands on Emily, forcing her into positions and moments that she didn’t want.

He hated how Evan thought he understood Emily more than anyone in the whole rube-like town they lived in. It infuriated Adrian more than anything ever had. Adrian knew Emily better than anyone else! Adrian knew what Emily needed! Adrian knew what Emily wanted! Adrian knew how Emily yearned to be touched, the way she wanted to be held! Adrian had Emily’s heartbeat inside him, not Evan. Adrian could feel her pulse quicken in his wrist when she saw him and feel it slow and pound irritation into his body when she saw Evan.

Most of all, Adrian hated Emily for keeping Evan around. If Emily wanted to know Adrian as badly as she did, then she would dump the pathetic bottom feeder and come to him. She never did, not once, in the last four months. And that broke whatever heart Adrian had, if he even had a heart.

Adrian sighed heavily as he moved his fingers through his wavy mess of black hair, pushing it away from his eyes as he stumbled backwards, sitting against her bed. He laid his head down on her pillow, remaining in his sitting position slightly. It was stiff.

Adrian sat up and reached his hand inside the pillowcase to find a picture book. The large book was black with silver duct tape on the outside of it. “The Die-hard’s Scrapbook”. Out of pure curiosity, Adrian flipped the cover over and was succumbed with pictures of him. Pictures of him in the water, pictures of him staring up at her, pictures of him slinking his shirt off, pictures of him walking up the stairs as well as down the stairs. Emily even managed to catch a few snapshots of him in town, in a normal setting. Just as Emily thought so, Adrian confirmed that he looked awkward in human society.

He flipped the page and saw that she had a picture of herself with him in the far background. This made Adrian chuckle lightly, shaking his head at the goofiness Emily produced with such a concept that would be considered “creepy”. He took this picture out of its little slot and grabbed a Sharpie from her bedroom vanity. He wrote on the back of it and placed it in his pocket and left the scrapbook open on the bed.

He went into her closet and looked through the various clothes, grabbing a couple articles, lying them down beside the scrapbook before he left the house. Walking around her house, he slowly walked out of her driveway and towards Shelly’s Bar and Grill.

He walked slowly, cautiously. He didn’t want to catch wind of Evan because if he did, he knew he’d have to either kill the kid or severely injure, and for some reason, Adrian figured that wasn’t the way to Emily’s affections. Still, he walked, relishing and laying in bliss at the fact that she had a scrapbook completely dedicated to him that she kept in her pillow. Was his face the last thing she saw before laying her head down to rest?

Adrian held onto that thought, drinking it in at every passing moment, every time he’d blink, he thought of how she wanted him more than she wanted her boyfriend. As deranged as that sounded, it was a most comforting thought. He walked past a garden on his way to the diner, pulling a Forget-Me-Not from its clump of flowers surrounding. Adrian, in his many years of walking the earth, studied the meaning of flowers, as pansy-like as he admitted it was he found it somehow fascinating. He knew where they came from, what temperatures they needed to survive, and what it meant when one person gave them to another.

One of his personal favorites was the Rhododendron flower, the way the petals flowed out or how the stamen stuck nearly straight out of the flower, and how it just made it more beautiful. This flower's meaning? Beware. It was a warning flower, it was meant to make a statement – don’t fuck with me.

Twirling the flower between his fingers, he watched the blue petals spin and spin and spin, the yellow in the center spinning upwards. He was captivated by its beauty, much as he was captivated by Emily’s beauty. He walked in through the entrance to Shelly’s and took a seat down in a booth.

When he looked up, he had noticed Emily staring straight at him, her mouth hanging open and her arms clutching her platter to her chest. She walked slowly towards Adrian, pinching her arm a couple of time with each step until she wound up at his table. “H-Hi.”

Adrian smiled as he dragged a hand away from her platter and brushed his lips against the back of her knuckles. “Hello, Emily. Fancy meeting you here.”

She couldn’t form words, her body began to heat and she nodded slowly so as not to break the gaze from him. She tucked the platter under her arm and waited for him to drop her hand, hoping to God that he never would. But he did.

“Just get me a tall glass of water, if you could. I’m not that hungry.” He whispered so that she would be inclined to lean in to hear what he was saying. And she did.

She nodded and scurried off, coming back within the minute. When Emily got back to the table, she placed the water down and placed her hands behind her back, staring at him. Adrian raised an eyebrow to her formality. “No need to be so reserved, Emily.”

She didn’t want to question him right now, she was afraid that he would disappear again like he had this morning. He waved toward the seat and she sat down quickly, cautiously. She opened her mouth, but Adrian cut her off immediately.

“I know you have many questions, but I can’t stay long.”

Her features darkened, her eyes widened, her lips tugged into a frown as she whispered, “Oh.”

Adrian reached across the table to claim her hands, his thumbs massaging the tops of her hands as he gave her a short reassuring smile. “Oh, my dear Emily. You act as though this will be the last time you see me.”

He could feel her heart hammer in his wrist, her pulse was racing up his arm, and he enjoyed this feeling of yearn more than he enjoyed much of anything else. He pulled her hands toward him, kissing her knuckles repeatedly to get some sort of fill, make her more and more addicted to him than she already was. He released one hand and reached into his pocket, pulling the picture out and pushing it across the table.

Her mouth fell open, whispering slowly as she gripped it between her fingers. “How did you…”

He twirled his fingers around in a circle, a motion for her to flip the picture over. When she did, she saw that he had written meet me on your pier at sunset – leave the douche bag where he belongs.

When she looked back up, the spot across from her was vacant. Again, it had been as if he were never even there.