Lorelei

The silence between us was a living thing, coiled in the space between his chair and my bed, waiting to strike. I could feel his eyes on me, burning, demanding, waiting for me to fill the emptiness with something he could use.

I had no choice.

The words still hung in the air, fragile as spun glass. I stared at my hands—bandaged, broken, resting in my lap like wounded birds—and wished I could disappear into the sheets, into the mattress, into the nothing I'd been floating in ...