The Replacement by Melinda Di Lorenzo

Author:Melinda Di Lorenzo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Thriller
ISBN: 9781961544581
Publisher: Tule Publishing Group, LLC
Published: 2023-09-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Four

At some point in the days following his accidental sighting of her in the grocery store, his feelings of discontent grow into a darker emotion. Like a seed, sprouting into a plant. Except the plant is a Venus fucking flytrap, and everything surrounding it is an insect. It swallows the life he’s tried to rebuild. It swallows it whole and regurgitates and shows him that he’s really rebuilt nothing at all.

He doesn’t go to work.

He orders takeout that he doesn’t eat.

He ignores his phone; no one important is calling anyway.

He lies in bed. He pictures her face. A lot. More than a lot. Most moments, to be honest.

He sees her lips in the ridges of textured paint.

He sees the blue of her eyes in the wallpaper.

When he isn’t picturing her, he thinks about that little girl. Annabelle. Well. Not so much thinks about the little girl. More thinks about that moment when she rounded the corner. How it made him feel.

He curls his hands into fists so often that his nails leave marks in his palms and his fingers ache.

The anger festers on.

He gets fired. The news comes in a text message.

His landlord comes to the door and hollers through it that someone’s filed a complaint about the smell coming from the apartment.

He just rolls over and closes his eyes.

How much time passes, he can’t say.

One morning, he catches sight of himself in the mirror as he’s taking a piss. Stubble so heavy that it could rightly be labeled a beard now crowds his face. He scratches it. Searches for a razor but doesn’t find one in the usual spot. Opens every drawer. Tears apart the cupboards.

“Goddammit!”

He doesn’t even realize he’s made a fist again until the mirror smashes into bits in front of him and blood begins to drip between his knuckles.

He seeks his reflection again. The man who stares back at him is a stranger. His eyes are bloodshot, his face ragged and covered in sweat.

Like a madman.

He lifts a hand and wipes it over his sweating brow, leaving a trail of blood in its wake.

He has to find a way to stop this. He can’t keep thinking it’s over when it’s not. But how does he stop the unstoppable? How does he keep her from reappearing in his life?

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