Eluding Nirvana (The Dark Evoke Series Book 2) (28 page)

Did I feel at all embarrassed like I had with Liam? No, I didn’t, far from it. Did I feel ashamed of how I had defaced my body as I sought an outlet? No, I didn’t, because at that moment, the only person in the world who understood me, was the one who’s
fingers were caressing my flesh. I didn’t feel an ounce of pity, of shame, or disgust coming from this man, but understanding, support and attachment.

When he peeked up at me, I was smiling down at him, my heart and body swelling, but in a good way. Gazing into his eyes, I could see it all, al
l his emotion, all his fondness. A universe of understanding looked back at me. And the barrier I had placed up before me and my own secrets, to remain masked by everyone in my life, was lowered. At least, it was lowered for this person.

With Walker,
I could truly be myself.

Forty-five minutes later, Walker was holding my door open like a gentleman, as I lowered myself out of the truck in fro
nt of the red and yellow diner.

“Walker, I’m really feeling uncomfortable in my state of
sloppy-dress, here,” I griped for the eighth time since leaving his apartment, burrowing my hands into the oversized pouch pocket on my abdomen. Yesterday’s pink yoga pants, a pair of flats, a certain someone’s five times too big Lonsdale hoodie and disheveled blond hair piled in a knot atop of my head with the odd, windswept tendrils escaping and framing my face, was not the most gracious state of dress.

“Jesus Christ, Kady, you look gorgeous. You got that natural beauty about you, stop grouching.”

The proffering of his hand went overlooked with a small shake of my head, and an apologetic, tightlipped smile. I simply followed behind his towering physique, while replying teasingly to his previous statement, with, “Yes, sir.”

“Morning, Wal
ker.” Behind the counter a pretty woman tugging her high set ponytail even tighter, before refilling a patron’s mug of coffee, greeted him.

As I combed my gaze around my surroundings, I came to the conclusion that the Diner had that 198
0’s, milkshake after school, kind of feel to it. I liked it.

“Mornin’, Tiff,” he answered.

“Take a seat; I’ll be with you in a moment.”

“’Aye, whenever you’re ready.” He waved her off when we slipped into the comfor
t of red pleather bench seats of one of many booths along the perimeter.

“An old flame?” I pestered, taking possession of one of the menus.

“Who, Tiffani?” he snorted. “She owns the place, darlin’. I’m always here, can’t get enough of their breakfasts.”

“Tiffani’s Diner?”

“’Aye, well, I’d be a little concerned if it was called Tiffani’s Diner, and the owner was a fat balding guy called, Shamus, wouldn’t you?”

Certain
that a simple amused chuckle would be unfeasible, but more like a, ‘roll on your back while clutching your side and clapping like a demented sea lion’ kind of hysterics, I fought to maintain my poise. With a collected shake of my head I resumed the task of scouring through the menu.

“I’m sorry about
that, busy morning today,” Tiffani chuckled, looking a little windswept while she brushed, what I could only presume was clammy palms, down her retro yellow waitress dress and red waist apron. Notepad and pen in hand, with a smile and deep composed breath, she waited for our order.

“I’ll have my usual, Tiff, and for the lady…”

“I’ll just have a strong coffee and the waffles with maple syrup, please.”

“Sure thing;
won’t be too long.” She smiled again, and scampered off to the kitchen.

I was amidst people watching from the window along my right, and toying with one of the sachets I had pulled from the caddy, when I eventually summoned the courage to ask something whi
ch had been playing on my mind.

“Walker, how did…” When I chanced a glance over the table, he was toying with his own little sachet while studying me. “How did you know what I needed last night?
How did you know what would help me––”

“Is that really a question you want an answer for?” There he was, the little green guy with big ears surfacing from him again, and I’m not taking about a leprechaun either. “It wasn’t that difficult, Kady. I knew it th
e night at Hamersley’s.”

“But how––” I scowled.

“You rush from the table like a mare that’s been startled by a snake in the reeds, and you come back looking practically serene.”

The heaviness
and brute honesty of his words had my head dropping forward. If it was so blatantly obvious to him, was it that obvious to the others? “I’m so weak,” I sighed.

“Weak?”
The sole word was gasped from across the tabletop.

I
raised my head with a sullen look burned into my features, and met his staunchly fixed expression from under ashamed hooded eyes. Griping pleather drilled into my ears when he shifted to the edge of the bench, his body virtually folded over the white table separating us.

“Kady, I like to think that people like us are as strong as they fucking come. A man goes to work, gets stressed out, has a game of golf over the weekend and all is right with the world. But for us, we let things mount up. We’re strong enough to keep adding and adding to the pile of shit that fills that damn balloon, and after a while, we just
can’t take no more. A puncture in that balloon isn’t going to help, we need to gut that sucker open and release all the shit that we, as strong motherfucking people, managed to accumulate and conceal.”

“But why? Why does it work that way?
How––?” That is what I wanted and needed to know. Why? Why did it work that way? I knew most of it was down to sheer control, but why would someone who was emotionally hurting, need to physically hurt themselves to feel better? It didn’t make any sense.

He shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows?”
Weighed sighs and perplexed expressions filled the time lapse, before he finally spoke again. “Kady, I want to ask you to do something for me, and if you say yes, it means you’re going to have to make me a promise.”

Intriguing.
“Go on.”

“When you feel that way again
––and I am straining the
‘when’
because it isn’t a case of
if
anymore. Your mind has already processed that in doing this to yourself you’re able to get instant relief, so it is a matter of
when
––you’ll come to me. I don’t care if it’s at 4:30 in the morning or if Liam is beside you, you make an excuse and you come to me.”

I did a pretty shit job at masking my confusion. His speech was full of passion and
seemingly desperate. With furrows in my brow and a minute cock of my head, I pursed my lips. “That’s a strange request, Walker.”

“Kady,” he rubbed his forehead with his left hand
, virtually exasperated, before going back to his sachet with a heavy droop in his posture. “It’s easy to lose control, and I don’t want you to lose it.”

“Lose control? I––”

“I’m going to ask you a very personal question, darlin’. What’s your method?”

Without a second thought, I tossed his question back at him.

“Well, I didn’t see any lacerations on your body, so I know you’re not a cutter.”

How did this conversation get so deep, so quickly? He really wanted to know? Me sharing something, a secret which was mine, and mine alone, a dark and dirty secret full of so much sin, was something that I couldn’t even contemplate. I didn’t want to share this. Bu
t it was Walker, and he knew me and how my twisted, warped mind was working, better than I did. This was all so new to me, and by the way he talked and explained it, he was obviously talking from experience. Good God alive, how can someone be experienced in the art of self-harm? It was twisted.

The sphere of apprehension cleared f
rom my throat with a loud grunt. I licked my lips. “Heat,” my voice was scarcely a whisper over the clattering of cutlery around us.

I watched on as
his eyes widened and glimmered. Rays blazed in through the window to my right, casting a stream of light across the table and brightening his already ridiculously bright eyes. “Heat, like wax?”

“Heat, like…” damn this was hard. In sharing this with him,
I was sharing my soul. I dropped my head to focus on the table distancing us, unable to look him in the eyes when I bore myself to the only man in the world who understood me. “Heating metal, or anything that’s there really.”

The moment I
sought his gaze, I discovered his eyes twinkling with knowledge. He nodded his head pensively, “Makes sense. Okay, this is just an example, okay.” His statement was enhanced by the firm gesture of his hand. I’d felt his calloused before, but I never really saw the physical damage to the skin over his palm until then.

I nodded.

“One day, you will have stored so much in that body and mind of yours that the simple blistering steel on your skin, won’t help alleviate it quick enough. You will be in so much emotional pain, so much fury inside of your body, that your judgment will be clouded by sheer greed and desperation. You won’t see the consequences of your actions because all you need is to gut that swelling open and free yourself of that anger, and emotional suffering.” He spoke with his features set in a hard, uncompromising fashion, The Indian Ocean darkening as his head tumbled forward slightly, yet they still possessed the intensity to pin me in my seat from the opposite side of the table.

He spoke like he had experienced this before. It was scary.

“That day, is the day you will cross a line and lose utter control. You won’t go for a spoon, you won’t care about reaching your limit and reeling yourself back, you’ll push that limit to get instant relief. You might set yourself on fire.”

I scoffed, “On fire?”
That was too farfetched for me to stifle any forms of disbelief.

“Example, Kady,” he chided before resuming. “
My point is: if you set fire to yourself, your brain registers that within a millisecond you’re free of that emotional, pent-up frustration. The next time it happens, you’ll remember how quick it was to free yourself. You’ll no longer abide by your body’s limits, Kady; you’ll keep exceeding them, overstepping them. You’ll have no respect for them or your body, and one day, you’ll wake up not recognizing who you are.”

“You speak like you’ve
faced this before.” A wistful smile was offered from my side of the booth, before I narrowed my eyes perceptively. “Have
you
ever lost control?”

His head lowered, but his eyes remained lingering on me. “
Yes,” he admitted bluntly, and the flow of air caught in my throat at his admission. “And it’s something that I can’t escape from––something that is always there and something which I have to focus on, when I need my next form of relief. I’m not proud of it. But that is something that I don’t want you to go through, darlin’.”

“You just admitted to losing control
with yourself, how do I know you wouldn’t lose control with me?” Fair question, I thought.

“You have just shared with me the darkest, and probably the biggest secret you will ever have in your life, Kady. Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” I replied without a second of hesitancy, because I did. He was right. I just shared a piece of my soul with him. I did trust him, probably more than a certain someone.

Our moment was broken when
the waitress came with plates in her hand. “I have Walker’s usual, and waffles. I’ll get your coffees now.” She set the large white plates down on the table and returned back to the counter.

Gathering my hands in his as he
extended his arms across the table, the look of undiluted restraint burned brightly in his eyes. “Please, Kady. I want to help you. Let me help you. Let me be your anchor.”

When Tiffani came back with our
beverages, I couldn’t shift the voice in my mind which kept telling me that, I was new to all this, by the looks of things, Walker knew damn well what he was talking about. I knew I’d be safe there. I knew he would keep me safe, I’d never doubt that.

As m
y answer was conveyed by a simple nod of my head, a smile tiptoed across his face.

In his clutch,
my hands were lifted up to his mouth. “Thank you, Kady.” He kissed the back of my hand with a sigh, his callouses grazed my palm as his scruff grazed my knuckles. “Thank you.”

It was four hours after leaving Walker’s company when Liam strolled through the front door. This was the moment which bred my anxiety, my fear. The mere sound of the front door closing behind him had me struggling for
vital breath amidst the heavy blanket which fell above me, storing all negativity that was surging its way through my system, retaining it as it frantically sought an outlet.

The sound of his footsteps had me quaking. In that moment, I idly
pondered how it was possible for the soft sounds of feet padding over hardwood, to be both gentle and menacing.

Behind the kitc
hen island, I stood immobilized staring down at the cellphone that had caused so much heartbreak just last night. A soft, cheerful whistle wafted through the house, the lively melody was shaded by a not so lively man.