Chapter 20 Secrets And Serotonin
Sloane’s POV
Avoidant. Dismissive. Cold. And a son of a bitch!
“Fuck!” I groaned aggressively, tearing the sheet of paper out of my journal before balling it in my fist and tossing it into the trash can and missing again.
My room was littered with balled up sheets of paper.
This was the tenth one. Number fucking ten!
I stayed awake last night, writing up notes about everything I had observed about Malik thus far, and I couldn’t come up with anything.
In my head, I could list it, but when it came down to writing it down, it felt like I was doing a very horrible job.
Dr. Humphrey wasn’t going to read my mind. She needed to see the notes. The patterns, the behaviors. She needed a lot of scenarios to show that I actually studied the ins and outs of Malik’s life.
“I’m so done with this.” I muttered to no one in particular; getting out of bed that day.
4: 00 pm and I had yet to take a shower. How unusual of me.
The good thing was that Malik was not at home. By 8:00 this morning, I heard the car engine revving. He hadn’t gotten back since then.
The routine had been that way for three days. We had successfully avoided each other. I only came out when he was gone. He only came out when I was fast asleep.
We were very careful not to bump into each other, and I was grateful.
I was grateful that I didn’t have to see his inked and shirtless body all the time.
I was grateful that I didn’t have to hear the grunts and groans that emanated from the gym whenever he was working out.
I got up from the bed and the headache that hit me felt like a million and one soldiers going to war on my skull.
At that particular moment, my stomach growled loudly—I hadn’t eaten all day. I kept pushing myself to write down my notes, but it had been hours. Hours and I was yet to come up with something tangible.
I headed to the bathroom to brush my teeth very quickly before I headed to the kitchen for breakfast. Breakfast? More like lunch/dinner.
I made some pancakes and sausages— a clean break from eggs.
I rested a bit before I decided that I had rotted in my room for damn too long. It was time to go outside and touch some grass.
Well, maybe not go outside, but at least lurk within the walls of this big mansion.
I filled my water bottle before I began to walk all over the ground floor.
In about thirty-minutes, I gave myself a quick tour of the downstairs, checking out the theatre, gym, merch room and everywhere there was to check, acting like I was doing a house tour video on YouTube for vogue magazine.
Exhaustion had hit me really bad, but anything worth doing was worth doing well.
I climbed the stairs and noticed that most of the rooms upstairs were locked. Prior to now, I had never been upstairs.
All of the rooms except one room.
Pushing the door open, I got into the room and saw that it was a gym.
Who had two gyms in one freaking house?
Well, Malik fucking Cross. From his physique, you could tell that he spent hours in the gym anyways.
This gym was a lot bigger than the downstairs gym. This one had more equipment and all. It looked like a sanctuary. A place someone could actually come to when they needed to get away from the world and everything.
I stared at myself in the mirror before I began to walk around the gym.
I hit the treadmill, about to increase the intensity a little when my eyes landed on something.
Two bottles laid idly on the machine as though they had been forgotten.
I picked up the bottles, my eyes scanning the body.
Thank God I was wearing glasses today.
The first bottle read ‘Duloxetine’.
I dropped it, picking up the second bottle.
The second one read ‘Sertraline’
As someone who had been in the academia field of psychology for ten years, those names rang a loud bell in my head.
They were serotonin inhibitors. They were antidepressants.
I scanned the bottle, reading the dosage.
Each one was 200mg. It was on the high side.
Malik was depressed?
If that were the case, it explained his constant mood swings and his running to alcohol to find solace.
I returned the pills back to where I found them, leaning over to tie my shoe laces.
“How the fuck did you find your way in here?” I heard a voice.
Malik.
“Um, I was bored and decided to hit the gym. It’s been a while for me.” I supplied, casually.
“There’s a gym downstairs, you know?” He walked in further.
From the large mirror that hung on the wall, I was able to get a clear view of him.
He seemed to have taken a shower and changed to gym clothes because absent were his training clothes.
“I wanted to try something different.” I said, relaxedly.
He walked up to the treadmill and grabbed the two bottles of pills laying in the machine.
“Stay out of my fucking business, Sloane.” He ordered.
“I…”
The sound of my phone ringing loudly interrupted us both.
“Hi,” I pressed my phone against my ear as I watched him give me his back as he walked away.
He walked to the bench press, laid on the bench and began to lift the weights.
“Hi, Sloane. This is Brenda. There’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about.”
“Okay.”
“I hoped not to bring it up because I thought you’d pick up the idea, but it seems I have to explain it to you.”
In other words, I was stupid.
I’d take it, though.
There was nothing I wouldn’t do for this degree.
“I’m listening.”
“I spoke to you about creating a social media account a while back. I’m not asking you to be online twenty-four-seven. I just want to see that you’re pouring into this as much as we’re pouring into it. If it comes from only Malik, it may seem one-sided and it’ll feel as though he is trying to shove the relationship down everyone’s throats.”
“So you want me to create an account?”
“Yes. It doesn’t take so long. I want you to create an instagram account now. I know Malik has gotten back from training. Seek him out, I don’t care where he is. Do something nice with him, and be sure to take a picture. I want to see your first post by 7:00 pm today.” Brenda ordered.
“What if it wouldn’t be possible?”
“Sloane, it has to be possible. Malik is your boyfriend. Wait, don’t tell me the both of you are fighting again?”
Silence.
“Wow. You guys better get on the same page. There’s still more than two months left in the contract. Get over yourselves and live amicably. Nobody is saying you should fuck, but just tolerate yourselves. Anyways, goodbye.” She said, ending the call.
I stared at Malik and saw that he had taken his shirt off.
He was sweating and staring at his reflection in the mirror.
I fed my eyes through the mirror.
My legs pushed me to where he stood.
“What do you want?” His brows bunched up in surprise.
I said nothing.
Instead, I wrapped one arm around that waist of his and then angled my phone up for the perfect mirror selfie and took a picture of us in that position.
“What the fuck, Sloane?” Malik looked at me with shock in his eyes.
I stepped away from him, saying nothing.
Before I knew what was happening, I was bolting out of the gym like a child.
I ran all the way to my room, shut the door very loudly and pressed my back against the shut door, panting so loudly.