The Banishing Read Online Free PDF Page A

misses it, I suppose.”
    “So what did you tell her?” Mark asked.
    Melissa shrugged. “What can I tell her? You never want me to do it anymore, and lately you’ve—” she stopped, suddenly remembering the pool of blood on the bathroom floor and shrunk within herself.
    As if reading her mind, Mark leaned forward, running his hand across her cheek. “Hey, I told you I was sorry about this morning. You should go out with Sharon, all right?”
    Melissa was surprised. “I thought you didn’t like it.”
    Mark smiled, but it seemed forced, unnatural. “What harm can it do?” He stood up, picked up a paperback novel he had been reading from the bedside table, and started to leave when Melissa stopped him. “You’re sure? It’d be nice to go out for a meal this Friday.”
    Mark paused, his back to her, and said quietly, “I said it’s fine. Go ahead. You should go. We don’t want her asking questions, do we? Let’s make it all look normal.”
    Melissa said nothing, but laid back, her head pressed into the soft pillow. Somehow, the memory came to her, walking into her mind out of nowhere, like a deep fog finally parting to reveal something behind its deep thickness. It was him, as he had been then, when they first met. Mark.
    Melissa remembered it with colorful vividness; she did not have to think hard at all to remember the day they met. The day that marked something big for her, something that set her apart from the woman she used to be. That is how she saw it—always had—that she had become the woman she wanted to be when she started dating Mark. She had finally found a sense of fullness, whereas before, she had seen herself to be as thin and transparent as tracing paper. She knew how it sounded. At one point, she would not even admit to herself that she felt that way, knowing that the very idea of somebody making her complete made her sound weak, a nobody.
    She had argued that mentality away. Shouldn’t that be how somebody made you feel? , she surmised. Shouldn’t meeting the person you love make you finally feel whole, complete?
    Melissa winced at the thoughts but knew them to be true. True for her. Even if others around her denied it—other women thinking they had to feel strong, complete, already the self-made mini heroes of their own lives, in need of nobody or nothing—Melissa guessed deep down that everybody wanted somebody. People needed other people. Humans were made that way.
    Didn’t she, on some level, believe in the concept of soul mates? Somebody out there that was perfect for another? Had she not always thought that person was Mark?
    The day they met, she had been relaxing in a coffee shop in London. She remembered it was a warm day—no, a hot day. The city heat had been unbearable. Feeling sickened by the thick heat, Melissa had almost cancelled her day out shopping, half dreading the idea of coasting along the busy walkways and ducking in and out of changing rooms.
    She decided to go. She’d had the day booked for months. It was supposed to be a treat; she had kept all of the money she had been given from her family and friends for her birthday, intending to revitalize a dying wardrobe. Instead, the day had tired her out, almost wearing her down before she’d stepped out of the underground station.
    Around midday, worn out from trying on clothes that she never purchased, Melissa had wound her way over to Clovers—a small café just off of North Oxford Street. Dehydrated and desperately hungry, she waited in the long line by the checkout, wanting nothing but to sit down and relax.
    After a few minutes—although, at the time she knew it had felt like hours—she had placed her order (a cola and chicken salad…even those details did not elude her), and with her tray in hand, she turned to find a table, when she slipped on something wet on the floor and fell forward, her drink and lunch spilling across the floor.
    Everyone fell silent. All eyes darted across the café toward her. Her