She looked so much like her. The red-hair, the small frame. Her perfect lips, sewn shut. Was this a warning? Lindsay rolled over in the bed and sat up. Sweat was covering her body. The last thing she had expected to be called in for that morning had been Kiss-Me-Not. Actually, she hadn't expected the victim to look so much like Cindy. She looked to her side and exhaled when she saw that Cindy was sound asleep. She pulled herself off of the bed and slowly made her way into the kitchen to get a glass of cold water. As she leaned against the counter, she closed her eyes to steady herself. Warm arms being wrapped around her made her open her eyes. She smiled down at Cindy. "You looked like you could use a hug." She whispered. Even in the dark kitchen, Lindsay could see tears on Cindy's face.
"What's wrong?"
"Honestly? I had a nightmare." She said, smiling. "It just kinda freaked me out and made me cry." She held tighter to Lindsay. "Are you going to share why you had a bad day?"
"You're a reporter. I am sure you will hear about eventually. Hell, you might be assigned to do the story on it." Lindsay said.
"Was it that bad?" Cindy asked. She tried to pull away but Lindsay held her tightly.
"Yes." She whispered. "It was. And I don't want to think about it right now. Come on. Let's go back to bed." She pulled Cindy along with her, stopping in the hallway to place a light kiss on the top of her head. She watched her crawl into the bed and make herself comfortable. She sat down on the edge of the bed and put her head in her hands. "Kiss-Me-Not struck again." She whispered.
"What?" Cindy said, moving so she had her head resting on Lindsay's knee and she was looking up at her. "Is that why you can't sleep?"
"Cindy, the victim looked so much like you. Like, it was a warning or something. Like he knows how much I care about you, and he is playing off of that." She said, avoiding the redheads eyes. "Stupid, right?"
"Linz, he might be." She whispered. "If he wants to hurt you, wouldn't that mean going after who you care about the most? It makes sense. So maybe it's good I am keeping myself locked up in your place."
"He can get in here if he wants to. And that scares me. I am scared that one day, I am going to come home, and you won't be here and I will be out there looking for your body. I don't want that to happen."
"So distance yourself from me." Cindy said.
"No. I will not do that. Not with Arik out there lurking somewhere. Besides, if I let you go, you might never come back to me." She said, laying down. Cindy laid next to her, using her shoulder as a pillow. "I wish I was fearless." She whispered.
"Fearless isn't a way to want to live, Linz. You have to have fears. It's what makes us human. You have to have those fears. The fear of losing. The fear of living. It's all a circle that bring us back to the beginning. I have imagined my life without fear, and you want to know what it felt like? It felt like I would be stuck with Arik forever because I wasn't scared of him. I wasn't scared of what he could do to me. If we were all fearless, can you imagine what the world would be like? It would be chaos. No one would be scared to do anything. No one would fear the repercussions of their actions. Jails would be overfilled, the world would be a mess. We have fears, Linz. And when we need to be scared, it's okay to admit it. I am scared of Arik and what he can do to me still. And I know you are scared that you are going to lose me. I can't promise that won't happen, because I don't have that kind of power, but you know something? I am not going to sit here and dwell on it. I am not going to dwell on the fact that my abusive ex-boyfriend is out there. I am not going to dwell on the fact that there is a chance a serial killer will try to kill me. Because if I sat here and dwelled on each of those things, it would drive me insane. It would consume me. The way, the apparently, this whole Kiss-Me-Not thing consumed you when you were married. It could consume my mind, and then I would be nowhere with no one. And if you let this whole thing consume you again, I don't know how I can help you. So stop wishing you were fearless, and live for what you have right now, fears and all. Because it all comes down to this exact moment. You don't think about what you did and what you could have done. Because if you had the chance to go back and if you were to change one cough or sneeze, everything is different. It changes it all. I know you want nothing more than to make this whole Kiss-Me-Not thing disappear, but do you know what you happen if it disappeared? You would still be married to Tom. I wouldn't be in your life. Would you like your life then, Lindsay? Would it make you happy? Knowing that you didn't have a maniacal serial killer out there somewhere? Knowing that you had a safe house to come to every single night? Would you be happy then? Because all I want to do is to make you smile, and between all of this fighting and drama, I have barely been able to do that. And it makes me wonder if this is all a mistake. It makes me want to go back and change something to throw me out of your life so I am not just another soul for you to fret over. I know when you are out there and have to end up chasing a suspect down, that your life is in danger. Because at any given moment they can pull out a gun and you're gone. I live with the fear. So, please Linz, just forgo all of this acting brave shit. Because you are not fooling me for a second. I can look in your eyes and tell that you are scared so why don't you just break down now and get it over with? Because right now you have my arms to fall into. You don't have the cold sympathy of your sheets. You have a living, breathing human whose heart aches for you. You can cry on my shoulder. So break down." She finished in a whisper, looking at Lindsay with tears in her eyes. "I am sitting here begging you Linz. Break down and get it out of your system."