by Frances June
Warning bells rang. I was back on the defensive. She was good but inexperienced in the ways of The Con.
"If I'm not supposed to help you why are you here?" I felt my calm reserve waiver in the face of the danger she posed. If not to me then at least to my relationship. I felt Morgan getting closer like the hand of the doomsday clock ticking every closer to midnight.
Chastity faltered, there was something under the surface. She was scheming but I didn't know what her target was yet. Maybe she had noticed I had more money than she originally thought and she was going to try to take it all. What good was a wallet with a couple of bucks in it when there was a bank account with fourteen million up for grabs? Not that she knew that, yet.
Even though I felt like a dick for roughing up a girl who'd already been through the ringer twice over, if that was even true, I grabbed her by the collar and hauled her off the counter. She didn't even have time to catch the blueberries when they fell from her grip. I let them fall to the granite floor, spilling like marbles.
Even before she could fight back I had her by the arm. Her biker booted feet hardly touched the floor as I hauled her to the door.
"Wait, wait, I can help you with those!" She frantically fought to escape my grasp but I was in no mood to play. My grip tightened as she squirmed to free herself. "I know those symbols, I can help!"
Whatever she was pointing at didn't matter to me. My rage had reached fever pitch and counting to ten wasn't an option anymore, the only thing that would work was eradicating the issue. Opening the door I gave her a hard shove, sending her sprawling across the hallway floor.
"If you even think about coming back here I'll show you how much worse I am than whoever did that to your face."
My breathing came hard and heavy; I could tell she believed me. The look in her eyes was a familiar mix of shock and terror.
With another shove I slammed the door and waited whilst my heart slowed to a normal rhythm. When I looked out of the viewer she was gone, leaving behind only a trace of herself in the form of a bloody smear on the door handle to the stairwell.
*
By the time Morgan got home it was three in the morning and I still hadn't slept despite feeling like staying awake was impossible. It was like a form of self-harm that I just couldn't stop no matter how much my logical mind told me to.
When she walked into the kitchen I was still sat at the counter with the symbols I'd doodled in a trance. I quickly folded it and slid it under a home décor magazine she'd spent way too much money on.
"Hey...Oh." I stood up to greet her but her glare and the empty bottle she was dangling between her fingers like yesterday's trash stopped me dead in my tracks.
"Want to explain this because I know you wouldn't fall off the wagon now, I mean, I get why you would but I don't know why you'd do it without talking to me, it's not like I don't understand or like I can't help you through it and why does this jacket smell like cigarette smoke?" She talked fast, overcome with frustration.
Her cheeks were pink which, on her warm brown skin, made her look like a kid again, like when we’d first met. Tears brimmed in her beautifully large and bullshit detecting eyes which made my heart ache in a way that caused me physical pain.
"Honey, wait they're-" I grasped her arms just as she collapsed into me sobbing. Her breaths came in sharp intakes.
"I just don't know why you'd do it. I could have. We went to a bar tonight and I didn't drink but I wanted to," She took a large gulp of air and lifted her head to meet my eyes. "Are you drunk now?"
She sniffed and a tear slid down her cheek. I caught it with my thumb like if I caught it before it could fall all the way to the floor I could stop her heart from breaking like glass.
"No, baby, it's not mine, OK? It's not mine." I wrapped her in my arms and squeezed her gently. It had been a long time since I'd seen this fragile version.
"Who's is it then?" She pulled back and put the bottle on the counter. She smelt like all my clothes did after a shift, smoky and stale, but on her it was like perfume.
It always shocked people to hear I was on the wagon and working in a bar. The truth was that I wasn't an addict like Morgan was, I was just someone who had anger issues and alcohol tended to lead to the person I tried to suppress.
Now came the hard part of the night.
The truth was something we, as a family, skirted around with expert precision. I never wanted to ever lie to Morgan but the past 48 hours filled me with the fear that my old life was creeping in. It was the old life that almost killed her so if I had to protect her from that I would do for as long as possible.
"Liev came over and he brought that with him. The cigarette smell is mine, though. I was wearing that jacket when I went to the morgue and I might have lit up. I didn't take a drag, though, it was more for the nerves." The best way to sell a lie was to use mostly truth.
I slid the empty bottle of whiskey into the recycle bag and it landed with a soft thump on top of all the cardboard. It had been a long time since we'd had glass in there.
"Liev came here? Why? What did he want? What did he steal?" She began running her eyes over every surface. I followed her into the living room where she started lifting cushions on the sofa and pushing things around on the coffee table like she's hidden treasure there that might have been found.
"Relax," I grabbed her hands and lifted them to my lips to kiss each one. "He was just looking for someone to talk to, he's taken Billy's death hard. We talked, he left."
"With?" She eyes me shrewdly, pursing her lips in the way that let me know she knew me too well.
"A sweater, gloves and about two hundred in cash."
Morgan let out a sigh of exasperation and rubbed her eyes making them redder than before.
"I'm going to bed. We'll have to talk about this tomorrow." She kissed me, just a quick one where our lips barely brushed. I was in for a long cold night.
The events of the night replayed in my mind in macro detail as I nursed a cup of green tea at the counter. If I could just keep the real reason Liev was here and the total existence of Chastity a secret I'd be fine. Just fine.
*
It was Sunday, my favourite day of the week for the totally selfish reason that neither me or Morgan were working and nothing to do with the religious implications that still lingered in the darkest corner of my childhood memory.
"Do you think the market will be busy?" Morgan had decided to forget about last night, for now. She hadn't mentioned it yet but I knew she was biding her time. She was always one for perfect moments; whether it was the perfect time to say those three little words or the perfect time to tell you she was feeling frisky. It was all in the details for her so I waited patiently.
"It's definitely getting busier out there, you should have seen the tourists we had in the bar Thursday night. They looked like they'd never seen a pissed off bar tender and a girl with naked ladies tattoos up her arms before."
I tugged my coat on and noticed it still smelled like smoke. I patted my pockets and found the lighter Chastity had taken and then returned. I left it where it was but it felt like I was carry a thirty pound weight in my pocket. I guess that's how much guilt weights these days.
When we'd successfully dressed for the frigid winds that had picked up, we started on our weekly routine.
First stop was always this little shitty coffee and bear-claw vendor who sold high brand coffee at a lower cost. The downside being it was usually burnt.
"Hey Saul, how's things? Sorry to hear about your brother, man, he was a good guy." The vendor handed me my change and patted his heart as a sign of respect but it just made the chill I felt on my skin sink deeper into my bones.
"Thanks Henry!" Morgan came to my rescue when I didn't reply to the sympathies. My words had gotten stuck in my brain. I tried to think of the right thing to say in reply but everything morphed into the blank stare I was giving him right now.
We walked away when Morgan grabbed my elbow and basically dragged m
e across the street and to the park where we normally sat and ate our pastries, drank our coffees and watched the usual people walk around the usual neighborhood.
Today was different; filled with people who didn't belong here. I instantly felt like I was under attack but from who or what I wasn't sure.
"You ok?" Morgan asked as she led me to an empty bench overlooking the grass. She'd taken a bite already and white sugar powder covered her lips and the tip of her nose.
"Yeah, I just didn't expect Bear-Claw-Henry to know Billy. I guess it makes sense, that coffee didn't fall off the back of a truck and make it into the machine all on its own." I pinched the bridge of my nose; a dull thudding pain started to hammer above my eyebrows.
We fell silent whilst we ate and drank; unusual for us and the tension rose and rose until I felt like screaming might be the only option to break it.
"Do you feel guilty? Is that it?" Morgan dusted her face off and licked her fingers like a kid. She was beautiful in every way, I wanted to protect her and love her until there was no more universe left.
"What? About drinking the coffee?"
She gave me a look to let me know she knew I was playing dumb.
"You've not really talked about it, you've not cried or gotten angry..." The last part was what was worrying her, it was so obvious now, I could see the way her eyebrows knitted together. She'd exploded at me last night because she'd been struggling with Billy’s death and yet here I was; cold, empty. Maybe my troubles extended further than my normal anger management issues.
"I've been using the techniques. Counting to ten like the doctor taught me..." She didn't look convinced but I couldn't put it any other way. Maybe I was devoid of normal human emotions. Wow, that was a kick in the teeth. "I almost knocked Luke out at the morgue if that counts for anything?"
"But you didn't? You have more control than I do..." Morgan sipped her coffee and watched as tourists wandered past with their backpacks tugged on high. They were the sorts of people who were going to experience what I liked to call a 'New York Carrier' in which a New Yorker carried their belongings off when they weren't looking.
"Only because Ash stopped me, if he hadn't I might have actually bashed his skull in with my bare hands." Something I'd actually done before but Morgan didn't need to know that. She didn't know a lot of things about me. It didn't bear thinking about. "Wait, you said 'do'."
She sighed, when I looked at her she was biting the corner of her lip like she did when she had to tell me she'd 'accidentally' bought a new purse instead of getting groceries. I always allowed her the frivolities because, unbeknownst to her, we could afford it.
"I took a sip of someone's champagne last night when they went to the bathroom..." She spoke in barely a whisper. Her head dipped and she started to cry. This was what she'd been gearing up to tell me, she wasn't about to rip into me for letting my thief of a brother into the apartment and she didn't know anything about Chastity, yet.
"Oh honey, it's OK, it's OK." I grabbed her and pulled her to me, our drinks held at awkward angles beside us. "You're so strong. You're OK."
She wept with her face buried in my shoulder. People that passed watched with idle curiosity; some of the women shot daggers with their eyes like I was being the stereotypical asshole of their daytime TV fantasies.
"I don't want to be that person again, Saul."
If ever there was a time I felt like crying it was when Morgan cried but I had to hold it together.
"And you won't be. Haven't you noticed how good you're doing? So what? You tasted alcohol again after five years of being on the wagon, that doesn't make you weak. A weak person wouldn't have been able to stop. Do you want to drink again?" I looked into her eyes, searching for the answer in the most honest place I could find it.
"No, never, never again." She kissed me, gently and apologetically if you could put a feeling other than desire into a kiss.
I believed her, there was nothing she wouldn't tell me. Sometimes I wished I could tell her everything but even I didn't want to know everything about myself and the things I thought and felt. Monroe had called me ‘powerful and destructive’ if left to my own devices and he was right. Thankfully Morgan being with me meant I wasn't left to self-destruct.
We wandered to the market and did our usual routine of looking and not buying. In the summer we tended to sell our old unwanted furniture to the stalls and then re-stock with whatever trend we'd been taken with at the time but with the winter months upon us we were holding off. When the cold came in we did what normal animals did; stocked up on food and chocolate.
"I can't believe you bought that chocolate with jalapeño and lime, it’s just plain wrong." Morgan laughed as she tucked the bag of candy into the bigger bag which had an assortment of breads inside.
"Don't knock it, you never know, it might be strange but it could also be the best thing you’ve ever tasted." I ran my hand down her back and let my fingers graze her ass. Her laugh was enough to make me forget most of my worries.
"I just-" Morgan started to say something, her smile on the brink of something else, like she wasn't sure what her next emotion was going to be. "Never mind."
She sighed and became thoroughly interested in an antique stall which had a big collection of old watches, like new ones weren't good enough. It seemed the other shoppers agreed though because in a matter of seconds it seemed like every person in a five-mile radius was trying to elbow closer to look.
A guy jostled me and I turned in time to see him snake his hand into someone's backpack and take as much as he could carry without being caught.
His walk was familiar but I couldn't pinpoint him, his face was masked by a cap pulled low. He limp-jogged away before inspecting his loot. I felt her eyes watching me which brought me back to the stall and her confused gaze.
"What?"
We slipped our hands into one another’s and snaked through the crowd to a quieter area covered in geometric patterned woven rugs and bold cushions.
"How are you not looking for justice? How can you let Billy's death just...?" She snapped her fingers, staring at me with her eyes all big and sad.
"Don’t do that." I said, gently folding my hand over her fingers. The guy running the stall looked at us from over a magazine and turned away to give us privacy.
"Do what?" She used her other hand to hold me in place whilst I tried to wriggle free.
"The psych thing. I'm OK, really. I don't need to talk about it." I didn't often have to count to ten with Morgan but this seemed like a good exception.
"It's just not like you to not want to get revenge, or at least take it out on someone."
She had no real idea how capable I was of such things.
"I don't understand why you're trying to rile me up. I was doing fine, I didn't want to talk, I was dealing..."
"And now?" She stepped back, possibly because of the look on my face.
"Now I'm fucking pissed." I closed my eyes at the sight of more people swarming around like rats in a sewer. The anger rose to boiling point and I counted and counted but it didn't diminish.
"Maybe you should go home. I need to walk this off or something." I tried not to get angry with her but from the look on her face it was too late.
"OK." She wouldn't even look at me as she took the grocery bags in her arms and weaved through the crowd back towards the apartment and away from the utter dick that was me.
Whatever my problems were, they weren't her but I couldn't understand why she'd pressed me about Billy or getting angry. Getting revenge was something I'd never wanted to consider but now she'd questioned my lack of motivation or apparent lack of feeling a fire stirred inside me.
Whether it was to prove her wrong I didn't know.
I walked and walked, the crowds were maddening. Before long I'd lost all sense of direction, there was just one beacon in the dimness of the crowd; a shock of white blonde hair and a glint of facial metal.
In a flash we locked eyes through the crowd and then sh
e was gone. At a faster pace I began pushing past people, meeting resistance as I went. I took a quarterback worthy hit to the shoulder, when I looked to see who had caused me the rippling pain through my arm I only saw the same guy from earlier limping away; his head bobbed in an alternate rhythm to the tide of people he waded through.
Shoving forward I took off in the direction I thought I'd seen Chastity but couldn't spot her.
Just when I thought I'd imagined her face in the throng she reappeared across the street.
"HEY!" I called but she slipped around a corner and vanished like smoke.
Jogging across the road I left the crowd of the market and the memory of fighting with Morgan behind.
It wasn't long before I'd found Chastity leaning in a doorway, pulling her coat around her lithe body like the thin fabric would protect her from the bitter chill in the air. Her breath was fogging around her, creating an ethereal mist around her grungy elfin features.
"Are you following me now?" She asked. She reached into her pocket and produced a roll up which she lit with her own lighter this time. I made a mental note to stay out of the smoke.
"Sure, yeah, let's pretend that's what's going on and you aren't trying to make my life a living hell." I shook my head when she offered me a cigarette, keeping my distance and my hands firmly in my pockets in case someone I knew saw us.
"You mean you aren't already in hell? Didn't you just lose your brother?" She tilted her head to the side, her icy eyes narrowed at me like she was mocking me.
"Don't worry, I have plenty more." I felt like a dick saying that out loud. It was a thought I hadn't even really allowed myself to think but there it was. The truth to a stranger. Didn't people always say it was easier that way?
"Really? How many more?"
Alarm bells rang again and my initial impression of some sort of honey trap returned. My eyes searched around the area for anyone who looked like a pimp but all I saw was that stupid limping guy hobbling across the road towards us.
"Whatever it is you're doing just leave me out of it. OK? If I see you again-"