Her smile fell. "Um ... I guess a Manhattan?" Her voice was apologetic, and I remembered she wasn't familiar with drink ordering. "What are you going to get?"
"Probably a gin and tonic. Or maybe an Old Fashioned."
Audrey smiled then. "How about you just get me whatever you're getting?"
"What if you don't like it?"
She shrugged lightly. "How am I supposed to know if I like something if I don't try it?"
My head bobbed in a slow nod. "Good point. I'll be right back," and I headed toward the bar.
I ordered two gin and tonics and waited for them to be made. Every two seconds, I found myself looking back toward the table, to check on Audrey. To make sure she was still there. To remind myself that this was real. I wiped a hand over my dry lips and shook my head.
"You okay, boss?" the bartender asked, sliding the two glasses toward my waiting hands.
"Yeah, I'm good," I told him, leaving a few bills on the bar and taking the glasses. "Thanks."
But I wasn't good. I was shaken and in denial, expecting her to admit this was all a joke, an elaborate set up. Maybe it was an experiment the good doctor was conducting, to see how I'd react in the situation. All of it, an extravagant role-play scenario I wasn't aware of.
I headed back to the table and placed a glass in front of her before sitting down in the chair beside hers. She smiled sweetly and thanked me for the drink. I nodded and lifted my glass to my lips, but before I could take a sip, she asked, "What should we drink to?"
I allowed a light chuckle at the question. "We don't need to drink to anything."
"Do you drink a lot?"
I considered the question and then shook my head. "Not really. Maybe a couple drinks a week, I guess. Why?"
"Then, this is a special occasion," she declared. "So, we should drink to something."
And I actually gave it some thought. I lowered my glass and pursed my lips, ignoring the droning of the poet currently on the stage. I shook my head, coming up empty, and admitted, "I got nothin’."
Audrey tapped a finger against my wrist and said, "I know. We should drink to us."
"Us?" The word rolled sour against my tongue. Us felt like we were something, together, and that's not what this was. There was no us.
But Audrey nodded assuredly. "Yes, us. The better twins." She still wore that bright smile, but there was a darkness in those words, lacing between the letters and tying them tight, bringing them together. And that was something I understood. Darkness. I thrived in its shadows and knew its deepened corners well.
"What does that mean?" I asked, folding my arms and forgetting about my drink.
Audrey shrugged and wrapped her manicured fingers around the glass. "You know what I mean, Blake."
I shook my head. "No, I don't think I do."
"Jake became disabled, right?”
"Yes."
Her eyes met mine. "My sister became very sick."
Better. Burdened. Guilty. It was all the same, and then, I understood. I nodded solemnly and lifted my glass.
"To being the burdened twins," I corrected, using my own words.
But Audrey shook her head. "Not burdened, Blake. Just better," and her glass clinked against mine.
***
His face, like mine,
His height, the same.
But his mind is different,
And I'm to blame.
Starved and forbidden,
Unable to thrive,
They say it's a miracle,
He's even alive.
But what kind of god,
Shuns one of his own?
What kind of father,
Leaves his child alone?
Audrey waited at the table as I walked back, tearing up the poem as I went. An expression of horror blanketed her features as I returned. When I asked what that look was for, she questioned, "Why did you just do that?"
"Do what?"
"Tear it up!" she exclaimed exasperatedly, thrusting her hand toward my fist where the torn-up shreds of paper remained.
"What's the point in keeping it?" I countered, sitting down and grabbing my glass. It was my third drink. I never drank more than one, but tonight, it was three. Would there be a fourth?
"Because it's beautiful, Blake!" Audrey's volume had raised a bit since we'd arrived. It was also her third drink, and something told me she couldn't handle her liquor well.
I snickered. "No, it wasn’t. My shit isn't beautiful."
Her face fell with a crushing amount of sorrow as her hand pressed against her chest. "Oh, Blake. You ... You are so beautiful. You're so talented and gifted and your words are ..." She shook her head, planting her hand against her chest again and again. "Your words are your heart, and it's broken, but it's not ugly. You're not ugly."
"You don't know what the hell you're talking about," I scoffed, leaning back in my chair. "Talk to my shrink. She'll tell you how ugly I am."
It was a challenge, almost spiteful and bitter, and I knocked the rest of my drink back in one gulp. Audrey didn't so much as flinch when I brought the glass back down to the table with a hollow clunk. I wanted her to react, I wanted to see her jolt and quake with every shred of who I am. It was then that I suddenly felt the urge to narrow my eyes, twist my lips, and lean further against the table. I stared directly into her eyes, hoping to finally shake her up, to let her see just how hideous I was beneath the surface—a bitter, hateful thief.
With my nose just an inch from hers, I asked, "What the hell do I have to do to make you leave me alone?"
"Do you want me to leave you alone?" Her tone remained even and calm, instantly sober as her eyes held mine with a patience I hated her for.
"I—"
"Next up, we have Audrey!"
In synchronized fashion, we turned toward the stage and the owner of the club, applauding and welcoming her to the mic. Audrey didn't let me finish what I was about to say as she stood up and told me she'd be back, before climbing the steps into the spotlight. I held my breath, holding in the belligerence, as she cleared her throat and pulled out a sheet of paper from her pocket.
"This one is called He," she spoke in her pleasant voice, not at all tipsy-sounding, and began to read.
He is heated,
He is cold.
He is subtle,
He is bold.
He is honest,
He is lying.
He's barely living,
He is dying.
He is gifted,
He is blessed.
He is angry,
He's a mess.
He is broken,
He is fine.
He is wanted,
But he's not mine.
I could have thought of a thousand ways to interpret that poem of simple words. Who was he? Was it someone I didn't know? Was it me? I thought it was about me. I wanted it to be about me, even if there was no reason for me to believe it was. She hardly knew me, how could she write something about a man she knew nothing about?
And yet, there was that feeling that this was all meant to be. That maybe she did know me, maybe somehow, in some way, she really did ... Fate. Signs. Written in the stars. God. Plans. I shook my head at the insanity and climbed from my chair to get a drink before Audrey could sit back down.
This would be my fourth drink. What the hell was I thinking? Is this what she drove me to do? To drink myself into a drunken stupor? With another gin and tonic in hand, I went back to the table and dropped myself down in the chair.
"Did you like it?" she asked, slowly sipping at what was left of her drink. She wouldn't meet my eyes and that only meant one thing.
"You wrote a poem about me." She nodded and I asked, "Why would you do that?"
Her gaze diverted to mine for one, two fractions of a heartbeat before dashing away again. "It's not obvious?"
"What are you talking about?"
She shrugged. Her finger ran a circuit around the glass's rim. Round and round and round ... I was in high school
again, talking to a girl I liked, who maybe liked me, and dammit if it wasn't making my innards turn into a mess of warm putty. Dammit if I was too lost in gin and tonics to focus on anything but how awful this was and how she needed to stop this now before I couldn't.
"I like you, Blake," I found her saying, and I found myself laughing. It was a sinister, mocking sound and I shook my head toward the bar, just to look at anything but her.
"No, you don't."
"Yes. I do."
"No," my volume raised and my back hunched over the table, bringing my eyes only centimeters from hers. "You like the idea of me. You like the idea of having something to save, a fucking project to talk about at Church or whatever the hell it is you do.”
“I don’t go to Church,” she quietly interjected.
“Whatever! You like the idea of spending a little time with someone nobody in your perfect little life would ever approve of. You like the idea of getting fucked by someone who might know what they're doing. Hell, I don't know what your reason is, but trust me, sweetheart; you don't like me."
And damn her, she didn't react. She continued to watch me, displaying an inhuman amount of tolerance and I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't sit across from a woman who might as well have been a machine, if it weren't for the timely expanse of her chest with every breath she took, or the blink of her eyelids showing off the faintest glimmer of champagne eyeshadow. I couldn't fucking stand it and I knew that, not only was this a mistake, but I needed to get the hell out before I did something I'd regret. Something else. Something more.
I drank the rest of my drink in one choked gulp. I never drank this much and it was hard to swallow. I pulled myself up, snatched my jacket from the back of the chair, and hurried toward the stairs. I didn't look back, didn't pay attention to if she was following, didn't care if she was angry or hurt or crying or calling her cousins to bitch about the guy who’d just rejected her. All I cared about was getting home and getting away, far away, and I ran up to the street and out into the parking lot.
"Blake! Wait!"
Fucking hell. Fuck her. Fuck this. Fuck this town. Fuck everything. I clenched my fists, ignoring her voice and her feet against the pavement behind me. Something had to make this woman leave me the hell alone.
"Blake! Stop! Come on, please don't leave!"
Then, I did stop. I stopped and spun around on my heel. She stood there beneath a lamppost, her pristine white coat dragging along the dirty ground, and if that wasn't a fucking metaphor, I don’t know what was. Signs. Premonitions. They were all displayed right there in her white coat, getting covered in dirt and mud.
"I need to leave," I stated, feeling like I’d used that line on her too many times and I was sick of it.
"But why?"
I shrugged, slapping my hands against my thighs. "Because if I don't get the fuck away from you, I'm not prepared to handle what's going to happen."
"What's going to happen?"
I scoffed with a shake of my head. "You sound like my shrink, answering questions with more fucking questions." I looked back to her and stated bluntly, "If I stay, I'm going to try to fuck you, Audrey. That’s what’s going to happen."
Audrey was hard to move but she reacted then. Her throat bobbed and the apples of her cheeks deepened in their rosy hue. "Oh."
"I'm drunk," I reasoned weakly. "And I like you way too much. Neither one of those things ever should've happened, but whatever, here we are. And dammit, you make me so fucking mad, but that's only making it harder for me. So ... I need to get the hell out of here, and so should you."
"You shouldn't drive," she protested.
"I don't even fucking care at this point," I replied honestly, albeit foolishly, and her worried gaze made me groan. "Fine, fuck … I'll get a cab or some—"
"Take a walk with me?"
"Are you fucking kidding me?"
She shook her head. "No."
"I just told you I want to fuck you, I said all of that shit in there, and you want to take a fucking walk with me?"
Audrey nodded as she pulled on her dirty coat. "Please?"
I raked a hand through my hair and looked over my shoulder at my bike. Reason told me I shouldn't climb on it and ride home. I was intoxicated, and as much as I didn't really care much about my own well-being at the moment, Jake still needed me, and that was enough.
So, I turned back to Audrey, and against my better judgment, agreed to her walk. Because I needed time to sober up. Because truthfully, I didn't want to go home just yet. But mostly because I so desperately wanted to believe that I could be worthy of someone like her.
Chapter Thirteen
OCTOBER IN SALEM meant tourism and a lot of it. The streets were crawling with tour groups and shoppers, witches and ghouls. It was equal parts good and bad. This was my favorite time of the year, and it brought a hoard of like-minded people to my town. I felt alive on those weekends, seeing the faces of those I knew genuinely appreciated the atmosphere. The awe in their eyes as they took in the architectural beauty, the sadness etched in the lines on their faces when they learned of its haunted history.
But then, there were those who I knew flocked to the cobblestone streets strictly for the thrill from mingling with the fabled ghosts. They weren't here to learn, to mourn, or to appreciate. They merely wanted to take some pictures, drag the kids through a couple of museums, and leave. That was the downside, and I scowled at a cluster of boozed-up sorority girls as they clicked their heels down the street and mocked their caped tour guide.
"How long have you lived here?" Audrey asked, making small talk and distracting me from my irritation.
"Where? In Salem?"
"Yeah," she clarified as we turned at Old Town Hall and took the steps through Derby Square.
"Since I was twenty-two."
"How old are you now?"
I narrowed my eyes and silently questioned why that even mattered. "I'll be thirty-four on the 31st."
"Get the heck out. You were actually born on Halloween?"
I nodded, feeling a bit smug. "The creepiness was bred into me."
"That's crazy!"
"Not really," I laughed. "My parents grew to hate Halloween pretty quickly. Not only did they have to take us trick-or-treating, but then they had to wrap presents, do the whole cake thing, have a birthday party ..." I shrugged. "It got easier when we got older. We only celebrate Jake now, so ..." Why the fuck wouldn't my mouth stop moving?
"You don't celebrate your birthday?"
I turned to look up at the window of Dr. Travetti's office. I'd know it anywhere, I looked through it so much, but now, it looked so different from the outside. Less like a prison and more like an intriguing piece of my town's history. Was that how Audrey saw me? Less like a bundled heap of pessimism and anger, and more like a source of curiosity?
"No," I answered flightily as we walked past the building. "That's my shrink's office."
"Why do you see a therapist?"
I turned my eyes on her and felt my mouth lift in a faint smile. "Why do you ask so many questions?"
She shrugged gently as we made our way through clusters of shoppers at the night market. "I want to know about you."
Scoffing, I barked a laugh. "I can't even begin to imagine why."
Again, she shrugged. "I told you that I like you. And I find you interesting."
I sighed and shook my head. "Okay, whatever. Uh ... Anyway, I stopped celebrating my birthday a while ago. No point."
Audrey narrowed her eyes, lit with laughter, and poked a finger at my side. "Hey! You didn't answer my question!"
"I'm not telling you why I see a therapist," I told her point blank.
"Okay, fair enough," she answered, backing down. "I saw a therapist for a while after my sister died. I questioned a lot of things and it really helped me to talk to someone."
I grunted with a nod. "Yeah."
"It was hard to hold onto my faith when I was deep in mourning." She spoke quietly, holding her hands to her
chest. I watched as her fingers tucked between the lapels of her coat to tug the cross out. "It's hard not to question why such horrible things can happen to good people. Or how God could allow one of His own to suffer so much, when she had done nothing wrong."
I didn't mean to snicker but I did. It was a gentle sound, barely audible, but she heard it. She trained her eyes on me as we turned onto the sidewalk and asked what I was laughing at.
"I'm not laughing."
"You just did."
"No," I insisted weakly, but she knew better. So, I said, "I don't believe in any of that shit."
"Any of what shit? God?"
"Yep."
She nodded gently. "I figured. That's okay. You're within your right to believe what you want. Faith, to me, is a very personal thing. That’s why I don’t go to Church."
"Oh, thanks so much for your permission," I deadpanned.
"I didn't believe for a little while."
I don't know what made me ask, "What changed?"
Audrey smiled at the question, as though she could see phantom shreds of light seeping from between my cracks. She was all too eager to share her story as she welcomed herself to wrap an arm around mine. "For about a year after my sister died, I considered myself agnostic. I hoped there was more, you know—a god, an afterlife ... But it was hard to continue following my beliefs when I was in so much pain. It was like having a piece of my body removed and not being given anything to dull the ache."
I imagined living without Jake. I imagined him being gone, and not in the sense my parents were talking but really gone. I had almost lost him once, but he’d been stubborn. He wouldn’t die. Instead, he stuck around, and even with as rough as it was, I’d prefer this life over not having him at all.
The thought immediately choked me up, and I shook my head, sending it away.
"But, then ..." She hesitated and eyed me skeptically. "Do you promise not to laugh?"
"Sure," I shrugged.
"I'm not sure I believe you."
I snorted. "That's fine. Don't tell me then." Pulling my arm from her grasp, I continued walking down the street with a boorishness I wasn’t proud of, and Audrey hurried to keep up.
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