"Just like you'll always be suspicious of me," she continues. "Maybe when you start trusting me again, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, too."
"Maybe," I say, bending down, my lips near her ear as I whisper, "but you probably shouldn't."
I let go of her necklace and stand back up straight just as Melody turns, once again striking up conversation with Karissa. Melody's eyes are wide, pleading, her voice matching that look as she says, "so, did you think about it any more?"
Karissa glances at her. "Think about what?"
"Taking that class with me," Melody says. "Ethics & Society."
Karissa's expression shifts as she scrunches up her nose. "Hell no."
"Oh, come on!" Melody says, grabbing her arm and pulling on it, like a toddler throwing a tantrum. "Please? I can't take a philosophy class without you. That's all kinds of wrong. Jesus Christ, it's like, blasphemous."
"Then don't take it."
"But I want to, and I don't get why you don't."
"Don't what?" Paul's voice cuts through the conversation as he strolls over to the table. "What's going on?"
"Karissa doesn't want to take that class with me."
Paul laughs. "The philosophy class? Didn't she fail the first one?"
"I didn't fail," Karissa says defensively. "I just didn't do as well as I hoped."
"That's because Santino was an asshole," Melody says. "You should've gotten an A in the class. You were great at it! That to be or not to be, if there's a tree in the forest does it shit on a bear kind of crazy is you all day long, Kissimmee."
The others laugh, and I'll hand it to Melody… she's certainly amusing… but all that really registers with me is the flinch Karissa makes at that nickname. Kissimmee. I wonder if she knows the deeper meaning behind it, the history her parents and I have in Kissimmee.
I wonder if I should tell her.
If I should tell her that's where her parents ran off to after destroying my life. If I should tell her they thought it would be their salvation. If I should tell her I tracked them there, found them living in that small house in Kissimmee, Florida, like they were the picture perfect family. It was the last place the two of them were together before Johnny sent Carmela on the run on her own and he came home, to face my judgment. We'll always have Kissimmee, I heard him once say.
He thought I'd leave her alone if he offered himself up on a platter, but I wasn't looking for an easy meal.
I wanted equal justice.
Paul walks away when one of his friends calls his name, wandering over to check the grill. The flames have died down a bit so I can barely see them from where I stand.
"Ethics and Society," I say, joining the conversation. "I'm assuming that deals with controversial social issues. Sounds fascinating."
"See!" Melody waves my direction. "He gets it! And remember that murder paper we wrote? You got an A on that one! This is right up your alley. Murder's totally your thing!"
I stifle a laugh at that.
I read Karissa's essay on murder. I saw it lying on Daniel's desk the first time I confronted him for how he was treating her in class. It was horrendous.
She deserved to fail it.
But of course I made him pass her anyway.
"And come on," Melody continues, really laying it on thick. "There's a whole section on sexual morality. You have to take it. Everyone else is all blah blah blah, but this is the business! Nowadays everybody wants to talk like they got something to say, you know? But nothing comes out when they move their lips. It's ridiculous. Where else are you going to get such titillating conversation?"
I have no idea what the hell the girl is rambling about, but it somehow cracks Karissa, the corner of her lips flickering with the hint of a smile. "From Eminem."
Melody clutches her chest dramatically, throwing her head back. "God, I wish. That man could titillate me all night long. But he's not here, and you are, so I think you should totally take this class with me."
"Besides," Paul shouts as he slaps the metal grate on top of the grill, "it's not like you have to worry about Santino this year. Someone already took care of that for you."
Karissa's eyes immediately shift in my direction as Melody's attention is diverted. She chastises her boyfriend for making light of their professor's death, while the gaze that's pointed at me is full of nothing but suspicion. She knows. I know she does. She hasn't come out and asked me, hasn't brought it up beyond the initial conversation the night she was questioned by the police, but I can see in her eyes that she's thought about it.
She wants to ask me.
I hope she never does.
Because if she's looking for remorse or some sort of rational explanation, she's never going to find what she wants from me. I don't regret for a second what I did. The man had it coming.
I jabbed that fucking pointer stick of his right through his heart.
I'd never stabbed someone in the heart before. It's callous, and personal, and I prefer to keep it strictly business. But he crossed me, and offended me, and I wanted him to look at me when death took him away. I expected it to be quick but he struggled. He fought, and he tried to run, the goddamn stick still sticking out of his chest when he got to his feet.
I learned a lesson that day.
I'll never do that again.
That's why I slit Johnny's throat before I put the knife in his chest.
I curve an eyebrow at Karissa, waiting for her to turn away from me again, but she doesn't.
She stares.
And stares.
And stares.
I feel like she grating at my soul when she stares at me that way.
Like she's scraping away some of the blackness, trying to salvage what might still be beneath. I wonder if she'll be disappointed to find every part of me is tainted, that even my good isn't as good as it should be.
After a moment, Melody turns back to her, refocusing, and drawing Karissa's attention away from me. "So? Will you at least consider it?"
Karissa sighs exasperatedly. "Fine."
"You'll think about it?"
"I'll take the damn class."
Melody squeals, once more grabbing her arm, this time excitedly. It doesn't take much to distract her as she switches subjects, inviting her other friends into the conversation when one of them chimes in and asks the million dollar question: "Who's the Santino guy?"
Melody launches into the whole tale, starting from the beginning, the first day Karissa walked into his classroom.
"He took one look at her and turned his nose up," Melody says, matter-of-fact. "He hated her for no reason. It was crazy."
Crazy, maybe, but there was a reason, and it certainly wasn't because he hated her. He never saw Karissa that day. I don't think he ever really saw her. He laid his eyes on a young girl who looked so very much like the one he fawned over as a teenager, the only girl Daniel Santino ever gave his heart to, and she crushed it, obliterated it. He always had a hard-on for Carmela, following her around like a puppy dog, lapping up every tiny speck of attention she gave him, devouring every bone she threw his way. Carmela humored his pesky crush, even went on a few dates with him.
She said it was compassion.
Said it was right to give him a fair shake.
But in the end she dropped him like a bad habit and picked up a worse one instead: Johnny.
He looked at Karissa that day when she walked in, and he didn't see his new student. He saw his old love. He saw the one who got away. And he wasn't angry to see her face again.
No, what Karissa sensed from him was terror.
Because he knew that was a face I'd been looking for.
And he knew, when I found it, exactly what I planned to do.
Melody is somewhere in the middle of the semester in her story, about when I seemed to have come in. I can tell Karissa's uncomfortable, with the way she's fidgeting, the way her eyes won't quite meet anybody's. I'm grateful when Paul interrupts, barging into the conversation with talk about the food
as he slaps it on the grill, and I see Karissa breathe a sigh of relief, too.
I don't know why she puts herself through this.
I don't spend time around people unless I have to.
The day drags on into the late afternoon. Despite the 'no alcohol on the premises' sign we passed on the way in, they break out a cooler full of beer and crack open cans. I sip on a bottle of water Karissa brought while she gives in and drinks along with the others.
It's hot as fuck.
The company is boring.
I'm sweating, downright miserable, but I say nothing, picking apart an over-cooked burger I have no interest in ingesting. I'm sitting on the edge of the bench beside Karissa, so close ours arms brush together whenever one of us moves. Nobody notices or pays much attention to what I'm doing, except for Karissa, as her eyes routinely seek me out. She's trying to be coy about it, her gaze curious. After a few times, I catch her eyes and she freezes, knowing she's been caught.
I take a small bite, straining as I chew, fighting the urge to gag on the dry meat as she watches me.
After a moment, she leans closer, close enough that only I can hear, as she whispers, "what if it's poisoned?"
I grab a napkin from the table, spitting out everything that's in my mouth. Disgusting. I toss the napkin down on top of my plate and shove it aside.
I'm done with that shit.
Her eyes widen. "I didn't mean for you to do that."
"It wasn't you," I say, grabbing my bottle of water and taking a swig. "I couldn't choke that down if I had to."
She looks from me to her plate, to her untouched burger, then back to me again. She says nothing, standing up and grabbing her plate, hesitating before grabbing mine, too. After throwing them away, she chugs what's left in her can of beer and tosses it in the trash before grabbing another from the cooler.
Late afternoon morphs into early evening. Everything is cleaned up, most of it discarded, abandoned besides the coolers, as they decide to make their way down the waterfront to go swimming.
I sit along the side of the in-ground pool, at a round little table with a gigantic blue umbrella over my head. People pack the small area, at least a hundred sets of eyes that could easily wander Karissa's way, but she seems to not care as she sheds her clothes, discarding them at the table beside me, leaving her standing there in a slinky pink bikini that makes her tanned skin glow.
The metallic material covers her most intimate places—places I'd kill a man if he ever dared to look—but otherwise leaves little to the imagination. Her curves are proudly displayed, every dimple and dip, cleft and crevice, every inch of her flesh that beckons to me at night when she lays beside me in the dark.
It's sinful.
It's unbearable.
It takes every ounce of strength I have to let her walk away from me looking like that.
She strolls over toward the edge of the pool as she pulls her hair up, securing it on the top of her head in a sloppy sort of bun. I tear my eyes away from her, sighing exasperatedly as I run my hands down my sweaty face and close my eyes. When I reopen them, the first thing I see is Paul standing on the opposite side of the pool, directly across from Karissa, his eyes slinking down her body, going dangerously close to those places they ought not go.
Strike two.
My skin prickles, a coiling inside of me that I quickly try to unwind, to pull back apart before it wraps me up too tight to fight it. Karissa slips into the water, immediately disappearing beneath the surface.
Only then does the boy look away from her.
He jumps it, swimming over to his girlfriend, immediately picking Melody up and dunking her as she squeals loudly with laughter.
They joke around, playing in the water, swimming and splashing. It's strange, seeing Karissa that way, so at ease around people, so relaxed and happy, like the reality that I slapped her with two months ago faded away, taking a backseat to the life she created here. I haven't seen her smile this much since… well, since before she got hurt.
The evening starts to slip away, growing later as the sun shifts position in the sky, edging closer toward the west. Karissa eventually pulls herself out of the pool, dripping water as she strolls over to me, her arms crossing over her chest as she approaches.
She digs a towel out of her bag to dry her hair. When she realizes I'm watching, she wraps the towel around her, covering her body as she smiles sheepishly.
"Why do you do that?" I ask.
She raises an eyebrow. "Do what?"
"Shield yourself from me," I say. "All those people in the pool didn't bother you, like you weren't at all uncomfortable with them looking."
"They weren't looking."
"They could've been."
"They weren't," she insists. "I mean, maybe they looked, but they didn't pay me much mind. But you…"
"But me?" I ask when she doesn't finish.
"You look at me."
"And that's a problem?"
She sighs, clutching the towel tighter around her as she turns, like she's about to walk away. I sound defensive, I know, and hell, maybe I am, but I'm not trying to frustrate her.
I can see those walls going up between us, though.
Before she can leave, I reach out and grasp her arm, stopping her. Her muscles tense as I pull her back toward the table.
"I'm not trying to be a pain in the ass," I say, tugging her down onto the chair beside me. "I'm just trying to understand."
"You know," she says, shifting her body toward me but still keeping her skin covered. "For someone who knows everything about me, you don't seem to really understand anything."
Her voice is firm, borderline antagonistic.
I got under her skin.
"Those people?" she continues, waving over toward the pool. "They can look all they want. I don't notice when they do, because I don't care what they think. Not anymore. I used to… I used to want to fit in, to be normal, and sometimes I still feel that way, like I could be that way if I tried, but I'm not. I know I'm not. My parents are murderers and liars, and you…" She laughs dryly. "You are what you are. So yeah, those people can look if they want, but they don't see me, and I don't care what they think they see. But you look at me. You look at me hard. And I know you see me. And maybe, Naz… maybe I care what you think."
The others are out of the pool, making their way toward us before I can respond. I let go of Karissa, and she stands back up, dropping her towel only long enough to slip her shorts back on and pull on her top.
"I need a drink," she mutters, just loud enough for Melody to hear.
"Hell yeah!" she says, throwing her arm over Karissa's shoulder. "That's the spirit. Let's fill up my cup and get fucked up!"
We make our way toward the front of the park, to the grassy area around the first pier. The area's busy, but they find a vacant spot in the middle of the gathering crowd. They spread out blankets, making themselves at home, as I take a seat along the edge of one alone.
They drink some more.
I mull over Karissa's words in silence.
They joke around, laughing and playing, acting like the teenagers they are.
I get lost in my own head.
By the time the sun finally sets, darkness creeping over the area, Karissa is wasted. Between the heat and her empty stomach, she never stood a chance. I'm gazing across the river at the Manhattan skyline in the night, admiring the lights in a city that never sleeps, keeping an eye on Karissa the best I can. She eventually breaks away from her friends and strolls over to where I'm sitting, pausing right in front of me. "What are you doing over here?"
My eyes shift to her, scanning her in the darkness. "I'm admiring the view."
"Oh." She glances behind her. "Am I blocking it?"
"No," I say. "You are it."
She rolls her eyes and starts to step aside when I grab ahold of her, catching her off guard. Her reflexes are stunted, her strength diminished from the alcohol sloshing through her veins. I pull her down onto the blanket wi
th me, and she lets out a startled squeal before laughing when she loses her balance, falling right into me. I grunt when her knee grazes my crotch, just barely missing landing right on my cock. My side stings, but she's giggling… fucking giggling. I can't be mad. "You're drunk, jailbird."
"Just a little," she says, holding up her fingers half an inch apart, nearly pinching me in the fucking nose with them.
"You should've eaten something earlier."
"Yeah, right," she slurs. "I wouldn't eat anything that guy touched."
"Who?"
"Paul."
Huh.
Strike three.
"I could've bought you something. It's not good to drink on an empty stomach."
She blows out a dismissive breath. "Puh-lease. What's good anymore?"
"You," I say, brushing her wild hair from her face. It came down sometime after swimming, now a tangled mess, waves falling everywhere. "You're still good."
She laughs again, laughs like that's the funniest thing she's ever heard. I expect her to try to get to her feet, to stagger away, but instead she shifts around in front of me, settling between my legs. She leans against me, her back flush against my chest, her head coming to rest just below my chin. She smells like chlorine and sweat, her skin slick and glowing, more freckles dotting her shoulders and her cheeks.
The sun did a number on her today.
Even her nose is pink.
"Tell me something," she says. "Would somebody good love somebody like you?"
It's a valid question, maybe a bit spiteful, but it's the closest she's coming to admitting she loves me in a while. I rest my cheek against the top of her head as I consider it. "Probably not."
She's quiet for a bit, just lounging there. I snake my arms around her, feeling her warmth as I hold her close. It isn't until the fireworks start up, blasting off from the bridge and filling the night sky, that Karissa finally speaks again.
"Beautiful," she whispers as her friends loudly cheer, raising a ruckus nearby. I smile at the amazement in her voice, listening to the bangs as they detonate back to back, watching as the blasts bathe her skin in flashes of different colors.
"I've always liked fireworks," I say. "The gunpowder, the chemicals and fuel carefully calibrated, making something so powerful, something so deadly, seem so harmless. Knowing how much control, how much heat, how much energy it takes to set off the explosions at the perfect time... fascinating."
Torture to Her Soul Page 15