“Yeah, exactly.”
“You told them that?”
“In a way, yeah,” I said. “So they’d leave us alone. Leave you alone. You don’t want to know them. Or this kind of life. I know you like to walk around in the middle of the night. I get why you do it too. I’m not going to tell you what to do. But… I have to protect you.”
“By lying?”
“For your own good.”
“So they think we… you know… and that means they won’t bother me?”
“That means if they bother you, I’ll beat the shit out of them.”
“Oh.”
There was silence for a few seconds.
I hated to have to tell her that.
I slowly put my left hand out.
Amelia looked at my hand, then at me.
“Listen,” I whispered. “What I tell them and what I think aren’t the same. Okay? You’re pretty, Amelia. I mean that. You are really pretty. But I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.”
“I believe you,” Amelia said.
She reached out and put her hand into mine.
I closed my fingers around her hand and we both smiled at the same time.
This was the only time things felt right.
“What are you doing with those rocks?” she asked.
I looked down at the various piles and hurried to kick them, sending some scattering up the sidewalk and others out into the road.
“Nothing.”
“That’s a lie. You shouldn’t lie to me, Josh. That hurts me.”
I sighed. “You’re throwing that at me now?”
“Yeah, I am.”
“Tell you what… tell me why you’re out here. Then we can talk about the rocks.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“See? It’s not that easy, is it?”
“Shut up,” she said.
She pulled the long sleeves of her shirt over her hands and hugged herself. She did so under her small breasts. My eyes never meant to look at her in any other way than a protective friend, but with what we had just been talking about… plus Murph’s fucking comment…
I gritted my teeth.
“I had to get out of there for a minute,” Amelia finally said. “That’s all.”
“But why?”
“You know why.”
“I want to hear you say it though. Tell me what happened.”
“I guess tonight was a good night.”
“Good enough that you’re out here?” I asked.
“Shut up,” she spat at me again. “He punched the wall, okay? Like a hundred times.”
“The wall?”
“The dining room wall. There were so many holes in it… and there was so much dust… for a second I thought the house was on fire.”
“Damn,” I said. “I’m sorry, Amelia.”
“Me too.”
I stepped toward her. “You shouldn’t have to go through that.”
“I have no choice. I’m too young to do anything about it. I’m not as old as you.”
“I’m not old enough,” I said. “I’ve still got time until I can finally do something.”
“This sucks,” she said.
“Yes. It does.”
I reached for her. My hands gently touched her arms as I worked my way into a hug. She didn’t move her arms though, so it was like we were both hugging her. She smelled like mango and dust.
“It’ll be over soon,” I whispered.
“I hate hearing that,” she said. “How much damage will be done by then?”
That was a hard question. Because time never stopped. And neither did anyone who was under the spell of time.
“It’s your turn,” she said.
She wiggled to get me away from her.
“Turn for what?” I asked.
“The rocks?”
“Oh,” I said. “That. It was nothing. We were going to throw rocks at that house. Break all the windows.”
“Why?”
“Because we felt like it,” I said. “That’s why I keep warning you to not come near this part of town. Or us. Or me.”
“You’re obsessed with that house, Josh.”
“I am?”
“You’re always doing something to it,” she said.
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. That house means something to you.”
“Okay. Fine. What if it does?”
“I wish you would tell me about it.”
I reached for Amelia again. This time I touched her cheek. I liked the way her skin felt against mine. I liked the way I felt when I touched her.
“I promise, Amelia, someday I will tell you everything.”
Chapter 21
Should Have Known Better
NOW
(Amelia)
I agreed to meet with Bel and hand off my version of the story.
Josh had gotten too close to me and I needed to make it right. Which was finish what I started. Write the story for Bel. Keep it simple and to the point. It was about his artwork and nothing else.
The kiss had long washed off my lips.
I told myself I had forgotten the taste of him.
As far as the memory went… I was good at hiding memories.
So nothing mattered.
Of course when I handed Bel the printed story, she laughed.
“What?” I asked as we sat at the window inside Joey’s Roast.
“You printed it and brought it to me. That’s adorable.”
“Huh?”
“Email, Amelia. Just email me the story.”
“Oh. Right. I thought you wanted… I mean, why are we meeting if you wanted me to email it?”
“To talk about your other story.”
“My other story?”
“Well, you had this one. About Josh. But I don’t think it’s got the punch you wanted. Right?”
“I mean… I wrote about his artwork. That’s it. Josh as a person? I don’t have a story there. And even if I did… I mean…”
“I get it,” Bel said. “Which is why I’m interested in the letter.”
“Oh. That.”
“You were really excited about it,” she said. “You seemed eager to just jump at anything for it.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve built things up in my head…”
“You’re a writer. That’s what you do.”
“Not like this. Some romantic dreams just aren’t meant to be.”
Bel clapped her hands. “Write about that then. Do you have the letter with you? Can I see it?”
“No,” I said without hesitation. “I mean, I don’t have the letter.”
The letter is tucked in my back pocket. I keep it there all the time. I read it almost daily. I basically have it memorized. If I shut my eyes, I could hear someone reading it. I spend way too much time visualizing Delilah and I don’t know who that is.
“I think you should do something with it.”
“So you could put it on your site or whatever?”
“Not necessarily,” Bel said. “But it could get you exposure. Imagine a weekly spot where you’re writing this story about a letter? Building it up piece by piece. Readers would go wild for that.”
“You think?”
“I know so. And we could see what other attention it could get. Agents? Publishers? Who knows…”
“That’s really nice of you to say,” I said. “I’m just… things have been strange for me, Bel. Seeing Josh was harder than I thought.”
“So, you and him… was that a thing?”
“I’m not going to talk about it,” I said. “Sorry. I’d better get going actually. I have to get ready for work.”
I have no work tonight. I’m not on the schedule until two days from now for a double. You don’t know that, Bel. I don’t know anything about you. You don’t know anything about me. This is all Grace’s fault. Her and her stupid cats.
I reached into my bag and took out some money for the coffee and tip.
“I can get that,” Bel said.
“It’s fine,” I said.
“At least send me the story. What you wrote about Josh.”
“I will.”
“And a bio about yourself. Links to anything you’d like. You wrote the story so you should get credit.”
“Of course. Thanks.”
I left the coffee shop and hurried to my car.
I felt a heaviness in my chest that I didn’t like.
It wasn’t guilt. It wasn’t regret. It wasn’t even anger.
It was just… empty. A heavy emptiness.
And a little bit of picturing Josh lifting me up onto the counter so he could kiss me better.
I wasn’t going to be able to get rid of that image for the rest of my life.
“Oh, honey, you cannot imagine the size of the rats in the basement here!”
I heard Miss Laura’s voice booming.
I rolled my eyes.
She probably had a delivery guy cornered to talk about anything.
“How big were they?” a voice asked.
The voice made my hand freeze on the door handle.
“Damn near the size of dogs! I swear on it. I swear on the graves of my family. They were huge!”
I ripped open the door and couldn’t believe my eyes as I saw Josh leaning against the wall next to my apartment door. Miss Laura, from across the hall had her door open as her animated hands danced through the air.
“Ain’t no trap going to catch them down there,” Miss Laura said. “That’s why I pay for outside storage. It’s a hassle to decorate sometimes, but you have to do what you have to do in life.”
“That’s the truth,” Josh said. Then he looked at me. “There you are, love.”
“Oh, Amelia, hi,” Miss Laura said.
“Hi,” I managed to say.
Miss Laura pranced over to me. “Oh my, is this man devilish or what? He’s making the angel on my shoulder blush.”
I started to blush because Miss Laura had no version of being quiet, which meant Josh heard her.
“Josh, what are you doing here?” I asked.
“A man that good looking shows up to my apartment door, I’m inviting him in,” Miss Laura said.
“Is that an invite?” Josh asked her.
Miss Laura waved her hand at her face. “You cool it there…”
Josh started to laugh.
I was now embarrassed and angry.
I hurried to my door and unlocked it.
“Come on,” I said to Josh through gritted teeth.
“Nice to meet you,” Josh said to Miss Laura.
“You too, honey. And, Amelia? We need to talk later.”
Rushing into my apartment was my safety from Miss Laura.
But it also meant bringing Josh into cat heaven.
“Whoa,” he said when he looked around.
“Oh, crap,” I whispered. “Yeah. My roommate…”
“Is that a framed cat picture?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said, not even looking at the wall.
“Was it her cat?”
“No,” I said. “She doesn’t even have a cat. She’s just obsessed with them. Please don’t ask.”
“I have a lot to ask,” Josh said.
He wore messy, paint-stained jeans and a black t-shirt that made him look too hot for his own good. And mine. His arms filled the sleeves of the t-shirt and spilled out for what looked like miles. His facial hair was still unkempt, just like his hair.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I’m here to make things even,” he said.
“Even?”
He reached behind him and handed me folded up papers. “Here’s your story back.”
“You actually read it?”
“Of course I did. You brought me a story to read. Why wouldn’t I read it?”
“I, uh, sort of left in a hurry,” I said as I took the story from him. “I think I owe you an-”
“I’m not worried about it,” Josh said. “We were asking questions and pushing at each other. It happens.”
“It was more than pushing at each other, Josh.”
“I know,” he said with a grin. “But I wanted to keep my end of our deal.”
“Meaning?”
“You gave me a story. So now I’ll give you one.”
My hands instantly began to sweat. Like, that never happened. Staring at Josh was sometimes too much. The reflection in his eyes was of me as a young teenager, looking for him, needing him, feeling things for him that I wasn’t sure what they were. He always warned me to stay away but never told me why. And all that did was make me want to be closer to him even more. Somewhere in my head I thought and hoped he would be brave enough and strong enough to hurt my father if the time came.
And when it did…
“Hey, love, are you okay?” he asked.
I jumped. “Fine.” My eyes moved away from his. “I submitted my story to Bel. The lady who runs that blog.”
“A story about me?”
“About your artwork. About that night. That’s it. She wasn’t exactly happy, but it was something.”
“Are you going to keep writing for her?” Josh asked.
My eyes met his again.
Do you want to hear about the letter I found? About how I’m so obsessed with the letter? And there’s this girl or woman named Delilah that I can’t stop thinking about…
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” I said. “I don’t care.”
“What do you mean you don’t care?”
I shook my head. “Nothing, Josh. It’s…”
“It’s what?”
“Nothing,” I said.
I turned and walked away.
I should have known better.
Josh’s hands touched my waist and he spun me around. I stumbled back and bumped into the kitchen table, realizing there was nowhere left for me to go. Now, I could swing my hand, slap Josh across the face and run to my room, but I was frozen.
By his presence.
By his stare.
His hands touching my waist.
His body inching closer to mine.
I was captivated and hypnotized in a way that no other guy had ever come close to doing to me.
“Why don’t you want to write anymore?” he whispered.
“I gave you my story,” I whispered back. “Now it’s your turn. Then we can go back to me.”
“Maybe we can go back to you right now,” he said. “No words though. I’ll get a different kind of story from you.”
My lips trembled as he lowered his mouth down to mine.
As my eyes shut, I saw images flash of him carrying me to my bedroom.
Within that, all the things that were right and wrong with it collided.
Just like his lips and mine.
But the kiss - and everything else - was short-lived as the apartment door opened.
I hated having a roommate.
Grace charged through the apartment, completely disregarding the fact that I was against the table with Josh so close to me. It was obvious what was happening and no, he wasn’t checking my eye for an eyelash or something stupid like that.
When I saw Grace was crying, I put my hands to Josh’s chest and pushed.
He moved away and Grace finally stopped.
She straddled the threshold of the small kitchen and the small dining room.
“Nobody can see me like this,” she said as she stared down the hall. “In this moment of true weakness.”
“Grace, are you okay?” I asked.
“No. I’m not.”
I looked at Josh and I gritted my teeth.
He slowly nodded. He showed his hands and backed away.
I reached for him, wanting a proper goodbye.
Without a word, he took his cellphone out of his pocket and waved it at me.
I nodded to him.
A silent conversation.
And something about that was sexy as hell.
He snu
ck out of the apartment as Grace stood in the same spot, weeping.
And I mean weeping… like a bad actress in a bad play. Putting the back of her right hand to her mouth and whining in an almost fake way.
“Grace…”
“Who was that?” she asked.
“That guy? That was Josh.”
Her head turned and looked at me. “The one you wrote about?”
“Yes.”
“He was here? About what you wrote?”
I licked my lips. I tasted Josh. “Sort of.”
“What a terrible day.”
“What’s wrong, Grace?”
“I lost Ginger,” she said. She shut her eyes and started to weep again.
“Ginger…?”
Her eyes shot open. “My cat. Okay, Amelia? I lost my fucking cat!”
She ran down the hall to her bedroom.
I rubbed my forehead, trying to figure out what just happened. I came home to find Josh talking with Miss Laura. I blinked my eyes and Josh was pinning me against a table, kissing me, making everything feel okay. I blinked again and Grace was home, crying.
I thought it was something serious.
It was something about a cat.
I moved into the kitchen and filled the silver tea kettle with water.
Pulling a card out of my mother’s playbook, I made two cups of tea. Except this tea wasn’t going to taste dirty and the milk wasn’t going to be expired.
I kept looking over my shoulder, wondering where Josh had gone.
He came to tell me his story. Or some of his story.
What I’ve always wanted to know about him. Nothing to do with Bel and all that stuff. Just me and Josh. Just me figuring out about the boy who used to save me and what kind of man he was now.
Except now he was gone again. And I was carrying two cups of tea down the hallway.
I opened Grace’s door to find her sitting on the corner of her bed, staring down at the floor.
“Hey,” I said. “Brought you some tea.”
“Tea?”
“My mother used to make tea when I was upset. Well, when she was upset. I don’t know if it actually does anything or not.”
Grace grinned. “You’re a good person. I’m sorry I chased away your friend.”
“You didn’t,” I said. Lie. “We were just talking.” Lie.
“Ginger is gone.”
A Letter to Delilah Page 12