Reborn

by Stacy, S. L.

  “Thanks, love!”

  “Are you guys ready to order or do you want more time?”

  We exchange glances around the table and determine that, yes, we are indeed ready to order. Jimmy and Peter both request burgers cooked medium rare, and I order the Cajun chicken sandwich. We get a large basket of fries to share.

  “This looks good,” Jimmy says when Emmett brings out our food. “What?” he asks, catching my confused sideways glance.

  “That’s exactly the same inflection you used when you told me I looked good,” I tease him before nipping off the end of a hot, salty fry. Jimmy winks at me and takes an enormous bite of his burger.

  Peter drains the last of his fuchsia colored drink before saying, “So, tell me about this new boyfriend of Anna’s.”

  Jimmy chokes on his sandwich at the same time I ask, “Anna has a new boyfriend?”

  “Uh, yeah.” Peter’s twinkling blue eyes flicker between me and Jimmy. “She went away with him for the week.”

  “Sh-she told me she was going on a retreat!” Jimmy sputters.

  “I saw her leave with him,” Peter insists. “Big guy. Kind of looks like a…” He strokes his smooth chin with his fingers as he searches for a fitting description.

  “A sexy lumberjack?” I reluctantly finish for him.

  He points at me. “Yes,” he says as though I’ve just suggested how to unify the theory of relativity with quantum mechanics. “I didn’t think he was her type. I thought she had more refined taste.” Peter straightens up in his chair.

  “Don’t tell me you’re jealous,” Jimmy says. “It’s been months since you broke up.”

  “It’s been four months, and she broke up with me,” Peter reminds him.

  “Because you’re gay.”

  Peter flicks his hand like he’s waving away an invisible fly. “Don’t come at me with your labels. I like everyone. It was the strangest thing,” he continues. “One minute I hear them talking in her room—”

  “Her bedroom,” Jimmy cries, covering his face with his hand.

  “—and the next thing I know, I walk past her room on my way to the bathroom, the door is open, but they’re gone. I didn’t hear them go downstairs or anything. It’s like they vanished.” Peter snaps his fingers. “Poof.”

  “This is bad,” I mutter, but I’m starting to feel the effects of my drink, and it comes out through a hiccup of laughter.

  Jimmy throws up his hands and brings them back down hard on the table, rattling our plates and glasses. “So where did they go?”

  “Olympus.” Even though it’s a serious suggestion, the absurdity of it makes me giggle into my drink.

  Peter thinks I’m joking and picks up the gag. “Atlantis. Space.” We’re both clutching our sides, laughing so hard we’re barely making a sound anymore. Jimmy just stares at his half-eaten burger, shaking his head. Emmett comes to check on us, and I try to recover myself.

  “Does anybody need anything?”

  “She doesn’t,” Peter chuckles, jerking his thumb at me. “She needs cut off. But can I get another one of these?” He thrusts his empty cocktail glass toward Emmett. “Pwease?” he implores in a babyish voice, puffing out his lower lip.

  A pink blush creeps up Emmett’s cheeks as he takes the glass. “No problem. Anybody else?”

  “I think we’re good,” I tell him, sinking down in my chair and trying not to look up at Peter, who has wrapped a napkin around his head like a kerchief and is shouting in a voice a few octaves higher than normal.

  “Oh, please, Mr. Sexy Lumberjack Man! Please take me away from here! My evil, over-protective brother keeps me locked up in this house—”

  “Hey, Jim!”

  Peter swipes the napkin from his head and lays it back on his lap as someone tall with the build of a linebacker looms up behind Jimmy and slaps him on the back. He’s flanked by a group of six or so guys. “You guys going on soon?”

  “Hey, man.” Jim glances at his phone. “Yeah, in about twenty. We should start setting up,” he adds to Peter.

  “You gotta play ‘Serena’ tonight.”

  “Oh, well—we’re not really taking requests.” Jimmy tries to turn back to the table, but their fan doesn’t let up.

  “Ah, come on!” he groans.

  “I just don’t really think there will be time—”

  “You have to. You guys never play your old stuff anymore.”

  Jimmy glances at Peter for help, but the keyboardist just shrugs.

  “It’s not a big deal,” Peter says. “We should be able to fit it in.”

  “Okay. Maybe,” Jimmy concedes, but he still looks uncomfortable.

  “Yeah!” The guy punches the air in triumph.

  Peter has a huge, fake smile plastered on his face that disappears when the guy and his friends turn away to sit down at the next table over. “Who was that?” he asks Jimmy.

  Jimmy shakes his head in bewilderment. “I guess I must know him from somewhere, but I don’t remember.”

  “What’s ‘Serena?’” I wonder.

  “A song I wrote a long time ago. A really long time ago.” Jimmy gets up and pushes his chair under the table. “We’d better go. I feel bad leaving you here by yourself.”

  “Don’t worry about me. This is great.” I lean back in my chair and cross my legs. “I feel like a groupie.” Jimmy laughs and leans down to kiss me.

  “So tell me more about this ‘sexy lumberjack’ Anna was with…” I hear Jimmy ask Peter before their voices fade out as they leave to set up. I drain the rest of my lemon drop and surf the web on my phone.

  Ten minutes later, the lights in the bar get even dimmer, and Jimmy quickly introduces his band mates before they start their first song. I recognize all of the songs they play in the first half from the other concerts. Thankfully Jimmy isn’t cutting himself this time.

  “My friend over there,” Jimmy announces, pointing at Linebacker’s table, “has requested a song we haven’t done in a while that I wrote about a girl named Serena.” He glances nervously in my direction while Peter plays a haunting intro on his keyboard. Why is he so anxious? Is Serena an old girlfriend? Jimmy starts to sing, his voice deep and trembling, and at first I let the music wash over me as it saturates the atmosphere at The End with angst.

  “From behind her pompoms she flashes you a pretty smile,” Jimmy whispers, and the line pricks my ears. I really start to listen to the lyrics. “But when she’s with her friends you will only hear denial…” If Jimmy hadn’t been so reluctant to play the song—if he didn’t keep looking my way while he was singing it—I probably wouldn’t have realized it.

  The song is about me.

  I’m Serena.

  I get up when he’s still in the middle of it and stomp out of the bar. Jimmy fumbles the lyrics, and the guitar melody dies.

  “Siobhan, wait!” he calls into the microphone. I keep walking, not looking back. The rest of the band stops playing, and desperate footsteps sound behind me.

  “Siobhan, I told you!” Jimmy catches up with me outside. It’s pouring again, the rain making a tinny sound as it falls on the awning. “I wrote that song in high school. I’m not angry at you anymore!”

  I hesitate, then turn slowly around to face him. “You’re not angry at me anymore?”

  “Come on. You have to admit, you kind of deserved it,” he says bitterly.

  “You know what? I know what I did was wrong, and I’ve always regretted it. A day hasn’t gone by when I haven’t thought of you and wished things had turned out differently.

  “But I’m tired of feeling like I’m the only one who screwed up.” I go up to him and jab him in his hard, bare chest with my finger. “You kept secrets from me, too. You could have told your friends to stop making fun of me. And you didn’t have to play the damn song.”

  “This is stupid.” He takes my hand and gives it a tight, earnest squeeze. “It’s in the past. We both need to get over it if we’re ever going to—”

  “I slept over at
Jasper’s last night.” I don’t know what makes me say it. I wasn’t planning on telling him, but suddenly the confession is flying off my lips, and I can’t take it back.

  For a moment, he doesn’t say anything. He just releases my hand, crosses his arms and shakes his head in disbelief.

  “Did you hook up with him?” He asks it softly, as if he’s afraid of my answer.

  “Of course not!”

  “You’re right—I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. That’s not the point anyway. It’s that I hurt you by playing the song, but instead of trying to work it out, you tell me something that you know will hurt me.” Jimmy frowns in disgust. “That’s really low.”

  “You’re hurt?”

  “Of course! I love you!” For an instant, Jimmy looks like he’s surprised himself, but then he reaches for me, like he’s going to pull me into an embrace. “I always have.”

  I step back, holding out my hands to stop him. “I can’t deal with this right now.”

  “Where are you going?” he calls after me as I walk out into the torrential rain.

  “Home,” I tell him.

  “Come on. I can drive you.”

  I shake my head, pursing my lips. I hope the droplets of rain skimming down my face conceal the fact that some of them are tears. “I’ll take the bus.”

  “Siobhan!”

  I run as fast as I can in my heels in the direction of the bus stop. When I get there I sit down on the bench under the shelter and slick back my wet hair out of my face. I wipe at my cheeks with my hands, the pads of my fingers turning up black from my melting mascara. I let out another choking sob and cover my face with my hands.

  “Siobhan?”

  I start at the sound of my name, knowing who it is even before I look up.

  “Are you okay?” Jasper asks me. He closes his black umbrella and sits down beside me. “Did something bad happen?” Reaching into the pocket of his trench coat, he pulls out a white handkerchief, because of course he would have one of those. I’m feeling too sorry for myself to make fun of him for it. Sliding closer to me, he dabs my wet cheeks with it.

  “Is there anything I can do?” he wonders, retracting his hand.

  I study his face: his worried frown, the creases in his forehead, the unreachable dark pools of his eyes. Grabbing his face with both of my hands, I pull it closer to mine so that I can kiss him, pouring all of my anger and frustration into it. Jasper gives into it gladly, dragging me onto his lap as rain slaps the roof above us.

  Part Three

  Withdrawal

  “Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for you. I move the stars for no one.”–Lyrics Within You, David Bowie, Labyrinth Soundtrack

  Chapter 21

  As soon as Jasper and I go inside his apartment, his lips find mine again, and he picks me up and carries me to his bed with ease. He sits on the edge of it with me straddling him, rocking myself against his erection. Breathing hard, he reluctantly breaks our kiss to ask me, “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  I crush my lips against his in answer. Although my mind’s still fuzzy from the alcohol, that’s not what’s driving my sudden abandon. It’s him. And somewhere in my Jasper-addled brain, Rational Siobhan tries to poke through the haze with words of warning, but I shove her back. I don’t want to think; I just want to feel Jasper’s hands possessing me, to hear our moans of frustration between kisses. I want to taste the salt of his skin and the metallic sting of his blood when I accidentally nip his lower lip too hard.

  In one swift motion he pulls my shirt over my head and throws it to the floor. His breath hitches in his throat as he drinks me in.

  “God, you’re gorgeous,” he says, his voice raspy and husky with need. His greedy lips move from my mouth, down my neck to my chest as he unhooks my bra and flings that aside, too, allowing my wings to unfurl. I lean back and continue to grind against him as his mouth claims one of my breasts, rolling his thumb over the nipple of the other.

  His free hand is supporting my lower back and tugs at the waistband of my leggings. “Let’s get these off of you,” he murmurs against my breast. He lifts me up and lays me down beneath him on the bed. He slides my leggings down over my hips, buttocks and legs. I’ve found that undressing is usually the most awkward part of sex, but not with Jasper; his every move is smooth and expert, and in seconds we’re both completely naked.

  “Jasper.” I shudder as his fingers plunge into me suddenly and forcefully. I think I’m going to come already, but then he slows down the motion, sliding them out and teasing my clitoris with this thumb. His kisses become lighter and more deliberate as well, and when I try to pick up the pace again he chuckles.

  “Just relax. Let’s take our time.” He says it as he’s still teasing me down below.

  “But I want you.” My voice is barely above a whisper.

  “What do you want, Siobhan?” His expectant stare lets me know he wants me to tell him exactly what I want.

  “You.” I grab him and glide my hand eagerly up and down his shaft. “Inside me.” He throbs underneath my touch, growing harder, which I didn’t even think was possible.

  His wings emerge, enveloping me in a black, feathery curtain as he finally plunges inside me. My fingers dig into his back. His thrusts are deep and furious and quickly bring me to orgasm—much faster than Max’s. As he watches me come again and again, he looks at me with a mixture of fascination and something that could be triumph.

  Like waves pushing up against the beach, roll after roll of explosive pleasure racks my body. I lose track of time, but Jasper eventually finds his release. For a moment he stays on top of me, and we cling to each other, panting and sweating. He eases off of me and pulls me into his chest. I nuzzle up against him and close my eyes.

  When I open them again, we’re spooning on the bed, and the room is completely dark. I crane my neck to look over at him. Watching me through hooded eyes, he realizes I’m awake and presses his lips lightly to mine. Our hunger reignites, and I can feel him growing hard against my behind. He crawls on top of me and leaves a trail of kisses down my neck, across my breasts and over my abdomen until his head disappears beneath the covers.

  ***

  The second time I wake up, sunlight strains against the closed blinds, and I’m alone in his bed. The top sheet has come loose from the mattress, and the cozy charcoal gray comforter has fallen to the hardwood floor. I stare up at the milky white ceiling lamp, blinking back sleep from my eyes. In a dream-like state, last night slipped by like sand through my fingers. We could have been making love for days, even weeks, and I wouldn’t have sensed time’s passage. But I know it’s only been the one night.

  I look over at the digital clock on the nightstand—it’s ten in the morning—and see a note on his pillow. I reach over to grab it and bring it to my face:

  Went to campus. You looked so content, I hated to wake you. Thanks for a beautiful night. Use anything you need, and see you later. —J

  I stretch, roll out of bed and pick the sheet up from the floor. The soft kiss of the sheet against my skin as I wrap it around myself reminds me of Jasper’s satin touch. I plod barefoot to the bathroom. It’s not until I get in the shower, turn it on and have to jump back from the ice cold spray battering my face that it really hits me:

  Jasper and I had sex.

  And I feel…

  Well, mostly I feel pretty glorious. Heat still gathers between my thighs as I recall our lovemaking and, although I got lost in every delicious, carnal moment, it held a note of intimacy I hadn’t been expecting. There was desire in his touch, but also tenderness. Last night Jasper was Eros making love to his long lost wife.

  If I wasn’t confused before, I definitely am now. I know in a past life I was supposed to have loved him, but whoever Psyche was I’m not that same woman. And except for the memories that resurface as dreams, I don’t remember my life with him. Circumstances are different now—maybe even he’s different. Jasper is still the guy who left me with an uncontrollab
le ability that made my adolescence miserable. The guy who’s been keeping his little spy club (or whatever it is they’re doing) a secret from me.

  And what about Jimmy? I know we had a fight, but he told me he’s in love with me—that he’s always loved me. A part of me never stopped loving him, too. I didn’t want to screw it up this time, but I probably already have after the way I acted yesterday; plus I’ve gone and done the very thing I told Jimmy didn’t happen.

  I get out of the shower and pat myself dry with one of Jasper’s dark green towels. I don’t have a toothbrush here, so I open the cabinet above the sink in search of some mouthwash. It’s virtually empty except for his toothpaste, a bottle of Listerine and an amber-colored bottle with an eyedropper cap. I guess Olympians don’t need cough syrup or ibuprofen. I take down the Listerine and the glass bottle, turning it around to look at the white label. Ambrosia is scrawled across it in dark pencil. I’ve heard of ambrosia before—I just can’t remember what it was in Greek mythology. I thought it was supposed to be their food or something. Unscrewing the cap, I bring it up to my nose and take a delicate whiff: sweet, like honey.

  My mouth minty fresh, I place everything back where it was and close the cabinet door. I sigh when I go back into the “bedroom” and see my clothes from yesterday crumpled on the floor: Did I really just take a shower without having clean clothes to put on afterwards? I go commando in my leggings and cloak myself in another one of his black t-shirts—only this one has the Rolling Stones tongue stamped in red on the front of it. Does he actually listen to the Rolling Stones or does he just want to be trendy? What’s his favorite kind of music? Does he even like our music? Sadness and uncertainty creep over me, but I shake them off, grab my things and go outside to catch the bus.

  On the bus I finally check my phone. I have a dozen angry text messages from my sisters—Tanya, Victoria, Carly—all asking me where the hell I am. Curfew—just another thing that completely evaporated from my mind while I was with Jasper. The thought of going back to the house and facing Victoria, or worse, Farrah, makes my heart thud in my chest. Maybe I’ll just stay on campus all day until I absolutely have to go back.