“You like Black Sabbath?”
I forget my intimidation and discomfort for a moment, and just answer like I would if I were speaking to anyone else. “Dude, they’re only the best metal band of all time!”
He considers me in silence for what feels like four thousand years. My face grows redder and redder. So much for forgetting the discomfort.
I finish with a lame “But eighties rock is really my thing. Love and Rockets, you know them? That’s my favorite band.”
Bella smiles up at us, tongue lolling in delight. She has decided she likes this new game where she gets petted by both her master and the incredibly stupid, crimson-faced girl.
A.J., releasing me from the prison of his stare, looks down at Bella. He rubs her belly thoughtfully. After a moment, he says, “It’s the quality of the voices.”
I wait, then mutter a hesitant “Um . . .”
“In opera. The voices are exquisite. In rock, pop, rap, R&B, pretty much every other genre of music, the quality of the singer’s voice isn’t as important as his sound. Which is to say his vocal style, not the purity or range of his voice. That can be dressed up in a million ways, especially today with all the auto-tune bullshit. But when an opera singer opens her mouth, you’re listening to an artist who’s honed her natural talent for hours a day, every day, for years. Like Inva Mula singing ‘Il Dolce Suono.’ She’s a lyric soprano. Her voice is laser pure, laser focused. And the colors . . .”
He closes his eyes.
I watch him in open fascination, because I can. I’m intoxicated by the way he looks right now, relishing the memory of the color of a woman’s voice. I find it impossibly, almost painfully, beautiful.
“Can you describe it to me?”
He inhales. His exhale is slow, deep, relaxed. Without opening his eyes, he says, “Only in comparison. A bass voice is like . . . a stormy midnight sky. Sapphire blue and deep purple, rich and opaque. Baritones are slightly lighter, still night, but a clear night, shimmering with stars. Tenors are the like hours just before dawn, when it’s not daytime yet, but it’s no longer full night. There are bolder blues, cobalt, emeralds, even hits of lavender at the higher ranges.
“Then there’s the lowest female voice, the contralto. That’s dawn. Orange, fuchsia, and red. Glimmering. The next higher range is alto, then mezzo-soprano, both lighter, more vibrant, sparkling pinks and aquamarines, a clear midmorning, headed toward high noon.”
He pauses. I’m completely enthralled. He inhales again, and his voice lowers an octave.
“Finally there’s the soprano. For me a lyric soprano voice is the brightest, most brilliant of all sounds. It’s like . . . looking up at a midday sun, squinting, your eyes watering because it’s so searingly bright. It’s gold and yellow and crystalline white, glinting and weightless. It’s like standing on a mountaintop on a perfect winter’s day, feeling snowfall on your upturned face. It’s like being showered in diamonds.”
I’m so moved by his words, I forget to stop staring when he opens his eyes and looks at me. His amber eyes are the softest I’ve ever seen them. My heart squeezes inside my chest.
He says quietly, “There’s one voice even more beautiful than the lyric soprano’s, though.”
I can hardly find the words, but somehow, beyond the sudden sense that the world has stopped turning, I do. “Which is?”
His gaze drops to my mouth. A ghost of a smile lifts his lips. “The coloratura. It’s a very rare, agile soprano.”
I’m breathless. I’m weightless. I feel my pulse in every vein in my body. “What’s it like?”
He lifts his eyes to mine, and gazes at me for a long, excruciating moment. “I don’t think I can describe it in color. It’s bigger than that. Deeper. It’s more like . . .”
For a moment, he struggles for words. He turns to look out the windows, lost in thought.
“It’s like a feeling. Like that feeling you get when you’ve been away from home for far too long, and you’re tired and hungry, and just fucking spent, and your car is low on gas and it’s getting dark, and you’re sick of cheap hotels and cheap diners and every song on the radio and every thought in your head, and all you want to do is crawl into your own bed and fall into a dead sleep . . . and then you turn the last corner, and there it is. Home. All your troubles melt away with one big sigh, and you hit the gas hard, because you just can’t stay away one second longer.”
He turns his head, and looks so deeply into my eyes I feel naked.
“It’s like coming home to your own brightly lit house after wandering alone for years in the unwelcome dark.”
Again, he’s moved me almost to tears. I’ve never heard a man speak so eloquently, with so much emotion, such raw honesty. It’s like he’s just let me glimpse at his soul.
I wonder if he can hear my heart beating. I wonder what he would do if I took his face in my hands and kissed him, just went ahead and did it because I know he never will.
I whisper, “A.J.”
Emotion wells in his eyes. His brows furrow. He swallows, hard.
Sensing the sudden shift in mood, Bella lets out a soft, worried bark. Just as quickly as it happened, our peaceful little interlude evaporates with an almost audible poof.
A.J. withdraws. He sets the dog gently down on the mattress, where she curls into a little ball by his pillow and promptly falls asleep. There’s a white T-shirt near the pillow, which A.J. snatches up and yanks over his head, pulling it down to cover his abdomen.
Coldly, he says, “It’s time for you to leave.”
“A.J.—”
“Leave!” he booms, whirling around to glare at me. “How many times do I have to ask you?”
I leap backward with a cry. He advances, forcing me to retreat. I stumble over my feet in my haste, and nearly lose my balance. Gasping, I fling my arms wide, but, once again, A.J. is there to steady me before I fall.
He grips me by my upper arms, staring down at me, his face red. He backs me against the wall next to the door. He demands harshly, “Why did you really come? What is it you really want, Chloe? You looking for a cheap thrill, something you can brag about to your girlfriends? Oh, wait, that’s right—you only fuck if it’s in the context of ‘love.’ Is that what you came looking for, Princess?” he sneers. “Love? Well you’re looking in the wrong fucking place.”
Only a few days ago, this crass, angry speech would have made me livid. But now it’s too late; I’ve peeked behind the golden curtain. I know the kind of man that’s lurking inside, how sad he is behind his mask. How layered and complex behind the façade of swaggering, skirt-chasing sneers.
How lonely.
Looking into his eyes, I say softly, “You don’t fool me.”
His entire body stiffens. His lips part. Into his eyes comes a look of pure torture. He whispers a halting, “W-what?”
“I see you, A.J. I see you. All the way past your big scary exterior. You don’t have to let me in; I can’t make you, and it’s obvious you don’t want to. But I want you to.” My voice breaks. “Think about that while you’re up here all alone with your tragic Italian operas and your only friend, Bella.”
I yank my arms from his grip and turn to leave. In one swift move, he slams the door shut, blocking my way, and pushes me back against it.
He stares at my face, my mouth, my eyes, my hair. He breathes raggedly, his gaze devouring. He trembles with the effort to hold himself back. It’s so clear; what he wants is to crush his mouth against mine, just as badly as I want it.
He fights. He fights himself so hard, it makes my heart bleed.
In a flash of comprehension, I understand. All his strange behavior, all his anger, all the flip-flopping of emotions he seems to go through whenever I’m near.
I reach up and touch his face. “I hurt you, somehow, don’t I? Being near me hurts you.”
His lashes flutter. In a low, choked voice that sounds like it rises from the deepest pit of hell, A.J. answers, “Being near you makes me want to die.”
<
br /> Pain pierces my heart. Tears well in my eyes. No one has ever said anything even remotely like that to me before, and it hurts so much I’m breathless. I’m being hollowed out by knives.
“Why?”
He laughs. Somehow it’s even worse than what he’s just told me. The sound is vicious, heartless, totally without mercy. “Because you have a smile like a sunrise and eyes that could end all wars, and you have no idea, you have no fucking clue, that when you look at me, you’re looking at a dead man.”
His face twists with misery. His eyes are wet. When he speaks, his voice cracks. “But mostly because you give me hope. You fucking haunt me with hope. And I can’t forgive you for that. Now get the hell out and don’t ever come back!”
He shoves me through the door, out into the hallway. He slams the door in my face. He turns the deadbolt with a decisive, dismissive clack.
I stare openmouthed at the door. Seconds pass to a minute.
From behind the closed door, A.J. roars, “GO!”
I’m jolted into motion by the fury in his shout. I turn and flee, running at top speed. My footsteps pound down the empty corridor. My vision wavers from all the water pooling in my eyes. I take the staircase three stairs at a time, stumbling and cursing, hanging on to the gritty handrail and holding back sobs, until I burst through the front door. I stop to catch my breath on the porch, leaning over with my hands on my knees.
Music blasts at top volume from upstairs.
I lift my head, listening. It’s not opera this time, but a rock song. As soon as the bass joins in, I recognize it, and the knife twists a little deeper into my guts.
It’s Love and Rockets, my favorite band. The song?
“Haunted.”
The tears I’ve been holding back finally succeed in breaking out and spill down my cheeks. I straighten and run all the way back to my car.
I don’t look back once.
I stand in front of the bathroom sink, staring at my reflection in the mirror. My face is twisted in misery. My lip quivers. My eyes are red and wild.
The hand holding the blade to my throat shakes so hard I cut myself. A single drop of crimson wells from my skin, slides down five inches of sharpened steel, and drops off the end. It lands in the sink with a soft purple splash.
I can do it. I need to do it. I need to do it now, while I still have any control left.
She’s been gone ten minutes, but her colors still blind me. Her colors are everywhere, saturating everything, the air itself. She shows up at my door like an apparition, like a demon, promising everything with those goddamn swimming-pool blue eyes, those beautiful, innocent eyes, and she makes me want to kill myself.
Worse, she makes me want to fall on my knees and beg for a forgiveness I know will never come, because it isn’t deserved.
Ready now, I inhale. I press the blade harder against the pulse in my throat. Just one flick of my wrist. A single, effortless slice—
Bella pads into the bathroom. She sits at my feet. She looks up at me, wags her tail, and whines.
She’s hungry.
Trembling, I slowly lower the blade from my skin. My laugh is shaky, and sounds just this side of insane.
I drop the bloodied blade into the sink, and go to make dinner for my dog.
There’s always tomorrow.
I spend the weekend cleaning my apartment and licking my wounds.
The encounter with A.J. has left me so raw I don’t trust myself to talk to anyone. So I hide, ignoring phone calls, scrubbing the kitchen floor, reorganizing my closet, and dusting things that haven’t been dusted since I moved in. It’s therapeutic. By Sunday night I’ve regained some semblance of my former sense of balance. I sit down with a glass of chardonnay at the kitchen table to think.
I’ve had my fair share of boyfriends—not as many as Grace, lord knows, but I suspect that number is in the triple digits—and, prior to A.J., I thought I had men pretty much figured out. I thought most guys were basically just the bigger, louder, smellier version of girls. But this one has really thrown me for a loop. I just can’t get my head around his whole mess. I have so many unanswered questions about A.J., so many puzzle pieces that don’t fit, I’m at a loss as to how to proceed.
Two things: First, I’m not that girl who chases guys. Especially guys who have clearly said they’re not interested. Or, more gallantly, “you make me want to die.” I don’t think that could possibly be interpreted as anything remotely romantic. Although I’m sure there are girls out there who would take that statement as a challenge, I’m not one of them. I don’t want to be the nail in anyone’s coffin, thank you very much.
Second, I don’t think it’s fair or realistic to ask other people to change for you. If you want to change for them, knock yourself out. But if you’re thinking your relationship would be perfect if only he would do (or not do) this or that, you’re doomed to misery. Let him go, and find someone who fits you better. Nobody likes a nag.
Which leads me to the only logical conclusion.
A.J. is a no-go.
Forget the thermonuclear chemistry between us. Forget that he’s maybe the most soulful, beautiful, and—when he wants to be—sweet man I’ve ever met; he obviously comes with so much baggage, any relationship we could attempt would sink like a mafia rat thrown off the docks with his feet encased in cement.
Also, there’s the matter of the prostitutes.
I can just see it now. “Mom, Dad, I’d like to introduce you to my new boyfriend, A.J.! He’s super angry and unstable, is an expert at sending mixed messages, and just loves hookers! Don’t you, honey!”
I sigh, and drink my wine.
The phone rings; it’s my brother. This is one call I won’t avoid. Smiling, I pick up. “Hey, big brother, how are you?”
“Bug,” he says, his voice warm, “I’m glad I caught you. I’m great, back in the Big Apple where I belong. But the real question is: How are you? That little performance of yours the other night at the ’rents was straight out of an episode of Downton Abbey.”
I can tell he’s impressed. Jamie and I have always had a great relationship. He’s older than me by seven years, but it doesn’t feel like it. We’ve always been close, so I tell him the truth.
“I’m confused, a little depressed, and, according to Grace, in need of a good rogering.”
His response is dry. “Aren’t we all.”
“I’m being serious.”
“About which part? Because I might be able to help you out with the first two problems, but that last one is a little TMI, even for me.”
I puff out my lower lip and blow my hair off my forehead. “It’s just, you know. Men.”
His chuckle is knowing. “Men, plural? Or are we talking about one man in particular? Because I can see how that might be a problem, considering the size of those shoes.”
I glide right past the subject that he’s obsessed with, and move on. “How’d you know I wasn’t talking about Eric?”
There’s a short silence. “Because I’ve seen you with Eric. And you’ve never looked at Eric the way you looked at that scruffy blond sex god who walked into your store.”
I’m that obvious. Wonderful. I rest my forehead on my hand.
“Don’t worry, I don’t think anyone else can tell. Except for maybe the man himself. Honestly, bug, it was a little weird standing there while the two of you eye-fucked each other over the counter.”
Embarrassed, I bristle. “We were arguing, not eye-fucking!”
He snorts. “Don’t get testy, sis, I’m just calling it like I see it. And what I saw was two people trying to pretend they dislike each other enormously when what they really want is to get into each other’s pants.”
I deflate just as quickly as I snapped. “Anyway, it’s not going to happen. There’s only so many soul-killing statements a girl can take before she gets the hint.”
“Soul killing? That’s a little dramatic. Did he call you a princess again? Maybe something worse, a duchess, perhaps?”
<
br /> “Are you ready for this?” I pause for dramatic effect. “He said, and I quote, ‘Being near you makes me want to die.’” I slap the table for added emphasis and sit back in my chair.
Jamie sounds disturbed. “I have to admit, that’s a little different than calling you Princess. Was he laughing when he said it?”
My voice grows quiet. “Actually, he looked like he was about to cry.”
“So what did you say?”
In order to give it the proper perspective, I rewind and tell him the story, beginning from when I bumped into A.J. at Flaming Saddles last Sunday night, and ending with Friday, when I pulled the genius move of showing up unannounced at his haunted hideout. When I’m finished, Jamie is silent for so long I have to ask if he’s still there.
“What you’re describing is a man in a great deal of pain. You realize that, right, Chloe?”
He’s dead serious. He even sounds worried, like he’s warning me.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because when it’s in pain, an animal hides. And, if cornered and feeling threatened, it lashes out. Your friend is doing both.”
My lungs constrict, making it harder to breathe. “I know.”
“So here’s my piece of big-brotherly advice. Do with it what you will.”
I listen hard, my heart beating a little faster.
“Wait.”
I frown at the phone. “What do you mean, wait? He’s not going to change—”
“Not for him to change.”
“What then?”
“For him to decide what he wants more: his pain, or you.”
I drink my wine, swiping angrily at the moisture in the corner of my eye.
“And in the meantime, live your life. I’m not saying sit by the phone and pine away. I’m just saying that it might take him a minute or two to come around. You can’t push it. But the way you two looked at each other . . . I don’t think you should throw the idea out the window just yet. So just wait. Leave him alone. Let’s see what he does if he doesn’t feel cornered.”
Because this little pep talk is giving me too much hope, I blurt, “He’s into prostitutes. Like, really into them. They’re all he dates.”
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