by Mia Storm
Her look goes all incredulous. “But you just admitted to loving her.”
“That doesn’t mean I have the right to be selfish.” I tear off a hunk of breadstick with my teeth. “And at this point it really doesn’t matter. I come within fifty yards of her in the next ten months, I go back to jail for at least three years. Maybe more.”
Our dinners come and the waiter drops them onto our paper placemats.
“So tell her how you feel and ask her to wait,” she says.
I cram a bite of lasagna in my mouth. “For a year?”
“Ten months.”
“Ten more months of her childhood she’ll never get back.” I take another bite, chew, swallow. “When I was seventeen, I was getting drunk at post-football parties, going on awkward dates, shoplifting condoms with my guys, and jacking off to my buddy Joey’s dad’s Playboy magazines. I can’t ask her to sit around and wait for me if it means missing her opportunity to experience those things.”
“You’re afraid she’ll miss awkward dates and Playboy magazines?” she asks, raising her eyebrows.
“Yes. I don’t want to deprive her of awkward dates.”
I scarf down another huge wedge of lasagna and wash it down with the rest of my beer. I catch the waiter’s eye and lift my empty glass. He heads to the bar for another.
She twirls some pasta onto her fork. “I would have given anything to skip seventeen.”
“You can say that now because you’ve already lived through it. If you’d skipped it, you’d always wonder what you missed.”
She looks at me another long minute as she chews. “Maybe,” she concedes after she swallows.
When we’re finished, she waves the waiter down and asks for the check. She scrapes her chair back and turns for the door. “Let’s find a bar and get really fucking shitfaced. You have lost time to make up for.”
We find a club on the next corner that’s loud and packed, and wind our way through the crush of sweaty bodies to the bar. I’m on my fourth…or maybe fifth scotch when a blonde and a redhead come up and ask me to dance.
Hannah gives me a little shove toward them. “Go. This is your coming out party.”
The blonde gives Hannah a look.
Hannah waves her hands. “He’s not gay. He just got out of jail.”
The blonde still looks wary, but a smile creeps over the redhead’s face. I let her drag me to the dance floor. I realize I’m drunker than I thought when I more stagger than walk. After the first song, I’m done and excuse myself. When I find Hannah again, she grins at me. “Get any phone numbers?”
I shake my head. “Wasn’t really feeling it.”
She gives me a long, reprising look that I ignore. I down the rest of my scotch and when she sips her drink through a straw, I realize she’s switched to club soda at some point.
“Come on, cowboy,” she says, setting down her glass and grabbing the front of my shirt. She starts dragging me through the throng to the door. “Let’s get you home.”
She guides me to her car and sets me in the passenger seat. I sag against the door and sort of zone out…or maybe pass out, as she drives. The next thing I know, we’re stopping.
“How was your first day of freedom?” she asks as she stands me up from the seat and loops an arm around my back.
I hook an elbow around her neck. “Being out doesn’t suck as much as being in.”
She half carries, half drags me into her apartment and lays me on the couch with a pillow and blanket. She sits on the edge and tucks the blanket around me. “What do you think you’re going to do now?”
I glare up at her. “You’re really going to make me sort my fucking life out this second? When I’m so fucked up I can’t even see straight?”
It comes out slurred, but she seems to understand.
“Sometimes that’s when you see the clearest,” she says, holding my gaze.
There’s only one thing I know I want, and I can’t have it. “I have no fucking clue,” I finally answer.
She bends and kisses me softly on the lips. “Sweet dreams, Philotes. I’ll see you in the morning.”
∞
I wake in a puddle of sweat with eyes that are crusted shut. I have to rub the shit out of them before I can get them open. The sun is beating through the picture window of her family room and cooking me right to the couch. I pull myself up and find Hannah at the kitchen counter in a short bathrobe, mucking with the coffee pot.
“That ready?” I ask.
She turns and looks at me. “Morning, bright-eyes.” She holds up a piece of curved black plastic. “And no. The doohickey that stops the coffee from dripping when you pull the carafe out came off and I can’t get it back on.”
I go over and inspect it for a minute, then snap the pieces back together in the only way it looks like they could go. “That look right?” I ask, handing it back. She slides it into the machine and it clicks in. “Looks like it.”
She presses the start button and as it percolates, even just the smell makes me feel more human. “Thanks for last night. It was good to be in the world again.”
She slips into a seat at her small kitchen table and checks her phone. She texts something and looks up at me, where I’m waiting near the coffee maker. “I think you should file an appeal with the dissertation board.”
“What would be the point? All I wanted my PhD for was so I could teach. I’ll have to disclose my statutory rape conviction on any job application I file. No university is going to hire me.”
“You worked for too long just to give up.”
There are at least two cups worth of coffee in the pot, so I yank it out and fill the two mugs Hannah left on the counter. “It was gone the second I decided to fuck Blaire behind the stacks.” Though I don’t remember ever making that conscious decision. I just remember getting so lost in her nothing else mattered.
I bring her mug over to her and down half of mine in one swallow. It burns my mouth and throat, but I don’t give a shit. It’s the first real coffee I’ve had in two months, and nothing has ever tasted better.
“If you’re not going to pursue teaching, then what are you going to do?”
I drop into the chair across from her. “You really are going to make me sort all this out right now, aren’t you?”
“I just think you need to consider what your options are. You’ve got a bachelor’s degree in English, right? And a master’s in comparative lit? There have to be options.”
“That don’t involve working with anyone under eighteen? Not many. Schools, libraries, they’re all out.”
“My mother is the executive editor for Brandish Publishing. They do mostly trade magazines. Have you thought about writing? Or even editing?”
I know she’s right. I need to start thinking about this. But right now, the toilet of my life has just finished flushing. All the shit has just swirled down the drain and it’s nothing but empty. Maybe when the tank starts to fill again I’ll be able to see potential options.
We put in a movie and Hannah stops pushing me to solve all my shit. When it’s over, I lay on the couch with my elbow hooked over my eyes and bake some more while she showers and changes.
It’s late in the afternoon when she drops me at my depressing apartment. It’s almost comforting to find the same group of gang bangers hanging around their cluster of low-riders.
“My car’s still here, so that’s something,” I say, stepping out of Hanna’s car.
“You’re going to be okay?” she asks, her eyes full of concern as they shoot to the bangers and back.
“Professor!” one of them calls. He grins as he raises a hand and metal teeth flash in the sun.
“Yeah,” I say, leaning down and looking at her through the open passenger window. “My homies missed me.”
“Call me later, okay?”
I nod. “Thanks for everything.”
I turn and climb the stairs into my apartment, then crawl into bed and stay there for the next two days.
Chapter 21
Blaire
The global sick feeling, like toxic swamp mud oozing through my veins, has finally started to fade.
It started with a movie, just like Nate promised. He bought us a bucket of popcorn and a large soda to share, and about halfway through the flick, I reached for his greasy hand and held it in mine, just to prove to myself I could. Something about facing down my fears and wanting desperately for something in my life to feel normal again.
A week later, we went to the lake. When he asked why I didn’t wear a swimsuit, I told him I was on my period. I sat in the sun and sweated in my jeans and sweatshirt, afraid if I showed Nate too much of myself, he might get the idea I was good to go. But by the end of the day, when he ran up onto the beach soaking wet and shook himself all over me like a dog, I swallowed the current of electric terror and I let him kiss me.
Two weeks ago, he took me for a burger and we made out in his car after. I gripped the upholstery and let him touch me through my clothes. When he brought me home, he told Marcus we were dating.
Marcus still isn’t speaking to either of us.
I have to say, the fact that Nate’s risked his brotherhood with Marcus for me says more than anything else he could have done. I mean more to him than even Marcus. But it hurts that it’s driven Marcus and I even farther apart. I feel like I’m floating alone in the world with no one but Nate.
Since then, we’ve gone to parties together and started hanging out with Zoey and some kids from my graduating class who decided I was cool after my graduation speech. We’ve made out and there’s been some groping, but he hasn’t pushed for sex.
Nate tells everyone he’s my boyfriend. I’m starting to get used to it. I’m pretty sure now that if he’d heard me say no on graduation night, he would have stopped.
Nate brought me to Tino’s tonight. I’m feeling way more emotional than usual, like I’m living just on the edge of tears, because this is my last slam. By the fourth Friday in August, I’ll be in Berkeley.
I’m second to last tonight, so we sit at a table near the front with some of the other poets and I hug each of them after they read. When Craig starts to announce me, I already feel the hot press of tears behind my eyes. I’ll be lucky to make it through without choking up onstage. I scrape my chair back, but as I turn toward the stage stairs, Nate stands and grabs my hand. He pulls me back to him with his full-throttle smile and tucks me against his hard body. “Kick some ass, baby girl,” he says, then kisses me long and hard.
I give him a weak smile when he lets me go and move to the stage. Craig grabs my hand at the top of the stairs. “We’re going to miss you,” he says as he squeezes, then his smile fades. “I’m going to miss you.”
I smile back and step up to the mic. I lower my head and breathe before looking up into the dark room and fixating on a spot over the bar.
I start; it’s a poem about sacrifice and compromise tonight. I’m on a roll when a dark figure passes through my focal point on the back wall. My eyes catch on him and when he looks up as he reaches the door, it’s Caiden’s face staring back at me.
I stumble over my words and he stalls in the door, as if he’s looking for some way to catch me before I fall. I take a deep breath and recover my spot, and as I finish my poem, he slips away.
My heart screams at me to chase him. To catch him. To hold him and never let him go. But my feet remain rooted to the stage. Because my head knows that he could be arrested for even being here.
We were notified when he got out of prison three days ago. I know what will happen if he comes near me. His misdemeanor would revert to a felony and he’d go back to jail for at least three years. When he finally got back out, he’d have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
It’s not until Craig hands me a tissue that I realize tears are streaming down my face. When I can finally move, he helps me down the stage stairs with an arm around my waist.
Nate takes me out of his arms at the bottom and guides me back to my seat. “You okay, babe?”
“Yeah, I just…” I sip my soda and will my mind to stop spinning. “This is my last slam before I leave for school. I’m going to miss it.”
Nate pulls me to his shoulder. “There’s no way you won’t be able to find a slam in East Bay. There’s got to be dozens of them.”
“I know, but these guys are my family.”
Gloria takes my hand and squeezes it. “Won’t be the same without you here, girlfriend.”
The last poet reads and the lights come up. There’s a line of people waiting to hug me or say goodbye, but I can’t help watching the door for Caiden. Nate is impatient and finally tugs me toward the door by my arm. I wave at the rest of the group as he pulls me outside.
“I was fucking roasting in there,” he says, towing me down the street to where he parked.
I look around, but I don’t see Caiden or his car. And I’m glad. It hacked a chunk out of my heart, seeing him standing in that room.
Nate drives me home, and when we get to my bedroom door, he takes my hand and pulls me through.
Caiden looked me right in the eye and walked away tonight. But Nate is here. Nate has always been here.
He kisses me as he backs me toward the bed. We strip without a word and he rolls a condom on. He turns off the light and I lay back on the bed. I close my eyes as he lays on top of me. He spreads my knees with his and something clamps hard in my stomach. I turn my head to the side so the pools in my eyes leak onto the pillow as he guides himself inside me.
“Just like coming home, babe,” he moans.
He fucks me slowly and kisses my wet face.
“Shh, baby,” he whispers when I whimper.
He comes with a groan a few minutes later and rolls off me.
I lay my head on his chest and listen to his heartbeat. I try to shut off my mind, but Caiden’s face is there, his blue eyes storming into mine. He’s got his own gravitational pull, and I’m his moon. I felt it the whole evening at Tino’s—an itchy restless feeling I couldn’t define—and when I saw him, I understood. My soul knew he was there the whole time. It was reaching for his. If I let myself slingshot alone through space, I will find my way back to him.
He made his choice. He walked away tonight. He doesn’t think I’m worth the risk.
So I wrap my arms around Nate and cling tightly to the only other planet that has any draw over me at all to keep the universe in balance.
Chapter 22
Caiden
If I get caught here, Hans and Franz are going to be very happy. Because three years is a long time to have to fight them off when I get my ass thrown back in jail for violating the restraining order.
I slip into Tino’s after the slam starts because I know it will be dark. I grab a stool in the back and order a double scotch, which I pound in a shot before ordering a second.
I recognize most of the people at the table up front with Blaire. Three of them are regular poets here. But the stalky brown-haired guy is new. He might have a few years on Blaire, but there’s no way he’s older than twenty. He’s about her height, so maybe five nine, but he’s built like a linebacker.
I watch them together: she, fidgeting with her hands in her lap, watching the stage and occasionally sipping her soda; he, always leaning toward her, always with a possessive hand on her leg, her back, in her hair. Whispering in her ear.
I want to know what he’s saying to her.
That Craig guy begins her intro and she stands and starts toward the stage, but the boyfriend yanks her back by the arm. I’m off the stool before I realize it, hating the way he’s manhandling her. But I rein myself back as he crushes her against him, laying his claim for everyone to see. They kiss, long and hard, and everything inside me seizes.
There is something seriously wrong with me. Maybe I really am the child molester everyone thinks I am, because I can’t stop obsessing over her. It’s been two months. Jail, probation, restraining orders—you’d think something would have b
een enough of a deterrent to cure me of my addiction. But no. I’ve been out of prison for three days, and here I am, already breaking my parole.
But Blaire is insidious, weaving herself into my DNA with unbreakable bonds. I put a tub of chocolate ice cream in my cart at the market yesterday and caught myself smiling. Some random girl in whatever mindless show I was watching last night twirled the ends of her hair around her finger and something warmed in my chest.
But she’s moved on.
She’s onstage, but suddenly being in this room with her is ripping out my soul. I toss back my third scotch and stand. I move to the door, but when I get there, I can’t help myself from glancing back—one last image of the girl who blew my mind to burn into my memory.
And her gaze levels me.
She steals my breath and freezes me in place with those sad whiskey eyes.
She stumbles on her words and the impulse to rush up there and catch her fall is so overpowering that it cracks the ice in my veins and propels me a step in her direction.
Before I remember that I can’t go to her.
Ever again.
She closes her eyes and takes a breath, then picks up the line she stumbled over and finishes from there.
She recovers.
Because that’s what normal people do when everything goes sideways. They pick up all their shit and make something that doesn’t stink.
I push out the door onto the sidewalk and stagger to my car. I climb in and find myself at Hannah’s without remembering anything about the drive.
She opens the door a crack, then wider when she sees it’s me. “Hey,” she says with a curious raise of her eyebrows.
It’s late and she’s in a short bathrobe, as if she might have been on her way to the shower. I push through the door and lift her off her feet, devouring her mouth as if it’s my last meal. She kicks the door closed and wraps her long legs around my waist. I carry her to the bedroom.
And do everything in my fucking power to recover.