by S. K. Falls
I couldn’t bring myself to say anything on the drive to Prescott Park. My heart slammed against my ribs and my breath felt short, like I’d been running. A trickle of sweat ran down my back. All I could think about was the vodka in the car. My mother, a fucking drunk. All those times I’d seen her sipping water in the car, when I’d been with her, she’d been getting shit-faced? And on the heels of that anger came a realization like a punch between the eyes: I was that terrible a daughter. Forget escaping reality; my mother would even risk death just to get the hell away from me.
When Drew touched the back of my hand with his finger, I jumped.
“You okay?” he asked, his eyes searching my face. “You’re a million miles away.”
“I’m fine,” I said, turning to look at the road. “It’s snowing. I want to pay attention so I don’t miss our turn.”
“Saylor.”
I could feel him looking at me, and finally, I turned to give him a quick glance, just to let him know I was listening.
“You don’t have to do that strong, ‘everything’s fine and fuckin’ dandy’ thing with me either. You know when you said I didn’t have to wear my mask with you?”
I nodded.
“Same goes for you, okay? We can’t have masks when we speak to each other, or we’re just going to end up even lonelier than we already are.”
I took a deep breath. I considered telling him exactly what was bothering me. I imagined the relief would feel like the wind in your hair when you fly down the interstate—absolutely freeing. But in the end, I found all I could manage was a small shaving off the mound of truth. I wasn’t completely ready to take off the mask just yet; I didn’t even know if I had a real face behind it. “Someone… someone I trusted hurt me. They were keeping this huge secret, and I had no idea.”
Drew stroked my hair gently and then returned his hand back to his lap. I felt its absence greatly. “Sometimes people do things because they’re hurting. You know? Maybe he or she didn’t mean for you to get caught in the crossfire.”
As I pondered his words, I realized how we could’ve been speaking about this elaborate façade I’d constructed. I wondered if, when, the truth came out about me, Drew would feel anything close to this sense of understanding. “Yeah. Maybe.”
“For what it’s worth, I’m honest. I’ll never lie to you, Saylor.” He said it quietly, looking straight ahead at the road unspooling before us.
I felt a lump in my throat and swallowed it down. “I know. I can tell that about you.”
He looked at me then, blue eyes smiling, and reached out a finger to tap my nose. “Good.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
When we pulled into the parking lot at Prescott Park, I turned off the engine and sat back against the seat. “Where to?” I asked.
“The formal gardens,” Drew said without hesitation, his forehead against the window.
We got out and began to walk.
I’d seen the formal gardens once or twice during the warmer months. Seeing them in the winter was like seeing them for the first time. It was as if we’d stepped right into some frosty Disney fairy tale.
The Japanese crabapple trees were bowed down with a heavy pile of snow. The three big fountains in the middle had been turned off for the season, but snow and ice covered their surfaces in just the right combination to make them look like ice sculptures, twinkling in the sunlight. The benches lining the gardens all had a few inches of snow on them. Everything was covered with a cold, serene white blanket.
“Wow,” I said, my breath a cloud as I looked around. “This is…”
“Amazing, isn’t it?” Drew’s cane made a deep hollow in the snow as he leaned heavily against it. “It was funny you mentioned having Jack’s birthday party here. This is my favorite place to come in the winter.”
“Apparently you’re not the only one.” My eyes stole across the gardens to the other corner. A bride and groom were having their pictures taken. In between shots, a woman handed the couple steaming mugs of something.
“Yeah, this place is pretty popular with the wedding crowd.” Drew began to walk gingerly down the brick path.
Looking at him set my teeth on edge. I could imagine him slipping on a patch of ice, cracking his head open on the brick. I wondered if he’d be offended if I grabbed hold of his arm, then decided against it. I settled for walking beside him instead, just in case.
He turned left at a bench and used his cane to clear off the top of it. The snow fell to the ground with a soft whoomph. Drew gestured to the spot beside him. I sat down, tucking my jacket under me so I wouldn’t get my jeans wet. Faint laughter from the bridal party reached us, the sound flat and hushed in the snow-laden environment. I’d always liked that about snow, how it seemed to suck the emotion right out of words.
“Do you think you’ll get married someday?” Drew’s eyes were far away. He was looking toward the bridal party, but, it seemed to me, not quite seeing them.
“I don’t know,” I said, fiddling with my gloves. “I haven’t really thought about it. What about you?”
He replied without hesitation. “No. I refuse to leave my would-be wife a young widow.”
“Some might say having a few years of true love is better than having none,” I said.
“And anyway,” he continued, as if I hadn’t spoken, “I’m not going to die around people I know.”
I studied the profile of his handsome face, the strong nose, the shadowed, stubble-covered jaw, the full lips. His bottom eyelashes were so long they curved and rested on his skin. “What do you mean?”
He looked at me, his blue eyes a silvery aqua against all the snow. “I’ll leave. When I begin to get too sick to look after myself, I’ll leave.”
I looked up at the crabapple tree, its limbs reaching down to caress the snow-covered ground. Something inside me churned, a deep sadness I didn’t want to inspect. “Where will you go?”
“I don’t know yet. I’m researching facilities.” He tapped his cane on the snow under our feet as he talked, the soft crunching sound of snowflakes being crushed somehow deafening between his words. “The day I left my parents’ place,” he said, “I looked back as I was driving away with a friend. They had the blinds to our apartment pulled down, as usual, but in one of the windows, there was a yellow Roman shade instead of blinds. I have no idea, to this day, where that shade came from. In all the time I’d lived in that hellhole, I’d never seen it. Did someone put it up that day? Did something happen to the mini-blinds that used to be in that spot?” He shrugged, hanging his cane from his knee. “Anyway, when I got to Ridgeland, I had a hard time finding an apartment. No work experience except for a few gigs, no references, you know. I’d already looked at several apartments when a friend told me about my current place. He said to meet him there, that he knew the landlord and could probably get him to rent it to me. When I pulled up, there was a yellow Roman shade pulled down in that front window. I knew I was going to get it, and I was right.” He looked at me, grinned. “I’m not a big believer in a loving god, but I do believe in destiny. Fate. So I think wherever I go, I’ll be okay.”
“Just look for a yellow Roman shade,” I said.
He laughed. “Yeah. Something like that.”
I wished I could be as sure as Drew. I wished I could be one of those people completely secure in the fact that everything happens for a reason and things always work out for the best.
I’d always considered people who felt that way less intelligent than those of us who believed humanity was fucked. Humans were the only species intelligent enough to figure out that we were nothing but stardust, and conceited enough to think that the world revolved around us anyway.
“What are you thinking?” Drew asked, yanking me out of my thoughts. “Your jaw is clenched tighter than a jailbird’s buttocks.”
I laughed. Bending down, I gathered a small snowball and began to shape it. “Just wishing I could feel as certain as you do that everything’s going to be okay. Pers
onally, I don’t think the universe gives a shit about any of us.” Throwing the snowball up in the air, I batted it with my hand, hard enough that it crumbled into nothing. “And if fate does have anything to do with my life, it has a wicked sense of humor.”
“But you don’t know how your story’s going to end yet,” Drew said. “So how can you tell whether it’s a tragedy or not?”
“I’m psychic about endings,” I replied, bending down to get another handful of snow, unable to meet his eye.
“What if, tomorrow, they discover a cure for MS? Or better yet, MS and FA?”
I looked at him, this man with the wide-open face, the gorgeous blue eyes flecked with silver, the long legs that would one day simply refuse to carry him. I saw his hands, placed neatly on his thighs, the fingers beautifully tapered to pluck guitar strings, beginning to weaken and wither. I saw the ferocious hope he carried on his shoulders, the weight of it more than anyone should be forced to carry. In that moment I knew that Drew’s hope weighed more than my hurt and anger and loneliness, and in that moment, I wanted nothing but to make him feel safe and loved and wanted.
A pulse began to beat deep inside me as I got up, pulled the cane off his knee, and tossed it into a pile of snow. I straddled his legs, sitting on his lap, and his look of confusion quickly turned to a look of pure lust. His eyes grew darker, his gaze fell to my lips. “What are you doing?”
I didn’t answer. I just covered his mouth with mine, the ecstasy of making him live in the moment, the power of reducing him to the basest pleasure overtaking every other sense in my brain. After a moment, his hand tangled in my ponytail. He pulled on it, making me expose my throat to him. He nibbled along the tender skin there, and I gasped. I could feel his erection pressing into my inner thigh where my legs were spread, wanting more.
I pulled back. “We could go somewhere,” I whispered.
He nodded.
Chapter Thirty
Driving with Drew by my side was excruciating.
I tried not to touch him during the slow walk to the car, feeling completely awkward and unsure of myself now that I’d set things in motion. But just occasionally, his free hand would brush mine, sending jolts of molten lightning through my body. Was he doing it on purpose? Did he want me, this, as much as I did?
During the drive, I almost lost my nerve several times. What did I think I was doing? I wasn’t some sort of seductress, not by the widest stretch of anyone’s imagination. I’d lost my virginity in high school to a drunken football player on a field trip. I hadn’t wanted to have sex since; it was too much bother for not enough return. Besides, I already had my first love. Disease. I didn’t need a boy.
But Drew? There was something about him, about the core of him, about the way he smiled and looked at me and pulled me close to kiss me. About the way he’d told me about the yellow Roman shade. No matter how hard I peered into the center of my soul, I couldn’t find a shred of pity for him. I wasn’t sorry in that maudlin way Carson was that he was losing his coordination or his silver voice. It wasn’t just that I was hypnotized by his illness, though I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make a difference.
I was consumed by the overcrowded city of my thoughts when he put one hand on the back of my neck, nestled under the blanket of my hair. His thumb caressed the curve of my spine there, and my breath caught in my throat. My mind went empty, my heart was a bird, throwing itself against the cage of bone, intent on escaping, on flying the highest it had ever flown in its life.
Still, we didn’t speak a word. There was nothing to say and everything to feel. So we felt.
Somehow, my electrified body performed the motions and soon, we pulled up in front of Drew’s apartment. Though I’d been here before, being here with him now, under these circumstances, made the whole place buzz with color and emotion as it hadn’t before.
I waited off to the side while Drew slid the key in and opened the door. Each of his movements brought us closer to the moment I’d been building up in my mind since the park. My heart had never beaten harder before.
Without a single word, we made our way down the hallway to his minuscule bedroom with its bed so neatly made in a blue plaid comforter. The smell of boy—soft and musky—and lemon fabric softener permeated everything in here, and I realized I was more aroused than I’d ever been before.
I wanted Drew with a hot, breathless kind of desire. I had trouble maintaining a sane thought. I wondered if I’d always relate the smell of lemon with this moment, as we tended to do with our memories, scent and event combining into one thick, indistinguishable sensory rope.
I glanced at Drew, striped shadows on his face from the closed blinds. He looked frozen, unsure of how to make the next move. He had the look of someone who held something precious in his hands, something he was so afraid of breaking. I realized then just how important this was to him, our first time together.
I walked in and sat at the foot of the bed, staring straight ahead. Something within me had shifted. Something had changed.
I felt Drew approach me from the right. “Are you okay?”
I looked up at him, broad shoulders and chiseled torso belying his growing weakness. One big hand was clamped around the head of his cane, messenger bag still slung around his shoulder, full of papers that fought for the right of another sick man to choose how and when he’d die. Drew’s eyes shone a brilliant blue—velvet rather than the ice they’d been earlier at the park. His jaw, so strong, so hard, and yet so given to softening with a smile.
I opened my mouth, not sure what I was going to say, but before it came out, I began to cry. I put my face in my hands and, not knowing what to do, sat there on that blue plaid comforter and simply wept.
Guilt coursed through me—guilt for all the lies I’d told, all those lies that had led to Drew kissing me and then led to us coming to be here, in his bedroom together. There was fear, too, for what was to become of my mother, the person I’d so resolutely, so stupidly believed held all of life’s answers. Anger at myself because I knew I wasn’t going to confront her, because I never did. Anger at myself, too, because I knew I was too much of a coward to tell Drew the truth. The truth about who I was, what I was really doing at that hospital. I was too scared to take off my mask like he seemed to be doing with me.
Maybe the shrinks were right when they said Munchausen went hand in hand with a personality disorder. Maybe my diseased brain couldn’t think outside of itself, outside of what caused the endorphin baths it so craved. Maybe I was a loathsome creature for not coming clean to Drew. But I couldn’t do it right then, even though I knew I should. Even though I’d been lied to myself by the one person I’d trusted, and I knew how much it sucked. I just couldn’t.
Drew pulled me up and against his chest, his cane pressing into my back and shoulder as he rubbed slow circles between my shoulder blades. “Shh,” he said. “Shh. It’s okay.”
I felt myself relax almost instantly, my body softening to contour to his hard planes. I pulled back and wiped my eyes. Putting a hand on either side of his face, I said, “I really like you.”
He smiled, kissed me on the mouth. “That’s good. Because I really like you, too.”
I felt that breathless hunger ignite in me again, and struggled to rein it in. “But… I have secrets, Drew.”
He looked into my eyes for a long moment, so it felt like all I could see, the whole world, was blue. “I don’t care,” he said. “I don’t care if you have secrets.”
And then we kissed again.
It felt like the whole world went quiet. I stepped back from Drew and unzipped my hoodie. Letting it fall to the floor, I took off my t-shirt and stepped out of my jeans. He watched me as I stood there in my underwear while he was fully clothed; vulnerable, exposed. The expression on his face was inscrutable except for a tick in the muscle in his jaw. I felt his eyes take in the bloody bandage on my chest, the faint scars here and there from being poked and prodded needlessly in doctor’s offices.
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�d never felt any desire to be supermodel-beautiful. I hadn’t ever made myself throw up to be a size two like some girls in high school had. I’d always been much more concerned with how I was going to make myself sick next. If anything, I wanted to belong to the other side—while the average eighteen-year-old might crave perfect skin, I craved the unhealthy pallor of disease, the bright burning of fevered cheeks. But as I stood there in front of Drew, my scars and wounds on display, I was anxious. For the first time, I thought about how an outsider, someone who didn’t see the world through Munchausen-colored lenses, might actually see my body. This was worse than the time Allie saw my self-inflicted cuts—so much, much worse. Why had I thought this would be okay?
I was half reaching for my clothes when Drew stepped toward me, tossing his cane aside. Slipping my bra straps off with just the tips of his fingers, as if he was afraid any more than that would hurt me, he kissed the ridge of my collar bone. “You are so beautiful,” he whispered. He paused by my bandages, looked up, a question in his eyes. A question I didn’t want to answer.
I unhooked my bra, let it fall to the floor. Then I lay back on the king-sized bed and looked at him. Every scar on my body, every old wound, every fresh one, was on display. I’d never done this for anyone before. It was the most frightening, most exhilarating experience I could remember in the past two decades that were my life in its entirety.
He traced one finger, scorchingly slow, from the hollow of my throat down to the elastic of my thong. His eyes followed, taking in my skin, the bumps and discolorations and ugly marks, with an intensity that made my breath catch. I tugged on his sweater; he peeled it off without hesitation.
He was gorgeous. Every muscle stood out in stark relief, his skin beautiful and pale and perfectly unmarred. He pressed himself on top of me, his heat wrapping me in a blanket as he held me close, hands tangling in my hair. I listened to his rapid breathing in my ear, felt his heart pound against my chest, his arousal insistent and delicious against my hip. He wanted me. He wanted me just as much as I wanted him, just as much as I wanted this. He was waiting for me to make the next move, to let him peek behind the mask.