Wildalone

by Krassi Zourkova

  “How did you do this?!”

  “I didn’t want you to catch a cold.”

  “Yes, but that’s not what I asked.”

  “You’re right. No more secrets.” He glanced down—the floor was still wet. Suddenly all the water rose up in a swirl. Accelerated. Began to spin so fast my eyes couldn’t keep up . . . until it turned bright red and splashed back down, in the shape of a giant poppy whose petals burst for a second, spilled into a million drops, then vanished through the tiles, leaving them dry and white again.

  “You look horrified. Should I not do these things in front of you?”

  “I just . . . I need some time to get used to them.” Although I wasn’t sure that I ever would, or how to even go about it.

  “What did Jake tell you?”

  I summed it up in a few words.

  “That’s more or less it. The rest is just details.”

  “I should probably know those too.”

  “None of it is good, Thea. I belong to her once a month, that’s all.”

  “It’s just sex though, isn’t it?”

  “It’s whatever she wants. She can do anything to my body—that’s the deal.”

  The thought of her even touching him made me feel nauseated. “Were you ever in love with her?”

  “Me? Are you serious?” His laughter shattered against the tiles, as that whirl of water had done a moment earlier. “If I were, she wouldn’t need this damn arrangement.”

  “The arrangement wasn’t for her sake. She saved your life.”

  “I never asked to be saved. Besides, she was the reason I had that accident in the first place. So trust me, I’d do anything—anything—to be free of her.”

  “That’s not how it looked.”

  “How what looked?”

  “You saw me standing there, by the tree. And you didn’t even stop.”

  “Stop? Do you have any idea what would have happened if she’d seen you?”

  “I’ve read the legends.”

  “You’ve read nothing. This woman is vile; she gets high on killing and would have ripped you to pieces if I hadn’t—”

  “Rhys, she is my sister.”

  “Don’t ever count on this, okay? She may have been your sister once, but now there’s nothing human left in her. Nothing!”

  Silen had said the same thing: as far from being human as possible . . . a place from which she can never return . . .

  We went to the bedroom and he had me lie down, rolling over on his stomach next to me.

  “Ask me anything. Anything else you want to know.”

  I already knew the most important detail, but part of me hoped he would deny it: “What would happen if you stopped seeing her?”

  “That’s not an option. The rules are simple: I don’t object. I don’t make her wait. I don’t refuse anything.”

  “And if you do?”

  “I tried once. It wasn’t pretty.” The rage in his eyes filled in the rest for me. “Which is how I discovered the only remedies that worked: alcohol and women. Drinking washed everything from my mind. And the women, they—” He shook his head, as if the irony of it was beyond him. “They compensated for everything she was doing to me. So absurdly, unbelievably willing. All I had to do was pick any one of them—or more than one, whatever—and it was a done deal.”

  I could see now why my refusal to become the next “done deal” when we first met had exasperated him. “And all this made going to Elza easier?”

  “Much easier.”

  “How?”

  “It just did.”

  “I need to know, Rhys.”

  “After a few women at Ivy, one more on the golf course doesn’t seem such a big deal.”

  “I see. So you just . . . added me to the mix?”

  “You?” He glanced up at the ceiling and smiled. “You were something else entirely. My eyes fell on you in that fog and the world was suddenly at peace. A peace I had never imagined. I knew—before you had said anything, before I had even touched you—that all I wanted was to be near you.”

  “Even though I looked so much like her?”

  “Or more so because of it. I had no idea the two of you were related, of course, but . . . I was drawn to her too, at the beginning. She had that same air of gorgeous, unspoiled innocence that just gets under my skin. Except in your case it’s genuine.”

  “And hers wasn’t?”

  He chose not to answer. With incidents like the Nude Olympics, “innocent” probably wasn’t the best way to describe Elza.

  “Did it honestly never occur to you that I might be related to her?”

  “Come on, who would have thought? You’re fifteen years apart, and she had never said anything about a baby sister. I assumed the resemblance was just a coincidence, some Eastern European look I apparently had a soft spot for. By the time I found out, it was too late. I was already hooked.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “When Jake said your last name at the dinner here. I guess he had seen your recital posters.”

  No wonder Rhys had driven me to Forbes that night without a word. Nice to meet you, Thea Slavin. My name had become Jake’s secret revenge—on his brother, for stealing his girl.

  “That’s when the hell began. I tried to stay away from you, and couldn’t. Then I made a pact with myself: we would be together, but not have sex until you knew the truth. Of course, I almost blew it. And I still couldn’t bring myself to tell you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I thought you’d be devastated. What was I supposed to say? By the way, babe, I’m banging your sister once a month?”

  “Sure. Just like you told me you could see other girls.”

  “I never said this.”

  “No, only that you were not a one-woman guy.”

  “Because I’m not, Thea. There will always be one other woman in my life. A woman I detest.”

  I was probably going to detest her too. Once a month, on every full moon.

  “And what about everything else?”

  “What else?”

  “The guys in the jeep.”

  “I’m done with that. The night when you showed up at my house, I could have killed Evan for the nonsense he blurted out in front of you. I was angry at him. At myself. At the whole fucking world. Then things got even worse, when we had that fight about Carnegie.”

  “I still don’t understand why you said you couldn’t come. The full moon wasn’t until Saturday.”

  “Guilt, basically. How was I supposed to face you and your parents, knowing where I’d be the following night?”

  “But you came to the concert anyway. I found your note.”

  “I had to hear you play, one way or another. The plan was to watch from a distance, then drive back here and see Elza on Saturday. It worked—almost.”

  “Almost?”

  “I didn’t expect to be jealous of my own brother.”

  “You. Jealous of Jake.”

  “No, not that way. I trust Jake more than I trust myself. But I envied his freedom. To spend the evening with you like a normal guy, the kind of guy you need—none of the stuff I come packaged with.”

  I tried not to think about what I needed, or how things might have turned out if I had ended up with Jake. Rhys was quiet too. High on the wall above us, the painted look-alike sat in peace, guarding his own silence.

  “My Greek Art professor mentioned daemons once.”

  His eyes traced mine up to the canvas. “And?”

  “It didn’t sound so bad. Definitely supernatural, but not a malevolent spirit. At least not in the Greek myths.”

  “A hopeful start. What else?”

  “Unmatched intelligence and talent for the arts. Is this why you play piano so well?”

  He laughed. “I like to think that my playing wasn’t terrible to begin with. But you should hear my brother. Apparently, one can be fantastic on the keys even without demonic powers.”

  Everyone who knew Jake had made it
clear what a superb pianist he was—Ferry, now Rhys, and even my no longer human sister who, years ago, had called him “Miracle Hands.” But the last thing I wanted was to confirm Jake’s phenomenal playing for myself. It was safer for everyone if I never did.

  “Speaking of my brother, I need to call him. I lost my temper yesterday.” He still didn’t know that I had overheard their fight. “Wait for me here; I’ll be right back.”

  The call must have been quick because he returned right away. “It’s all sorted out. Jake will be here in an hour.”

  “Did you tell him?”

  “Tell him what?”

  “That you and I made up.”

  “No. Why ruin the surprise? He can find out once he gets here.”

  We went downstairs, to a kitchen with so many cabinets it seemed equipped to feed all of Princeton. He poured me a glass of wine, but I barely took a sip. Jake—about to walk in, any moment. What would I say to him? How would I look him in the eyes?

  Meanwhile, Rhys kept telling me stories about his brother as a little boy: Jake having his first piano lesson at age five; Jake falling from a tree and breaking two fingers, then crying that he would never be able to play again; Jake getting scared by a pigeon that had come in through one of the French doors and flown out of the piano when he began playing . . .

  Neither of us had heard his steps. I felt someone watching me—leaning quietly against the door, caught in the darkness of his own thoughts, as always.

  My hand began to shake as I lowered the glass on the countertop. Clink. The touch of stem against granite. Rhys turned at the sound, saw his brother, and rushed to give him a hug.

  “Welcome home! Sorry for what I said yesterday; I can be such an ass sometimes.”

  There was no answer, just a nod.

  Rhys slipped his arm around me. “I’ve never been happier and I owe it all to my brother. We should celebrate.”

  Finally, a word dropped from Jake’s lips: “We?”

  “You, me, and Thea. But we’ll skip Ivy this time. The real party is off campus.”

  “You two can go. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “That’s a joke, right? It’s Saturday! Besides, I want you with me on the best night of my life.”

  Jake continued to look at Rhys, and his face began to soften up. “What time are we leaving?”

  “Nine or so. After dinner.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Jake, come on! I said I’m sorry about yesterday. Tell me how to prove it to you and I will.”

  “You don’t need to prove anything. It’s been a long day and if you want me out later, you’ll have to eat without me. Just come get me when you’re ready to go.”

  He said this without taking his eyes off Rhys. Then, leaving them no time to fall on anything else in the kitchen, he turned around and went upstairs.

  CHAPTER 16

  Rejecting an Estlin

  THE PARTY WAS only a few miles from campus. Rhys had assumed we would all go in the Range Rover, but Jake insisted on riding his motorbike—I knew only too well why.

  In size and opulence the house was a match for Pebbles, although it lacked the ease with which an impeccable taste mixes old with new, leaving its mark on everything. We walked in, the two brothers on both sides of me (Rhys’s hand on mine a subtle reminder which one of them I was with), and heads began turning—the quick eyes of women flashing their envy at me, ready to blaze me down to ashes for the audacity to claim both of these gorgeous men for the evening. And there were many women. Rhys knew almost all of them. He smiled at some, barely nodded at others, but didn’t hug or shake hands with anyone. Jake walked next to me like a shadow, eyes lost ahead, not bothering to return a single greeting.

  An enormous oval library was converted into a bar for the night. We had just come in when a familiar voice made my stomach turn: “Rhys! Finally, man! We thought you’d bailed on us again.” Evan lifted a fist and waited for Rhys to do the same.

  “I always show up if I say I will. Thea, this is Evan, the party host.”

  I couldn’t avoid the handshake, but otherwise had nothing to say to the guy. He hurried with an apology that Rhys must have demanded for me in advance:

  “Sorry about the last time. My mouth ran ahead of me.”

  That was a mild way of putting it. I smiled as politely as I could, trying not to encourage further conversation.

  After some brief cigar-fumed blather, he left us with one final piece of advice: to knock ourselves out with his dad’s booze collection. When Rhys pulled out a chair for me at one of the tables and asked what we wanted to drink, I knew that the moment I dreaded had come. That, for a minute or two, Jake and I would be alone.

  He sat down across from me. His body rested on the chair with tired detachment—legs stretched out, elbows propped on both ends of the backrest, head tilted forward. His eyes traced Rhys’s steps across the floor, avoiding me.

  “I had to go back to him, Jake.”

  “I knew you would.”

  “But it doesn’t mean that what happened in my room—”

  “You don’t have to explain. There’s no better man than my brother and I am happy for both of you.”

  A few moments later, without touching the drink that Rhys put in front of him, he said he was going to get some air.

  Rhys watched him leave, then shook his head. “We have to find him a woman, Thea.”

  I couldn’t bring myself to risk a reply.

  “My brother acts like he’s lost the will to live. I’ve seen it once before and I can’t let it happen again. We need to set him up with someone. Tonight.”

  Once before. He couldn’t possibly mean Elza; there had to have been someone else. The thought bothered me and I stopped being careful.

  “I don’t think your brother needs help. He can have any woman in this room.”

  “Yes, but the woman who did this to him isn’t in the room, and the others don’t seem to exist for him. So he needs a little nudge. Preferably from someone hot who’d fuck his brains out.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem.”

  He looked at me for a second, dismissing the suspicion before it had taken shape. “No, finding her certainly won’t be a problem. But getting him on board will.”

  The thought of Jake with another woman—one of the many gorgeous women in the room—sent a jab of pain through my chest. It had to be much worse for him. Seeing me with Rhys. Being forced to watch, over and over, while his brother took the girl who should have been his.

  “Fine then. How about . . . her?” I pointed to a tall blonde surveying the bookshelves by herself.

  “No, not that one.”

  “Why not?”

  “She isn’t Jake’s type.” He said the words slowly, as if struggling with momentary amnesia, and I realized that something else had caught his attention. Something that hadn’t been in the room before. “That one.”

  He directed my eyes with the slightest of nods, but I didn’t need it: the girl who had just walked in was impossible to miss. She looked impeccable—a sculptor had carved his final masterpiece out of pristine white marble, then brought it to life. A lush copper mane fell in waves down to her waist, lit up the entire place with its astonishing color, and tricked you into believing that a late-summer sunset hid behind her, making its way through the crowd. She smiled at everyone—a benevolent gesture while having to be among mere mortals—and moved with absolute assurance, as if she owned each molecule of air in the room.

  “So, what do you think?” Rhys seemed to love every second of it.

  I think she makes the rest of us look like pencil sketches. “You know Jake’s type. I don’t.”

  He looked at her again until finally she noticed, and her smile shot back an instant challenge: challenge to an equal.

  “Ah, speaking of my melancholy brother—there he is, just in time.”

  Jake sat down. Took his glass and drank half of it in one go. Rhys watched him with a certain spark in the eye h
e always had when about to ridicule someone.

  “‘Not having that, which, having, makes them short.’ Right, Jake?” Then he turned to me and clarified: “Lack of love. Romeo’s explanation of what makes his hours long.”

  “I’ve read the play.”

  “Of course you have; I underestimated my woman!” He leaned over and kissed me. Jake’s eyes escaped within the crowd. “I was just about to tell our dreamy Romeo that we’ve found someone who will cut his hours very, very short.”

  Jake’s eyebrows curved up. “We?”

  “Yes. Thea and I found you the perfect woman.”

  “You have found me a woman. And what made you think I needed to have one found for me?”

  “This morose face of yours. The last time I saw a smile on it was months ago.”

  “I don’t recall much smiling around our house. Not lately, anyway.”

  “Touché!” Rhys’s laughter ricocheted without an impact. “But that’s exactly what I mean. You solved my problem, and now I want to do the same for you.”

  “I can solve my own problems, Rhys.”

  “With self-imposed celibacy? Never a great solution.”

  “The greatest solution—for everyone—would be to drop me as a conversation topic.”

  “Stubborn, just as I told you.” Rhys shrugged in my direction, but I could tell he wasn’t done yet. “Jake, seriously, you should check this woman out. We were both floored when she walked in.”

  “Floored at first sight? Always a promising start.” His eyes kept trying to catch mine. “And the collective ‘we’ has decided I should go for the woman it has handpicked for me?”

  “Actually, the ‘we’ wasn’t all that collective. Thea picked first, but I had a different choice in mind.”

  “I see. So I owe this to Thea?” He said it only to me. Watching me. Waiting for me to look up, to explain it all—but I couldn’t. My mind had shut down, terrified of where this was going to end. “And whom did she pick?”

  “The one browsing those books. But then the redhead walked in and we both knew she was the way to go. Over there, by the fireplace.”

  Locating the girl took Jake only a second. In a single swoop, he bent over the table toward his brother, slamming the empty glass down.