by Gray, Kiska
Too good—and that was because it’d never been real. It was never real, but I let myself believe it was. Such an idiot. My anger spread from the center of my chest and curled down my arms, followed quick on the heels by a gnawing sense of shame and suddenly, I felt dirty.
I threw the sheets back. What I needed was a scalding hot shower. Leaving my cell phone lying on the floor, I grabbed some clean clothes out of my dresser and locked myself in the bathroom. I wasn’t prepared to come face to face with the ghost of myself in the mirror. I stared into my eyes, dull and pained and ringed in red from crying. I gripped the edges of the countertop and tried to breathe.
Are you happy, Mika? came the whisper of a question asked what seemed like only days ago. I squeezed my eyes shut and sealed my lips as tight as they would go, as if that could somehow keep the pain in. Two days ago and I would’ve said yes. Two days ago, I was oblivious and in too deep with Gideon Grey, and now?
The tingling reminder of the past tugged my attention down to the box of razor blades sitting innocuously in the third drawer down. I sniffled and curled my fingers into my palms until my nails dug into my skin. It hit me all of a sudden, that urge to cut, the itch to peel my skin open layer by layer. It would stop the pain…for a little while, at least.
But I hadn’t self-harmed since I was nineteen and I wasn’t gonna let an asshole like Gideon destroy that piece of me. Shaking my head, I shut off the faucet and all but fled the bathroom before my resolve slipped down the drain.
I needed to get out of here.
I quickly dressed and, shoving my wallet and my phone into my jeans pocket, I left the apartment. I went down the stairs, taking them two at a time, and swung out into the bitter January cold. The streets were surprisingly un-busy, but then again, most people were probably at home nursing hangovers. I tucked my hands beneath my armpits and made the trek to Saint’s place.
I punched the button on the intercom. “Hey. It’s me. You busy?”
A moment later, his handsome face popped up on the screen. “Nah, never too busy for you. Come on up, I’ll buzz you in.”
The door clicked open and I went inside, shutting out the blustering flurries behind me. I shivered. Winter was beautiful, but now that Christmas was over and my heart felt like a broken ornament, it felt cold and empty.
Saint greeted me in the hallway, wearing only a pair of fuzzy PJ pants and a tank top. “Hey, Mika, I wasn’t expecting—” He froze, worry flashing across his face. “Shit. Are you okay? No offense, but you look like hell, man. Did something happen?”
“Sorry for dropping in unannounced. I know you’re probably busy, but can I stay over here for awhile? You don’t have to entertain me or anything…” I was struggling to contain the tears that were threatening to overflow yet again.
Saint realized it, too, because he swooped in for a hug. He pulled me to his chest and I cracked, crying into the fabric of his shirt. “Hey, hey. It’s okay. Are you okay?”
“I-I think so. I’m just… God, I’m such a fucking idiot. I got too attached. I shouldn’t have gotten attached, shouldn’t have let it go on for so long, and now it hurts and—”
“Shh. I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have encouraged you,” he murmured. “He broke up with you?”
“There was never an us,” I whispered back. “It was only temporary. I knew it going in, but fuck, it felt so real. It felt like… It felt like we could make it work, we could be happy. We were happy, or at least I was. I don’t even know anymore. Can I stay here for awhile? I know you’re busy.”
“I can make time for you,” he said firmly, but that wasn’t what I wanted.
“No, I… I need to just exist in the same place as someone else, in the quiet. You work and I’ll sit here and listen to you type, okay? I don’t want to be alone right now.”
Saint’s eyes were soulful. “Are you…” His voice was hushed. I knew what he was thinking, but I didn’t want to hurt myself. That’s why I was here.
I shook my head slowly. “No, but I feel safer here, just in case I have those thoughts.” My shoulders drooped, the tension wringing me out till I felt like nothing more than a used mop head. I sank down on his couch and closed my eyes. “I really loved him,” I murmured.
“Well screw him. He’s not good enough for you. Sure you’ll be okay?”
“I’m sure.”
“Do you need me to get you a drink or anything?”
“I’m fine.” My smile felt tired, but I waved towards his set up. “Do your thing. I’ll be here.”
“If you’re sure,” Saint said, ruffling my hair as he walked past. He sat down at his desk and pulled his headphones back on, and I zoned out to the clack-clack of his fingertips skimming over the keyboard.
28
Gideon
Talk about a week from hell…
I was beginning to understand those stupid sappy Hallmark movies, where the couple is all lovey-dovey and then some shit happens and there’s a huge misunderstanding and they break up, and the woman sobs dramatically into her pint of ice cream while the dude spends his night at the bar.
Except there was no bar, only an entire liquor cabinet full of booze and a glass with my name on it. I wasn’t the kind of guy to talk it out with the bartender, spill my guts only for him to tell me I was a dumbass and I needed to win my guy back.
It wasn’t supposed to hurt like this. I thought those shows were all melodramatics, but Jesus fucking Christ. My chest felt like it’d been blown open with a shotgun and the shrapnel had embedded itself into my soul. I’d cried more than I’d ever admit to anyone, and I’d spent every night at the bottom of the nearest bottle of Jack Daniels.
At least when I was shitfaced, I could almost forget the expression on Mika’s face when I broke his heart.
Almost.
“Dude. Bro. Let’s go out.” I flung my arm around Izzy’s shoulders and leaned on him, nearly toppling us both over in the process. For some reason, this was the funniest shit in the world. “Let’s go out. I feel like dancing.”
“Ugh, you’re so wrecked.” Izzy grunted. “The last place you need to be is the club.”
“Please? I need’ta move, I’m going crazy and it’s not even funny. Gotta get him outta my skull, Iz, man. Gotta erase him somehow, yeah?” I grabbed two big handfuls of my hair and tugged, then slid down to sit on my butt on the carpet.
“Why don’t we stay in tonight? We can jam out or something, watch sports or some shit, I don’t know.” Izzy studied me like I was a bug under a microscope. Maybe not a bug. Maybe an amoeba. Or bacteria. A virus that needed to be eradicated. That’s what I was. I was an asshole and that’s all I’d ever be.
“If you’re not gonna come with, I’ll go by myself.”
“Gideon. You’re drunk as shit.”
“I’ll take a cab,” I slurred back, frustrated. “You don’t have to babysit me, Jesus Christ, just… We can dance and get drunk and get laid. Don’t you wanna get laid, Iz?” I waggled my brows at him. “I wanna get laid. I wanna get so laid.” I laughed.
Izzy pinned me with a glare that was cold enough to rival the arctic. “Seriously? It hasn’t even been a week since you dumped Mika and you wanna go get laid? Gideon, c’mon, man. You don’t really want that.”
“I do.”
“Well you shouldn’t,” he snapped. “Don’t you see? Sure, it’d be easy to go dancing with someone, take them home, get your rocks off, but you don’t really want that. I know that and you know that, deep down in that alcohol-fogged brain of yours. Admit it. You miss him.”
“We’re done. I’m ready to move on,” I told him, my tongue suddenly too thick in my mouth. “I’m over him.”
Apparently that wasn’t the answer he wanted to hear, because he kicked me in the shin. “You’re such an asshole. You’re really gonna let your fuck-up ruin everything, aren’t you? You’re falling right back into your old habits, and—”
I lurched to my feet, stumbling into the couch. “This is who I am!” I shou
ted at him, throwing my hands in the air. “This is who I’ve always been, and I was an idiot to think I could change—shit!” One minute Izzy was drawing back his hand and the next, my teeth clicked together. He slapped me so hard that for a moment, I saw stars.
“Bullshit. It’s bullshit and you know it. You loved him! Anyone with two eyes could see it and you’re wrecked, man. You’re so fucking wrecked. You go to that club and you wake up in some guy’s bed and you’re gonna regret it.”
“Fuck you,” seeped out between my gritted teeth. “You don’t know shit about what I feel.”
“No. No.” Izzy’s laugh was sharp and bitter. He shoved both hands against my chest, pushing me out of his space. “You know what? Fine. Fuck you. Get smashed, get laid, go back to your self-destructive tendencies. You know what I think? I think that this is a good thing. Mika sure as hell deserves better than you.”
He spun around and stomped off. The front door slammed shut in his wake, hard enough that it rattled a picture frame off the wall. It crashed to the ground, glass splintering into shards all over the tile in the entryway. Just like my heart.
“Fuck!” I screamed into the void, grabbing the nearest thing I could reach—which happened to be my favorite lamp—and with a shout of outrage, I yanked it out of the wall socket and flung it across the room. The lightbulb popped as the lamp exploded on contact with the floor. I was left standing there, breathing like I’d run a marathon.
Fuck him. He didn’t know shit. I stormed through the house, snarling under my breath and cussing out the chair when it caught my foot. I snatched my wallet off the kitchen counter, then made my drunken way out the door and to the elevator. Izzy didn’t know me. He didn’t know what I was going through.
I needed another drink.
The hours blurred together. I got progressively more drunk and danced till I was soaked with sweat. My heartbeat thundered between my ears, as deep as the bass booming through the club. I found myself dancing with a slender guy in his mid-twenties with an aquiline nose and an impish little smile.
It went from dancing to grinding to making out in the back in the dark. His hands groped over me as our mouths fused together, his lips hungry and demanding and wrong—it was wrong, so fucking wrong. With a gasp, I shoved him away from me. All I could see was Mika. Mika, dancing with another man. Mika, kissing another man. Mika, taking someone to bed that wasn’t me.
It hurt. It fucking burned like fire.
“What the hell’s your problem?” the guy barked at me.
“I can’t.” I wheeled away from him, seemingly unable to suck down enough oxygen to think straight. Out. I needed out. I somehow managed to stumble out the door in my drunken, anxious stupor and call a cab.
I went home alone.
Instead of getting laid, I spent the night puking my guts out while simultaneously sobbing into the toilet. It wasn’t pretty, we’ll leave it at that. I climbed into bed at half-past four AM and cradled my phone to my chest.
I fucked up. I’m sorry. I miss you. I love you.
I didn’t send those texts, even though they were the truth. Even though I wanted to. I fucked up. Royally. I ruined the best thing that could’ve happened to me. Mika could’ve been the guy who shared my bed till we both were old and crusty and damn near expired. He could’ve been my forever.
But Izzy was right about one thing—Mika deserved better.
29
Mika
I was lost in a haze, slowly dragging myself through the motions of everyday life. Working overtime to recoup the holiday pay I’d missed out on, all the while counting down the hours to when I could crawl back into bed and escape into my dreams. At least they were kind to me.
I hated myself for missing Gideon, but I did. I missed his smile, his touch, his laughter. I missed the stupid pet-names and the way he looked at me when he was feeling frisky. These were supposed to be good memories, but nothing about this was good. I was heartsick.
So heartsick that when Ma’s number popped up on my screen that afternoon, I was tempted to send it straight to voicemail. Ma was always so chipper and lively, and I didn’t know if I could handle hearing her voice. She’d know something was wrong—moms knew these kind of things—and I wasn’t sure I could keep the truth to myself any longer.
But what more did I have to lose? Really?
I picked up the phone and tried to keep my voice cheery. “Hey Ma. What’s shaking?”
“Oh, Mika, darling. Is everything okay?” Case and point. How did she know?
“Uh, yeah, why?”
There was a weighted pause. I held my breath. “I saw Gideon at the mall today. He looked absolutely terrible, like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Did something happen between you two? He seemed a little off at Christmas, but…”
Gideon was a wreck, too? Somehow knowing that made the ache in my chest more hollow. I couldn’t stop from sniffling. “No,” I uttered. “No, Ma, nothing’s okay. My life is in shambles and I don’t know how to fix it.”
“What do you mean? I thought things were going good.”
“Gideon isn’t… He wasn’t even my boyfriend. He was a guy I met at the club a week before Thanksgiving. I asked him to pretend to be my partner for Thanksgiving because I didn’t want to let you down. Truth is, I caught my real boyfriend with another guy, like, eight or nine months ago. He cheated on me, then dumped me, and I didn’t want you to worry about me or think I’d do something stupid, so I… Shit, and now Gideon’s gone too, and I feel so empty. Everything’s so messed up.”
“Mika. Breathe, honey. Why in the world would you ever think I’d judge you for that? I’m your mother and sure, I worry about you. I worry about all my kids but only because I want them to succeed.”
My laugh was strangled. “That’s the thing though—I’m not succeeding. I got hired at the hospital, sure, but it’s janitorial work and I hate it, but I didn’t want you to find out. I’ve been struggling with money since I moved out, my rent keeps going up and I have a goddamn leak in my roof that’s been here since fall and I—I don’t know what I’m doing with my life or how to climb out of debt. I’m sorry. I’m a failure.”
“Oh, child... Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because. I didn’t want you to worry about me. I wanted you to be proud of me.” My voice cracked and a fresh wave of tears slid down my cheeks. I was so fucking tired of crying. I wiped my face with both hands and blew my nose with a tissue. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do. I feel so lost.”
“I know, sweetheart. Growing pains are tough, lord knows, but you’ll get through it. You’re a strong, stubborn young man and I love you so very much. You’re my baby. You’ll always be my baby, and it breaks my heart to hear you so blue. You know it doesn’t matter, right?”
“What?”
“It doesn’t matter if you’re a janitor or if you have a PhD. Not to me. In all honesty, I knew business college wouldn’t work out for you. You’re too vibrant, too you. It would’ve put a damper on your free spirit and that’s the most beautiful thing about you, Mika. You’ve always been special. I knew it the very moment the nurse laid you in my arms. So maybe you’re not medical material? I don’t care. I want you to be happy, child. I want you to follow your heart, money be damned.”
I sniffed. “Okay.”
“Now, let me tell you this. I don’t know what happened between you two, of course, but perhaps you shouldn’t write Gideon off so fast. He looked utterly broken. It’s obvious he’s depressed. I called out to him, but he refused to acknowledge me. He just kept walking. He looked like he needed a hug.” She sighed.
“I know you’re hurting, and that’s okay, but I want you to take some time and really think about what you want in life, what will make you happy, and then I want you to experience this grief. Really feel it.”
“Trust me,” I said. “I feel it. Is that all the motherly wisdom I’m gonna get right now?”
She cackled. “For now. Take care of yourse
lf, darling, and make sure you’re drinking plenty of water, okay? I love you. Know that.”
I blinked through the blur in my vision. “I love you more,” I told her.
“If you truly loved me, you’d come have dinner with me sometime.”
I smiled. “How about this weekend? Friday night work?”
“I’ll see what’s in the freezer. Take care.”
30
Gideon
Lazarus was the one to bring up that gig we’d booked last month. “You’re gonna be there, right?” he asked over the phone on Friday afternoon. Oh yeah. That was tonight, wasn’t it. Goddamnit, I’d already made plans with my left hand and the fifth of whiskey in my freezer. Yeah, I was still pining over Mika. How lame was that?
“I dunno, Laz,” I muttered. “Not really feeling it.”
“Don’t pull that shit on me, Gid. We can’t play without you. Besides, it’ll be good for you to get out of that apartment and express your feelings by pounding on your drums for a couple of hours. You’ve been practicing, right?”
“Eh.” Not since before New Years, anyway.
“Gideon.”
“Yeah, yeah. Alright, I practiced plenty. I know the damn setlist, so stop bitching at me.” I heaved a sigh and checked my watch. Two-fifteen. “When is it? Cuz I’m not exactly sober right now. Ain’t that a surprise?” I snorted.
Laz cursed under his breath. “Jesus. Okay. It’s at seven-thirty, so you’ve got a couple of hours to sober up. Take a shower, wash the booze off you. Bex and I took the drive up this morning and Ivy’s out of town, but she said she’d meet us at the bar. If you aren’t able to drive, maybe you could call Izzy up, see if he’s up to carpool? You two patched things up, right? So there should be no problems.”