True Devotion

by Liora Blake

  The night before they are due back in town, I drive Scully home and set his fishbowl back on the countertop. I gather the mail, put it in a neat little pile next to Scully, and drop the key I’ve been using on top.

  Behind me, when the door clicks shut, I stand on Simon’s porch for a minute or so. I look to my right and see the porch swing where we sat and passed a pint of gelato between us. I look down the sidewalk to the place where I stood that hot afternoon in my sundress and wedge sandals, where I can hear the echo of Marley through the windows, Simon telling me to let go, the sound I gave up when he made me come with his mouth.

  At the end of the sidewalk, I see the spot where he said good-bye to me that second morning, his hands on my back and ass. If I want to, I can close my eyes and feel it again because the sensory memory is emblazoned on my skin.

  Once I’m in my car, it comes crashing down around me. There aren’t tears, only regret for deluding myself and the reminder of all the reasons I knew this wouldn’t work. Unlike how I spent the last few months trying to pretend it could, when I think about how wrong it is, I believe it.

  Simon tries. He really does. After they all get back, he knocks on my door, yelling through it. He sends emissaries. He writes letters. He leaves phone messages. He sends texts. He has flowers delivered. He orders a singing telegram that includes lyrics that rhyme with “eating pussy.” He sits outside my house, perched on the tailgate of his truck until the sun goes down. He leaves chocolate chip pancakes on my doorstep. He tries romantic things, funny things, and heartbreaking things. He begs, pleads, gets pissed.

  The only flaw in his plan is that I don’t believe in it. He does—he believes in us, without a moment of doubt. I see the truth. I’m Devon and he’s Simon. Nearly perfect, nearly everything Simon. Nearly nothing, nearly insane Devon. Oil and water that tried to be something more.

  So the night I open my door and see Kyle standing there, his blond hair spiked up with too much hair gel and that dimple in his sheepish smile, I let him in. It will only be for a few days, he promises. He needs a place to stay while he figures some things out. He’s in trouble. He’s sorry.

  I let him in because, if nothing else, Kyle’s always been able to remind me exactly who I am and where I belong in the world.

  26

  Surprise, surprise. Kyle did something stupid. He never has been very bright; he didn’t finish high school, and doesn’t have much in the way of street smarts to make up for it. Kyle is mostly ego, baggy jeans, and a stupid flat-bill baseball cap he wears slightly off-center. He might have outgrown wearing it completely to the side, but he still cants the bill a bit. He’ll probably be forty before he finally learns to put the damn thing on straight.

  He was in Cali to make a run down by the border with another guy. They were supposed to pick up a “package” and hotfoot it back to Cleveland. Straightforward, really. But as with most of what Kyle does, he managed to bungle the simplest of plans into a complete clusterfuck.

  Why are people who get involved in illegal crap typically dumber than a box of rocks? You would think if more intelligent folks dominated the seedy underworld, it would function better. Instead, it’s rife with morons. I guess the stupider you are, the more likely you are to avoid thinking about how monumentally dumb these plans are.

  Being an idiot means that when your partner decides to cross the border into Tijuana for a little fun, you wish him well and believe him when he says he’ll be back in the morning. The only thing to Kyle’s credit is that he stayed put on this side of the border. But the kicker? He let the guy going to get laid and hammered in Tijuana take the package with him. Kyle says he didn’t want to be holding that much in a dodgy motel room, thought it would act like a homing device to the cops or something. Therefore, he let the other guy take the dope and the car with him. To Tijuana.

  Brilliant.

  When his partner didn’t show back up for two days, that’s when Kyle figured out he was screwed. Either he’d been had, or the other guy was lying in a shallow grave somewhere. Either way, the dope was missing and Kyle was scrambling to come up with a way to get back to Cleveland and concoct a story that might save him from ending up in a body cast when he got there. Since he figured I was still in California, he looked me up and made his way here. Apparently, I can thank the Internet’s disregard of privacy for this visit.

  I sit there listening to him, watching the way his blue eyes shift around the room fitfully, and the way he keeps licking his dry, thin lips. His body is skinnier than ever before; even his cheekbones are more pronounced. Kyle was always lean, built like a college wrestler at one time, but now he’s absent of anything that resembles muscle. He has the build of a user now, and if he isn’t using, he’s obviously living the lifestyle in every other way. Not enough food, too much drink, too little sleep, and too much looking over his shoulder. Taking a cursory glance over him, I focus on his arms, looking for tracks. Nothing. No scabs on his face, and he still has all his teeth. Hopefully all my furniture will still be here in the morning.

  After he finishes telling me the story, I tell him to hit the couch, not touch anything, and keep his mouth shut. Tomorrow I will drive his worthless ass to the bus station and pay whatever they want to get him a ticket on the next bus back home.

  He nods and asks if I have anything to eat. When I make him a couple of pieces of toast, with heaps of peanut butter and honey the way he always liked, he smiles and I have to look away. Inside that smile is the only home my heart has ever really known—even if that home was more pain than anything, it was my story. If I’m not careful, the tug of home might make me do something I will regret. In the broken way my brain is operating right now, the idea of going home to the dead-end places I know so well is starting to sound like a reasonable way to forget everything I might leave behind.

  The house feels cold and tense when I wake up, and when I remember that I’m not alone because Kyle is here, I slip out of bed quickly. The vulnerability of lying in bed with him so close by sends my body into high alert, knowing the sooner I get him out of my house, the sooner I can burn a sage stick in the place and clean out the past that is encroaching on my present.

  Kyle is sitting on the couch, still in his jeans but without his shirt on, poking at his phone and scowling. He looks up when I clear my throat, and as his eyes travel the length of my body, it makes every bit of my skin prick in low-level panic. There is obvious lust in his gaze, but the kind I now know is dangerous. Before Simon, I never knew the difference, that there was lust born of want, lust driven by need, lust anchored in love. Before, I knew it only as something rooted in possession.

  Instead of backing down, I lock my eyes with his, harden my gaze, and tell him we’re leaving for the bus station once I get out of the shower. Then I close the door to my bedroom and shut the door to the bathroom, locking each one behind me.

  A few of Simon’s shirts are still here, things I should consider returning but I’m not ready. Either to see him or to let them go yet. After my shower, I towel-dry my hair and slip into one of them, one that hasn’t been washed and still smells of him.

  I tug on a loose pair of jeans and slide on some flats, then stare down the hallway to prepare for dragging the asshole into my car and away from here. When I land in my living room, Kyle is standing, still shirtless, in my open front doorway. The voice on the other side, I can hear, and I don’t need to see him to know.

  “Where’s Devon?” Simon growls.

  Kyle leans into the doorjamb, cocky and taunting, and then hooks the thumb of one hand into the waist of his boxers that show around the low-slung lay of his jeans.

  “Shower. You know females, right? They take forever in there. Especially when they’re really dirty.” Kyle lets his voice sway over the last two words, then chuckles, low and sinister.

  What Simon believes in this moment is obvious. There is a shirtless asshole standing in my doorway, I was in the shower, and said asshole is implying that he’s made me dirty. Wouldn’t ta
ke a genius to calculate this formula, and Simon is far too smart to miss anything. If I wanted to run, I can’t. I’m stuck in the quicksand trap that is my shitty life. The two men who hold so much regret for me are face-to-face, and the friction between them is smoldering into something they both want to douse with kerosene.

  I step into the entryway, a few feet behind Kyle.

  “Shut your mouth, Kyle.”

  My eyes don’t leave Simon’s. When he processes the name, his eyelids droop a little, yet the fire in his eyes never leaves.

  Slowly, he spits out the words, “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “It’s not what it looks like. He just showed up—”

  I stop when Kyle starts to chuckle again. My eyes drift his way, and all I want to do is lunge, claw at his skin until it bleeds, kick and scream until he curls into a ball at my feet. I want to kill him.

  Kyle draws his hand over his jaw and smirks. Simon’s head turns a tiny bit, letting his stare fix on Kyle. I want to tell Simon to leave, because Kyle is only tormenting us; he wants it to blow up. All Kyle wants is a fight, either with Simon or with me. I know his body language and the way he is ticking his jaw tightly, while still smirking, means he wants blood. I have seen it too often, in bars, in murky parking lots, and in the dark rooms we lived in together.

  “Shit, Devon, how hard did you suck this guy’s dick to get him thinking you’re more than a ghetto whore?” Kyle leans toward Simon a few inches and whispers conspiratorially, “For white trash, she’s damn good, right?”

  It happens in seconds, but the first moments go by so slowly I can see every tiny thing that happens. Simon’s eyelids flare, his jaw parts incrementally before he clamps it shut again, his eyes fly to mine, and in the glint there, he’s asking for permission. I give it with a silent bellow that rages inside me so loudly, I almost scream aloud so it won’t smother me. But I don’t, I bite my tongue until I can taste the metallic tang of my own blood.

  Simon lands the first punch right then, and Kyle’s head snaps sideways until it hits the doorway. He stumbles a little before figuring out this is on, but just as he rights his body and stands straighter, Simon jerks him out of the house, stumbling down the steps and onto the front lawn. There are at least two more hits before Kyle falls to the grass on his knees. Kyle scrambles to get an edge, but he isn’t who he used to be. Simon is strong, lean, and raging. Kyle is too weak to find his own rage, too off balance to gain any purchase.

  Maybe I should be squealing for them to stop, but I don’t. I watch Simon lean over Kyle to put one hand on his neck, effectively immobilizing him there. Then, rearing back, he hits Kyle so hard I hear the wet sound of blood and saliva gurgling as he falls on his side. In the twisted, masochistic part of my heart, I love the sound.

  Simon stands up and wipes the back of his hand across his mouth, then spits into the grass next to Kyle. He nudges Kyle’s leg with his foot until he turns to see Simon’s face.

  “Call her a whore or white trash again and I’ll break your jaw. Touch her ever again and I’ll kill you.”

  I step down the sidewalk a few feet, and stop myself from leaping into Simon’s arms, because he isn’t done, and there is hurt so deep in his eyes I have to look away. I focus on my feet until I feel him next to me. Simon grabs the back of my neck with both hands—not hard, but the feel of him touching my skin is like a command. Raising my eyes to his, he lets his gaze cross my face before he pulls our foreheads together.

  In a husky rasp, he starts in. “All I ever did was love you, Devon. I never hurt you. I never betrayed you. I stood out here for the last two weeks, banging on that fucking door until my knuckles were raw, and you wouldn’t let me in. But you opened the door for him after everything he did to you. Tell me why. Explain that fucked-up rationale to me.”

  I swallow and try to think. Then I tell him what I believe.

  “He’s what I deserve. You’re what I don’t.”

  Simon tugs on the back of my neck and grunts. “Sunshine, when you finally figure out that isn’t true, I’ll be waiting. Until then, remember that this is all on you. You’re the one grenading this. Not me. You know where to find me.”

  His lips find my cheek, and when he kisses me there, heavy tears start. They begin the instant his mouth touches my skin, and when I watch him drive away, the sight drives a sob from my throat.

  I watch Kyle writhing on the ground for a moment until I’m so disgusted, I leave him there. Inside the house, I grab his crap, throw it on the sidewalk, and lock the door.

  27

  My skin is itching in need. It started after Kyle left, stumbling down the sidewalk as he rolled his neck around, trying to loosen the pain he had to be feeling. Once he was gone for an hour or so, the edgy sensation of wanting this all to go away began humming under my every pore. If I were a drinker or a druggie, this is when I would have used the ritual of my addiction to make it disappear. If I were a different kind of woman, I would have found a stranger somewhere and fucked him until it obliterated everything else. There are a million addictions in the world, and in this pit of self-loathing I want to claim just one for my own. That way I would have a crutch, something to cling to until I forgot the look on Simon’s face and the way his hands felt against the back of my neck.

  All I have is the promise of new ink on my skin—the ritual of letting Stacia’s hands mark me in a way that might remind me who I am now. When I call her the next morning, after a long night of incremental and fitful sleep, she can hear every scrap of desperation in my voice. “I need something.” That’s all I have to say.

  She tells me to come over when I’m ready, that she’ll unlock the door and be waiting for me. On a Sunday, she normally would spend the day in bed with Preston, letting him draw her or paint her. It’s the one day they close the studio, so I know I’m trespassing on their time. I hate myself a little more for that.

  The bell above the door jingles when I come in and Stacia is sitting on the chaise lounge in the corner of the room, wearing black leggings and a loose top falling off one shoulder, her face scrubbed clean of makeup and hair pulled up into a pile on the top of her head. When she faces me, I remember the way she looked after she lost her second baby: like this, stripped of the dark eyeliner and everything else she uses to present in the world.

  She doesn’t rise from the chaise; instead, she waits for me to come to her. I stand in the middle of the room for a moment, until she pats the chaise to prompt me. I stay put, rooted there in some attempt to stay upright.

  “I think we’re over.”

  “I doubt that.”

  I sigh and slap my hand over my eyes. They sting, dry and burning from all the tears I’ve given up in the last few weeks.

  “Nope, I’m pretty sure it’s done. I just need to forget him. The sooner I can do that, the better. I need you to give me something to hold on to right now. Maybe one of those stupid Chinese symbols. Like, for misery. I don’t care, just mark me so the pain is real.”

  Rising from the chaise, Stacia points to the chair next to her workstation. Stripping off my shirt, I slip off my bra and straddle the chair. There is only the hum of the ceiling fan above us, the sound of us breathing, the intermittent buzz of her machine as she gets ready. She snaps latex gloves on, then presses her hand to the flat of my back and holds it there until she can feel my body relax.

  When the needle hits my skin, I let out a breath and try to focus on every sting for as long as I can. I don’t know what she is doing, and I don’t give a shit. Without question, she will give me what I need. Stacia will be able to step back from my grief, the wrath of letting go, and remind me of what matters. Right now, I can give up the charade of being able to handle it on my own and let her take it from me.

  The only words she speaks as she works are murmured questions and reassurances.

  “How are you doing?” “Do you need a break?” “You’ll be fine.” “You’re doing good.”

  Each question is about more than what we’re d
oing right now. I nod and mumble in response. I can answer to how my body feels in this moment, but if she asked those same questions to the secret parts of my head or my heart, I would have screamed obscenities instead. As the skin she works on goes from tender, to stinging, to burningly raw, I try to stay right there. When she’s done, the relief is palpable.

  Never has it hurt so much.

  I lie there, not moving, even when she finishes cleaning up. She sits back down in her work chair, and her hand finds my back again, away from the spot where the new art is bandaged up, but her hand bare now, unhindered by the gloves she had on.

  “Dev,” she murmurs. “He came here on Friday.”

  Tucking my head down, I roll my forehead against the leather of the chair I remain straddled around. “No talking about him, Stacia. New friendship rule. No talking about Simon.”

  Stacia sighs and lets her hand rub across my back for a moment. When she pulls her hand away, I hear the creak of her standing up from the chair.

  “You know what? Tough shit. I’m a rule-breaker, Devon.”

  Reaching down, I find my bra and slip it on, then pull on my shirt, wincing a bit at the pain of the new art. I turn around to find Stacia, all one hundred pounds of her, glaring at me with her hands on her hips. “What the hell happened with you two?”

  I scrub my hands over my face and look away. “Everything you can think of. I got a reality check on the kind of woman a rich kid should marry. Thought he cheated on me. Got a surprise visit from Kyle. Watched Simon beat his ass on the front lawn. Told Simon I didn’t deserve him. All we need is a mystery baby, me in a slutty dress, and we’ve got a complete telenovela.”

  Stacia narrows her eyes. “Do you really believe that?”

  “What?”

  “That you don’t deserve him.”

  Shrugging my shoulders, I walk toward the front windows. I hear Stacia’s bare feet padding across the floor. When I turn, she has her hand outstretched to me. When I take it, she tugs us across to the large mirror. Swirling her finger, she gestures for me to turn and then raises the back of my shirt, drawing the bandage aside for me to see what she’s put on my skin.