by Callie Hart
I know I’m about to cry. The second I open my mouth and try to speak, my throat will close up and I’ll choke on the words. I still try, though. “It’s not that easy. It’s not something I can just hand off to someone else, so they can carry half the load for me, Rooke. This is ingrained deep inside me now. It would be like trying to give away half of my soul.”
“I’ll take a part of your soul,” he says quietly. “Give me the wounded part. Give me the part that hurts you every time you breathe. Give me the part that feels so heavy you just don’t think you can carry it anymore. I’ll take care of it for you.”
I feel like I’ve been struck with something hard and blunt. Rooke just stares at me with a solid, steady look on his face, and I can feel my eyes stinging, my throat closing up. He means it. I read it on every line of him; he would carry my pain if he could. I have no idea why, but he would. Even Andrew couldn’t do that for me. I suppose it makes sense that he couldn’t—he had his own pain to carry, after all. Kika, Kayla, Ali and Tiffanie all tried to help with the load, but they all soon bowed under the pressure of that kindness. Something in the way Rooke’s so fixed on me right now, the tight clench of his jaw and the set of his shoulders, tells me he could do it though. If I let him, if I knew how, he would carry every single hurt I possess, until I barely even felt them anymore.
“I can’t do this,” I whisper. “It’s too much.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
“You don’t understand.”
“I can try. You could let me try. What have you got to lose?”
“EVERYTHING!” I take a raw breath in and I choke on the air flowing into my lungs. God, I can’t cope with this. It’s too hard. It’s too much. I cover my face with my hands, embarrassed that I’m suddenly crying.
“Why would you lose everything?” Rooke asks.
“Because. If I trust you, if I make myself vulnerable, I have to let down the walls I’ve spent so long constructing. And if it doesn’t work out between us, if I trust you and you let me down, or if I fuck things up, there’s no way I’ll be able to put that wall back up again. No way in hell. It took too much to build it the first time around. I have nothing left, Rooke. Seriously. I have nothing left.”
*****
I hate being carted out of the hospital in a wheelchair. It magnifies my humiliation to unbearable degrees. It feels like everyone is looking at me, watching, judging me. Rooke’s been quiet for a long time. He’s simmering; I can feel the annoyance and disappointment rolling off him like heat from a sidewalk in summer, and it’s making things really uncomfortable. I told him he didn’t need to stop and drive me back to my place, and he just grunted. He spoke to the nurse about what care I might need at home—lots of water, lots of rest—and then he pointedly ignored me.
It’s raining outside. Big, fat, heavy droplets of water that explode every time they hit the sidewalk. The sky looks grim and serious, much like Rooke as he helps me to my feet and returns the wheelchair to an orderly by the door.
“Wait here,” he says. He doesn’t look back at me as he jogs off into the rain, presumably looking for a taxi. I watch him go, his hair instantly wet as he crosses the blacktop, and I can’t help but look around, searching for an exit from this situation. If I slip away now, it’s unlikely he’ll follow me home. After picking me up off the floor and getting me to the hospital, he shouldn’t want to see me ever again. Me vanishing would be the perfect way out for him.
He’s disappeared. I crane my neck, trying to spot him in the increasingly hard rain, but he’s the one who’s vanished. He’s the one who’s ducked away in the dusk.
I step back, away from the curb, as a black sedan rolls up in front of the hospital entrance. The window buzzes down, and then Rooke hops out of the driver’s seat and comes around the vehicle to open the passenger door for me.
I just stare at the car and at him, processing the fact that he has a car. “You borrowed this?” I ask.
He cocks his head, looking at the car. He’s tired, though. He’s not really seeing it. “In the most illegal sense of the word, yes,” he confirms.
“What does that mean?”
“I stole it from one of your neighbors.” He slams the door shut on me, cutting off my horrified gasp. He climbs into the driver’s seat and slams his own door, clipping his seatbelt into place. Rooke holds onto the steering wheel with both hands, eyes directed straight ahead. “Aren’t you going to put your seatbelt on?”
I continue to stare at him with my mouth open.
“Jesus Christ, Sasha.” He leans over and grabs hold of my seatbelt, yanking it across my body, fumbling as he tries to drive the metal clip home. I snatch the seatbelt away from him, ripping it from his hands.
“Seriously? You’re seriously worried about me buckling up when the car we’re in is fucking stolen?”
“I was joking. Fuck. This is Jake’s car.”
“Who’s Jake?”
Turning on me, his eyes are blazing, filled with fire. “Jake is my roommate. I’ve lived with him for the past four years. You’d know that, but you don’t ask pertinent questions about who the fuck I am or about my fucking life. You just focus on the stupid shit that doesn’t matter to anyone but you. But you’re going to, Sasha. I’m not going to let you panic your way out of this one. I’m done, okay? I’m done standing back, allowing you to fuck this up, waiting for you to figure this shit out on your own terms. If I have to force you to see this, I will. Do you think I won’t lock you in a basement and fuck you stupid until you can finally see how important this is? Do you think I won’t hold you hostage until you admit how you feel? That you’re in love with me? That the way I touch you turns you on beyond words? I’ve been to jail, Sasha, and it’s literally the worst place on earth. It stinks, you’re worried about getting ass raped twenty-four fucking seven, and the food is enough to make you puke three times a day. I despised it there, but I’m willing to risk going back if it means you’ll quit this shit and just behave. Do you hear me? Do you understand?”
At what point do I give in? He speaks these words of truth to me, and I’m blinded by them. I can’t see which way to run, or which way to turn. I’m turned around, lost, and so afraid of the consequences of really allowing myself to fall for him that I push and shove against the very idea of it like a little child, refusing to accept the inevitable. There are a thousand ways to get hurt every time I step foot out of my front door, though. My heart is a resilient muscle now. It’s taken such a beating, had so many experiences at fighting to heal itself over and over again, when I thought there was just no way I would ever recover from the pain I was in, and yet each time I’ve found a way back, to heal, to recover and to keep on stepping through that front door.
If he hurts me, I can get over it.
If my heart gets broken again, what’s one more fracture amongst a spider’s web of scars?
Rooke presses his lips together, nostrils flared. He swallows, and his Adam’s apple bobs, shifting the ink on his neck. There’s a wild and untamable light in his eyes that reminds me of a storm out at sea—distant and far away, but obviously savage and dangerous in nature. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t move the car. He waits.
After a long time, I take a deep breath and I close my eyes. “Okay, Rooke. Okay. You win. I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”
TWENTY-FOUR
LET GO
ROOKE
Once when I was fourteen, I walked in on Sim and Richard. They were fucking. Or rather, they were having intercourse. My mom was laid out flat on her back, eyes vacant and staring up at the ceiling, and my dad had this look of concentration on his face that made him look pained. They didn’t see me standing there in the doorway of their bedroom until Richard finished his perfunctory thrusting and collapsed onto the mattress. Sim turned her head, and there was a brief moment where we were connected, she was seeing me and I was seeing her, her pale pink silk nightgown still rucked up around her hips like a rape victim, and she looked exhau
sted. Beaten down. She looked so much younger than she did during daylight hours, when she was rushing around, cleaning, talking on the phone with her friends and telling me to keep my feet off the furniture. She was someone I didn’t recognize, and for a heartbeat in time I felt sorry for her. Then, the anger crept in around her eyes again, her mouth pulling down into a grimace, and she was back. Sim. My mother, annoyed and disappointed in me for the fifteenth time that day. Except this time she was embarrassed, too. It took me a while to figure out why: that having someone witness the mechanical, unpleasant nature of the love making she shared with her husband meant someone else knew there was no actual love left in her marriage.
I vowed back then that when I had sex with a woman, I would dedicate myself to her enjoyment. I would make sure she wanted me to be on top of her. I would make sure she was dizzy with wanting me and everything I had to offer. I swore I would know how to please her.
Did that mean I went out and I fucked a bunch of women to gain experience? Yes. Did that mean I got my ass beaten by seniors in high school when I screwed their cheerleader girlfriends? Fuck yes. Nearly every day of the week, before I was packed off to juvi. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t unsafe or stupid. I had a condom in my pocket at all times; I knew that it actually had to get used instead of just sitting there. As a result, while my stupid friends (Jake include) were all filling prescriptions for antibiotics to clear up their chlamydia and a colorful array of other nasty STIs, my dick was in perfect working order. When I got out of juvi, I fucked my way across New York, learning about a woman’s needs. It’s a thing of beauty, a woman’s body. Far more delicate and fragile than any clock or car engine I’ve worked on. I know how and where to touch, though. Where to lick, where to kiss, where to excite.
Sasha and I sit in silence as I drive her home from the hospital. Side streets whip by in a blur. Yellow taxicabs weave erratically through the traffic. The rain comes down so hard it’s next to impossible to see out of the windshield. My mind wanders as I go through the motions of shifting gears—where I’m going to kiss her first. Where I’m going to touch her. How many times I’ll make her come. How many times she’s going to scream my name. I have a solid plan by the time I pull up outside my place.
Sasha squints blearily out of the window, looking up at the building beside us. “This isn’t my house,” she says.
“I know. This is my house. I know you’re tired. I know you’re sick. It’s time you came here, though. You’ll be comfortable. You’ll be taken care of. Don’t even think about arguing with me, okay?”
She looks stumped for a second, then shakes her head. “I wasn’t going to.”
Well there’s a surprise. “All right then.” I get out of the car and I take my jacket off. By the time I’m around the other side of the car, I have it held out for Sasha to shield her from the rain. I can feel water trickling down my back, in between my shoulder blades as I walk her slowly to the house.
“Which apartment is yours?” she asks. Her hair is wet. Despite the shadows under her eyes, as well as the slight bruise there too, she looks fucking phenomenal. I find this is when people are at their most captivating. At least their most honest. She’s not wearing a lick of makeup, she’s getting soaked regardless of my best efforts, and she’s leaning against me for support. I want to scoop her up and crush her to me, hold onto her forever.
“I don’t have an apartment here,” I tell her. “It’s all mine. The whole building.”
“What? The whole…?” She looks up, eyes taking in the first floor, then the second, then third and the fourth. “What the hell, Rooke? How can you afford this?”
“I told you. I’m a spoiled little rich kid. My parents gave it to me as a living inheritance.”
She blinks, seeming to try and take in the information. “Wow. And I thought my place was overkill. So…only two of you live here?”
“Only the two of us. And don’t worry. I’m on the top floor. Jake’s two floors down. Sound doesn’t travel well at Chez Blackheath.”
“Oh god,” she groans. “I just got off an IV drip. My leg was nearly broken recently and you’re going to make me climb four flights of stairs?”
“Nope. I’m going to carry you.”
“Like hell you—”
I cut her off when I bend and pick her up quickly, lifting her into my arms.
“Rooke! Put me down!”
“Quit. Let’s just get inside. You can pummel me to death with your girly fists then. Right now I’d appreciate it if you’d stop hitting me.” She stops slapping her hand against my chest long enough for me to fish my keys out of my pocket one-handed.
“Take them. Open it,” I tell her.
She reaches down and takes the keys from me, and then she’s opening the door, pushing it open, and I’m taking her inside. The house is warm. For a second I consider sinking down onto the bottom step of the stairs and just holding her in my arms while we both thaw out. She’s shaking, my leather jacket half draped over her body, her shirt plastered to her chest. Her jeans are drenched too. It would be better to get her into a hot shower and fast.
I climb up to the first floor, and that’s where Jacob meets us. He’s hurrying out of the living room carrying his guitar case and a mountain of sheet music, a bagel stuffed into his mouth. When he sees us, he puts down the guitar case, pins the sheet music under his arm, and he removes the bagel from between his teeth.
“We’ve talked about this,” he says, pointing at Sasha. “No roofied girls in the house, Blackheath.”
“Shut up, asshole. This is Sasha.”
Jake rolls his eyes. “Of course it’s Sasha. Who else would it be?” Holding out a hand, he gives her one of his super awkward, super shy smiles. “I’m not going to ask why he’s carrying you like that,” he says. “I probably don’t want to know.”
“You definitely don’t,” she says quietly, shaking his hand. I’m glad Jake hasn’t put his foot in it. I texted him and told him I was going to be at the hospital, and I also explained why. He’s a smart fucker. He knows I’d kick his ass if he embarrassed her.
“I have a gig tonight. I won’t be back until late. It was nice to meet you.” He gives me a strained look as he slips by us and jogs down the stairs. He hasn’t said anything about how impractical my relationship with Sasha is since the shit that went down at the museum. He’s a stubborn guy, though. He probably thinks this is crazy. He probably thinks I should have dropped Sasha off at home and left her ass there, never to speak to her again.
******
SASHA
He carries me up the next flight of stairs, bypassing the living room, straight to the bedroom. He takes me inside and places me carefully down on the bed. I look around, surprised.
“What is it?” he asks.
“I don’t know. I just…I figured your place would be…”
“A disgusting frat house?”
“Yeah. I guess. I definitely didn’t think it would be this clean.”
“I’m twenty-three, not a barbarian.”
“Actually, you are kind of a barbarian.”
He smirks, that terrible, reckless “fuck me” smile of his that makes my toes curl inside my shoes. “You fucking love me this way,” he informs me. “You love the danger. If I didn’t scare you a little, you wouldn’t be interested. You can’t deny that.”
He’s right; I can’t. I don’t like to admit to something like that, though. It makes me seem as though I’m not quite right in the head. After all, what kind of woman willingly wants to be a little afraid of the guy she’s sleeping with? What kind of woman wants to feel like her entire life might spiral out of control any second now because the guy she continually allows into her bed is a criminal and a thief?
“Now that you have me here, trapped in your bachelor pad, what are you planning on doing with me?” I ask.
Rooke arches his left eyebrow, his head turned to one side. “You know exactly what I’m planning on doing, Sasha. You know, there will come a time when I
fuck you and you aren’t fresh out of the hospital, though, right?”
His comment is like a punch in the gut. I have been hospitalized more than any one person should be over the past couple of weeks. I want to defend myself, to explain to him that this isn’t normal for me. I went five years without seeing the inside of a hospital before the incident in the museum. I hadn’t even been to see a general practitioner in all that time. I plan on saying all of this, but Rooke’s phone buzzes in his pocket before I can form the words. He pulls out his cell and quickly reads the message he obviously just received. Frowning, he puts his cell back into his pocket.
“What is it?”
“Nothing. Just work.”
“Work? At this time of night? I had no idea watch making was such a demanding job.” I realize I’ve made a mistake as soon as I finish speaking. A hard, blank look forms on Rooke’s face.
“Not that job. My other job.”
My cheeks flush scarlet. “Ah. The…”
“The car-boosting job, yeah.”
“Aren’t you going to reply?”
He looks at me, his gaze steady. Unshakeable. “No. I’m not in a position to take this particular job.”
“Why not?”
“Because it would require me leaving you right now, and I’m not going to do that.”
A pleasant, strange sensation coils deep in the pit of my stomach. What the fuck is wrong with me? I’m excited and giddy that my boyfriend is turning down grand theft auto work in order to care for me, because I drank myself stupid and needed to get my stomach pumped. There is something very, very wrong with this scenario. Rooke smiles, an almost, kind-of-there smile. “You’re taking this very well,” he says.