Ruin You

by Molly O'Keefe

  “Simon!”

  “Shhhh,” he tells me and I catch the glimmer of his eyes looking at me over my tummy and the intimacy of it is awful. Painful. So I look up at the ceiling and I put my fists in my mouth and I’m silent as he licks me and tongues me. As he puts his hands under my hips and holds me to his mouth. The pleasure is sharp. So sharp I flinch away but he doesn’t let me go.

  He gives me more and I’m biting my knuckles and crying out his name and coming and coming and coming.

  “Simon,” I pant, wiping tears from my eyes, looking at the dent I put in my hand with my teeth. “Oh, my God…”

  “Go to sleep,” he says, sitting up at the foot of the bed. I can see his erection in the moonlight and I sit up to reach for him, but he catches my hands.

  His smile is strange, like it’s something he thinks he needs to do.

  “Sleep,” he says.

  “Are…are you leaving?”

  His sigh is long and silent, but I watch his shoulders slump.

  “Not yet,” he says and crawls into the bed with me.

  He’s warm and he’s big and I curl against him and I tell myself that whatever was weird about all that. It was in my head.

  It feels off because I’m lying.

  And suddenly all those lies are a cage. Keeping him out. Keeping everyone out. This staff I want to be family won’t ever be a family. Won’t be anything but people I’m lying to.

  Megan.

  Simon.

  I’ll never have anything more because I’ve locked myself up in these lies.

  I’ll never have anything more. I’ll be alone, my whole life. And in this bed, the sweat cooling on my body, I can’t stand that idea. I can’t bare it.

  Because I want Simon for as long as I can have him. I’m not in love. Or at least, I don’t think I am. But I’ve never been in love. I feel something I’ve never felt before. Like it could be love, if given water and sunlight. This lightness in my chest, this fizz in my blood could turn into love.

  In a split second, I imagine him coming back here during the weeks. Staying in the trailer with me. Working from another one of the trailers. I imagine us running up the mountain. Sampling breakfast beer. I imagine everything I’ll cook for him.

  His father’s mutton biryani.

  It’s so clear what I imagine. And it will only happen if I’m brave enough to stop lying.

  “I need to tell you something,” I say. And the words are like gunshots in the silence. His body goes stiff.

  But mine goes fluid. My brain everything goes fluid. And I can’t stop myself.

  It’s happening, I think. I’m doing this.

  “You want me to leave?” he asks, getting up from the bed, but I stop him.

  “No,” I say. “Not at all. Not even a little.” I try to smile but I’m too much a mess. He’s standing beside the bed and I can’t lie there and look up at him like this, so I get up on my knees.

  I’m so naked. So totally fucking naked. But there’s no other way to do this.

  He opens his mouth to say something, but I put up a hand, stopping him. Because if don’t say this now, I’ll never say it. I’ll lose my nerve and this chance will be gone. “Can I just…talk. Just let me say what I need to say?”

  He nods.

  “So, like…eight years ago, I read this thing. Something dumb on the internet. How to choose your porn name or your author name, I don’t know. But it was the name of your first pet and the street you live on. And we…we had a dog. It was my papa’s dog, actually. But I loved her. She lived up in the mountains with us outside of Athens and well, her name was Penny. And the street I was living on when I read this dumb meme, was McConnell.”

  Oh, God, it’s fucking amazing telling the truth. It’s revolutionary. Addictive. I’m light-headed and drunk.

  “My real name is Tina Andreas.” I laugh. I actually laugh. “I haven’t said that name in eight years.”

  A long, slow breath hisses out of his body, but that’s all. I can’t tell what he’s thinking. Or how he’s feeling and I find it doesn’t even matter. I’m telling the truth.

  I can’t stop.

  “The stuff about the farm and the brothers. The over-salted dinner. I made it up. I…created this whole story because I wanted it to be true. Because I wanted something that was completely different than what I knew. Different from the family I had. My mom —” I stop myself. I don’t need to tell him everything, do I? But then I realize I do. I need to tell him everything. Otherwise, what’s the point? No more half-lives for me. “My mother went to jail about eight years ago. For something she didn’t do. Or maybe she did. I don’t know anymore. And I can’t keep feeling guilty all the time for what my parents have done.”

  He steps back. Away from me. His hands in fists. His jaw as hard as granite. And it occurs to me that he might not care. That I’ve imagined all of this. I’ve created another story in my head, this time about him. That he might want something more with me. But I can’t stop talking.

  “But I also…I can’t have anyone in my life if I’m lying. And I’m not saying I want you in my life…well, maybe I am. Maybe I’m saying I’d like a chance. Or something. Anything…”

  My embarrassment is filling the room like a stench. And the longer he stays silent the worse it gets.

  I was completely wrong.

  Humiliation leaves a copper taste in my mouth. It makes my hands numb. My body cold.

  I get off the bed and we’re both standing here, naked. I’m looking at him. He’s looking at the floor.

  “Simon? Can…can you say something?”

  “Why are you telling me this?” he asks. “Why now?”

  “Don’t you…? Can’t you guess?”

  “You don’t love me,” he says in a hard voice.

  It’s like he’s punched me.

  My hands shaking, I grab a T-shirt from my dresser. My whole body is shaking. I can hardly get it on. “I’m sorry. I got this wrong. I thought —”

  I pull the shirt over my head and he’s standing here. So close.

  “You don’t know me,” he whispers.

  “But I want to,” I whisper back and I can feel my eyes filling with tears. And I wish I was stronger. Less needy, but I can’t stop myself. “I really do.”

  I reach for him and he grabs my hands in one of his, holding me so hard it hurts. But he doesn’t push me away, or pull me close.

  He doesn’t let me go.

  “Simon,” I breathe.

  “I was in a foster home,” he says, then shakes his head, like he wants to stop. Like he doesn’t understand why he’s saying these words.

  “No,” I say, straining towards him, but he still keeps me away. “Tell me. Please. Tell me. When, when were you in a foster home?”

  “After my parents died, before I graduated high school. It was just a few months, but…it was a bad place. The man who was supposed to take care of us, he hurt us. All of us. Over and over again. Tommy —Tommy got it bad. But the girls…”

  I sob, bending forward. But he’s still holding my hands like manacles in a jail and I know. I so understand that if I touch him, he’ll fall apart.

  That feeling is as familiar to me as breathing.

  “One night, we just…we couldn’t take it anymore. We broke out of our rooms. We busted into his office, we stopped him from raping —” He shakes his head. Swallows. “I’ve never — We never talked about it.”

  Snot and tears are running down my face.

  “It was awful. Every day in that place and every hour for years after, it was so fucking bleak. And sometimes I feel like it’s me that’s bleak. That all the shit and all the darkness that I see in the world, it’s in me, too.”

  “It’s not, Simon. It’s not. I know you and you’re not bleak.”

  “But you don’t know me. And all this time, all those months in the foster home and all the years after, I dreamed of one thing. One. Fucking. Thing.”

  “What?”

  “You.”
/>   It doesn’t make any sense. But then it doesn’t matter, because he’s let go of my hands and I’m in his arms.

  I hold onto him as if we’re weathering a storm together. As if there are terrible winds that want to pull us apart.

  And he’s kissing me the same way. We fall, back onto the bed, our hands feverish. Our bodies searching out each other’s warmth. There’s another condom and I’m crying out as he enters me. Crying out as I come. And then again when he comes. We shudder and shake against each other.

  He leaves to take care of the condom and I put my nose in my pillow that smells like sex and us and I grin as I drift off.

  I told him my terrible secret.

  And nothing bad happened.

  I’m not cursed.

  I can be happy.

  When I wake up again, he’s gone.

  NINETEEN

  Simon

  I STEAL the laptop and sneak out of her trailer while she’s sleeping. And I don’t think. I turn my brain off until I’m in my own room, sitting on my own bed. The laptop in front of me.

  And within seconds it’s over.

  The laptop is her mother’s. The password is Tina’s name. Once I type it in, the desktop has one folder on it.

  Dale.

  That’s it.

  Dale.

  Sitting on my bed in my minuscule hotel room, I click on it and files of all types appear.

  There are digital recordings of conversations with the Chairmen of the FDA. California Judges. Obvious bribe situations.

  PDFs of invoices and receipts. Interrogation reports.

  Pictures of him with, Jesus…Bates. Great. Just great. But it’s a connection to the criminal drug world, that’s for sure.

  It’s everything I’ve ever dreamed of and the sizzle of the story fills me. It pushes away every feeling I have about what happened last night. About what I did.

  What she said. What I fucking said.

  I don’t want to feel anything. I want to stay angry. I want to feed my revenge.

  She needs to go back to being Tina Andreas.

  I don’t like Tina Andreas. I never touched her. I never told her anything about myself. I never laughed with her.

  She’s a tool.

  And I’m using her.

  I like the way you use me.

  I think, for a moment, I’m going to be sick.

  What do you think, Mom? Dad? So proud, right?

  Oh, my God, my mother would have loved her. I think these thoughts like pressing salt into a wound.

  There is a shortcut on the toolbar to the on-line portal for her bank. Her passwords are far too simple and she has auto-fill on almost all of them. Even as I’m benefitting from her laziness, I’m furious with her.

  Within minutes I can see her bank account. There’s only one. A trust fund in the name of Tina Andreas. And there have been systematic and large sums of money removed over the last two years.

  It’s proof she’s funding The Paintbrush. And she’s using a trust fund to do it.

  There is no question where or from whom the trust fund came.

  Dale Simpson.

  “It’s over,” I breathe. “It’s all over.”

  Dale Simpson will be going to jail for the rest of his natural life. And Penny will be ruined.

  I start downloading all of the files onto my USB stick.

  There’s a Word document in the middle of it titled simply Tina and I stop the download.

  I rub my hand over my face and click it. I’ve gone this far, what’s one more betrayal?

  Daughter,

  I’m sorry that I’ve put you in this spot. I know you want nothing to do with him. And I don’t blame you. And I know you don’t want much to do with me, either, and I guess I don’t blame you for that, either. But I have to believe that part of you remembers the good times we had. You and me in Papa’s farm. The beach and the goats. You would braid my hair and I would let you wear my makeup. Surely after all this time, those memories mean something to you. You can’t be as heartless as all that.

  Since you aren’t accepting my calls anymore, I don’t know if you are aware but a threat was made on my life. Your father, of course. He’s scared of the information I have. Information that could ruin him. All that information is in this laptop.

  You don’t have to do anything. I promise. And I know I’ve made promises before. But this time it’s true. Just…don’t let anyone find this. Hide it away until I get out. That’s all. I promise.

  If he gets his hands on this — or if this information is leaked to the press — I’ll die here, honey. I’ll die in prison. I’ll be murdered in my bed.

  And I know you and I have had some problems, but you don’t want that. You don’t want your own mother murdered.

  Just keep it safe. That’s all. Until I get out.

  I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m sorry for all of it.

  I click out of the file.

  Marianna Andreas is a real peach. I imagine what kind of damage a woman like that could inflict on a little girl. And I realize I don’t have to imagine.

  I was witness to it all last night. The way Penny couldn’t quite accept affection. The bitterness she needed with the sweet. The way she couldn’t meet my eyes while absolutely absorbing every nuance of my mood.

  She’s using Simpson’s money to make this place. And she has been sitting on the information that would bring him down, that could have, in theory, made it possible for thousands of people to get the medicine they need.

  I have, in my time, felt sympathy for the devil. But I’ve always done my job, no matter what.

  This won’t be any different.

  I finish the download and sit, quietly, in the dark.

  Penny

  PANIC BUILDS in me as I get dressed. As I walk to the inn. I glance at the mountain behind me, pink in the light of the fresh, new morning, like I might be able to see him there.

  But, of course, I can’t.

  He’s here, I think. He hasn’t left. Not without saying goodbye. Not after everything that happened last night.

  But I have been so conditioned to heartache. Every measure of self-preservation I have is urging me not to hope, to drag these wishes into the dirt.

  The kitchen is quiet. Brandi is here mixing the scones, listening to NPR in the back. It smells like baking and coffee and still, I’m freaking out.

  “You haven’t seen Simon, have you?” I ask her and she shakes her head no.

  Nothing, I think. He didn’t come in through the kitchen. He went around to the front.

  Megan is on the front desk.

  “Holy cow,” she says when she sees me. “We are booked all weekend long. Both dinner seatings are full, with wait lists. I am turning people away. Some really rude rich guy just called and said he wanted to rent out the whole hotel.”

  “When?”

  “Tonight!”

  “That’s crazy,” I say without any enthusiasm.

  “It’s so freaking amazing!” Megan laughs and clacks around on her computer. Humming, practically dancing in place.

  “Hey,” I say.

  “Yep.” She doesn’t look up.

  “I know you’re busy, but…we need to talk.”

  “Sure, go ahead.”

  “No. Like…for real.”

  She glances up. “Okay. Now? Or —”

  Like a coward, I put it off. Because it’s a giant conversation. Because it’s going to hurt her more than I can handle right now. Because it may be the end of us.

  “Let’s get through this weekend,” I say. Let’s have this one great thing. This giant success, before I burn it all down.

  “You bet. Monday morning. You bring the scones. I’ll bring coffee.”

  “It’s a date,” I say with a smile, but I feel like I might cry.

  “Are you all right?” she asks.

  “Fine,” I lie. But I’m not doing it well. Like telling the truth ruined me for lying. “Have you seen Simon?”

  “I have, but not
recently. Not this morning. Why? What —”

  “Can you see if he’s checked out? And don’t —” My breath shudders. “Don’t say I told you so.”

  “I wouldn’t. I won’t. Oh, Penny,” she sighs and she clacks around on the computer for a second. “Oh, you know, that’s weird. He’s checked in under the name Simon Malik.”

  Dread is sinking into my bones. Something is so wrong.

  “But he’s still here?” I ask and Megan nods.

  “Hey,” she says as I walk away. “I’m here if you need me. Anytime.”

  “I know,” I say. “Thanks.”

  I walk down the hallway, to the room under the stairs. And Simon.

  TWENTY

  Penny

  I KNOCK and I can hear him in the room, the tread of his footsteps and I wipe my sweaty hands on my pants. I can’t do anything about my heart, which feels like it’s going to pound out of my chest.

  For the first time in years I’m operating without a script. Without the net of my lies to keep me safe. And I’m scared. I’m so scared.

  The door opens and he’s standing there, tall and wide, dressed in dark jeans and a T-shirt.

  I’m breathless at the sight of him.

  His face is so utterly compelling. So beautifully carved. The hard jaw and the full lips. The eyes like dark pools. He doesn’t smile, doesn’t welcome me in. He’s intense and…angry.

  Or is that my imagination? My old demons making me think something that’s not true.

  Because if anyone should be angry right now, it’s me.

  “I just need a minute,” I say, keenly aware of my ripped, black jeans and I’m With Her T-shirt. My tattoos visible over the V-neck and under the short sleeves.

  I’m the most…me I’ve been. Except when we were in bed.

  My smile, despite my best efforts, is shaky. And I don’t wait for him to invite me in, or say anything, I just step inside his room and he lets me.

  The door closes behind us. And the room is so small I can barely breathe without touching him.

  “You left last night, without saying anything and I —”

  I catch sight of his bag on the bed. It’s open. But it’s packed. His running shoes sit on top of the Henley shirt he wore the other day.