As my body warmed, I became acutely aware of the sopping wet undergarments I still had on. My bra felt like ice against my nipples, which I feared might break off soon if they didn’t regain some circulation. Under Gabe’s weight, I squirmed to get my arms behind my back to unclasp the bra, to no avail.
“Could you…could you undo this for me,” I asked with a heavy exhale. A flush of embarrassment reached my cheeks, heating them instantly. Too bad it didn't have the same effect everywhere else. I expected hesitation on his part but found none. Within seconds the underwire contraption was off and lying next to his bed. “Thanks,” I said as he pressed his chest to mine.
“Any time.” A small grin tugged at the corners of his mouth.
His face was closer to mine now, only inches separating us, but the intensity of his eyes pulled me in like I could swim in their chocolate depths forever. And I wouldn’t care if I drowned.
“Gabe,” I said, my voice breathy and soft. His grip on the pillow beneath my head tightened, as if he were fighting for control. That one word—me saying his name—was almost more than he could take.
“Phira, I—”
“You what?” I asked, trailing my chilled fingers up his sides. “You want me?”
His exhale was a growl of sorts, coming from somewhere deep within him. Yes, his control was breaking slowly, and I knew it. I loved every second of it.
And I had no idea why.
“It’s not right,” he said, dropping his head to the side of mine to break eye contact.
“Does it feel right?” I whispered in his ear.
Again, he made that guttural sound that made me want to come undone.
“Phira—” I caught his earlobe between my teeth and tugged on it gently. That single touch was all it took. His lips were on mine before I even felt him move. With bodies pressed together tightly, we kissed with a ferocity that didn't seem possible. His hands were all over my body as mine were all over his, desperate to find something to grab hold of and never let go. “You’re so beautiful,” he said, his voice muffled by my neck as he kissed his way down it.
My body went rigid as a memory flashed through my mind.
It left as quickly as it came and I brushed it off, not even fully recognizing what it was I had seen.
We continued to go at each other like our lives depended on it. Gabe seemed unfazed by my momentary freeze. He hooked his thumbs on the waistband of my underwear and started to slowly slide them down.
“So beautiful,” he mumbled as he nipped at my chest.
Then I remembered.
Random bodies and voices ricocheted through my mind, each saying that same thing over and over again. They all wanted something from me. To take something from me. And I let them. Time and time again, I spread my legs for them. In back alleys and bars. In closets and cars. It didn’t seem to matter to me; I seemed happy to give them what they wanted.
The reality that I was a whore slapped me hard.
“I can’t do this,” I blurted out, scrambling to get out from underneath him. “I’m so sorry, but I can’t.” He backed off of me immediately, letting me flee his bed with a blanket wrapped tightly around my naked body.
My breathing was ragged. I felt like I was hyperventilating. Those memories—those ugly memories—were too much for me to bear. In my short time with Gabe, I’d contemplated the fact that I might be nothing like the person I was there; that someone far uglier might have been hiding inside. But what I had not bargained for—what I couldn’t have imagined—was that I was altogether vile. Someone I would never have chosen to be.
“Jesus Christ,” I gasped, leaning against the wall for support.
“Phira, what just happened? What’s wrong?” Gabe asked, staring at me from his bed, his expression full of helplessness.
“I remember…”
“Everything?” He shot off the bed to walk toward me but quickly stopped himself when I recoiled from his approach.
“No. Not everything. But enough.”
“What is it, Phira? What did you see?”
I looked at him with bleary eyes, not wanting to tell such a sweet soul what I had just learned. Not wanting to tarnish my time with him. But the truth would come out eventually, wouldn’t it?
“What if,” I started, trying to find a way to tell him that I was a whore. “What if I’m not a good person, Gabe? What if I don’t like what I’m starting to remember?”
“You’re a good person, Phira,” he replied, the sadness in his voice undeniable.
“You don’t know that,” I argued, shaking my head frantically. “You don’t know that.”
“I know what I see.”
“And what you see is a lie! It’s all a lie!”
“I don’t believe that. You may not remember all of who you are, but forgetting doesn’t change your DNA, Phira. It doesn't change your instincts and your inherent behaviors.” He dared to step closer to me, keeping a close eye on my response to his proximity. “I would bet all the money in the world that you were just as much of a smartass before this happened. And that you were obstinate as hell.”
“Would you bet that I was a raging whore? Because based on the memories that just flashed through my mind, I sure as hell was.”
He frowned.
“Those memories are out of context, Phira. You can’t make a judgment like that based on what you saw.”
“Jesus, Gabe. I can’t even tell you how many men I just saw fucking me. And I wanted them to. I was happy to let them do it,” I screamed, tears rolling down my cheeks. “It’s disgusting. I’m disgusting!”
“No. You’re not,” he said firmly, closing the distance between us. He took me by my arms and held me up when I started to slide down the wall away from him.
“I can feel it,” I said, my voice suddenly soft and hollow. “There’s an emptiness in me. I can’t explain it, but it’s there.”
“Listen. You’re scared. You’re tired. Hell, Phira, you could have died tonight! I need you to breathe and cut yourself a little slack.” His tone was firm but kind as he held me upright. “And even if what you think is true—that that’s what you were before—you don’t have to be that now. You choose who you are. Nobody else can do that for you. Your life is yours to dictate.”
“No it isn’t,” I countered before I even realized what I was saying. It was a kneejerk reflex. An argument I had clearly made in the past.
Gabe eyed me strangely, as though my words made no sense at all.
“Yes. It is. Every day we make choices. Life is filled with them.”
“Not mine.”
“Is that something else you remember or something you’re choosing to believe?”
“I—I don’t know.”
He forced a sympathetic smile.
“Let’s get you dressed and fed, then off to bed. You need to rest, Phira.”
“Okay,” I said weakly, pulling the blanket tighter around me.
“I’ll go get you some clothes.”
He disappeared, leaving me to my confusion and shame.
When he returned, I dressed quickly and tried to slink past him out his bedroom door. His arm raised, then dropped, as if he wanted to stop me but thought better of it. Like he knew I didn’t want to be touched.
Without so much as a glance his way, I limped to my room and closed the door. I crawled into bed and pulled the covers up around me tight. Confusion and fear ran rampant through my mind, making it impossible to sleep. My near-death experience was horrifying, but I wasn’t certain that it was what had me so on edge. Something about the flashes of memory I'd had disturbed me more deeply. Almost dying was scary, but it was over. It didn’t define me. Gabe might have been convinced that whatever I had seen—the men I’d seen screwing me—didn’t define me either, but I wasn’t so sure. Those memories had awakened something in me. A sense of guilt and shame clung to me as though it were part of my DNA, making Gabe’s argument moot. Maybe I was exactly what I’d appeared to be in those memories: a whore.
But if that were true, it raised a greater question.
Why did the whore feel so horrible about her whoring behavior?
I lay in bed, eyes wide open staring at the ceiling, and tried to find the answer to that riddle. But I came up empty-handed. All I had to show for my wonderings was a raging headache and a sadness that I couldn’t explain.
The girl in my memories was an unhappy one indeed.
I wouldn’t have wanted to trade places with her if my life had depended on it.
Chapter 12
I spent the rest of that day holed up in my room. I was just too ashamed to face Gabe. Though I knew I couldn’t avoid him forever, the desire to try was hard to ignore.
I heard him the next morning, preparing for his day of labor. He didn’t bother to knock on my door, for which I was thankful. I wasn’t quite ready to face him yet.
When I knew he was gone, I got up and took my time getting ready. Once I was showered and dressed, I made my way to the stairs, where I found my crutches waiting for me. I smiled at the gesture, knowing that Gabe had made a point to fetch them for me and put them somewhere I would easily find them.
Downstairs I found Gabe’s mother at her post in the piano room. I sighed at the sight of her. After the conversation we’d had about her, I still couldn’t shake the ominous feeling she gave me. Something about her was just off.
I walked through the piano room to the kitchen and grabbed a banana off the counter. I brought it with me to the piano bench and sat down to eat it, staring at his mother as I did. She sat there in her chair, gazing out the window as always. I wondered if she was aware of what she was looking at, or if she was truly locked away in her mind. That thought tugged at my heart a bit. How horrible would it be to be trapped in your own mind, unable to escape it? Her husband's death must have been more than she could bear.
Her sanity seemed to have died along with him.
“Gabe told me that you love the piano. That you always used to play and sing for him when he was growing up,” I said aloud, not really sure why I was trying to communicate with her. The only times she’d spoken to me had scared the crap out of me. If she’d turned and answered, I probably would have had a heart attack.
Thankfully for me, she didn’t.
I peeled my banana and took a big bite, chewing it while I wondered something. If Gabe’s mother had been brought back from her breaks with reality by playing the piano, then maybe, just maybe, if I could get her to play with me, she would come back once again. What a gift that would be to Gabe.
What a way to thank him for all he’d done for me.
I quickly finished my breakfast and threw away the peel in the kitchen. When I returned to the piano room, I sat down on the bench, laying my crutches on the floor to my right. I carefully lifted the cover off of the keys and rested my hands upon them, preparing to play. I couldn’t shake the eerie feeling that his mother was just waiting for me to strike the first note—that she was just waiting to be called over by the music. But when I looked over my shoulder at her, she sat like a statue in her chair. She hadn’t moved.
“Here goes nothing,” I muttered to myself. I started to play the song that I had last played for her the day I arrived. But this time I paid attention to what was happening around me. I heard the slight creak of the chair behind me and the light shuffle of slippered feet across the hardwood floor. Within seconds Gabe’s mother was seated beside me, staring at the wall behind the piano. “Unbelievable,” I breathed between verses. “I just don’t understand this.”
I continued to play and sing until the song finished. Then I turned to face her profile, studying it as if she were unaware of my stare. In truth, she might have been.
“Can you hear me?” I asked, then shook my head, admonishing myself. “Never mind. I’ll just play.”
A classical piece came through my fingers to the keys, the sweet sound of Mozart soothing my nerves. Having her that near me was still unnerving after the crawl space incident. I wanted to understand her. I wanted to pull her from her madness with my music.
“Mozart was a genius,” I said, wanting to quash the tension between us. I figured talking about music might help. “This song in particular. I wish I could remember more about what I liked and why, but this song sticks out to me for some reason. The melody is so haunting and beautiful. It speaks to me.” I rolled my eyes, realizing I sounded ridiculous. “You’re probably not much of a classical music kind of woman, are you?”
“Beethoven,” she said softly. I screamed and jumped off the bench, turning to face her.
“Holy shit. You understand me!” I squeaked. My heart hammered against my ribcage. “You are in there, aren’t you?” She said nothing. I sat down beside her, scooting as close to her as I possibly could to examine her expression, especially her eyes. They were as glazed over as they had been the first day I’d met her. The person who had just answered my question was clearly gone. “Dammit,” I sighed.
I placed my hands back on the keys and breathed in deeply, trying to clear my head. I repeated the name Beethoven over and over in my mind, hoping to inspire a memory of one of his songs, but nothing came. Then it dawned on me that she might have some sheet music in the bench, and I tried to figure out how I could get at it without having to move her myself. There was no way I could.
“Do you have music for something you want me to play?” I asked, wincing away from her a bit while I awaited a response. Hearing her speak still made me edgy. But a reply never came. “Okay then.” My fingers started to play something that was light and playful, easing my nerves. I sang along with it until the musical break in the middle of the song. While I continued to hammer out the rhythm with the keys, I turned to Gabe’s mother.
“It’s not Beethoven, but it’s kind of fun, right?”
“It is,” she replied. It was all I could do not to freak out like I had last time. I continued to play, albeit poorly.
“How is this possible?” I whispered.
She turned to me and smiled.
“Magic,” she said, as if that explained everything.
That’s when I questioned Gabe’s story that playing made his mother sane again. She sounded crazy as hell to me.
“Magic?” I repeated, fear and disbelief clear in my tone.
She nodded slowly.
“We all connect to it differently,” she whispered. “And we all call to it.” Her expression fell as she spoke those final words. It devolved into the feral look she’d held when she had lunged at me in crawl space. “Some more than others.”
I could no longer force my fingers to move, fear paralyzing them. Gabe’s mom was scaring the shit out of me, and I didn’t even understand why, other than her particular brand of crazy being more off-putting than most. But as much as I wanted to dismiss her ramblings, a tiny part of me—something small and buried and silent—wanted to burst forth. That something seemed to believe what she had said had merit.
“What do you mean we all call to it?” I asked. She said nothing. “Oh no you don’t. You don’t get to play mute with me now. I know you’re in there. Come out and answer me.” I wasn’t shouting at her, but my words were heated and curt, and I wanted to shake her and make her make sense of what she’d just told me. I wanted her to appease the nagging sensation in the back of my mind.
“Who needs to come out and answer you?” Gabe called to me as he walked into the adjacent room. I froze instantly, realizing that I was about to have to explain something that I couldn’t: that his mom, who’d been mute for a decade, could actually talk, and was batshit crazy. That was so not the bomb I wanted to drop on him, especially after the night we’d had.
He came through the entryway to the piano room. I cringed, waiting for him to start yelling at me about his mother, but he just looked over at us both sitting there on the bench and smiled.
“Who were you talking to, Phira? My mom?” There was a slight note of playful mocking to his tone. I dared to take a breath and answer him.
�
�A mouse…”
“A mouse?”
“Yes. The bastard made off with part of my banana earlier. I wasn’t impressed.”
He laughed. Hard.
“Remind me not to steal food from you. You don’t seem to take it well.”
“Maybe I’m really a lousy sharer.”
“Seems that way.”
He smiled at me in a way that made my whole body relax. There was something in Gabe’s nature that fascinated me. He was so willing to let go of the past—to move forward rather than dwell on things. He said nothing of what had happened between us the night before. Made no effort to dredge up my meltdown and what it could have meant. He seemed completely content to just let it be.
He looked at me the way he had when I was underneath him in his bed. I should have taken that as a sign and left well enough alone, but for whatever reason, I didn’t.
“About last night,” I started, trying to slide away from his mother to grab my crutches.
“You don’t have to,” he interrupted. “You've got a lot to deal with, Phira. I don’t think judging yourself based on out-of-context memories is going to be helpful. And I have no intention of judging you based on them, if that’s your concern.” He watched me as I maneuvered the crutches under my arms and made my way toward him. “But if you have something else about last night that you’d like to discuss, I’m all ears.”
“I just—” I stopped short of him and stared up at his dark brown eyes. “I’m sorry that everything went south.”
“Me too,” he replied, the corners of his mouth curling up slightly.
“I’m serious!” I punched his arm, not really trying to hurt him, and he laughed at the gesture.
“So am I.”
I shot him my most disapproving glare, and he attempted to stop looking so amused.
“I just thought you would want to know that, aside from almost drowning and then freaking out, the in-between part was kinda nice.”
Live Wire (Blue-Eyed Bomb #1) Page 12