“I didn’t slip up when I saw him last.” But that wasn’t entirely true. Because as I’d stared at his back, moments before my mom walked in, I’d felt that love rush in.
“Just remember, you’re the only person looking out for you, Mira. Six may have helped you get to the place you’re at in your life, but you’re the only one keeping you here.”
I nodded and said my goodbyes, knowing instantly that I needed to put the rumination to bed, once and for all.
15
It was a bad, bad idea. I knew this. And still, I did it.
I followed Six.
I took the information Victoria had told me over the phone, the address that was seared into my brain like a brand, and went to her apartment.
I’d worn my running gear, intending to pass it off as another coincidence if I was caught. I waited until it was dark before I took a cab to his neighborhood, having the driver drop me off a few blocks away.
I approached the building with a little bit of caution, but with the ease of someone familiar with the area and surroundings. My eyes and ears were alert, but my body was calm. I didn’t need anyone noticing my lurking and calling attention to it.
Their apartment was in a corner unit, which meant corner windows were exposed to the street below. I saw Victoria first, passing in front of the windows with a glass of wine in hand. She was wearing some kind of beige jumpsuit. All I could think about was how colorless she was. She sat out of view apart from the top of her shiny head.
A figure came out of a room that I hadn’t been able to see into, a room with dark curtains.
Six.
He headed to the fridge and bent down, out of view, to grab something before straightening. He walked toward the windows and looked out, bringing the apple to his lips and biting into it.
Hearing a noise behind me, I jumped. A cat hissed, and I kicked dirt at it to get it to go away. When I turned back to the window, Six was leaning over the couch, talking to Victoria.
I wanted to be a fly on the wall. Was Six different with her? Did his lips meet hers with the same sort of breathless oblivion they’d met mine with? Did he kiss away her hurt, and did he stare at her from across a room? Did they communicate without words?
I didn’t want to think they did, but my thoughts still went there, taunting me.
He couldn’t have loved you, the voices said.
Does it hurt, Mira? they asked, their voices slithering around my brain.
This is what love looks like when it isn’t wrapped with lies.
I swatted at the air around my head, like the voices were pesky flies that hovered. But maybe that was why I was so bothered by everything. Why I was so deeply hurt. All along, I’d taken comfort in believing that Victoria was the lie. That their love was, because I had known Six.
I could laugh at myself now, because the truth was that I didn’t know Six like I thought I did, not at all.
Before I could think too much on it, Six was heading away from the couch, away from the window, away from my view.
In the distance, I heard the echo of a door closing. I looked around quickly, in search of a hiding place, before I decided to duck around some bushes near the street.
Steps thundered down cement stairs, and I held my breath, peeking around the leaves.
Six was wearing a leather jacket—fuck, I hated that he looked so good—and walking briskly down the road, head facing forward. I knew I shouldn’t continue, but I was helpless as my feet moved without my consent, out of the bushes and down the sidewalk on the opposite side of the road.
He wasn’t in a hurry, but his walk was still purposeful. I followed him a few blocks, across the street, staying ten yards behind, before he turned out of view. I waited until my heart had beat ten times in my chest before I followed, peering down the back street first.
It was desolate. I paced ahead with soft steps, buildings on either side of me, stretching into the sky. The buildings were crowded with windows, some spilling light into the alleyway while others remained completely dark. I passed several emergency exits, heard the sounds of people eating, laughing, singing from the windows partially cracked open. The back street was completely deserted, and its end was dark and quiet. I slowed my steps, weaving from one side of the building to the other.
My phone rang, loud and startling in the dark. I backed up against a wall and pulled it out. It was my mother’s number. I did not need this right now. I didn’t need this ever again.
I hit ignore and lifted my head to look down into the narrow path.
Six had to have been long gone by now, and it was unlikely I’d be able to figure out which way he had gone once I got to the end. But I soldiered on, quietly.
When the passage neared a juncture, I squinted as my eyes adjusted to the dark. It opened to a busy street, judging by the sounds of traffic and pedestrians.
Just when I was convinced that Six was long gone, I felt an arm clamp on mine and spin me around, shoving my back against brick.
I didn’t panic, not for a second. Because I knew the hand like I knew my own. I knew the scent of leather and spice like it lived in my nose.
“Six,” I said, a little breathless from the shove to the brick. He hadn’t hurt me, but the steel in his eyes said he was not happy to see me.
“You’re following me.”
I shrugged, shaking off his grip. “So, what if I am?”
“Why?” His arms dropped to his side, but he made no motion to move back to give me space.
“What are you up to?”
I saw a quick flash of white as he laughed. But his laugh was completely without humor. “You’re asking me that? Really?”
I crossed my arms over my chest and held his stare. “What’s so funny?”
He shook his head, looking at the ground before lifting his eyes. “First, you show up at my engagement party. Second, you encourage my fiancé,” he ground the word between us, intending to grate, “to hire you to cater our wedding.” He emphasized our, trying to hurt me. “And then you, once again, kick me out of your life. And now,” he waved a hand to me, “you’re following me.”
I shrugged again. “So?” I didn’t let his words penetrate.
“I think,” he said, lowering his voice as his face came closer, “that the question should be directed to you. What are you up to, Mira?”
I leaned forward, shoving him back to give me space. “I happened to be in the neighborhood.”
“Liar.”
“You’d know.” I played unaffected, cool and collected. But inside, my heart was shredding itself on my ribs. Pieces of me were all that was left after the truth had come out at the gallery.
Though his features were hard to make out in the darkened entrance to the alley, I recognized the bunch of his eyebrows. “I’m sorry you found out that way.”
“Are you? Or are you sorry I found out at all?”
“Are we really having this conversation, Mira? You’re the one who pushed me away, remember?”
I ran my tongue over my teeth. “I haven’t developed amnesia since I last saw you, so yes–I do remember.” I returned his look, thinking how oppressive he looked, angling towards me while my back was to the wall. Deciding I didn’t want to be on the defensive, I quickly ducked under one of the arms caging me in. He pushed off the wall and turned to me.
“Why, Mira?”
That question could have meant a million things. “Because I’m Mira.” It sufficed. “Why, Six?”
Our whys were different for us both, but his answer mattered to me more than mine could’ve ever mattered to him. “Because I’m Six.”
“People need you,” I said, mocking him. “They need you so bad that you lie to them. For ten fucking years.” I stepped away from him when he came close again. “But not good old Vicky, right? She doesn’t need you. That’s why you’re William to her.”
“Why do you even care, Mira? You’re obviously angry with me, so I don’t know why you’re here.”
Because
I want you to tell me that it wasn’t the way I think it was. That you loved me for real. That from one to ten, I was a ten.
I don’t know why I wanted it so bad from him. It would lessen the grief I was working through, sure, but it wasn’t as if it would change things between us.
“She’s your ten, isn’t she?” I asked without wanting to.
He sighed and shifted his body, leaning against the wall as if this mere exchange of conversation was exhausting his entire being. “You haven’t changed.”
Oh, actually I have, I thought. “You’re right,” I lied.
He brought a hand to his face, dragging it down from his forehead to his mouth. Something was different with him. The Six I knew three years ago wouldn’t stand around while I led the conversation. He wouldn’t look completely exhausted by it, as if the weight of my words was a physical load on his shoulders. “Are you–” he stopped himself from finishing.
Crazy? Yes.
Happy? No.
Content? No.
Healthy? Debatable.
“Are you really sober?” he finally asked. It seemed insignificant to me, but I answered it nonetheless.
“Yes. For three years. Or, I was. Until…” my voice trailed off. I leaned up against the wall myself, a few feet away from him. It took the load off of pretending I was okay, pretending that I wasn’t aching, my heart shredded like lettuce.
“My engagement party. The champagne.” He sighed. “You should have said something.”
“I did, after the fact.” And besides, I was too busy being overwhelmed by you and that creature you call your fiancé. “Victoria seems great.”
He lifted an eyebrow, looking sideways at me. “You’re still shit at lying. I don’t know why you bother.”
My hand rested against the brick, picking at a few pieces. Because you were so good at lying to me. Why couldn’t I say it? Why was I protecting myself, from letting him see me so vulnerable? “Because everyone else believes me.”
“Yeah, well, I never did. Three years, huh?”
I ignored whatever he was trying to insinuate. “Do you really love her?” I needed to know that it was real between them, to validate or invalidate my feelings for him.
It was as if I’d poured adrenaline in his veins. His head snapped up, and he jumped off the wall to face me. “You can’t ask me that.”
“I just did.” And you didn’t answer me.
“It’s none of your business.” He didn’t say it rude, or snotty. He was matter-of-fact. He was right.
“She’s not someone I would have pictured you with.”
His eyes narrowed and his lips made a grim line. “That’s because you can’t see past anyone but yourself. Never have been able to, have you, Mira?”
I knew he was trying to hurt me. But he couldn’t hurt me with the truth—only his lies. “Is that why you’re with her?”
He looked worn out, not wanting to listen to me talk anymore. But he didn’t make any move to leave. “What do you mean?”
“Because she’s not like me?”
He rubbed a hand down the side of his face. “You really think it’s all about you, don’t you?”
I pulled a lighter out of my pocket and started playing with it. My fingers itched for a cigarette, but I didn’t do that anymore. “I think a lot of things, Six.”
He laughed, but again the sound wasn’t friendly. “You certainly do.” He looked up at me, looked at the lighter in my hand.
“Mostly, I think about why you lied to me.”
“I didn’t technically lie.”
“Okay, so you excluded the truth from our first meeting.”
“Imagine how that would’ve gone. ‘Hey, I’m here because your mom hired me.’ You would’ve told me to fuck off.”
“You had plenty of opportunities to tell me though. When you had me talk to Emerald Dress, for instance.”
“Emerald Dress?”
“The date Clay brought with him to the restaurant. The first job I worked with you on.”
“You remember the color of her dress?”
“I remember more than I’d like. I remember every lie you told me. You had so many opportunities to tell me the truth and you didn’t take a single one.”
He rubbed a hand over his face again. “To be honest, it seemed inconsequential after that first time.”
“You hired me on a job to expose my mother’s philandering husband. You have to realize how fucked up that was.”
He turned his head, looked at me with apology. “I needed help. And you were a little bit broken when I’d offered you the job.”
It was the night I’d gotten high outside of my apartment and had awoken in my house. “I’ve always been a bit broken.”
“You’re not broken now.”
“I’m more broken now.” I hadn’t meant to be this honest, but when he looked at me with his beautiful, soft eyes and with the mouth I’d known the shape and feel of better than I knew my own, I couldn’t help but slice the sack of feeling open, let it bleed through my mouth. “I’m broken differently. Like a vase that’s been glued back together. Looks good now, even with the cracks. But then someone is careless with it and nicks it on the counter, removing a chunk that just disintegrates, a chunk that can’t be glued back on. That’s what you’ve made me feel.”
He was quiet for a moment. “You and your metaphors.”
“That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“The truth!” I yelled. My eyes burned and my throat hurt. “You were sent to find me, you were nice to me because my mom paid you to be nice to me. You took care of me for ten years because I was a fuck-up, one of your jobs, like Andra.”
“Andra? What does she have to do with this?”
“She was a job for you, but you cared for her.”
“She’s not a job. She’s my daughter.”
The weight of the world dropped at my feet and any sound outside of us muted. I choked on a breath. “She is?”
“Before you accuse me of lying again, I didn’t know. I didn’t know until after you left.” He dropped his head. “The notebooks you grabbed in Andra’s uncle’s house. They were written by Lydia.”
Whatever look was on my face prompted him to hurriedly continue. My mouth was open, but no breath and no words came out. I couldn’t process this, how to feel about this. I’d met Andra, I’d looked into her eyes. Had I seen Six in them?
“She’d never told me. She’d kept that information from me but kept me in both of their lives. Maybe that’s why I felt such a responsibility for Andra, maybe there was some kind of genetic link between us. I don’t know. I don’t have a lot of answers.”
“She’s yours.”
“I missed out on two decades of being a father, Mira. I had to leave that hospital and go back to Andra and find that out.”
“So, you lost one child.” I swallowed. “And came home to another.” That’s when the grief came in. I tried not to think about the miscarriage too much. That day had been the end of two lives: the baby’s and the life we’d tried to build together. And Six had left that and gone home to another family he’d unknowingly created. And I’d gone back to San Francisco to no one.
That wasn’t completely fair to Brooke and Jacob, who’d given me a different kind of home in them. But you couldn’t build homes in people and sustain them forever.
“It makes sense then, why you always left me for her. Why you always traveled for her.”
“You’d do it for our child, wouldn’t you?” he asked, and my heart pinched at the our child part.
“But you didn’t know that’s what she was, until three years ago. So she wasn’t just a job, like I was.”
“Wait a minute,” he held up his hand. “Are you insinuating…” he laughed and shook his head. “That I was with you for ten years because you were a job?”
When he said it like that, it did sound stupid. But why else would he have never told me that the reason
we met, the reason we became an us was because he was paid? “I have to insinuate; you’re not telling me anything.”
“What do you want me to say here, Mira? My job ended after the night we met. I wasn’t paid to go to your apartment, carry your unconscious body inside.” His knuckles flexed, and I remembered the bruising, the bleeding. “I wasn’t paid to feed your fish, I didn’t have to take you on a job with me so you’d have to earn money.” In the glow of the moonlight, I watched as it played with the shadows in his cheekbones when he clenched his jaw. “I wasn’t paid to put you back together each time you hurt yourself. I most certainly wasn’t fucking paid to fall in love with you. I wasn’t paid to be overjoyed when I found out you were pregnant. And,” his eyes burned into mine, “if you don’t believe anything else I say, know that this is one-hundred percent the truth: the moment you threatened me in that hospital room, your mom wasn’t waiting in the wings with my payday. My pain. My fucking heartbreak. That was all real. Every moment after the moment you puked on my shoes outside of that bar. It was fucking real.” He tore away from me, deeper down the alleyway and I followed him.
I couldn’t really process what he was saying. The rational part of me suspected that, sure, he hadn’t loved me out of obligation, but it was hard to listen to rational thought when ache reverberated through my entire body. “Six,” I said, not caring that I hadn’t called him William. I wanted to tell him I was sorry, that I regretted pushing him away. I hadn’t thought I could carry his pain, and here he was pushing it on me—for the first time in thirteen years. He was vulnerable, as vulnerable as he’d been in the hospital. And this time, I didn’t run. “Six,” I said again, louder, as he neared the exit on the other side of the alley.
Something quiet and sacred had been exchanged in this alleyway, and I was too afraid to leave it now. The walls, though narrow, weren’t pressing in on me, squeezing tight. I was carrying the burden of Six’s grief and it wasn’t sending me for the hills. It was sending me after him.
Before he could leave the alley, I did the only thing I could think of, to keep him from leaving. I was a desperate woman, longing for the conclusion to this moment. “Six,” I said again, a little breathless from chasing him. “I still love you.”
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