“Tell me, agápi mou,” she said softly.
I couldn’t do it.
I couldn’t break her heart any further than I already had. I couldn’t tell her that what Jake had planned for Madison on Valentine’s Day would be a million times more awesome than sitting in court behind me, watching the burners heat up under my ass. Shit, Jake could buy Madison one of those boxes of candy hearts with the messages printed on them and mail it to her a week late, and that would still be way better than Samantha sitting in the back of the court room with me on February 14th.
Man, I was a fucking prick.
Sharp as a tack, Samantha said, “What about Valentine’s Day?”
I couldn’t tell her.
“Is…is your trial on Valentine’s Day?”
After an interminable guilty silence, I nodded.
“Oh, Christos,” she said. Her eyes were tearing up again. She held one hand to her mouth, as if to cover her shame. There was this sad tone to her voice that made me want to chuck biscuits all over her carpet.
That was when my final surprise came.
Clarity.
I finally saw it in the form of one of those forty-foot earthquake waves that washes inland for miles and destroys everything in its path. That wave was Samantha’s parents.
If they found out I was in jail, it would confirm everything her mom had said on the phone about me. It would be hard, ugly proof. Then they would go to war for their daughter.
The thing Samantha didn’t realize was her parents cared about her. A lot. Sure, they were thick-skulled about it, thinking a stable 9-to-5 was the path to satisfaction.
They may’ve been misguided, but they cared. That’s why they weren’t going to tolerate their daughter dating a two-bit tough in lock-up.
No fucking way.
Earlier, on the phone, Samantha’s mom had been a momma bear backed into a corner. She wasn’t giving up her daughter to me.
I wouldn’t put it past her to hop on a plane to San Diego to stage an intervention on Samantha’s behalf. Round her daughter up and take her back home to D.C., just to get her away from me for good.
Shit, if some guy like me was dating my daughter, I’d probably do the same thing.
There was only one way to fix this.
I stalked over to the door and yanked it open. “I have to go.”
“No, Christos, wait!” She grabbed after me, but I slipped free. “Don’t leave! I need you!”
I couldn’t bear to look her in the eyes. My heart was already broken into too many pieces.
I was out the door and hopping on my bike seconds later.
CHRISTOS
The lane lines on the freeway machine-gunned at me like tracer bullets.
My Ducati screamed between my legs. I was tucked beneath the fairing as wind pounded the front of the bike.
It was three in the morning and I was doing 175mph on the Five.
The pain inside me was so big, nobody could save me from it. My only option was to speed away from everything, go so fast, nothing could catch me.
Somewhere far behind me were my problems.
Samantha’s broken heart. There was no way I could fix that, not unless I could magically rewrite history and erase my past.
Her parents. Something in my gut told me they were coming for her. They weren’t gonna let this two-bit fuck-up take their daughter away. No way.
My pending trial, two days away. The possibility of jail time, maybe even prison time.
In all three cases, I had no control over the outcome. Everything was up to the people around me. It was driving me nuts. But there was one thing I could control.
I could control my fate.
The only thing stopping me from high-speed death on this freeway was me.
This I could control.
My bike. The pavement. I was in my element.
I ignored the demons behind me as I concentrated on the road ahead. The surface was damp but not wet. It had drizzled just before sundown, hours ago. Traffic had dried twin wheel-tracks into each lane. The tracks were about two feet wide. As long as I kept my bike inside the track, I was on dry road.
If I hit the wet strips on either side at 175? I didn’t fucking care.
All I could think about was keeping my bike in the dry track. There was no time to think about anything else.
At this speed, the lazy curves of the freeway became dangerously sharp. If I kept my eyes trained in the distance, I could time things tightly enough.
If you went the speed limit, the ride from Samantha’s apartment to Pacific Beach took about twenty minutes. I’d made it in seven. I got off the freeway at Garnet to turn around. The cops always got heavier near downtown.
A minute later, I was back on the freeway heading north, and winding through the gears past one-forty.
I eased up carefully on the throttle as I hit the curve around Mount Soledad. As soon as the road straightened at La Jolla Village, I opened the throttle back up and blasted past SDU. When I shot beneath the overpass at La Jolla Village Drive, there was a brief concussion as the cement roadway overhead smacked the roar of my Ducati’s engine back at me.
This section of straightaway was about three miles long. I cleared it in just over a minute. I had hoped to catch air over the top of the grade at Genesee, but the pitch was too shallow, even at 175.
I relaxed the throttle again as I neared the merge with the 805. I scrubbed off some speed and toed the shifter while blowing past two cars heading into the turn. I think I was still holding one-thirty as I rounded the curve.
The bike leaned as I hit the apex of the turn and feathered the gas. As I started coming out of it, I brought the bike up to standing while winding out the throttle.
The engine screamed as I worked my way back up the gears and arrowed across four lanes, cutting a razor line between an eighteen wheeler and an SUV.
I rocketed northward with the hounds of hell nipping at my heels.
They couldn’t catch me.
SAMANTHA
I dreamt of a fallen angel.
I woke up in the middle of the night, gasping for air.
Alone.
“Christos?” I asked the emptiness that enveloped me.
My darkened apartment was empty. I shook off my nightmare and reached for my phone, sensing deep in my heart that something was wrong with Christos. I dialed his number for the fiftieth time that night. It rang four times, then went to voicemail.
For the fiftieth time.
I had tried following him when he’d left my apartment earlier, but there was no way I was going to catch his Ducati with my VW.
After driving all over my neighborhood for thirty minutes, feeling lost only blocks away from my own apartment, I’d given up and gone home.
I had then texted and called Christos repeatedly, but he’d never answered. Eventually, I’d given up trying, exhausted from the worry.
After the draining conversation with my parents, the frightening conversation with Christos, and the panicked calls to his phone, I’d had zero energy left. I was so exhausted, I didn’t even consider ice cream before crawling into bed and sobbing myself to sleep.
Now that I was awake, the images from my nightmare still haunted me.
A fallen angel.
Darkness.
Alone.
I couldn’t just sit still. I needed to make sure Christos was okay. Maybe he’d finally gone back to his house?
I needed to check. I threw on clothes and ran to my car. If I could see him with my own eyes, see that he was safe, everything would be all right.
As long as I still had Christos, everything would be all right. I didn’t care about his trial, or jail, or my parents. None of it mattered if I had Christos.
He had no idea how deeply I loved him. He wasn’t a criminal. He was a beautiful man.
He was my angel.
My savior.
I needed him.
I drove to the Manos’ house fearing the worst. I told myself it wa
s nothing, just nerves. I tried to imagine the soothing calm I would feel the second I laid eyes on Christos. He would be sleeping peacefully in his bed. I would crawl into bed with him and curl up beside him. I would whisper to him that everything was going to be all right, that we would get through this dark journey together.
As long as I could feel his touch, his warmth, and his love, I would be fine.
We were going to be okay. No matter what.
I shook my head, smiling to myself as I turned onto Christos’ street. Any second, I was going to pull into his driveway and see his motorcycle parked beside the house.
When I drove up, the driveway was empty. That was okay. His motorcycle was probably in the garage.
I’m sure he was fine.
Dread.
When I parked my VW, I jumped out and ran into the entry court. I pounded on the front door. There was no answer.
I ran out of the entry court and looked up at the front of the house. All of the windows were dark, each one a black pit echoing the dread in my heart.
Dread.
I ran back to the front door and pulled out the key Spiridon had given me. I had never had to use it because either he or Christos had always been in the house.
Dread.
The door creaked open ominously as I crept inside. The entry hall and living room were dark. Only a light in the kitchen cut through the gloom.
“Christos?” I called nervously. “Spiridon?”
My words were sucked into the darkness of the house. It was eerie being inside this place alone. The sense of emptiness was heavy and foreboding.
I went from room to room, calling out.
“Christos? Are you here? Is anybody home?”
Dread.
The studio was cavernous and empty when I flipped the lights on. It had never seemed so barren. I don’t know why, but I half-expected to find Christos curled up in a corner, staring into oblivion like a mad man. I dismissed the notion as crazy. Yet I feared my dark vision was preferable to what the storm in my stomach told me I was going to find.
There was no one downstairs.
I trudged up the staircase to the second floor, lifting each heavy foot, almost afraid to go farther, to find out what awaited in the darkness. Images of what I would find flashed through my mind.
Christos in a pool of blood, his body torn and broken beyond repair…
I cringed, pushing away my terrible thoughts. I tried to focus on something else. My mind went straight to…
Bitch. Slut. Whore.
No!
I got rid of you!
Emo. Goth. Suicide Watch…
Leave me alone!
Suicide Watch…
My old pain, my damage. It was all still there. I had never healed any of it. I’d wanted to think I had. But it had barely been two months since I broke my silence about Taylor Lamberth.
Who was I trying to fool? I was still broken.
The stress of this moment had brought it all crashing back. And it was going to rip my head and heart apart.
Suicide…
The only thing that could possibly hold me together was Christos. I had to find him. And he was…
An insane laugh was about to rattle out of my throat. I stifled it down, worried that if I allowed it to escape my body, it would take my sanity with it.
I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself. I was acting crazy. This was crazy. Christos was fine. He was probably out with Jake or, or, or…
No!
Christos was fine.
He was fine!
I walked calmly down the upstairs hallway, toward his bedroom. The door was closed.
I winced as I touched the doorknob, fearing what I’d find inside.
I could do this.
Christos was fine.
Christos was…
—I yanked open the door—
…not in the room.
I checked the bathroom, just to be sure. Empty.
I searched the rest of the upstairs.
“Christos? Spiridon?”
No one was home.
I returned to Christos’ bedroom and sat down on his bed. I tried calling him. He didn’t answer. I sent him a text,
<3 Please call me. I love you. <3
I’m sure he was fine.
I crossed my legs and leaned my forearms on one knee, slumped over, preparing to wait. My foot started bouncing. Christos was probably out someplace having a good time with Jake again. He was…
Christos’ sketchbook caught my eye. It rested on the night-table beside his bed. I leaned over and picked it up. There was a pen keeping place in the middle of the book.
I opened the sketchbook all the way.
The marked page was the last one with anything on it.
On it were written the following words:
“Alone
I must brave this day
Alone
I have sealed my fate
Alone
I will touch the sky
Alone
I must die”
Beneath those words was the date. Today’s date.
Oh no.
Suicide…
“Christos?” I whispered to the empty room.
Dread.
Epilogue
CHRISTOS
I stood on the edge of an abyss. Not a metaphorical one.
A real one.
Ten stories below me, cement death called my name. I gazed down at it like an old friend. I’d been up here, balanced on this exact railing, countless times in the last six years.
This was my favorite destination when the pain in my life became too much.
After speeding up and down the Five freeway at 175mph had failed to produce any novel results this evening, I’d come here.
The dormitory building was called Nyyhmy Hall. Its sister dormitory, Paiute Hall, stood next to it. Both were named after indigenous tribes that inhabited the area surrounding Mono Lake, located just east of Yosemite Valley.
These dormitories were the main housing for undergraduates who attended Ansel Adams College, one of the sub-colleges that comprised San Diego University. Adams, as the students called it, was named after the pioneering environmentalist photographer Ansel Adams.
Each of SDU’s sub-colleges had their own particular architecture, educational requirements, and student culture. Samantha’s cute little friend Kamiko attended Adams. When I was an undergraduate, I’d attended Adams too, because I’d liked its hippie, naturalist vibe.
That’s when I’d discovered the tenth-floor balcony in Nyyhmy.
I knew for a fact that a small number of SDU students had jumped to their deaths from this very balcony. The pressure of college and the metamorphosis into an adult was an intense process for lots of kids at SDU.
I understood where they were coming from.
I was surprised that after all these years, you could still open the tenth-floor sliding glass doors that let out onto the balcony. There was no safety cage, like on the observation deck of the Empire State Building. Sure, this balcony wasn’t an 86-story drop, but ten stories would still kill you, and both buildings had their own brooding history of human melancholy.
I took a deep breath and looked at the twinkling lights far below.
I was standing here to remind myself I wasn’t dead, that life hadn’t killed me yet.
It was a control thing.
I’d come up here to remind myself who was in control of my life. Not the courts, not the jurors, not my clients, not Brandon.
Me.
Whenever I stood on this railing, I always took my boots off and did it barefoot. Boots made your feet blind, and you had way more control with your toes free. Most people didn’t realize that toes and fingers had a lot in common. But when your toes spent a lifetime locked up in cumbersome footwear, you forget how to use them.
My toes were quite adept at gripping the 4-inch cold steel-tube railing mounted in the waist-high cement wall that was the dividing line between a gl
orious view of the Pacific Ocean and a three-second trip to oblivion.
The only reason guys like me became daredevils was because they were running away from something. Usually that something lived inside them. I knew of what I spoke.
Ever since my mom had left, it had been like this.
Pain was a powerful motivator.
A body wanted to run away from pain. If a flame was burning you, you pulled away. But you couldn’t pull away when the pain was inside you.
That’s why I needed to come up here and remind myself that I was still in control.
I could make the pain go away in an instant, if I wanted to.
Or, as long as my balance was good enough to keep my ass from slipping to my death, I held the keys to my future.
I did.
No one else. I was in control of my life.
The only problem with my logic was that not killing myself, while it seemed like the ultimate control, was not the same as controlling my pain.
I could ride my bike at 175mph all night long or stand on this railing until the sun came up.
But it didn’t change the simple fact that a jury of twelve was going to decide whether or not to fuck my life up. Then Samantha and her parents would know I was a piece of shit.
If she was going to lose me, maybe it was best if she thought I was a fuck-up. Then it would be easier for her to let go.
Pain hit me again, like every cell in my stomach had exploded simultaneously with black cancer, and I was consuming myself in a dark demise of self-destruction.
My smart phone jangled in my pocket. Before Your Love by Kelly Clarkson played from it. Samantha’s ringtone.
I started to slip.
Hello, cement.
I adjusted my hips and spine while my arms made small, erratic circles, until I recovered my balance. I loved that feeling when my stomach climbed up to my throat.
It meant I was still alive.
I stood motionless until my phone went to voicemail.
Telling Samantha everything earlier had been a mistake. It was too much to ask of her with all the shit her parents were heaping on her. It may have helped me release some of the wildfire tormenting me from the inside out, but now I felt selfish, like all I had done was burn her life into ashes, just like mine. What did it matter if I felt better? Her future was what mattered.
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