Best of 2017

by Alexa Riley

  My eyes meet his. “You remember?”

  “It had hearts on it,” he says. “Glittery hearts.”

  “I used to fantasise about you recognising me one day. But you didn’t.”

  “You were a kid,” he says. “I saw a million kids that week.”

  “But only one with a sparkly tobacco tin.”

  “You had darker hair,” he said.

  “I dyed it for you,” I tell him. “Because I saw those pictures of Debbie Harry in your storage room.”

  “I gathered as much.”

  I take a deep breath. It feels so good to breathe. “This isn’t how it was supposed to be. I was going to be a lawyer, just like you. I was going to go to uni and become the very best, and then I was going to come for a job with you. I thought if we were colleagues… I thought if I could impress you…”

  “You planned that all those years ago?”

  I nod. “I worked hard for straight-As all the way through the rest of high school, all the way through college, too.”

  He squeezes my shoulder and I know then that Sonnie told him.

  I feel the tears welling up before I’ve even said another word.

  “My parents were out for their anniversary. Dad took Mum out to the place they met, a little Italian place they loved. I was babysitting for Joe. I told them to have a good time. They were really happy, Dad bought Mum orchids, they were her favourite.”

  “You don’t have to tell me this,” he says, but I want to. I want him to know everything.

  “It was a stupid rich kid who hit them, driving his dad’s car way over the speed limit. The police said he didn’t slow down, didn’t even see them.”

  “Did they prosecute?”

  I shake my head. “Rich lawyer, not enough evidence. Circumstantial, they said. He had a good college record.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I didn’t think I’d ever get up. I didn’t think I could go on living. But I have a little brother, Joseph. He wasn’t even twelve months old.”

  “You take care of him?”

  I nod. “I quit college and claimed benefits for a while, but I hated it. That isn’t what I want for Joe. My parents worked hard, I want him to see me work hard too. So my friend Dean sleeps on my sofa, he said he’d take care of Joe so I could find a job. I found yours, and I hoped… I hoped maybe… if I could just be close to you…”

  “You were close to me,” he hisses. “I bought you peaches and fucking chocolate. I left you fucking notes. A bottle of wine.” He sighs. “I chased you down the fucking street, Lissa. Why the fuck didn’t you stop for me? Why the fuck did you choose to lie instead?”

  I prop myself up on an elbow and my heart is racing. “I was your cleaner. I was a nobody. I am a nobody, and you’re… everything.”

  “I chased you down the fucking street, Melissa. Jesus Christ.” He’s angry again. His body is so rigid. I want to touch him but I don’t dare.

  “I was already in with Claude. I’d already filmed that slutty video. If I’d gone back when you called, if I’d introduced myself before you’d seen it and then you did…”

  “I wouldn’t have fucking seen it!” he hisses. “I’d already quit that shit. I was going cold fucking turkey, going fucking insane over a cleaner I’d never fucking met.”

  I didn’t know.

  How it fucking hurts.

  “I’m sorry,” I say again. “I thought if I could just… be someone… if I could love what you love… maybe you’d love me like I love you.”

  “So you lied? Snooped on me, and dug into all my fucking things, and then lied to me? Played me like a fucking fool?”

  “I’m not even nineteen. I was a cleaner taking care of her younger brother. I didn’t think you’d even look at me.”

  “But I did!” he snaps. “I fucking did!” He rolls away from me and it pains so much to face his back. “This is so fucked up,” he says. “I believed all of it, every fucking thing you said, and it was all just a fucking act.”

  “Was,” I tell him. “But it isn’t now. I am that person. I’m everything I pretended to be, I swear.”

  He laughs a horrible laugh. “Stop it.”

  “I love the things that you love. I love the gemstones and I love Kings and Castles. I loved that gig so much it made me cry, and it was all real.”

  “Please stop,” he says.

  “And I love Brutus. I love you.”

  “You don’t even fucking know me,” he snaps. “And I sure as hell don’t know you.”

  “That’s not true,” I whisper. “It was real. Everything I felt was real.” I don’t want to cry again but I can’t stop. “And everything you felt was real, too. I felt it. I felt you. I still do.”

  “Just fucking stop,” he snaps, but I can’t.

  “I was going to tell you last weekend, right after Dean. But you were so angry when you found out I knew him. I was scared that if I said anything you’d never speak to me again.”

  “Good job you averted that fucking crisis.” His sarcasm cuts.

  “I fucked up,” I say. “I just wanted to say sorry, that’s why I came here.”

  “And you said it.”

  I want to beg for forgiveness. I want to fall at his feet and beg him to give me another chance.

  But I don’t.

  I don’t deserve another chance.

  “I’m sorry about your parents,” he says. “I’m sorry you had to give up on college. I’ll make sure you get the money from Claude. I’ll take your bank details and pay it over myself. It can be a new start. Put yourself back through college.” He rolls to face me, but he feels so far away.

  “And what about you?”

  “I’m leaving,” he says and my heart shatters. “I meant what I said, I’m done with bailing rich cunts out every day of my life. I’m done with my father and his shitty fucking business.”

  I wipe the tears from my eyes. “I wish I could come with you.”

  “Yeah, well, so do I,” he says, and gets up from the bed. “Maybe in a parallel universe. Maybe somewhere there’s a Melissa who turned around on the street that day.”

  “I hope so,” I cry. “I hope that other Melissa is so much happier than I am right now.”

  I crawl from the bed and reach for my handbag. I dig inside for his fire opal and offer it over to him. “You should have this back,” I say.

  “You don’t want it?”

  I have to catch a sob. “I love it,” I say. “But I lied to get it. It doesn’t belong to me.”

  “Keep it,” he says.

  I feel so defeated when I slip it back into my bag.

  He puts his belt back on and fastens himself up. He smooths down his tie in the mirror.

  We’re done here, and I wish I’d never started breathing again.

  He drops to his knees to gather up the money from the floor. He taps it into a pile on the dresser and leaves it there.

  He fastens up his watch and his cufflinks.

  “I’ll call you a cab,” he says. “Where do you need to go?”

  My stomach is nothing but pain as I give him my address. He calls me a cab and tells me it’ll be ten minutes, and then he lights up another cigarette.

  I’m crying quiet tears as I get dressed.

  I can’t bring myself to say goodbye, so I don’t. I stand in the middle of that hotel room looking at Alexander Henley for one last time, and he sees me.

  He holds out his cigarette packet.

  “For old times’ sake?”

  I take one and he holds a lighter to the end for me.

  It’s a perfectly awful end for us. It makes me smile a sad smile.

  “Go to college,” he says as he finishes his.

  Please don’t leave, my soul screams, but I don’t say a word.

  “Your cab should be here any minute,” he says.

  I nod, and then I break. I rush towards him for one last touch, and he’s rigid in my arms but I don’t care. I don’t care that his jaw is gritted tight as I kis
s his cheek.

  I don’t care that he doesn’t hold me back.

  “It was real,” I whisper. “I was real.”

  “Goodbye, Melissa,” he says.

  And I go.

  I leave his cash on the dresser, and my heart in that room behind me.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  ALEXANDER

  SHE LEFT her cash on the dresser. I didn’t notice until too late.

  That cunt Claude will have some fucking questions to answer, and I’ll get her all she’s owed.

  I feel beaten as I head down to the reception and hand over my key card.

  I feel defeated as I call a cab of my own and wait outside.

  I wanted answers and I got them, but they don’t make me feel any better.

  Neither does her apology.

  Hope. Such a fragile thing. Such a ridiculous thing.

  I’d enjoyed it while it lasted.

  Hope teased me with a glimpse of another life, where I could love someone and they could love me back. A life where I wouldn’t have to be alone.

  I hate the thought of starting over without her.

  I hate the thought of running away from my shitty life with nobody to run for.

  I climb into the back of the cab and give the driver my address.

  And then I change my mind.

  I give him hers instead.

  Melissa Martin knows everything about me, and I still know virtually fuck all about her.

  She crawled inside my mind and died there, and I don’t even know her middle name.

  It’s still there, the anger. Still bubbling under the surface.

  I still feel violated.

  I don’t know what food’s inside her fridge, or which music she has on her playlist. I don’t know what colour her bedroom is, or whether she has any pets.

  I don’t know if she takes a bath or a shower in the morning.

  I don’t know what she looked like on her old school photos.

  She knows fucking everything about me, and that smarts.

  It’s like an itch I can’t get fucking shot of, this insane desire to even the score.

  I almost change my mind as the cab pulls up outside her block.

  It’s a shithole. This whole area is a shithole.

  The entrance door is covered in graffiti and the stairwell stinks of piss. I don’t touch the handrail as I make my way up to her floor. My hands are in my pockets as I scope out where her flat is.

  It’s in a corner at the back of the top floor, number 21.

  I close my eyes as I knock, and it’s not really a knock at all, it’s a deafening thump. A whole fucking string of them.

  It’s Dean who answers. His eyes widen in horror as he clocks it’s me.

  I’m past him in a heartbeat, my eyes wild as they feast on everything in that place.

  “Where is she?” I snap, and he heads on through the living room. He taps on a door at the far end and she looks tiny and broken as she steps out. Her cheeks are blotchy and tear-streaked and her hair is a mess.

  Her eyes well up afresh as she sees me, and her bottom lip trembles. “Alexander?” she says as she dashes over. “What are you doing here?”

  Dean’s shoulder shunts mine as he passes. He takes a coat from the hook. “Don’t fucking hurt her,” he tells me.

  I have no intention of fucking hurting her.

  “I’ll be back in an hour,” he tells Melissa, and she nods.

  I wait until the door closes behind him.

  And then I walk right on past her.

  I start in her kitchen. I read all the little notes on her fucking pinboard. I flick through the cookbooks and tear through all the drawers.

  “What are you doing?” she asks, but makes no attempt to stop me.

  “You saw fucking everything of mine,” I snap. “You snooped in fucking everything. I’m showing you how it fucking feels to have your home invaded.”

  I know I’m a fucking lunatic, but I don’t care.

  There’s barely anything in her fridge. Some milk, and ham and fresh vegetables. A half-used block of cheese.

  I march through to the living room when I’m done in the kitchen. I tear through the display cabinet, digging through all the letters in the top drawer.

  I flick through family photos and Melissa points out her mum and dad, like it needed saying.

  I look under the sofa and under the TV. I flick through her brother’s DVDs and her mum’s old exercise videos.

  I learn nothing other than she’s a girl living in her parents’ wake. Picking up the pieces of a shattered life.

  “Doesn’t feel so great when you’re not the one doing the fucking snooping, does it?” I snap, but she doesn’t say a word.

  She doesn’t have many beauty products in the bathroom, just basic shampoo and conditioner and a kid’s bubble bath.

  She uses sanitary towels not tampons, and her toothbrush is pink.

  “Which is your bedroom?” I ask and she points to the door at the end of the hallway. “Tell me to leave,” I say, “or I’m going to tear your fucking room apart.”

  “Never,” she says. “I’ll never tell you to leave. I can’t even believe you’re here.”

  “Suit yourself,” I snap, and step on in.

  MELISSA

  I CAN’T BELIEVE he’s really here.

  I don’t even dare to hope that this isn’t over.

  But he’s here. He’s here.

  He’s angry, and wound tight, and his eyes are wild and dark, but he’s here.

  I follow him into my bedroom and tell him to go ahead. I tell him to do whatever he wants. I’m not interested in secrets. I’d cut open my soul if I could, just to show him what’s inside.

  He stares at the old Debating Society certificates on my wall. He picks up the framed family photos on my dresser.

  He smells my old stuffed teddy bear and opens my wardrobe and tears through my clothes. There isn’t much in there, it doesn’t take long.

  It doesn’t take him long to rummage through my makeup box, either.

  The drawers under my desk are filled with old college books, he flicks through the legal ones and he swallows. “This really was your dream?”

  I nod. It’s all I can do.

  And then he sees it, my battered old chest of drawers on the far side of my bed. The one with all my crystals laid out on top, my Kings and Castles CD still open by the player.

  “You didn’t show me these,” he says as he picks up a piece of bloodstone.

  “I didn’t have them then,” I say, and I’m not lying. These additions were all for me.

  He holds up the CD case. “Research?”

  I shake my head. “I only bought that last week, I wanted the physical copy.”

  “Fucking hell, Lissa,” he snaps. “You changed your whole fucking life for me.”

  I shake my head. “Only at the beginning. I thought I was playing…” My smile hurts. “It’s funny how pretending to be someone else can help you find out who you really are.”

  He stares at me. “You think this is who you really are now? Amy pissing Randall?”

  I shake my head. “I think she’s just the start. I was nothing after they died. I was nobody. Being Amy Randall was the best thing in the world.”

  It really was. Being her was everything I ever dreamed it would be. Loving him was everything I ever dreamed it would be.

  And more.

  So much more.

  “Knowing Amy Randall was the best thing in the world,” he says.

  He takes a seat on my bed and rubs his temples. “I should go.”

  “Please don’t.”

  His eyes burn into mine but I don’t look away. I’ll never look away.

  “Then you’d better put the kettle on,” he says.

  ALEXANDER

  HER KITCHEN IS CRAMPED. She nudges me with her hip as she reaches for a clean mug, and I wonder how they ever fit three people in this place.

  I shouldn’t be here.

  My
threats to Claude will be working their way back to my father if they haven’t reached him already.

  I have no interest in taking them back, which means my window of escape is limited.

  He’ll be gunning for me, and so will his associates.

  I shouldn’t be here, I should be planning my exit, packing up the things I want to take with me.

  But I still don’t want to leave her. Not even after everything she’s done.

  “I’ll be leaving London tomorrow night,” I tell her. “Any longer and the chances I’ll make it out reduce dramatically.”

  She tries to hide her fear as she stirs my coffee. It’s instant crap and it tastes bitter as shit, but I don’t care.

  “You think they’ll come after you?” she whispers.

  “I know they’ll come after me. I’m far too much of a liability.”

  “So what then? You keep running?”

  I shake my head. “A few months under the radar and they’ll realise I’ve no interest in blowing their cover. I’ll slip down their target list.”

  “You’re sure?”

  No. I’m not sure.

  I’ve become far too fond of this hope novelty recently.

  “Would you still have come with me?” I ask her.

  “Knowing what you’re running from?”

  I nod.

  Her eyes hide nothing from me. “Yes,” she says. “So long as Joseph was safe.”

  Joseph.

  I had no idea he’d even existed. No idea she was holding so much together. A baby, a full-time job, moonlighting with me three times a week. The soup kitchen.

  All of that with a side helping of crushing grief.

  At eighteen years old.

  She’s barely even an adult, and yet she’s one of the most mature women I’ve ever met.

  Figures, of course. That’s what responsibility does to you.

  Melissa Martin impresses me. Learning that comes as a surprise.

  Melissa Martin is made of steel. She must be to live through what she’s lived through.

  I remember her polishing that boardroom table all those weeks ago. I remember how impressed I’d been with her determination. With her grit. Her work ethic.

  I remember how transfixed I was by her quiet apology. The humbleness in her stance.

  I remember how touched I was by her kindness in my house. Her generosity with her cupcake gift for me.