The Novice

by Ava Lohan

  “Kiss me again,” I said. I’d ignored his plea, but I prayed that he would answer mine. “Come away with me.”

  My words were tormenting him. But he was the only one that could change everything. Kegan could choose me and put an end to all our suffering. He could stop doing what he was doing. I could only tell him what I felt and what I wanted, and hope that he would finally give in to what he truly wanted.

  “Let’s leave this place together.”

  He took a deep breath and hugged me to his chest. “I’m sorry.” His chin rested in my hair. All I could hear was the beat of his heart; all I could feel were his muscular arms around me. “I’m sorry,” he repeated bitterly. “I have to make sure things change by tomorrow.” He seemed to be talking more to himself than to me. He let go of me and bent down to pick up his cell phone. He looked at the screen and snorted as he walked away. “Go pack your bag.”

  Detached Kegan was back.

  I was nothing more than a scarecrow. Unable to move and completely empty.

  “You want to change things?” I asked incredulously.

  Kegan tossed his cell phone on the armchair and put his shirt on. “Yes,” he said, as if he really thought he could do it and was tired of asking me to repeat it. Like it would be easy to do. But he couldn’t do it. Not with me. He would never be able to change things between us in less than twenty-four hours.

  “Wonderful,” I commented sarcastically. He didn’t notice my grim expression.

  My crush on Paul had lasted years. Years of not being able to look at other guys without thinking about him. Years of Jenna trying to set me up with his friends and wondering why none of them would do. There’d been nothing wrong with any of them. I was obsessed with Paul—it was as simple as that. And she’d never known. Now it was happening all over again. This time, it was Kegan who didn’t understand. He didn’t understand that he was in my head and every other part of me. And it was too late to change that. Not even Paul had gotten so far. Kegan couldn’t understand that I would never be able to look at another guy. How did he think he could change everything in a day?

  I crossed my arms angrily. “And how do you expect to do this?” I challenged him.

  Kegan was immune to my venomous tone. “I’ll show you who I really am.” He zipped up his jeans and fumbled with his cell phone, determined not to give me any more of his attention. He expected me to accept his cryptic answer. He even ignored my whimper of protest.

  But I’d had enough. “You can’t change what I feel in a day,” I exploded.

  His eyes darted in my direction, but I refused be intimidated. “Want to bet?”

  I looked over to the chair where his cell phone had fallen and saw him frown. Maybe I should have just kept my mouth shut. Maybe I should have just walked away. If not from Lust altogether, at least from this pseudo apartment. But I couldn’t just keep things inside anymore.

  “Or what you feel. If you think you can change what either of us feels by tomorrow then you’re completely insane.” I took a deep breath, feeling slightly better, despite the irritation in my voice.

  “Do you even know why you can’t love me?” He didn’t give me time to respond before continuing. “Because you don’t know anything about me. Nothing,” he said, emphasizing the last word with a provocative look. He stood right in front of me. “You. Don’t. Know. Dick.”

  “I know some things,” I protested.

  He seemed to reflect on it. “Yeah, sure,” he agreed, stopping me in my tracks. “Maybe saying you don’t know dick is an exaggeration,” he said.

  I didn’t trust his tone. I pressed my lips together and narrowed my eyes.

  “Because, to be perfectly honest, you know plenty about my dick. Why don’t you try to guess how long it is in centimeters?”

  My eyes popped open and my jaw dropped.

  I hated the smile he’d make when he’d succeeded in embarrassing me. The same one plastered on his face that day at the pool. The one that had blown me away.

  “I’ll start counting and you can try to guess.”

  Jesus H. Christ.

  My mouth was still wide open, my eyes nearly falling out of their sockets.

  “I’ll start from twenty. You’ll have five seconds to think about it before I move on to the next number,” he warned.

  “Oh, for God’s sake.” I looked up to the ceiling. “This isn’t what I was talking about and you know it.”

  “Twenty….”

  “I know plenty about you, whether you like it or not. Why don’t you acknowledge it and stop being a jerk?”

  “Twenty-one…”

  I slapped him across the face. My right hand, still tingling from before, had finally gotten some relief. The shitty expression disappeared from his face, leaving it empty. But he wasn’t red at all. My fingers hadn’t left a mark on him. Oh well, at least he’d shut up.

  He ran a hand over his cheek and raised an eyebrow.

  “I know that your birthday is on Christmas, that you like sports cars, and that you love traveling.”

  Kegan shook his head and said my name in an attempt to shut me up. He swore, trying to catch my attention, but instead of stopping, I kept on talking even louder and more confidently, as if I were about to scream it at the top of my lungs. I would make him listen, even if he didn’t want to. Even if he’d told me to stop tormenting him.

  “I know that you like my back, the color white, and that you don’t like kissing but you like kissing me.” I closed and opened my fist to stop my hand from burning. Not from anger, but from the impact with his face. The slap had hurt me more than it’d hurt him and I hated him for it. And I hated him because he couldn’t admit that I knew plenty about him. He tried to tune me out, but I could see in his eyes that something was getting to him. It was hard to tell—Kegan was doing his best to hide it from me. “That you hadn’t been on a motorcycle in years and that you’ve been avoiding me—but not the others—for the past few days.”

  The indifference in his face gave way to an expression that was one part anger and one part annoyance. He brushed a lock of ash blond hair from his forehead. “Stop it. Please, Jesus Christ, knock it off.” He covered his ears like a child. But his hands couldn’t stop him from hearing what I had to say.

  “I know that you pretend you don’t have any feelings for me and that you can’t help being vulgar,” I said, annoyed.

  “Exactly. I am vulgar,” he agreed with a snarl. “I’m the result of what has been done to me.”

  I walked past him to grab my shoes. “And you’re incapable of having a conversation without somehow mentioning sex.” I slipped on my shoes, which made me inches taller in an instant. “And that now, you’re either going to walk out that door, or you’re going to tell me that I can’t love you and you’ll make me leave. But I’m not going anywhere.”

  I wanted him to be the one to leave so I could stay in the room and reflect on everything. Maybe I’d come up with a way to forget these past two weeks. Kegan was not my boyfriend. He didn’t want to be. But it felt like he was. These thirteen days had been the closest thing I’d ever had to a relationship. The same could be said for him. I looked out the window, waiting for him to leave. A pair of gardeners mowed an already perfectly manicured lawn. Customers’ cars glistened in the sunlight. My eyes examined the whole scene. I then brought my attention to the pale floral curtains that grazed the light-colored floor. He stood still. His feet refused to lead him away from me.

  “Get out of here, because I’m not going anywhere,” I said obstinately. “Get out of here. Keep denying the evidence.” I leaned against the windowsill and let my eyes wander around the room. A half-full glass on the kitchen counter. The crumpled pack of cigarettes on the ground. Everything in the room was a fleeting distraction from his presence. My mind went back to his unbuttoned white shirt, to his bare chest that rose and fell to the rhythm of his breathing, to the dragon peeking out from under his jeans, rising and falling, as if it were breathing too.

&n
bsp; “Why are you doing this?” he asked me. “Why are you torturing me like this?”

  “I’m not torturing you,” I protested, turning to face him.

  “You are,” he insisted.

  It seemed like a competition of who was more exasperated.

  I wasn’t torturing Kegan—if anything, it was the complete opposite!

  “You are. When you look at me, just begging me to save you—or are you the one who wants to save me? You torture me when you try to make me believe that we could have a future, that I could just walk away from everything.”

  “But you can,” I urged.

  “No!” he exclaimed indignantly. “I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  Kegan swore and kicked the chair, sending it flying. “Do you see this room? Do you see this fucking room?! Look around you,” he sneered, holding his arm out and turning on his heels. The intensity of his voice made me shiver. I couldn’t look away from him. “I grew up in this fucking room. Thrown in here when I was eight. And this is where I was homeschooled until I was sent off to boarding school in England. An all-boys school, because my grandpa didn’t want me to end up like my dad. And you’re trying to make me end up like my dad.”

  His response blew me away. Every word that came out of his mouth dripped with rage and resentment. I froze in place. He was accusing me, but there was something else in his words. Something that told me not to respond. His face contorted into an angry expression. Kegan looked straight ahead, at nothing in particular. He was seeing things that I couldn’t. He saw his hell of a childhood inside this seemingly immaculate room. He clenched his fists at his sides. I did too. His eyes narrowed and locked in on me, blaming me, just like his voice had. I held my breath.

  “Room 356,” he continued. “Between 355 and 357, where they fucked like rabbits. Non-stop. And I was forced to hear it all. Do you think I enjoyed living like this? At first only hearing, then seeing, and finally participating. Don’t you think I would’ve preferred a normal life? For years, all I wanted was a normal life. That is, until I opened my eyes and realized that any chance at a normal life died when my parents did. And then here you come, telling me that we could have one. Are you still so sure you’re not torturing me?”

  I still wasn’t breathing. Everything had stopped: my thoughts, my voice, maybe even my heart. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t think. The only thing I could hear was the pain in his voice, cutting through me like a shard of glass. If this was the effect his pain had on me, I couldn’t imagine what it was doing to him.

  Losing my family was awful, but at least I’d had one until I was eighteen. Kegan had been alone for much longer. I pictured him as a child, the victim of his grandfather, of this room, of this place. The cut became deeper. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t say it out loud because I knew he didn’t want my compassion. Once again, I’d forced him to relive difficult episodes of his life. I wanted to help him, but I somehow just made everything worse. I was the worst.

  Kegan shook his head and bit his lip. “This is how you torture me Rose, because you give me false hope. And I’m the last person you should even imagine building a future with.”

  My lungs filled with air, finally.

  “I don’t let anybody in here,” he changed the subject, looking at the floor. “I’m constantly redecorating it, but every time I walk through the door, all I can think about is my life in 356, before I moved to the top floor.”

  I frowned. “Why are we here then?”

  Kegan was still staring at the ground. I wanted to run to him, to hold him and let my breath melt into his. It was my way of telling him how truly sorry I was. That holding me in his arms and kissing me was the rightest thing in the universe.

  I walked toward him.

  “Before Finn’s call—since we’d been here—I hadn’t thought about what this room represents to me for a second.” He reached into the pockets of his jeans, tugging at the waistband. “I don’t know why I brought you here,” he confessed. “I only know that it was the first time I hadn’t thought about it.”

  The unpleasant air in the room lifted for a split second. It felt as if butterflies had flown in through the window and around the room, just to end up in my stomach. A small victory. Kegan hadn’t thought about it, and it was my presence that had helped him. I almost smiled, but my lips didn’t have time to relax before his eyes paralyzed me once more. His eyes killed the butterflies. In that sea of green I no longer saw accusation, but anguish, the pain like a tourniquet that stopped my blood from flowing.

  “Don’t you think that’s a good thing?”

  His cynical laugh echoed through me. “It’s not. It’s not at all.” A muscle twitched in his jaw.

  I froze in place, just steps away from him. “It is. You just don’t want to admit it.” My voice cracked mid-sentence.

  Kegan tilted his head and pulled a thread from his jeans. “Do you want me to tell you if I like what I do or not, so you can put it on the list of things you know about me?”

  His tone was anything but reassuring. He was about to explode again.

  “You definitely don’t want to know, but you have to.”

  I clutched my crucifix against my chest. I had to hold onto something to keep Kegan from breaking me down again. A new storm was brewing. I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to see it. I shut my eyes.

  He couldn’t change things in a day.

  But maybe, just maybe, I could.

  I concentrated my energy on the silver cross pressed into my skin. I thought about my mom. When she gave me the necklace for my fifteenth birthday, I’d had to pretend that I liked it. I later made fun of her on the phone with Jenna, but my mom heard the whole thing. I thought about how she’d make me wear it when we went to church. When she told me to pray. But I never did. Neither at home nor in church, where her eyes were glued to me, making sure I was following the service. My lips were always sealed shut. Her disappointed expression was ingrained in my mind. Breaking the rules, disappointing my parents. These are the memories that made me feel guilty. That tore me to pieces.

  Kegan.

  My mom.

  My dad, who would have never approved of a guy like Kegan for his only daughter. I thought about them, trying to kill the feelings I had for him. Then he wouldn’t be able to hurt me anymore. Then I wouldn’t let my parents down for the millionth time. Seeing my mom’s disappointed face wasn’t helping. She couldn’t block out what I felt for Kegan. She couldn’t make my heart stop beating ten times faster than normal when he was standing before me, looking at me.

  “Look at me, Rose.”

  I squeezed my eyes tight. I held onto the chain as if it were my mom’s hand. But it was cold metal, not her warm touch. But I could pretend, and that could help me drive Kegan out of me, like an exorcism.

  My mom’s face.

  My dad’s.

  My stomach in knots.

  My heart beating out of my chest.

  I, who didn’t want to leave him.

  He, who would destroy me.

  But nothing was changing inside me.

  Why wasn’t it working?

  “I like what I do.”

  The fingers that clutched my arms and made me open my eyes were not my mom’s. The sensual cologne was nothing like my mom’s perfume. And I was still crazy for him.

  “I like being able to afford anything I want. I like living in total luxury. It’s what I’m used to.” His grip on my arms tightened. “And I got used to the sex too. And yes, I like fucking. And I like getting paid for fucking.”

  Those damn words came at me like a slow-motion slap to the face, just like he’d wanted.

  “And I don’t want to lose everything I have, all the things I can afford. If I were to leave with you, I’d lose it all. But there is something even bigger than money or my obligations to Lust that is stopping me from leaving with you. And it’s that I simply cannot do it.”

  I shook my head.

  He didn’t like
it. His grip became even stronger. “You don’t fucking understand. I already fucked up by bringing you here, but now this thing…” Kegan stopped. His hands were wrapped as tightly around my arms as my fingers were around my necklace. Maybe he too was trying to drive me out of his thoughts—no, out of his life—by digging his fingers into my skin and leaving marks.

  “You’re hurting me.” I grabbed his hands and tried to peel them off me. But my fingers were useless against his steel grip.

  “...has to stop.” He let me go. “I have no right to come away with you, so stop asking.” He said the name of the Lord in vain and bit down on his bottom lip. His white teeth were like fangs, eager to tear away at his perfect lips. The more he eyed my body, the deeper his teeth sunk. Into his lower lip. Into my lower lip. Because in my sick mind, his mouth was still mine, just like the rest of him.

  Suddenly, Kegan stopped hurting himself—and me. I stared at his lips, now much redder than usual. He hadn’t finished examining me with his eyes.

  “You have to stop thinking about me. Stop imagining a future between us. And I have to stop thinking about having you under me, about the two of us together. So here’s what we’re going to do.”

  My throat went dry. Kegan was about to reveal his plan to make me stop falling in love with him in less than twenty-four hours. A horrible feeling washed over me. I was no longer curious about his inner workings. His expression set off an alarm in my head. A cold sweat covered my body, as if I were awaiting a death sentence. His hands were on my cheeks. He was like Death, telling me when he was planning to take me away.

  “Tonight, I’m going to show you who I really am. I’m bringing you to work with me. Everything, Rose. You’ll come and see everything. And you’ll be so disgusted that you’ll wonder how you could have ever thought you loved me.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “You shouldn’t go with him tonight.”

  I lifted my head up from the bar in Room 405. The music was making me tired. The club was practically empty. It would most likely fill up in an hour.