by Ashe, Karina
I raise a brow and bite my lower lip. How long can I draw this out? Why does he even want to know so bad? “I often don’t think of people when I play music,” I begin. “Usually, I try to think of something calming, like the forest I lived next to when I was a kid, or the sound of water.”
“Is that what you were thinking of tonight?”
It would be so easy to lie to him—so easy to protect myself and whatever shred of dignity I still possessed. But instead I say, “No.”
“What were you thinking of?”
“That’s none of your—”
“Please.” He lowers his head until it rests on my shoulder.
I look up at the ceiling. If I knew his name I’d say it right now. I’d start by saying it. It would be a kind of plea. That’s often how people use names, right? To soften the impact of what they’re about to say, or to personalize it. But I don’t know his. That hurts more now than I ever thought it would.
“You,” I answer.
He kneels on the floor in between the bench and the piano. One of his shoes hits the pedals. Strangely, I don’t feel any more powerful looking down at him.
“Why would you think of me?” he asks.
I almost laugh at his disbelief—as if I would do this with just anybody. He isn’t looking at me when he asks, and I think it’s because he isn’t looking that I can be honest. “I love you,” I whisper. “And I don’t want to anymore.”
His grip tightens on my leg. For a second I think he’s going to pull me down next to him. For a second, I want him to. Cover my body with yours until I forget what it is I’m about to say, what it is I feel. So I can once again live in that release that only you can give me.
But he doesn’t do those things, so I continue, “I don’t want to think of your letters. I don’t want to wait for you at night, wondering if you’ll come, if I’ll ever see you again. No, not see you again—I can’t wish for that because I’ve never actually seen you, and the one time I tried you really did leave.”
“Laura, you wouldn’t love me if—”
“Don’t even say it,” I interrupt. “I don’t give a fuck what you look like. And by the way, if you really believe that’s true, then I can’t believe how selfish you are. Though I guess that really shouldn’t surprise me. I mean, you came back to me tonight because you don’t like someone else touching your things.”
“That’s not even close to the truth.”
“Even if you’ve discarded those things,” I continue. “Even if they mean nothing to you.”
He stands, chest heaving. My heartbeat races as he grabs my shoulders, pinning me to the piano. “You think you mean nothing to me?”
“What did you expect me to think after leaving me like that?”
His grip on me falters. “I don’t know.”
“And what am I supposed to think now? I was happy with him. It wasn’t like how it is with you—I don’t expect anything to be like that—but it was simple and sweet and now it’s ruined. Not that I blame you for that. I was the one who ruined it. You’d think that after everything that’s happened I’d be able to say no to you, but I still can’t. You touch me and I forget why I even wanted to say no in the first place. While we’re together I escape, and after…” I draw my legs together. My knees slide across his thighs, pushing him away. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“Can’t do what?”
“Give you all of myself and not get anything in return. Be with you.”
He steps back. “You want to be with him?”
I laugh. “Is that really what you’re worried about? Did you hear a word I just said? I don’t want to lie and be content with your lies anymore. It doesn’t matter how much I want it, it’s fucked up.”
“You’re not fucked up.”
“Says the guy in a mask.”
He looks away, saying nothing. I’m right in front of him and he doesn’t even want to look at me. At least not when it comes to the truth.
“I want you more than I want to be happy,” I admit. “I want you so fucking much that I’ll give you everything until I’ve got nothing left. It’s sick. It’s fucked up. And do you know what’s even more fucked up? Right now, I want you to push me up against this piano again and fuck me until I can’t even feel anything anymore. I don’t want to think about everything I just lost. I don’t want to think about you being in my life or not being in it. I don’t want to think about how much it hurts to love someone who hides behind a mask.”
He hangs his head. Still doesn’t look at me. It feels like an eternity before he answers. “Alright.”
Alright. Not, let me show you my face. Not, let me remove this mask and let you see me and know me. Just alright.
He stands. His fingers drop to his sides. I’m amazed he can be relaxed. I want to yell at him to fight for me. I want to yell that I mean more to him than this. But I don’t.
Fear twists in me. This might really be the last time I see him. Is this really how I want things to end?
A moment ago I’d been so strong. I’d asked him to leave if he couldn’t give me what I needed. But maybe I hadn’t been as strong as I’d thought. In the back of my mind, I’d thought that he wouldn’t be able to leave me. I’d thought that he needed me as much as I needed him. I’d thought that his obsession matched my own. I thought my words would bring out that part of him that would fight for me—that couldn’t live without me no matter the consequences were.
But it didn’t happen. He didn’t need me as much as I needed him. So he begins walking to the door.
“You’re leaving, then?” I ask.
He doesn’t stop. Doesn’t respond. Doesn’t slow as I get up and dart across the room, grabbing the back of his shirt.
His muscles tense beneath my grip. Those beautiful, hard muscles. Those cruel scars. If I spread my hands out over his back, I’d feel the soft marks they’d left on his skin.
“I can’t show myself to you, Laura.”
“But aren’t I your mollyasha solla or something?”
“Solnyshko moyo.”
Damn. I wasn’t even sort of close. “Yes. That.”
I push my head between his shoulder blades. Feel his sharp intake of breath. “You are. Always.”
“Then why are you leaving?” How can you go so easily without even trying to fight for me?
He puts his hand on the doorframe. “You were never for me.”
“What do you mean I was never for you? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I can’t give you what you want. I shouldn’t have even come to you in the first place. I shouldn’t have written.”
“But you did. That means something.” It means everything.
He laughs humorlessly. “I wonder if you’d think the same way if you knew.”
“Knew what?”
He turns quickly, pushing me up against the wall. His fingers move over my face as if memorizing it. His breath is heavy through that ridiculous mask.
“I wrote many letters before sending you that first one.”
I frown, not understanding what he’s getting at. “Okay. It’s not weird to want to put your best foot forward, or to decide if you even want to—”
“It’s more than that. I wrote lots of letters. Years of them.”
Years of them. My body involuntarily shivers. Just how long has he watched me?
“Does that scare you?” he asks, though he must already know it does.
“It’s just surprising. I’m just—”
“Scared, and you should be. You know nothing about me.”
“I think I know more than you give me credit for. I’m not gonna lie. This is weird, but it’s always been weird, and you still found a way to share so much of yourself with me. Your letters—”
“Are what I want you to know,” he interrupts.
My heartbeat escalates. I hope he can’t hear it. I try to back up but the wall’s behind me.
He sighs and steps back. “I’m sorry, Laura.”
; Laura. Not solnyshko moyo. It feels like a world of difference. My bones turn to ice. If he touched me right now, I’d shatter.
“You should be,” I whisper.
“I think it’s best if I go.”
“Why? Because this way’s easier for you? You retain all your power over me by leaving, and you strip me of any power I might have had over you.”
“That’s not what this is.”
“Oh really? Am I supposed to believe that just because you said so? And if that’s the case, doesn’t that prove my point? You don’t get to start something this fucked up and then walk away because it’s ‘unhealthy.’ The only explanation I’ll accept from you is if you don’t want me anymore, because I still want you.”
He’s quiet for a moment. His rough fingers brush the hair from my face. “Are you happy? Have you been happy since you met me?”
My mind goes blank. I breathe unsteadily. I don’t know. I never even thought about happiness. Happiness was never a part of this. I don’t want to admit those things, so I turn the question back on him. “Are you happy with me?”
He doesn’t hesitate. “Yes. Even before you read my first letter, you were the only thing that made me happy.”
My eyes go wide and sting from being open for so long. I don’t think too much about the fact that I somehow made him happy before he read my first letter. I don’t know quite how to deal with that information yet. So instead, I say, “Maybe I’m happy too.”
He shakes his head. “Desire and happiness are two different things.”
“Now you can read my mind?”
He reaches for me. His thumbs slide over the soft underside of my wrist. “It isn’t the same for you. You want me because you like how I fuck you.”
His words hurt because there’s an element of truth of them. “If you wanted more from me, maybe you should have opened up a bit.”
“I want a lot of things from you I can’t have. I’ve wanted you for so long that I stopped caring how I had you as long as I could take just one part of you.” He lets go and steps towards the door. “I don’t even deserve this much.”
I ground my teeth. He accepted this? It was me that had to accept it and anything else he was or wasn’t willing to give me, because if I didn’t he’d disappear. “Did you know this would never work before or after you fucked me that first time?”
“Before.” His voice is softer. Maybe that’s why it sounds guilty. Maybe that’s why, even more than my anger, I feel my heart breaking for him.
“I’m sorry,” he says after a long moment.
“You’re sorry,” I repeat, smiling humorlessly. “I think I almost hate you right now.”
“I hope you do. You asked me to leave, and you were right to. I won’t come to you again.”
“Oh really?” I laugh. “You’ll have to forgive me for doubting you. I mean, you did say that the last time you showed up to fuck me.”
“I won’t again.”
My hand curls into a fist. “Not even if I bring David up to my room?”
He breathes faster. He’s not as calm and collected as he pretends to be. He obviously hates this, so why won’t he do what it takes to stay?
“I did kiss him,” I say, my voice growing louder, “and when I did, he took a part of me that you will never have. Soon my body will realize what my mind and you already know—that everything between us is nothing more than a beautiful lie.”
His shoulder falls into the doorway. I wonder if this is the last time we’ll ever see each other. If this is the last time I’ll ever get to tell him what’s in my heart.
Do I really want those to be the last words I say to him to be everything between us is a beautiful lie? Is it the truth? I don’t even know anymore.
There are a million things I want to say. I want to scream that I hate him. To tell him that I’m sorry for saying such cruel things, that I really love him. To chastise him for being so mean to me.
I want to beg him to stay.
I wonder if he’s waiting for me to say those things. To say anything.
I shut my eyes and take in a haggard breath.
I hear him step away and think of following him out to the street. I’d grab his hand as he steps through the gate. I’d pull him close and lift his mask just enough to expose his lips.
I wonder what his lips would feel like. If they’d be a warm contrast to the cool rain. How they’d taste.
The door closes. He’s gone. For a moment, my heart races like I’m really running after him. I imagine doing all those things. And after, he pushes me up against the stone wall and continues kissing me as rain falls over us, making us shiver and tremble in each other’s arms as we hold each other closer.
I raise my fingertips to my mouth and press them against my lips. They’re like ice. Something about that coldness breaks the dream. I fall back into the wall and shiver and tremble alone, pressing my cold fingers to my lips, tasting salt.
Chapter 3
David’s waiting for me on a stone bench at the park cupping a coffee in his hands. It’s cold, so the fact that he has a Chai Tea Latte next to him—a fact I know without taking a sip—should comfort me. It doesn’t, especially since I know he bought it for me because it’s my favorite. Guilt instead of warmth floods my body.
When he sees me, David smiles, sets down his coffee and waves. I almost turn back. Every weak cell in my body interested in self-preservation commands me to. But I know I can’t. He doesn’t deserve to be treated like that; he doesn’t deserve what happened last night.
“Hey Laura.” He hands me the cup when I get close.
I can’t breathe. I almost drop it. Luckily the stone bench is right there, and I plunk myself down.
David’s eyes narrow with concern. “Laura?”
I can’t look at him. I feel his warm breath on my cheek, somehow slicing through the cold air. He’s close. I feel his thigh shift against mine. My body burns with the memory of my masked lover, of his raw, desperate touch, of myself shattering before him.
I shiver. I knew it was wrong even as I did it, but nothing could keep me from descending once again. If someone I loved like David couldn’t keep me sane, what could?
Briefly, I look up into his concerned eyes. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt you, and I hurt you so badly.
“David,” I whisper.
He leans back. “Uh oh. That doesn’t sound good.”
He’s trying to keep his tone light, but he knows something bad is coming. Of course he does. Even if he didn’t know me the way he does, he’d guess something was up. I sound like I’ve just been given a death sentence.
“David,” I start again, but I still can’t bring myself to finish.
He sits up and nodes to my abandoned chai latte. “Maybe you’ll feel better if you take a sip.”
I shake my head.
“At least wrap your hands around it. It’s freezing out.”
It is cold, and my knuckles are red and chapped. Damn it. He’s so kind, and he didn’t deserve to be treated that way by me.
“David, I can’t.”
It takes him a moment to respond. “If you don’t want a drink, you can wait, though it might get a little cold—”
“I mean…” My voice is soft, but he stops as if he was waiting for me to interrupt him. I take a deep breath. “I can’t be with you right now.”
A moment passes. Three men and a woman in an oversized coat walk by. I wish I could curl up under a large blanket and disappear.
“Do I make you uncomfortable Laura?”
“That isn’t it,” I whisper.
“Is it because of him?”
My throat feels tight. Of course it is. We both know that. I don’t want to say anything else, but he deserves the truth. “Yes.”
“I told you I was fine with it. I don’t mind waiting.”
Here it is—the moment where I break both of us. “It isn’t that. I saw him last night.”
David goes completely still.
�
��He was waiting in the house when I came home.”
“Wait, he was waiting for you? How?”
“I don’t know. He was upset because he saw us…”
“How did he see us? Was he at the event? Does this creep follow you around? Wait outside your door? You should go to the police, Laura. He sounds like a serious stalker!”
“It doesn’t matter what he is. What matters is what I did.”
His shadow slips over my thighs to the pavement as he slumps forward. “What you did,” he whispers.
My throat’s so tight that I don’t know if I can speak. I squeeze my drink, popping off the lid. Chai tea spills over my hand.
I curse. “It’s so hot,” I explain as I pull my hand away. David retrieves the cap and hands it to me, not meeting my gaze.
I open my mouth. “I—I’m so sorry.”
He freezes. “We weren’t really together. It’s nothing.”
But it doesn’t feel like nothing to either of us.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I continue.
“You love someone who doesn’t love you back.”
“But I knew that it was wrong. I knew that it wasn’t good, and I did it anyway. I don’t know why I’d do it when…”
“…You knew it was going to hurt.” He finishes when I cannot, his expression agonizingly kind. “That’s what you do when you love someone who doesn’t love you back.”
My eyes start to water. I look away because I have no right to cry right now. I have no right to cry at all, and it’s cruel to do it when he can see it.
He puts his hand on my shoulder.
I shrug him off. “Don’t try to comfort me.”
After a moment, he puts his hand back where it was. “Why? Because it would hurt less if I didn’t still want to comfort and care for you?”
“Yes,” I admit. “I don’t want you to be good to me right now. I don’t deserve it.”
He brushes the hair from my neck. Even though he’s been holding his coffee this entire time, I’m surprised by how warm his fingers are. “That’s a problem, because I want to be good to you.”
I pull away and turn, meeting his gaze. “How could you possibly want that?”