“You don’t have to go, Yoss. We don’t need that money,” I allowed myself to whisper as I watched my boyfriend put on cologne for men who didn’t care what he smelled like.
I felt sick.
So damn sick.
Yoss wouldn’t look at me. He never did when Manny came. I saw his shame so clearly.
“I’ll be back later. We can get breakfast in the morning,” he had said.
“I don’t want breakfast! I don’t want you to go!” I had shouted. Manny heard me. He frowned, looking annoyed.
“Yoss. We’ve got to go now. Ray and Dean are waiting,” Manny all but snarled.
“Yoss,” I begged. I pleaded. I would get on my hands and knees if it would mean he’d stay.
Yoss’s eyes were wet but they would never meet mine. “I love you, Imi,” was all he said.
Then he left.
And I began to question his promises. His love. His devotion to our future.
I found myself being jealous of the anonymous men in forgotten corners who stole parts of my Yoss that I had yet to know. It was ridiculous to feel that way. Disturbed that I could desire anything he shared with those faceless monsters.
I loathed myself for hating Yoss for how he had chosen to survive.
But in the end, the love was so much stronger.
And I didn’t leave.
Of course I couldn’t.
I was tied to him in ways my seventeen-year-old heart didn’t understand.
Later when he finally crawled under the blankets, I could feel him trembling as he took me in his arms. I hated myself all over again for the reprehensible thoughts that had consumed me only hours earlier.
Lightning had flickered in the distance. We didn’t speak. There was no need too. His face had been streaked with dirt and tears.
I wiped the blood away from his busted lip. I didn’t ask him what happened. His ghosts were his own.
I knew he’d never share them anyway.
I pressed my ear against his chest and listened to the steady cadence of his heart. Beat. Beat. Beat.
If I listened hard enough I wondered if I could hear it breaking.
He smelled like cigarette smoke and something else that I couldn’t quite place. It smelled soiled. Wrong.
He shuddered with each intake of breath as though he wasn’t sure he should still be breathing.
He couldn’t run fast enough. The demons always caught him.
“I’m sorry if I woke you up,” he had whispered. I felt his lips in my hair. He touched me only as much as he could handle. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Not too much or he’d curl into a ball and disappear.
Just lips. Fingers pressed on skin.
“You didn’t. I can’t sleep until you’re here.” I had tried to reposition myself so I could look at him but he held me still.
“Don’t, Imogen. Please don’t.” He was hiding. So I did the only thing I could do. I crouched in his darkness with him.
In the lonely, pitiful darkness full of things neither of us wanted to see. Full of sounds that were painful to our ears.
“I thought about the beach tonight. I imagined sitting in the sand with you,” I had told him.
“I always picture it as this infinite thing. Going on and on forever.” His voice had quivered even as he had tried to hide it. “We’ll see it together. We’ll sit in the sand.” He wanted so much. And he hoped. Always, always hoped. It was the most beautiful thing about him.
Even when real life came crashing down around us with its brutality, he held onto a fantasy with battered fingers, waiting for it to become our truth.
I nodded my head, not wanting to give voice to lies. But Yoss relaxed, so I continued to speak quietly.
“I don’t even know how to swim,” I admitted softly, laughing a little.
“Me either. I guess we should figure out a way to learn,” Yoss replied and I felt his smile press into my skin.
“Or maybe we should just stay out of the water,” I suggested.
“No way. I want to swim in the ocean…” Yoss’s voice drifted off, relaxing into me as he fell asleep. His body battered and bruised. But his heart—his heart was whole. For that one moment.
I ran my hand along the curve of his fingers. Up and down his arm. “We’ll go far, far away, Yoss. Away from everything here. We’ll make a new life. Just for us.”
I fed him dreams I was terrified would never be realized. I used the words to soothe both of us. And it worked.
For a time.
Until the nightmares came. I couldn’t take those away.
He woke up that morning, not the Yoss that had clung to me desperately in his sleep, but a man who wanted to believe that his world could change in an instant.
He insisted on giving me all the happiness he could. So that morning when he suggested going to the flea market, I agreed, preferring the smile to the tears.
With his dirty money in his pocket, his lip crusted over and barely healing, we sifted through piles of unwanted toys and clothes. Things people were so eager to get rid of.
Sort of like us.
But it was fun.
“I can’t believe it!” I squealed a little too loudly, holding up the old doll with bright red hair and shimmery, silver pants.
Yoss, who had been looking through an old Viewfinder came over to see what had me so excited.
“What did you say it was?” Yoss asked, taking it from me and peering at it skeptically.
“It’s Kimber!” I told him.
“Am I supposed to know who that is?”
I snatched it back and started to look around the table, getting almost giddy when I found the small electric keyboard that was supposed to go around the doll’s neck.
“Jem and the Holograms. Kimber is the keyboardist. Didn’t you ever watch the show?”
Yoss smirked. “Sorry, I was too busy pretending to be He-Man and G.I. Joe.”
“We didn’t have a TV when I was little. Mom could never afford one. But when our neighbor, Mrs. Tyler, watched me, she would turn on cartoons. Watching Jem was the highlight of my week. I hated it when Mom would show up. She usually did before I could watch the end of the episode. It was like she timed it perfectly to mess up my day.” I chuckled a little uneasily. I hated talking about my mother. Even with Yoss.
Yoss, like always, picked up on my mood and leaned down to kiss my cheek, his arm going around my waist. “If I’m being honest, it sort of looks like someone’s dog got ahold of it.” Yoss looked down at the price tag and made a face. “This person is smoking crack if they think anyone will pay five bucks for this garbage.”
“It’s not in that bad of shape. You should have seen the one I used to play with,” I told him, putting it back on the table a little wistfully.
“Take it then,” Yoss said quietly under his breath, casting a quick look around. “Just tuck it under your sweatshirt. No one will notice. If it means that much to you, you should have it.”
I instantly tensed and for a second my hand hesitated over the doll, tempted to do just as Yoss suggested.
Why not? Who would know?
Stealing was a part of life when you had nothing and nowhere to go. Di stole cigarettes. Yoss stole food. Shane stole bags of gummy bears that he shared with everyone. Bug stole random stuff like lighters and packs of baseball cards. Things that had no real purpose except to make him feel as if he had something.
I didn’t steal. I couldn’t bring myself to take things that didn’t belong to me. Even when I was at my lowest, I didn’t have it in me to survive at all costs. I was lucky to have Yoss, because otherwise I knew I wouldn’t have lasted long out here.
I put the Kimber doll back on the table and shoved my hands in my pockets. “That’s okay. What would I do with a freaking doll?” I scoffed.
Yoss picked up the doll. “Why won’t you just take it if it makes you happy?”
I took the doll from his hand and put it back on the table. “Because I don’t need it, Yoss.
Neither of us is in a position to have things only because we want them,” I said firmly, hating how sad he looked at my words.
He brushed a piece of hair off my face, his thumb caressing the curve of my cheek. “You’re seventeen years old, Imi. You’re too young to think like that.”
Neither of us said any more. I went back to looking through trinkets and Yoss wandered over to a table towards the back, sifting through piles of old comic books and Christmas decorations.
“You have got to be kidding me!” Yoss exclaimed a few minutes later.
I walked over to where he was standing by a table. He held his hand out. “Look at what I just found. I think this might be some kind of sign. What for, I don’t know. But seriously, this is amazing!” he enthused.
I took a peek at what had him so excited. It didn’t look like much. A tarnished silver chain with a red pendant made of chipped ceramic. Nothing that could warrant his reaction.
I gave him an amused look. “It just looks like a necklace to me.”
Yoss held it up, dangling it between his fingers. I noticed that the red charm was actually a strange looking figure with limbs askew in awkward positions. “I don’t get it. Sorry, Yoss.”
“It’s from the cover!” He grinned, wrapping his fingers around it in a tight fist.
“Huh?” I asked dumbly.
“Catch-22. Joseph Heller. Come on, I know you get it.” He spoke in rapid-fire sentences. He lifted my heavy curtain of hair up and laid it over my shoulder. Then he clasped the necklace that seemed to make him so excited around my neck. The red man fell below the hollow of my throat.
It wasn’t a particularly pretty piece of jewelry by any means.
“I know what Catch-22 is. It’s not like you’d let me forget it.” Yoss rolled his eyes. I touched the charm on the chain. It was scratched and a piece of the foot was missing. It had definitely seen better days. “Is this crazy little guy on the cover?” I asked.
He traced his finger along the curves of the red trinket lying on my chest. I shivered. I felt him everywhere, even though he wasn’t touching me. “I remember seeing the book in the library once. After Mom died. It was just a blue cover with this weird looking red guy at the bottom. My dad, who was in an unusually good mood, had pointed at it and told me that it had been my mother’s favorite book. That she was always quoting from it when they were dating. And when I was born she had insisted on naming me Yossarian, even though my dad wanted to name me something boring like George. Mom won, because Dad could never say no to her.” Yoss’s smile became pained. He cupped the side of my neck, his thumb still rubbing the chain.
“What a random find,” I mused, reaching behind my neck to take it off.
“Don’t. I’ll buy it for you,” he insisted, pulling money from his pocket.
“You don’t need to spend money on me—”
“I want you to have it, Imi. I want you to keep it and wear it and that way you’ll always have a little piece of me,” Yoss said.
I let him pay for the necklace. And I wore it always. Never taking it off.
Even years later, after he left me, I couldn’t part with it.
It was my only link to a memory that wouldn’t fade.
“It looks good on you,” Yoss mused, rolling onto his side, propping his head up in his hand. He ran his finger along the tarnished chain at my throat.
I was on my back, staring up at the high, vaulted ceiling, trying to ignore the constant din of noise around us.
“I love it,” I said, turning my head to look at him. His face was so close to mine, our noses almost touching. My stomach rumbled and I felt faintly nauseated from the hunger, but I didn’t complain.
Yoss leaned in, putting his lips on mine. The hunger in my belly was replaced with a thousand flutters.
Someone yelled profanities followed by a crash. The shattering of glass. But his lips stayed on mine.
My hand moved up into his hair. It had gotten long, almost to his shoulders. My mouth opened and I felt his tongue sweep inside. We pressed against each other, my leg going up and over his hip. His hands were on my back, holding me as close as possible.
Yoss kissed me harder, his tongue insistent. I moaned deep and low, feeling a stirring deep down. A warmth that could easily become a raging fire.
He rolled me onto my back and he fit himself between my legs, never breaking the kiss. My heart was hammering in my chest, both exhilarated and hesitant by how fast things were starting to move.
Yoss could be a physically demonstrative guy, but there had always been boundaries to our intimacy. I knew that he loved me. He showed me in ways that left no room for doubt. But as much as I wanted to take our relationship to that level, he had been careful to never go that far.
So I was surprised by his aggressiveness. And while I welcomed it, something about it bothered me.
But my hormones silenced any thoughts I had.
Yoss’s hand slid up my shirt, touching bare skin. I shivered. He trembled. His fingers were unsure as he pushed up my bra and cupped my breast for the first time.
I had made it to second base a time or two in the past, but this felt different. Because with Yoss everything was different.
“God, Imi,” he moaned into my mouth, biting down on my bottom lip. Not hard. Just enough.
I pulled his shirt up and over his head so that his bare skin was there for me to touch. I ran my hands over every inch. I tried not to cringe away from the feel of rough scars beneath my fingers.
“Can I take your shirt off?” he whispered.
I nodded, not sure I could speak. Soon my sweatshirt joined his on the floor and I was lying on the pile of blankets in my bra and jeans. I hadn’t showered in months. I had tried to wash up the best I could this morning at the flea market, but I briefly worried about whether I smelled. I felt self-conscious about the way my ribs poked through my skin because of how much weight I’d lost.
Yoss looked down at me, his eyes hooded. “You’re beautiful,” he murmured, pulling the strap of my bra down my shoulder.
“I’m too skinny. And I’m all dirty and—”
Yoss cut me off with his mouth. A deep, penetrating kiss that erased every single thought. He broke away and turned his attention to the side of my neck. The tip of his tongue tracing along the curve of my collarbone. “You’re everything. Don’t you get that, Imi?” he said in between kisses.
His hand hesitated for a moment at the button of my jeans. Were we really going to do this? Now? After waiting so long?
“Yoss. Please,” I begged, cupping him through his pants, feeling how excited he was. I was a bundle of nerves. I wanted to be with him so bad, but I was scared at the same time. I was a virgin. I knew that Yoss wasn’t.
But that didn’t change the fact that I wanted to be with him. Desperately.
Yoss still hadn’t moved his hand. We were both breathing hard. Yoss looked down at me, his green eyes too serious. Heated but pained.
“Imi, I’m not sure—”
“Don’t you love me?” I challenged, feeling him retreat. Just like always.
Yoss kissed me. “Of course I do. You know I love you. More than anything.”
“Then why won’t you make love to me? We’ve been together for a while now. Don’t you want me?” My lips trembled and my voice broke. I was feeling the weight of his rejection bear down on me.
“It has nothing to do with not wanting to be with you, Imogen. I want to have sex. So much.” Yoss blew out a frustrated breath and lifted himself off me. I wrapped a blanket around my body feeling small and cold.
“Is it because of what you do for Manny? The things you do when you leave at night?” I dared to ask him, feeling brave enough to demand the answers I wanted.
Yoss grabbed his shirt and put it back on, turning his back to me. His shoulders were rigid and I knew I had pushed him too far.
“Don’t. Just don’t,” he said forcefully.
I inched closer to him and laid my cheek on his back. “Why ca
n you do that with them but not with me? Your girlfriend?”
Yoss jerked back around to face me, grabbing a hold of my wrists, his eyes wild. “You have no fucking idea, Imogen! How can you even want me to touch you when I’ve—When I’ve let those people—” He couldn’t continue. His hands were shaking, his nails biting into the soft underside of my arms.
“I look at you and you’re so innocent. So fucking pure. And I’m disgusting. I’ve let people do things to me…” He swallowed thickly. “These scars are from them, Imi. I let them hurt me because they like it. And I need the money.” He squeezed tighter. “How can I touch you with hands that have done things that I wish I could forget?”
“Yoss, I don’t care about any of that—”
“You should care, Imi! God damn it, you should!” His voice ricocheted around us and I cringed. Realizing how tightly he was gripping my arms, Yoss let go. He ran his hands through his hair. “I’ve never been with anyone. Not like that. Not when it means something.”
I went up on my knees and cupped the side of his face. I kissed his chin. Then his cheek. Then the corner of his eye. “I want to love you like you deserve, Yoss. Please let me.”
Brilliant, bright green stared at me with wonder. “I must have done something right to find you, Imogen Conner.”
His mouth found mine again, his hands slipping underneath the blanket to touch my skin.
“Yoss, I need to talk to you.”
Yoss jerked away from me as if he had been doused with ice water. I looked up and saw Manny standing beside the cinderblock bookshelf, watching us.
“Sorry to interrupt, kids, but I’ve secured some plans for the night. You were asked for specifically, Yoss,” Manny said, giving us an apologetic smile. As if he really felt bad about stepping into our private moment. As if he wasn’t about to take my boyfriend to meet some strange man who would make him do things for money.
I didn’t understand Manny. There were times he seemed like an affable guy. He would smile and say hello and you felt almost comforted by his warmth.
But he was also a man who used and manipulated the younger, vulnerable kids he came in contact with for despicable reasons.
“Cover yourself up,” Yoss muttered, wrapping the blanket tighter around me, shielding me from unwanted eyes.
One Day Soon Page 24