Watch Me

by Jody Gehrman

  “Fuck yes, it was.”

  “It wasn’t my call.” I lick my lips. I’ve never felt so vulnerable. Even with Eva, when she burrowed into my heart like a rodent, I never felt this naked. I pray you can see me. Please, god, I need you to look past the flimsy, insufficient words I’ve offered. I need you to see the enormous underground network that connects us. “I’m sorry. So sorry.”

  You lean back against the cushions. Your hands release their grip on your knees. You’re not done being mad, but you’re relaxing a little, and that’s good. That’s great. Trust happens slowly.

  When you speak, you sound stern but also exhausted. “This obsession of yours might cost me my career. You do understand that, right?”

  “You have to believe in yourself more than that, Kate. You’re a genius. You’ll find a better agent, someone who will help you hone your ideas and rework them. And Blackwood? Frances Larkin?” I scoff, trying to make it clear just how beneath you she is. “Fuck her. If they don’t know how lucky they are to have you, they don’t deserve you.”

  Your smile is sardonic. “So kind of you to give them the ammunition they needed to shoot me down.”

  “Come on. You’re bigger than this place.”

  “It’s one thing for me to make that call.” Your anger’s back, crackling to life. “It’s something else entirely for you to orchestrate my downfall.”

  “Not your downfall. Your release.”

  “That’s not up to you.” You glare.

  I get it. I do. You’re independent, in charge of your own life, and I took that away from you. Maybe I’ve been in too much of a hurry. I know I can be rash, impatient. I try to find the words that will bring you back to me. There’s nothing I want more than to soothe the jagged rage that’s causing you so much pain, like shards of glass running through your veins.

  “I was wrong.” I swallow hard, but my voice still cracks. “Like a little boy lighting your house on fire so you’d run into my arms.”

  “That’s so fucked up.”

  “Yes,” I agree.

  “I can’t possibly trust you.” You say it like someone stating the most obvious fact but expecting an argument anyway, like a scientist telling a fundamentalist the earth wasn’t created in seven days.

  “Yet.”

  You breathe out a soft, incredulous laugh. “Who are you, Sam Grist?”

  “The impetuous fool who worships you.” I grin.

  “No. Don’t try to charm your way out of this.”

  “If you throw me out right now and never speak to me again, I’ll understand.”

  “You will?” Your voice turns arch, challenging, like you might take me up on that offer.

  “Yeah.” It’s my turn to state the obvious. “I’d shoot myself, but I’d understand.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “I’m not trying to be funny.”

  I know we’re both remembering that day. The heavy silence in your office. Your finger tracing the shape of my scar, searching my face for answers. You wanted to know. I’ll try to tell you.

  “When I did it before, I don’t remember much.” My voice sounds small. “I just know the emptiness was burying me alive. I remember thinking, ‘This is what it must be like in an avalanche. Getting suffocated by cold, heavy nothing.’”

  You tilt your head, considering.

  “You’re the point, Kate. Without you, there’s nothing.”

  It’s a testimony to our connection—our bone-deep bond—that you don’t protest. You stare into my eyes, and I know you believe me. There’s no pretense anymore. You see me for who I am, and you don’t flinch.

  KATE

  This is crazy. I’m certifiably insane.

  This boy has taken everything from me. He’s arrogant, willful, probably a sociopath.

  And still, I let him into my home.

  He’s admitted to all his crimes against me, and I haven’t kicked him out.

  Who am I? What the fuck is wrong with me?

  Is it because I’m drunk and lonely and so empty right now I’ll take anything I can get? I’m a refugee fleeing my war-torn village, the blood of my family splattered across my face, pausing for a friendly chat with the conquering army.

  No, that’s not right. I’m Patty Hearst clinging to my gun-toting captor.

  It’s a bad habit of mine. When my life’s falling apart, I find solace in just the right metaphor. When I caught Pablo in bed with his jailbait mistress, I remember trying to decide with clinical precision whether it was more like getting kicked in the chest by a horse or getting impaled by a rusty meat hook.

  Meanwhile, as I try to select the precise simile to describe my exploded life, Sam continues looking at me with hungry fascination. For a long, stupid moment I let myself return his gaze. Even when we first met, Pablo never looked at me like that. After the day I’ve had, with the gin turning my inhibitions paper-thin, Sam’s intensity is like a drug. I lean against the cushions of the couch, my fingers inches from his. All it would take is one touch. I pull my hand back and hug my knees.

  He knows how to play me. If you send me away, I’ll kill myself. What the hell is that? He already knows way too much about me. It puts me at a disadvantage. Maybe I can even the playing field—lure him into thinking we’re good, then find out what he’s planning. If I’ve got any hope of defending myself, I have to understand why he’s trying to destroy me. Keep your friends close, your enemies closer.

  “Maybe getting out of here will be good for me,” I say, testing the waters of normal conversation.

  His face lights up. “Of course. Blackwood’s stifling.”

  “I’ve never felt completely at home here.”

  “Where are you from?” He angles himself on the couch so he’s facing me more directly.

  I get the eerie sense he knows the answer to this question; he’s only asking to draw me out. Anyone who’s read my full bio would learn where I grew up, so it’s not that weird, but shivers crawl up my spine just the same.

  “Northern California.”

  “I lived in Boonville for a summer. You know it?”

  I nod. “Yeah, that’s close to my hometown. What were you doing there?”

  “We moved around a lot.” His smile is rueful. “I had what you might call a colorful childhood.”

  “That can be good for a writer.”

  “I guess.”

  I remember that day at the bakery. His mother, with her mottled, gray teeth, her wild eyes. I seen you with my baby. Life with that woman couldn’t have been pretty.

  My instincts tell me to approach his past with care. Though I know half the answer, I ask the question that seems the least threatening. “Where are your parents?”

  “Never knew my dad.” His face goes tight with things unsaid. He searches the air. “As far as I’m concerned, my mother’s dead.”

  As I suspected, not a happy childhood. I try to find a question that will strip away the casing, show me the gears and sprockets under his careful shell. Everything I hit on seems too ham-fisted, though, too clumsy and obvious.

  I decide to go with simplicity. “Why’s that?”

  “She killed herself.” A muscle in his jaw jumps. “She’s still walking around, but the mother I knew is dead.”

  A silence falls over us. I wonder if I’m pushing my luck. Turning the camera onto him defies our usual dynamic. From the very beginning, it’s always been his eyes on me, not the other way around. I’m afraid he’ll see through my efforts to unmask him. If he thinks I’m digging, he’ll clam up. Can he see me sweating? It’s like facing off with a cobra. One wrong move and it will strike. I should just kick him out now and lock my doors.

  “Please don’t ask me to leave,” he says, reading my mind with uncanny accuracy.

  I unclasp my knees and scoot a few inches away from him. “Sam, you know I can’t—”

  “I promise not to ask for anything.” He fixes me with that searching gaze of his. “You shouldn’t be alone right now.”

>   “I could call Zoe.”

  “She’s got an infant,” he says gently. “She might not be able to—”

  “I know that.” It comes out sharp, accusing.

  “You feel abandoned.” His expression goes placid. He’s much more comfortable talking about me. “She was your best friend.”

  “She still is.” I sound like a child.

  “Yes, but it’s not the same.”

  “No.” I swallow, fighting to think straight. How did we get back to this, with him the cool observer and me wriggling under the microscope?

  “Everyone needs one person they can count on. Zoe was yours. Now she’s not.”

  “We’re still close,” I say weakly.

  He backs off a little, a mischievous smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “She’s pretty funny. I like her. ‘Gregory Pecs’?”

  In spite of—or maybe because of—all the tension coiled inside me, I laugh too loudly. So he was listening that day at the mall. “You heard that?”

  “You said I was hot.” He stares at me hard, peeling my layers away with those eyes of his.

  I give him a warning look. At least, I think that’s what it is.

  “You need a friend tonight,” he says softly.

  “You’re my student,” I remind him.

  His smile is just the slightest bit wolfish. “Not for long.”

  I give him a look. “Really? You got me fired and now you’re—?”

  “I’m sorry.” He holds his hands up.

  I sigh, rubbing my forehead. “You should go.”

  Those eyes. Those blue, haunting eyes.

  “When’s the last time you ate?” he asks, smoothly changing the subject.

  That stops me. “Breakfast.”

  “That settles it. I’m ordering pizza.” He reaches for his phone.

  “No, that’s not—”

  “I’m not leaving until I watch you put away at least three slices of Luigi’s Meat Lover’s Delight. You’re wasting away.”

  Maybe I can dissemble long enough to ferret out what the hell he’s trying to do. If I don’t at least try, I might never find out. Nothing gets under my skin like an unsolved mystery. This time, though, it’s not just niggling curiosity. If I don’t know what’s driving him, how can I defend myself?

  “Fine,” I say. “But after that, you go.”

  “We’ll see.” His calm assurance fills me with dread.

  SAM

  I order pizza and pour us both gin and tonics, making yours extra strong.

  Thank Christ, Luigi’s takes forever. They employ the slowest delivery boys in the western hemisphere, and I could kiss them for it. They must stop seven times en route to get stoned. Slugs show more ambition than these guys. Most of the time, this would make me apoplectic with impatience, but tonight it’s the sweetest blessing ever. I telepathically urge them to smoke another bowl, to drive off into the night and straight through to Kentucky. Never has anyone loved stoner pizza boys the way I do tonight.

  I pair my phone with your Bluetooth speaker and hit a playlist called Kate.

  You tell me about growing up in Mendocino, about the salty fog and diving for abalone and a beach covered in sea glass and distant seals barking you to sleep at night. I tell you about moving every few months with Vivienne, making it sound like a playful adventure and not the dark motherfucking nightmare it was. Your eyes shine as you listen, and your hair moves around your shoulders as you stretch out on the couch. You’re still not wearing a bra, and though I refuse to gape like a frat boy, if I soften my gaze I can look into your eyes and still see the hard, teasing tips of your nipples straining against the fabric of your sweatshirt in my peripheral vision.

  When we live in New York, you’ll never wear a bra. Other men will gaze at your exquisite breasts as they move under your clothes. Sometimes I’ll want to kill them, but I’ll quell the urge with a witty, cutting remark aimed in their direction. They’ll back off like betas bowing before the alpha. They will smell the bone-deep satisfaction you’ll radiate. You’ll be mine, and they’ll know it.

  Even now, you’re mine, Kate.

  You don’t know it yet. The way you hold back only makes me love you more. The distance you keep between us on the couch is adorable. As if sixteen inches of linen cushions could keep us apart.

  I’m dying to hold you, taste your mouth, stroke your hair away from your face, and let you cry. Of course I don’t dare. You’re delicate, wrung out by the day and the gin and the accusations. You’re frayed and threadbare. Usually, fragile people make me nervous or annoyed, but you’re different. Most people weaken under pressure. You’re a turbulent cloud collapsing under its own gravity, gathering into a hot core that will soon become a star. I savor the tension sparking between us like static electricity. It’s excruciating.

  Just being here is incredible. Everywhere I turn I’m surrounded by your things: your shelves lined with books, all of them dog-eared and well-loved, none of them there for show; your fern hanging beneath a skylight, the tips of each frond a little crispy (will you never learn to water your plants? You’re hopeless, and I love you for it); the bright yellow rain boots by the back door, crusted with dirt, evidence you’re still a little girl stomping through mud puddles. Your home is so you, and I want to explore every inch of it. This is nothing compared to our loft in New York, though. It will be you and me combined, our treasures and detritus blending until it’s impossible to tell where you end and I begin.

  “What about Jess? Aren’t you two dating?” It’s a non sequitur, coming off a conversation we’re having about memorable family pets. I can see you realizing how off-topic your question is and blushing. You’re the cutest creature that ever walked the earth.

  “Why would you ask that?” I flash a puzzled frown.

  You shrug one shoulder and pull your bare feet toward you, a casual yogi. “I saw you together that night at the theater.”

  “Oh, right.” I shake my head. “We didn’t come together. She insisted on sitting next to me.”

  “So she is interested?” When I don’t answer right away, you clarify, “In you, I mean? Romantically?”

  “I guess.” I look away, wanting to hit just the right note. A silence falls over us. I let it stretch on, daring you to wonder.

  “She’s pretty,” you offer.

  I scoff. “Not my type.”

  “What is your type?” It’s almost a whisper.

  I answer without hesitation, “You.”

  The tension builds to a crescendo so rich I can taste it. Your body pulls at me like a magnet. An Iron & Wine song comes on. The very first time I heard it, I thought of you.

  Lay here, my love

  You’re the only shape

  I’ll pray to.

  I inch toward you on the couch with glacial patience. You’re frozen, watching my lips, then my eyes, then my lips again. You might bolt at any second. You’re a doe, standing motionless in the forest, watching for signs of danger. I want to reach my hand toward you, let you sniff me, run my fingers through your hair and whisper reassurance. I’m terrified you’ll jerk away, spooked. It takes extreme patience to keep from springing like a lion.

  That’s when the stoner pizza boy rings the doorbell.

  I’ll shoot the motherfucker.

  KATE

  There’s something oddly comforting about the boy from Luigi’s. He’s nothing special, just your average, acne-scarred college kid in a baseball cap and a down jacket. When I fling open the door and see him standing there, though, cardboard box in hand, I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. It’s like seeing something blessedly normal in the midst of an acid trip.

  The cold air on my face slaps me from my trance. I have to get Sam out of here. As much as I want to know what he’s really after, letting him stay a minute longer is reckless. He’s way too dangerous, and I’m too compromised to take him on.

  The delightfully average pizza boy hands me the box. “Here you go. That’ll be eighteen dolla
rs and seventy-three cents.”

  I turn back toward the house to grab my purse, but Sam intercepts me, handing the kid a twenty and a couple ones. “Thanks, man.”

  “Have a great night.” The boy turns and dashes toward his car.

  Brilliant. Now I can’t kick him out until he’s had a few slices of pizza. It would be rude to send him packing when he just bought my dinner. Oh, the irony: I’m worrying about offending the kid who’s systematically robbed me of my livelihood and my privacy. Something tells me not to set him off, though. He’s a chess player now, calculating every move, but if I push him away too suddenly, there’s no telling what will happen.

  “Thanks,” I murmur, trying not to let my apprehension show.

  He smiles and closes the door behind us, sealing us back inside our pressure cooker. “No worries. Least I can do.”

  I set the pizza on the counter and open the box. The rich, velvety scent of cheese and sausage wafts up, bathing me in aromatic ambrosia. God, I do love a good pizza. Luigi’s is amazing, a little hole-in-the-wall run by a skinny old Italian guy and his fat Peruvian wife. Together, they make some of the best pizza I’ve ever tasted.

  A pornographic moan escapes me.

  He laughs. “Wow. If I’d known it would get that reaction, I would have ordered three.”

  “Sorry. Guess I’m hungrier than I thought.”

  He picks up a slice, carefully severs a strand of mozzarella, and arranges it on top. Cheese oozes along the edges; sausage and pepperoni glisten amid the mushrooms and olives. His hands float toward my mouth. I watch, mesmerized, as his fingers offer the slice, inching it closer to my lips.

  I’m buzzed, but not drunk enough to know that feeding each other is not part of the plan. Here be dragons.

  “Sam.” I manage to infuse the single syllable with warning. It’s weak, though. I clear my throat.

  His gaze locks on mine. I can feel him gauging my willpower. Whatever he sees there must convince him to back off.