by McLean, Jay
I pulled the covers up to my chin and didn’t bother answering him. I didn’t need to. It didn’t matter what I thought.
Dr. Polizi sighed as he stepped away from the bed, and looked over at Nate. “She can take them in the morning with her insulin, or at lunch with her vitamins and other pills,” Polizi told him.
Nate looked up, his face void of emotion. “Thanks, Doc.”
They spoke in hushed tones as if I wasn’t in the room, and a few minutes later, I was alone. Again. I was always alone. Nate had been (as he liked to call it) working “overtime.” He was barely home, and when he was, he was on his computer, or asleep. He’d been going to the gym a lot, too, and it showed, not that I had any sexual appetite to appreciate it.
Maybe that’s why he asked the doc to get me on anti-depressants.
I scoffed to myself just as he re-entered the room. “What’s funny?” he asked while he sat on the edge of the bed. He slipped on his shoes with one hand, the other landing on my hip. He forced a smile in my direction, one that said, I’m sorry, but I have to go. The real world awaits and besides, you barely get out of bed, and you haven’t showered in three days, so I’d rather not be around you…
“Bailey?”
My eyes moved to his.
“I might be home a little late…”
I contained my eye roll. He probably wanted to have sex. I should shower. Shave. Do all my hostage/girlfriend duties. Hostage. I scoffed again.
“Bailey!”
“What? I heard you!” I snapped.
“Okay, I’m sorry,” he rushed out, his hands going up in surrender. “It just seems like you keep zoning out on me.”
I wondered if the girls he was fucking during his so-called “overtime” could smell me on him. Or if they did, would they care? Girls loved the bad-boy, and they don’t get any badder than Nate fucking DeLuca.
“Bailey…”
“What?!”
“Nothing.” He shook his head, his gaze dropping. “I just love you, is all.”
* * *
I knew part of it was my fault. I’d been working a lot lately. Too much. Benny had a rat at the local precinct and, apparently, the cops had been on our tail since the rich kid OD’d. Benny told me all this, followed by an order/warning that it was on me to find a more discrete way to get supplies and do the exchange. So I ignored Polizi’s pleas, and I’d been working overtime, trying to find new ways to meet with suppliers, which, unfortunately, still included the Francos. Tiny and I spent most nights driving from one location to another, using the darkness of the night to hide our intentions, but I’d always made sure to come home, every single night, to Bailey.
It doesn’t matter that she didn’t notice, or that she no longer cared.
And the truth is, it was a selfish choice. I needed to be with her. I ached to be with her.
I spent my days trying to work out who I was, trying to find my reason, but at night… in the four walls of that basement with Bailey in my arms, her slumbered breaths on my skin and her heart beating with mine, I found peace.
I found solace.
I found purpose.
But I also found myself drowning, sinking, unable to breathe from the weight of my so-called peace, and I questioned everything I felt and tried to match it with how she felt and I couldn’t. I couldn’t find the truth between the web of lies we’d created, and worse… I couldn’t find Bailey. I guess that’s when I came to the realization. I could no longer find her, because she no longer existed.
Bailey was sitting at the top of the basement stairs when I got home. She stood as soon as she heard me, her hands grasping the hem of the too-big shirt she was wearing. She wiped her eyes as if she’d been crying, and lifted her chin, her shoulders square. For a moment, I thought it was anger I saw in her eyes—frustrated, built up anger that I was no doubt responsible for, but then she smiled, her breath shaky when she exhaled.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
She shrugged, her voice almost a whisper when she said, “Waiting for you.”
“Oh yeah?” I stepped forward, and her hand claimed mine as soon as I was close enough.
She inhaled deeply, and looked up, her tear-coated eyes meeting mine. “I’ve been waiting for you to come home because I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry about… just… about everything, Nate, and I—” She broke off on a sob, one that pierced my already breaking heart.
I released her hands and cupped her face, tilting her head back. “Bailey, it’s fine.”
She shook her head, her hands grasping my wrists. “It’s not fine, Nate. You don’t deserve the way I’ve been treating you, or the way I’ve been acting and I’m so sorry because you’ve done nothing but take care of me since the moment you found me. I’m just lost at the moment, so lost, and I have been for a while, but every night you come home to me, and you’re here… you’re here with me, and you don’t have to be and I don’t know why I’ve been acting like that isn’t enough.”
Because it’s not, I wanted to tell her. And she was wrong. She had no idea how much I had to be with her.
“Do you remember our first fight?” she asked, wiping her cheeks with her forearm. “The one where I was insecure about what you did out there and jealous of all the—”
“Yeah,” I cut in. “I remember.”
“You remember what you said? About how we end all our fights?”
I nodded.
“I need you to end it, Nate,” she cried, moving her hands to my shirt, fisting and tugging harshly. “God, I need you to end it,” she repeated, and so I did, right there on the stairs with a million emotions fleeting between us, I gave her what she needed. I inhaled her cries and let them consume me, I tasted her tears and let them destroy me, I gave in to her pleas and let them control me, and then she did the same with me. We used each other, physically, emotionally, it didn’t matter, because when the pink of her lips spread thin around my cock and my hands fisted her hair, she looked up at me with love and appreciation in her eyes, and for a second, one split second, my heart stopped hurting. Then I was inside her, the sounds of my pain and despair muffled by her neck while she panted, promises and declarations of a forever that didn’t exist whispered into the still, dead air around us. But it wasn’t until it was over, her in my arms and our bodies still connected, drowning in the evidence of our pleasure and pain that reality hit, and hit with a force I couldn’t ignore… our actions hadn’t ended it. If anything, it just restarted the cycle. And I guess she must’ve felt it too because when I woke up the next morning, she wasn’t in our bed, she was on the bathroom floor, and I felt the shift in both our presence, like a tidal wave of doom. For minutes, I just sat there watching her, until she turned to me, her eyes hopeless and tired and then she said the two words that sparked the flames, the two words that ruined me for all of eternity. “Thank you.”
Chapter 39
“Get up!”
My eyes snapped open, and my hand reached out, grabbing the arm of the person shaking me. I knew it wasn’t Nate. Even in the darkness of the room, I could tell.
It wasn’t his voice.
It wasn’t his touch.
Adrenalin pumped through my veins, mixing with my fear and the only thing I thought to do was scream. I turned over in bed, and I screamed and cried for Nate, but he wasn’t there.
Hands grasped my shoulders while a cloth was put over my head, and then the same hands were on my waist, lifting me in the air. My stomach landed on a shoulder, my body folded in half, and I thrashed around, my fists thumping the person’s back while my legs kicked out and I screamed, and I cried for Nate.
Doors opened, doors closed, footsteps thudded across the floor, and I wept, tears falling in all directions. My throat closed up, the shock of fresh air filling my lungs. I heard the thunder, felt the rain on my legs and my back while a car door opened, and I was released, landing harshly on my side and I screamed, and I cried for Nate.
I kicked again, hands pulling the fabric off
my head at the same time the engine started. I found the door handle, and I pulled, and I pulled, but it was no use. The car moved, tires spinning against loose gravel and I screamed, and I cried for Nate.
Then I looked out the back window, past the tears and the darkness and the rain and the lighting surrounding me, to Nate’s house, the only light source coming from his open front door, and I banged my fist on the window as I screamed and I cried for Nate.
And then he appeared, the outline of his frame standing in the doorway, and everything in me froze, just for a second, before my mind reeled, and my tears fell, and my heart broke, and I slumped in the seat.
And I cried.
And I cried
For Nate.
Five years later
“I’d woken up that morning to Bailey sitting naked on the bathroom floor—her thin, pale frame a contrast against the gray of the tiles. She’d been counting, her finger pointed in the air, and her body shaking, and all of a sudden, that ache I had felt tripled in strength, only it hadn’t been because I needed to be with her, needed to feel her in my arms… No, the reasons were worse. A lot worse. Bailey once told me that the only thing she experienced when she pulled the trigger that night I found her was a repeat of the events that led her to where she was. Gunshot. Breath. Darkness. She’d said those three words as if they were all her life meant, but she said she’d been sad that she hadn’t seen her life flash before her eyes. But I had—my life, I mean. That morning, I’d watched Bailey lean forward, her eyes squinting, her lips moving, and her pointed finger slowing, and my heart hurt to the point where I thought I was dying, or maybe I was because it was at that point when my life flashed before my eyes.”
Doctor Aroma looked up from her notepad, her eyes wide. “And what did you see, Nate?”
“Bailey and Hickory.”
Destructive
“Get up!”
I should’ve been surprised at the sound of the single demand, at the rough tone in which it was said—but I wasn’t.
We’d practiced this.
Planned it.
Prepared for it.
While Bailey slept in my arms, her breaths barely a whisper across my skin, I’d kept my eyes open. My ears alert. I’d heard the slide of the key into the lock, right before the click. There was no sound to accompany the door being pushed open, just the gentle groaning of the floorboards above as footsteps closed the distance between us and Bailey’s future captor.
Next to me, Bailey screamed, and I winced at the sound, at the fear trembling there. I kept my arms at my sides, my fists balled, and I let my eyes close. Even though deep down, I knew it was for the best, I could barely stand what we were doing. If I had to actually see it…
The bed dipped, became colder without her presence beside me, and then an “oomph” between her cries.
Her cries for me.
No longer quiet or needing to be hidden, footsteps became thuds as they climbed the stairs, and I swallowed my fear, my mistakes, and breathed through the ache in my chest. My hands grasped at the blankets, now at my waist as I sat up, still refusing to open my eyes.
I’d never had to wonder what it felt like to have a broken heart.
I was born with one.
Live with one.
But then the front door opened, and thunder cracked, and I could hear the rain pouring heavily against the driveway. I imagined Bailey there—a pillowcase over her head—just like we’d planned. I pictured the rain coming down on her, soaking the fabric until her breaths reshaped the cloth. Breathing in. Out. “Nathaniel, please!” she screamed, and my eyes snapped open.
My heart cracked.
Shattered.
I rushed out of bed, regret plaguing every cell of my being. My bare feet hit the concrete floor of the basement, cold and unwelcoming.
Pulse pounding beyond pain, I ran up the stairs and to the front door, pulling it open—the word “Stop!” stuck in my throat as I watched the wheels of the car spin across the gravel, the tail lights a blinding red. Through the sheets of rain, I could barely make out a few feet in front of me. But I could make out her. Make out the hand that clapped against the rear windshield, and I knew she could see me.
I could feel her cries.
Feel her tears.
Feel her helplessness like a lead weight building inside my ribs.
But it would be one time. Just now. And then she’d be free.
Free from me and the confines of the life I’d offered her back when…
Back when she’d begged and pleaded for me to kill her, and then save her, and then kill her because I couldn’t save her…
I closed the front door.
Remembered why I was doing this.
In the basement, my phone sounded with a text.
The room felt void, empty without her.
6590: She’s calmed down now. This is for the best, Boss. For everyone.
I slumped to the edge of the bed, my hands in my hair, my eyes taking in the hundreds of fall leaves hanging from the ceiling.
“I know,” I whispered to no one.
I knew because I couldn’t save her.
Just like I couldn’t save my mother.
Chapter 1
It rained the day of my nonno’s funeral.
Fat, heavy droplets that physically hurt when they landed on my skin. I’d wanted to complain about it, but whenever I looked up at my mom, her tears seemed heavier than the rain, and so I did what my dad told me to do; I held her hand and stood silent next to her.
There were a lot of people in the cemetery. I remember thinking it was the most people I’d seen besides the time Nonno took me to Madison Square Garden to watch Latrell Sprewell play one of his final games for the Knicks. “He’s a goddamn hot head,” Nonno had said, over and over, his voice gruff from all the cigars he’d smoked. Mom used to tell him it would be the death of him. Wishful thinking on her part, I suppose, because my nonno was murdered coming out of a bodega at three in the afternoon, Cuban cigar between his lips, a bottle of whiskey in one hand, and a titty magazine in the other.
My nonno was the original Don. The Godfather, if you believe the hype. I guess that made my mother a princess and me a prince.
We were Mafia royalty.
The family.
That’s the story anyway.
Or myth.
Urban legend, maybe?
Hell, I don’t know.
According to the tales told around neat whiskey and fast women, my nonno had lived a life far greater than any man before and even after him. I don’t know if they tell me these things to hype me up and make sure I live up to the legacy he left behind or if they’re true. Either way, I am not like him. Neither was my dad, no matter how hard Nonno had tried to break him.
Along with his infamous legacy, Nonno left everything to my mother and father, who would later leave everything to me.
Even the parts I didn’t want.
Sometimes I wonder if my parents didn’t want it either.
A few days before my mom died—I mean, before I killed her—I was picked up from school by my driver and taken home. My mom was waiting for me on the other side of the door, her hair up in a perfected knot on the back of her head. She was holding a box in front of her, her gaze gentle and kind, the way it always was when she looked at me. I still remember the way my eyes widened along with my smile, making my cheeks hurt. “You got it!” I yelled, dropping my school bag in the entryway and taking the box from her. I didn’t even thank her as I ripped it open, the giant world globe cold against my fingertips. I was ten years old—and maybe too old to be excited over such mundane things—but I think, in a way, my mom made it a priority to keep me sheltered, to keep my soul young and innocent for as long as possible.
Too bad that ended only days later.
Too bad she didn’t prepared me for the real world, the harshness of it, the dangers of the future that awaited the grandson of The Godfather.
Il Principe. The Prince.
; With the globe hugged to my chest, I ran upstairs and toward my room, my mother’s laughter floating behind me as she followed, her steps much slower than mine. By the time she reached my room and leaned against the doorway, the globe was perched on my desk, spinning and spinning and spinning. I sat on my bed, eyes lit up, green and blue whirling in my vision, and my bed dipped, my mother’s hand going to my shoulder as she settled in next to me. “Where to?” she asked quietly. I pushed out a breath, eying her sideways, my innocence forcing my lips to curl at the corners. Then I lifted my hand, a single finger pointed, moving closer and closer to the globe until I pressed down, forcing it to stop.
Mom and I held our breaths as we leaned forward, our eyes squinting to see where I’d landed…
Chapter 2
I’ve never left the country. Barely even left the state. Not by choice, anyway. I was born in New York, raised there until I was around seven or eight. After my nonno passed away, Mom packed up our lives and moved us all to Philly to get away from the wrath her father had left behind.
It didn’t help.
“Canada?” Tiny asks, looking over my shoulder as I tap away at my phone. “You want to go to Canada?”
With a shrug, I shove my phone in my pocket and lean back against the brick wall of O’Malley’s bar, watching the headlights of the cars pass by from the alley. “What’s wrong with Canada?”
“What’s right with Canada?” he scoffs. “There’s nothing there but horse cops, hockey, and maple tree—” He cuts himself off, thinking he knows where this is going.
Honestly, I don’t know if he’s right or wrong.
Dropping my gaze to my hands, I ball my fists and dig my nails into my palms. I create pain where it doesn’t exist, so I can ignore the real pain of my existence.
“You know…” Tiny starts, his tone hesitant. “Maybe you should hit up Italy. I mean, it’s in your blood, and you’ve never even—” A car pulls into the alley, headlights blinding, cutting him off. But he doesn’t need words for me to understand. His eyes say it all. It’s been four years. I should be over this shit. Should be over her.