“Shit, if you hurry up, you can also do your thing for two minutes in front of the judges,” Rye gushes, all excited, cheerful and rosy while I stand there stiff, gloomy and dark.
“Rye, I don’t think…” but she cuts me off.
“Come on, let me text you the address to my townhouse apartment. We have a studio. The housekeeper, Anna, is there, she’ll let you in. I will ring her, and you can practice in the studio for tomorrow.”
“Rye.”
“Mia, please,” she says, now serious. “I know you’re in pain. I know you’re hurting and grieving but if you’re here, then I know you’re here for one thing.”
To dance.
“Yeah that was before,” I croak.
Before everything went to shit. Before I realized my life is a lie. Before I started going through all my memories, trying to figure out what Nicky meant about my father.
“I just…”
“Come on, Mia. Go to my house, we’ll go out and party after we both get accepted tomorrow. Actually, let’s make that tonight! We’re going out tonight!”
That’s the last thing I want to do right now, but I don’t say anything. I’ve never been a party pooper before, but I feel like with this darkening mood in me, I’m going to turn this city of love into a city of cold, devastation instead.
“Okay, even if I do agree, I don’t have my dance gear,” I murmur, wishing she would drop it. But Rye being Rye, she doesn’t.
“Girl, that’s not an issue. We can buy you a tutu for tomorrow but for now, my closet is full of new gear, shit I haven’t used before,” she gushes, then falls silent. “Unfortunately, I don’t have anything in black. I remember how you like everything to match your amazing hair, but still go help yourself,” she says and before I can say anything, the calls ends, leaving me confused.
But that’s Rye. Half sun, half storm.
With her, each day was different. You never knew which side you were going to get. Just like Roxy Bishop of the R.A.C.K.
Fuck, I have to talk to someone about her.
A second later, the phone pings with two texts from her.
Rye: Don’t over think this shit!
And another with the pin for her Paris flat.
With a sigh, I look up and decide right there and then to just do as I’m told. I don’t stop to think. I don’t look over my shoulder. I just leave the store with my head down and head for the exit, only breathing when I’m in the taxi, rattling the address Rye gave me to the cabbie.
Guilt is a funny thing though. I felt it later on when I decided to ditch Julian.
But for the first time in days, I don’t give a damn about guilt. It can go fuck off somewhere.
So why was my heart bleeding furiously? Why did I want to go back to him and fix this?
Fix what? Unless you can go back in time and stop yourself from being this girl who cuts herself, there’s no going back.
I rest my head on the headrest when it begins to pound. Over the years, I’ve had headaches so intense, they knocked me out at times. I think the same thing is going to happen. Or maybe Julian has a voodoo doll of me, and he just banged the head on a wall or something after what I just did.
Whatever. I’m sure he’ll find me soon, but for now, I think I have a head start.
19
I have no fucking idea how long I stand there, leaning by the wall waiting or Mia to come out of the bathroom, when I finally realize what she just did.
She played me. No doubt she ditched me and is already gone.
“Fuck!” I mutter to myself, turning a few heads, but I don’t give a shit. I stalk out of the airport and head for the guy with “FITZ” scribbled on the board, no doubt sent by dad to pick me up. This isn’t what I meant when I said I need a car, so I walk over to him.
“Mr. Fitzgerald,” the French guy says, greeting me with recognition in his eyes. “Welcome to France.”
I nod, then extend my hand to him. “I need your keys,” I mutter and he raises an eyebrow, watching me.
“Excusez moi, monsieur?” he starts. “My keys?”
“Yes, for the car,” I grumble impatiently. “I need to find someone.”
“You mean the young Mademoiselle you flew in with?”
Mia. How did he know?
“Yes.”
“Oh, she left in a taxi. One of the security detail assigned to you followed her.”
Hmm, looks like the old man did come through with everything I asked for.
“Are you my driver?”
“That and your security, monsieur,” he says and it’s then that I see the hardness in his eyes. Yeah, he’s security all right.
“I trust that the penthouse is ready?” I mutter, starting to walk toward the car bay, feeling him right beside me.
“Oui, monsieur.”
“Where is she?”
“I can have her location in a second. Would you like me to take you to her?”
I think back to the devastated look on her face from earlier. The way her eyes widened when she realized that I had seen the long cuts and nail punctures on her arms; she looked like she wanted to disappear.
Fuck, I have no idea what it is I’m doing wrong with her. Did I come on too strong? Was it too much too fast? When she woke up, I couldn’t control my reaction. I just sat there, my mind transported to a fucking dark place where all I saw was blood from years ago from the slashed wrists of another girl and now… hers.
“Fuck,” I whisper to myself, then get in the car. “No, take me to the penthouse.”
She needs space to calm down and fuck, I need space to try and make sense of everything. Though we did talk last night, a lot was left unsaid still. We lightly touched on some issues but didn’t go full out to lay them out like the shit with Nathan and her childhood.
I need to figure out what I want to do before I see her next.
“I’ll drop you off because I have to come back and wait for Monsieur Liam’s flight,” the guy says, and I realize then that I don’t know his name.
“I don’t think I caught your name.”
“It’s Max, young monsieur. I don’t blame you for not remembering.”
“Remembering?” I question, my mind racing.
“Yes, monsieur. You were still a little boy when you and your father would visit Paris in the summer.”
Huh, I vaguely remember that. This was after all, one of Dad’s favorite cities sin eth world.
“Of course,” I mutter. “Sorry, it’s nice to see you again, Max.”
“Oui, you as well, young monsieur. Though I have to say, it’s such a shame, the passing of your stepmother.”
I pause, my face scrunching up in a frown.
“My stepmother?”
“Yes, the ballerina, eh Madame Nancy,” Max says, and I almost choke on my own saliva, listening to what he just said. “Monsieur Fitzgerald and she were so in love, no? I drove them around the city many times. Watched over them and that little girl and you.”
Holy shit. Could that little girl be Mia? Have I met Mia before?
What the fuck?
“Such a shame,” Max says again, shaking his head.
Yeah, it’s such a fucking shame indeed. A shame that I didn’t ask dad the full story between him and Nancy, especially why the hell he told everyone that the woman who raise dt he woman I love, was my stepmother.
But it’s more of a shame that I don’t remember Mia. I swear, I’d remember a face like hers, eyes like hers, a snarky attitude that set the world on fire like hers.
But it makes sense, the spark we had right from the start. It was more than that though. It was more like being struck by lightning when she touched me, and when we kissed, I don’t know, the universe just burst behind my eyes.
She felt it too, otherwise why would she have still let me kiss her years later? Coming on my hand just a few hours ago?
She wants me, but she needs space.
I’ll give you that. Little Minx. For now.
* * *
He stares at me silently, his jaw ticking, eyes narrowed, his chest heaving up and down so fast like he just ran a marathon.
Our eyes meet and hold. Brother against brother. We’ve never been here at this intense level before. Resentment isn’t really our style and we never did anything by half measures.
If my brother and I were going to hate each other, I knew it was going to happen on a full scale and now, it’s taking a herculean effort not to tell him to get on a fucking plane and go home.
“Where is she?” he demands, staring at me with his nostrils flaring a bit.
“Not here,” I mutter, taking a chug of my beer.
“I fucking know that she’s not here, because I know you did something to drive her away,” he fires back. “Now, where is she.”
“I don’t know.”
“What the hell is your problem?” he seethes. “You’ve been acting like a fucking dick to me lately. What the hell?”
“My job isn’t to sooth your feelings,” I mutter. “You made it abundantly clear that I was smothering you. That I didn’t respect you. That I’m overbearing.”
“That’s because you are!” he shouts. “But I needed to tell you!”
“Yeah, you told me all right,” I grumble. Liam didn’t hold back, managing to make me feel like shit and a total failure when it comes to letting him and Aiden down with a single word.
“The fuck, Julian! What the hell do you want from me, huh?”
“Nothing,” I mutter dryly. “I didn’t ask for you to come here, did I?”
He glares at me. “I didn’t come all the way to Paris for you, asshole. I came for her, now, where the hell is she?”
“Why?” I growl. “You think she needs you?”
“I know she needs me. You’re too much of an asshole for her, when you don’t realize that pushing Mia is really like shooting yourself in the foot. She withdraws from you.”
“Ah, so you’re the Mia whisperer, then?” I bite out, placing the empty beer bottle on the counter with a thud, facing my brother fully now. “You think you know her better than I do? You think you know her just because you kissed her?”
“Maybe I do, asshole.”
“Well you’re fucking wrong! A kiss won’t ground her. She’s different, she’ll swallow you whole if you think you can handle her. She needs something darker, harder…”
“And all that shit is you, I presume?” Liam questions, looking cool and detached. “You think she can only get all that from you?”
“Yes!”
Why the fuck is my own brother antagonizing me like this?
“Well, I hate to say it bro, but any asshole with a dick can fuck her, and a girl like Mia, she has a sea of options. If she wanted a shark, she would definitely pick you.”
“She’s a shark too.”
“Not right now, she isn’t!” he shouts. “She’s grieving and she doesn’t need your attitude and judgment shitting all over her, reminding her of the things she doesn’t want to think about.”
What the fuck? Is that what I was doing when I confronted her about her self-harming?
“You’re fucking amazing, Julian! Everything you do is close to perfect. You graduated top of your class, got a fucking high GPA, you stay clean, eat clean for football and you still look like you when the rest of us have to work extra hard, scared shitless that I might wake up one morning and find all that weight I dropped back on me,” Liam says, looking sad now. “You make us flawed humans feel inadequate and the fact that Mia isn’t here proves my point. You pushed!”
“Careful Liam, you’re going to get yourself hurt,” I seethe. “She’s mine!”
“Newsflash asshole, Mia isn’t a fucking tree. You don’t get to give her a golden shower and declare her ‘mine’. She has to say it herself.”
“Well then that makes it all simple then,” I growl, eyes narrowed, my body coiled tight, ready for a fucking fight. “She already said it. Moaned it in my ear, in fact.”
I’m being crass and divulging way more information about my business with Mia than I want to, but I want to see his reaction, which isn’t much because Liam just stares at me, shaking his head.
“You need to reel yourself back in, J,” he mutters. “You’re working yourself up. I suggest a shrink.”
“Fuck you!”
“It isn’t a joke, J,” he counters. “You’re burning up from everything, maybe even losing your damn mind with the shit with Mom and what she did to Aiden. Dad’s shit with Mia’s mother-not mother, bullshit. You need to pace yourself.”
I don’t have time for that. I have so much shit to do and right now, hurting him is the last thing I want to do.
“Go back home, Liam,” I grumble, and he stops, stares at me for a long second, then shakes his head.
“If you’re not going to tell me where she is, I’ll find her myself.”
And with that, he picks his bag and goes down the hall to his room. Within a minute, he’s out, not sparing me a glance.
“Why the fuck do you care where is or where she isn’t?” I call after him and he stops.
Liam watches me for a second, throwing his head back and belts out an amused laugh that grates at my ears, my nerves, hell, my entire body.
“Ah so this is your fucking problem?”
“I’m fucking serious here,” I grumble. “Why?”
“J,” he starts, taking a step toward me. “Mia isn’t a toy. She isn’t a prize. She’s a girl you’re clearly fucked up over and you think she doesn’t reciprocate your feelings for her.”
“She fucking does!” I know she does.
“Oh yeah? Then why isn’t she here?”
I’m silent for a long second, feeling his scrutinizing gaze on me, but what can I can I say without admitting to my failures or letting him know that Mia’s been cutting herself.
“I’m not going to tell you again, Liam,” I murmur. “Go back home.”
Liam sighs, watching me. “It wasn’t your faulty, J.”
I tense up, my jaw locked, my palm and fingers now glued to the cold beer bottle. “What did you just say?”
“I said it wasn’t your fault,” he mutters. “I know that look on your face. I’ve seen it before. Right now, you’re blaming yourself for not seeing what Courtney was doing to Aiden.”
Fuck, I am to blame! If what dad said is correct, that I vowed to protect my brother, then did I do my fucking job? Did I see it through?
“Go home, Liam,” I growl. “And stay the fuck away from her.”
I turn away from him, not wanting to see the look on his face. Soon, he’s gone, leaving me with secrets I haven’t divulged.
“And by the way, you remember that girl you haven’t gotten over? Yeah that one from Mia’s school, I’m betrothed to marry her.”
Yeah, that has a nice fuck you ring to it.
20
After ditching Julian, I get to Rye’s and find her there, but she wasn’t alone. Jaz was also there.
“Ahh, Mia!” Jaz shrieks, jumping into my arms with a scream. “Hey!”
“Hey,” I mutter, trying my bets to smile, but it feels wooden and wrong. “When did you come?”
“Oh, I was in the UK and Rye called to tell me that you’re coming, so, here I am!”
The both jump around like two sorority bitches, drunk on wine coolers. They seem happier, more at peace with themselves, unlike the last time I saw either of them.
“God, I’ve been praying for this day since that party in Malibu,” Rye gushes, making Jaz roll her eyes.
“Bitch please,” I mutter. “When did you start praying?”
“Since I met this Catholic cutie who sings like an angel.”
That grabs my attention. Jaz and I stare at Rye like she just grew two heads. “Since when did you start dating musicians?”
“Since they star
ted looking like sex on legs on stage, their ripped bodes making my pu…”
“No, too much information,” Jaz shouts and we laugh.
A few tears are shed, we hadn’t seen each other in years and because they both know I don’t want to talk or dance for that matter, we decide to spend the rest of the day in the city.
They decide to drag me from club to club, but I’m just not into it. I could’ve been with Julian right now, but being judged sucked, especially when it comes from him.
And the day did exactly what I was afraid it would, nothing. I felt nothing all through the day despite their considerable efforts to cheer me up. It just didn’t work.
All I wanted to do was be left alone and eventually, they let me leave the club to go.
“Stay, Mia,” Rye had begged. “I swear once we get some liquor in you, you’ll let go of everything and feel better.”
I understood her logic, but as I stood there in the middle of the crowded dance floor, tugging at my long-sleeved shirt, I just wanted the world to open up and swallow me whole. I felt out of place, awkward, and wanting to cry.
But at the end, it was Jaz who agreed I should go home.
“Listen, Mia, if you need to rest, it’s okay,” she had said, sympathy and pity in her eyes as she looked at me. The truth is, both of them now look at me different. I’m no longer the girl they thought I was. The bravado, the sass, and confidence, it’s all gone.
I guess that’s what happens when your passive aggressive attitude murders the woman you thought was your mother.
Back in the room Rye’s family graciously assigned as mine, I sit on the plush, comfortable bed and then tentatively reach for my sleeves. Slowly, I start rolling the left one and without looking at what I have been doing to myself, I roll up the right sleeve.
Nauseated, I can feel tears fall down my cheeks as I stare at the cuts crisscrossing each of my wrists. Each morning I wake up, I always have fresh cuts. As if I do it when I’m not fully conscious. Each night I’m plagued by nightmares and demons haunting me, and my God, I miss home so much, I’m in pain constantly.
Cruel Kisses: It’s Just High School #2 Page 22