“Read?”
“Yes.”
“Sure. You want to pick one of my books?”
“I have one with me.”
Luke smiles. “Then we’ll read.”
“Okay, but we can still have ice cream.”
“Obviously.”
“And . . .” I glance toward his bathroom. “I noticed you have a big tub. I really miss my big bathtub in Malaysia.”
He waves a hand. “Bathe away.”
I might invite him to join me. I haven’t decided yet. It might be more fun to let him listen to me splash around hot and naked and then tease the hell out of him until he grabs my wet body and throws me onto the bed.
But, for now, we both curl under the covers and read. I don’t have to think of the right things to say and do. I can just observe others from the distance of the page. I relax and lose myself. Occasionally Luke strokes my foot. I feel like my cat. I like it.
CHAPTER 27
I get up early and sneak away before Luke wakes up. The spell is broken. I’m not a real girl and this coziness was only temporary.
I need to return the rental car today. I can afford to keep it as long as I like, but there’s always the chance Steven will see me driving and ask questions.
He texted at 9:00 last night, but I ignored it. As soon as I get into my apartment, I text back. Sorry, I went to bed early. Just for fun I add: I fell asleep listening to Chicken Soup for the Woman’s Soul. It’s really good.
Hey! I’m just waking up. Wish you were here.
I could make you breakfast!
That’s not really what I was thinking of.
I send back a goofy-faced emoji. Is that all you think about?
You’re just so sexy, baby.
I think you need to learn more about resisting temptation.
Sure. Send me a pic and I’ll see if I can stay strong.
Pervert!
Send a pic.
I’m not sending a pic! I’m seeing your family tonight!!!
I promise not to show them.
Shut up.
He sends me three pink heart emojis and I guess I’m supposed to melt at that. Whatever. I imagine sending Steven a pic of what Luke did to me after that bath last night, and I giggle so hard, I snort. If I did, Steven would break it off, but let’s be honest, it would turn him on too.
I text him a big, fat red heart and tell him I’ll see him later. Then I turn on my laptop and watch as he masturbates in bed.
He’s looking at his phone as he furiously takes care of business, and I know damn well he isn’t using our text conversation to get off. I wonder what kind of porn he’s into. I’m sure he’ll make me watch it at some point.
After he tugs his pajama pants back up, I review the night’s videos. There’s nothing interesting. He came home and changed into shorts before disappearing into his workout room. When he reappeared, he made a sandwich and then watched TV for a long time.
At 8:30 he got a phone call, and I listen to him counsel one of the parishioners, hoping there will be juicy details, but it’s just a lot of scripture talk about walking alongside Jesus and being a rod of strength for his family even in a financial crisis.
Boring. Still, he’s good at talking the talk. In fact, I think his religious beliefs are sincere. He seems to genuinely care about the parishioner on the other end of the phone. Steven’s problem area is women. And hypocrisy.
I watch as Steven gets off the call and scrolls through something on his screen. God, I hope I learn something useful soon. I’m unsure about how to accelerate my plan, and I’m not used to uncertainty.
I should do some laundry and go grocery shopping, but I’m bored with the idea of chores and bored with watching Steven groom himself. I click around on my computer a little and then open my file full of Meg’s pictures.
She sent me selfies all the time, but my folder is also full of photos she posted to Facebook. Photos of her laughing, smiling, looking sexy. There are photos of us together too, but I’m not worried Steven will recognize me from Meg’s social media. When I’m myself, my hair is dark, nearly black, and my makeup as well. If he were a woman—or just a man who took care with others—he might recognize my features despite the frosty pink makeup and the lightened layers of grown-out bangs. Luke recognized me, after all. But Steven doesn’t care about others enough to see the woman beneath the stupid pastel dresses and shimmery blush.
I click through the pictures, though I’ve long since memorized each one. Here’s Meg in a bikini making a silly face. Here she is dressed up in snowboarding gear and beaming past her scarf. And here’s a profile picture of her staring into the distance, looking a little sad and lost.
After she died, I backed up every photograph, because I was terrified I’d lose my phone and Meg would be gone forever.
I know she really is gone forever. I know that. She’s no longer in the world, and all I have are pictures. So I’m alone.
I’ve been alone before. I walk away from people. I leave them behind. But I’m the one left behind now.
I open a picture of her grinning into the camera, her blond hair pulled by the wind into streamers that stand up from her head. It was taken at the lake on my last visit, and the next picture is both of us together. I’m tan and smiling, my arm around her, and she’s leaning her head on my shoulder. Normally she shines next to me, but we were both trying to fake smiles that day. Me because it’s what I know, and Meg because her heart was breaking over Steven.
I can still smell her shampoo as the wind whipped her hair over my face. It was a good day, a really good day, but not good enough, apparently.
I want it back.
If this is what love is, it’s terrible. Why do people seek it out? And why have I ever wished to be like everyone else? Meg felt this pain when Steven stopped answering her calls. She felt this way when her grandfather died. I held her when she cried about it, though I’d been completely baffled by her weakness.
And that’s what this is. Love. It’s weakness. Vulnerability. It’s waiting for an inevitable wound and then praying it will someday heal.
I don’t pray, and I hate waiting.
I open the picture I’ve moved down to the very bottom of the file. It’s a selfie of Meg. She’s holding her phone out, arm stretched as far as it will go so she can get Steven in the picture too. She’s kissing his cheek, her eyes crinkled with a smile while Steven smirks at the camera.
Me and my Sweetie! That’s the caption she texted with the picture. Her Sweetie. The man who’d chipped slowly away at her unstable self-esteem the same way he was trying to do mine. Little comments about her looks, her intelligence, her choices, her hobbies. Pointed questions about her sex life. Then tiny approvals to soothe her hurt.
She’d gladly changed for him. She wore longer skirts and stopped going out with her single girlfriends. She brewed her own iced coffee so she wouldn’t spend so much at Starbucks. She stopped working Saturday nights at the bar and grill even though she made the most tips then.
Too many drunk guys, she explained to me. It’s not really safe. This from a girl who’d held her own working at a seedy nightclub at eighteen.
And, of course, she’d started going to church. She found God and discovered that she’d been living a wicked life of sin until then. Somehow the sinning with Steven didn’t count. I’m sure he came up with a sound explanation for that, especially when he pushed her to her knees and told her to make him happy. She probably never even questioned it.
I stare into Steven’s smirking face. The self-satisfied twist of his lips. The gleam of possession in his eyes.