“After a few years, I was just depressed and going nowhere. All my friends had since graduated and were moving on with their lives while I was stuck. I needed a change, so I packed up what little I had and drove here. No reason, really,” I say. “I had just enough money to put a deposit down on a small studio apartment and got a job with a catering company. I used to work these fancy parties, and as stupid as it sounds, even though I was nothing but the help, I used to pretend that I was part of that world. The part that didn’t have a care in the world, being able to wear pretty dresses and drink expensive champagne. A world I would never be a part of until I was hired to work a party for Bennett Vanderwal.”
“That’s how you met him?”
“Pathetic, huh? Kinda makes me look like a gold digger, but it wasn’t like that at all,” I tell him. “For the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel so lost. And when he looked at me, he didn’t see the poor girl from Kansas who ran to escape her miserable life.”
I tell Declan this lie and the look on his face is that of sorrow, but the life he feels bad about me having is a life I would’ve done almost anything to have. God, if he knew the truth about how I grew up, he’d run. It’s not a story anyone in their right mind would ever want to hear. It’s the type of story that people want to believe doesn’t really exist because it’s too hard to stomach. It’s too dark of a place for people to even consider being reality.
“And now?”
Looking down at my mug, I watch the ribbons of steam float off the coffee and dissolve in the air when I answer with false trepidation, “And now I realize that I am that poor girl who ran. The girl he never saw me as. It’s like I woke up one day and suddenly realized that I don’t really fit in to all of this. That I’m no longer sure of my place in this world.”
Declan moves to take the mug out of my hands and sets it down on the table as he closes the space between us. Taking my hands in his, he asks, “Do you love him?”
With diffidence, I nod my head, murmuring, “Yes.”
When he cocks his head in question, I add, “He loves me. He takes care of me.”
“But you feel alone,” he states.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Make me speak badly of him,” I respond.
“I don’t want that. All I want is for you to speak honestly to me.”
“That’s what I’m doing, but . . .” Dropping my head, I hesitate, and he urges, “But . . .?”
“It feels wrong to talk to you like this.”
“Did it feel wrong when you were in bed with me last night?” he questions.
“Yes.”
His voice is low and intent, asking, “When did it feel wrong? When you got into my bed or when you snuck out of it?”
I take a moment and swallow hard before answering, “When I snuck out.”
His hand finds its way into my hair, threading through the tresses, and then he guides it to my cheek with his other hand still holding mine. With a faint voice, he says, “I want to kiss you right now.”
Reaching my hand up to the one he has on my face, I hold on to his wrist, close my eyes, and weakly plead, “Don’t.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want you to.”
“Why?”
I open my eyes to him and say, “Because it’s wrong.”
“Then why doesn’t it feel that way?”
“Maybe it doesn’t now, but eventually it will.”
He drops his hand from me and sits back. I hold him off because right now he’s merely hungry and I need him starving—ravenous. I need him to fall hard for me. Harder than I believe he’s capable of right now. So I’ll keep him at bay for a bit longer because it seems to be working.
BENNETT CONTINUES TO call me every day to check in as usual. He misses me. Nothing new. Let him miss me. Let Declan miss me too. Both men, eating out of the palm of my deceitful hand. Mortal puppets. Foolish puppets.
The drive to Justice is a long one because of all the snow on the roads. From the scenic display of Christmas in the city, to the muted slum of the ghetto—I miss Pike no matter where I am. I take my key when I park my car and let myself in. The sounds of a woman moaning, almost theatrically, filter through the trailer from the bedroom. The squeaking metal from the bedframe composes the rhythm at which Pike fucks her. The curdling inside my gut is sickening, and I go back out to my car to wait for the chick to leave.
If you think I’m jealous, you’re wrong. I don’t care who Pike fucks. I don’t care who anyone fucks. To me, sex is disgusting. It’s a means to an end. If you’re not miserable, I don’t see the point. My body used to reject the act, rousing me to vomit afterward. Hell, sometimes I would throw up during sex. I’ve been able to sequester the nausea, but the dirtiness of the act remains.
With Bennett, I’ve become numb and vacant when we have sex. I used to be overcome with hatred when he’d find his way inside of me, but I shut that off quickly, and now the illusion that what we have isn’t just sex, but making love, is one that he has never questioned.
Yeah, I’m a good actress.
I watch as the snow collects on the windshield, and with the screech of a door, I turn to the trailer to see a pathetic-looking woman walking down the steps with her ratty, purple fur coat wrapped around her. She probably thinks she looks trendy, but she just looks like a skank.
When she gets into her rusted Buick, I turn to see Pike standing, arms braced on the sides of the door frame, pants unbuttoned, no shirt, and tattoos on full display. He smiles as he looks at me, and when I get out of the car, he asks, “Been here long?”
“Not too long.”
He steps aside as I walk in, and the door slams shut.