So after a few months in L.A., I came back. Told my family I met a guy. Not just any guy, a Hunter and a Ridgefield. Someone with a great family and money. Someone who adores me. Someone who would never let me go. Carter moved on like I knew he would. And now he wouldn't have to feel guilty because I found someone, too.
I spruced up the little house in L.A. so that now it's a home. We thought giving Andrew his space was the right thing, even if we could force our way back to Sacramento. So we take the long drive up as much as we can to visit Johnny.
Johnny makes a heaving sound, his version of laughter as he races into the house. I only hear it when he plays with Sam. Sam catches up to him, scoops him up and he gurgles with laughter. A flash of the first time he held Johnny comes to mind. But he's different now. And even then, it was just an idle threat.
“Alright guys, it's time to sit down for dinner. Where's your stepfather?” Mom asks as she wanders off to find him.
Sam sets down Johnny, who comes over to me and embraces my thigh. I rub his head. “Go wash your hands,” I tell him. He shakes his head no.
“Now, my sweet boy,” I order.
He huffs and leaves for the bathroom and it's just Sam and me.
“You're beautiful,” Sam mouths to me.
I smile. So much of what he used to be already feels like a distant memory. But it’s always there. In the back of my mind, it lingers.
As if he can feel the thoughts stealing my joy, he leans in and kisses me. His lips, they replace the doubt. They graze my cheek and then my ear as he leans in and whispers. “You make me so hard. Always. I never stop thinking about you. Even when you're just out of sight. I wonder about you, always.”
That's his danger. That's his appeal. It's always just beneath the surface, the hunger he has for me. The pretty devil with the clear eyes.
“Alright!” My mother announces as the family comes into the kitchen and we pull away, looking like two lovers having a sweet, secret conversation. “Let's eat!” Sam puts on the most innocent of smiles. I know now how he was able to go undetected for so long. How he can summon darkness so strong, there aren't even shadows, and suddenly turn bright and sunny. How he can go from bafflingly complex, to sweetly simple.
We sit down for a meal. My mom's on a new religious kick. It'll pass, it always does. But she prompts us all to bow for prayer. I comply but shortly after she begins, I open my eyes. Amongst the bowed heads and closed eyelids at the table, there's Sam with his hooded gaze, and those glowing eyes, fixed on me.
I watch Vesp, sprawled on the bed, a sheet perfectly draping over her breasts and buttocks, her long hair fanning across the pillow. Then I look outside the window I'm leaning against. It's late into the night. The night still belongs to me. It will always be my home. But now, it's to watch her. Still. Perfect. Mine.
Every day is perfect. I get to be like them. Except we're not like them. No, this is truer. More crazed. We hold secrets that are as destructive as atom bombs. My brother, the only other keeper, is running for mayor now and very much in the lead, further cementing his pact to protect the family name.
My promise to Vesp isn't hard to keep. I don't want to go out there anymore. She feeds the ravenous animal that lives inside of me.
Now I finally have the family I never had. A little brother who I can treat the way Andrew never did me. A mother, who for all her faults, is nothing like the woman who locked me away in her secret shame and fear. You might not approve of what I did, but you can't tell me it didn't work.
Vesp rustles, feeling for me with a half-smile. She opens her eyes when she doesn't find me. “Mmmm,” she says as she opens her sleepy eyes. “What are you doing?”
She knows. “I'm watching you.”
She motions for me to come into bed. I look outside the window one final time, It all seems like he was someone else. I slide in, and take her in my arms. She closes her eyes and almost instantly falls asleep again. I made that happen. I made her love me. I made her feel safe in these arms.
Don't tell me this isn't love. When you love someone, you'll do anything—lie, manipulate, kill (even yourself)—to keep them. You just aren't willing to go that far. When I let her go, that's when I knew what this was. I'd never felt it before. And I knew this couldn't be the end. There were moments it felt that way, when I thought she wouldn't come back, but just like from the very beginning, I knew I had to be consistent. I had to do whatever it took to bring her back to me.
Love isn't flowers or poetry. It's this. Ask yourself. Has anyone ever loved you the way I love Vesp? Can you say anyone has done for you the things I've done for her?