“And that’s bad because…?” I asked quietly, amused by her rising ire.
“Because it’s not him! The Elian I know wouldn’t get into a fight at his friend’s house over some piece of ass! He’s laid back. Funny. A great guy to be around! But you’ve changed him! Now he’s quiet and angry and won’t talk to anyone! What are you doing to him? You must have a golden snatch by the way he pants after you.” She was trying to hurt me. But she wasn’t.
I felt good.
“You think you know him? Why?” I finally turned to face Margie. Her cheeks were flushed, her fists were clenched. I wondered if she’d try to hit me. I hoped she did.
“Because you had sex a few times? Because he put his cock inside you?” I let my tongue roll over the words. Tasting them before I struck.
I took a step toward her, giving her a calm, placid smile. I knew that unsettled Margie. She shuffled backwards. “You’re a crazy fucking bitch,” she hissed at me.
“And you’re a deluded little girl that no one loves and will never love. I’ve known women like you my entire life. And as hard as you try to snatch and grab onto a man, you will never be able to hold onto him. Because he will always see you for who you are. Scared. Pathetic.” I looked her in the eye. “Disgusting.” I ran my tongue over my lips relishing in the pain I would inflict.
Margie had gone white. I thought she might vomit.
“You don’t know anything about me,” she protested but barely.
“Don’t I?”
I shrugged and turned back to the window, giving her my back. Giving her nothing.
I collected secrets like I collected stories.
They each had their uses.
“Don’t approach me. Ever again. If you see me in public, walk the other way. If I hear my name on your lips, you will rue the day.” Even. Unconcerned. Honest.
“You fucking bitch.”
I looked over my shoulder. “And don’t touch him ever again. I’ll know if you do.”
Margie was shaking. She wanted to hit me. So much. But she wouldn’t. Not now.
Not ever.
She left without another word. I had never considered Margie from George’s Custom Shop a threat.
And I didn’t now.
I put my hand flat against the glass, my nose touching the pane as I thought about Elian, in his studio, bent over the guitar he was so carefully constructing with labored, exhausted hands.
I smiled.
“Dude, I’m really sorry about what happened—” Tate began to say the moment I walked into the studio.
“Don’t, all right?” I didn’t want to get into it again.
I had a brief instance after leaving Tate’s with Layna where I wondered if I had reacted too hastily. If I had created drama where there shouldn’t have been any.
I had been on edge from the time we had arrived until the second we left. I felt as though I had been holding my breath, waiting until it was okay to breathe again. Layna hadn’t wanted to be there. I knew that.
She didn’t fit into that world I had created with these friends who weren’t real. What had I been thinking in asking her to go?
She made it so easy to fall apart. To slip through the cracks, looking for truth when all I wanted were the lies.
“What the fuck man? What’s going on with you? Everyone sees it? Why can’t you?” Tate continued talking, and I continued not to listen.
His words didn’t matter.
The mask was slipping.
Elian Beyer was dying.
“Elian, we need to chat about this piece you’ve been working on.” George came in with the air of someone who needed to talk and talk right now.
I didn’t care.
I was thinking about Layna. About seeing her later. I had unknowingly sanded the same strip of wood over and over again for the last twenty minutes. Wood shavings coated my hands, rough and itchy.
I didn’t care.
“Elian. I’m talking to you.” George sounded frustrated. Irritated.
I was making him mad.
I didn’t make people mad. I made people laugh. I made people smile. I made them feel comfortable in the illusion I created.
Who are you, Elian Beyer?