Текст книги "Facade"

Автор книги: Nyrae Dawn

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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

Chapter Seven

~Adrian~

My hand hurts like hell when I wake up about one in the afternoon. I never sleep this late, even when I’m up half the night, but since I didn’t have my phone, I didn’t have people calling all day waking me up. I realize she gave me space for a second time, only this time I didn’t have to ask for it. This time it was just because she accidentally took my connection to the world.

For a second I let myself remember what it felt like to kiss her. I would have taken her then and there if she hadn’t stopped me. I need to get her ghosts out of my head, but the second she stopped feelin’ it, I did.

When I was eight, I saw my dad force himself on my mom for the first time. It’s the first memory I have of vomiting. Seeing her tears as she couldn’t look me straight in the eye and hearing her say, “It’s okay, baby. Close the door.” But it wasn’t fucking okay. I puked right there in the hallway, pizza from lunch all over my shirt and the floor.

Then I cleaned it up. Scrubbed the carpet while I fought like hell to block out their sounds because I knew if he saw my lunch on the floor, he’d beat my ass. Maybe I should have let him see it. Maybe I deserved an ass-kicking for not making him leave her alone.

Before the memories become too much, I open the drawer beside my bed and pull out the pipe inside. I fill my lungs with smoke before setting it down and wrapping my hand around Ash’s shirt under my pillow.

That’s all I give myself. That one little touch before I’m out of bed, grabbing clothes and heading to the shower. It stings when the hot water hits all the openings in my skin. I close my eyes, imagining the water somehow makes them spread and get deeper until they swallow me whole and all the pain is gone.

But no. I’d never take the easy way out like that.

I turn the water off, wrap my hand, and get dressed. There’s not much time until people probably start showing up at my house, wondering why they can’t get a hold of me and itching to party. The water did nothing to make me feel better. I wish it could absolve me, cleanse me and make it so I never brought Ash in the front yard that day. So that maybe it was me instead of him.

I head over to the little house only a few streets from me. My good hand comes down on the door three separate times before it finally opens to show a little Italian lady named Lettie who’s probably not even five feet tall.

“You’re late,” she says. “Screwing around with some girl when you’re supposed to be workin’?” The old woman winks at me. She has to be at least eighty, but you’d never know it. Her mouth is worse than Colt’s and I’m not sure she isn’t up to something shady, but we help each other out, so it works. She owns my house and about ten other ones in our neighborhood. She has to have money. It’s obvious yet she lives in a house almost as shitty as mine and she pays me more than I deserve for helping her take care of them.

“Nope. That was last night.” I return her wink and she thumps me on the head.

“Asshole,” Lettie grumbles.

“How are you?” I ask her, noticing her limp. She’s tough as hell, but I see her body betraying her. That’s how I ended up helping her. Came over to pay my rent and heard her cursing inside. She’d fallen and fought me like hell when I offered to help her. I did it anyway and since she wouldn’t let me take her to the hospital, I sat with her for three hours and she offered me a job.

“My hip hurts like hell. I’m old. How do you think I am?” She almost trips and I reach out to grab her. She tries to shake me off, but I don’t let go and walk her back to her favorite chair. “What are you doing here? If you’re not going to be on time, what’s the point in coming?”

“Checking on you before I go take care of some shit.”

“I’m good. Don’t need your help today.”

At the same time her little yappy dog comes out barking at me. “Want me to walk him?”

“No.”

“Okay,” I tell her, but I grab the leash anyway. She grumbles the whole time I hook the dog up, but I know she wants me to do it. I still hear her cursing at me when I go out the door. It doesn’t take me long to take care of the dog and then I’m bringing him back and he stalks off the same way Lettie did. She has her arms crossed and won’t look at me.

“Thanks,” she mumbles. I nod, even though she won’t see, and leave.

* * *

Sitting in my car outside of Lettie’s house, I tell myself not to go. I should head home and wait for people to come over and keep living the life I have been, but I can’t.

Instead I turn the key in the ignition and head in the opposite direction. It’s not like I have a choice. The girl tried to stop my bleeding last night. The least I can do for her is make it so she’s not driving around with my shit in her trunk all day. Or doesn’t have my phone going off and driving her crazy.

Luckily, I have my notebook and The Count just in case Colt and his girl aren’t home. It would probably be better if they weren’t; that way I wouldn’t have to try and explain why I’m waiting around to try and find which apartment Delaney lives in.

It doesn’t take me too long to get there. Casper’s car’s parked out front and I wonder if she wakes up with the ghosts still in her eyes. If they always live there or if a new day gives her any reprieve.

My fist slams down on Colt and Cheyenne’s door. “Open up!” It’s crazy how easy it is to be someone else. How easily that mask slips into place without even trying.

Grumbling comes from inside before Colt jerks the door open. His hair’s all messed up and Cheyenne’s lying in the bed, dressed but looking just as worn out as Colt.

Guilt burrows around inside me, finding another place in my insides to make a home. I feel like shit for interrupting them, for slicing through their limited time together and pulling them apart.

I tap the side of my forehead. “What’s the point in knowing shit if you can’t have a little fun with it?”

Cheyenne laughs and sits up. Colt doesn’t look quite as amused but steps aside and lets me in.

“What’s up, man?” I ask.

“Really want me to answer that?” Colt scratches his neck and sits next to Cheyenne on the bed.

“Oh my God. Guys are so gross.”

“No. We’re honest.” I smile before walking to the window. It’s got a bench seat in it and faces toward the parking lot where Casper’s car is.

Cheyenne’s eyes get big when she sees the wrap on my hand. “What happened?”

Colt looks at it, too, before his eyes find me. It’s different than the look his girl gives me. She’s all concern and with Colt I see the worry, rimmed with a dull, sad blue. It’s crazy the things people see if they take the time to look. If they don’t only go skin-deep and try to find their way below the surface. In a lot of ways, Colt’s a prick. People will look at him and that’s all they see.

They don’t know the guy who has more balls than I ever will. The one who didn’t run when his mom was dying. Who stayed and would have burned the whole fucking world to the ground if it would have saved her because she meant more to him than himself or anything else. I never could have stayed and now I just keep running. Maybe not physically anymore, but my mind and heart are backpacking through the darkest corners of the world trying to get farther and farther away.

What would have happened if one, just one fucking teacher or neighbor or anyone would have opened their eyes? Would have looked deep into that quiet kid I used to be to find the war that raged around inside me?

Maybe… just maybe things would have been different.

So that’s what I see when I look at him. That dull, sad blue because I take the time to look below the surface.

“Well?” Cheyenne asks, pulling me out of those thoughts I lose myself in so much.

“Hello, window, meet hand.” I smile before sitting down.

* * *

We hang out for a while before Cheyenne goes into the bathroom to start getting ready to meet her friend Andy. Andy’s her roommate at school, even though Chey really stays with Colt. It works for both of them because it gives Andy time with her girl and Chey time with Colt.

I know they’re both wondering what I’m doing here, but they don’t ask and I don’t offer. Colt has to go to work in a while. Still feels crazy to think those words but he’s got a part-time job and is taking a few classes. His schedule isn’t as intense as it was before because he doesn’t know what he wants to do, which to me means he really does know what he wants—to be happy and not to settle.

Just as Cheyenne’s coming out of the bathroom, I see Casper’s dark hair as she walks toward her car. I push to my feet. Her brother’s motorcycle is here, too, and the last thing I feel like is a run-in with him. “Catch you guys later,” I say as I move to the door.

“Great. Now that Chey’s leaving, you go,” Colt calls from behind me. I know he won’t give it another thought, but I can pretty much promise Cheyenne’s going to wonder what’s up with me running out, so I close the door before she gets a chance to say anything.

I take the stairs two at a time. Casper is walking away from her car. I cross my arms as I walk up to her, smirk, and then keep going so I can lean against her car.

I hear her say, “Oh-kay,” before she turns around and takes the few steps back to me. “You’re here for your stuff, I’m assuming?” She crosses her arms like I do, but her body is stiff, her voice slightly off, and I think she’s trying to sound more indifferent than she really is.

“Maybe.” I shrug. “And maybe finishing what we started this morning?”

She’s wearing makeup, her eyes painted dark and her lips red, but the lips are natural.

“Adrian… that was a mistake. I… there’s so much going on. I just can’t.”

The urge to ask her what’s going on rapidly boils inside me, threatening to spill over, but I clamp the lid down. “Are you sure? It would be fun. Nothing more than that, but a whole lot of fun.”

She shakes her head, looks behind her and then at me again. “Why are you pursuing me? I’m sure there are a hundred other girls out there looking for the kind of fun you want to have.”

I want to tell her it’s because secrets don’t reflect in the eyes of other girls. Pain doesn’t show, but I’ve already showed her other little pieces of me, which I want back. I’m not like Colt. I have no intention to stop running.

Anger replaces the urge to talk. Like a magic trick I didn’t know I could perform, one is replaced by the other and I don’t know how it got there. Or why I’m so pissed. Because she called me out? Because she doesn’t want me? Because my body is really jonesing for her? Or maybe because I really want to know about that look in her eyes.

“You make a good point. If you’ll give me my stuff, I’ll be on my way.”

She glances behind her again before going to her trunk and opening it.

“You’re acting sketchy and people will wonder what’s up,” I say. “Not that anyone in this neighborhood would care.”

“Sorry if I’m not used to passing drugs to people,” she hisses as she digs in her trunk, closes her fist around my stuff, and hands it to me.

I push it into my pocket. “My phone?”

“It’s in my house. I’ll have to go get it, but my brother’s home. Do you mind waiting here?” She’s back to that sweet voice. The girl next door that so contrasts the ghosts.

“Really?” I wonder about the hold her brother has on her. Why she would feel like she needs to hide the fact that she accidentally has my phone. “Afraid he’ll think you’re being a bad girl?”

At that she slams her trunk and I wonder if it’s the first time in her life she’s ever been mad. The tight lips and narrowed eyes look so foreign on her face.

“No. I just don’t want him to know about what happened last night. He already doesn’t like the idea that I work nights and that would make it worse. Not that it’s any of your business or anything.”

She tries to walk around me, but I step in front of her. “Wait. You’re going back to work there?”

She sighs and drops her head back. “Oh God, not you too. Do I have ‘please take care of me’ written across my forehead?”

“No, but maybe you should if you’re going back to work there alone. Are they hiring security or anything?”

Not my business. Not my business. Not my business.

“My boss is a tightwad, so I doubt it. It’s not as though they’re going to rob the same place twice, Adrian.”

It’s like a little shock to hear my name roll off her tongue. I don’t know why. I think she feels it, too, as I see her swallow.

“I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t shown up?” What would have happened if I had been a few seconds later, like I had been with Ash. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. There’s only a thin chalk line separating the two—nothing and everything. All it takes is a hand to wipe it away.

“Big strong man saves helpless woman?” she huffs, and tries to walk away again. For some reason, it makes me want to smile. I don’t know where it comes from, but maybe she reminds me of Casper in more ways than one. It’s funny watching the friendly ghost trying to be mad. “If you’ll move out of my way, I’ll go get your phone.”

I don’t know what makes me do it, but I step aside. I lean against the trunk of her car. The longer she’s gone, the more I wonder why I care. It’s her fault if she wants to go work there again. I don’t have it in me to watch over anyone. If I couldn’t take care of a two-year-old, I don’t know what in the hell makes me think I can do it with anyone else.

Or why I would want to try.

I flex my fingers, remembering the care she took on my hand. How her fingers felt. What it would have been like to let myself feel it.

“Here’s your phone.” She thrusts it into my palm. I didn’t even hear her come back.

She opens her mouth to say something, but it’s cut off when another female voice pops in with a “Hi.”

I groan, wishing like hell I had gotten out of here before this happened. Meetings come with questions and questions have no place in my life.

Delaney turns and standing there is Cheyenne and Colt.

“What’s up?” I ask.

“Nothing.” Cheyenne looks at me. Delaney. Back at me.

Damn it. It’s different with her. Or a lot of people maybe. There’s a difference between trying to look below the surface and trying to see something that isn’t there. Cheyenne’s going to want the make-believe. She’ll want to see something here that’s not.

When it’s obvious I’m not going to say anything, she holds out her hand. “Hey. We’re Adrian’s friends. I’m Cheyenne. This is my boyfriend, Colt.”

Delaney holds out her hand. “Um… hi. I’m Delaney. Nice to meet you.” The girls shake; then she grabs Colt’s hand and does the same. My eyes don’t leave him and I see the strange look he gives her, the way his eyes study her, and I’m about to ask him what’s so fucking interesting when I realize it doesn’t matter. I have no say over how anyone looks at her.

“She’s my doctor,” I tease, but when Delaney whips around to me, I hold up my hand to pretend that’s what I was talking about.

Colt’s and Cheyenne’s stares are all becoming too much. They feel like pressure bearing down on me, making me want to take my backpacking trip even farther.

My phone beeps and I wonder who it is. Want any excuse I can find to get out of here. To stop their stares and cut off the urge to tell her not to go back to work.

“I’m out of here.” As I make a move to turn, Casper’s hand reaches out and latches on to my arm.

“Wait. I need to talk to you.” She studies her hand on my arm like it’s a big deal that it’s there, and curiosity spikes inside me again, but then she’s pulling it away.

“Come on, Tiny Dancer,” Colt whispers in Cheyenne’s ear. She shivers and I imagine making Delaney do the same thing. There’s nothing sexier than making a girl shiver.

“Maybe we’ll see you around,” Cheyenne says to her.

As they start walking away, Colt looks back. For the first time ever, he taps his finger against the side of his head like I do, like I’ve done to him a hundred times, especially where Cheyenne is concerned, before turning around.

There’s nothing to know…

“Please.” Delaney’s plea pulls my attention back to her.

“You don’t have to beg,” I tell her.

“That’s not what I mean. Please don’t say anything. Maddox will want me to quit and without a job, we can’t keep this apartment and I don’t… I can’t go home.”

That’s what does it. The heartbreak in her voice and how it dances on her words and calls to something inside me that I don’t understand. Dance with me, it says, but I don’t do that and I won’t, so I take a step backward, knowing what I’m going to do and wanting to set the thought on fire.

Wanting to burn or bury this need in me to know why she can’t go home.

“I don’t even know your brother. Why in the hell would I tell him?”

“Thank you… Adrian. I appreciate that.”

I don’t let her finish before I’m walking away. I get in my car and drive. When I can’t drive anymore, I pull over. Grab my notebook and a pen.

Maybe nothing.

Playing

Front yard

Fine

Screeching

Maybe everything.

Forgotten phone.

Maybe nothing.

Gun in her face.

Maybe everything.

She can’t go home.

Maybe nothing.

I can’t go either.

Maybe everything.

Ignoring my phone, I drive again. Go until it’s late at night and my car’s coasting along on fumes again. Ironic that I’m doing the same, but I can’t just pull into a gas station and fill up. Can’t find a quick stop to make my worries go away.

When I’m not able to drive anymore, I pull into the diner.

Chapter Eight

~Delaney~

We’ve been crazy busy and I’m thankful for it. Usually it’s nice to have a slow night, but being around people is somehow comforting. Actually, there’s no somehow about it. I know exactly what it is. It makes no sense that I didn’t think it would be scary to be back at work so soon, but it is. It’s not often a girl has a gun pointed at her. The whole time all I could think about was Maddox and Mom. What it would do to my brother to lose me and wonder who would help take care of our mother.

I’m not sure he would.

Leaning over the counter, I reach for more napkins for table three. My back is to the restaurant when a loud crash sounds from behind me. I jump, my heart taking the plummet to my feet as I whip around. When I do, I come face-to-face with Adrian.

My hand flies to my chest as I let out a heavy breath.

“It was just a plate,” he leans toward me and whispers in my ear. “A little harder to come back than you thought?”

“Yes,” I say, not even considering lying. Why fight the truth? It’s always there no matter what.

Adrian doesn’t look like he’s taking the pleasure in it that I thought he would. Instead he sighs and asks, “Are you going to seat me?”

“That’s what the hostess is for,” is my reply when really what I’m wondering is why he’s back. I doubt he usually spends his evenings in diners, yet he’s been here numerous nights now.

“I’d rather have you.”

The way he says it shows he doesn’t mean being seated. I know what it is—that he’s trying to make me uncomfortable or to play some kind of sexual game with me. I’m not interested in games. He wouldn’t be either if he knew the truth.

“Excuse me, miss?” a customer asks, and I realize I’m clutching her napkins in my hand.

“I have work to do.” Before the last word leaves my mouth, I’m already walking away. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Adrian get seated. He’s in Lisa’s section, which makes some of the tension ease from my muscles. I won’t have to deal with him for at least two hours. What am I thinking? It’s not like he’s going to be here for that long anyway.

I stay busy for the next couple of hours. The whole time I’m distinctly aware of Adrian. That he’s still here, that he’s eating pancakes again. The way his finger plays on the top of the table as though he’s writing something with an invisible pen. I think about his poem and if he wishes he was writing one. If that’s something he does to deal with life. If he’s always written or only since my father took away that little boy.

An anchor lands on my chest, weighing me down with a million tons of guilt—for what my father did and the fact that Adrian doesn’t know.

We’ve slowed down slightly and I’m leaning against the counter, as though that will take the weight away. Lisa steps up beside me, nudging me with a smile and having no clue the storm of emotions twisting inside my head.

“He a friend of yours?” she asks.

“No,” pops out of my mouth. How can we be friends with so much between us? “I don’t really know him.”

“It’s a shame. He’s gorgeous.”

And he really is. All his features are dark—dark hair and eyes and even a bronze shade to his skin. Darkness lingers in those eyes and the set of his jaw. One look at him and you can tell he walks around with a bruised soul.

“Looks like he’d be a good time.”

Her words make me wonder if she doesn’t see what I do when I look at him. Maybe it’s like those ghosts he said he sees in my eyes. We’re bound together by this tragedy and even though he doesn’t know it, he still sees that thread tying us together.

“Hello? Earth to Delaney?” She snaps her fingers and I look at her.

“Sorry. I guess I’m still a little shaken up from last night.”

“I know, right? I can’t believe you guys got robbed. What’s worse is that we’re open the very next day and there’s not even any security here.” At least Hugo’s the cook tonight. It feels good having a guy around.

“Are you out of here?” I ask her.

We keep a second waitress until 1:00 a.m. tonight. After that, it’s just me.

“I am. Have a good night!” she says, and then Lisa is gone, the hostess, too, leaving Hugo and me.

Glancing at Adrian’s table, I decide I should check on him. It’s my job, after all. My feet feel like they’re made of lead as I make my way to the table.

His plate is cleared away by now, leaving only a cup of coffee in front of him.

“Need a refill?” I ask, and then realize I’m an idiot and left the carafe behind the counter.

“From your invisible pot?” A small smile tugs at his lips.

I cross my arms. “I didn’t plan to come over here and stopped on my way.”

“Sure.” He shrugs, surprising me. I expected something more, so I’m a little taken off guard.

“Oh… okay. I’ll be right back.”

I grab the carafe and then head back to his table, filling his empty cup. I’m about to walk away when the question I try to bite back climbs from my mouth. “What are you doing here, Adrian?”

His name strikes me for a second. This is Adrian. I’ve known his name for four years. My father killed a member of his family and now he’s sitting in front of me and his name is rolling off my lips. It’s strange and confusing and something I thought was a good thing, but then… why haven’t I told him? Why are we playing this back-and-forth game while I’m wearing this façade he knows nothing about?

“Now? I’m drinking coffee. Earlier I was eating pancakes. Have you ever had the pancakes here?”

I don’t know why his words make me smile. “I’m serious.”

He takes a drink of his coffee and I cringe. Yuck. He drinks it black with no sugar. Finally, he replies, “Trying to get in your pants.”

I know that’s partially true. He’s a guy and I’m a girl and he’s made it obvious what he wants, but there’s more to it. It turns me inside out, amps up the guilt until I feel like it’s frying my heart—I know he’s also here because in his way, he’s keeping me safe. I’m not stupid enough to believe it’s me specifically. I’m just a girl he tried to hit on, who he ran into again and later happened to be in the right place at the right time.

And now… well, maybe he’s a good guy. My brother would do something like this. He’d never admit it, but I could see him sitting in a restaurant keeping vigil for a girl. Thinking that it was somehow his job to keep her safe. Or to make her feel safe, even if she didn’t want to admit her fear.

“Thank you,” I tell him.

And when he studies me, looks at me like he’s working out a puzzle in his mind, I know that he understands what I’m saying. That he realizes I know what he’s doing too.

“You better get back to work.” Adrian nods and I look over my shoulder to see Hugo standing in the kitchen doorway watching.

Without another word, I top off his cup again and walk away.

* * *

All night my eyes find him. As I’m helping customers or serving food or filling up saltshakers. As people come and go, I’m always aware of Adrian. He pulls out his notebook and writes sometimes. Pulls out his book and reads. Every time I walk to the table, he’ll cover whatever he’s doing. I wonder if it’s the same book or if he moved on to something else. If reading is something he does often or if he’s passing hour after hour with whatever he can find.

He stopped drinking coffee for a while and ordered a piece of apple pie. Around four he asked for another cup and I wonder if he’s getting tired again. I should probably tell him he can go. The words play on my tongue, but I never let them free. I like watching him, trying to figure out who he is, because I’ve wondered for so long.

Hugo asked who he was and I lied and said a friend of my brother’s. That Maddox was nervous because of what happened last night, and he seemed to take that as a good excuse.

Hugo also falls asleep between customers, so I guess he figures Adrian being here lets him off the hook.

With each minute that ticks by, I tell myself we need to talk. That I should tell him who I am. That’s what I came here to do, so why not just get it done? But I can’t really do that while I’m working, and anyway, I’m not sure if I should. I doubt he’ll keep coming here and I can always go home and never see him again.

The thought of going home sits heavy in my stomach and I want to stick my finger down my throat as though purging will make it all go away.

When six rolls around, my relief comes. When we’re done going over the night, I go to the back to grab my purse, and when I come out, Adrian’s gone. Disappointment rolls through me. When I go outside, I see him leaning against a car. I should walk away. Or walk to him and tell him everything, but I know I won’t. Not the telling him part at least. It’s as though the words are trapped inside me.

Maddox might have been right. What if it is the wrong thing to do and I dredge up something he’s found a way to put behind him? How can I risk hurting him on the off chance that karma will work in favor of my family?

“Hey.” I look at the ground. Kick a pebble, nervous to meet his eyes.

“Hey.”

“I thought you left.”

“Nope.” There’s a hint of humor in his voice that makes me look up. He doesn’t look away from me when he continues. “How am I supposed to get in your pants if I leave before you get off?”

I’m slightly disgusted, but there’s another part of me that blushes. Who feels tingly at the thought of him being where he wants to be. “Do you get a lot of girls that way?”

Adrian shrugs. “At least I’m honest.”

I shake my head. “I guess there’s that…”

He steps toward me and I know I should walk away. Back up! I tell myself, but my feet refuse to move.

“I can see you’re still skeptical.” His voice is low… seductive. “Here… let me try something.”

It’s as though he has me in a trance, hypnotized the ghosts I didn’t know about until him. I nod as Adrian puts a finger under my chin and tilts my head up.

“Your lips are so sexy,” he says as he rubs his thumb over the bottom one. His mouth comes down much slower than the first time, like he’s trying to keep me in suspense. I’ve never been so excited to find out where a story was going until this moment.

He starts the kiss out slowly, brushing his lips against mine. His tongue slips inside, pulls back out like he’s teasing me, playing a game of hide-and-seek, and I suddenly want to find him.

He pushes a hand through my hair and he’s still titling my head back as his mouth comes down harder on mine. He’s really exploring now, and he tastes like coffee as I swallow the little moan that fights to climb up my throat.

This is wrong. So wrong. I have no right to enjoy this. No right to want it, but as his mouth moves against mine and his other hand goes to the small of my back, easing me against him, I don’t remember ever wanting anything more. Needing anything more.

God, I used to be such a romantic. All the girls at school with boyfriends and I imagined someone swooping in and taking me away from the hell my life had become. That person isn’t Adrian. He’s living in hell, too, but when he’s kissing me, I can almost pretend.

His mouth slides down my neck and it doesn’t matter that we’re standing in the middle of a parking lot. I can almost forget that I’m me and he’s him and that it’s not okay to let this invisible thread tie us together even more tightly.

When he gets to my ear, I jump when his teeth bite gently into my lobe. “Come home with me, Casper.”

I put my hand on his chest, feel his heart beat against my hand. “I can’t…”

“Then let me go home with you. I want you.”

I shake my head and make myself take a step backward. “I can’t.” I send up a silent prayer that he hears it in my voice. Not that I don’t want to, even though it would be scary as hell. Not that I wouldn’t like to be swept away if only for a night, but I really can’t. It’s not right. I know in his way he wants to use me as a distraction to the pain he’s feeling. For a split second I consider doing the same thing. Maybe forgetting would help us both, but I can’t.

“Are you sure? I won’t ask again,” he says.

No. “Yes.”

Adrian pulls away. I want to knot my hands in his shirt and tug him back to me. Tell him everything and see if it chases our ghosts away.

“I’ll see you later.” He gets in his car and I notice the window is down. He looks nonchalant, as though it doesn’t matter at all that I turned him down. Maybe it doesn’t.

“Where are you going?” I ask, not really sure why since it’s not my business.

“I’ve been up all night, so I’ll probably go home, smoke a joint, and go to bed.”

“You shouldn’t smoke like that. Or at least not tell the whole world. You don’t know me.”

He grabs a pair of sunglasses off the visor and puts them on before looking at me. “It’s who I am.”

Adrian starts the car, and I blurt out, “Are you a writer?” A tick forms in his jaw and I wonder if he’s going to pull away. If I shouldn’t have let myself ask him that.

Instead he says, “Do you want me to tell you a story?” He doesn’t wait for me to reply before he starts talking again. “Once upon a time, there was a guy. Not a real good guy. Some would probably call him the villain. He didn’t care, though. He knew it was true. Knew he used people and other shit to forget. He didn’t plan on changing either. Knew he couldn’t. That was who he was, so he might as well acknowledge it, right?”