BY THE TIME I CRACKED a reluctant eye open, Bane was gone.
The space where he’d slept was cold and empty. I blinked away the cobwebs of sleep and felt for the cell phone on my nightstand. It was a new move, one I hadn’t practiced in two and a half years. As a teenager, that was the first thing I’d done every morning: check my phone for messages, and Snapchat and Facebook posts. After The Incident, I’d migrated my cell phone to one of my desk’s drawers. That’s until Roman barged into my life.
He’d left me one message, probably a few minutes after he’d climbed his way down my window.
Roman
Let’s talk tonight.
I tried to read it in a casual way. Bane was a casual guy. But I was so pathetically dependent on him that fear trickled into my system. I tried to tell myself no true friend would break a friendship with you the day after your birthday. I replied with a curt ‘sure’ and hopped downstairs, taking two steps at a time.
I was starving. It felt like I hadn’t eaten in years. And in a way, that was sort of the case.
“Good morning,” Hannah sang from the kitchen, slicing root vegetables for Pam’s gross shakes. My mom lived off vegetables, Botox, and wine. A diet made in Hollywood hell. If Hannah was surprised to see me—which she should have been as I never left my room during the mornings because I slept away the night run’s exhaustion—she didn’t let it show.
“Hungry?” She peered under her lashes.
“Famished.” I opened our glass fridge, sticking my head in.
“Pancakes it is, then.” I heard her cluck her tongue behind me. Hannah was nice. Too nice for Pam. Darren treated her well, but Pam had conveniently forgotten that she’d been waiting tables not too long ago, before Darren had found us, his pretty little strays.
“Please don’t bother.” I put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, realizing I wouldn’t have done that weeks ago, before I met Bane. The forty-something-year-old used her waist to butt me out of the way in front of the fridge. “It’s your birthday. Well, technically a day after, but birthday girls deserve pancakes. It’s a rule.”
It was a rule I was happy not to break.
I sat at the breakfast nook, watching Hannah doing her thing while twisting a lock of hair around my finger and chewing on it. I needed a haircut. No. I’ll rephrase—I wanted a haircut. For the first time in years, I wanted to look pretty. Or maybe I was simply ready to be seen. Hannah squatted down to take out a measuring cup from a drawer, and when she turned around, holding the stainless steel thing in her hand, my jaw went slack.
Me. Sitting on a couch. Reading a book. Everything around me is black.
Him. His back to me, just like all the pictures I took ever since the day it happened.
Backs.
Heads.
Necks.
Faceless people.
He held something made out of stainless steel in his hand. Cup? Shaker? It smelled of vodka. His vodka.
“Dad?” I asked. But, of course, it couldn’t have been. I loved my dad. I put my half-eaten Kit Kat bar on the table beside me and rose to my feet.
“I want to leave.”
“No.” His hand locked on my wrist. He was sweating. He still had no face. Why didn’t he have a face? “No, baby.”
I watched the younger version of me as her face twisted with realization. She was not going to get out of that room. Not the same way she’d walked in, anyway.
“Please, I don’t want to…”
She didn’t get to finish the sentence. He pinned her to the wall like the masterpiece that she was and tarnished her into something empty and hollow.
“Jesse? Jesse? Honey?” Hannah shook my shoulders, and I finally snapped out of it. In front of me was a plate full of thick, fluffy, hot pancakes and maple syrup poured generously on top. Blueberries and cut strawberries made out the number twenty. And I’d officially lost my appetite.
“I made you the good stuff with the Sparrow Brennan mix that costs two bucks more, but your parents can handle it. What’s wrong? You seemed out of it.” Hannah wiped her hands on her apron, leaning against the counter and pouring herself a glass of OJ.
“Yes. I’m sorry.” I smiled, hurrying to stab a fork into the mountain of pancakes and bring a bite to my lips.
I forced myself to eat at least two, knowing how hard Hannah had worked on them, but for the life of me couldn’t taste their sweetness.
Something in me told me Mayra could not know about this.
I washed my plate, gave Hannah a hug and, when she wasn’t looking, grabbed the stainless steel cup and carried it to my room. I put it on my desk, staring at it, lost in thought.
What happened to me?
Since I didn’t have a shift, and Roman hadn’t answered me, I decided to pester Dr. Wiese. I called him twice, but he didn’t answer. Reluctantly, I walked over to Mrs. Belfort’s, my mind still on Shadow. I felt like I’d been neglecting Mrs. Belfort ever since I got a job, and I promised myself I wouldn’t be that person. The person all my high school friends turned out to be after The Incident. A user. A leaver. An asshole.
First, I took a lengthy trip by myself in the maze, trying to decode my most recent flashback. Yes, flashback. A chunk of my memory was missing from my brain, and I didn’t know how or what had happened to me exactly, but I knew that it had snowballed into a catastrophe that had ended up ruining my life.
I hadn’t been a virgin when I’d met Emery.
And whoever took my virginity, did it by force.
My dad died around the same time it had happened. I knew, because in all the flashbacks, I looked to be on the verge of adolescence. Twelve, maybe thirteen. Although I loved my father dearly, I couldn’t help but wonder—what did I know about him, really?
I knew that he’d cheated on my mom with another woman. That he’d had a lengthy affair. That’s why my mom had kicked him out the day he died. But I also knew he’d been nothing but amazing to me. He was the one to teach me how to ride a bike. To take me to school every day. He was the one to wipe my tears when I was sad and make me laugh when I was angry and tuck me back into bed when I had nightmares.
He read me stories about princesses and castles and dragons, and always changed the plot so that the princesses saved themselves from the fire-breathing villains.
He spent the extra buck on Band-Aids with the Wonder Woman branding. He made me his special mac and cheese with crushed Doritos whenever I had the flu because he thought I liked it, when really, I liked the attention. I liked his standing in the kitchen doing something silly for me.
I liked being loved.
Yes, he was a drunk, with vodka being his drink of choice. I remembered the bite of alcohol when he’d pressed his lips to my forehead when he’d kissed me goodnight.
I’d liked the sharp bite of it. It smelled like home. And I refused to believe that my home had become my hell. That he’d done something to me.
By the time I emerged back from the maze, my head pounded with unsolved questions.
Mrs. B was waiting for me in her usual rocking chair, swaying back and forth, her lip curved in a smile. She was wearing two coats in September, but that was brittle bone disease for you. She seemed lucid, exceptionally calm. Juliette handed me a pair of tweezers, tapping her cheek silently.
“Want me to weed out your whiskers?” I dragged my chair close to hers, wiggling my brows. It was best to pluck Mrs. Belfort’s chin whiskers under bright sunlight. She said that I’d be getting them too when I became her age, but the thing about being twenty is that you don’t actually understand the concept of getting old. You know it’s going to happen to you eventually, but you don’t believe it. Not really.
I plucked her hair for a while before she said, “Love is art. Some people shut their eyes and refuse to see it. Others visit every museum in the world. Which type do you fall under, Jesse, my dear?”
I blinked, staring at the maze. “I think I’m capable of seeing the beauty in art.” I swallowed, looking up at her and plucking another misplaced white hair floating from her chin.
“Good. Good. Because that’s the only way you’ll get to my age with no qualms. I know what you see when you look at me, Jesse, and I know it mustn’t look appealing to you. But understand this—I have no regrets. I lived life fully. Wholly. I loved freely, without doubt or jealousy. Whoever that boy was…” She tilted her newly-smooth chin to the maze, her smile spreading to her cheeks. My heart lodged in my throat—she remembered Bane? “That boy cares for you. Be smart and care for him back. No one should live a lonely life.”
She looked down at me and smoothed my hair lovingly. Like a mother would. Like Pam should. “Yes, I remember him, Jesse. I have a condition, but I’m still here,” she said softly.
I nodded. I was going to tell her I would not let him go. That I would keep Roman for as long as he’d stick around. But then she opened her mouth again.
“I know I have Alzheimer’s.”
Her words rattled something inside me. Maybe I wanted to believe that there was no connection between the Mrs. Belfort I knew and loved and the woman who had lengthy conversations with her dead husband at an empty dining table.
I swallowed before I answered, “I’m so sorry, Juliette.”
“I also know that I’m dying. I’m not well, Jesse. Yet no one talks to me about it. They think I don’t understand, but I do.”
Tears filled my eyes, but I didn’t let them loose. It wasn’t fair to Mrs. B.
I remembered how much I hated it when people stole my tragedy thunder. After The Incident, I despised every single person I came across who cried for me. If I didn’t cry for myself, neither should they. I remembered Detective Madison Villegas at the police station, the night I got out of the hospital and was supposed to give my official statement.
She’d stood in the corner of the room with tears in her eyes, watching as I’d fed them laconic lies that didn’t match the mountain of evidence, as if it was her I was hurting.
“What can I do to make it easier for you?” I asked, plucking another stray hair and letting it fall on Mrs. B’s wooden porch. I put the tweezers aside and took both her cold hands in my warm ones.
“Call my children. Tell them to come here. Every time I call them, they think I’m crazy. When Imane calls them, they say she is overdramatic. I need to say goodbye.”
“You’re not going to die,” I said. I wasn’t sure of what I was saying. I just couldn’t bear the idea that she would. Especially with Shadow’s blood work still in the lab. There was so much potential of losing everything that had kept me alive the last two years.
“Nobody lives forever.” She smiled at me, her eyes glistening. The sun was shining above us fiercely, and she was shivering inside her coats. Her blue-veined hand patted my own. “Don’t worry. By the time you’re my age, you’re tired. I’m ready. I just want to see my children. Please.”
I knew right then and there that her kids were going to come to California, even if I had to drag them by their goddamn ears. “Of course. I will call them.”
I left shortly after, pretending like everything was okay but internally screaming at her kids. Stomping over to my house, I dialed Dr. Wiese’s clinic number again. If they didn’t pick up soon, I’d have to pay him a visit myself. I jammed my key into the keyhole, ready to open the door, when a hand snaked from a monstrous plant and jerked me into a big rough body.
Bane.
I mean, Roman. It was difficult to wrap my head around him asking me to refer to him by his real name. His real name. He’d given me the real him.
“Christ!” I was so surprised, I accidentally bit my tongue. The taste of warm copper filled my mouth. Every time I saw his face it felt like someone punched my heart from the inside. I wondered if it was a normal reaction when you loved someone, before realizing that, yes, I was in love with Roman ‘Bane’ Protsenko. All of him. The thief, the con, the whore. He was cracking my heart with every touch, shattering it with every smile, and it didn’t make any sense, because how could he break something that was already broken? Still. I felt his presence in my bones. His newly-shaven face, so promising, so misleading. His mouth was wide, sexy, and pouty. I wished it was hidden by the beard so I could think straight again.
I opened my mouth, and he clamped his hand over it, crowding me against the wall. My breath shook against his hot palm. A surge of adrenaline ran through my system.
“In the interest of full disclosure, I have no idea what the fuck I am doing here.”
All I could do was nod, slowly and sharply, telling him that I understand. He plastered his body to mine, his erection digging into my stomach. Every muscle in his body was tight, his skin hot with sun and lust.
“Kiss me.” My voice came out muffled under his hand.
Love freely, Juliette had said. I want to, Mrs. B. And that scares me. A lot.
“You kiss me,” he said, rolling his forehead against mine in frustration. He removed his hand from my lips.
I grinned. “Why?”
“Because I need you to be proactive about this shit, Jesse. I want the old Jesse, baby. The one who made decisions. The new one just won’t fucking cut it.”
Something ignited inside of me. I’d like to think that it was her. The old Jesse accepted the challenge, rose within me like a hurricane, and came out in a rush of need and determination.
Whether it was because I was a rape victim.
A woman who knew he was an escort.
Or just because he wasn’t sure whether I was going to regret it or not didn’t matter.
I swallowed hard and realized that I was looking at the man I was in love with. The man who was set to ruin me.
It was in that moment I realized that I’d survived many things, but Roman Protsenko was probably not going to be one of them.