The rain has already begun falling down, bouncing up from the ground as it makes contact. Everything becomes soaked in seconds, including the bike he wants me to climb onto. He’s stuffed my head inside a helmet that smells sweaty and makes me feel like an astronaut. It’s heavy and puts pressure on my neck, but I know I have to wear it if I don’t want to become sliced salami if, God forbid, we fall off the bike.
“Are you sure we shouldn’t wait for the rain to stop?” I ask, thinking the roads will be slippery as all hell right now.
“Just sling your leg over and let’s go,” he barks, his voice muffled from his own helmet.
He got mine from his mom’s house, and from the smell, I’d say it’s old and had been left to ferment in there.
He made me slip into an old pair of his sweatpants that, even though they’re from when he was much younger, are still too big and have been rolled up at the ankle and down at the waist.
Warning me that the engine gets really hot, and if I place my leg in the wrong place it will scald me, I regret agreeing to this.
I pop open the visor, my breath pushing steam through the air with every exhale. “The seat’s wet,” I groan, stalling.
Snapping my visor closed, he drags my arm around his back and my leg follows. I climb over the seat until I’m snug against the back of his body. My arms wrap instinctively around his waist, grabbing at the buckle on his pants and clinging on for dear life. I think I hear him groan something but it’s too muffled to understand and I panic, wondering if what he’s saying is important, a command to keep me safe.
The engine roars to life and vibrates beneath my spread legs. Max’s body flexes and ripples with his movements, and before I can prepare my heart, we’re taking off. The wind and rain whips around me as Max’s body mass completely protects mine, taking all the abuse.
It’s a heady sensation, the speed and weightlessness as we speed through the air like a bird. Excitement mixed with fear is a high I always long to reach for and prolong as much as possible. This is the first time I’ve ever ridden on a bike and I like it. No, scrap that; I love it.
Garret would freak out if he knew I was on the back of a motorcycle. He calls them death traps.
My hands tighten and flex on the buckle and I push myself further into his body, letting his body heat soak into mine. Being like this with him is freeing.
We ride for only around fifteen minutes and then the bike is slowing as storefronts come into view. Turning into a parking spot, the bike idles in its place and Max steadies it by placing both of his feet on the ground.
“Climb off!” he shouts, but I’m not ready to let go of him or the high just yet.
His body begins shaking with laughter against my own. “Evi, you’re okay. You can get down now.” He’s mistaking my reluctance for fear.
Climbing from the bike, I lift the helmet and gasp in some fresh air. The rain has dwindled to a light shower, and I’m already wet through so it doesn’t bother me. If anything, it reminds me of home. Swimming.
Turning the bike off, Max lifts himself from the seat and pulls his own helmet off, placing it on the back of the bike.
“We should stop off and get some wine or beer or… what do you drink?” he asks me, stunning me silent. I can’t answer him.
Dazed for a few seconds, I try searching for the answer but I don’t know it. What do I like to drink?
“Evi, it’s a simple question, not a math equation.” He chuckles but he doesn’t understand how terrifying the shudder through my body is at not having the answer, as simple as it should be.
Am I forgetting things?
Bringing Garret to the forefront of my mind, I scan through my nights with him. Did we drink wine?
“Evi, are you okay? It’s fine if you don’t drink. You’re barely legal.”
“Wine is fine, thank you,” I say, turning away from him to hide my flaming cheeks.
Grinning, he nods and takes off walking. Storefronts offer quaint items like dream catchers, and three for two on sticky tape. There’s no one around, the street almost empty apart from us. A bar on the corner has a few stragglers talking and smoking outside and there’s a faint humming of music oozing from the crack in the door.
We walk a few blocks and cross the road towards a convenience store.
The bell overhead chimes as Max pushes through; an older man looks up from the paper he’s reading behind the counter. Max nods to him and he waves a hand briefly in response until he see me come into view behind Max. The paper now forgotten, he stands. “Who is your lovely friend, Maxwell?”
The groan from Max’s lips is soft and only audible to me because I’m so close to him.
“A friend, Tim.”
Max opens a fridge and pulls a six pack out and then reaches behind him and takes my hand, generating all the blood in my body to pool in my lower stomach. Pulling me down an aisle stocked with bottle after bottle of alcohol, Max looks to me expectantly. He wants me to choose what I like. Crap.
“White or red?”
The air con above us clatters and chokes as hot air pumps from it, making a bead of sweat blister on my hairline.
“Red,” I tell him, because I prefer the color red to white.
Like many times today, his eyes hold mine, searching, probing, wanting.
Turning his attention to the bottles on the shelves, he picks up a couple of different bottles before returning them to their place. I reach out and wrap my hands around one of the bottlenecks and tap the label.
“This one.” His eyes pop wide and we both chuckle at the name.
‘Flirt’ is emblazoned in red across the label.
The bell overhead chimes again and Max is tall enough to see over the shelves. The amusement from before escapes his features and a stoic expression takes its place.
“Come on.” He takes the bottle from me and places it in the crook of his arm. He frog marches me to the counter and pulls out a few twenties, dropping them onto Tim’s newspaper.
“Death toll up to three hundred, all these weeks later.” Tim tuts, pointing to an article about a train accident.
“Hmm” Max grunts spinning us towards the exit, the shopper who entered just after us initiating the shift in his demeanor is now blocking the exit.
She’s an older woman; not old like his mom, maybe in her early forties. Her hair is pinned up on top of her head and she has a sprinkling of small brown freckles scattering across a perfectly trim nose. Blue eyes search his, her complexion fair with a rosy glow. Her slim shoulders are stiff, leading down to a svelte body. She’s wearing a raincoat tied at the waist.
Looking between the two of us, her lips move but no sound comes out.
There’s recognition in the way she looks at me, and the more I stare at her, the more familiar she becomes to me.
“You’re a good girl, Evi, and should celebrate your birthday. Let me speak to your mom and dad.”
A gasp echoes from my lips and I step back like I’ve been struck by lightning.
Her scent fills my nose but it’s a memory of the past, not because she’s come closer. A sweet, sickly scent wraps around me.
I see her in my mind’s eye, writing on a chalkboard in front of a class. My class.
“Miss Groom?” The words are falling from my lips without permission, and the way her mouth drops open and tears spring to her eyes in response, I wish I could stuff them back inside. Dread, the same one that keeps coming over me in warning, tingles in my spine.
“Evi?”
“Come on, Evi,” Max demands, taking my hand and dragging me past her.
She moves fast, grabbing onto my arm. “Wait!” she cries, and my body reacts on instinct.
Slapping her hand away, I wrench my hand free from Max’s hold and shove her backwards. “Don’t touch me!” I’m unclear where the hostility comes from but it’s deep-rooted and fiery. I like the way it makes me feel. The rage is like an old friend visiting, one you’ve missed and embrace with open arms.
“I’m sorry,” she chokes, but Max reaffirms his grip on me, tugging me away.
We’re walking but my head is cloudy and I don’t even notice how far we’ve come or that we’re inside now.
“Make yourself at home.” He grunts and the room swims around me.
“Max, who was that woman?” My heart is beating hard in my chest and I feel out of breath.
“You said her name. You must know,” he retorts, chucking his house keys down on a metal dining table situated in an open plan apartment. The walls are brick and the floors dark hardwood. Huge windows stretching from ceiling to floor allow the light to bleed through, igniting the space in a glorious glow.
A worn leather couch and old wooden coffee table along with the metal dining table and benches on either side are the only furniture in the entire place. There’s an old motorbike positioned on one of the walls like art.
The kitchen borders the living space, running the entire width of the apartment. A black iron staircase twirls in the center of the room, leading to an open plan bedroom above.
“What’s clicking around that head of yours?” he asks, moving into my space. Is he emitting some form of pheromone? “Did you remember something?” Concern dips his brows.
“Just her name. A school. She’s a teacher, right?”
His head bounces up and down, confirming. Taking my hands in his, he leads me to the couch and gently guides me to sit down. “She was your teacher. You were close with her.”
“Really?”
“We were with her that night.”
We?
“What night?”
Shifting in his seat, his jaw locks. Squeezing his hand, I plead with my eyes for him not to stop talking.
“The night everything happened. It was your birthday.”
The badge.
The ‘nine’ badge on the hospital table when I woke up flashes in my mind. I kept that thing; it’s the only item I have from my previous life.
“Why was I with my teacher?”
The room morphs, the air thickening and closing in around me.
“Because she felt sorry for you. She wanted you to have a day just for you.”
Thud…
“Why?”
“Because you were a child whose family abused you,” he snaps, getting to his feet and pushing his hands through his hair.
Family.
Family abused you.
Not singular.
Tears spring to my eyes and burn the tear ducts. “Was it my brothers? Is that why you hated them?”
He’s pacing the apartment now but I can’t move. I feel like I’m drowning in ice, the shards freezing over my heart.
“Your father had some weird, fucked up belief that you were theirs. Useable to your brothers.”
Anger and disgust screw up his features and cause a manifestation so fierce it reminds me of a shadow growing in firelight, expanding, swallowing everything once created by light.
“So, she felt sorry for me?”
His movements stop and he looks over at me, steam almost visible from his ears.
“Did you hear what I said?”
My brother—brothers—abused me
“Yes!” I snap, getting to my feet. “You think I don’t know I was abused, Max? Is that what you think you’re protecting me from?”
Pushing his sweatpants down my legs, taking my panties with them, I place one foot on the couch and leave the other on the floor so I’m open for him. I reach for the hem of my shirt and pull it over my head so I’m completely naked.
He’s solidified to the spot, his eyes bulging and heat tinging his cheeks.
“What are you doing?” He pants, his body deflating like I poked a pin in him and let all the tension and hot air out.
“Showing you. The scars already told me the secrets you think you’re keeping from me!”
His feet move toward me, water glistening in his eyes. Dropping to his knees in front of me, he takes my foot from the couch and pushes it back into the sweatpants leg, repeating the process with the other foot. He slips the material up my legs and over my hips until they’re covering me. He doesn’t get to his feet. Instead, his arms wrap around my waist and pin my body to him. His shoulders shake as he burrows his head against my stomach, and the need to run my fingers through his hair is overwhelming.
The warmth of his body pressed against mine ebbs the chills I’d been feeling moments before.
“They deserved to die, Evi. Your mother knew it too.”
“Did I deserve to die?” I whisper, so quietly I’m not sure he hears me.
“No, and you didn’t.”
When he gets to his feet, his eyes flick to my still exposed breasts and I bend to fetch my top, turning to slip it over my head. His gasp causes my head to snap back around.
His fingertips stroke down over my back, dancing over the scars there. “I remember the day you got these.”
I’m slowly turning to face him when something comes over him, a tornado snapping and swirling his features. Shaking his head, he hurries away in the other direction.
I hear a door slam and search the walls for where he could have gone. A room in the far corner is the only place that’s not on display.
A bathroom, I surmise.
I go to the bag I brought with me and retrieve my cell phone and charger, searching the room for an outlet to plug it into. There’s a spare socket in the kitchen by the boiling pot.
My cell doesn’t light up straight away when I plug it in. Instead, a red exclamation mark lights the screen.
Max returns, holding a folded towel in his arms, offering it to me.
“Did you want to take a shower? I’ll heat some food and pour you some wine.”
It feels natural being around him, like we’ve always known each other. It’s easy and soothing. Garret would have so much to say about that, and if he had come with me, I wouldn’t be here right now with Max.
For the first time ever, I’m grateful he didn’t take me up on the invitation.
“Sure, that sounds good. Thank you.”
Taking the towel from him, I make my way to the room he just left, and true to my theory, it is a bathroom, only there’s no bath, just a tiled room with a dipped floor with a drain in the middle and a shower head hanging from the ceiling. The buttons on the wall control the temperature and speed. There’s a toilet cornered off by a glass wall in the corner.
I slip from my clothes and place them on the lid of the toilet seat.
Turning the temperature up high, I let the water cascade over me, soaking me. I spend so much time in water, it’s a wonder I don’t grow gills.
All the information thrown at me today rattles around inside my mind, trying to form pictures that make sense. When I think about who these people must have been, it leaves a hollow hole in my chest, wider and deeper than not knowing. I’ve found solace only in the discovery of Max. He was a good thing in my life before; I can feel it deep in my soul. A friend who searched for me. Maybe he’s the reason I’ve never felt like I could let my past go. Deep down, was I searching for him too? Just being around him makes me almost content; it’s such a bizarre reaction to have in such a small timeframe.
Can a flower blossom in dry earth where nothing grows?
Wrapping my body in the towel, I realize I left my bag with my clean clothes on the table. My hair hangs in a curly mass down my back and I tighten the knot I’ve created in the towel to keep it from falling down.
Max has his back to me when I open the door and step out of the bathroom. The space seems larger than before. Maybe it’s me who’s shrinking.
I may just fade away to dust.
He’s moving around from the stove to the counter, chopping and throwing things into a pan in the kitchen. There’s a soft melody humming from a radio on the window ledge. He tosses what smells like an omelet in a frying pan.
Taking my bag in hand, I rummage through it for the shorts and tee I brought with me to sleep in. I slip them up my legs under the towel, and when I’m done, I fold the towel and startle when I notice he’s stopped moving and is staring at me.
“I made eggs,” he says, holding the pan in his hand.
“Great. Thank you.”
I sit at the table and finger brush my hair, annoyed at myself for not bringing a brush with me.
Max places a plate in front of me and serves up the omelet dish he’s created. He places a glass next to the plate and begins to pour the red wine into it, stopping only a quarter of the way full.
Taking the seat opposite me, I notice he’s not having any food.
“Not hungry?” I ask, slightly uncomfortable to eat without him.
“I forgot to pick up more eggs at the store.” He flinches, embarrassment tickling his features.
Visions of him rushing us out of there flicker through my thoughts.
“We can share,” I say, getting to my feet and searching his kitchen for cutlery. I locate a fork in the drainer over the sink.
Picking up the plate, I move closer to him and hand him the spare fork. He grins down at me and helps himself to a mouthful. I take a smaller piece into my mouth and flavor bursts over my tongue inciting a groan. “Wow, that’s amazing.”
His grin broadens, reaching his eyes. “Thanks. It’s the only thing I can cook.”
“I’m not sure I want to share now,” I tease, moving the plate away from him, and a hearty chuckle rumbles from his chest.
“I like your laugh,” I tell him.
He doesn’t speak, and I know if I look up, he will be staring at me again.
Light rain pitter-patters against the windowpanes like a melody, inciting a bubble of unease to simmer in my veins.
“Tell me how we met,” I say, sipping from the glass and refraining from gagging on the sharp, dry taste coating my throat.
Picking up a bottle of beer, he swigs, and by the time he pulls it away from his lips, it’s half gone.
“I’d just moved there and saw you in your garden.”
“Hey, I’m Max. What’s there to do for fun around here?”
“You didn’t answer me. Ignored me like I didn’t exist, and then your brother Lucian came outside holding a belt. He handed it to you and said your father was ready to give you your punishment.”
I listen intently. The scars on my back hum and phantom whips ignite over my flesh.
A man’s voice barks in the back of my subconscious.
“Count, Evi, or I’ll start from the beginning.”
The sound of the belt like a whip whistling through the air, cracking as it makes contact. A fiery blaze opening up the flesh.
“You just took the belt like it was routine.” He guzzles the rest of his drink down until the bottle is empty. He drops it to the table and pushes it away from him.
“That night, my dad was arguing with my mom over some bullshit I can’t even remember, but I crept out the back of the house and found the water. You were sitting in it like a bathtub.” He curls his lips, but it’s sorrow, not happiness that causes it. “Damn, Evi. Your back was all torn up. I went back to my house and got some of my mom’s old swabs and things from her kit and cleaned you up. I swore to you that I’d never sit by and let that happen again. That I’d tell someone.”
A stray tear leaks from my eyes for the little girl I used to be.
“And did you?” I ask, taking another sip from my glass. “Tell anyone?”
He nods his head. “Miss Groom.”
The teacher from earlier.
“The way she was looking at you, the whole situation was odd. She didn’t know I was here at first and things were tense. Is there more there than you let on?” I ask.
Getting to his feet, the chair scrapes against the hard floor and reminds me of nails down a chalkboard. He opens the fridge and returns with another bottle of beer. Popping the lid off, he fiddles with it, passing it through his fingers and back again.
“It’s complicated.”
It always is.
“Elaborate.”
“After what happened with you, she stopped teaching and fell into a depression. She went off the grid for years. I hadn’t even thought about her and then one night when I was out celebrating my birthday in an awful bar in the next town over, she was there, waitressing.”
Tapping my fingers on the stem of my glass, I gulp down the repulsion I’m already feeling at what he’s going to say next.
“She broke down crying and slobbering all over me. She spoke about you and it brought up so much emotion that I hadn’t dealt with myself. I brought her back here to talk more. I was pretty lit. One thing led to another.”
Whore. Where? On this table? That couch? In your bed?
“That’s kind of gross,” I say, thinking of the age gap and her being our teacher once. I don’t consider my behavior with Edward gross, but this isn’t about me.
He chuckles but it dies in his chest. “It’s weird. I can’t explain it but it made me feel close to you somehow. Like if she hadn’t forgotten you and I hadn’t, you were there in some way. Alive. Real. Home.” Scrunching up his nose, he tilts the bottle back and drains it in one.
My cell phone suddenly shrills into the room with incoming text messages, and I almost knock over my glass from the shock of it.
“You’re popular.” He grins, getting up and retrieving my cell from the kitchen.
He’s looking down at the screen. Intrusive, but I would probably have done the same thing. “This Garret guy wants you to call him.”
Handing me the phone, he retakes his seat and stares at the cell like it’s a bomb in my hand. I have a lot of missed calls and texts from Garret, telling me to call him.
“So who is he?” Max asks, a slight defensive edge in his tone.
That’s such a complicated question to answer.
“He’s my boyfriend,” I say, and the room cools and the rain appears to get louder as my breathing slows and my pulse thunders in my ears.
The silence is deafening and I want to take it back, but it’s the truth, and I owe him that because it’s what I’m asking for in return. The wine begins to circulate through my bloodstream, making my mind hazy, and the room expands. A yawn pushes past my lips and the eggs sit cold in front of me.
“You want to get some sleep?” Max asks, breaking the uncomfortable silence.
“Yeah. I could sleep.”
He points to the room above us. “You can take the bed. I’ll take the couch.”
“No. I don’t mind taking the couch, honestly. I don’t want to takeover your place.”
“Evi, take the bed.”
Making my way up the iron staircase, I sense him watching me and heat fizzles throughout my body, sending a tingling sensation up my spine.
His room consists of a bed and nothing else. Crawling over it, I collapse against the pillow and groan when his earthy scent cocoons me. Gathering the duvet up into a plump rectangle, I wrap one leg and one arm over it and pretend it’s Max laying with me.
I should text Garret back to put his mind at rest, but in this moment, I don’t want to.