Cora
I drive back to my apartment feeling like a total failure. The LA sun isn’t as blisteringly hot as it can be, but I feel it like a supernova in the car. Sweat drips down my forehead into my eyes, causing me to blink almost continuously, and I can smell myself: the scent of a newly-pregnant woman, the scent of ever-present sickness. I was supposed to tell him about the baby, and I failed. I failed hard. Not only did I fail to tell him about the baby, but I failed to make any sort of connection with him. I clench the steering wheel so hard my knuckles turn white, thinking about all the things I could have said to him.
Maybe it’d just be better if I got rid of the baby without telling him. Is that cruel, or would he prefer that? The question has changed from yesterday because Logan is a new man now. Before, he was this tough berserker, this man’s man. Maybe he still is that, but there’s more under that shield of toughness than I ever guessed. I thought he was like the hard face of a rock mountain, his eyes carved from stone, his mouth set like volcanic boulder. But now I can feel the heat beneath, hear the echoes of emotional explosions. I know what hides behind his hard, emotionless face. I just wish he didn’t have to be such an asshole about it. I get that he wants to be tough, wants to make me believe that nothing gets to him, but his dad’s dead. What does he think I’m going to do—laugh at him?
So I’ll get rid of the child, then, and do without the inheritance. Something strange happens when this thought occurs to me. My insides twist, but not physically. It’s like there’s a loom inside of me and the woman working it seizes up for a moment, tugging all the separate strands of me together. For a moment I consider what it would be like if I kept the child. I wonder what it would be like to hold it in my arms, to look down at it and see its little face scrunch up in love. Perhaps it’d be a him, or a her, and she or he would love me more than anybody’s ever loved. I’d be a single mother, but there are worse things to be, surely. Perhaps I could make it work. Perhaps we’d be happy. But then I wouldn’t be able to become a rock star. No way. But then, am I ever going to become one anyway?
I bring the car to a stop outside my apartment, taking a deep breath, trying to clear my head. If I let myself, I’ll go around and around this for months, trying to figure it out right up until the moment the baby is born, still wondering if I want him or her when she or he is in my arms. I need to make a decision.
I know something’s wrong as soon as I step from the car and see him, leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets, a cigarette dangling out the side of his mouth. He has slicked-back hair and a suave look about him … or he would have, if it wasn’t for the bulging gut and the glimpse of a food-stained vest poking out just above his silver belt buckle. I try to ignore him as I pass, hoping that he isn’t here for me, but somehow sensing that he is. He pushes away from the wall and nods a hello.
“Melissa,” he says. “Melissa Collins?”
I pretend not to hear him, but my veins turn to ice. Melissa, not Cora … this man knows my real name! I swallow and march to the door, but he’s quicker than he looks and blocks my path.
“You are Melissa, right? Crash’s daughter?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I take a step back. That’s when I see it: the outline of a pistol under his jacket. I open and close my fingers, wondering if I can fight him if I have to, wondering if I’d have a chance.
“I’m sure I recognize you,” he says, wagging his forefinger at me. “I’m certain I do. You’re the rich girl, aren’t you? What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” I mutter, wondering if I sound as terrified aloud as I do in my head. “You know, it isn’t polite to wait outside people’s apartments like this.”
“Polite.” He flashes his teeth at me. Some of them are so rotten they are black in places, while others are bone-white, and a couple more are golden-plated. It’s a patchwork mouth. “Well, you see, I never claimed to be polite. Melissa. Melissa Collins. You see? When I say that name your face sort of jolts, like there’s electricity running through it. You ever seen a paramedic try to bring someone back to life with one of those fancy machines? Clear! And then the person jolts all funny? That’s what you just looked like, Melissa.”
“If you don’t get out of my way, I’ll call the cops.”
He laughs, shrugs, and then steps aside. “That’s all right, Melissa. There’s no need for that. Have a good day.”
He stuffs his hands in his pockets and walks away, whistling a jaunty tune.
I charge up the stairs, heart pounding in the back of my throat, so scared I fumble my keys twice before opening my door. I double-lock the door behind me and then rush into the bathroom, vomiting and sitting on the cool tiles, wondering who he was and how he found me, wondering if this is the end of Cora Ash and the fiction that I could outrun my past.
I splash cold water in my face, more than anything wishing that Logan was here to protect me, which is funny because I’ve never felt like I needed protecting until now.