CHAPTER NINE
“He's gay,” Victor insisted, giving me an expression from across the lunch table that would indicate he thought it was the obvious answer.
“He's definitely not gay,” I replied, pushing a strand of hair behind my ear as I thought about what we had done in the living room the night Victor had dropped me off after the fair.
“No straight guy listens to Sarah McLachlan.”
“I think it's kind of romantic,” Carmen chimed in while noisily opening a bag of chips.
“It's kind of creepy if you ask me,” Victor huffed.
“How is leaving her a love song on her pillow creepy?” She glared at him.
“It's not that he left her a love song, it's that song. Do you even know what the song is about?”
Carmen hesitated, “Love?”
“Stalkers. Sarah McLachlan was being stalked by a guy. Some of the lyrics from that song were taken straight out of a creepy letter he left her. He ended up suing her over it and then killing himself.”
“Well, that does twist things a bit,” I said, feeling somewhat uneasy.
“How would you know that?” Carmen asked, looking at Victor as if he was crazy.
“Everyone knows that.”
“I didn't know that,” I replied.
“Well, now you do. So, he's probably trying to tell you that he owns you. That's why he freaks out every time you want to go somewhere without him”
“You just don't understand the way romance works,” Carmen insisted.
“Maybe not, but I know stalkerish behavior when I see it. Think about it. He drives her to and picks her up from school every day. She's not allowed to go anywhere without his permission. He video tapes everything she does when she's home alone. He won't hesitate to cause a scene if he feels his territory is being encroached upon. He doesn't go anywhere or do anything. The guy has stalker written all over him.”
“That's enough.” I furrowed my brow at him. “He drops me off at school and picks me up because it helps him get out of the house more. Also, he doesn't like the idea of me taking the bus. And he doesn't like me going anywhere without telling him because that's just the respectful thing to do. He's known me since I was little and feels like I'm under his care, so naturally he worries about me. As for the video tapes, he's a famous author. What famous person doesn't have surveillance cameras around their property? If someone was to come in and steal his work, it could cost him a lot of money.”
They both looked at me blank-faced for a moment before Carmen burst out laughing, “Oh my God, Kim, you are so in love, it's pathetic.”
“I'm not in love,” I grumbled, crossing my arms over my chest.
“She's not in love. She just can't tell the difference between loving behavior and unhealthy behavior,” Victor said, his expression darkening. “What are you to him anyway? I mean, what does he call you?”
The question struck a chord, bringing back the painful memory of being referred to as a family friend. In truth, I didn't know what we were. Lovers. Friends with benefits. Something else. There was no definitive answer.
All I could say was, “I don't know.”
“It's obvious that he's your boyfriend,” Carmen said.
“Do you go out on dates?” Victor asked.
“No,” I replied, staring blankly at the half-eaten tuna salad sandwich in front of me.
“Do you sleep in the same room together?”
“No.”
“Don't you think that if he loved you, you two would at least sleep in the same bed together. I mean, hell, you live together. How hard is it to cross the hall and get in bed together?”
“Victor, that's enough,” Carmen said, watching my eyes as they began to water. “You're upsetting her.”
“I'm just trying to get it through her skull that the guy is using her. It's plain as day. Rich older man with a vulnerable young girl living under his roof. Of course, he's going to take advantage of that. She might think she's living there for free, but nothing comes without a price.”
“I'll talk to you guys later.” I quickly grabbed my tray and headed over to the trash can to dump the rest of my lunch. My appetite had fled at the sound of Victor's harsh words. Was he right? I didn't know anymore.
“Hey, wait up.” Carmen ran after me.
I turned to her, wishing that my tear ducts could suck back up the tears that were already falling. “I just want to be alone for a while.”
“Don't let him bully you. He just doesn't understand Dominick the way you do,” she tried to comfort me.
“I don't even understand Dominick.” The tears came down, and it took everything in me not to crumble into a blubbering mess. “I thought I did, but I don't. He's damaged, I know that. But he's damaging me too. Victor's right. I need to know what's going on between us, and if it's not healthy, then I need to get away from him.”
I waited on the loveseat in the living room with my hands wrapped around myself. All week, I avoided bringing up Dominick again. I didn't want anymore painful reminders of how twisted our relationship was, of how possessive he was, of how careless he was with my emotions. I couldn't handle it.
Thankfully, Carmen seemed to understand. Every time Victor tried to bring the subject up, she shushed him, watching the expression on my face as I sunk into a depressed oblivion. For as much as I had been excited about Dominick leaving for an entire week, I sure wasn't taking advantage of it. Every afternoon, I rode the bus home and holed myself up in my room to do homework. Then I took some sleeping medicine to go to bed early, trying to make the days pass faster until he returned, and we could settle things once and for all. If he wasn't going to commit, then I couldn't live with him anymore. He would never stop the emotional push and pull. I may be naive, but I wasn't dumb enough not to realize that. As Victor had said, I was too easy of a target. Living under the same roof together, it would be a constant game of predator and prey. He would take what he wanted from me, and I was too emotionally weak to stop him. As much as I tried to tell myself that I hated him for what he was doing to me, it wasn't true. I loved Dominick, and I was pretty sure that whatever shitty interactions transpired between us, that wouldn't change. He had been engraved on my heart from a young age, stamped into me permanently. My want for him was never ending, even if having him was just a fantasy. Tiny tastes of him were enough to keep me yearning for more. I didn't understand why. My own heart was a mystery to me, but I couldn't change the way I felt, no matter how hard I tried.
The sound of footsteps made my body tense as I straightened myself and stared at the doorknob. When I heard the key hitting the lock, my heartbeat began to speed up. This was the moment of truth.
Dominick stepped inside, gazing down at the floor. It took him a moment to look up and see me, but when he did, his expression turned to surprise. There were no lights on. No TV going. It was just me, sitting in the darkness, waiting.
“Kimlet,” his voice was soft.
“Welcome home, Dominick.”
He smirked at me before rolling his suitcase inside and closing the door behind himself. “You used my full name again. That either means something really good or really bad. I'll take a guess that it's the later of the two.”
“What am I to you?” I cut right to the chase.
“What?” He gave me a confused look.
“When we met the director and his wife, you introduced me as a family friend.”
A short laugh escaped his lips. “Is that what you've been so upset about ever since we got back from California?”
“It's not funny.”
Dominick set his suitcase down and came to sit beside me. I refused to look at him, staring at my hands instead, feeling emotionally numb. There was a strong determination in me not to be hurt by his words. Part of me expected I wouldn't like them. I had convinced myself that I had just been fooling myself, that I had fallen into the fantasy of a relationship with him. Dominick was good at weaving fantasies. He did it for a living.
“What do you really want to talk about, Kimlet?” he asked.
“You. Me. Us. Everything. I have a lot to get off my chest, and I don't plan on holding back. I want you to know everything that I've been thinking and feeling these last few weeks. And I want to know everything that you've been thinking and feeling. No more riddles. No more silence. No more waiting for you to put it down on paper.”
“Alright.”
“What am I to you, Dominick?”
“We're lovers, I thought.”
“Lovers,” I repeated the word. Lovers meant that we slept together. It didn't always extend beyond that. “You told the director and his wife that I'm a family friend.”
“You are a family friend.”
“You could have told them I was your girlfriend.”
He shifted his weight. “I'm not sure how that would have looked to them.”
“That woman was at least twenty years younger than him. We're only twelve years apart. Do you think he really would have cared?” I could feel the anger building inside of me, threatening to fill my eyes with burning tears. He was purposely avoiding the label. It was clear to me now.
“I'm sorry. I didn't realize that would upset you so.”
“You don't realize that a lot of things you do upset me.”
“I'm sorry.”
“You say it, but it doesn't sound like you mean it.”
Dominick turned to me. “Kim, I truly do mean it. I never meant to upset you. It was just a business meeting, and I was trying to keep things casual.”
“It wasn't a business meeting though. It was a pleasure meeting. You said so yourself.”
“All I can say is that I'm sorry. I can't turn back time and take back my words. If I could, I would.”
“And what would you have called me then? Your lover?”
“I don't know. I've never really had to think about it before. I just said what sounded natural to me.”
I could tell he was becoming uncomfortable, and somewhere, deep down inside of me, I was happy. He was always so nonchalant about everything, so unaffected. It was nice to see him squirm for once.
“There's something that I need to know,” I continued, “something that's been nagging at me since the first time we slept together, since I read Behind Her Green Eyes.”
“Yes?”
“I know you're in love with my sister. You'll always be in love with her. I understand that and can live with it. But I have to know, am I just a replacement for her?”
He laughed again, and I couldn't understand if it was because the tension had boiled over and this was the way he dealt with it, or if he actually found my question humorous. Either way, the sound of his laughter just ticked me off.
“I'm being serious,” I barked at him. “Don't laugh at me.”
Dominick quickly quieted down, though his face still held a grin. “You're so blind sometimes.”
“Huh?”
“I don't care about your sister at all. I mean, sure, she's my best friend. She always will be, even though we don't see each other anymore. But I'm not in love with her. I'm in love with you.”
His words caught me off guard, and suddenly the world was spinning. Did he actually just confess to being in love with me? Surely, I heard him wrong.
Dominick continued, “When Tammy told me that you were going to school here in Arizona, I was absolutely elated at the chance to connect with you again. I wanted to see what kind of woman you had grown into. I'll admit that the feelings didn't come all at once when I first saw you. You weren't the little knobby-kneed girl I remembered who always used to follow Tammy and I around. You had grown into a woman. And when I looked at you, I saw a stranger.
“At first I feared that you were just interested in taking advantage of my generosity. Of course, I would have been fine with that. I had offered for you to stay here, and I wasn't going to renege on that no matter what kind of brat you turned out to be. I just wanted to help you and your sister out, as I always have. That's what best friends do, after all.
“But as the days and weeks went by, I saw you for who you truly were, a young woman who wanted to pay her own way. I never had to ask you to do anything around the house. You just did it. You cared for me, even though you didn't have to. Even though I was distant and unapproachable sometimes, you still carried on carrying on. I thought it was just out of a sense of obligation, but that night we got drunk together, I started to realize it was something more, started to hope that it was something more.
“When I caught you on video pleasuring yourself and saying my name,” he laughed.
“It's not funny.” I sunk into the loveseat, my cheeks growing pink from just the mention of the video.
“It was pretty funny at the time.” Dominick smirked.
“Just shut up and finish your story. It was starting to get good.” I fought back a smile.
“Oh, was it now?” he teased.
“Continue.”
“Fine. Anyway, when I saw that video, there were a lot of things going through my mind, mostly happiness. That was when I put everything together. At first, I thought it was just a crush, but then I remembered everything you said when you were drunk, about being in love with me. That's when I realized that despite the fact that we were both different people, you were still in love with me. So, I decided to take a chance.
“I thought things were going well between us, but you've been hot and cold ever since. I'll be the first to admit that I don't understand women. For as much as I write about them, I really don't get them. Fake it until you make it, as they say. I just knew that you loved me and you weren't after my money, so I thought that if I cared for you, that would be enough to keep you by my side. If I've screwed up along the way, which I obviously have, I'm sorry. But know that I do love you, and I just want you to be happy. If I'm not making you happy, please let me know, and I'll try to change.”
“You have screwed up a lot,” I admitted. My face wanted to scowl, but my heart wouldn't allow it. Inside, I was jumping around like a lunatic, completely elated at his confession of love. I had waited so long for it.
“Am I fixable?” He turned to me with an earnest expression.
“I think I have something to work with now.” I grinned stupidly.
“Are you still mad at me?”
“Not so much anymore. From now on, though, when someone asks what I am to you, the answer is girlfriend.”
“Alright,” he laughed.
“And don't leave me anymore cryptic love songs. Victor had me convinced that you're a stalker.”
Dominick frowned. “I don't like that boy.”
“Well, he's my friend, so you're going to have to get over it.”
“I don't like the idea of you being alone with him.”
I smirked. “It's funny to see you jealous.”
“I'm only human, Kimlet.”
“You don't seem like it at times.”
Dominick looked at me strangely. “What's that supposed to mean.”
“You're just so emotionally different from what I remember as a kid.”
“So are you.”
“Then I guess we both changed.” I took a deep breath, realizing I had never really thought about how different I was to him.
Are we good now?” he asked.
“One more thing.”
“Hm?”
“Say that thing you said, after you said you're not in love with my sister anymore.”
“What?”
“You know, that thing you said.” I bumped my shoulder against his, too embarrassed to say it myself.
“That I'm in love with you?”
“Say it again, but don't make it sound like a question this time.”
“I'm in love with you.”
“One more time.”
“I'm in love with you.”
The night ended in a frenzy of torn clothes, connected body parts, and moans so loud that the entire complex probably heard us. And by torn clothes, I mean literally. I ripped that shirt off of him so fast that we still can't find some of the buttons. The sex was explosive, like a firework display that lasted half the night. We'd roll around in the bedroom for an hour, then come out to replenish our electrolytes before another round of sheet aerobics. By the next morning, I was so sore I thought I would be laid up the entire weekend. That was fine though, because Dominick took care of my every need, stepping into the devoted boyfriend role full force. I didn't plan on it lasting. This was just him making up for being a jerkface, but I decided to savor every moment of it.
We had a long way to go before our relationship would ever resemble something normal. I knew that. Things were already headed in the right direction though, and I looked forward to seeing where they would go. Now that I knew the true depth of Dominick's feelings, the sky was the limits.