He leaves and returns with more boxes.

I sit on the bed, eat, and watch him.

He opens boxes and begins to build something. It is strange. He plays music on his eye-pod that makes me feel uncomfortable … young, childish.

“It’s a tree, Mac. You and Alina put one up every year. I couldn’t get a live one. We’re in a Dark Zone. Do you remember Dark Zones?”

I shake my head.

“You named them.”

I shake my head.

“How about December twenty-fifth? Do you know what day that is?”

I shake my head.

“It’s today.” He hands me a book. There are pictures in it of a fat man in red clothing, of stars and cradles, of trees with shiny pretty things on the branches.

It all seems quite stupid to me.

He hands me the first of many boxes. In them are shiny, pretty things. I get the point. I roll my eyes. My stomach is full and I would rather have sex.

He refuses to comply. We have one of our spats. He wins because he has what I want and can withhold it.

We decorate the tree while happy, idiotic songs play.

When we are finished, he does something that makes a million tiny bright lights glow red and pink and green and blue, and I lose my breath like someone has kicked me in the stomach.

I drop to my knees.

I sit cross-legged on the floor and stare at the tree for a long time.

I get more new words. They come slowly, but they come.

Christmas.

Presents.

Mom.

Dad.

Home. School. Brickyard. Cell phone. Pool. Trinity. Dublin.

One word disturbs me more than all the rest of them combined.

Sister.

He makes me put on “clothes.” I hate them. They are tight and chafe my skin.

I take them off, throw them on the floor, and stomp on them. He dresses me again, in rainbow colors that are bright and hurt my eyes.

I like black. It is the color of secrets and silence.

I like red. It is the color of lust and power.

“You wear black and red.” I am angry. “You even wear it on your skin.” I do not know why he gets to make up the rules, and I tell him so.

“I’m different, Mac. And I get to make up the rules because I’m bigger and stronger.” He laughs. There is power even in such a simple sound. Everything about him is power. It thrills me. It makes me want him all the time. Even when he is dense and troublesome.

“You are not so different. Do you not wish me to be like you?” I yank the tight pink shirt over my head. My breasts pop out, bouncing. He stares hard, then looks away.

I wait for him to look back. He always looks back. He doesn’t this time.

“I have no business looking forward to pink cakes, isn’t that what you said?” I am angry. “You should be happy that I want black!”

His head whips back around. “What did you just say, Mac? When did I tell you that? Tell me about it!”

I do not know. I do not understand what I just said. I do not remember such a time. I frown. My head hurts. I hate these clothes. I strip off my skirt but leave on my heels. Nude, I can breathe. I like the heels. They make me feel tall and sexy. I walk toward him, hips swaying. My body knows how to walk in such shoes.

He grabs my shoulders, holds me away from him. He does not look at my body, only at my eyes. “Pink cakes, Mac. Tell me about pink cakes.”

“I don’t give a rat’s petunia about pink cakes!” I shout. I want him to look at my body. I am confused. I am afraid. “I don’t even know what a rat’s petunia is!”

“Your mother didn’t like you and your sister to cuss. ‘Petunia’ is the word you say instead of saying ‘ass,’ Mac.”

“I do not know that word, ‘sister,’ either!” I lie. I hate the word.

“Oh, yes, you do. She was your world. She was killed. And she needs you to fight for her. She needs you to come back. Come back and fight, Mac. Bloody hell, fight! If you’d just fight like you fuck, you’d’ve walked out of this room the day I carried you in!”

“I do not want to walk out of this room! I like this room!” I will show him fight. I launch myself at him, a volley of fists and teeth and nails.

I am ineffectual. He is as obdurate as a mountain.

He prevents me from damaging him or myself. We stumble and fall to the floor. Abruptly I am no longer angry.

I sprawl on top of him. I hurt inside my chest. I kick off my shoes.

I drop my head in the hollow where his shoulder meets his neck. We are still. His arms are around me, strong, certain, safe. “I miss her,” I say. “I do not know how to live without her. There is a hole inside me that nothing fills.” There is something else inside me, too, besides that hole. Something so awful that I will not look at it. I am weary. I do not want to feel anymore. No pain, no loss, no failure. Only the colors of black and red. Death, silence, lust, power. Those things give me peace.

“I understand.”

I draw back and look at him. His eyes are deep with shadows. I know those shadows. He does understand. “Then why do you push me?”

“Because if you don’t find something to fill that hole, Mac, someone else will. And if someone else fills it, they own you. Forever. You’ll never get yourself back.”

“You are a confusing man.”

“What’s this?” He smiles faintly. “I am a man now? I am no longer a beast?”

It is all I have called him until now. My lover, my beast.

But I have found another new word: “man.” I look at him. His face seems to shimmer and change, and for a moment he is shockingly familiar, as if I have known him somewhere before here and now. I touch him, trace his arrogant, handsome features slowly. He turns his face into my palm, kisses it. I see shapes behind him. Books and shelves and cases of trinkets.