Fissure

“Keep the compliments coming,” I mumbled, twisting the cap back on the water of nasty bubbly origins.

“You’re a misogynist pig,” she said, like it was on the tip of her tongue, relieving me of the disgrace-to-water bottle.

“Now that actually hurts. Why would you say that?” I asked, making myself comfortable on the edge of Emma’s bed. I wasn’t sure what the antonym of misogyny was, but that’s what I was. I was possibly the most devote lover of woman out there.

“Because if you cared anything for Emma’s peace of mind, you wouldn’t be here right now,” she answered, leaning into the mini-fridge and appraising me with those nutty eyes.

“I just needed to know if she was all right,” I admitted, transparency coming naturally in Julia’s presence, or maybe she was a bonafied witch and was forcing me to spill my guts. Not that I’d come across an actual witch in my existence, but as a being of supernatural quality, it seemed hypocritical to believe Immortals had the market cornered on all things paranormal.

“I don’t think all right are words I’d ever use to describe Emma’s state of being,” she said, talking into her bottle. “But she’s still breathing.”

I smiled humorously. “Where’s she been? I’ve been looking for her.”

“Really? I haven’t noticed you lurking like a creeper in the shadows the past couple nights.” Julia had perfected the tone of sarcasm. You see, anyone could season their statements with it, but it took a true pro to be able to make each word burrow itself under your skin. “She’s holed up at jerkwad’s bar and brothel. Also known as his frat house,” Julia finished, curling her nose.

I put the lid on the shot of pain that was blooming into a grimace. I knew Emma wasn’t the frat house cockroach type, so either she was doing her best to avoid me or doing her best to cater to Ty’s overbearing ways. It made me feel like a bit of a dirt-bag to hope for the latter.

“You know,” Julia said, shifting her eyes at me. “You don’t have to hide the way you feel about her with me. I saw amore in your eyes the first night I met you, but I suppose that’s to be expected with someone like Emma.”

“Yeah, she kind of crawled into my heart and stayed there,” I admitted, rolling with this whole transparency with Julia thing.

She nodded. “If I believed in angels, I’d believe she was the bloody gold star one of the bunch,” she said, kicking off one of her purple boots and sailing it into the wall across from her. “She doesn’t deserve to be dicked with.” Another thud against the wall as the other boot landed beside its mate.

“I know, I know,” I said, trying to roll the tension out of my shoulders. “I’m not trying to . . . dick”—I wasn’t brought up to use crass language in front of a woman, but Julia transcended the gender into something else entirely—“around with her. I swear my intentions are pure.”

Julia arched an eyebrow.

“Well, ninety-nine percent pure,” I confessed, the implied meaning in Julia’s face and slouching into Emma’s bed forcing a scorching heat to my face.

“Thanks for the confession, my son,” she said, crossing herself theatrically. “But the slime I was referring to ‘dicking with Emma’ was the turd she believes is her boyfriend,” she said, practically snarling before smiling at me for the first time. “You, I like.”

I was stunned stupid by the compliment. Something told me that a girl who believed black wasn’t a color, but a state of mind, didn’t hand out compliments readily.

“Why?” the genius inside me asked.

“Hell if I know,” was her immediate answer.

Roundabout as it was, I’d take any compliment aimed my way at this time in my life. “Thanks for that, Julia. Really. But how do I get the other girl to like me?”

“That’s the easy part,” she replied, taking a final chug of her sparkling water and launching the empty bottle under her bed. The garbage can was less than a foot away from her. “The hard part is getting her to admit it to herself.”

“Hold up.” I leapt up and squared myself in front of Julia. “Are you saying that Emma . . . likes me?” My bad day was threatening to take a turn for the best.

“Of course she does,” she answered, doling out a look like she thought I was the worst kind of clueless. “She just doesn’t know it yet.”

That jostle in my gut I just felt could have been my heart breaking loose. “Perfect,” I muttered, combing my fingers through my hair. “So she ‘likes me,’ she just doesn’t know it yet,”—I wasn’t muttering anymore, although I’d decided to add pacing to my emotional roller coaster—“and you know what? She’ll never know it because she has a boyfriend, she avoids me like I’m a walking freshman twenty, and as if those things aren’t convincing enough,” I said . . . I yelled, throwing my hands up in the air, “we have nothing in common.”

“You know what I hear when people say they have nothing in common with the person they want to be with?” she asked, her voice as calm as mine was crazed. She paused long enough for me to catch she was waiting for an answer. I shook my head, not trusting myself to open my mouth again. “A coward making chickenshit excuses.”

This conversation just pulled a brody on me.

“She’s got a boyfriend, she avoids me,” Julia was repeating my words in the same volume I’d employed, peppering it with a whiney voice. “We have nothing in common. Boo hoo,” she continued, wiping at the absent tears in her eyes. “Quit your whining and grow a pair.”

Under most circumstances, I would have had an insane comeback to this accusation, but arguing with a hardcore goth girl while Ozzy droned on in the background wasn’t normal circumstances.

“Her boyfriend is a tick that burrowed in six years ago and won’t go away,” Julia said, her hands flying about like she was juggling imaginary daggers. “She avoids you because she likes you—”

“She just doesn’t know it yet,” I said under my breath.

“And, and . . .” she repeated in a fury, searching around the room. Her eyes finally narrowed in on something and she was across the room after it in two lunges. “And sparkling water,” she shouted, throwing a heater straight towards my . . . pair.

I was taken by surprise, which was becoming a regular occurrence for me. Not by the bottle sailing at my man business, but by the violent change in conversation. Had I not already confirmed it, I would have said Julia was crazy. Bad crazy, not the cute, semi-amusing crazy.

“Wow,” I said, sliding my full-except-for-a-sip bottle into my jacket pocket, removing one weapon from her reach. “Detour much?” I asked, looking up at her.

She was the picture of calm now, arms crossed loosely and shoulders back. “Connect the dots much?” she threw back at me, trying on my voice for size. She must think I sounded like Sean Connery getting kicked in the nuts.

I opened my mouth, an automatic response to such a question, but no words came out. I tried again—still nothing. This thing with women striking me speechless was becoming a regular occurrence.

“There’s your one thing,” she said, thrusting her hands at where the bottle peeked out of my pocket. “You both hate sparkling water.”

I massaged my temples. “Life changing.”

“You made a claim that one of the reasons you two couldn’t be together was because you had nothing in common. Well,” she said, “I’ve proven that a lie. And who cares about how much they have in common when they love someone, tell me that? Do you think Mark Antony fell in love with Cleopatra because they both liked the color green? Did Tristan fall in love with Isolde because they were both morning people? Do you think Lancelot divided the freakin’ Knights of the Round Table because Guinevere shared his love of roast duck?” she continued on without taking a single breath, and I wasn’t going to interrupt. Don’t mess with a woman on a mission. I learned this lesson the hard way.

“Do you think Emma’s going to fall in love with you because you both like old movies?” she paused, sucking in a hard earned breath. “Well, do you?”

I knew I should tread lightly with Julia in her present scary-calm state, but I didn’t do what I knew I should very often. And this was one of those times.

“Let me take a three prong approach to my answer. One,” I listed, lifting my index finger, “those three lovely couples you aforementioned all died sad, miserable lives without the one they risked everything for as they gurgled their last words. And two,” I ignored Julia’s death glare and continued, lifting another finger, “are you implying that’s the bar Emma and I should strive for if, by some miracle, we end up together? And three,”—ring finger up to accompany the other two—“how does any of this help me?”

Clasping her hands in a prayer position against her face, she blew out a slow breath. I’d seen this nonverbal response dozens of times in my presence.

“Listen, I know you’re not a coward, but you’re scared of something,” she said, keeping her eyes closed and hands clasped. “Something is keeping you here when you should be charging through the doors of that Future Eunuchs of America clubhouse and carrying her off into the damn sunset.” Opening her eyes, she graced me with a second smile. “Or whatever it is you normal types do.”

Returning the sad smile, I answered. “I’m here—I’m scared,” I clarified, “because it’s like what you said earlier. If I care about her peace of mind, I need to leave her alone.” My head hung lower admitting it, but I knew she was right. Peace of mind and Patrick Hayward were mutually exclusive entities.

“That’s right, I did say that,” she said, walking towards me. “If you care about her peace of mind, you’ll leave her alone,” she said again, an undertone in her voice, some meaning I was meant to pick up on, but hadn’t yet. “But if you care about her best interests you’ll get your persistent little butt back to following her around like a little puppy.”

Julia was like the Buddha of clarity. Everything she’d said made sense and had cleared the fog that had been stalling me. I felt something for Emma, and she could avoid me as much as she wanted, but I wasn’t going away until I told her just how it was for me. I was done making chickenshit excuses, as master Julia had so eloquently put it.

“Which frat house is it?” I asked, my hand twisting open the doorknob.

Layering her hands over her heart, she fluttered her eyes. “There’s the man I’m going to still be doing dirty things to in my dreams fifty years from now.”

“Lucky me,” I said, not letting my mind go anywhere near that cringe fest.

Julia was off in some daydream or, maybe in her case, a nightmare, so before things got all hot and heavy with her and imaginary me, I cleared my throat. “Jules, focus,” I said, clapping my hands. “Where is Emma?”