Three, Two, One (321)

I kept everything that was mine.

We destroyed the rest.

There were lots of trials. Not Gabriel’s. He bled to death on the concrete floor of my loft that night. And those trials had lots of deals. No one got off, not even the flock wives. The deals were made to keep Blue’s reputation intact. And now that she wrote the book, it’s sort of a cover in and of itself. A brilliant move, actually. She made our story fiction. No one will ever believe it’s true.

My transient gallery has grown through word of mouth generated so as to ensure people in her circles—her publisher, her agent, her publicist, her editor—all knew about it.

I have lived every moment of the past two years with her in mind.

So when the text comes through that she got into the car, my heart beats wildly with anticipation. She is not going to a transient show in some dingy abandoned building. She’s coming to my home. My personal gallery where I have labored over the past twenty-six months to create the perfect exhibit.

And not by coincidence, it’s called One, Two, Three.

One lost girl.

Two best friends.

Three eternal soulmates.

The idling motor of a car outside breaks my concentration and I stand up. I straighten my suit coat, and my tie, making sure it’s tight.

Her shoes tap on the concrete steps. I picture her hand being held by my driver, Matthew, and then the door opens with a creak.

She’s illuminated by the outside light for a brief moment, and then the door closes behind her and she stands in the shadows.

But it only takes her a moment to see JD. It’s hard not to, since I’ve placed a spotlight above his head. It’s my favorite picture of JD, taken when he was sitting outside on our terrace when we first moved into the loft.

It was a good day. One of the best. We were rich. He was happy. I was satisfied that we’d gotten through the hardest thing he’d ever have to go through. He was better. He was whole again. He was saved.

It turns out salvation is no more permanent than anything else in this life.

But if I could save him once, I could do it again.

Blue reaches out to touch his lips and then she spreads her arms and hugs the photo. It’s almost as wide as her arms, but not quite. There is just enough room for her to grab onto the edges and place her cheek on his.

“You came,” I say, stepping out of the shadows.

She turns to face me, wiping the tears from her eyes. “I owed you a story. So I wrote you a story.”

I walk forward and take her hand. “I love your story.”

She starts to cry again. “Why did you leave me? After it was all over I asked them to tell me where you were, but they refused.”

I take her in my arms and hold her tight. I smell her hair and close my eyes. “I left because I love you. And you were right.”

She pulls back and looks up at my face, her blue eyes filled with tears. “I was wrong about everything.”

“No,” I whisper. “You said I wasn’t invested that night. And you were right. I wasn’t. I wasn’t invested in anything. Not the job, not JD, not the business, not even you. So I had to let you go, Blue. Because you deserve better than that. You deserve the kind of love that has no conditions. You deserve the kind of love that’s free. You deserve devotion. So I left so I could find a way to give you all those things.”

And then I reach into my pocket and pull out a remote control. “Click it on, Blue.”

She reaches for the little white plastic with a blinking red light. “What is it?” She looks up at me with total trust and I smile.

“My investment.”

And then I press her finger and the lights come on.

We are everywhere. Our faces paper the wall, lit up like the angels we wanted to think we were, and not the demons we know we are.

Me. JD. And Ark. Three people who stumbled on each other in the rain.

Us in the tub, the mist obscuring our faces, but not our intentions. Us on the terrace, their hands between my legs, my mouth open in a moan you can hear through time and paper. Us, us, us. Everywhere.

I walk down the row of photographs, studying each one, remembering the day they were taken, the smile reluctantly coming forth with each passing moment. “We were in love, weren’t we?” I ask Ark.

“We still are, baby. We still are.”

My chin trembles and when I look he nods, as if to reaffirm this declaration yet again. He places a hand into the small of my back and urges me forward. I take small steps so I can see each picture. Most of them are in black and white. We are nude. We are kissing. “There are more of JD and me than with you.” I sigh. “You always forgot the tripod.”

“I know,” Ark says. “But I don’t make that mistake anymore.” I give him a weird look as we take a step into the darkness. The end of the line of photos. “I can’t afford to let the moments slip by. So I take pictures every day. I want to record every change.”

And then he reaches for the little remote in my hand and clicks it one more time. The opposite side of the room lights up, only the photos on that wall are not of us.

They are of a little girl.

I know who she is the second I look into her blue eyes. But even if I didn’t recognize her, the charm in her smile gives it away.

“Her name is Paige.”

Blue stares at my six-year-old daughter. JD’s daughter.

“Her parents went to jail, and since JD had me listed as next of kin on all his legal papers, they let me adopt her. She’s my whole life, Blue. She erases all the mistakes.”