Hate at First Sight

by Penelope Bloom

  I lay there, watching his long eyelashes and full lips, twirling my hair as I replay the passage in my head again and again. “Are they just words to you, Chris Savage?” I ask his unconscious form quietly. “Is that part of you or just another mask?”

  I feel myself drifting off to sleep as I grapple with a frightening idea: I’m not going to be able to turn my back on the mystery that is Chris Savage until I know the truth about him. Until I know which one is the real him—the poet on the page or the savage in front of my eyes.

  8

  Chris

  I stir awake with something between a hangover and a feeling like I fell asleep on the wrong end of a gun range. Either way, I feel like shit, but when I blink away the haze of a bad night’s sleep—on the floor of my living room, apparently—I see something that makes me raise an eyebrow.

  Psycho Fan is sleeping on my couch. I’m disappointed for a minute when I realize I must’ve gotten drunk and fucked her somehow without remembering, but her hair isn’t messed up and her clothes seem intact. With how long it has been since I’ve had a woman, she wouldn’t have made it through an encounter with me so clean and put together. It’d look like she just walked through hurricane force winds for an hour or two.

  I scrape my hand across my chin, cracking my neck and getting to my feet carefully because every movement sends stabbing pains through my head. I put my fingertips to the worst spot and feel a scab on my forehead, nodding to myself as understanding starts to set in. I vaguely remember getting drunk and shooting guns. I must've made enough noise to draw Lindsey up from her cottage. Maybe she hit me in the head with a frying pan to get me to keep it down and then dragged me in here.

  I nudge her leg with my toe, watching with more than idle curiosity as she stirs in a way that presses her chest up, giving me a tantalizing view of her small tits. Small, yes, but they have a nice shape to them, like perky little teardrops that I wouldn't mind getting a taste of.

  I run a fingertip up her thigh, dragging it until I reach the bottom of her shirt, pulling the fabric up enough to expose part of her stomach. With a shake of my head, I pull my hand away. Maybe I could get her to fuck me. Right now, even. But ever since I came out here, I haven’t been able to see the world the same way. It wasn’t some drastic moment or anything special, just a subtle shift in color, as if that makes any sense.

  I decide to let her sleep, throwing on my jacket and heading outside.

  The half-mile hike uphill has become familiar to me in the past six months. There’s a switchback I imagined my parents used to follow up the mountain together. Probably on some wholesome morning walk where they’d sip their coffee and talk about whatever normal people talk about. Probably the weather and news, the two things that become more interesting than sex and drugs to a large part of the population once they retire. I almost envy that, now. Maybe people just get sick and fucking tired of being a player in the game by then. It’s easier to take a step back and watch it all from the outside in, climb outside the fishbowl and hang up your suit, trade it in for slippers and a bathrobe so you can watch the world burn from your own lawn chair.

  The switchback ends at the top of a leaf-covered hill where the trees aren’t as thick. Two small headstones sit in the center of the clearing. I walk up to them, crouching to brush the leaves off that built up since yesterday. I take my normal spot, back against a nearby tree where I can still see the headstones.

  "I'm still not planning to apologize, if that's what you're wondering," I say after I've sat for a while. I felt like an ass at first, coming up here and talking to no one, but I've convinced myself it's therapeutic. It helps me avoid dealing with the question of whether I believe they can hear me or not, because it doesn't matter. I come, I talk, they listen or they don't, and I feel better. That's as simple as it can be.

  “I wasn’t,” Lindsey says. I somehow managed not to hear following me, but I see her now cresting the hill with a strange look on her face.

  Apparently, she wasn't asleep. "Don't worry, this isn't as sappy as it looks," I say, motioning to the gravestones. "I basically just come up here and talk shit to them."

  She sits down a few feet away from me, a safe distance away, like I’m a wild animal who might lash out without notice. She sets a journal down in the leaves beside her and my chest tightens when I see my mom’s handwriting on the cover.

  “What are you doing with that?” I ask.

  “Have you read these?”

  “Just give me the fucking thing.” I stand, reaching for it, but she tucks it behind her back, still wearing that strange expression.

  “What are you avoiding?” she asks.

  “Give it to me.” I’m towering over her now, completely aware that all I’d need to do is reach down and pluck it from her hands to put an end to this, but some dumb, superstitious part of me is aware that I’m standing in front of my parents’ graves, and it feels like they’re watching.

  She doesn’t stand up or cower before me. All she does is lock those green-brown eyes on mine, not budging. “I’m going to make this offer one time,” she says finally. “I want to help you finish the manuscript. Whatever it takes.”

  I wait for her to crack a smile or give me some sign that she’s joking, but she just keeps fixing me with those damn eyes in a way that I’m annoyed to admit is kind of sexy. I’m used to women who can’t hold eye contact with me and blush at the slightest hint of effort from my end. Either my time out here has made me lose some of my swagger, or Lindsey is cut from a different stone.

  When I realize she's not kidding, my brain starts to run with the implications of what she's saying, My mind runs through all the civil ways she could help and then the devil on my shoulder says what I really want. Her... naked. I can already imagine what she'd look like with those big eyes squeezed shut, my name spilling from her lips as a sheen of sweat coats her body. It'd just be fucking, though. Yeah, I'd open her up to a new world of experience and show her what a real orgasm feels like, but it'd be my cock and her pussy. Like two disembodied parts devoid of any real emotion or connection.

  That never used to bother me. Hell, that used to be exactly what I was looking for. If I even got a sniff of baggage or emotional attachment, you’d have needed Liam Neeson and his special set of skills to track me down.

  I’m over empty though. I lived, ate, and breathed empty. Empty money. Empty experience. Empty people. Just moving from place to place and fucking with no meaning.

  “When I came out here,” I say finally, moving back to my tree and sitting down again, forearms resting on my knees. “I thought I’d find myself. You know what I mean? Like some old movie. I’d go pull trout out of the river with my bare hands and I’d hear the secret to happiness in the rustling of the fucking branches. Instead I learned that chopping more firewood than I’ll need in three lifetimes is great stress relief. It’s easier to go to town and pick up my food from the grocery store than it is to hunt for it. And living without TV and distractions didn’t make me a different person, just more boring. The only time it felt right was when I was writing.”

  “So why’d you stop?” she asks. “Why’d you throw away the manuscript? Why only publish one book as T.S. Barnes?”

  I consider closing up, just shutting my mouth and sitting against the tree like a statue until she gets pissed and leaves for good. It’d be easier, easier than trying to explain something I can’t quite put into words. Instead of shutting her out though, I raise my finger and point at the journal in her hands, knowing I can’t explain it in a way that will make sense.

  “Because of those,” I say simply.

  She looks down at the journal, considering. When she looks back up at me, her eyes are searching. “I could read them to you, if it’s too hard for you to do it.”

  Her offer takes me by surprise. I didn't explain that every time I even think about reading my mom's journals it feels like the earth is opening up beneath my feet, threatening to swallow me into an endless darkness where I'll
have nothing to do but look at myself and all the mistakes I've made. All the people I've hurt. I didn't explain it, but somehow she saw it.

  She’s still watching me, fingertips poised to open the journal and start reading, just waiting for me to give her some kind of sign that it’s okay.

  My heart is thumping against my ribs and a sheen of sweat coats my forehead despite the chill of the morning. I don’t even know what’s in those journals. I have no fucking idea. It could just be journal after journal of how heartbroken she is that her son devoted his life to pissing her off. My family wasn’t perfect, but they didn’t deserve the way I treated them. I guess that’s easy to say now that my parents are gone and it’s too late to change anything.

  I find myself nodding so slightly that I think she might not even see it, but it’s all I can manage right now.

  She opens the book and starts to read my mom’s words, in a slow, reverent way that I immediately decide is how my mom would’ve wanted it read. As Lindsey starts to read, the words float effortlessly by, lulling me into a kind of trance where I can imagine for a while that I hadn’t been such a fuckup—to a place where I might have asked my mom about her life and sat quietly while she told me her story.

  Journal 1: Martha

  Everybody has a story, whether they’re still searching for it or they’ve found it or they don’t realize they already lived it; everybody has their own story worth telling. I’ve spent years telling myself it wasn’t worth writing my own down, but with everything that has happened in the past year, it seemed like the right time.

  I’d be lying if I said I was writing this for myself or for some stranger to find in a few lifetimes.

  These are for you, Chris. Part of me thinks I’m being silly for even going to the effort, that you might burn these or just set them out with the trash without so much as opening the front cover, but I decided to try, because you never let us explain our side of what happened. I want you to know why we did what we did and—

  "That's enough," I say shakily. I stand up suddenly, wiping my nose with a trembling hand. "That's enough."

  Lindsey slowly closes the journal, looking up at me with real concern in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she says. “Maybe this was a bad idea.”

  "Yeah, it was," I snap. A strange kind of anger rolls through me, making my muscles feel tense and my brain feel clouded with red. "You shouldn't be up here." I point down the hill back toward her house. "Leave the journal when you go."

  She looks wounded, but sets the journal in the grass carefully. “I meant what I said,” she starts. “I’ll still help you with the manuscript. You can be an ass all you want. That story deserves to be—”

  “Go,” I growl.

  She closes her mouth, letting a glimpse of the anger she’s holding back show through. Good. Be pissed. Hate me. And stay the fuck away before you make all of this any harder than it already is.

  She turns and walks away, leaving me alone on the hill with the journal.

  “Enjoy the show?” I ask my parents’ graves once Lindsey has left.

  9

  Lindsey

  I’m still seething and it’s been almost two days since Chris snapped at me and sent me away from the hilltop. I tried as hard as I could to swallow my pride and help him. Some soft, stupid part of me wanted to believe there is something inside him worth saving, and that helping him write his manuscript would do it. I even thought I could handle the inevitable outbursts and harsh words that would surely come with trying to help him, but I wasn’t ready for it.

  I cried like a baby when I got home that morning. Brooke and Amelia were already up, so I had to hold it together just long enough to get in the shower where I could fall apart in private. I hate him for making me act like someone I’m not. I hate how he makes me feel so weak. More than anything, I hate that there’s something about him that refuses to let me forget he even exists. A part of him crawled into my mind, curled up, and made itself at home, stubbornly refusing to budge no matter how hard I try. Just when I think I’ve moved on, I feel that nagging presence, and the endless obsession with the compellingly broken man and the book he’ll probably never finish.

  Amelia sets a coffee mug down in front of me with a sweet smile. For all her innocence, she has a natural instinct for taking care of people who are hurting, and she never asks prying questions. Going back as far as I can remember, through breakups and failed tests in school and money troubles, I can always remember Amelia being there with sweet gestures and quiet kindness. Unlike Brooke, she doesn’t ever push me to talk about it. If it’s something I want to share, she’ll listen, but if it’s something I’m embarrassed about or just can’t manage to get out, it doesn’t seem to phase her.

  I feel guilty for holding back what I’m going through from Amelia, especially after her rare outburst at the grocery store. She was right, after all. Just because we like to think of her as the baby in the family, it doesn’t give us a right to exclude her. She’s old enough to be included. And I will include her more, but not in this.

  I pull her to me and lean my head against her stomach briefly, giving her a grateful squeeze before she goes back to the kitchen to finish the eggs and bacon that are sizzling in the pan.

  I sip the coffee, which burns my lips and tongue as it goes down but I keep drinking it anyway. I need caffeine if I’m going to survive today. The blogging world is an unforgiving one, and the surest way to end your career is inactivity. I haven’t reviewed a book in over a week, and I missed my Thursday Throwdown post where I try to find the worst books I can so I can do an over-the-top roasting of them for my reader’s amusement. I’ve been so preoccupied with Chris and the ever-tightening financial stress that I haven’t had the energy to do it.

  Someone knocks at the door, making Amelia and I both jump. Brooke pokes her head out of the bathroom, hair still wet and makeup half-applied. Part of me fills with a mixture of excitement, and then anger when I think it could be Chris, because no one ever comes to the door and knocks way out here in the woods.

  I get up and look through the peephole while Amelia and Brooke silently watch after me, just as curious as I am about who it could be.

  I see a thin guy in his early twenties with thick-rimmed glasses, well-groomed hair, and a square-shaped tie waiting impatiently outside. "He looks harmless," I say quietly to Amelia and Brooke before opening the door.

  “Yes?” I ask.

  “Are you Lindsey?” he asks.

  “Yes…”

  He extends a hand and flashes a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’m Alec. Chris Savage’s agent. I was hoping to have a few words with you.”

  “Everything okay?” asks Brooke, who comes up from behind me, apparently not worried about her half-done makeup or the robe she’s wearing.

  “It’s fine,” I say. “He’s Chris’ agent.”

  Brooke looks him over suspiciously. “What does he want?”

  “I don’t know,” I say a little tightly. “You haven’t given him time to tell me that much yet.”

  “We’re going to be just inside. So don’t try anything funny,” says Brooke.

  Alec raises his palms defensively. “Just here to talk.”

  I decide to step out on the porch, because I don’t think Brooke will stop threatening him if I don’t put a door between us. “What do you want?” I ask once we have some privacy.

  “I want to offer you an opportunity that I think could be beneficial to everyone involved.”

  I cross my arms. “It sounds like you’re trying too hard to make this sound like a good thing. What’s the catch?”

  “No catch,” he says. “I need Chris to write a book. He has a contract for another one with his publisher and he’s running out of time to meet the deadline. If he doesn’t meet the deadline, he forfeits the advance he was paid—the advance I was also paid a cut of—and he is also going to be fined out the ass for breaking the terms of the contract. But the real problem is I lose credibility if my biggest c
lient can’t stick to contracts. Publishers are going to look back on this and I won’t have as much bargaining power for my other clients, if any. Chris will lose momentum and the shot to keep his grip on the global market if he waits too long. Everybody loses.”

  Alec leans in, pushing his glasses up his nose. “He needs to write a book.”

  “How does any of this involve me?” I ask.

  “Because I know you’ve been going up there to see him.”

  A chill runs through me, turning my impression of Alec from neutral to apprehensive in a split second. “How do you know that?”

  “He told me, obviously,” Alec says. He fiddles with his glasses a little uncomfortably, eyes shifting away from mine. A bad liar.

  “Even if I have gone up to see him. What makes you think I have any influence on whether he finishes the book or not?”

  “I’ve known Chris for a long time. I know how his mind works. He just needs something real for a while. Something soft. Fame hardened him, but there’s still a good guy in there. Bring that guy back out and he’ll write the book. I know he will.”

  Listening to the way Alec talks about Chris makes me think there might actually be a real friendship, beyond an agent’s worry about money and his career, but I still don’t want to trust him.

  “Well,” I say, “I guess you’re going to have to keep looking, because I’ve embarrassed myself enough times now trying to extend the olive branch to Chris. He doesn’t want anything to do with me.”

  Alec makes a dismissive sound. “Has he fucked you?” he asks.

  My hand twitches at my side, itching to slap the stupid glasses right off his face. I control my anger though, just barely. “Excuse me?”

  Alec pulls a face that is probably supposed to look apologetic. "Maybe the easiest way to think of Chris is a predator. A lion, maybe. Fame was like a cage for him. Women, money, success… It was like people were just lobbing it into his cage. There was nothing left to challenge him anymore. Nothing to excite him. So he shut down. Day by day, week by week. He closed himself off. This," says Alec, gesturing to the woods around us. "This was inevitable. But make no mistake, Chris is still the same man I knew before all this happened. He's that same lion, and you're like the first piece of meat—pardon the expression—to come along in years that he might have to work for. Give him a few more chances and he'll wake up to the challenge."