by Piper Lennox
Because you can’t.
“I don’t want you to leave,” I whisper, our breaths fogging the small space between our faces.
“I don’t want to leave.” Silas pulls the lock of hair from my mouth when the wind blows. He hooks it behind my ear and leaves his hand there, right on my neck. Right where my heartbeat thunders hardest. Right where he can feel it, I know, every time I swallow, struggling to catch my breath. “You’re the only reason I’ll ever come back to this city, Camille.”
I know this isn’t true. Silas can’t see past the anger, but I can. He has plenty of reasons to come back, every single one inside the Acre Hotel or his family’s estate, right this minute. Even if he wished the reasons didn’t exist, they still do. And we both know they’ll pull him back, sooner or later. It’s just a question of when he’ll be ready.
But being one of many reasons is still an honor. And in this moment, I’ll happily pretend I’m the only one.
15
“Is this okay?” he asks, running his hand between my legs. I’m suddenly ecstatic I forgot about doing laundry and had to wear my leggings instead of jeans. The heat of his hand floods across my sex like warm water, an invitation impossible to ignore. My hips roll in time, eager to match his rhythm.
“Yes.” I don’t ask him if it’s okay to touch him back; the groan he keeps penned inside his throat is his answer.
We kiss and touch until the sky is dark. Maybe it’s only a few minutes, because when he finally breaks the rhythm, our mouths raw and windburned and pink, I can still hear the voices of the people who left, echoing down by the gate.
“Not to ruin the moment,” he breathes, “but I can’t help but remember the fact we’re in a cemetery. At night.”
I laugh and slide off his lap. He walks his way up against the fence to stand, then helps me up.
The walk to his car stores itself in my memory in high-definition. Every detail, from the break of the leaves and bark under our feet, to the spiced smell of his coat when I lean into him: I know, as it all happens, that I’ll never forget it.
The smell of his car’s heater. The fog that forms on his windows. How every sense I have becomes so heightened, I feel something like drunkenness when he invites me into the backseat.
Through the fire he’s ignited in my head, I manage one cohesive thought: “I’m not sure if.... I mean, I don’t know if I’m….”
Silas laughs. It’s the softest sound, like cotton falling. “Don’t worry,” he says, mouth pressed to my earlobe in a kiss. “I wouldn’t dare let your first time happen in the back of my car, with a...” He pulls something from between my shoulder and the seat. “...Burger King bag underneath us.”
We both laugh now, and even my own sounds different to me, softer than before.
His fingers spread across my skin, always migrating. I never know just where he’ll touch me next. My stomach. My wrists. The warm skin just past my shirt collar.
The imprint of his mouth on my neck is what drives me to ask for more.
“Absolutely,” he says, so solemn and deep that I know, if it weren’t for his promise that I won’t lose my virginity here, I would let him have it. In this moment, with the memory of a hundred spots of color playing across the darkness when I shut my eyes, I want to give Silas Fairfield every single piece of me.
He pulls my leggings down to my knees and kisses me as his fingers test how ready I am. I hear that small noise again, trapped in his throat, when he finds me soaked.
First one finger, then two. An immediate, relentless rhythm that sends tremors through my core.
“Silas,” I moan, feeling tears gather at the corners of my eyes. I remember that night on my bedroom floor—and every night in my bed, and morning in my shower since—when all I could think about was how different it would feel to have his fingers inside me, instead of my own.
I worried it wouldn’t feel much different at all, or worse. I wasn’t prepared for this, the sounds and tears and need that spill out of you when another person brings you to that high. You’re out of control. And you adore it.
The door handle presses into my shoulder blade as I scoot back, making room on the seat for him. There isn’t much; he crouches halfway on the floor when he backs up, fingers never stopping, and captures my clitoris in his mouth.
“Silas, oh, God,” I whimper. The fog of color explodes behind my eyelids when his tongue presses harder, faster, his rhythm confident and unflinching. The walls of my sex tighten around his fingers.
His name peals out of my chest when I come. The force of it straightens my spine; I feel the dampness from the fog on the window in my hair, the door handle now pressed into the middle of my back. When I open my eyes, my arms are braced against the seats’ headrests on either side of me. And Silas, still going, still drawing the last thread of pleasure out of me, never once looks away.
“You didn’t tell me you were an everything virgin.”
“I’m not,” she manages, struggling to pull her underwear and leggings back up.
“Besides kissing,” I challenge, and she blushes.
I kiss her. Her muffled moan takes me from hard, to concrete.
“You taste yourself,” I smirk, “don’t you?” I kiss her again. “Can’t blame you for moaning. You taste good.”
The shots of color in her face intensify. “Can I...taste you now?”
I don’t think I’ve ever unzipped myself faster. She laughs.
“Guess that’s a yes.”
We manage to switch places, the streetlight pooling in the car revealing the brief flash of anxiety across her face when she looks at my erection and gathers her hair behind her head.
“I’ve, uh...I’ve never done this before, so...tell me. If I do something wrong. I mean, I know how, I just haven’t—”
“Oh, like driving a stick shift,” I offer. “Everyone knows how in theory, but not necessarily in practice.”
Both of us laugh, the sound filling the car while the wind skates across the roof, shaking us. “I actually have driven a stick shift a few times,” she says, positioning herself on the seat, “but sure.”
I’ve never had to direct a girl on how to give a blow job—and, apparently, that’s not going to change today. Camille’s technique, while hesitant, is exactly what I need, right when I need it. A slow, teasing swirl of her tongue, top to bottom; the pulse of her throat when she tests taking me deeper; a steady up-and-down, when I get close enough to need the rhythm.
“Camille,” I sigh, just like I’ve sighed it in my motel room every night since our kiss on her front porch. I rest my hands on her head, unsure of where else I can put them, but don’t guide her.
Even so, she goes faster. Takes me deeper. I shut my eyes and warn her that I’m close.
She stays steady. I wind my fingers into her hair and can’t fight the urge to push down, just a little, so that I’m deep in her throat when the orgasm finally hits.
“Camille,” I say again, the sound barely audible under the increasing wind outside. My muscles tighten all through my body as I release.
It’s silent, all the way until the end. She slips me from her mouth carefully and sits up. As soon as I try to sit up more myself, she lunges forward and kisses me.
“You taste good, too,” she whispers.
My fingers tangle back into her hair, drawing her to me for another kiss. “You taste better.”
We lie there a long time, my shoulders against the door, her head on my chest. She tells me again that she doesn’t want me to leave.
“I’ll come back soon. I promise. And we’ll talk every day, unless I start driving you crazy.”
“Impossible.”
“Don’t underestimate my ability to be annoying. You’ve only known me a few days,” I remind her, but she simply shakes her head, shutting her eyes as she presses herself into me. She doesn’t explain what she means by this easy, silent “no.” She doesn’t have to.
The length of time isn’t important. You can know so
meone your entire life and still not be able to trust them. You can share a bloodline and last name with a person, and not know a thing about who they really are after twenty-two years.
Or you can know a person for less than a week, and offer them your complete, true self, and they can offer theirs back.
The days don’t matter. It’s what happens in those days that counts.
16
One Month Later
2948-32.
I pull my arm back in the window and wait.
Finally, I hear the code box beep. Just ahead of me, behind the empty guard station, the gate slides open. I stare at the ornate “F” in the center and follow it until it’s vanished.
Then I take a breath, put the car in drive, and go.
The Fairfield estate looks like it exists in its own season: the grass is still green, albeit faint, when every other lawn in the state is brown and dying. Italian cypresses line the driveway. After a trip watching bare branches swaying in the wind, it’s alarming to see anything lush and still.
Funnily enough, I didn’t plan on being here today. Not the estate, not this neighborhood—not even the city, or anywhere near it. When I woke up and remembered I had the day off, I got in my car and drove.
I was sure I would just visit Camille. In the month since I left, we’ve met halfway between Hillford and her house twice, for coffee and some fooling around in my car. As promised, we text or call every day. She takes a while to answer sometimes; it’s hard for her to quit her workaholic habits, she says, even though her parents suddenly seem to be doing fine without her contributions.
“Did your dad get another raise or something?” I asked, when she first mentioned it.
“He might have. Dad doesn’t talk money with me. Ever. Mom is my only source for how high the bills are, how much we need...but even then, she’s pretty vague about it. She just takes my money when I offer it. Which used to be constantly. Now she keeps turning me down, saying not to worry.”
“And yet,” I said, “you still are.”
“Kind of,” she confessed, then paused. “This is what was supposed to happen, though, right?”
“Right. You help dig them out—even if your dad has no idea and never will—then, when they’re back on their feet, you don’t have to keep working like it’s the end of the world. You get to live your life.”
Camille got quiet again. “Yeah. It’s just kind of hard to adjust. I’m not used to all the free time. But it’s been nice, hanging out with Brynn more, spending time with Arrow.” Her voice lowered, just a little. “I wish I could spend more time with you, too.”
“I know. Soon,” I promised. “When the rebranding craze dies down, I’ll take a three-day weekend and come stay in the city. We’ll go see the river again, when there’s snow everywhere...dinner, movies, looking at Christmas lights—the whole nine. Or, alternatively, we’ll lock my hotel door, get naked, and never leave.”
Her laugh rang through the phone and made me miss her even more. “All of that sounds perfect,” she said, “and I won’t have to work during a single minute of it.”
So when I got in my car earlier and drove, seeing Camille was the only thing on my mind. It wasn’t a three-day weekend; we’d both hate it when I had to leave tonight, or by dawn at the latest. But when the exit to her part of town approached, I sped right past it, realizing there was someone else I needed to see first.
Tim did give us that Towncar. I remember the bow on it, when it appeared in our driveway. I remember asking Grandma why her sister had given it to us, and Grandma stuttering some answer that, even as a child, didn’t add up. I’d never even met Genevieve. Mom let it slip, once, that she was never close to her.
I did go to private school, just long enough to know the memory of that navy blue uniform and clip-on tie was real.
There was one Christmas with anonymous presents my mother never could have afforded.
And I remember—at least, I think I do—sitting on Tim’s lap, telling him about my school and my friends. I had an electric train set he helped me put together, while he told me all about the train station his family owned. Our family.
“Do you get to go on the train whenever you want?” I’d asked, suddenly thrilled at the idea that I, too, could ride on a real train someday.
With time, I forgot the sadness that crossed his face when I asked this. “I used to,” he said, finally. “Haven’t done it since I was a kid. I used to ride it back and forth for hours, when I felt like getting out of my house.”
“Why don’t you ride it now?”
“I guess...I keep forgetting that I can. I tell myself I’ll make time to do those kinds of things, one of these days. But then I go to work and forget all over again.”
I told him we should go on the train together. He was quiet for a long time before he said, “Yeah. Yeah, that’ll be fun.”
These memories weren’t very clear, and there weren’t many of them—but they were enough to tell me my mom’s explanation, that Tim just up and left, wasn’t the full story.
Still, I couldn’t bring myself to ask her. Week after week, as I dodged half her calls and cut the other half short with fake excuses, I told myself it was because I knew Tim was lying. Mom was there for me. He wasn’t. It had to be that simple.
Now, as I park in the wide circle in front of the Fairfields’ mansion, I admit it to myself: I’m afraid to ask her.
It’s not the real story, whatever that may be, that scares me. It’s learning why she would have lied to me in the first place.
But Tim clearly knows the “what,” even if he doesn’t know the “why” any more than I do. And no matter what it takes, I’m going to get it.
A staff member answers the door. “Hi,” I say, startled when she takes my coat. “Is, uh—is Tim here?”
“Do you have an appointment with Mr. Fairfield?”
“Sort of. He, uh...he told me I could stop by sometime.”
A voice fills the massive foyer, echoing from the top of the stairs. “Who is it, Florence?”
We both look up to see Jeannie Fairfield, descending the staircase in a pink sweater set and pearls. She stops halfway, hand on her heart, when she squints at me.
“Are you Silas?”
I don’t think I’ve ever actually been speechless, my mind washed blank of my entire vocabulary and my throat paralyzed—but I am, now.
“You...you look just like Bourne.” She lets out a strange laugh as she reaches the bottom of the staircase and comes closer. Her hand extends. Distantly, I’m aware of my hand shaking it.
“It’s uncanny. Florence, doesn’t he look just like him?”
Florence, perhaps having no idea who the hell Jeannie is talking about, nods with a tight smile, taking my coat to God only knows where. Jeannie’s heels click across the floor as she waves me along.
“Tim should be home soon,” she says. “Here, come sit in the living room and warm up. I just made some coffee.”
“Um...thank you,” I manage. I’m stunned, maybe literally.
The living room is enormous, not that I expected otherwise, but decorated warmly. Some sneakers are kicked off by the fireplace, and the television over the mantle is tuned to a reality show. The candle burning on the end table is the exact same brand my mom loves, a couple bucks at the grocery store. Apart from the size and elaborate architecture, this feels like it could be anyone’s home.
“Cream and sugar?” Jeannie asks.
“Yes, please. Two of each.”
She smiles and vanishes through a door. Another shock: she didn’t ring a bell or hit a button, or scream for some tired employee to fetch the coffee for her.
When she returns with the coffee, arranged just so on a tray, I thank her and sip. There’s a brief, silent panic when it occurs to me she might have slipped in something to make me sick. Maybe even kill me.
It’s paranoid and stupid, but everyone talks about how fake-nice Jeannie Fairfield is. No better revenge than poisoning your husband’s lo
vechild.
But as I drink, not only do I notice that it tastes...well, like regular coffee, I also catch the water in Jeannie’s eyes when she sits in the armchair across from me, smiling. Tears don’t fit the profile of a cold-blooded killer.
“I’m sorry,” I say, lowering my mug when the silence becomes deafening, “but I have to ask—why are you being nice to me?”
Jeannie laughs and takes a sip from her coffee. “It’s funny, actually: I thought, if I ever saw you in person, I’d just fly into an absolute rage at everyone. You, Tim, the staff.” Her brow furrows; she looks at the low row of flames in the fireplace. “But now that you’re here,” she says softly, “I don’t feel angry at all. It was a relief, actually—finally seeing you in person.” Slowly, her eyes meet mine. “It made me realize you’re caught in the middle of this whole thing, too. More than anyone.”
I drink more. Until Jeannie ushered me into her warm house, I hadn’t noticed how cold I was. “Did you know about me?” I ask, after a beat. “When I was born, I mean.”
“No. I had no idea you existed until all this started.”
“Oh. Did you know Tim had….”
The sigh she lets out is wistful, long. “I suspected an affair or two, but I couldn’t really talk to Tim about it. We both contributed to our...” She sighs again, thinking. “...marital problems.”
My nod is automatic. I don’t know what this means, exactly, but I’ve got an idea: Jeannie kind of knew Tim was cheating—but so was she.
“You really do look just like Bourne,” she says under her breath, smiling as she shakes her head, sets down her mug, and crosses the room to the mantle. She takes a photo down from among the trinkets and giant candlesticks, then passes it to me. “Bourne was Timothy’s great-grandfather. He purchased the Acre and the train station.”
“I know,” I nod, then clear my throat as I pass the photo back. For some reason, as many times as I stared at his portrait in the Acre’s lobby, I can’t stand looking Bourne Fairfield in the eyes right now. “I’ve, uh...I’ve researched the family a lot.”
