One

by Mari Arden

  I let myself forget and soon I feel him moving over me, taking me, just as I take him. His eyes don't leave me. It's his promise to me.

  We move until I feel Pax start to shake. I know the second he reaches his orgasm. I feel it rising inside me, too.

  "I love you, Pax."

  "I love you, Jules," he growls.

  We fall over the edge together.

  After a minute, Pax pulls me on top of his chest. Instantly, I move my head until I'm right on top of his heartbeat. I like hearing it. We stay like that for a long time.

  "Pax," I break the silence softly. I point toward the window. "Look, the sun's coming up."

  "Hmm. It does that every day. Can't get the damn thing to stop." I hear the teasing in his voice.

  I slap his chest playfully, watching a grin spread across his face. "It's pretty."

  "It can blind you." He rubs my back. "It'll incinerate you before you can come within miles of it." He kisses my nose.

  "Party pooper."

  "Sometimes, you just got to call it how it is." He kisses my cheek.

  I lay my head back on his chest. The longer I'm awake the more guilt I feel about what happened last night. I draw imaginary shapes on Pax's chest. I watch his body rise and fall with each breath. This was almost taken from the world yesterday.

  Suddenly, I feel an overwhelming sadness. I swallow a few times until I can speak. "Pax," I begin softly.

  "Yeah."

  "I'd like to tell you more about me."

  "Great. Because I'd like to know more." He sounds serious, and I wonder if he's thinking about what I told him yesterday, about someone coming for me.

  "Before I begin, I just want you to know that last night and every day and night before that has been some of the best in my life. I've never felt so free, so happy, so able to enjoy life before. I was holding so much in, and being with you doesn't make it disappear, but it makes it bearable. It makes it seem like anything is possible."

  He starts to say something, but I put a finger over his mouth. "Listen first," I say gently, touching his cheek tenderly. I take a deep breath. "Last night wasn't an accident." I watch his face, but he's difficult to read. "The man in the car last night was my ex- boyfriend Braidon." Pax's eyebrows shoot up. "I don't know how he found me, but he was obviously unhappy to see us together. He's very… obsessive. He's needy. He can't help it though. I truly feel like he's not right in the head. He needs help."

  "He tried to kill us because I'm dating you? Yeah, I'd say he needs a lot of help." Pax sounds angry. I understand why, but it's making me more afraid to tell him the rest of it. I move right above Pax's face so our eyes are level. "If Braidon found me, that means the… others might have as well. They know we used to date."

  Silence.

  Pax's throat bobs up and down. "Others?" he finally says.

  "Three years ago, my Grandma was killed by a drug lord named Juan Gonzales. I believe she saw something she shouldn't have and paid the price for it. Braidon's family is very powerful in Mexico," I explain. I've often wondered if they dabbled in the drug trade as well. How else would he know Gonzales? "His uncle introduced me to my Grandma's murderer." I can't help the anger my voice suddenly has. "I was an orphan, and a girl- weak, in their eyes. He trusted Braidon's family, and he figured I was all alone and desperate for money. He felt like I'd keep their secret." I take a deep breath.

  "For six months I worked for Gonzales, cultivating Cannabis plants, drying them, and packaging them for sale across the country and through Canada. Gonzales sold marijuana to anyone with the means to pay."

  Silence.

  I desperately want to know what Pax is thinking, but I'm afraid as well. "I knew what I was doing was wrong, but I couldn't go to the cops. Many of them work for Gonzales. I couldn't not do anything either. He took away the only person that mattered to me. I-I wanted to take away what mattered to him, too."

  I stare at a spot behind Pax's head. "I studied their schedules. I knew when they switched patrols. I managed to dig a hole underneath the barbed wire fence and sneak into the area. I covered the soil in oil, and then I lit a match. I watched the fields burn. I watched it destroy the forest."

  My voice quiets. I think back to the last day I was in Minnesota. I think back to the night that brought me here. "Seven months ago, I found one of Gonzales's underground homes," I whisper. "He'd gone into hiding after I burned his 'farm'. He thought it was a rival gang. There was talk of a drug war, street style, just like how it used to be done in Mexico." I shudder. "I did something terrible," I continued, my voice lower than a whisper. "I saw Gonzales. I saw him do something more evil than I could ever imagine."

  Red.

  It clouds my vision. I can't speak it. I want it buried deep inside and I don't want to think of it ever again.

  "What I saw him do gave me courage. I-I shot him."

  Pax's whole body tightens underneath mine. If I stop now, I'll stop forever and never tell him the whole truth. "I-I'm not sure if he's dead or alive," I continue, my voice catching. "I shot him in the abdomen, n-near his stomach. I wanted him to die, Pax," I confess. "I knew I should aim at the heart, but at the last second, I lowered the gun and shot somewhere else instead." I'm a coward, I think.

  "I wanted to hurt him, Pax. I didn't think such an evil could exist in the world. I wanted to hurt him for all the hurt he's given to everyone else."

  I'm crying now. "I thought if I hurt him, the emptiness would go away." I bury my face in my hands. "But it didn't. There was still a hole inside me. Nothing made it better." I pause. "Nothing except you."

  The silence is pregnant, lengthy and hurtful. He doesn't speak for a long time, so long that I decide he's never going to speak to me again. Why should he? His girlfriend's a criminal, and possibly, a murderer.

  I feel myself crumbling. It's as if telling another person what I did created a crack inside me, and with each second that passes that crack is widening. I hear it break inside.

  "I need to be alone," Pax finally says in a tone I can't decipher. He removes me from his arms. I'm not able to do anything other than shake as I feel Pax leave the bed. When I hear the door close I let it out, a piercing, thick wail that comes from somewhere deeper than my heart. It comes from my spirit, from my soul that is slowly tearing from all the bad choices I have made. I've told him all my secrets. My body is full of pain, as if everything inside me is twisted and in tatters. Baring my soul and having Pax reject me is worse than a knife cutting my skin; it feels like he's taken every cell in my body and smashed it with a hammer until I'm nothing but dust.

  What did you expect? I ask myself bitterly. I'm a criminal. A murderer. The red I see is more than just Gonzales's blood; it's the life force of my spirit draining out. For a while Pax had stopped it, but now as I look around the room it's all I see. For the first time in a long time, I cry myself to sleep.

  The nightmares return.

  * * *

  "Hello, Julianna," his voice echoes.

  We're not in his house. We're in the forest. He's holding the gun he used to shoot Grandma. From the corner of my eyes, I see her. Her yellow shirt is bright, a contrast to everything around us. She's on her knees, clutching her stomach, blood seeping through the wound. Her mouth opens to call my name, but blood spurts forth. The loud gurgling sounds terrify me more than anything else.

  My hands are shaking. I hear a rattling sound and realize I'm holding a gun. A familiar thought creeps in my head. It's him or me. It's always him or me. I'm a survivor, I tell myself. A survivor. The gun jiggles between my fingers. It's cold and unnatural looking between my small hands.

  "You belong with us."

  His smirk sparks my anger like nothing else can. "I'm not what you are!" I yell back.

  I pull the trigger.

  The blast is so strong he falls to his knees, the shock evident on his face. He clutches at his stomach just like Grandma. I blink, and suddenly Grandma and Gonzales are next to each other. Together they face me, bleeding from
every crevice in their bodies. Every shade of red fills my vision. I scream, but no sounds come out. I put my hands to my face, trying to cover the image of their bleeding bodies.

  I feel something wet dripping from my face. It's thick and metallic smelling. I freeze. Slowly, my hands leave my face. The forms of Grandma and Gonzales are getting darker as everything else becomes lighter.

  No…

  I look down.

  Blood. It's everywhere. It's on my hands, seeping through my pores. I shift my eyes downward to my chest, and blood is there, too, trickling out like a steady stream. I fall to my knees.

  I scream.

  "Jules!" Rough hands shake me. "Jules!"

  I continue to scream, struggling against the iron tight grip around my shoulders. "It's on me! I can smell it on me. Get it off!" I shout. "Get it off!" I use my nails to scratch at my skin. Blood. Everywhere. It's everywhere.

  "Jules!" Pax sounds terrified. "What are you doing? Stop scratching yourself!"

  His strong hands force my fingers away from my skin. He holds my hands hostage behind my back as I choke on a sob, my legs thrashing. "It's everywhere," I cry. "Everywhere…"

  "What?" he whispers.

  "Blood."

  I burst into tears, memories and images floating in my head like a mutation, growing with strength the more I try to fight it. Pax has his arms around me, cradling me like a baby, like I'm someone innocent he needs to protect.

  Doesn't he understand I'm the monster?

  The thought brings more hysteria I can't control and I start quivering again, breathing hard.

  "It's okay, Jules," he tells me in a soothing voice. "Don't you remember? I've got you. I've always got you." I feel his hands touch my face, and my hair. His softness makes me feel guilty because I don't deserve it.

  I can't tell how long Pax holds me in his arms, I only know that it's not long enough. It never will be. Eventually, I hear my stomach growl.

  I don't want to break the silence, but I do. We can't hide like this forever. Nothing is forever. "What time is it?" I whisper, my voice hoarse with my tears.

  "Midnight."

  Midnight. Pax took me here last night. That means I've been with him a day and a night already. Instinctively, I clutch him tighter. I don't want to go. I don't want him to leave me. But what choice do I have? He deserves more than me. He deserves more than my past.

  "Can you take me home?" I whisper.

  He stiffens. "If you want me to," he finally answers.

  I bite my lip until I taste blood, but the pain isn't as excruciating as what I'm about to say. "I'm so sorry, Pax," I begin softly, my heart breaking all over again. "I'm sorry for the choices I made. I understand why you don't want to be with me-"

  "Wait," he interrupts. "Stop. What did you say?"

  I can't look at him so I stare at his chest instead. Why is this so hard? Why does love hurt so much? "I'm a criminal. I've done horrible things. I've-"

  "You did what you thought was right," he interrupts me again. This time his voice is hoarse as if he's angry. Or sad. Maybe both. His arms tighten around me. "You're very brave, Jules."

  Brave? Wanting to kill someone is brave? Sneaking into private property in the middle of the night is brave? I shake my head, opening my mouth to correct him.

  "Stop," he admonishes gently before I can speak. "I see your thoughts on your face. Just… stop. Please." So I shut my mouth. I let him hold me. I let him rock me until I'm so drowsy I almost sleep.

  "I think we need to tell my uncle."

  At first I think I imagine it. "W-what?" I ask tentatively in the quiet. "Did you say something?"

  "My uncle." I hear him swallow. "My uncle is a police captain for his precinct here. He's got a lot of connections with the FBI. If Gonzales is a drug lord and shipping things across the country, then it becomes a national issue and no longer a local one. He could help us."

  I shake my head. "Pax, no, I can't. You can't. We can't. I'm a horrible person. I'm-"

  "I killed my parents."

  Whatever I expected Pax to say, it definitely wasn't that. The shock is enough to push away my painful thoughts. I focus on him. Pax brushes a strand of hair from my forehead. His eyes are sad.

  "My therapist tells me not to say that, but it's the truth. I don't like to lie to myself." He takes a deep breath. I watch his gaze get brighter, and I know he isn't seeing me anymore. He's seeing his memories. "It happened two years ago. I was out with Cade and the guys celebrating the end of spring semester. I drank a couple beers, took a shot or two. I felt fine. I've taken more than that in the past and been okay. I got a call from my dad that their car wasn't working. They asked if I could come jump start it."

  Pax's hands are clutching at my shoulders. "I left my friends and drove to meet them. It was dark, stormy. I saw them on the side of the road and pulled over. I tried to jump start their car but it didn't work. We figured it was probably the engine. I decided to take them home."

  I absorb what he tells me, scared I know how this will end.

  "Not a lot of people know this, but my parents were fighting a lot. Since I've been living on campus I didn’t get to see them much but when I did, they were constantly arguing. People like to remember them as being a beautiful, loving couple, but it isn't true- not during the end anyway."

  I kiss his cheek, my heart jumping erratically.

  "That night they were doing what I'd come to expect them to do- fight. They were snapping back and forth about our dog, I think. Something about how one of them had given him something and now he was sick, something small like that. It started blowing out of proportion with them yelling and cussing at each other. Usually I'm a pretty patient, calm person but the alcohol combined with how upset I was made me more angry than usual. I turned back to snap at them, telling them I was tired of it. Just tired of it. I told them to grow up and act like adults." His voice wavers for just a moment, but I know. I know what happened next.

  "It was only ten seconds, maybe even less. I turned back to the front and that's when I saw it: the bright lights from a truck. I couldn't stop in time. He was already in front of us. Instead, I swerved. The cops told us the car did about five flips before we finally landed upside down. A girl saw us and stopped to call 911. I was unconscious when we landed. I remember being in a lot of pain. It felt like my legs were burning, but I couldn't move them. I couldn't move any part of my body. I couldn't even talk. It was hard to breathe, but the girl who called the cops came over. She held my hand, talked to me and kept me going until the paramedics arrived."

  Pax's hands are so tight around me that I feel breathless. "The cops said the truck driver was driving drunk. They told me it wasn't my fault. It was the drunk driver's fault, they said. But the truth is if I hadn't turned around to yell at my parents I would have seen him. I could have saved us. But I didn't do that. I let my emotions get the best of me and my parents paid the price for it." His voice breaks. "They died instantly, Jules. They didn't suffer. But the last words they heard from their only child was 'grow up'."

  I feel something wet touch my head. "I go over what happened a million times in my head, Jules. I wish I had done things different. Sometimes I even wish I hadn't picked up their call, that someone else had gotten them instead. If it was their fate to die that night at least the last words they remember from me wouldn't be 'grow up'. It'd be something better. Something truer…"

  "Oh, Pax," I whisper, hugging him just as tightly as he was hugging me. My heart feels constricted like there's a vice clamping down on it. I feel his pain. It hurts to see him like this, so much so that I feel myself breaking even more inside.

  A logical part of me knew Pax wasn't perfect. No one is. I never imagined this though. I never imagined there was this much heart ache, this much guilt inside of him. Maybe the difference between him and me is I buried my blackness inside; I let it poison me until I became less than what I wanted to be. Pax uses his pain for something better. He didn't try to run away from it the way I did
.

  For the thousandth time, I think about what a good man Pax is. I kiss him on the mouth. I want to take away his pain the way he does for me. I want to suck up the darkness and bury it within me instead. Someone so pure shouldn't suffer. I continue kissing him, climbing on top of him. I want him to take whatever comfort my little body can provide. I want him to take any good I have and add it to his own.

  I clasp him tightly, holding him as his body shakes. I whisper my love into his ears, and on his skin. I whisper it into the air, hoping it will soak into his pores, and bury itself in his heart.

  I whisper my promise, the same promise he'd said to me: "I got you."

  I kiss him and the love between us surges higher. It feels natural for him to kiss my body, to take away all the ugliness with his mouth. I need him to do this for me, to make me remember that my body is more than my past.

  He needs something from me, too. Forgiveness. The knowledge that two imperfect people can build something together. For a long time, I wasn't sure that it's possible, but for tonight I believe it. I want him to believe it. So I touch him the way he touches me. I kiss his tears the way he kisses mine. When he's hard and ready, I ride him. I want him to be consumed by me. I want him to forget.

  Red tries to intrude, but I focus on Pax's green eyes. I focus on the soft glow inside them. I focus on it until it's all I see. There's a rhythm between our bodies, and with each minute that passes that rhythm gets louder, more intense.

  Then, when I can't take it anymore, the green bursts. Like fireworks, everything explodes inside me.

  My legs feel shaky. I can't control my body. I feel myself falling to the side, away from Pax. I'm going to hit the floor. Before I do, he catches me, his hand coming right over my chest. "I got you," he says with a smile. He rolls me onto my back, away from the edge. I grin at him, circling my arms over his neck.

  "We got each other."

  "Yeah." He touches my cheek. His fingers slip down to my chest, where my heart is still beating hard. "I want you to know something," he suddenly says. "I love you. Your past has helped shape you. It's what gives such a depth to your eyes. It's what makes each smile you give so special. We're going to work through this. Together," he emphasizes. "Do you trust me?"