Tasting, Finding, Keeping: The Story of Never

by C. M. Stunich

  22

  The next morning when I wake up, I am no longer sweetly sore but painfully sore, and I have to slap Ty hard on the arm to feel better about it. At least, to his credit, the man has breakfast waiting for me on the table that overlooks the city, perched high on a balcony I would never venture onto if it weren't for Ty. That's not to say that I'm afraid of heights but rather that before all of this happened, all of this stuff with Tyson McCabe, I craved them. I had always wanted to see what it would feel like to throw myself off, to be weightless for just a single moment in time. That's not to say that I was suicidal – or maybe I was and just didn't know it – but really, I wanted to see what it would be like to take the weight off my shoulders for awhile. With Ty here, I feel like he's sharing the burden with me and that, while the load of life's problems and insecurities will never be fully lifted, now it's not such a big deal because he's standing beside me.

  “Thanks for the shake,” I say, grabbing my second dose of strawberry. The first I didn't even get to finish because Ty shoved me up against a wall, pressed my cheek to the gold and brown wallpaper and fucked the shit out of me. It was the second best fuck of my life, topped only by the first time we made love. I don't think that one will ever lose it's number one spot, though I sure would like to see Ty try.

  “Thanks for the bake,” he says and when I stare at him with a raised eyebrow, he rushes to explain. “You know, shake and bake?” I keep staring. “Okay, not fucking funny,” he says as he blows air out from between his teeth. He's dressed to kill today, so it really doesn't matter how lame his jokes are. He's got on this long sleeved shirt which shouldn't be sexy because it covers the muscles in his arms but somehow is anyway because he wears bracelets over the top of it, and the butterflies peek out at me from the end of the sleeve, tantalizingly reclusive. Besides, the fabric is tight and clings to him, outlining his pecs and his belly muscles. He's paired it with baggy jeans that are holier-than-thou, tucked into his big, black combat boots.

  I sit in his lap because frankly, there is nowhere else I'd rather be, and lean my head against his. He doesn't know it, but last night, I heard him get up and stand on this balcony. He didn't cry, but he mourned. I could feel his melancholy energy like a storm, so I cried for him. Maybe I'm just hormonal, but to me, it seemed as if his pain was my pain. My poor Ty.

  I sip the shake and notice that there's a map on the table, marked up with red lines and little dots.

  “S'that?” I mumble around my red straw. Ty cringes which is weird enough and stuffs a miniature muffin into his mouth. Continental breakfast anyone? They have the weirdest shit.

  “It's our tour for the day,” Ty tells me and his voice is falsely cheerful like he wants to be happy but can't. I wonder what happened between now and last night.

  “Tour?”

  “The time line of my past,” he says and then pauses. “Or part of it anyway. There's some baggage back in California, but I figure if we start with this then you'll know and then I can just forget it all and move on.”

  “I don't understand.”

  “Never, I was a whore. A fucking whore. A prostitute. I fucked people for money. I did it because I didn't know what else to do. I let weakness and pain overwhelm me. I need you to see where I'm from.”

  “Just tell me about it,” I say. I don't want to visit the places that Ty frequented, run into people he might have slept with. The thought makes me sick to my stomach. Or maybe that's just Ty or Never Junior down there. “I don't want to see.”

  “Maybe not,” he tells me. “But I need you to.” I try to change the subject.

  “What about your mother's house?” I ask. Ty pretty much flat-out said we could live there, go to school, raise our kid. It sounds good in theory, but in practice, the place is a festering shit hole of crap. Worse than the actual garbage are the memories that Ty is going to have dredged up by the whole process. What if we find things in there? Things that he doesn't want to see? That he isn't ready to see?

  “We'll clean it out, together,” he tells me, voice strong and confident, like he's made up his mind and there is no going back. It's a false sense of security that could crumble at any moment. I need to be the mortar that holds it all together. “And if it's liveable,” he says and then chokes on the word. That house has a lot of bad memories in it. I wonder if that's such a wise idea. “We move in. If not, we sell the property as is, retreat back to Cali and make a go of it.”

  “Can you live there?” I ask him. “Can you honestly tell me that the ghosts of your past won't haunt you?”

  “They might,” he says, but I can tell he's already thought about it. “But I'm willing to bet my sanity on the fact that you and me, we could handle it. It's a house, Never. If my mom hasn't fully fucked it, then it's a historical freaking landmark, an heirloom that my grandmother left us, so that we'd have a fighting chance in this world. It'll be ours, just ours, free and fucking clear. We can go to school and raise our kid without having rent as a fucking overhead.” He pauses here for dramatic effect. “And I can even buy you Baby Einstein episodes or some shit.” I laugh, but he isn't done. Ty stands up, taking me with him and leans me up against the railing, not on it per se because I can feel that he isn't willing to risk me thirty stories up. He lets me feel the wind in my hair and his warm breath on my neck. “Or maybe some sexy lingerie to wear when you're big and pregnant?” I slap him lightly. “No? How about some classical music to make sure the brat's smart?”

  “Ty,” I say, but I laugh because I can't help it. Ty makes me want to laugh. “You're an asshole,” I tell him and he nods like this is common knowledge.

  “That's true,” he says. “But I'm an asshole that's engaged to you, bound and determined to stick by your side forever. You are pretty much stuck with me whether you like it or not, babe.”

  “I like it,” I reassure him.

  “Then come with me and let me show you my dark side.”

  “I've already seen it,” I whisper, my voice suddenly hoarse.

  “No,” he tells me. “You haven't. And I need you to.” Here he pauses and plays his sympathy card. I pretend that it's the only one he's got, but in reality, he has as many as he needs. “Please, Nev. I can't confront my mom, and I sure as fuck can't confront that douche bag of a husband she dragged out of the gutter, not until I get to hell anyway, but I can confront the streets and the life that nearly killed me. Tell me you'll come with. If you don't, I'm afraid I'll get stuck again.” Even though Ty's already got my heartstrings wrapped around his fingers, he tugs on them with his eyes, giving me this look that is so fucking puppy dogs and kitty cats sappy that I have no choice but to relent.

  “Okay,” I say. “But in exchange, I want a tattoo.”

  “No.” Ty says that single word with such force that we both cringe. And then I get pissy because I'm not going to play pregnant bitch to his masculine stud.

  “You gonna stop me?” I ask as I push away from him and drop to the cement floor beneath our feet. Ty looks at me defiantly.

  “Remember how I said I wasn't into tying chicks up?”

  “You're a weirdo,” I begin, but he isn't done.

  “I am now. If you try to get a tat, I will tie you up and pleasure you fiercely for days. Tattoos are bad news for babies, Nev. How about after it's born? I'll save some fuck money for you.” I don't tell Ty that his threat is actually kind of tempting. Instead, I cross my arms defiantly and glare. After all, I am Never Ross and that's what I do. I am an ornery bitch with a dirty past and a whole shit ton of rage just waiting to break loose.

  “Not good enough,” I say as I cross my arms over my chest and hear the distinct ringing of my phone from inside the hotel room. “A piercing?” Ty shakes his head.

  “Even worse.”

  “What then?” I ask him and he grins.

  “Remember what you said about marking me … ?”

  23

  A few hours later, Ty walks out of the tattoo parlor with Never say Never tattooed across the back
of his neck. He says it didn't hurt, but I don't believe him. I'm getting good at reading McCabe's body language, identifying the slight muscle twitches in his face, the curl of his ringed fingers, the pacing of his breath. It hurt like a bitch, but he did it for me.

  “I would've put Property of Never Regali-Ross-McCabe or whatever the hell else you might've wanted. It didn't have to be so subtle,” he tells me, but already, I'm shaking my head. I didn't have him get a more specific tattoo not because I was afraid we might break up one day or because I was afraid it was too personal or anything that stupid and shallow. I had him get that tattoo because it's like an inside joke between us, something that others will see but few will understand. For Ty and myself, there is no breaking up or separating. We are not just engaged; we are entangled. And now we're starting to develop our own language, a language spoken in cryptic phrases and subtle shoulder rolls. Like any good couple, we're developing. This tattoo is just a part of a larger picture.

  “I know,” I tell him. “And that's one of the reasons that I love you so much.” Ty sighs and puts a hand over his heart, batting his long, dark eyelashes at me.

  “Say it again,” he tells me as we pass through crowds of people who are so similar in their actions that it's eerie, almost as if they're extras in a movie, following the director's shouted orders. They have two choices: stare straight ahead with eyes wide and faces tense, pretend they're not interested in anything when what's really happening is that they're dying for something, and the others, well, they walk with their faces buried in their devices, glowing screens highlighting their tired, overworked faces. Welcome to New York.

  “I love you,” I say simply and am pleased at the reaction on Ty's face, the warm, fuzzy look that makes him shiver and press my knuckles to his lips. My bracelets, the ones that Ty gave me this morning, ring like bells. They're silver with purple stripes and they match my shirt so perfectly that I'm sure that Ty's had this planned for awhile. We match, just enough that we look like we belong together; not so much that we look related. It's a nice place to be. “I want a butterfly tattoo,” I admit to him as we walk down the street, hand in hand, towards the place where Ty says the story of his life as a street worker really begins. “Something big, something bright.” I pause and see that Ty's smile is slipping and not because of me. He's trying to look at me, to pay attention, but in the last few seconds, something else has caught his eye. It takes me awhile to figure out what it is, but as we cross the street, I finally realize. It's an apartment building.

  It towers above us, a cheerless rectangle of red-brown stucco and glass with balconies galore, most of them filled to the brim with potted plants, BBQs and bistro tables. There's nothing special about it, at least not to me. It's a fairly new building, not too high end but certainly not anything you might call questionable. People come and go in droves, leading children by the hands and dogs by leashes as they move from cabs to revolving glass doors and back again.

  “Here,” Ty tells me as he stops next to a coffee shop that sits smashed between a small boutique and a shoe store. It looks small but cozy, intimate, like the coffee they sell just has to be good because the place is so damn cute. “I want to stop here and tell you my story.”

  24

  I was such a naïve, little fuck. I really, truly believed that my mother would dump the douche and come looking for me, take me into her arms and tell me she was sorry for everything. Sorry that she'd killed my one and only friend in the world, that she'd been distracted with devils but was now singing choir with fucking angels.

  What a load of shit.

  I survived for awhile by dumpster diving and hanging out at the library. Sometimes I went to school; mostly I didn't.

  Then I met Hannah.

  Let me tell you about Hannah first because you're going to judge her which is fine because to be honest, she has problems, lots of them. She likes young boys. Not like little kid young, but too young, thirteen, fourteen. When I met her I told her I was fifteen; she knew I was lying.

  Hannah felt sorry for me because I was dirty and unwashed, my clothes stank, and I was getting skinny as hell. I was not the type of twelve-just-turned-thirteen year old that they write adventure books about, that survive in the wilderness with nothing but a fuckin' hatchet. I had no life skills of which to speak, and a terrible desperation to be rescued. That's why I fell for Hannah.

  The first time she met me, she bought me food and clothes and gave me her phone number. The second time she met me, she took me up to her apartment and let me stay the night on her couch. I snuck out before she woke up and remembered I was there. The third time I met Hannah, she gave me a hundred dollars to go into her bedroom and have sex with her. I had my first time right up there on the twenty-second floor with a woman ten years my senior with psychological problems galore and a very deep connection with the local sex scene.

  I spent fifty of that hundred bucks at the arcade and used the rest to buy shitty fuck food from the store. It had been fun, Hannah was chill, and needless to say, I was hooked.

  25

  Ty sips his black coffee, savoring the taste in his mouth, eyes closed, lips pursed. I ignore mine and peel my eyes away from him, so that I'm staring into the steaming mug and not at the memories on his face. If Ty were a mirror, I would be seeing my own reflection of shame and mistakes and missteps. He is just like me, and I think that's why this hurts so much. I know exactly what he's going through, what he went through, and how those memories can sometimes feel like a noose around your neck.

  “Whatever happened to Hannah?” I ask as Ty's dark eyes are revealed ever so slowly as his lids draw apart and his face goes white-as-fuck. He even drops his cup and hot, scalding coffee goes everywhere. He stands and curses, but he doesn't take his eyes off of the space behind my head. When I turn, I feel as if I'm moving in slow motion, stuck in the time warp that is Ty's memory and frozen there with shackles of pain on my wrists and ankles.

  There is a woman standing in the doorway with pretty, honey colored curls that frame her pale face. She has long, thin lips that would look out of place on most people but which fit her pointy chin and dangerously sharp cheekbones. She's older than Ty and me, but she isn't old, not really. I'm guessing that she's in her early thirties. That she lives on the twenty-second floor of the apartment building that Ty could not stop staring at. That her name is Hannah.

  She recognizes him right away, I can tell. Her pastel green eyes find his dark ones and get stuck there the same way that his are stuck on hers. My baby goes crazy, pushing bile into my throat and making me feel like I'm going to pass out from dizziness. He's only a month old and the little fuck is trying to tear me down. I stand up suddenly and stumble. Ty is there, of course. Not even the sight of his first trick can make him forget me. I know that and yet, I want to fucking kill Hannah. I want to murder her in the middle of the quaint little coffee shop on the West-East-Whatever Side of Who-the-Fuck-Cares New York district. I want to pick up the knife that the lady sitting nearest to me is using to butter her croissant, and I want to stab Hannah between the eyes.

  Is it jealousy? Maybe. Is it disgust? Oh fuck yeah, it's that, too.

  You corrupted him, I think, knowing there are worse ways to be corrupted. You pushed him down a hill that it's taken years to climb back up. He doesn't love you, and he never will. When he moved inside you, it was without thought, a simple, primal function that he could not understand because he wasn't old enough, you cow.

  “Hannah,” Ty says as he lifts me up and tucks me under his chin, soaking my shirt and skirt with coffee. One of the baristas is handing Ty a wet cloth with one hand and mopping up his mess with the other. I feel sorry for her.

  “Tyson,” she says, giving me the distinct impression that Ty took on his nickname later in life. I can see why he dislikes being called Tyson. It reminds him of this. “Funny seeing you here,” she says nonchalantly, like she didn't devirginize a freaking child. I want Ty to scream at her, to beat her up, to call her out on her d
irty deeds. Instead, he smiles. It's dimple free, but it's still a smile. “I heard you'd moved to California?”

  “I did,” he says simply, and since he isn't paying any attention to the barista, I'm the one that has to take the wet cloth and clean us up. “But I'm thinking of moving back.” I press the cloth pretty forcefully against his chest. In a city this large, we just happened to stumble upon this bitch? I find that pretty hard to believe. Say something, Never.

  I spin around and manage to grab Hannah's eyes. In her, I see pain reflected back at me. She is the way she is because something – or more likely someone – made her that way. The thought makes me sick, but I can't feel sympathetic towards someone that would fuck a thirteen year old homeless kid. It just isn't happening. I hold Hannah's eyes with a fiery gaze, lock her into my orbit until she starts to fidget and look around the room, trying to find something other than me to focus on. She stares at the oversized, burgundy velvet armchairs in the corner next to planter boxes filled with bamboo. She marvels at the floor to ceiling shelves of coffee in bags and cans and cups. She enjoys the local artwork on the wall, the framed bits of paper that look like scribbles but have four digit price tags. Hannah looks at anything but Ty and me.

  “I guess we better be going,” Ty says from behind me, and as soon as I hear his voice, I snap out of my death glare and turn to him, wanting to throw myself in his arms and claim him. The only thing that keeps me calm is the tattoo. Knowing that he's marked permanently with ink makes me feel better. Still, my behavior is a bit alarming, and I'm forced to blame it on the pregnancy to avoid guilt. I have a feeling I'll be doing that a lot for the next few months. Could be my lack of nicotine though. Actually, there's a very, very good chance that it may be that.