by Cole McCade
“Ah, little mouse,” he said. “How did we end up here?”
She smiled and shrugged. “Life shook us up and rolled the dice, and this is where we landed.”
“Was it life, or us?”
“A little of both. In a lot of ways, I put myself here. I couldn’t stay where I was. Most people would think I had the perfect life. Maybe I did.” She trailed off, eyes lidding. “And it was suffocating me.”
“Complacence and numb acceptance and loveless apathy,” he said softly. “Those were your words, weren’t they?”
“Yeah. It’s funny how we can have things other people only dream of, but we’re still not happy. I mean…I had everything, but what had I done to deserve it?” She wrinkled her nose. “I guess I could’ve done like all the other rich wives from the breeding pool. Set up a charity foundation. Hosted mixers where I wore dresses that cost more than the GBP per capita of Algeria. But it felt so pointless and self-indulgent. If I was going to indulge myself, I wasn’t going to do it by making a mockery of the people I was claiming to help.”
Gabriel made a disgusted sound. “I’m quite familiar with that form of ‘charity.’”
“Yeah?”
“My mother’s friends were quite well-off. We weren’t, but we were comfortable. Middle class. We wanted for nothing, even if all our wants were simple things.”
He spoke with such regretful fondness that she wondered where his parents were, if they were another story of once, long ago, but didn’t dare ask. Not when the answer was in his sister dying alone, that article that said last living relative, and she didn’t want to draw that pain out of him again.
“They were always trying to give us a hand up that we didn’t need and didn’t ask for,” he continued. “They had ideas about the hinóno’éí, notions about our brown skin, and couldn’t stop congratulating themselves long enough to see we didn’t need a hand out of the dirt when we had our feet firmly planted in the earth.” His upper lip curled. “It’s patronizing. We were a proud family. And my mother lost many friends.”
“With friends like that…”
“Exactly, little mouse.”
Leigh toyed with a ridge in the sheets, snaring it around her fingers. “I don’t remember ever having friends.”
“Not one?”
“Maybe in college. People I partied with, at least. No one I really trusted. No one to confide in. I’ve just…never been good at connecting with people. I needed to render them down into something I could easily compartmentalize, and keep at a distance. Shallow motivations and simple dissections.” A glance at him revealed a steady gaze, that same quiet lack of judgment that made it so easy to tell him things she’d never told anyone else. To tell him, “Jacob…wouldn’t let me have friends anyway. Not unless they were his. The kind of people I would have liked to be friends with, well…he wouldn’t have approved of.”
“People like me,” Gabriel said.
“Yeah. People like you. And Gary.” She smiled slightly. “And this funny old circus guy in the dress shop. Wally. I’d like to be his friend. And the pawn shop lady with the tattoos.”
“Maxi.”
“You know her?”
“She’s brought her car in for work a few times. It’s this horrible old pickup. Death trap. But she won’t get rid of it.”
“It’s funny how in such a big city, we’re connected by such short distances.”
“There’s a city underneath the city,” Gabriel murmured. “A small dark place where all the runoff collects, where the people above us don’t want to look. The gutters where they throw their trash.” He caught a lock of her hair and lifted it to his lips. “Nothing’s so far away, in the gutters.”
She leaned closer to him, tilting her face up to his. “Is that what we are, then? Gutter trash?”
“Maybe.” He stole a kiss, that sweet barely-there brush of lips to lips. “But sometimes you find gold in the gutters. Something that never belonged there in the first place.”
“I belong here.”
“Then why are you leaving?”
She flinched. He might as well have slapped her, punching the easy warmth away to leave a gray, dull chill. “I don’t know how to answer that.” She pulled back from him and curled up against the pillows. “Maybe I’m…I’m looking for how I want to die.”
He frowned. “Leigh.”
“No—no, it’s not like that.” She shook her head quickly. “It’s just…all the things we do to ourselves—cigarettes, fast food, drugs, plastic surgery—it’s…well, it’s all just choosing how we’re going to die, isn’t it? If we’re all going to die, maybe the best freedom you can give yourself is choosing how.” She hugged her legs to her chest and looked down at her bony, pale pink knees. “Maybe I chose death by sex. I think a lot of women have that fantasy, of being the goddess and the whore. The unrepentant slut. I just…wanted to live it for a while, before I decided what to do with myself.”
“Wanted.” Soft, yet so very pointed. “Yet you don’t want that anymore?”
“I don’t know what I want anymore.” She lifted her head, looking at him, ignoring the deep, quiet whisper that said she knew damned well what she wanted, and she was running away from it. “I guess I’ll figure it out when I get there.”
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
THE STRANGEST THING WAS LYING in the dark, and knowing he wasn’t sleeping. Because she wasn’t sleeping. Because she was counting the seconds that slipped by, and asking herself what she was doing. She didn’t even know what she was running from anymore; only that if she didn’t run, she would go insane and destroy the last fragile bonds of warmth she had in this world. Because she was afraid.
And when she was afraid, she lashed out.
Leaving was the only thing she could do, even if every time she repeated it to herself her reasons why grew quieter and quieter, drowned out by the warmth of Gabriel’s heartbeat and that sound of waves on the hull—a sound she wanted to listen to forever. She was too much of a hot mess for this. She needed to go somewhere where she could be a stranger again, sort herself out, start over. Figure out what she was doing with her life before she tried to include someone else in it. And maybe one day, she could come back. One day when she could be someone good for herself, good for Gabriel…good for Elijah, good enough to maybe have a chance to get him back.
Yet she knew if Gabriel asked her to stay right here, right now, she might just say yes.
But he didn’t ask. He didn’t say anything, and she closed her eyes and willed herself to sleep. It was better this way, she told herself. To remember this the way it was, instead of watching it degrade in a slow downward spiral into familiarity, then contempt, then hate.
“Gabriel?” she whispered, and he shifted with a low sound.
“Hm?”
Say it. Say it. But her lips couldn’t shape the words, and she only shook her head and burrowed deeper into him. “Nothing.”
He didn’t answer, and she hated that she knew why.
Toward dawn, she managed to drift off into a restless sleep—and the moment Gabriel rose, she stirred awake, rolling over into the warm spot he’d left behind and curling up there to cling to his scent. He pulled his boxer-briefs and jeans on, then walked away without looking back, his lazy saunter taking him through the gold square of sunlight spilling through the door, then away.
Tybalt wiggled up to snuggle against her. Leigh curled around her, buried her face in the cat’s fur, and tried to ignore the crumbling cracks in her heart.
“Guess I deserved that, huh?”
“Mrrrrp.”
The boat trembled as the engine started, and its swaying deepened; she felt the hard lean as it pulled out from shore, before it smoothed out to a quiet rumble and rocking sway. She stayed in bed for as long as she could stand it, then crawled out, stretching out her sore body until her limbs agreed to move enough to pull her sundress back on.
She straggled out to the wheelhouse. Gabriel stood at the helm, his shoulders stiff, the mo
rning sun gilding his sleep-tousled hair and pouring in a river of amber down the groove of his spine. She bit her lip and settled next to him, leaning arm to arm and reaching up to trace her fingertips over the stark lines of his tattoo.
“Hi,” she said softly.
She almost thought he would ignore her. But then he exhaled heavily, taut shoulders relaxing, his arm shifting to settle around her shoulders. “Did I wake you?”
“Not really. Had trouble sleeping.”
“Yeah. Me too.” He leaned into her subtly, yet there was so much unsaid in that silent gesture. Remote, shuttered eyes remained fixed on the river. “You want breakfast?”
“Not really hungry, either.”
“Do you need to be back by a certain time?”
“No.” She turned her face into his side, and breathed in his darkly rugged scent. “I just…need to go.”
In silence, they leaned on each other and watched the river disappear under the boat like highway under churning tires. Overhanging trees and tangled gray streamers of moss gave way to ramshackle buildings, then docks and tents and boathouses that leaned on each other as if they were the only things holding each other up. Leigh couldn’t stand the silence, but didn’t know what she’d say.
Gabriel took the chance away from her; his arm fell away, only to twine his hand with hers. “Tell me why,” he whispered. “Is it wrong to need a reason?”
“The same reason I always leave,” she admitted, after a broken, wordless, momentary struggle with herself. “Because I’m afraid. I used to think it was some…bullshit about freedom, but it’s just fear. It’s why I left Jacob, and Elijah. Because I was afraid one day the whitewashed pointlessness of it all would push me over the brink. If I went to one more society party or picked out one more cocktail dress, I’d snap like Susan Smith and stab Jacob with a kitchen knife—then put Elijah in the car and drive into a lake. And that beautiful little boy would be gone forever and maybe I would be, too, but I’m not the one who matters. He is.” She squeezed Gabriel’s hand. “You are. Because with you I’m afraid I’ll see awful things in everything you do and say, because awful things are all I know. I’m afraid I’m too broken to be good for you, and in trying I’m just going to hate myself more, and turn that hate on you. I can’t let you be a casualty of my hate and ugliness, and this unanswered need I’m always trying to fill.” She exhaled a wet, shaking breath. “I just…can’t.”
He tilted his head back, closing his eyes, tired lines etching around his brows and mouth. “All this time I thought you were afraid of me,” he said. “When you’re really afraid of yourself.”
“Something like that.” She smiled faintly. “Spoiled little white girl problems.”
“I hate when you talk about yourself that way.”
“Yeah?” She let go of his hand, and drifted out onto the deck to let the thick-scented, muggy morning breeze wash over her face. “You’d be the first.”
The boat nosed up to the pier. The engine cut. Gabriel stepped out onto the deck and looped the mooring line around a post, while Leigh retrieved the notepad she’d dropped last night. He helped her down to the weathered planks, before vaulting down after her. The Firebird waited in its parking slot. Gabriel looked over Leigh’s head—at the car, at the horizon, anywhere but at her.
“Did you want a ride?” he asked tightly, and she shook her head with a small smile.
“I’d rather walk. Just…one more time.”
He only nodded, his fingers curling at his sides. Leigh swallowed her nerves and stepped closer, resting her hands to his chest.
“Please,” she said. “Please at least tell me goodbye without hating me.”
He went hard as stone beneath her touch, and she felt herself breaking, the mask of her smile cracking. If it shattered, she’d fall apart. This wasn’t supposed to hurt. Walking away was the one thing she was good at, but this time she would just be a husk moving on with all the meat and bones and blood of her left behind, held together by the bonds that kept her tangled here.
“Leigh.” Gabriel’s head hung. He gathered her hands in his, and kissed their palms, tickling her palms with each soft touch. “I won’t ask you to stay. Not if it’s not what you want.”
“That doesn’t mean you don’t mean it,” she whispered.
“Where will you go?”
“I don’t know. New Orleans, maybe. Somewhere with a big, black, muddy river just like the Corvus. I want to see the parades in March.” Her lips ached, but she kept that frozen smile with all her might. “There’s a picture in the bar, of Gary in Jackson Square. I want to stand under the same statue, and ask some stranger to take a picture of me.” She hesitated, licking her lips, then ventured, “Maybe I can text it to you or something. You know. Stay in touch.”
“I don’t really do cellphones. Call me old-fashioned.” His gaze drifted to the boat; the morning breeze skimmed his hair across his face. “When I’m out on this boat…I don’t want the world crawling in with me.” He let go of her hands and stepped back. “Besides. I don’t like hanging on to maybes.”
“Yeah,” Leigh said, so hollow inside the word came with its own howling echo. “I get what you mean.”
They stood like that, neither looking at the other, the thread of tension between them winding tighter and tighter until, if it didn’t snap soon, Leigh would scream. Right. Time for her to go, then. Just rip the Band-Aid off and do it. Leave. It was her decision, so she shouldn’t be dragging this out.
She wrapped her arms around herself as if she could keep her heart inside her chest, and tried one more smile. “I’d…better get moving. But…I just…thank you.”
“For what?”
“For…” This time when she smiled, the strings in her heart pulled tight until they quivered like a violin, singing soft and sweet and true throughout her. “For making me feel like no matter how many times my wings break…one day, they might just grow back.”
He said nothing. She shouldn’t have expected him to. Okay, then. Breathe deep. She curled her hands into her elbows until her nails dug in and broke skin, just so she wouldn’t reach for him. Her legs were leaden, but she lifted them, turned away, took that first step, then another, another, and if she could just get far enough away she might be able to run.
“Wait,” Gabriel said.
Leigh stopped and turned back quickly, a please on her lips. Say it, please. But Gabriel was swinging up onto the houseboat’s deck and disappearing inside the cabin. He emerged moments later with a clothbound hardcover in his hands. Blue, faded and dusty. The pages fanned, and he plucked a photo from between them and tucked it against the front window of the wheelhouse, before leaping down from the deck to the docks again. He stalked toward her, tension vibrating in the lines of his shoulders.
“Here.” He thrust the book at her, practically scowling; the gold leaf reading The Witch of Blackbird Pond shimmered in the sun. “Take it.”
“Gabriel? I…I can’t, your sister…”
“Gave it to me so I would remember her.” His jaw clamped, stubborn as ever. “And now I’m giving it to you for the same reason.”
“Oh.” Leigh took the book gingerly, feeling like her touch would filthy it, but then hugged it close to her chest with the notepad sandwiched between. “Thank you. But…I wouldn’t have forgotten you. Even without the book.”
“Just take it,” he said raggedly, and ran his fingers through his hair. “You’re not the only one who needs to learn to let go of some things. Leigh, I…” He swore. “Nevermind.”
“Say it. Please.”
But he only shook his head. “I won’t pretend to understand this. Why you need to leave. Why you can’t just face your demons here. The people who care about you aren’t as fragile as you think we are. I can take being a punching bag.” He dragged his hands over his face, voice muffled. “I just can’t take you leaving.”
Only because her hands were full did Leigh keep from reaching for him, wrapping her arms around him, clinging to him.
She couldn’t. Because he was right: he’d be nothing but a punching bag, beaten out of shape by the time she was done with him.
“I’m sorry.” How many times had she said those words, when they only grew more bitter each time? “Don’t you ever want a life without burden? Without entanglements, or obligations?”
“No. Maybe those things hurt, sometimes. But it’s the pains of life that remind us we’re real.”
He stepped closer, filling her world with his scent, with that warmth that radiated from him like an inferno. His knuckles grazed her cheek, and she knew: this was the last time he would ever touch her. The last time he would ever kiss her, and she leaned into him with everything she had as he traced her mouth with worshipful caresses, plying her lips and staining his taste into her skin. She held every moment tight and locked it away inside her where she would never forget, even when his chocolate and smoke flavor turned salty with the hot, bitter taste of her tears.
He drew back, and brushed his thumb along one damp line coursing down her cheek. “When you’re ready for something real,” he said, “come find me.”
She stood there, watching him walk away from her, searching for her courage. The courage to stay. The courage to say what she couldn’t say, but every ounce of bravery deserted her. She took a single step after him.
“Gabriel.”
Stillness. Silence. He paused, but she could almost see the thin leash stretched between them, pulled taut to the point of snapping and barely holding him there.
“Last night you said we all have things we’re afraid of. Tell me. Tell me what you were afraid of.”
He tilted his head, looking back at the sky, fingers curling tight until white knuckles stood out against bronzed skin.
“Don’t you know?” he asked hoarsely. “It’s happening right now.”
He leaped onto the houseboat and yanked the line free, before pushing off from the dock with a sharp, angry shove.
The last she saw of him was his back, disappearing into the cabin as the boat drifted out into the current.
Leigh gagged on the heavy lump of a sob that filled her throat from the inside like a hard bubble. Fuck. Fuck, she’d just…this was why she shouldn’t be here. Because she did and said all the wrong things, and staying would mean just more days of hurting Gabriel just like this.
