by Evelyn Glass
“Good for her,” I mutter, rising to my feet. “I better get back to work.”
As I leave his office, I feel his eyes on my ass. When I felt Killian’s eyes, my body came alive. When I feel Lucca’s eyes, it dies a little.
I sit in front of my easel, old newspapers laid out on the floor around me, my paintbrush in my hand. I don’t paint portraits or true life, though I’m a realist. I don’t look and paint; I paint from my mind—or maybe from my heart, depending on how you look at it. But it’s all academic, because today I’m not painting at all. I sit here, staring at the canvas, willing something to happen, and nothing does. I hold my paintbrush, willing it to move, and it doesn’t. I just sit here, looking at the blank paper, my heartbeat getting faster and faster and faster, my belly like a pit.
I can’t paint, I think numbly. That’s it. I’m done.
When I try to think of something to paint—when I try to think of anything these days—my mind is pulled toward That Night. That Night is so important now, so all-consuming. That Night is all I can think about. It plays over and over and over and over . . . On a continuous loop that shows no sign of being interrupted.
How did I get the drugs?
Surely I’d remember something.
He wouldn’t even give me a chance to explain myself.
I didn’t take anything.
Am I going mad?
Have I always been mad?
Are Dawn and I on a seesaw; when one of us is doing well, does the other have to be doing terribly?
Focus—
I can’t focus.
Focus—
I’ll never be able to focus again.
I didn’t take the drugs.
And then I take a breath, and it repeats:
How did I get the drugs?
And while these thoughts are firing through my head, the events of the night are a movie in my mind’s eye. Painting anything, doing anything that requires more concentration than restaurant work, is too difficult.
I stand up, meaning to carefully take down the easel and pick up the newspaper. But then a shard of anger shoots into my chest. I see red. The couch, the TV, the door, the carpet, it’s red. All of it is red.
I kick over the easel and throw the paintbrush at the wall, where it leaves a red streak. I Frisbee the paint platter across the room, where it leaves red streaks on the couch. Then I kick the newspaper sheets, like they’re dead brown leaves, kick and kick and kick until my leg is tired.
When Dawn comes home, I’m sitting in the armchair at the window, just as she was those months ago, when I came in.
She comes to me, kneels down, and takes my hands in hers.
“I love you, sissy,” she says. “And it will get better.” She squeezes my hands in hers. “I promise you, it will get better.”
“I just need to know,” I growl. “I just need to know.”
Dawn says nothing to that, just squeezes my hands once more and then rises to her feet. Then she goes around the room, clearing up the mess I made.
Although Dawn supports me, she doesn’t believe me.
No one believes me.
When Dawn has cleaned up, she sits on the arm of the chair and wraps her arms around my head, clumsy like she did when she was a toddler. Then she kisses my forehead.
“I love you,” she whispers.
“I love you, too,” I reply.
Not that it changes a damn thing.
I used some of the cash I had left over from Killian buying my paintings to buy a secondhand car. It’s not a hot pink Mustang, but it works, and that’s something. After work, I sit in it, looking down Main Street as one or two people walk through the darkness toward their apartments, down the road to the bus stop, where two kids sit, wearing hoodies, sipping out of clear bottles. I rub my hands together, blow into them, wishing that the car’s heating worked.
What has come to me again and again is the fact that there’s nothing I can do, no defense I can erect.
But what comes to me tonight is an overwhelming feeling of nostalgia. I keep thinking of the night in the ferris wheel, the night Killian gave me the money, the night we made love—who am I kidding? The night we fucked, animal-style, for the first time. I keep thinking about the excitement and the feeling of danger and how wild and carefree it all was. I wonder if it can ever be like that again and the answer doesn’t thrill me. It’s a cold, puncturing no.
Because Killian is not coming back. He’s done with me; maybe he’s found somebody else.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t remember, does it? That doesn’t mean I can’t close my eyes and think of all the pleasure we shared together, the small smiles, the secret moments, something as simple as running my finger along his knuckles, something as simple as him kissing the nape of my neck. Moments I never realized would become this important to me.
Then I realize that I can do one better than just sitting here and remembering. Maybe going there will help me. Maybe it will start the chain reaction which will eventually lead to closure.
I turn the key in the ignition. The car coughs and shudders, the engine rattles, but it comes to life.
I sit in the vibrating car for a few minutes, staring out at the night-black street. It’s like there’s a hook in my chest. One end is looped around the ferris wheel, the other is buried in my heart, tugging at me.
It’s late, but that doesn’t matter.
I have to go there, if only to remember.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Killian
Since that night on the boat, I’ve made a conscious effort not to run into Hope. I haven’t ridden by her apartment or the restaurant. In fact, I’ve avoided Main Street entirely, instead using a byroad to get to and from the club. If I have to go through the Cove, I go around instead. The thought of seeing her has been too much to handle.
Now, the thought of not seeing her is too much to handle. Ever since Patrick told me about how Lucca roared at her and how she did nothing, about her lack of paintings, I have ached for her. Ached, like I’m not the leader of a biker club, but some love-struck teenager, unable to let a woman go. This isn’t me. But I think it’s time to accept that I’ll never be the ‘me’ I was before Hope; she changed me.
And there’s Lindsey, too. If Patrick is right, if she really was hanging around Hope, I need to see it for myself. I know how dangerous Lindsey can be. She proved that to me with a fire-filled house. If Lindsey, out of jealously or a sick sense of ownership or something psychotic thing I can’t get at, is hunting Hope, I need to stop her. I know the chances are low, but low or not, I can’t ignore them.
But is that an excuse, Killian? Are you really just desperate to see her, and this is what you’re telling yourself so you don’t feel like a weak man?
I ignore the voice and saddle up. It’s late, the time Hope sometimes finishes work. I’ll go to the restaurant and wait. If she’s not there, I’ll wait outside of her apartment. Maybe I’ll see Lindsey without seeing Hope. If that happens, I’ll deal with it. Deal with it how? I’m not about to kill a woman.
Screw it, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
I kick my bike into life just as Gunny pulls into the clubhouse parking lot. “Business, boss?” he asks, smiling. Every Numb is smiling lately. Like Declan said, it’s a Golden Age.
“You could say that,” I grunt, my bike growling onto the road and toward Rocky Cove, toward Main Street, and toward Hope.
I sit in the same car park I sat the night of the envelope, watching the restaurant. Parked just down the road is an old junk car. I’m guessing it’s the car Patrick described to me, Hope’s car. I scan the street, looking for Lindsey, making sure to look for a shaved, braided woman. Lindsey had long, thin white hair when we were together; it’s difficult to imagine her looking like a Viking warrior.
But if Lindsey is anywhere on Main Street, I don’t see her. Only a few pedestrians and a couple of kids in the bus shelter. I move my bike to the back of the parking lot, where I can see Ho
pe’s car, but where she most likely won’t see me, unless she gazes purposefully into the darkness.
About ten minutes later, Hope emerges from Berelli’s Gourmet. My breath catches. One moment, I’m making hot foggy breath in the cold air; the next the air around me is clear and I’m choking. She’s wearing a thick hoodie which reaches down to her knees, the sleeves baggy. She looks tiny, smaller than she ever has before, with her cold pink elfin face poking out of the hoodie, her perfect tights-clad legs poking out beneath it.
With an effort, I let out my breath.
I want to go to her, I realize. The urge is so strong my legs begin to jig, as though I ‘ve just heard a song I want damn hard to dance to. My knees bob up and down and I have to force myself to stay seated on my bike. She walks to the junk car, her heels clicking on the pavement.
I expect her to drive away when she’s in the car, but she just sits there for a few minutes. I suppose she’s thinking. Thinking about the drugs she’s going to take when she gets home? a bitter part of my mind barks. But I don’t think that’s it. Her face, at least from here, looks healthy, full of life. She’s strong, much stronger than I am. Being apart from her has made me half-mad. She looks defiant. She looks like she’s ready for a fight.
She just sits in the car, rubbing her hands together. Finally, the old car croaks to life. I think she’ll do a U-turn and drive home, but instead she drives north.
North, I think. Why is she going north?
I rev my bike and follow.
I follow at a distance, never once turning on my lights, and keeping the engine quiet.
Hope cruises along with her high-beams blaring, her car causing a racket. It doesn’t matter; the road is deserted. Plus it makes her easier to follow. I know where she’s going as soon as we’re out of the Cove. It’s the only place she would be going in this direction, unless she’s buried a body out here. She’s going to the amusement park. I’m sure of it.
I follow the bright lights of her car, trying to figure out what she’s thinking in there. Does she miss me? When I saw her come out of the restaurant, she didn’t look particularly distraught. But then I was on the other side of the road, at the back of the lot. Maybe I saw what I wanted to see in her face. Or maybe she is distraught, but she’s too strong to let it show.
Does she still want me? I wonder.
I know I have no right to ask the question; I’m the one who pushed her away.
But I can’t help it. I’m desperate for the answer.
I’m amazed that she remembers the way. She turns directly onto the dirt track and starts driving. The bumping of her car, which I’m guessing doesn’t have great suspension, echoes loudly into the night. I wait at the start of the track, listening to her car, sitting with the kickstand of my bike lowered.
When her car stops bouncing along the track, I ride my bike slowly and quietly toward the amusement park. She came here to remember us, I think, and the thought makes me wish she was in my arms now, that I was stroking her hair and kissing her forehead. But the thought is not strong enough to make me forget how she looked high. Not nearly strong enough.
“Hello, old friend,” I whisper when I reach the clown.
Her car is parked at an angle near the entrance. Parked how it is, looking how it does, and sitting beneath the decrepit entrance to the park, it looks abandoned.
I stop my bike, kick the stand, and make my way into the park.
I walk slowly, not wanting her to see me. Partly because I’m angry with her—furious with her, still—but partly it’s because if she sees me, I may break. If she sees me, and I see her, and we are here—here, the location of our first date—my affection for her might override my anger. And I can’t allow that to happen. I won’t break my code. I can’t. It’s not who I am.
I hug the side of the causeway, and then there’s a rustle to my left, two stalls over. I turn, and see someone—a woman-shaped figure—fleeing away from me, toward the ghost train. Hope? But why is she running?
I creep after her, keeping my head tilted, listening. I walk past candy floss stalls and throw-a-beanbag booths—which make me think of Dad—the abandoned bumper carts and a defaced figure of a child, the text once reading ‘Are you this tall?’ and now reading ‘rott’ where somebody has scrawled out letters. The child’s eyes have been scrawled over with red pen, making him look like a demon child. And horns have been drawn on top of his head.
I walk past the devil to the ghost train.
When I reach it—set on bricks, the glass shattered, the slats crumbling—a sound comes from the train tunnel, a rustling, and then—
“Ha-he-ha-he!”
It’s too quiet for me to tell if it’s Hope, but it must be, surely? I didn’t see anyone else driving here, and as far as I know, no homeless stay here. What would be the point? It’s in the middle of nowhere, without any place to work or beg or steal or socialize or drink or anything. I think about calling out, but something stops me. On the off chance that it isn’t Hope, I don’t want to give myself away.
For a moment, I almost reach into my jacket and take out my gun. But I don’t do that, either. Because if it is Hope—and it is, surely it is—I don’t want to accidentally shoot her.
Empty-handed, I walk past the train, past the booth, and into the old tunnel of the ghost train.
The tunnel is lightless. Not just dark, but completely pitch-fucking-black. I take out my cell and use the torch on it, lighting the place up, not that it does much good. If I scared easy, I’d be bricking it right now. The torchlight shines on old, broken wooden cutouts of ghosts, zombie brides, vampires, and Frankenstein monsters. The floor on either side of the tracks is covered in fake spiders and rats. Coffins are built into some of the walls, and inside some of the coffins are fake corpses. The whole place smells rusty and old, like a bike which hasn’t been ridden for years.
The laughter, so quiet I have to strain to hear, echoes down the tunnel: “He-ha-ha-he-he!”
If it is Hope, she must know it’s me. Why else would she play this game? But then why would she play it, anyway? Has she gone mad? Is she high? Yes, that could be it, I think coldly. If she’s high, this makes sense. She’s high and this is her idea of fun. She’s high and she’s a different person than the one I knew.
I walk through the darkness, my light now settling on a plastic skull with a nail in the head, now on a zombie child with blood sliding down its chin. I ignore the horrors and follow the laughter, follow it until I am right where I started, standing at the exit of the tunnel and looking out upon the amusement park.
What the hell? I think. Seriously, what the hell?
I turn off my cellphone light and walk to the booth of the ghost train, peeking inside. Nothing but an old wooden chair, rotted paper, and a cash register filled with dust and cobwebs.
I walk away from the train and turn in a slow circle, searching the surrounding area with my eyes, every booth.
Then, from behind me, I hear a squeeeeeeak-sqeeeeeeak, like the sound of somebody on an old swing, the joints crying out. I turn toward the sound, mentally mapping out where it might be. The ferris wheel. I’m certain. The sound is coming from the ferris wheel. But why would Hope go into the ghost train, run around, and then go to the wheel? No, screw that, how did she? It’s at the other end of the park.
I shake my head, unable to solve it, and head toward the noise. I just want to see her now, so that I know she is safe, unharmed.
Maybe the park is getting to me a little, I think. Maybe I’m just going a little bit mad.
I crouch down behind a candy stall. Old wrappers line the floor, and when I kneel on them, they crunch like cereal. I peer over the top of stall, where once candy was laid out in neat rows with hand-written notes denoting their price. Now, it’s empty. The wheel is just across the way.
Hope is sitting in our cart, rocking lightly back and forth, making the bars squeak, as I’d guessed. She just sits there, staring straight ahead of her, one hand gripping the rail and the
other in the pocket of her hoodie. I can’t know for sure, but she’s sitting as though she’s been there for a while; she’s sitting as though she’s been here the entire time. Like a statue.
An invisible hand reaches into my chest and digs its fingernails into my heart at the sight of her. She doesn’t look like a junkie. She looks like Hope, my Hope, the goddamn love of my life. She looks like the woman who was the brightest spot in my life before that night on the boat.
A scene plays out in my head, the images and feelings so strong that it could be happening right now, for real:
I stand up from the booth and walk to the cart, smirking at her, my cocky smirk.
“Mr. Biker?” she says, turning to me. “Is that really you?”
