“Marchant, what happened?”
He shakes his head and looks down at the rug. I’m shocked when, a second later, he says, “Do you remember the guy I got in a fight with at the Wyn?” I nod, and he says, “I think he’s been pulling some shit on the ranch. I don’t want you here for that.”
“What happened?”
He presses his lips together and finally meets my eyes. “I found a headless cat in the main house tonight.”
“Oh my God!” I’m terrified for him. “That’s sick.”
He nods grimly. “I’ll handle it, but I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be here while I do. I think it’s probably best if I find someone else to finish the project.”
I feel like I’ve been slapped. “Are you serious? How could you? Without even talking to me? Marchant, I’m your friend if nothing else. You can’t expect me just to go because someone’s messing with you!”
He laughs, rough and dry. “Of course I can. I asked you to go; you have to go.”
“No I don’t. I’m not going. I’m not ready to go, and I’m finishing the project. If you don’t want the burden of keeping me safe and don’t trust me to keep myself safe—which you should, I might add—I’ll hire some security myself. I have my own people in Cali, after all.”
Before I’m finished speaking, he’s shaking his head. “I can’t let you do that. I can’t be responsible for something happening to you.” I open my mouth, and he puts a finger over it. “I can’t, Suri. I can’t.”
“You won’t be. I make my own choices!” And something dawns on me. “I’ve been meaning to tell you something.”
His eyebrows raise.
“I answered a call one night where no one said anything. They just breathed. And then another time I got a call from a woman named Marissa. Does that ring a bell?” My voice trails off at the end of the question, because his face has lost its color.
He blinks once, slowly, then puts his left arm out on the couch, as if to steady himself.
“Marchant? Are you okay?”
He doesn’t even look my way. Anxiety writhes like a tangle in my stomach as I watch him stand completely still. For like two full minutes.
“Marchant? Who is Marissa?”
His eyes meet mine, and all the heat has gone out of them. “You need to go, Suri. You need to go because I told you to.”
“What? No way! I want to know who Marissa is. If you’re— if you’re leaving me for another woman, I want to—”
His eyes narrow.
Shit! I said ‘if you’re leaving me’ like we’re together! And we’re not together. I’m so stupid!
I dash back to his bedroom with my hand over my face. I’m shaking and sobbing, embarrassed. So very embarrassed. When did I become such a hanger-on? First with Cross, and now Marchant.
I’m the unwanted woman! The friend or the fuck buddy who thinks she’s something more. Where’s my pride? Where’s my shame?
It’s right here…
I stumble into the bathroom and lock the door behind me, then I sink down on the edge of the huge tub and let it all out. I sob so hard I can’t hear anything. Can’t feel anything but my grief over the loss of a man I never even had. I must have some problem. Maybe I just can’t stand to be alone. Clearly there’s something wrong with me, I’m deficient in some way, I’m pathetic.
The door swings open and Marchant looks down on me, wild-eyed and extremely wide-shouldered in his button-up. He’s holding the doorknob. He looks stern. Unhappy.
I shake my head. “I’m really sorry for this. If you want I’ll—”
He steps closer. Takes my shoulders. “What I want is for you to strip out of those clothes and get into the shower. What I want is this,” he says—and then he pulls the straps of my dress down off my shoulders, turns me around, and unzips my dress so that it falls onto the warm stone floor.
He gives me a gentle shove toward the shower, but before I get to it, he grabs me by the wrist and jerks me back. He pulls me to his chest and kisses me hungrily. First my mouth, but he moves south quickly, dropping to his knees as he ravages my breasts and then my belly, moving lower to where I’m wet and waiting for him. He covers my pussy with his hot mouth, and I moan.
“I want you,” he pants, “and no one else. But I can’t have you…so you’ll have to let this…be enough.”
I’m ripped in half.
I hate what he’s saying.
I love what he’s doing.
Either way, I can’t stay standing.
My knees give out and he scoops me up and steps into the shower. It’s huge—maybe the biggest one I’ve ever seen—and all he has to do is press a few buttons and it’s steaming; heat floods down on us from two huge lamps in the ceiling, followed seconds later by deliciously warm water. He stands me on my feet, quickly strips himself, and takes my face between his two big hands.
“I have to be inside of you. Right now.”
I flatten my palms against the muscles of his chest. “Tell me you won’t make me leave.”
His face twists. “I can’t do that, Beauty.”
I open my mouth to tell him he can, but I realize that’s my problem—dating all the way to Adam. I want things to be the way I want them, and sometimes I don’t think enough about how they actually are.
“I want you right now,” I breathe, and our mouths join while his hand works its way between my legs. He slides a finger inside, and I shake my head.
“No,” I say into his neck. I pull away and ease him down onto the warm tile. With water streaming down on us, I crouch with my ass in the air, spread his legs, and suck him into my mouth. I make him come fast and hard, and then I make him come again. I’ll respect his wishes if he doesn’t want me to stay, but first I’ll try to change his mind.
23
MARCHANT
It’s three a.m., and I’m awake after only two hours’ sleep. That’s bad. I need a consistent sleep schedule to help deal with the Bipolar. But I can’t take my eyes off her. Tomorrow, I’m going to make her leave, if I have to strap her into the plane myself.
Tonight, I stroke her bare shoulders and I tuck myself around her. I press my face against the warmth of her arm and allow myself to inhale the sweet scent of her skin. Even covered in my soaps, she smells like a woman.
“That feels good,” she murmurs, and I freeze.
I contemplate closing my eyes and faking sleep, because I’m not sure I can stand talking to her. More so than even her body, I’ve become addicted to her words.
“I thought you were asleep,” I whisper.
“Not anymore.” I can hear the smile in her voice, even though I can’t see her face from where I’m lying.
I kiss her arm. “You should go to sleep.”
“I will,” she says though a yawn. She moves her arm so it’s around my back and shoulders, and this time, I close my eyes. It feels good. Her fingers skate over my skin, and I feel her lips touch down atop my head.
“Are you going to tell me?” she whispers.
“Tell you what?” I whisper, too.
She twines her leg around mine. “I want to know why you said what you said in the shower. That you can’t ‘keep me.’” Silence closes around her words. With my head against her ribs, I can hear her heartbeat.
Ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom.
“At first I thought you didn’t want me like that,” she says quietly, “because I was scared you didn’t. But now…now I think maybe I was wrong.” Her fingers skate through my hair, bringing out goosebumps on my head. “Will you just tell me? Please? What that makes you want to stay so…far from everyone? Is it…what happened to your parents?”
A wave of ice-cold dread washes through me as I think about what she said earlier. About Marissa. I remember the last time I saw her, lying so still on the pink bedspread inside her dorm room. I remember her voice through the phone down at the jail. I remember the casket—and I know I can’t tell Suri. Someone like her…someone so kind and generous; Suri would neve
r understand.
Now that we’re as close as we’ve come to be, I’m not sure how to evade her questions—so I roll over with my back to her.
“Marchant,” she whispers. “I have another question. Do you have a baby?”
*
SURI
Remembering the picture is what woke me up. The black and white picture I saw that night in the silver picture frame, right before I heard Marchant’s footsteps coming down the hall and I dropped it by the curtains. I sneaked out of bed tonight and found it right where I left it—underneath the floor-to-ceiling curtains. One look at the image in the moonlight and I can see it’s definitely a baby. Bigger than Lizzy’s baby (I recently received a text’d image of something that looked like a lima bean).
I crawl back in bed, and a few minutes later, Marchant rouses. I lie as still as I can while he strokes my body, more gentle than he’s ever been when he thought I was awake. I’m starting to get the feeling there’s a lot he isn’t telling me.
I lean closer to him now, staring at the wide plane of his back. “Is the date on your side a child’s birthday?” I murmur.
For a moment, he goes absolutely still—not even breathing. Then he jolts up and whirls around to face me.
“What the fuck do you know about a child?”
“You left this picture out.” I grab the image from underneath my pillow and hold it out.
He snatches it away from me. He looks furious enough to spit. “That’s not your business.”
“I didn’t mean to find it. Marchant, talk to me. I care about you. You can trust me. Are you a father?”
He’s out of the bed in one easy motion, but he doesn’t leave the room. Nor does he put down the picture frame.
“Do you have a child somewhere?” I press.
“No, I’m not a fucking father, okay?” Belatedly, I notice that his chest is heaving. “I don’t have a child.”
Understanding dawns on me, and I nod slowly.
“You think you understand?”
“I think I might,” I answer softly.
“Well you don’t.”
Maybe I should let it lie, but he looks so upset. “Did the baby’s mother take him or her away from you?”
“You don’t want to know what happened. I’m just your fuck buddy, remember? It’s irrelevant to you.”
I lean forward. “I think we both know that’s not true. I’m your friend, Marchant. I care about you.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I know you’re a nice guy who’s only an asshole when he’s using drugs. I know you still grieve for your parents, and I bet you’re grieving for this baby, too.”
And all at once, his shoulders slump, and he raises a hand to cover up his face. “It was a girl,” he whispers. “Marissa was the baby’s mother.”
My heart twists. Is that why she was calling? Do they keep in touch?
“I haven’t talked to her in seven years,” he says, rubbing a hand back through his hair. He’s pacing now, not even looking over at me as he talks. “I don’t know why she would call. There’s nothing I can give her. Everything is done.”
“What happened?” I whisper.
He lifts his eyes to mine, and they’re so bleak, I know. I know for sure.
Tears rush into my eyes. I blink quickly. If he lost a child, it makes sense that he doesn’t want to get close. He’s had a lot of loss in his life. Too much.
He strides closer to the bed and leans over the footboard. “Don’t look at me like that. I don’t need your pity.”
“I don’t pity you.” I scoot closer to him, reaching out, but he takes a giant step backward.
“You know why I don’t have a daughter, Suri? Because I told her mother to have an abortion.”
*
MARCHANT
There it is. The most significant fact of my life—my March 15—spilled at her feet. I watch her face and see the horror in it.
“It was after my parents died. I drank a lot on the plane ride to New Orleans and I thought at first that I was just fucked up over what had happened. But then I got back to my room at West’s place, where I lived, and fucked our housekeeper.” Suri’s eyes widen, and I give her a miserable smile. “She was awful; this black-haired creole woman. Mean as a fucking viper. Nobody liked her, but I wasn’t thinking straight. After that, I did a bunch of Hunter’s coke and got into a fight with someone at the frat house. Broke an armchair. I was so damn mad—at everything.
“And then Marissa called. She had this church thing in the afternoons, and it was over and she wanted me to come see her. I’m not sure how I got there or even why. We were friends with benefits, not a couple. But I went to the sorority house, and Marissa started talking about scholarships. How she was worried about losing her swimming scholarship. Her mother worked at a gas station and her dad was dead. I remember that part—the part about the scholarship. And I remember her asking something about West Manor. Like could she live there. And I said hell no. it was a guys’ place, bunch of keggers and hookers and shit.
“She started crying. Asked me why I was being such an ass. I told her my parents had died. She didn’t know that yet—she had a shitty little flip phone that never got good service, and she’d been babysitting cousins in Mississippi for spring break. She hadn’t heard.
“She flipped the fuck out. Cried some more. And for some reason, seeing her act like that—over my parents— It pissed me off. I started to leave, and that’s when she pulled it out. This.” I hold up the picture with shaking fingers. I inhale deeply. “That’s all I remember from the sorority house. I went out that night and wrecked my Jeep, got booked for DUI, and Hunter bailed me out. It wasn’t till later on Monday that I found myself up on the roof of West Manor with a fifth of bourbon and one of Hunter’s guns that…” I swallow hard. “I stared down at the street, and I thought about Mom. And I remembered the only time I ever saw her do anything really fucking awful. We were at the mall, and she stepped in front of a truck in the parking lot. And I was old enough to know.”
I hold my breath until the emotion swelling up in my throat passes. I dare a glance at Suri. She’s staring at me with wide, kind eyes.
I stride closer, leaning over the side of the bed now so our faces are a breath apart. “I’m not a fucking drug addict. I don’t even like hard liquor. I’m a beer guy,” I sneer.
“But you’re bipolar. Like your mom.”
I look into Suri’s sad, wet eyes and I can see the sympathy. Or is it pity?
“Because I’m bipolar? You feel sorry for me. Listen what I told her. Marissa said I told her I fucking hated her. I thought she was a low-class whore who got pregnant on purpose. I told her I’d never support her or the baby. That I’d never even fucking speak to her again. Unless she got an abortion. Her mother was Catholic, Suri. She had no one. She’ll tell you I even pulled a few hundreds out of my wallet and threw them in the grass before I left that day.” My throat thickens, but I push the words out, because I want to make sure Suri understands. Why I can’t be with her. Why she needs to leave the ranch and never, ever look back. Why I’m such an asshole for even kissing her.
“I made her feel like she had to get rid of the baby—and she did.” I slump down on the foot of the bed, looking at the curtains. I can see moonlight between them—just a sliver of light in the darkness. “I got a call from her,” I say thickly. “It was the seventeenth. A Saturday. And by then I knew shit was going on with me but I was too…fucking scared to go somewhere. Like to a doctor.” My voice cracks there. I swallow. Even wait a few beats before continuing, because I’m scared I’ll fucking cry.
“Marissa called me… She was crying. She kept saying ‘I did it.’ But by that time, I was more clear-headed. That’s the way it is for me. My mania can last a long time—longer than most people’s—but I kinda come in and out.” I lean down and put my head in my hands.
“I didn’t remember what I’d told her. About the…pregnancy. She didn’t believe me of course. She sobbed
and she cursed and she told me that she hated me. And when it hit me what she’d done—that when she said ‘I did it’, she meant she’d…” I shake my head. “I was…fucking ripped apart.” My eyes feel wet. I wipe them and keep on staring at the window. But my shoulders start to shake.
“I know people do it when they have to—but those people,” I rasp, “it’s a choice.” I hold my head. “I didn’t even remember. I didn’t remember telling her to— I didn’t remember.”
I feel her arms around me, feel her cheek against my back, but I don’t care. It’s not enough. Just like every time I let myself remember this, I feel like I’m falling through an abyss. Snatching at the air, trying to freeze time before I smash into the ground. Trying to freeze time for long enough to make a choice.
But I don’t have a choice. I never got one. And I never will.
24
SURI
I’m crying, but I’m trying to be quiet. This is Marchant’s moment—his pain—and I don’t want to detract from it by highlighting my own.
But I can’t stand to see him like this. I can’t stand to see him hurt. All I want is to do something to help him, but all I can offer is my arms.
I only get to hold him for a moment before he nudges me off him and turns around to face me. His eyes are red and wet. His grief has changed his face, so he looks like a stranger. Older. Harder.
“Does that answer your question? About my daughter?” His eyes bore into mine.
“Marchant, I’m so, so sor—”
“No.” He holds up both hands. “I don’t want to hear that shit. Save it for someone who deserves it.”
He stalks out of the room, leaving me again.
I hold my breath, counting down the hours, but he doesn’t return. It seems wrong to go looking for him. Disrespectful of his space. So I don’t leave the bed. It’s a burden, lying here when I want so much to check on him. Of course, it’s nothing compared to what pain he must be feeling. After he leaves, I look around for the picture, which I find sitting on the edge of the bed. I don’t have the heart to look at it, so I tuck it under my pillow.