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 ^{(it's beta!)}

He danced like a young god fallen to earth, held the floor like an experienced stripper, gyrating his hips like life was sex and sex was a dance. Around him men clustered like flies to honey, drawing their hands down his pale chest, catching their fingers in the beltloops of his too-tight black pants, as if to see if they could slip any lower on his hips. And as much as he basked in the touches and attention, he didn't give any of them a second glance.

DeCaio couldn't look away.

There was a break in the music—the DJ skipped a track and the trance was broken. He extricated himself from his admirers and headed to the bar for a drink. One of them made a grab for him and he dodged smoothly—and crashed right into DeCaio. He caught him easily.

"You all right?"

He met DeCaio’s gaze, surprised. At close range he could see that beneath his fuck-me-now aura, he had the face of an archangel. Michelangelo would have given his right hand for the honor of putting this boy in paint or marble, and either way, with an ethereal face, and a body to inspire lust in the very stones, he would be breathtaking.

His surprise quickly solidified into a grin. "Hey, gorgeous. Want to take me home?"

"I'd expect your name first," DeCaio replied, setting him carefully back on his feet.

"Jamison," he purred, taking the opportunity to slide into the other’s lap. "You?"

"DeCaio." He put his arm around Jamison’s waist, if only to ensure that he didn't fall.

"DeCaio?" He laughed. "Nice. So now you've got my name, you gonna fuck me?"

DeCaio smirked a little. Fascinating though he was, with a front like that, he was either a prostitute or a slut—which would explain why he learned how to dance like that.

Too bad DeCaio didn't do one-night stands.

"Sorry."

Jamison’s face fell so fast that the older man was completely taken by surprise. He quickly hid the disappointment, but DeCaio was shocked speechless by the depth of it. There was a lot more to this kid than his front, and the older man was interested—just not enough.

"But whether you were asking for business or pleasure, I'm sure there are plenty of other men who won't disappoint you."

"I liked the look of you," he responded.

DeCaio watched him for a moment. Jamison was giving him this kicked-puppy look after his business-or pleasure comment, and he had been irresistible enough without it.

"Supposing that I wanted to take you home with me, but without the sex?"

Emotions flickered rapidfire across his face.

Gratitude.

Confusion.

Apprehension.

DeCaio was completely intrigued by this emotional little enigma in his lap.

It was clear now that he was a whore, although DeCaio still didn't know what to think of his dance floor performance and his front, combined with this baffling kicked-puppy sincerity.

"Then... what do you want from me, if not sex?" He was wary now, doubtful.

"Conversation, maybe? I'll buy you a drink, if you like."

"But why would you take me home if you don't want sex? What've you got against it?"

"How old are you?" DeCaio has to ask. He didn’t look of age.

"Old enough not to get you arrested for stat." He paused. "Well?"

"I prefer my sex with strings attached. No one-night stands."

"Oh." Jamison moved closer. "So if I stay with you awhile, you'll fuck me?"

He reached down, and DeCaio grabbed his hand. He didn't need the younger man—boy, perhaps— knowing how much it affected him to have someone this gorgeous in his lap. DeCaio’s grip on his wrist was firm, but his voice was gentle.

"That's not quite what I meant."

He shrugged, suddenly again all nonchalance and self-sure cockiness.

"I'll take what I can get. You're hot."

"Are you really old enough?" He was an few inches beneath average height, and a good eight or nine inches shorter than DeCaio. He looked about sixteen, maybe even fifteen.

However the older man expected him to respond, it wasn’t the long, hesitant stare he got, accompanied a shy, wary nod. If he was lying, the kid deserved an Oscar.

One thing, however, was evident enough to explain at least a little of his behavior.

"Homeless?"

The look that flashed across his face half broke DeCaio’s heart. He couldn’t believe he was actually falling for this boy he’d only just met.

"Kinda," Jamison managed at last.

DeCaio took pity and kissed him. Jamison gasped against the other’s lips, surprised, but got over it quickly and kissed back, eager. The older man expected him to kiss like he danced--hot and sultry--but instead it was almost innocently excited. He was more confused than ever, so he broke the kiss quickly.

What the hell was a boy as sweet as this doing as a cheap whore? Because after that proposition, there was no way this was strictly for pleasure.

"Let's go," DeCaio murmured. He didn't need to ask twice.

He took the boy back to his flat.

Jamison walked with his hands in his pockets, and damn, he even walked like he was the incarnation of sex.

DeCaio was sore pressed, trying to keep his no-one-night-stands policy, a sub-category of his no-sex-without-love policy, and qualification for that was already half reached by how hard he was falling for this kid.

He kept his gaze down as he walked.

Somebody, DeCaio thought, somebody hurt this boy once—bad.

He wanted to have him. He had already decided that he would, that Jamison was his— and he didn't want him to forget that, but he didn't know how to tame him, and he didn't know if the boy would resent being leashed.

DeCaio couldn’t help but stare at him.

If homosexuality was really a sin, then the devil must have been a sculptor, to create a body of such incarnate temptation.

"Are you hungry?" DeCaio asked, setting his jacket down on a chair. Jamison was looking around his flat with a kind of awe, and only after a moment did he respond, looking up and giving the older man a quick nod. DeCaio kept a cluttered apartment. It got most of its color from his books and posters, and he was surprised to see the boy go for the books rather than the posters or the big, coffee-table volumes of drama and attraction. The older man stepped into the kitchen, heating up a large bowl of pasta for him. He wouldn’t have asked if Jamison didn’t look like he hadn’t eaten real food for a few months.

Jamison appeared in the doorway after a few minutes.

"Is this true, what they say?" he asked, concerned.

DeCaio scooped a swathe of pasta sauce onto his finger, and offered it to him to taste. He made the older man regret it almost instantly when he closed his lips around it and sucked, darting his tongue over the tip. DeCaio’s higher brain functions ground to a halt. Jamison kissed his fingertip as he pulled away.

He held up the book.

DeCaio somehow managed to tear his gaze off Jamison’s lips to follow his finger in the book. He stared at the page, uncomprehending.

"Well?" Jamison prompted. "I think they're wrong. I think he forgot to figure the moon into the equation and that's why he says it doesn't work. But it does."

Of all things, he had picked up one of DeCaio’s physics texts. The older man was struggling to manage basic English, and he was presenting him with complex physics.

DeCaio stared at him.

"You understand this at your age? What kind of education did you have?"

He shrugged, confused. "My mom let me read some stuff. I just like science."

"School?"

"What? No not really." He hesitated, uncomfortable.

DeCaio’s brows furrowed, and he gentled his tone. "Sorry. Let me just finish dinner, then you can explain it o me, okay?"

It took him a half hour to explain his question in terms DeCaio could understand, because he was fighting the urge to jump him, every second, but he couldn't deny that the younger boy was right , and the Ph.D physicist had made a mistake that no one else had challenged for 20 years.

"What happened to your mom?" DeCaio asked, clearing their plates.

"She died," Jamison said, tracing sad little patterns on the marble countertop. "I was twelve."

"I'm sorry," DeCaio said, and meant it. "Where did you go?"

"My uncle. He was rich. Kinda. Mean. A little crazy, had a nice library though. He just died a few weeks ago." He looked up, then, quietly, "Don't be sorry again. I hated him."

DeCaio nodded. "Didn't you inherit?"

He shrugged. "Nothing to inherit. He had more debts than possessions. Are we done talking now?"

"Sure," the older man said, and Jamison grinned. He was such a rare combination of genius and innocence.

And sex, the older man was reminded, as the boy leaned into him and kissed him, hard. This kiss was more like his dancing, playful and hot, and DeCaio knew he was lost and he didn’t bother fighting; he just pulled Jamison up against him and kissed back, all lust.

The boy’s heartbeat was rapid when DeCaio broke the kiss, his breath coming in little flutters. "Can we?" he murmured. "Please?" His hands were on DeCaio’s shirt, nimbly undoing the buttons.

"Try and stop me," the older man whispered, kissing him again, his tongue forcing through Jamison’s teeth, into his mouth; the boy moaned softly, pushing the shirt past DeCaio’s shoulders.

The older man couldn’t bear to wait for the bedroom and pushed Jamison up against the wall, bracing him with his weight and fumbling with the zipper on his pants.

The boy paused, pushing him back a little.

“The bedroom,” he murmured. “Please—”

Suddenly Jamison’s legs were around DeCaio’s waist and he was stumbling down the hall, abruptly in the small bedroom.

He pressed the boy into the bed and straddled his hips, intertwining their fingers as he took the time for a long, lingering kiss, testing his capability for patience. Jamison moaned, hungry, needing, and DeCaio divested himself of his jeans, and then finally he got Jamison out of those incredible tight black jeans.

DeCaio didn't want to ask, but he was too aware of the scars on Jamie's skin to do anything without asking.

He flicked his tongue over the tender skin of his earlobe before whispering, "Are you sure?"

Jamison’s eyes widened slightly in surprise, but he nodded with a soft moan, watching the older man with so much innocent trust it took his breath away. For a moment DeCaio felt a kind of sick fear, thinking of how close he'd come to turning Jamison down, and imagined him going home with some other man.

"You're mine, " the older man whispered in Jamison’s ear, and he shuddered, arched his body up towards DeCaio’s.

"Please," he moaned, and the older man didn't want to wait another instant to fuck him, but he didn’t want to rush something this rare.

DeCaio was curious to see how loud he could make him scream.

The older man hitched his thumbs in the boy’s boxers and tugged down; he had felt Jamison doing the same to him moments before.

The boy wrapped his legs around DeCaio’s waist, moaning again, louder now, words, begging—

”Fuck me— please— D-DeCaio--"

And he already knew that he couldn’t refuse Jamison anything.

"This'll hurt a little, sweet," he murmured. "I'm big."

Jamison only nodded, desperate. “Please..."

DeCaio entered him with one deep thrust, and this time his cry was loud and the older man was glad he had thick walls, because this time even he moaned. He was hotter and tighter than DeCaio had thought was humanly possible, but and he was sure by now that Jamison was too perfect to be human.

The boy made a hurt little noise and DeCaio shifted, coaxing Jamison’s fingers out of their white-knuckled fists, pressing soft kisses along his shoulders. "Relax, babe," he murmured.

Jamison took a deep breath, shuddered, and let it out in little whimpers. DeCaio stroked his sides, willing him to relax, waiting for his pleas to start again, somehow calling on reserves of patience he didn't know he had so he could keep from pounding into this amazing body.

"Please," he moaned finally. “Ohhh—p-please—”

"Yes?" DeCaio murmured with a smile, pressing a kiss to the side of his throat.

"More, D-Decaio-- please—fuck me—”

He didn't need to ask twice. The older man pulled out, forcing himself to be gentle as he thrust back into the boy. There was a short, hoarse scream that very nearly sent him over the edge right then, but he was determined not to trip without taking Jamison with him.

"Harder—”

He was still almost screaming.

“Please—”

DeCaio pulled out and thrust in again, harder, and Jamison screamed. DeCaio gave up all hope of restraining himself and plunged into him hard, over and over and over again, until he screamed one last time. He was so hot and tight already that when his orgasm sent spasms through him, the older man tripped, too, gasping and shaking.

He melted in DeCaio’s arms, sighing softly when the older man pulled out, his legs sliding down from around the other’s waist, but his arms moving to wind around his neck. He was fast asleep in moments, and DeCaio didn't mind overlooking his hopes for the full night, because Jamison slept like an angel, curled into his arms, shy and trusting. And DeCaio wasn’t letting go anytime soon.

Tori Amos' "Silent All These Years." That was the last song I heard before I was placed in a psych ward. Most people referred to it as a "nuthouse" or a "loony bin." I thought that those terms were rather crude.

Case Number 65-667-767.

Max Alexander Colvin.

Hospitalized three times for acute depression and suicidal thoughts.

Suicide attempts were unsuccessful.

Patient ingested a large doze of a prescribed antidepressant.

Substance in question, "Zoloft."

Subject showed signs of obsessive compulsive behavior.

Seemed to be suffering from low self-esteem and brief bouts of mania, which affect his mood from time to time.

In other words, folks, I was absolutely crackers and I needed some serious professional help. And helped I was, at the Amelia Winterson Clinic For The Mentally Disturbed. However, "mentally disturbed" was omitted from the plaque on the front gate. From what I heard, the term "mentally disturbed" wasn't appropriate for Lincoln Park.

I had a habit of shortening things--phrases, words.

The "Winterson Center" sounded much nicer. It went over better at social functions and family gatherings.

Our hospital used to be a therapeutic day school. It had that smell-- that compressed smell that was made worse by the generic floor polish that was applied to those hardwood floors, the ones that were found in a privileged public school. The third floor was untouched, the flip top desks were still lined up in rows of three and "Old Glory" was still bowing down to the blackboard. The pink Crayola chalk was still on the silver edge, along with the erasers that hadn't been cleaned in god knows when.

There were five floors in our building--our schoolhouse, if you will. The girls slept on the fourth floor and the boys slept on the second floor. The second floor and the fourth floor looked exactly the same. Each floor was painted lavender and each floor had three doors on the right. Three doors on the right and three doors on the left. The maximum capacity was twelve girls and twelve boys on each floor, twenty four psychotics in all. There were two girls to a room and there were six rooms in all. There was one minor difference. The boys ward had one window. It was in my room, the room I shared with Robert, one of my fellow lunatics. The girls ward didn't have windows at all, only heating vents. All of us had heating vents. We all had desks. The desks stood against the wall and each desk had a lamp on it. Each lamp was shaped like a giraffe. The bulbs were as dim as shit. They barely gave off any light-- not enough to read by. The floors were granola-colored, sticky, cold, and poorly washed. They had bleach stains on them that were shaped like Wisconsin.

The nurses station was on the first floor. All the nurses wore turtlenecks, beige pants that were creased rather perfectly in each leg, and Doc Martins with spaghetti-colored laces.

Johnny was the day guard. He had sculpted arms and an underwhelming gut. He was the guy that announced your presence and your purpose to the nurse that was on staff. He whistled an Eric Clapton tune while he waited for the door to buzz him in. The door buzzed, Johnny whistled. He did a curtsey as he waved me by. He flashed me a smile that dripped of detachment.

I went ahead, saw the nurse station that looked like a Photo-Mat booth from the nineteen eighties. The phone behind the Plexiglas rang, the clock that was on the wall above the Plexiglas ticked towards eleven AM.

"Got another one. Mr. Max Colvin." Johnny smiled, took a breath that told everyone about his ambitions. This "psych ward" wasn't for him. Guys like him always breathed like that, especially when they hated their job--like they were calming themselves down from an explosion.

Inhale, the explosion simmered; exhale, it was cooled. And they breathed like that for years.

In his eyes, this whole nuthouse scene was downright monotonous. Johnny had dark skin, thick cheeks, a nose that was shaped like a cornstalk, and a diamond stud in his left ear. He slid a manila envelope under the hole, and then he shifted his body weight onto his right leg. I moved towards the day room. He looked at me with an air of suspicion.

There was an olive green couch along the wall, opposite of the slightly open window that had its chicken wire screen down. A brunette with long fingers was eating a packet of sugar. She had an orgasmic look in her eyes when she swallowed. There was a boy sitting next to her; he sniffed his nose more often than usual, liked the way his fingers felt when they ran through his shaggy, too-long blond locks.

A rail-thin girl with shoulder length black hair was sitting at an almond-colored table. She was crossing and uncrossing her legs as she wrote in a journal. Its paper was unusually thick and it was bound with rubber bands. Her tongue protruded from between her teeth and ended a sentence with a flourish, raising her blunt little marker from the paper a couple of inches. She saw me watching her and turned her head to acknowledge me; after a moment she made a small sound in her throat and closed her eyes.

Her shoulders wiggled, her head swiveled. She was grooving to a beat that only she only heard.

Johnny made a motion with his index finger. He asked me for one more moment, and then he cursed me under his breath. He stepped behind me, put his hand on my shoulder. I felt his breath on the back of my neck.

"You'll meet them later." Johnny smiled at the light skinned nurse with the purple nails. He dismissed me with his eyes. I was just another scared boy who had taken the road less traveled. I had to admit, he wasn't that far off.

"What's the secret to this place?" I asked, thinking about his height, how he towered over me. I wondered if my voice had any chance of reaching him, if he was even listening to me. I just saw a head, a huge head. His nostrils looked three dimensional.

"What was the question, kid?" he asked, rather annoyed. He smiled at the day nurse and she flashed him a smile that said, "leave the kid alone."

"What's the secret to this place?" I asked again, like some pre-schooler in a cheesy holiday commercial.

Johnny looked at me, and I looked at him, and he looked at the day nurse. She wondered about him. Was he being difficult or was just he being indifferent?

The Players:

The girl with the sugar fixation was named Glory. She was hospitalized for an eating disorder. Namely, anorexia nervosa. The only thing that she ate was sugar. Sugar for all three meals-- just sugar. Even the feeding tube didn't change anything. Glory still ate sugar and she still refused to eat anything else. In the morning she ate sugar. In the evening she ate sugar. At bedtime, she took her nighttime sleeping meds. She took her meds, she drank the water, she ate some more sugar. I always wondered how she survived.

Glory was an angel. She never talked and she never caused trouble.

The boy with long blonde hair was Robert. He talked fast and he talked often and he talked like a junkie and he made jokes that weren't funny and he sniffed his nose every few minutes and he had the mood swings of an addict. At once he was happy. At once he was mellow, withdrawn, and disillusioned. Incidentally, he was a cocaine addict. Although, he hated that word. The word "addict." He was hated by all of us. The stupid bastard was so lucky. He had a dad that really cared about him. The asshole took it for granted. He didn't understand that someone had to pay for the hospital. His father was deeply in debt. The "Winterson Center" was his latest creditor.

Diana was the girl with the journal. Like Glory, she was on the unit because she wasn't eating. Unlike like Glory, Diana managed to avoid the feeding tube when she was threatened with it. Diana's mother visited her every once in awhile. She was intent on lowering her daughter's self-esteem. Diana's mom was alot like my father. She had to put someone else down in order to feel good.

Saturday was visiting day. Parents and patients gathered in the day room and when there weren't that many chairs available, the patients sat down on the floor.

I remembered one occasion. Diana was sitting by the window ledge. The window was open but the chicken wire screen was down. She was blowing smoke through the chicken wire and her mother, who had some sort of inferiority complex, had trouble sitting still

"This is what I'm paying for?"

"You don't have to pay for it," Diana used to say, trying to pretend that her mother's disdain didn't hurt her.

"You threatening to check out again," her mom would say, annoyed by the phone in the nurses station. It rang and rang and the ceiling tiles creaked and they hunched forward and Diana's mom thought of the check, the one that she was going to stop payment on.

"It's not a threat," Diana used to say.

"Oh, Diana. Suicide is such an original idea."

Group:

We had group therapy on every other Thursday at noon. It was lead by Nathaniel Sawyer, PHD. His hair was mostly gray, though some black hairs had managed to hold their ground. Dr. Sawyer had this awful ponytail extension that was reminiscent of road kill. It had a plastic look and it was too gray to be real. It hung obediently at the base of his neck.

As was his custom, the good doctor was always late. He always had a pack of Camels in his shirt pocket. He always wore a shirt that was wrinkled at the bottom. His shirts had brown iron burns near the small of the back. The good doctor's eyes were bloodshot, which lead me to one conclusion. Our fearless leader was into chemistry when he wasn't boring us to death in group. I mean, group was totally unnecessary. I had Group at noon and then I had a therapy session at two. When group ended my verbal wad was usually blown. My therapist and I usually engaged in a staring contest for sixty minutes.

I looked at the clock, saw the hands as they convened at the number twelve. It was a sight. Sawyer was sitting there with his black composition book and his lucky Bic pen, and his purple squeeze ball that he always carried in his left hand. His legs were crossed and his gapped, yellow teeth flashed proudly when he smiled. The bastard was actually on time. I couldn't believe it. He gave me a therapeutic smile. The smile that all the new people got. Sawyer wanted to come across as a tireless worker. The caring warden of the lunatic asylum. The man who wasn't looking for an emotional connection.

Sawyer coughed. He looked at Diana. He wondered what she was smiling about. Glory felt for her sugar packet under the couch. She looked like she was constipated, and then she sighed rather contentedly when she felt the flimsy white paper of the Domino sugar packet. Robert sniffed his nose, did his best James Dean. He looked at the clock, wondered when this pointless exercise was going to start.

Sawyer scanned the sacrificial lambs, was suspicious of Diana's smile. Sawyer looked at me and he wondered why I wasn't smiling. He scribbled a note in his composition book and I noticed his hands. They moved like a symphony conductor.

"Glory, do you want to start?"

Glory clapped her hands, looked at the clock. She mumbled an expletive under her breath and looked up at Webster. She cursed him with her eyes and she wondered what the hell he wanted from her.

"Not today, doc."

She shook her head, flashed Sawyer a smile. The smile was rather informative. She, Glory Skyler, had nothing witty to say.

Sawyer sighed a disappointed sigh, scribbled in his notebook. He cursed himself. He knew that Glory wasn't going to talk. Diana told me about Glory. She had never shared anything in group. Glory only spoke when it was absolutely necessary.

Diana raised her hand and Sawyer's mouth froze. His lips were suspended in mid-sentence. His feeble little mind was flooded with quotes. Quotes from the psychology book that he had studied in college.

Her eyes closed, her head did a sexy little shimmy. Diana threw her shoulders back and sighed. She wondered if she was capable of playing it straight.

"May I speak, Jackson?"

"Go ahead," Sawyer nodded. He wondered what Diana was up to.

"Who's the new guy?"

"Well, he's..."

"He's definitely not a Sera," Diana remarked, giving me a territorial look. A look that told me where I stood. She wanted me to know whose turf this was. Diana grinned, crossed her arms, leaned back on the couch.

Sawyer collected his thoughts. He went over his battle plan. His battle plan for the rest of the group. Sawyer looked at me with pleading eyes. Since I was new, I was supposed to save him.

Glory picked up her head, shot Diana a dirty look. Glory wanted this madness to end. Diana's semantics were just going to prolong things. Sawyer was working till three. He had no place to go.

"Play it straight," pleaded Robert, trying to offer constructive criticism without pissing Diana off. She stuck her tongue out at Glory, dismissed Robert with a wave of her hand.

"Does the Sera have an opinion?" Diana inquired. She looked at Sawyer and Sawyer looked at me. She reminded me of a professional interviewer. Her fingers were on her chin. Her eyes gave me special attention. They told me something. My words really mattered.

"He can't be a Sera. A Sera is always female." Glory chimed in. She spoke rather softly. Diana conveyed a sense of mock surprise. Her mouth was wide open. It refused to close. She wanted everyone to laugh. In her mind, this situation was absolutely absurd. Glory Skyler had finally spoken. Her words were unsolicited, a gesture of unbridled spontaneity. Robert, (the coke addict,)looked at Diana. Sawyer looked at Robert and Sawyer begged him not to laugh. Robert did laugh. He laughed and then Diana laughed. Diana laughed and then I laughed. Glory shrugged and looked at Dr. Sawyer. She wondered what was so funny.

"What did I say?" wondered Glory.

"You spoke!" chirped Diana, waving her finger rather dramatically. The gesture reminded me of Bob Barker. Bob Barker and the showcase showdown.

"Hallelujah," nodded Robert. He wondered about this moment. Was it ironic?

"Can we..."

"May I say, you're doing a hell of a job." Diana grinned, tried to turn her put down into something else. I always remembered her grin. It stayed with me. It stayed with me after I left the ward. I didn't know what the hell her grin meant. I knew one thing though. I wanted to see it as often as I could.

Sawyer scribbled in his notebook and looked at the clock. It was only twelve fifteen. We were far from done.

The Lingo:

Girls were nicknamed "Sera's." Only females were known as "Sera's." That was an unspoken rule on the unit. Of course, Diana always broke the rule. She called everyone a "Sera."

"Welcome to the room, sister Sera." That was Diana's greeting. She always said that to me. She said it to everyone in fact. Glory always objected to the greeting. She thought that the word "Sera" was being misused. Glory never acknowledged the greeting. Robert didn't either. Although, he thought that Glory was being overly dramatic. Robert hated conflict.

A "frontliner" was someone that had to be constantly watched. All the frontliner's, male or female, were on suicide watch. When you were on suicide watch, you were placed on level one. Level one was the lowest level on the unit. There were no phone privileges on level one. The staff confiscated your shoelaces when you were on suicide watch. You couldn't eat with metal utensils when you were on suicide watch. These were all safety precautions. No death by hanging. No death by cutting. Hence, shoelaces were confiscated. Hence, the utensils were plastic.

When you reached level two when you were taken off suicide watch. On level two your phone privileges were reinstated, but you weren't allowed visitors. You weren't allowed to use the bathroom without supervision. Level three was the highest level. Visiting privileges were reinstated, walks around the courtyard were permitted. On level three, you were allowed to eat with metal utensils. Oh yeah-- your shoelaces were returned. Actually, they were placed in your possession box. Your possessions were returned when you left the unit.

During my stay at the Winterson Center, no one reached level three. Diana and I got as high as level two, and Robert was on level three for a day. Then he failed his piss test. After Robert got to level three, he earned himself a day pass. During the pass, Robert relapsed. He relapsed on coke and he blew off curfew. Robert missed his curfew and he dropped a level. It was that simple. It was my attitude that kept me on level two. I refused to be therapeutic. I took my meds, but I didn't do the work. I talked to my therapist when I wanted to and I rarely spoke in group. I called the art therapist a "fucking loony." As for Diana, she didn't say much in group. Mostly, she read the newspaper. Sometimes she read a book during art therapy. She liked Jay McInerney.

The staff didn't know what to do with Glory. I mean, she wasn't that much of a problem. Glory never ate though. Glory was supposed to eat. That was her goal. She was supposed to put on 15 pounds in six weeks. Of course, Glory dropped more weight. She kept eating sugar. Subsequently, she was forced fed with a feeding tube and she remained on level two. On the ward, only a person with behavior problems was supposed to be dropped to level one. That was the staff's policy.

There was a white board on the right side of the nurses station. It looked like a grilled cheese sandwich. The names were listed in the following order.

Glory Diana Robert Max Level 2 Level 2 Level 2 Level 1

The first three names were written in red. Red symbolized the second level. My name was written in green. Green symbolized newness. I was the newest addition to the "Winterson Center."

Therapy:

My therapist was named Ginny. She wore a rather gothic shade of eyeliner around her eyes. It accentuated the blueness of them. Granny skirts were Ginny's trademark. She wore these baggy sweaters that engulfed her body. Her face was disjointed, and the bones meshed in an uneven sort of way. She talked like a therapist. Every sentence came from a psychology book. Ginny's body had a coat hangar sort of look. It curved abnormally in the strangest of places.

Ginny's office was rather basic. Light blue walls, a dirty white window blind that desperately needed dusting, a pop tart colored bookshelf that had tiny holes in each of its sides. A red desk featured a generic brand of laptop, a cracker shaped clock radio, and two manila folders that were stacked neatly on either side.

The clock ticked, the heating vent hummed. Ginny leaned in closer, clapped her hands together. She flashed me a smile. It was supposed to be reassuring. Ginny sighed, looked at me with awe and wonder.

"Why are you here, Max?"

I laughed and I wondered if some bullshitting was in order. I thought therapists were like mobsters. In other words, they came with smiles. In other words, you couldn't trust them.

"I took pills, Ginny. Lots and lots of pills." There was my answer, simple and direct. I was proud of myself.

"You can do better than that," she laughed, sitting straight up. Ginny brushed the lint off her skirt, the granny skirt that she was drowning in. I knew one thing. Ginny wasn't going to let up on me.

"It's all Catherine's fault."

"Who's Catherine?" asked Ginny, humoring me before she pounced on my answer.

"She was a girl," I sighed, breathing a breath that was supposed to exude coolness, obliviousness.

"And?..." urged Ginny, moving her hands in a circle. She was exerting just enough pressure on me. Ginny didn't want to be the heavy. A therapist never wanted to be the heavy. Ginny had all the bases covered.

"And..."

"Yes, Max."

"She's gone."

I smiled. My hands fell against my thighs. I threw my head back and I closed my eyes and I took a breath. I wondered if god was mocking me. After all, I had renounced Catholicism.

"Can you be more specific?"

"No, I can't."

"You can't?" she purred, challenging me. Ginny tried to come across as a guardian angel. She was the woman who held the key. The key to my sanity. The key to my recovery.

"She left me."

Ginny was a misguided soul. I didn't blame Catherine for my meltdown. I blamed myself. Catherine, my ex, had nothing to do with my hospitalization. I took the pills. I went nuts. I was the obsessive one. Last I heard, Catherine was dating someone else.

"So, it's this girl's fault. What's her name?"

"Catherine," I said, almost inaudibly. I felt a tingle when I said her name. Her pedestal was rising. Higher and higher.

"You blame her for this?"

"For what?"

"For your suicide attempt."

"Let's not talk about Catherine," I begged, looking down at the floor. I adjusted my fuzzy blue house slippers and I studied the fibers of the carpet. I felt a heaviness in my head, felt a yawn coming on. The sleeping medicine I was on really worked. My head refused to stay up. I had to fight to stay awake. Then again, Ginny wasn't all that interesting to begin with.

"Who?" wondered Ginny, watching the clock, adjusting her sweater. She tightened the fuzzy little donut that held her ponytail in place and she gave me a look. The look said, "you have to talk to me. Talking about it will make it better."

"Catherine, my ex. The woman that I was in love with."

"Is she a girl, or is she a woman?"

"Does it matter?"

"A few minutes ago, you referred to Catherine as a girl."

"So?"

"There's a difference between a woman and a girl, is there not?"

"What's your point, Ginny?"

I looked at the clock, stared out the window, heard Diana's singing beyond the door, which was closed. Glory was screaming for sugar and Robert, as was his custom, was sniffing his nose. He wanted his comb back, the one that his mother gave him.

I took notes, started to visualize the trophy that Ginny was going to get. She was practically the greatest therapist of all time. God, Ginny was such a good listener. Well, at least she was something to look at for an hour.

"Oh yes, Catherine. Catherine, the goddess who doomed your fate."

"I never called her a goddess, Ginny." Interestingly enough, I had an idea where she was going. Ginny was about to dissect the theory of pedestal's. The pedestal that I had put Catherine on. Therapists always analyzed a person's motives, why people loved one another obsessively. I, speaking of obsessive love, fit that mold. I loved Catherine, loved her more than I loved myself. That folks, was not an understatement. That's how I ended up in the "nuthouse."

Catherine:

Catherine Ellen Augustine. You thought that it was the most beautiful name, the most romantic of names. You, yes you, were misguided. She was Kathy in the morning, and Catherine in the evening. You clung to her like some stray puppy dog. It was nice to be loved. You, yes you, liked that feeling. The feeling of being loved.

You remembered her as a blond. She was about 97 pounds and she had a thin, slender nose. Her nail bed was painted red, cherry red. She was tall and she had slender legs and she had a rather graceful stride. Her hair flowed downward and it stopped at the small of her back and it wasn't sure what color it wanted to be. Brown or blond.

You were reading "Girl, Interrupted" at the time. You thought that the author, Susanna Kaysen, was bright. She was witty and she knew where you were coming from. You enjoyed the theory about the mind. A "normal" person had the ability, courtesy of the right brain, to expunge odd thoughts from the sub conscious. For example, the left brain saw a tiger. The right brain saw the image, thought about its validity. It dismissed the image and then it consoled the left brain. The left brain was obviously in crisis.

In a "sick person's" mind, the left brain saw a tiger. It was consulted by the right brain. The right brain, after some deliberation, made its decision. "The tiger," was not a figment of the person's imagination. There wasn't enough evidence to justify the hypothesis. The idea that the image in question was "abnormal." That was Susanna Kaysen's theory, it wasn't yours. You weren't a plagiarist.

"I love it," Catherine said, looking at the painting of the girl. The girl that was interrupted at her music. She was a pasty faced girl with a pear shaped cello on her left shoulder. Her eyes looked feverishly at the sheet music. It was placed neatly on the music stand. You noticed the woman with the aqua eyes. She was "The Adult." "The Adult" looked over the girl's shoulder and "The Adult" looked at the sheet music. She, ("The Adult,") had a helpful look on her face.

You looked at it, thought of a passage from "Girl, Interrupted." Catherine thought that you were obsessed with that book, so you chose not to mention Susanna Kaysen again. You looked at the painting, wondered if your eyes were playing tricks on you. The painting went in and out of focus. It crumbled, shimmered, became transparent almost. You thought that you were crazy.

"I want to marry you, Catherine," you said. You watched her as she walked towards the Clemente piece. You heard the hollow sound of Catherine's heels.

"Are you insane?" she asked, eyeing the crowd. She was self conscious about her voice, how loud it was. You remembered her stance. Her hands were on her hips. Her white blouse was tucked rather perfectly into a beige skirt. It was a sexy skirt, even though it stopped about 2 inches from her ankle.

"I want to marry you, Catherine."

She flipped her hair back and then she sighed. You were being ridiculous.

"Oh, Max," Catherine groaned, rather seductively. She put her hand on your shoulder and she looked into your eyes. Catherine kissed you on the cheek. Your blood became warm. You knew that she was the one.

"Catherine, I'm in love with you."

You grabbed her hand and then you stroked her knuckles. You turned her hand over and you traced the life line of her palm. You allowed your finger to roam. It roamed around the wide area of skin. Pink, freshly washed skin.

"You're insane," she laughed, looking at the art lovers by the Monet. The light hit her face and the plainness of her skin was exposed.

You thought of your relationship as a china plate. From afar, everything seemed perfect. On closer inspection, there were cracks and blemishes and imperfections. The texture wasn't quite as beautiful.

You looked at the painting and you glanced at Catherine's legs. They were adorned with fishnet stockings. She was the most beautiful woman that you had ever seen. You were only seventeen at the time. You were three years younger than Catherine.

Epilogue:

Glory was in therapy and Robert was in lockdown. He had failed yet another piss test. Diana was sitting at the table, legs crossed, pen in hand, notebook by her side. Diana's tongue protruded through her teeth and her eyes looked up from time to time.

I looked at Diana. She looked towards the nurses station, and then she watched the clock. I looked at my slippers, and I made my hands into a chapel and I looked towards the window. The window with the chicken wire screen on it. The window was open and a few breaths of air managed to dribble through the screen.

"What's the secret of this place?" I asked, looking at Diana and then looking away. I stared at my slippers again.

She uncrossed her legs and she put the pen and the journal on the table and she looked at the chicken wire screen and she pondered her thoughts. Diana had probably been asked this question a million times.

"Confession."

"What?"

She started to speak in a Freudian accent.

"You must confess your sins, dear boy."

"And then?"

"And then, you're cured. Ching!" Keep in mind, she still had her back turned to me. Her hands moved like a magician, like she was carrying the secret of life in the palm of her hand.

I looked down at the floor and then I looked at my slippers. I saw the chicken wire screen again and I caught a glimpse of the black and white television. It was opposite the couch; the couch that was opposite of the table. The table that Diana used to journal on.

"What if I can't think of anything?"

Diana paused, pushed the seat back, moved towards the doorway, put her hand on the paneling. She watched the clock, heard the phone ring, thought about what life was like when someone wasn't telling you what to do. She went to the window, put her face to the screen, felt the dribble of wind on her face. Diana closed her eyes, enjoyed the taste of the outside. She sat down on the floor, put her fist on her cheek.

"Repeat the question, Sera?"

"You talked about confession."

"Yes, and?"

"Confession is the secret to this place, right?"

"What the fuck do you wanna know?"

"What if I have nothing to confess?"

She laughed and looked away. I thought that she was bored or appalled by the question. I didn't know which.

"Then you're a lifer, like me."

A/N: This is unfinished. I couldn't find anything in the rules (actually, I couldn't find the rules. Are there rules?) stating that you couldn't submit an unfinished piece; if I am, in fact, committing an infraction, I apologize now.

I would really like to know what you think so far.

And yes, Ava's line in the first scene is a 'Closer' homage.

DUBLIN

She would be beautiful if she smiled.

But he could tell, despite the minute he’d been watching her, that she was not one that used her mouth for much of anything, let alone smiling.

She was, he considered, quite pretty otherwise—but prettiness was as far as it went. She hid her eyes behind oversized, silver-rimmed sunglasses, hid sharp, angular cheek and jawbones and hollow cheeks with long strands of reddish hair.

He couldn’t see her eyes, but he figured—knew, somehow—that they were blue.

No—she was beautiful anyway. He continued to watch; she walked towards him, towards the uncomfortable bench he’d been sitting on for hours, people-watching and taking pictures. He got the feeling that she was walking, not in his direction, but at him.

She walked with confidence.

She had long legs—almost-bare legs, the thighs hidden by faded denim, the frayed ends of which brushed the tops of her knees and clung to her narrow hips. She wore dark leather cowboy boots; he couldn’t hear them, but he knew the silver heels would make a tinny clinking sound against the pavement. The end of her long, white tank top ended a couple of inches below her hips; several strands of dark wooden beads were draped around her neck in different lengths, and wooden bracelets encircled her thin wrists.

She stopped in front of him and he knew, then, that she had been walking towards him.

He looked up, his gaze traveling up her small, lithe body; she reached up, the bracelets clanking together, and pushed her sunglasses up to rest in her thick hair.

It was redder than he’d thought. She was more beautiful than he’d thought—she didn’t have to smile.

Her voice was soft and it took him a moment to realized she’d spoken.

“Hello, stranger.”

It took him even longer to reach her eyes.

They were green.

——

The park—not so much a park as a courtyard—was oddly empty.

It was, admittedly, almost eleven at night; the lights from the street were the only thing that offered illumination on the cracked, narrow stone pathway.

Two shadows—one long and thin, the other small and petite—cast over the crumbling stone in front of them; for a long time, only their footsteps could be heard.

“I’ve never been here,” she said, looking at her feet, rather than at him. “It’s...”

Her voice trailed away, as though she was searching for the right word.

The perfect word, he thought. She didn’t seem the type that would settle for just the right word.

“Beautiful?” he suggested, glancing at her, trying—no, striving—to meet her eyes, her stunning green eyes.

“Interesting,” she said softly, decisively, carefully. She looked up, but kept her face turned away from his. He took a moment—just a moment—to study the profile of her face—the long, clean line of her jaw, her sharp cheekbones, the long golden lashes that lay against the pale, smooth skin of her cheek when she momentarily closed her eyes against the harsh city skyline, barely visible over the brick wall that encircled the courtyard.

She stumbled, in that moment of blindness, and he reflexively reached out to catch her, pulling her close, partially by accident.

Her eyes snapped open, fear—for a moment, for a single instant—flickering in them when she met his gaze.

“You have... extraordinary eyes,” he murmured, slowly relaxing his hold.

“Thank you,” she said, her voice as soft as his; she didn’t pull away until he had completely released her, and even then, she did so reluctantly.

She began to walk down the path again and he walked after her, speeding up a little, trying to catch her, laying a hand on her shoulder when he had.

She turned, walking backwards for a moment.

“What’s your name?”

He didn’t know what he’d intended to ask—he knew it wasn’t that.

Strangely, though—and indeed, it was strange—she just smiled.

“Ava,” she said simply.

“Did your parents just stop at Ava?” His tone was teasing but not altogether playful.

“Avianne Elliott-Chatham.”

“Hell of a name,” he remarked.

“Most people just call me Ava.”

He liked it better when she stopped smiling. Her smile didn’t seem real—forced and a little tense, as though she was wholly unfamiliar with the general concept.

She didn’t ask his name. He gave it anyway.

“Hugh Devon.” He pronounced ‘Devon’ like “deh-vahn”.

“A false name if I ever heard one.” The words were simply stated, not accusatory—but nor were they playful.

“My parents were very interested in American cinema—fifties and early sixties. Casablanca and the Rat Pack and the like.”

“Devon,” she repeated, looking him in the eye for a moment. In that single, fleeting moment, the color of her eyes approached blackness. “Your father is an artist? Madison Devon?”

“Was,” Hugh corrected. “Was an artist. He died a few months ago.”

He began to walk again; she followed.

Silence—Ava didn’t offer an apology.

He was glad; apologies, to him, in the last few months, had become nothing short of tedious, obligatory words, words to be treated with a sad, grateful smile.

He hated apologies.

She asked a question instead—

“Do you miss him?”

He answered honestly.

“No.”

“Why?”

If anyone else had asked, he wouldn’t have answered.

“He was disappointed in me, I think.”

“Why?”

“I’m not him.”

“What are you?”

He stopped; after a few moments, she did too. “What do you mean?”

“You said you’re not him. What are you?”

“I’m not an artist.”

She repeated the question.

“A failed musician.”

“Why did you fail?”

“Never got signed.” A short, humorless laugh. “No—what am I saying? No talent.”

“Anything else?”

“What?”

“Any other reason you profess that you’re not your father?”

“I’m not a womanizer.”

“No, but you’re a liar.”

He smiled—a small, curious smile. “What do you mean?”

“You use women, even if you don’t use them for sex. You use them somehow.”

“Everyone uses everyone else.”

She began to walk again; after a few seconds, he followed her. She turned and began to walk backwards until her back was pressed to the brick wall.

“I don’t.”

He stopped, standing in front of her.

“Then you let them use you.”

“Are you included in them?”

She stepped up, put a hand on his shoulder.

“Are you going to use me, Hugh Devon?”

He felt goosebumps rise from the skin under her hand all the way down his back.

“If you let me.”

She smiled softly—the smile, like all of her smiles, as he would come to find, held no joy. “I will.”

--

LONDON

The door opened and, for a moment, she didn’t realize that anyone had entered the apartment at all.

Then came a voice—low and soft; she could hear his familiar smile in his tone.

“Good morning, angel.”

She looked up, a smile crossing her thin, tired face.

Soft, breathless—excited.

“You’re early.”

She sprang to her feet and almost instantly found herself enveloped in his strong arms, whispering into his neck.

“You devil, you’re back early…”

“Soleil, my angel,” he whispered, over and over again, into her thick, pale hair. “My angel…”

“You’re tired,” she said softly, finally, pulling away and stepping towards the kitchen. “I’ll make some coffee.”

“Thank God,” he said, collapsing on the couch and watching her through the open door. “The American next to me on the train snored like a bastard, I couldn’t get any sleep at all.”

“Then I’ll make it strong,” the woman said; he could hear her bustling around the kitchen.

A pause, then her voice.

“How was your trip?”

“Good. I got a few good shots of downtown Dublin, but that was it.”

She dropped a mug; it didn’t break, but she swore anyway. He smiled.

“I love it when you do that.”

She poked her head out the doorway, slightly bemused. “What?”

“When you swear—when you do something unexpected.” He paused, struggling for words. “I can’t explain it.”

She smiled and shook her hair out of her eyes. “If you say so.”

He stepped into the kitchen when she was back inside, wrapped his arms around her waist.

“I do say so,” he growled.

There was a quiet laugh. “You beast.”

He kissed the side of her neck and her hands fluttered to his, biting her bottom lip.

“Jade... you animal...”

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, picking her up easily and spinning her around before planting her back on her feet. “Am I not supposed to be happy to see my girlfriend after being away for three days?”

She giggled and rested her head on his shoulder, wrapping her arms low around his waist.

There was a silence.

“I love you,” she murmured softly, simply.

“I love you too.” He buried his nose in her hair, then rested his chin on the top of her head.

He stared out the window in front of them, into the darkness.

It reminded him of her.

Not Soleil.

The... the Dublin girl.

Anne.

He almost imagined, as he stared into the darkness, that he could see the lights of downtown Dublin—imagined he could see the candles burning in her apartment window, flickering in the warm breeze that drifted in, aching of spring.

He almost let himself imagine that he could see that fire burning in her brilliant green eyes, almost imagined the flaming red hair entwined around his fingers.

He almost—almost—imagined that the woman in his arms was her.

--

DUBLIN

It had started innocently.

Honestly, it had.

She was a pretty girl; he was a photographer desperately seeking a subject.

The best landscape photographs, he had always thought, were the ones with detail.

People, cars, animals—anything that fit.

And the image of her in front of the Gabstreet bridge—a creature of such beauty in front of such a monstrosity, the evidence of human nature.

“Ma’am?”

His voice was lost among the bustle of Dublin.

He approached her warily, his camera very much visible; he tapped her shoulder and she turned, cocking a thin eyebrow.

“Would you mind if I took some shots of you?”

He gestured to his camera—large and obviously expensive.

“I work for a travel magazine.”

She contemplated the idea for a moment.

“I suppose. Do you want payment, or...?”

“No, no, of course not,” he said, almost laughing with relief. “I just need a model. That’s all.”

She accepted his directions on where to go—just in front of the bridge, a little to the left.

“My God, you’re a photographer’s dream,” he said after a few shots, glancing up from behind the camera. “Have you ever done modeling before?”

“Not as far as I know,” she said, smiling softly; he ducked quickly behind the camera, managing to get the shot—her feet were apart, planted firmly on the stone, her auburn hair whipped around by the breeze, and that small, exquisite smile on her thin lips.

“I’m not sure.” He snapped another picture, this time of the delicately engraved stone, making sure to catch her silver boot heel in the shot. “I think—”

Another shot.

“—you have—”

Another.

“—and you’re playing coy.”

He grinned openly as he lowered the camera.

“I am not,” she protested.

The traffic light behind him turned green and his voice was suddenly drowned out by the roar of traffic.

“Do you want to go for coffee somewhere?”

“What?” she shouted back.

“Do you want to go for coffee?” he yelled, striving to be heard over the traffic.

A couple of kids on skateboards went by and snickered.

The traffic abruptly died and she paused for a moment.

“I don’t know your name.”

“Jade Strider.”

It was his turn to pause.

“I don’t know yours.” He grinned suddenly. “Ooh, the tables, they have been turned!”

“Anne Chatham.”

He stowed his camera into his messenger bag and stepped towards her. “I would think that someone like you would have a much more exotic name.”

“Does Anne Elliot-Chatham work?”

“It’s a little better.”

She laughed.

“I know a place around here somewhere. Are you looking for food, coffee or conversation?”

“B and C.”

“Ah, then the Blue Robin is the place to go.”

She adopted the tone of a tour guide.

“Built in seventeen sixty four, the Blue Robin has been an establishment of Dublin for more than two hundred years.”

“Has it really?”

“I’ve no bloody idea.”

He laughed and set off down the street; she took his arm and propelled him the other way.

“This way, then! Onwards!” he cried.

She giggled, setting off in front of him.

“Why did you want me to be your model?”

He cocked his head to one side.

“You’re beautiful.”

“You’re flirting.”

“And?”

“Is there a woman waiting for you in London?”

“How do you know I’m a Londoner?”

“The way you talk. So, is there?”

The response slipped from his lips without him thinking.

“No.”

Yes.

She glanced at him. “Are you telling the truth?”

“Yes.”

No.

She glanced over her shoulder at him, suddenly moving faster.

“Come on.”

He sped up, following her; she turned one corner, then another, and another.

Soon, his breath was all but gone.

Jesus, she walked fast—

“Here.”

She stopped and he lingered behind her, his eyes roaming the street.

They were in an entirely different part of the city now.

His first thought of the Blue Robin was one of cleanliness. The café was small and neat—the slick wooden counter on the left side of the room was dark and worn smooth by the many mugs and hands that had passed along it over the years. A small, sleek, pale-haired woman stood behind it—there was a moment of terror as Jade believed—for a moment, just for a moment—that it was Soleil.

But then he looked at the girl closer; she was younger than Soleil; Soleil’s face was thinner, her eyes wider, more expressive—innocent and interested—her mouth smaller, her hair fairer.

He glanced at Anne, studying the profile of her face.

Her face was thin, too—angular, pale. Her eyes, sparking green in the soft light, were interested too, like Soleil’s—but Anne’s were keen, scrutinizing.

They weren’t the same. Not at all.

“Do you come here often?” he asked finally, softly, after they had ordered their coffee and taken a booth.

“You sound like you’re in a film.” She slid in next to him, close, but not too close. “Or a romance novel.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re not.” She shook her head, short, choppy locks of auburn hair falling into her eyes. She reached up and pushed them back, her eyes on the table. “And yes, I come here whenever I can.”

“Why?”

“Why would someone come to a café?”

“You don’t seem like someone that would use the standard answer for anything.”

“I am this time.”

The waitress came and his eyes lingered on her face a moment too long after he’d taken his coffee; when the girl had left, Anne spoke.

“Does she look like your girl in London?”

He glanced at her, too sharply, too quickly. “What?”

“Your girl in London. Does she look like that?”

“What makes you think I have a girl in London?”

“You’re not being very responsive. Either you’ve got a girl and you’re thinking about her or you’re gay.”

She paused.

“And you’re not gay, are you?”

“I wasn’t the last time I checked.”

“Then you have a girl in London.”

“Yes.”

“What’s her name?”

“Soleil.”

“Beautiful. It’s French; it means the sun.”

“I know.”

“Does it suit her?”

“Sometimes it does, very aptly. And sometimes I think it should have been something darker.”

“Does Soleil have a dark side?”

“She can.”

He changed the subject.

“Do you have someone here in Dublin?”

“Are you planning on cheating on Soleil while you’re here?”

“I might,” he said, a little rashly.

“With me?”

“Would you?”

“Yes.”

“Will you?”

She hesitated only for a moment.

“Yes.”

He smiled, easy and forced at once.

“Good.”

She took a slow sip of her coffee, her pretty, expressive eyes on his face.

“You’re very handsome.” Another sip. “In a dark sort of way.”

“I know.”

He didn’t feel the need to be modest with her—to hide, like he would with Soleil.

“Does it help land you unsuspecting girls like me for photo shoots?”

“Usually I have predetermined girls.”

“Did you meet Soleil like that?”

“No.”

“How did you, then?”

“Our parents knew each other. We grew up together.”

“Where?”

“Cornwall.”

“Did you live near the ocean?”

“Almost on it.”

“Did you like it?”

“I loved it.”

“Did she?”

“No. She wanted to live somewhere with ‘civilized people’—she thought both of our parents were mindless peasants.”

“She sounds delightful.”

He had surprised himself with the venom in his tone.

“She is. I’m making her sound bad.”

Anne looked up, setting her coffee down.

She pressed their lips together—quickly and softly; one of them deepened the kiss—he didn’t know who.

Then she broke away. Her brilliant green eyes locked with his own dark ones; he couldn’t look away.

“Do you love her, Jade?”

She kissed him again and didn’t break away.

He broke the kiss first.

“I…”

I do, I do.

“Yes.”

She kissed him again, harder, more demanding.

“You’re a bad liar.”

Another kiss.

This time, neither of them broke away.

—–

Foreword

He’d started it to get back at Bert McCracken. For the lies, for the money. Mostly for the thrill of revenge when it would all be over. And the sum he was being paid—more than five digits—helped his decision. So when Tom Donnelli called him with a proposition, he had listened. And agreed. The revenge would start—and maybe end with—Lucia McCracken, Bert’s youngest sister, who had just turned twenty-one. The thing that Bert probably cared about most, just under drugs and sex.

It was supposed to start with her.

1: The First Assignment

November 30th

It was the end of the month. The twenty-nine-year-old that Donnelli had contacted was sitting in front of his desk, his face impassive. This man, while imposing, was nothing compared to the man behind the desk.

At first glance, Thomas Donnelli didn’t seem too formidable. An older man, maybe into his early sixties or late fifties. He was a short wiry man, with rounded shoulders and quick hands that moved as he spoke. Because he was leaning back in his swivel chair, his face was cast into shadow.

“Did you do it?” he asked finally. His voice was mellifluous, smooth. The younger man distrusted it immediately.

“I need more time, Mr. Donnelli.”

“Tom, please, Gerard.” At the mention of his name, the younger man’s eyes narrowed, even though Donnelli’s tone was warm.

“Before we resume,” he said, “I assume there are no recording systems in place?”

The warmth vanished from Donnelli’s voice as he leaned forward, into the light. “No.”

Gerard’s eyes flicked over Donnelli’s face, taking in every detail before speaking again. There was a long scar that stretched from his temple to the corner of his mouth, narrowly missing his left eye, silver against the dark skin. A white, carefully trimmed mustache hovered over his top lip, the same color as his short hair. His eyes were what frightened the other man: flat, dead, black eyes, devoid of any warmth or compassion, of any emotion at all.

“As I said,” Gerard Way said carefully, but Donnelli cut him off.

“I’ve given you more than adequate time.”

“Lucia is... a difficult woman.”

“And you’re a smart man. Think of something.”

Gerard barely suppressed a sigh. Getting his temper up in front of Tom Donnelli would convince him that he was weak, if not put him in danger.

“Bert’s protective of Lucia and she doesn’t trust me,” he said, a little defensively. “It’s going to take more than a couple of weeks to get her to warm up to me.”

“Two weeks,” Donnelli said smoothly.

“Three.”

“Unnecessary,” the older man argued. “I could do it in two.”

“Then why don’t you?” Gerard asked flatly. “Why have me do this?”

“Because McCracken would shoot me as soon as look at me.”

“Why?” As soon as the syllable was out of his mouth, Gerard realized that it was probably a bad question to ask.

“Do you really want to know the answer to that question?”

“Yes.”

Donnelli watched him carefully for a moment. “I was McCracken’s dealer,” he said finally. “He lied to you and betrayed me. He turned in three of my button men and an important spacciatore. I’ve waited, made him worry, made him think he was safe. And now, when he thinks he’s going to be fine—”

He slammed his fist down on the desk and Gerard jumped.

“I’ve had people shot for not listening to me,” Donnelli growled.

Gerard knew he had. He’d had people shot for less.

“Continue, sir.” The last word sounded out through clenched teeth. Gerard was angry at his sudden alarm.

“Now, when he thinks he’s going to be fine—we strike.”

“It seems a bit... small... to just cheat on his sister,” Gerard said, a little bewildered.

Donnelli smiled for the first time. It was a chilling smile that didn’t reach his eyes: now, Gerard knew why Tom Donnelli was the most feared drug dealer on the East Coast.

“Two weeks, Gerard,” he said quietly. “Then you come see me.”

2: Lucia

Gerard walked down the hall after being shown the door by the guard that he hadn’t seen until he’d stood up. The weak light caught the top of the guard’s big, bald head as he moved to open the door. As the door was half-shut, he’d heard Donnelli call the guard Batista.

He was silently berating himself as he walked down the long corridor. Asking Donnelli why he wasn’t doing this himself had been stupidity, simple as that. His hands balled into fists as he thought about what he was supposed to do.

Date a McCracken. He’d tried that once and didn’t look forward to doing it again. Although Lucia was as different from her brother as Mikey was from him, he mused after a moment. Her hair was pale—like Bert’s—and long. Everything about her was light; her eyes were an almost translucent aqua-blue, and her skin was nearly white.

And she trusted him.

That was what killed him. Lucia trusted him when he was only using her to get to her brother. It was terrible, really, when he thought about it, but twenty-five grand was no small number.

After all, it wasn’t as if he was really doing something horrible.

Right?

3: Cold

He bowed his dark head against the bone-chilling wind that tossed snow at him and everyone else on the street. His hands were still balled in his pockets, but not from anger—just to keep them from freezing. The sky was slowly darkening, despite his watch reading ten minutes until six. It was December first in Belleville, New Jersey, and a nor’easterner from Michigan was due to hit sometime during the night.

His mood was made even worse by the thought of the approaching blizzard; he’d have to make his visit to Lucia quick and get back to the house that he was renting with Frankie Iero and his brother.

He was starting to wish that he had just turned down Barrow and gotten to the house when a car pulled up beside him.

“Need a ride?”

He glanced at the window, rolled down halfway, into the pale blue eyes watching him.

“Yeah,” he said and grinned.

“Get in, then.”

He walked to the other side of the silver Corvette, not taking time to admire the expensive car. As soon as he was in, she started driving.

“Where are you headed?” Lucia asked after a moment, glancing at him.

Gerard brushed snow off his shoulder. “I was actually coming to see you.”

“Seriously.”

“I’m serious.”

There was a pause. “You do like me, don’t you.” It was offered as a statement, not a question, but Gerard answered anyway.

“Yeah.” As soon as he said it, he thought that it was a lie. It took him a few seconds to figure out that it wasn’t.

He looked over at Lucia to see that she had a little half-smile on her face.

“What?” Gerard asked after a moment. “What’s so funny?”

“You just... you’re cute,” she said.

He blinked. “I am?”

“Yeah. Why were you coming to see me, by the way?”

“’Cause I wanted to talk to you.” He didn’t feel it necessary to add the ‘duh’.

“Do you want to get a coffee somewhere?” Lucia asked, pulling into a Starbucks without waiting for his consent.

“...Sure.”

4: Starbucks

He slid an arm around her waist inside the warm Starbucks. The brief, casual contact was strangely more romantic than if he had kissed her in the middle of the café.

She watched Gerard order for them both; not because he was a domineering ass, but because he knew what she would want. A black coffee for him and a double decaf latte with skim milk for her. She refused to be flattered by the fact that he remembered.

She pressed herself a little closer to him as they waited, if not for her benefit as much as his. She could still feel him shivering, even though they’d been in Starbucks for a minute or two.

“Do you want me to go get a booth?” she asked after he’d let go of her and taken the mugs.

“Yeah,” he said, grabbing a little packet of sugar from the counter and following her. She slid into one of the booths farthest in the back and he sat next to her.

She took the mug and sipped the steaming coffee within gratefully. “How much do I owe you?”

Gerard cocked an eyebrow. “What?”

“You paid, and I know these are almost six dollars.”

“Its fine,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.

“No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is.” A small smile formed on his face.

“What’s so funny?” she asked impatiently, not fully realizing that he’d asked the same question only a couple of minutes before.

“You’re cute,” he said and, like it was the most natural thing in the world, wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her close to him.

“I said that first,” she said, glancing up at him—she had to glance up at him; even sitting, he was taller than she was.

“I know. But you are.”

They drank their coffee for a few more moments, his arm draped casually around her shoulders. He turned towards her and his tone was lower than before when he spoke. “Is this going to be okay with Bert?”

She thought for a moment. “I’m not sure. He won’t like it.”

“We don’t have to tell him.”

“We don’t,” she agreed, resting her head on his shoulder.

That was probably a good thing. She couldn’t see the guilt in his eyes.

5: A Made Man

Flip.

A shadowy sketch of Jack the Ripper. Across from the sketch was a diagram of a woman who had been dissected more thoroughly than his frog in freshman AP Biology.

Flip.

The dumpy face of John Wayne Gacy.

Flip.

A black-and-white photograph of a 1930s German man who had ground his neighbors up into sausages and served them up at a community dinner.

Flip.

He was looking into the fantastically mad eyes of Charles Manson.

Flip.

A woodcutting of a man done during the sixteenth century. He looked harmless; glasses, big nose, little hair. He’d killed twenty children in Russia, maybe fifty. No one knew for sure.

Flip.

The handsome face of Ted Bundy.

Batista sighed and shut the book that he’d gotten from the library—Famed Serial Murderers of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. He’d gotten a strange look from the librarian when he’d check it out. Maybe they added his name to some list they kept behind the counter. Murder geeks. Serial killer junkies. Hannibal Lector wanna-bes. He’d given them a fake name, naturally, like he did for most of the libraries he checked stuff out at, and most other places that required your name. Aleksi Marcos, he’d told her. He had no fondness for any particular combination of syllables; Aleksi was as good as Batista or Josh or any other.

He didn’t know why this shit fascinated him, but it did. A lot of stuff fascinated him that would repulse others.

Like how much pain one could inflict with one pocketknife.

He flicked the speck of dried blood off his thumbnail that he’d just noticed.

He was a lot smarter than Donnelli thought he was. Tom Donnelli considered him below him, not quite as smart as the wily drug lord but not as stupid as the button men that he’d hired for lower jobs.

He was smart enough to veil the contempt he felt for his boss whenever he was around him, masking it behind a docile face of servility.

He was also smart enough to know what Donnelli wanted the Way man to ultimately do. He was smart enough to know that Way would never do it without some kind of retribution as punishment. Way had no idea.

He was too honest, Gerard Way. He was too clean and... Not innocent, that much was obvious, but the word might be clueless. Naive, maybe.

Gerard knew who Donnelli was, what he did, that much was obvious. But he didn’t know the darker side of the business: how many men, women, and children that Donnelli had killed to rise to power.

Gerard didn’t know that Donnelli had risen to power on a veritable fountain of blood.

6: Kiss

Lucia’s eyes flicked over Gerard as they walked back to her Corvette, three lattes, four black coffees and two hours later. They had spent the hours talking about anything that came to mind: whether burgers were better at Ozzies or Hooters (not that Gerard ever admitting to going there), their favorite Simpsons episodes, whether Anderson Cooper was a better reporter than Nancy Grace, whether Morrisey could kick Robert Smith’s ass in a fight (that one had ended in the agreement that they wouldn’t fight; instead, they would wander off together and write songs about their girlfriends.) He had seemed reluctant to talk about his band, like he didn’t want to appear as a show-off.

The snow started to fall again, floating on the still air. The flakes were brilliant white against the blue-black sky. They were different from the previous snowfalls; there was no chilling wind to freeze exposed skin or blinding sheets of white to impair vision.

She slipped her bare hand inside Gerard’s as they walked and he pulled them to a stop. She was just getting her mind around this when he pulled her close to him—close enough for her to count his eyelashes, close enough for her to see every speck of golden-brown that dotted his eyes.

And then he kissed her.

She didn’t know how long their lips met—it felt like at least a minute, but she knew that it was probably only four or five seconds. It was long enough for her.

She never saw the man watching them from a parked sedan.

7: The Call

Batista, never taking his eyes off the pair, flipped open an untraceable cell phone and dialed one of Tom Donnelli’s many numbers.

“Yes?” Tom didn’t bother asking who it was. He knew that only Batista and his other right hand, Basta, were the only ones to whom the private numbers had been given.

“I’ve got them right in front of me.”

“And?” Tom’s voice was tight with excitement or impatience; Batista couldn’t tell which.

“They’re... kissing,” Batista said after a second.

A heavy sigh. “You called to tell me that?”

“No.” Batista purposely made his tone a little slow.

“Then what did you want?”

“It seems that... Way is actually developing feelings for the girl.”

“And how would you know?” Tom asked a little scornfully.

“You know I’m good at judging character,” Batista said simply. “And I can tell when someone’s acting. Way wasn’t.”

“The man’s a good actor,” Tom said indifferently.

“I was right about Ewing, wasn’t I?”

Carter Ewing had been one of Donnelli’s most trusted advisors—the right-hand man before Batista. He’d exposed a plot between Ewing and members of a rival outfit to assassinate Donnelli the night before it was supposed to happen.

Within an hour, Ewing was riddled with bullets in his favorite restaurant, his mouth full of half-chewed bread. It was a move that secured Donnelli’s—and Batista’s—place in the criminal world.

“I suppose,” Tom said tersely. “What do you suppose I do?”

“Drop the case.”

“No.” Batista knew that this wouldn’t work as soon as he’d said it; the McCracken job had become almost an obsession after he’d gotten the idea in his head.

“Why? It’s wasting your time and mine.” Batista couldn’t keep the sharp edge out of his voice.

“This is why I’m the boss, Batista,” Tom said smoothly. “I had something planned—something to test Mr. Way. And if he doesn’t... well, we’ll see about that, won’t we?” Without warning, the phone clicked off and a flat dial tone buzzed in Batista’s ear.

Just then, Batista knew he wouldn’t want to be in Gerard Way’s position for anything in the world.

8: The Second Assignment

December 15th

The calendar over Donnelli’s desk read December fifteenth. Gerard shifted in his seat, waiting for the older man to speak.

“You seem to be doing well with Lucia,” Donnelli said finally, bringing his fingers to a peak in front of him and watching Gerard over the tips.

Gerard had readied himself for this. “I am. She’s warmed to me.”

“I see that,” Donnelli said dryly. “From your escapade in the parking lot on East Canal Avenue, she’s warmed very much.”

Gerard felt the blood rise in his cheeks—but a smile was playing with the edges of Donnelli’s mouth.

So he wasn’t in the mood to kill. That was good.

“An act,” he said indifferently.

“You’re a good actor,” the guard—Batista—observed.

“And was this an act?” Donnelli asked a split second later, pulling out a tape recorder. He clicked a button and Lucia’s voice played out across the room—

“I love you.”

“I know. I love you.”

The smile on Donnelli’s face turned cold.

“It was an act,” Gerard said hollowly, and, for the first time, he felt fear stirring in his mind.

“You know, Gerard, I’m having a hard time believing that,” the older man said with false warmth. “I think you’re lying to me. And you know what happens to liars.”

Gerard tensed. Shit. Shit. This was bad.

“Which is why you’ve been reassigned.”

Gerard lot a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“Yes?” he asked when the assignment didn’t come.

“Your assignment, Gerard...” Donnelli’s voice trailed away and Gerard was suddenly getting a bad feeling, a really bad feeling—

“—is to kill—“

No, no, no...

“—Lucia McCracken.”

“No.” The word was out of his mouth before he could stop it. “No.”

“Why?” The smile dropped as Donnelli leaned in towards him. “Wasn’t it just an act, Gerard? If you don’t care about her, why won’t you?”

“I’m not a killer,” Gerard stammered, his heart throwing itself against his chest like a wild animal in a too-small cage. “I’m not killing anyone.”

“You will,” Donnelli said, the smile returning. “Leave, Gerard. And keep your cell phone on.”

Gerard walked out of the room. A numb feeling started in the center of his chest and worked its way up, into his brain, numbing all of the thoughts that had raced around his mind just a moment ago, until there was only one remaining, the one he didn’t want to think about.

He had to kill Lucia.

9: Dead Serious

The call came on his cell phone at exactly six-oh-eight PM. The snow had just started falling and there was hardly anyone out.

“Given any thought to my assignment, Gerard?”

“You can’t be serious,” the other man whispered, ducking into the relative safety of an overhang.

“Would you like to know how serious I am? Look at that gentleman walking his dog,” Donnelli said, “across the street.”

Gerard looked. It was a relatively young man in a business suit, handsome, walking an equally handsome Golden Retriever, pausing to admire the snow. He piled a little on the dog’s head. Probably had a wife at home, maybe a couple kids.

Then there was a crack and Business Suit went down with a bullet to the head.

“Oh, my God,” Gerard choked out.

“Dead serious,” Donnelli said softly. “Goodnight, Gerard.”

10: Breaking the News

Everyone was in his apartment when he arrived. He had to tell them.

He had just watched an innocent man be killed, just so that Donnelli could make a point. Just by knowing him, their lives were in danger. Especially Mike’s.

God, he didn’t want to think about what would happen to his brother.

“Mikey,” he said, grabbing his brother’s arm and pulling him up. “I need to talk to you.”

“Gerard, what the hell—I was beating Ray’s ass—“

“This is more important than Ace Combat 4,” Gerard interrupted, pulling his younger brother down the hall. “I really need to talk to you.”

That was a good thing about his brother: if he could tell Gerard was freaked out—as he so obviously was right now—he would drop everything and help. Gerard dragged him into his bedroom.

Within ten minutes, the entire story was out. Mike had paled drastically with every word that came out of Gerard’s mouth since the words “kill Lucia”.

“Jesus H. Christ,” he whispered finally, his dark eyes contrasting sharply with the paper-white of his skin. “Man, when you fuck up, you really fuck up.”

“Thanks.”

“Aw, hell, Gee, you know that isn’t what I meant,” his brother said. “I just… I don’t know what to say. You need to tell the guys.”

Gerard sighed. “I know. I just… I don’t want to look at them when I tell them. Getting revenge on Bert seems so… I dunno… stupid. It just seems dumb now.”

“What’d you think he’d have you do?”

“Donnelli?”

Mike nodded.

“He told me I’d have a small role.” Gerard let out a mirthless laugh. “Apparently I was promoted.”

“Do you want me to go get the guys?”

“I guess,” Gerard said, as if he was agreeing to be executed.

Another ten minutes and they all knew. Frankie and Bob were openly shocked, but Ray didn’t seem—or wasn’t—surprised.

“What are you going to do?” he asked, staring Gerard in the eyes.

“I don’t know.” Gerard’s words were flat and serious. “Goddamn it, I don’t know.”

“Do you love Lucia?”

Gerard didn’t even pause. “Yes.”

“Are you going to kill her?” This question came from Bob.

The older man ran a hand over his face. “I don’t know. I don’t want to consider it.”

“Then why are you?” Ray asked, the words coming out harsh. Gerard raised his gaze to meet the guitarist’s and Ray was visibly surprised: Gerard’s eyes were tired, haunted. Hunted. Scared.

“I’m scared. Not for me—for you guys,” he said quietly. “I could be responsible for you guys getting killed. Especially Mikey.” His voice dropped. “I just… I don’t know what to do.”

“The first thing you need to do,” Frankie said grimly, speaking at last, “is tell Lucia. She can’t go on not knowing.”

Gerard nodded. “Phone or…?”

“The phones might be tapped,” Mike said.

Frank snorted. “You honestly think—“

“Frank, I watched a man get shot in front of me,” Gerard said harshly, louder than he’d spoken all day. “For nothing. For Donnelli to make a point. Don’t put anything past him.”

11: I’ll Never Let Them Hurt You

The Rolls-Royce had to have been doing eighty down the icy road. Gerard slammed on the brakes as a truck pulled out in front of him, swearing fluently under his breath. He started up again as the truck turned a few yards later.

Trees, houses, mailboxes—everything flew by until he reached Oak and Sixteenth, where he slowed until the speedometer needle hovered at forty. He kept driving until he almost passed the apartment complex where Lucia was living.

He pulled in sharply, almost missing the drive, ignoring the extended middle finger that was thrown out a window at him.

“Lucia,” he panted, after running the seven sets of stairs to her apartment.

“Gerard?” she asked, her eyes narrowing slightly. “What the hell? I’m sorry, but… what the hell?”

“Can I, uh… can I come in?”

“Yeah,” Lucia said, opening the door wider and stepping aside so that he could walk in. “What’s wrong?”

“I need to talk to you. I mean… I really, really need to talk to you.”

Lucia sat on the loveseat, motioning for him to sit beside her. “I’m listening.”

He took a spot in the chair across from her instead. “Okay. Uhm… I don’t want you to be freaked out about what I’m about to tell you.”

She nodded, her expression guarded. “Okay, shoot.”

“There’s a man named Tom Donnelli operating in New York—” Gerard began, but Lucia cut him off sharply.

“I know who Donnelli is.” Gerard glanced at her. She was noticeably paler than she had been when he entered the apartment.

“Okay. I’ve had some contact with him. A lot of contact…”

Ten minutes later, the full account—from Donnelli’s call to their kiss in the Starbucks parking lot to Donnelli’s new assignment to the sniper—was hanging, irretrievable, irreversible, in the air.

“So… all of that…” Lucia said finally, her voice very small, “was an act?”

“All of what?”

“The kiss. You saying that you loved me. All of it was fake.”

“No,” Gerard said, his voice strained with earnest, “no—it was real. All of it.” He placed a hand on top of hers where they rested on the glass top of the coffee table. His skin was darker than hers, her fingers longer than his, but they looked different together. They looked… right.

“I’m not going to let anything hurt you,” he said quietly after a long moment, both of them staring at their hands. His voice dropped to a whisper as his gaze met Lucia’s.

“I’ll never let them hurt you… I promise.”

12: These Broken City Skylines

December 20th

She hadn’t said anything to him about it, but Gerard knew that she’d told Bert. He hadn’t seen Bert until that night.

To his credit, he wasn’t swearing bloody murder. He was talking to Gerard about what exactly they were going to do to keep his sister out of the crossfire, sitting comfortably at the table in the older man’s apartment.

“Aren’t you worried about… you?” Gerard asked, a little confused. Bert had always been selfish.

What the hell had happened?

“No.” Bert passed a hand over his face. “I’m more worried about Lucia right now than anything.”

Gerard suddenly felt a strong surge of guilt for putting the other man through this. “Where is she?”

“I don’t know if I can tell you that.”

“Bert, please.” Gerard’s voice was almost pleading and Bert’s head jerked up at the unfamiliar tone. “I need to know. She might not be safe if she’s—”

“God dammit, Gerard,” Bert snarled, “why didn’t you fuckin’ tell me?”

“I thought you’d have sense enough to know!” Gerard shook his head and stood up, reaching for the pistol on the counter and sticking it inside his jacket. “Where is she?”

“Westchester,” Bert said, standing up, too. “A little north of New York City. Got another one of those?” he added after a moment.

Gerard tossed a gleaming silver handgun at the other man. “I’m not sure how much ammo it’s got, but there should be bullets in the—”

“Found ‘em,” Bert said, rummaging in the draw underneath the sink. Two more handguns clattered to the floor along with a machine pistol.

He raised his eyebrows at Gerard. “Jesus.”

He paused.

“Should I ask where the hell you got these?”

Gerard shrugged. “Ray’s got friends in low places and Frankie wanted to play Soldier of Fortune.” He picked up the machine pistol and twirled it around his index finger—it was easier than it looked—and flicked on the safety, sticking it in his coat along with the other handgun. “Ready?”

“We’re screwed if we get pulled over,” Bert warned.

“We won’t,” Gerard assured him, all the while fervently hoping that he was right.

“Your car or mine?” he asked when they were both out the door.

Bert glanced first at Gerard’s Rolls-Royce Phantom and then at his own Ford F350. “Uh... as much as I want to drive a Royce, it might get shot up. So mine.”

“Okay.” Gerard slid into the passenger seat of the other man’s truck, one hand straying to the left side of his coat as a car drove slowly on the road in front of them. He decided not to mention that he wouldn’t have let Bert drive his Phantom anyways.

“It’s nothing,” Bert said, following his gaze. “Donnelli wouldn’t let one of his top boys drive a Taurus. And he wouldn’t send a little guy.” He flicked on the ignition and pulled out of the driveway, roaring full-throttle down the deserted highway. It was nearing twelve thirty in the morning and the only lights were unnatural, harsh orange from the streetlights.

“So, tell me what you know about Donnelli.”

“Long story.”

“Long drive,” Gerard replied, glancing at the nearing metropolis that was New York City and, beyond that, smaller cities, and beyond those Westchester, and in that Lucia. “Tell me.”

Bert kept his eyes trained on the road but Gerard saw his jaws clench and unclench. “What do you want to know?”

“Who he has working for him, what he deals. Why he wants you hurt,” Gerard added quietly.

“He’s got three top men—maybe two now, Basta and Batista. If anyone’s at Lucia’s, it’ll be Basta. There used to be one named Ewing, but I haven’t heard anything about him lately.”

“What do you mean?”

“What?”

“You’re making it sound like you’re keeping tabs on a Mafia lord.”

Bert snorted. “Don’t call him that. He doesn’t have political contacts—once you get into narcotics, you’re fucked for government influence. He doesn’t have racket men and he doesn’t deal in strong-arms or prostitution. He’s just a wise guy who got lucky with some crack.”

“I see,” Gerard said after a moment. “So, answer my other questions.”

“He deals mainly in hard stuff—heroin, crack, coke. I’m pretty sure he’s the halfway point—trafficking—but he deals, too.”

Gerard nodded and then said, “Why is he hell-bent on killing you, then?”

Bert shrugged with one shoulder, pulling into a four-lane highway. They were almost on the outskirts of New York City.

“You have to have some idea.”

Bert was silent for a long moment and Gerard thought he wasn’t going to answer, but then he said, “I caused some trouble for him a while ago. When he was my dealer.”

“Oh, yeah,” Gerard said, remembering that first meeting with Donnelli in a flash of clarity. “You turned in some of his button men, right?”

Bert turned to stare at him. “Is that what he told you?”

“Yeah. What happened?”

Bert’s gaze was back on the road but Gerard had a feeling he wasn’t really seeing it.

“I shot one of his sons.”

Gerard’s eyes widened. “Killed him?”

“Shot him all to hell.” Bert shrugged uncomfortably. “The kid was high and coming at me with a sawed-off shotgun when I tried to stop him from snorting any more than he already had. I got the gun away from him and shot him. He didn’t go down the first time, so I shot him again. Blew his head off.”

Gerard stared fixedly out the window, trying to stop Bert’s chilling, flat words from running through his mind. “Why’d Donnelli lie?”

“He probably didn’t want to admit that I hurt him. Not physically, but even someone like Donnelli grieves,” Bert said. “He wouldn’t believe that it was self defense on my part. I should have known he wouldn’t forget.”

“We’re here,” Gerard said as they passed a sign that said ‘Welcome to Westchester’ in white letters.

“She’s on Montague,” Bert said, using both hands to pull into the said cul-de-sac. “At the end—there, see it?”

“Fuck,” Gerard said, his eyes barely taking in the ‘For Sale’ signs in front of almost every house as they trained on the modest one-story. “So’s somebody else.”

An unmarked black sedan was in the driveway of the house Bert had pointed out. Bert’s hand drifted to the inside of his jacket, near the slight outline of the handgun. Gerard swallowed hard, his gaze growing stony. He was hoping ardently that nothing had happened to Lucia—please, God, if it did, it was all his fault—Bert would never forgive him, he would never forgive himself—

“Get out,” Bert said in a hushed, quiet tone. “And do everything I say.”

Gerard nodded and slowly opened the door, stepping out and instinctively falling into a crouch next to the truck. A bullet shrieked by overhead.

“You okay?” Bert asked from the other side.

“I’m good.” Gerard flicked the safety off of both pistols, straightening. “You want the front or back?”

“We’re not splitting up,” Bert said angrily. “There is no way in the fuckin’—”

“Okay, you get the back.” Gerard’s head jerked towards the house. “Get down!”

Bert didn’t stop to question him and dropped into a crouch, a second bullet clipping the side mirror.

“That son of a bitch,” Bert said, scowling and rising. “It’s Basta.”

“How do you know?”

“He’s got a scope,” Bert said, seizing Gerard’s wrist and pulling him behind the nearest tree. There was a thud as a bullet hit the trunk. “I’m pretty sure Basta was the only one with enough gun knowledge to know how to work a scope.” After a moment, he added, “Of course, I might be wrong, and Batista’s learned how to work a high-power rifle right. In that case, uh... we’re fucked.”

“Great.” Gerard suddenly whirled and fired off three shots into the general area of the opposing shots. Bert grabbed him and pulled him back behind the spreading oak.

“Are you really brave or really stupid?” he asked incredulously. “For Christ’s sake...” he shook his head. “Come on. But don’t do that again.” A shot burst above them, shattering a window.

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” Gerard said, firing off again at the shadowy figure in the house. “I’m already sick of hiding.”

“Okay,” Bert hissed, falling into a crouch. “When I say run, do it. If I get hit, don’t look back, just keep going until you reach the bushes.”

“You’re fucking insane, you know that?”

“Yeah—go!”

Gerard straightened and bolted, ducking his head as a bullet whistled past. He heard Bert shout behind him and chanced a look back—

“Go! I’m fine, you dumb fuck!”

Gerard dove behind the hedge and lost his gun. He rolled, fumbled, heard Bert crash down beside him. He laid a hand on the cold metal of his gun, then stared around for Bert in the blackness.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” Bert panted from his right. “It’s just my arm. I’ll be okay.”

Gerard nodded, reloading his gun. “What now?”

“Now?” Bert paused. “I think we can make it into the back—”

There was a sudden spray of bullets just to Gerard’s left and he dove, pushing Bert away.

“Jesus fucking Christ!”

A pause, a click.

“Okay, this guy is really starting to piss me off.”

“This ain’t a fuckin’ movie, Gerard,” Bert snapped, fumbling with his gun. He stood quickly, firing off three or four shots. “You’re gonna get shot at and if you keep up that fuckin’—fuckin’ Tom Cruise shit, you’re gonna get hit.”

There was a muffled shout from the house and more shots came their direction.

tbc

Disclaimer: I own nothing; it all belongs to J. K. Rowling. I'm just borrowing the characters to play with for a while. This is for pleasure only, no profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.

You were never supposed to live.

According to the Dark Lord's grand plan, you should have died before you knew how to speak. The Dark Lord was supposed to reign supreme, with you nothing more than another in a long line of obstacles that were overcome in his insatiable quest for power. As one of his most loyal and shrewdest followers, Father would be exalted along side of the Dark Lord, placing the Malfoy name among the most revered and notorious in modern wizarding history.

But you had to ruin everything by living, and the Dark Lord vanished into thin air - a mere whisper of his former greatness. While you were written up in the history books as a hero, we Malfoys were scrambling to convince everyone of our innocence. It was only Father's many connections and Mother's extraordinary acting skills that kept them from receiving a one-way ticket to Azkaban. It was all your fault. And Father was determined to make you pay for ruining everything.

You were never supposed to reject my friendship.

It was all part of Father's plan, you see. He knew that there was something about you that Dumbledore wanted and that the Dark Lord feared, so he schemed to win you over to the Dark Side. Father has always been ambitious and clever, and he constantly blurred the lines between good and evil, dark and light, so that no one was ever certain where his loyalties lay. It was astonishingly easy for him to ingratiate himself into the Ministry and have himself named as a school governor - avarice is equally powerful on either side of the political fence, and he had plenty of money to turn their heads.

All I had to do was make you my friend. But when I introduced myself on the Hogwarts Express, you refused to shake my hand. I was stunned: no one had ever rejected my friendship before. It was unfathomable that you, a skinny little kid wearing tacky Muggle clothes that were at least four sizes too big, would think yourself too good to be my friend - you might be famous, but I was a Malfoy. Nothing could hide my embarrassment and humiliation as I stormed out of the carriage with my ever-obedient lap dogs following close behind me. I was fortunate that they were too thick to figure out what I crushing blow I'd just received to my ego.

To say that Father was not happy is an understatement. For several weeks, I didn't have the guts to tell him that I'd failed. When I did, he neither beat me nor yelled at me, as I had expected. Instead, he dealt me the most excruciating punishment I could ever imagine.

"Draco, I'm extremely disappointed in you."

I hated you for making me disappoint Father. I hated you and your arrogance for thinking that you were somehow better than everyone else - better than me. I hated it that other kids looked up to you as some kind of hero, while the only ones who paid me any mind were those who understood the prominence of the pureblood Malfoy name. Now I was going to do everything in my power to make you pay.

You were never supposed to survive our second year at Hogwarts.

Father had tipped me off that something was in the works to cause mayhem at Hogwarts, and that if we were very lucky, it would result in your expulsion. It was infuriating to be kept in the dark, but as soon as Muggleborns started turning up petrified, I immediately realized that it was for my own good. We dueled, and I won of course, and having you revealed as a Parselmouth only served to fuel the suspicion that you were behind the attacks. I knew better, but I wasn't about to say anything, particularly after you flaunted your Quidditch win, humiliating me once again.

When I learned what you'd done in the Chamber of Secrets, I was astounded. You should never have survived an encounter with a basilisk - no one ever had, except for the Dark Lord. Father had been so certain that it would be the end of Dumbledore's reign at the school, and the end of your life, that he'd shown up, ready to gloat. Imagine his surprise at seeing you alive and once again, a hero. Father's ire was stirred up for weeks. He may have wanted you to pay for what you'd done to the Dark Lord as a baby, but after you'd made him free our house-elf, he wanted nothing less than your life.

You were never supposed to get away with so much.

As if it wasn't bad enough that you ruined my life just by living, you continued to get special treatment from the Hogwarts' teachers time and again. It was so blatantly unfair, but there didn't seem to be any point to complaining about it except to the one teacher you thoroughly despised: Professor Snape. He confessed that there was very little he could do about the injustice, except when you committed some infraction in his sight. I took great pleasure in watching him dole out punishments for questionable violations, if for no other reason than to see the indignant expression on your face.

I thought I really had one on you when I discovered you quite by accident in Hogsmeade, up by the Shrieking Shack. You thought you were so clever, scaring the piss out of Crabbe and Goyle and me; you didn't count on the fact that your invisibility cloak might fall off and I'd see you. But see you I did. I nearly keeled over from the stitch in my side as I ran back to Hogwarts to tell Snape, hoping that he could catch you red-handed. I was devastated when I learned that you'd earned nothing more than a scolding.

I still had one chance left to humble you that year - Slytherin was playing Gryffindor for the Quidditch Cup. You'd already lost one match by falling off your broom, so I knew I had a chance. It was most unfortunate that Father wasn't willing to upgrade the Slytherin broomsticks to Firebolts; he could be very frustrating at times. We had our closest match ever, and I was only inches from catching the Snitch when you came from out of nowhere and pushed my arm away. I was furious, of course, at having had the Cup snatched away after being so close.

Later, I reviewed the match in my head. I marveled at how you were able to travel such a great distance, take a dive at that high speed, catch the Snitch and come out of that dive unscathed. I still hated you, but you'd definitely earned my respect for your Quidditch prowess.

You were never supposed to tell anyone about the Dark Lord's return.

All during fourth year, you and I continued our feud, despite the fact that there was no Quidditch Cup. It was unbelievable to me that you would go to such extremes to attract even more attention to yourself by illegally entering the Triwizard Tournament. So I decided to help you out by seeing to it that you got the sort of publicity you deserved; Rita Skeeter was quite anxious to hear all about you. I don't think you appreciated my "Potter Stinks" badges very much, but I thought they were a laugh. Your head got so big that even the Weasel couldn't stand to be around you half the time.

Really, if any other fourth year student had done as well in the Tournament, I'd have been very impressed. As it was, it was annoying that you managed not to get yourself killed. I was infuriated when it looked as if you'd won the whole damn Tournament, but I was just as stunned as everyone else when I heard you'd disappeared for a couple of hours only to return clutching the corpse of your rival, Cedric Diggory.

It wasn't until after I went home for the summer holidays that I learned what had happened. Father was on edge the moment I arrived, but he refused to tell me why.

I'd discovered sex the previous term and had invited Pansy to the manor for an afternoon tryst. As we passed Father's study, we heard him talking to someone, and Pansy convinced me to stop and listen at the door. Father was telling his visitor about the Dark Lord's return and plotting ways to kill you since the Dark Lord had been unable to do so when he'd had the chance. After waiting to kill you for years, Father was extremely agitated that the Dark Lord had ordered them to do nothing when there had been a chance for a clear shot at you. And now you'd made things very difficult for the Death Eaters by telling Dumbledore of the Dark Lord's return right away.

I was astounded after hearing Father's description of what happened the evening of the Triwizard final task. To have somehow survived Avada Kedavra as a baby was certainly a mystery, but I'd never heard of anyone surviving a duel with the Dark Lord. I knew right then that you were no ordinary wizard.

You were never supposed to humiliate Lucius Malfoy.

I finally thought I had the upper hand when you started going around the twist during our fifth year. They quoted you in the paper saying all sorts of crazy things, and you were acting so unstable that you got yourself put in detention more often than not.

Anyone would have to be blind not to see how much you hated Professor Umbridge, and I knew right away that she'd be my ally in getting you kicked out of Hogwarts. I took great satisfaction in getting you thrown off the Quidditch team-- although unfortunately, not until after you'd kicked my ass again. Umbridge was like my own personal torture device. All I had to do was tell her what mischief you were up to, and she'd see to it that you got punished. I talked her into giving me a privileged position by leading a group of Slytherins to act as ears and eyes for her. In exchange, she let us dole out the punishments we'd felt our fellow students had deserved for years.

I still don't understand how that situation backfired. We'd gotten you trapped in Umbridge's office with enough evidence to get you kicked out of school, and the next thing I knew, that bitch, the Weaselette, hit me with a Bat Bogey curse that left me in the hospital wing for a day and a half.

A letter was waiting for me in my dormitory when I got out of the hospital wing. Mother had written to tell me that Father had been implicated in some nasty business at the Ministry of Magic involving you, and he was being sent to Azkaban Prison.

My world shattered.

I knew it was all your doing.

And you were going to pay with your life.

Near the end of the term, you made some smartass comment about Father landing in prison. I nearly broke your neck right there, except that Snape happened by and saved you. You'd always been lucky.

You should never have started the war.

Things were very different from the moment I returned home for the summer holidays. Mother was on edge all the time, which was probably the result of Father's business associates constantly pestering her.

I'd been home for only two weeks when the Antonin Dolohov called at the manor. Supposedly he was one of the 'top' Death Eaters now that father was out of the picture. I'd never seen him before. Mother was clearly terrified of him. I was more disgusted than anything else, though I tried to hide it for my own safety. It turned out to be me he wished to see. He made a great production out of telling me how disappointed he was that Father had failed in his mission, and how Father was no longer of use to him now that his connection to the Dark Lord had been revealed.

This infuriated me-- Father would never have been caught in the first place had he not followed the Dark Lord's orders to retrieve something from the Ministry.

Stupidly, I said, "With all due respect, my Lord, you can't let my father rot in Azkaban Prison. He's no good to you there."

My outburst must have surprised him, because he turned to me with a half-smile and stared at me, seeming to read my mind. "I can see how much you hate the Potter boy," he said slowly, "and how much you want your father out of prison. Perhaps we can work out an arrangement."

I was wary; the Dark Lord's minions did not bargain with people-- Father had told me that many times. He liked to order things to be done in such a way that people thought he was bargaining, but in the end, he gave up nothing. "What sort of an arrangement, sir?"

"You kill Potter, as I know you wish to do, and I will erase your father's transgressions in my sight and arrange for his release. Then, as a reward for a job well done, the Dark Lord shall allow you to take his mark."

I hardly knew what to say.

I was being charged with killing you in order to free my father from prison.

It was one thing to dwell on revenge, but quite another to have the Dark Lord command it. And knowing how you always managed to beat me, I wasn't at all convinced that I would succeed.

I tried to sound more confident than I felt.

"Of course, my Lord, it would give me great pleasure to kill Potter, even more so knowing that it would please you and help my father. But Potter is very well protected at Hogwarts - it might be many months before I get the opportunity to follow through. And meanwhile, Father will be stuck there."

"So be it," he replied, his eyes narrowed to slits. "He was well aware of the penalty of failure."

I was summarily dismissed and left to ponder the situation. I didn't like the way the Dark Lord had abandoned Father after his years of loyal service; I despised his willingness to let Father rot in Azkaban as punishment for failing to kill you - especially since the Dark Lord hadn't been able to kill you, either. Imagine him giving me the "privilege" of taking the Dark Mark-- like it would be such a treat to run around doing his bidding. Knowing that failure would probably get me sent to Azkaban, with no guarantee that the Dark Lord would see fit to help me escape, I was not very enthusiastic to get involved in this task.

Once back at school for sixth year, I followed you about, looking for an opportunity to finish you off. But I'd been quite truthful when I'd told the Dark Lord that you were well protected. Ironically, it was Snape who always seemed to be the one to show up at the odd times when I might have had a chance to kill you without witnesses. Whether he knew what I was planning or he was watching you himself, it was hard to say.

I began to hear strange things from my housemates - scary things that pointed to the Dark Lord's insanity. Like me, several of them had been approached to kill you, but they'd not yet had an opportunity. Others had relatives who had been Death Eaters from before - during the first war - and those relatives had recently been tortured at the hand of the Dark Lord for their transgressions. Nott told me that his uncle had been subjected to Cruciatus repeatedly for some bad information he'd passed on, and Pritchard's mother had been held captive for months because the Dark Lord no longer trusted her loyalty. Despite how anxious I was for Father to be at home, I wondered if he wasn't safer in Azkaban.

Meanwhile, you were showing signs of stress-- somehow knowing that there were a number of us looking to do you in-- and you carefully denied us any opportunity of catching you at a vulnerable moment. This did not keep you from trouncing me at Quidditch once again, which strengthened my resolve against you. Rumors were flying that you were a loner, especially now that the Weasel and the Mudblood had taken up together. You did seem to spend an extraordinary amount of time in the library, and it was remarkable how few detentions you served.

Professor Snape called me into his office just prior to the Easter holidays. I'd not been planning to go home, thinking I could get a clear shot at you with fewer people around. Snape told me that Father had been released and that he wanted me home. I was relieved-- the pressure to kill you was relieved. I still wanted you dead, but I'd come to the conclusion that I wasn't willing to put myself at risk in order to do it.

Seeing Father for the first time in over a year, I immediately confided in him my plans for you. He seemed pleased that I was taking the initiative, and he impressed upon me how important it was to please the Dark Lord. After a short while, though, he started to talk nonsense, peppering his speech with incoherent phrases and making mad faces. I left the room and raced through the house to find Mother.

"What's the matter with Father?" I demanded before I even had a chance to look at her. Her complexion was alabaster, and for the first time, I noticed worry lines on her otherwise flawless face.

"They tortured him at Azkaban, didn't they?"

Mother put a graceful hand on my cheek. "Draco, darling, your father was weak but sane when he returned home. But the Dark Lord was not pleased with his failure. It's been... difficult."

She was unable to speak any longer, and her hand began to shake against my cheek.

I laid awake a long time that night, thinking long and hard about pledging my allegiance to a wizard who would torture my father, a loyal follower, to the point of madness. Perhaps he, himself, was mad, and therefore, he couldn't see it. Either way, I was less enthusiastic than ever to join the ranks of the illustrious Death Eaters.

You were never supposed to like me.

I don't know how I could have missed it before, but when you returned to Hogwarts for our final year, you'd become the sort of boy about whom people could endlessly think about. You'd finally grown into your body, carrying yourself with confidence and poise. For the first time, you seemed as comfortable on the ground as you did on the Quidditch pitch.

And, in spite of my so-called allegience to the Dark Lord-- despite my upbringing, I wanted you.

I was virtually estranged from my family now, having rejected their orders to join the cause of a raving lunatic. I couldn't understand why Father didn't see that nothing good would come out of a pledge of lifetime service to a monster-- one who didn't give a second thought to torturing a faithful servant when they made an honest mistake. The Mudbloods undoubtedly deserved their fate, but I was all about saving my own skin, and I certainly didn't want it marred by an ugly tattoo that marked me as another's property.

Of course, it was difficult to convince you that I was neutral. I kept seeking you out so that you could get to know me better and learn that, during our six years at school, I'd grown up, too. But we'd always end up arguing about who was on what side, what my motives were and how I was wrong not to give a shit about the war. I told you that I wasn't a pacifist, but a realist, and that I didn't see any advantage to being on one side or the other. You told me I was selfish, and I agreed.

We must have argued a dozen times before I confessed that my only motivation was to get you into my bed. I'll never forget your stunned silence after I said that, or the sparkle in your eye as you leaned over to kiss me. I could have kicked myself then-- after all that arguing, all it took was a little bit of honesty. It was an approach that had never occurred to me, but it didn't matter now that I knew you were just as bent and confused as I was.

You were never supposed to make me fall for you.

It was only supposed to be about sex. We seemed to be in agreement on that point right from the start. I was bored and you needed relief from your tiresome and stressful life. You were a virgin and I was not, but we learned many new things together, and you constantly surprised me with your inventiveness and enthusiasm. I was in love with the sex-- I could readily admit that. You needed only to give me the sign, and I would happily break away from whatever I was doing to be with you.

We kept our relationship to ourselves. You didn't want to have to explain yourself to Weasel and the Mudblood, and you were tired of living your life in a fishbowl. I didn't want any of my housemates to know how close we'd become because I feared their Death Eater parents would find out and tell the Dark Lord, who would punish Father for not controlling me better.

I'd never intended to tell you how much I cared about you - how you managed to become so much more important to me than great sex - but I let it slip one night during the Christmas holidays. We'd both stayed at Hogwarts and were fooling around in my room.

The words must have tumbled out of my mouth before I realized it-- I don't even remember speaking.

But the next thing I knew, you were kissing me and whispering, "God, I love you, too."

I knew it must be true.

We spent hours together talking about things that we swore we'd never tell another soul. You told me that the reason you rejected my friendship that first day at Hogwarts was because I reminded you of your nasty Muggle cousin. I told you I forgave you because I was only being nice to you on Father's orders.

You told me about the horrors of seeing death up close, about your experiences with the Dark Lord and the prophecy that had got Father sent to Azkaban.

I told you about my stoic family, about my loneliness and the horrors of being a Death Eater's son who wouldn't toe the line.

We frequently disagreed, but that was to be expected.

When you told me that you were the only one who could kill the Dark Lord, I started caring about the war again. But that was because I couldn't bear to think of my life without you in it. Now, there was no question which side I was on.

You never wanted to battle the Dark Lord.

You knew you'd have to face him eventually-- it was prophesied, after all. But every time I brought up the possibility that you'd have to do it soon, you changed the subject. It was a burden you bore grudgingly, and there was nothing I could do to ease it.

On the day they came for you, there was dread in your heart and terror in your eyes.

You lingered as we kissed goodbye, saying nothing with your voice and everything with your lips.

I was just as frightened as you were, but I couldn't say it-- couldn't let you know that I had anything less than utter confidence that you'd succeed in your task and come back to me.

You hated them for making you do it, but you went just the same. It was your destiny. And when you finally came face to face with the madman that had tormented you since birth, you cast a killing curse that echoed through the wizarding world-- a voice of freedom to all those who lived in terror at the Dark Lord's hand.

But you had no idea that the curse that killed Voldemort would kill you as well.

You had no idea that two little words would shatter my world into a million worthless pieces.

You were never supposed to die.

I can still remember the first time I went hiking there.

It was fall—November to be exact—the smell of soon-to-fall snow thick in the air, the wet leaves sticking to my shoes and filling my nostrils with the delicious scent of autumn.

The woods were radiant reds, dazzling yellows, glittering oranges, with just a touch of the earthy green left over from summer. I could see deer tracks patterned intricately into the mud of the trail as I stepped over them, careful not to disturb an inch of their complexity. Every once in a while a blue-black butterfly floated by, not caring that winter was on its way and that the air would soon turn cruelly cold, but instead intent on finding the next sweet flower on which to feast.

It was my favorite place on earth. I hiked those woods all summer the next year, finding new paths what wound up into the hills, exploring them to my heart’s content. I loved the serenity of being surrounded by nature, the peaceful loneliness that I could wrap my being around, and the almost eerie silence that invaded my mind and pushed out my thoughts.

It was here, and only here, that I could truly be alone.

There was a stream running through the woods. During rainy season, I suppose it could become more of a river, but it’s best when it’s a stream. The clean, fresh smell of renewal possessed me here, making me whole and giving me the energy to face another day. I could see the tiny minnows swimming around, trying in vain to trap a waterbug for dinner. The birds, so many birds, peering out from their hiding places in the trees, waited for me to pass so they could have their shot at the minnows. Rocks of all shapes and sizes, green with moss, laid undisturbed as the water slowly meandered over and around, hurrying for nothing. The occasional rustle in the trees, probably some small animal climbing or jumping, was the only thing that broke the solitude I felt.

I took him there, many times. My best friend—some would say my first true love—shared this place with me. We were quite a pair, the two of us. I was almost obnoxious with my character, always the life of the party. He was just the opposite. He was quiet, and at first glance one would think he was shy. He always said that he didn’t have much to say, and if he did, he would speak. He didn’t feel the need to litter the world with meaningless words when there were plenty of people to do that for him. He changed when he was with me, though. We were always laughing, joking, truly enjoying the company of each other. Any silence that threatened to loom over our time together was quickly broken with a rush of words, spilling out of both our mouths as we found a new topic to discuss. That lasted until we walked into those woods. Then we fell silent, each of us content to be alone with our own thoughts. I always went barefoot, loving the feel of the cool, almost cold, water trickling over my feet, the slippery rocks as my steps. He wore shoes, and walked on the bank, chastising me relentlessly for being stupid, what if I fell? I would laugh, tell him that it wouldn’t be a big deal, so I’d get a little wet. He would shake his head, his shaggy brown hair falling back into its place, and continue to pick his way cautiously around the overgrown wildflowers and dirty rocks. Every once in a while I would pretend to stumble, looking mischievously at him as jumped to keep me from falling, and then chuckle to myself as he realized that I was poking fun at his overly cautious way of doing things.

So the two of us would walk, not talking, just smoking cigarettes stolen from my mother’s drawer, sometimes holding hands. It was 1968; we didn’t know of cancer or coolness, and we didn’t care; cigarettes were just something to have with us. Every once in a while I would glance at the rings of smoke as they climbed towards the clouds, wrinkling my nose as the smoke’s pungent tang tickled my nostrils. But then I’d feel his hand slip into mine, never sweaty, just cool and soothing. It was such a gesture of innocence, not meant to be romantic—but somehow, as I look back, it was quite possibly the most romantic thing ever. Two kids, barely eighteen, enjoying the comfortable silence that many pairs never reach. Two kids, content to just be with each other, not talking or laughing or joking around, but just walking and thinking. To this day, I don’t know what he thought of, nor do I care. All I know is that my thoughts flowed freely, the evils of teenage life escaped my mind for a few moments, and I could truly experience a taste of Heaven.

We brought a camera once. I wanted a picture of the greatest place on earth, to hold near me when I slept, so that maybe my dreams wouldn’t be so strange. He wanted a picture of me. I sat on a log, right at the side of the stream, my bare feet splashing in the water and my jeans dirty, and he took my picture. He must have used an entire roll of film on me sitting on that stupid log, and I loved every second of it. Then, suddenly, the water had somewhere to be. It rushed over my feet, shocking me with its newfound energy, and I laughed. I felt something oddly cold on my back, then a rush of water came down the hill, toward my log, toward me. I didn’t move as it rushed over my back, my lap, my hair, soaking me. I simply laughed. He stood there, taking pictures, telling me that I was beautiful, that he’d never seen anything like it, or known anyone like me. He walked into the water, not caring that his worn black shoes were soaking through to his socks, that the water was creeping up his jeans, that we were a mess. He wanted a better picture. He wanted a picture of my laughter, my almost childlike delight, at the fact that I was completely soaked and without a towel.

I don’t know what it was about that place. It was in this place that we shared a stolen kiss, murmurs of devotion, a perfect friendship blooming into more. It was in this place that he touched my soul with his charm, stole my heart and made it his. In this place, everything was beautiful, everything was perfect, as it should be. I’m convinced that it is the memories of this place that made me want to love him when we left.

I still go, sometimes, if I’m feeling too crowded. I go to try and catch that solitude again, so I can gather my thoughts and be whole. I try to catch the perfection, if just for a fleeting instant, of my past. All I see now, though, is the dirty, rotting leaves littering the ground, lying still where they fell years before, untouched by anyone who cared. I see the bare branches of winter trees, lonesome and ghoulish as they sway in yet another cold burst of wind. The air, no longer clean and crisp, is tainted by the smoke from my lonesome cigarette as its acrid exhalation combines to make an off-key melody with the distasteful rotting of the logs and the stench of dead minnows floating downstream. I feel like those minnows, damning those ever evasive waterbugs that skim the surface but never touch down long enough to catch.

I know that I’ll never recapture those times. It was a fluke, a flaw in nature’s pattern, that allowed two kids to experience the depth of communication that he and I did. The communication that only happens when two souls truly meet, converse, and return, knowing that all is well. It was a blemish in plan, to allow me to fall in love with him in this place. For outside of this place, where the world was gray and cold, stinking and nauseating, perfection is impossible. No matter how perfect he was in this place, in the outside world he was just as gray, just as boring, just as normal. Sometimes there is a fatal flaw in perfection. Sometimes, things are too good to last. Because when I expected the perfection to last, the meeting of souls to be an every day occurrence, I was disappointed. I allowed myself to be disappointed in him, in us, in what I thought it was that we had. We didn’t have anything, once we left this place. The surreal experiences that we had there can never be matched, and we will forever be chasing waterbugs.

Call One

“Hello?”

“Is this Greg?”

“Mmhmm. This is Adam?”

“Yeah. How are you?”

“I’m okay. And you?”

“You sound… different than I expected.”

“Really… how?”

“Do you have people at your place?”

“No—I live by myself. Should I speak up, or…?”

“No—no, no, you’re fine.”

“Sorry… I had a speech problem when I was a kid, I’m used to not speaking loudly…”

“You’ve got a pleasant voice.”

“Thank you. Yours is… well… ordinary. But it fits. I mean—I don’t know you, but it matches… I think… am I making any sense?”

“You’re making plenty of sense. Thank you.”

“So… what kind of music do you listen to?”

“Mmm… I listen to pretty much everything.”

“A lot of people listen to everything. How far is your definition of everything?”

“Well—my iPod goes from Bach to Lupe Fiasco to… uhm… Megadeth. When did I put Megadeth on this…?”

“Haha.”

“I like to keep it fresh, you know? What about you?”

“Same kind of stuff, except without the Megadeth. My favorite band is Iron & Wine.”

“I’ve listened to them a few times. It’s really only one guy, right?”

“Yeah, Sam Beam.”

“He’s a little mellow for me, but I like it. How tall are you?”

“Five-eleven. How tall are you?”

“About the same.”

“Cool.”

“So… do you like taller or shorter guys?”

“Taller… I think.”

“I dated one guy that was like… six-six… but shorter is better, I mean…”

“How come?”

“You can look into somebody’s eyes that way. I like it… so… what are you looking for?”

“What am I looking for?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t know I was looking for something.”

“Yeah, you are.”

“I’m not looking for sex.”

“Haha! I never mentioned sex, man.”

“You meant s—”

“No… I didn’t.”

“It’s fine.”

“Did I say sex?”

“I actually have to get going.”

“Okay—hold on, wait—”

Call Two

“Hello?”

“It’s Adam.”

“How’s it going?”

“All right. Are you married?”

“What? No. Definitely not married.”

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

“No.”

“A girlfriend?”

“No, I don’t.”

“I’m safe.”

“I believe you. I just had to go.”

“I want to get to know you better.”

“I know. And… I like that.”

“I like it too.”

“Why don’t we meet?”

“I was about to say that.”

“…Really?”

“Yeah. I just figured… after last night… that you didn’t want anything else to do with me.”

“I just want more than a voice.”

“Me too.”

“So we’ll meet. Tomorrow afternoon.”

“Yeah—yes. Tomorrow. I’ll give you a call, okay?”

“I’ll talk to you later.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

Call Three

“Hello?”

“Greg. It’s Adam. How’s it going?”

“Good…”

“Where are you?”

“Home.”

“Home. You’re at home.”

“Yeah… so… I haven’t talked to you in a few days.”

“Yeah… I’m a fucking asshole, Greg. I led you on. I lead a lot of people on. I talk to a lot of people but I don’t meet any of them. You’re too good for me.”

“You’re drunk.”

“Yep.”

“So how many people do you talk to?”

“Now I’m talking to like twenty…”

“Are you fake to everyone else, too?”

“Pretty much.”

“Where are you?”

“At a bar.”

“Adam?”

“Mm?”

“You weren’t saying anything.”

“Well then hang up!”

“…Excuse me?”

“Hahahaha… I’m sorry… I get really honest when I’m smashed. It’s why I don’t drink…”

“At all?”

“The whole reason I got drunk tonight was to call you.”

“I’m happy I was in your thoughts.”

“We’re the two loneliest people I’ve ever known, Greg. I could only tell you that under the influence of something…”

“Yeah… well, that’s easy.”

“God, I hate drinking…”

“You need a ride?”

“I’ll be okay.”

“Adam, wait—”

Call Four

“Hello?”

“Adam?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s Greg… you alive?”

“What?”

“You remember talking last night?”

“Oh… I’d… rather not talk about last night, okay?”

“Okay.”

“…I don’t even remember driving home last night…”

“You drove?”

“Apparently.”

“I offered to pick you up.”

“Yeah, I remember that part…then after that’s sort of blurry…”

“I hope you didn’t hit anything.”

“Me too.”

“I thought about some of the stuff you said last night—”

“You shouldn’t do that. Really.”

“Well, I was j—”

“I was really, super drunk, okay? Look—hold on a second.”

“Okay.”

“Okay—sorry—I h—”

“How are you lonely?”

“What?”

“I just… with everything you said—I just don’t get how you’re lonely.”

“Having a lot of nothing is still nothing.”

“I… yeah.”

“So, are you at work?”

“I, uhm, just got off.”

“It’s like, two in the afternoon.”

“Well, uhm… my boss said I had to be out of the building at the end of the day, but I didn’t have that many people to say goodbye to.”

“You got fired!”

“Yep.”

“Good for you.”

“Normally I wouldn’t say thank-you to a firing, but since I was the office bitch…’

“Haha…”

“You still there?”

“Mmhmm, sorry… I’m walking.”

“I want to make today stand for something.”

“The day is young… today could be the first day in the new life of Greg—what’s your last name?”

“Cook.”

“In the new life of Greg Cook.”

“What’s your last name?”

“Clearwater.”

“Well hello, Adam Clearwater.”

“There’s this guy… laying on the grass—he’s like… he’s a little way away…”

“Hmm?”

“I don’t know… he looks really… calm…”

“Where are you?”

“River Park.”

“…Are you on Bay Street?”

“Yeah.”

“I think… I think you’re looking at me.”