Avery hits the pause button on the remote and comes to kneel in front of us. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “Is there anything I can do?”
“She’ll probably sleep for a couple hours,” I say, shaking my head.
A small smile. “I mean for you.”
That makes me laugh, a watery, strangled sound. “I don’t know.”
Avery takes my other hand, holding it as gently as I’m holding my mother’s hand. We remain linked like that, a chain of solidarity against an enemy that none of us can fight. And maybe that is what I need. Someone to sit here, quiet and still, not asking for anything.
Dark falls around the house, taking away the purple glow. “You should get home,” I murmur, my voice rusty as if I’ve been crying, but I haven’t been, not tonight. It’s like my body feels it the same way, even the times when I can hold in the tears.
“I can stay in a guest room,” Avery says, her hazel eyes troubled.
“Is Gabriel home?” I’m asking about more than his travel arrangements. I’m asking about whether he still feels distant to her. If she needs a place to stay as much as I need her to be here.
She bites her lip. “He had to extend his China trip.”
“Oh. Then by all means, stay in the guest room. We can watch the grand finale tomorrow morning over French toast, which is maybe the only thing that tastes better than roasted pumpkin seeds.”
“Do you think…”
I squeeze her hand gently. “Do I think what?”
“Do you think he would do that?” A glance toward the black TV screen. “You know, find someone else while he’s traveling. Fall in love with her while I’m so far away.”
“Oh God. Oh, honey, no. I shouldn’t have let you see that movie.”
“No, of course you should. It’s her favorite movie.” She glances at my mother’s face, her expression softening. “She deserves to watch whatever she wants to watch.”
“Gabriel Miller would never cheat on you.”
“Right,” she says, but she doesn’t sound sure.
“And if he did, I would cut off his balls and feed them to—”
“He probably isn’t cheating. I just wish he’d come home.”
The hint of doubt in her eyes makes me furious. Not the kind of furious where I want to yell at someone or stomp around. The kind of furious that’s cold and empty. Helpless. That’s what it makes me feel. Which is exactly what my mother’s cancer makes me feel.
Helpless.
The word stays with me through the rest of the long night, through dreams of kings and goblins. I wake restless, as if something has been uncovered—but I don’t know what. I spend the day giving my mother a manicure, a mud mask. A whole spa day in the comfort of her own bathroom. Only after dinner, when I put her to bed, when she drifts to sleep, do I get in my leased BMW and drive to the library.
My tools are neatly stashed in the trunk. The place that I park is right next to the side door, which has a lock. I normally step inside and get to work, my
mind already spinning with ideas of new things to try with the wall. Except tonight I’m more interested in what’s outside the library.
It’s not only being in this building, Harper. It’s the whole damn west side. We want to revitalize it, but it hasn’t happened yet. That means it’s full of crime and violence. It’s fucking dangerous.
There are cracks in the sidewalk, pieces of the curb missing. Large potholes in the street. Those things didn’t really stand out against the backdrop of a building blasted to pieces, but of course this damage must have been here before Christopher and Sutton ever purchased the land.
Behind the library there’s an uneven parking lot that ends with a chain-link fence around the construction happening on the Bardot Tower. They aren’t stuck in an infinite cycle of evaluation like the library, because they tore down whatever poor building stood there. I hate Christopher for his efficient dismantling of the past. And I envy him, too.
Low animal sounds slow my step. It sounds almost like the growl of a rabid dog in the alleyway up ahead. The hair on the back of my neck rises. I should turn around and go inside the library. No, if I were really concerned with safety, I’d get back in my car and drive home. Do you have a death wish? Christopher asked me the question the first day we met, when he found me on the railing of the yacht smoking a joint. Maybe I do have a death wish, or at least morbid curiosity, because I keep creeping forward. Brick is cool against my palms as I lean close to peek around the wall.
There isn’t a wild animal, at least not in the usual sense. Instead there’s a man with his back against the library, his head thrown back, his hands grasping the hair of a girl at his feet.
His rough sounds bounce off the walls on either side, her wet sucking sounds the most sexually graphic thing I’ve ever heard in my life. I’m standing with my mouth open, more shocked than I would have thought to see sex performed so publicly… so degradingly. I’ve seen plenty of frat party shenanigans, even a few that went down in the record books. Girls on girls. Multiple partners. Drunken acrobatics.