Gluttony

at him, and he met her gaze.

“What?”

“I gave her the drugs,” he repeated, more steadily. “As a present. I thought… it doesn’t matter what I thought. I didn’t expect her to keep them. Or use them. But I gave them to her. And I helped ruin her life. Hell, I started the whole thing. Which I guess makes me to blame too.”

Miranda didn’t know what to say.

“Doesn’t it?” he asked, his voice rising.

She shook her head, then caught herself. “Yes.”

He nodded once and let his head hang low with his chin resting against his chest and his shoulders slumped. It was a pose she’d never seen his body make before, so it took her a moment to identify it: defeat. Miranda lifted her hand and, with painful slowness, reached out for his shoulder. But she stopped, just before she touched him, her fingers trembling. She put her arm down, and they sat in silence.

Something jerked him out of a fitful sleep, but by the time he sat up in bed, whatever it was-the noise, the movement, something-was gone. Reed looked around, bleary-eyed and confused. The blinds were mostly drawn, but a thin band of darkness beneath the cheap cotton suggested that morning hadn’t yet arrived. His lips were dry and cracked, head foggy, and a sour taste filled his mouth. And the bed was strange, unfamiliar, as was the room…

Oh.

He lay back against the uneven mattress and shut his eyes, as if that could block out the reality he was beginning to remember. He was in Vegas. With Beth. But Beth had-

You’re a fool, Kaia’s voice told him scornfully. You fell for it. You fell for her-after me?

He wanted to hate Beth: for Kaia’s sake, and for his own. But lying there m the dark, it didn’t seem possible. And he hated himself for his failure.

Something began to buzz, and he felt a steady vibration against his hip. His phone, alerting him to a message-its ringing must have woken him up. He flipped it open, and even the dim light of the screen was blinding in the total darkness. There was one voice mail, and as he listened to it, he realized his hand was shaking.

He wanted to hang up in the middle; he wanted to hang up as soon as he heard her voice. But he listened to the whole thing. And he couldn’t help but remember: Kaia had left him a voice mail too, once. She had begged his forgiveness. And she had died before he could deliver.

He could picture Beth’s face, her lips trembling, tears magnifying her eyes to look like pure blue reflecting pools. She just wanted him to try to understand.

“I can’t,” he whispered, snapping the phone shut. “I just cant.”

“Hey… it’s the middle of the night,” a girl’s voice complained. “Go back to sleep.” Star la rolled toward him and draped an arm across his bare chest. She pressed her lips against the nape of his neck, and he felt her tongue darting back and forth, as if tapping out a private message in Morse code. He resisted the urge to push her away.

What did I do? he asked himself silently. But it was a rhetorical question. He remembered everything.

“Sorry I woke you,” he murmured, holding himself very still.

“Everything okay?”

He grunted a yes.

“Well, since we’re both awake…” She began playing with the dark curls of hair on his chest and then, slowly, her fingers began walking their way south. “Want to play?”

Though he didn’t want to touch her, he grabbed her hand and tucked it against his chest. “Let’s just go back to sleep.”

“Mmmm, sounds good.” She yawned, then nuzzled into his back; moments later her breathing had settled into a deep and steady rhythm. He dropped her hand and lay quietly with his eyes wide open, staring at nothing. There was something about Beth’s message. Something wrong.

I know what I have to do.

Try to remember.

It wasn’t his problem anymore; she wasn’t his problem anymore. Reed closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, counting the seconds. Then breathed out. One. Two. Three. In. One. Two. Three. Out…

Sleep would come eventually, he told himself. And if it didn’t, there was always the fail-safe option, a small plastic bag with just enough left to help him zone out and forget.

But the voice mail kept replaying itself in his head. Not Beth’s-Kaia’s.

When he’d gotten Kaia’s message, he had thought about calling her back-but decided against it. He would forgive her, he’d already decided. But he wasn’t ready to talk to her, not yet. And there had been no hurry.

He’d just assumed they had plenty of time.

When Kane finally lifted his head again, she couldn’t read his expression. His eyes were half closed, and his face impassive, hidden in shadow. He rested his hand on her knee and a warm heat radiated out from the point of contact up and down her leg. “Thanks.”

“For what?”

“For telling the truth. Like always.”

“Kane, I-”

“Stevens, I-”

They laughed, and Miranda gestured that he should speak first.

“I got you something.” He pulled a small white, scrunched-up paper bag out of his pocket. “For your birthday. Since you’re having such an awesome celebratory weekend so far.”

She shrugged. “It’s not like it’s your fault. It all just happened.”

“I am the one who ruined your date,” he pointed out.

“Is that a note of apology I hear in your voice?” she joked, pressing the back of her hand against her forehead. “Do I have a fever? Because I think I’m hallucinating.”

“Shut up and open it,” he said, shoving the bag into her hands.

“Lovely wrapping job.” She needed the sarcasm. It kept all the real emotions away. Miranda delicately peeled open the mouth of the bag and reached inside, pulling out a necklace of cheap, chunky plastic beads, painted in bright colors and attached to a label marked AUTHENTIC NATIVE AMERICAN JEWELRY. It was about as authentic as an aluminum Christmas tree-and just as tacky. “It’s… uh… nice. Thank you?”

“I saw it and thought of you,” he said proudly. “I knew you’d love it.”

Miranda knew she probably shouldn’t take it as an insult; but, looking down at the garish piece of pseudo-jewelry, it was hard not to. “It was very… sweet of you to get me something, Kane. You shouldn’t have. I mean, you really shouldn’t have.”

Kane burst into laughter. “Stop looking so appalled, Stevens. I know it’s gruesome. It’s not like I’m expecting you to like it.”

“Oh, thank God.” She waved it through the air, giggling as the beads clanked loudly together; wear this and she’d become a human maraca. “But then… what’s it for?”

“I found it in the gift shop,” he explained. “And it reminded me of-”

“The gift shop at the Rising Sun,” she cut in. Where they’d spent twenty minutes mocking the jewelry. Kane had strung the ugliest necklace they could find around her neck-and then they’d kissed. “I can’t believe you remember that.”

“I can’t believe you forgot.”

Miranda didn’t want him to know that she remembered every second of that day, that she could show him every point on her skin his hands and lips had touched.