Shards of Us

depression'--I guess that's what happens when you lose everyone you care about, and then soon after your one passion in life in one fatal week--has even gone away for now, so I don't have any reason to say no to all of this. Sebastian would never hurt me. We both know that. So it's not like there's any sort of risk to go along with it.

'Come to me, my angel,' Sebastian coos after a minute. His words always sound so soft and poetic, like a distant song only I can hear.

I obey. My long black dress touches the floor as I walk over to him, feeling the gust of wind on the small of my back, where the dress wraps around. He stands up as soon as I'm in front of him, his eyes not leaving mine. Gently, he reaches out a thumb and touches it to my chin, rubbing his finger back and forth and back and forth along my skin. His body is so close that I can feel his heat wrapping around my body. I feel his breath on my lips, the tingling sensation I get when I'm this close to him. I press against him further, wrapping my arms around his well-muscled body and savoring it, savoring him, as everything else washes away.

'You are my everything,' he whispers into my ear.

'I know,' I whisper as he moves his fingers from my chin to my lips, trailing them in circles ever so slowly. I close my eyes, savoring the taste of his skin, wanting nothing more than for him to move his finger down lower and lower.

Just the thought makes me all anxious.

Hotel room 364 is huge. It's a suite Sebastian is always able to get for us--I have no idea how. He always pays for it, tells me it's perfectly safe, and so I don't question it. It's not like he has any reason to lie. The walls are long and perfectly white, stretching into another room. The air smells perpetually like roses and shampoo, and it's thick, intense, like him. Brown lacquered floorboards stretch across the expanse of the apartment, cool under my feet. A large dresser sits behind Sebastian's leather chair, and a couch and television are positioned in the adjoining room, with a refrigerator full of beverages beside it. A single chandelier hangs in the bedroom, where we are now. I look up at it as Sebastian brushes his lips against the space below my chin, nipping at my soft skin. The chandelier is always shining and moving, I realize, making a million tiny clinks as the pieces of glass hanging from it hit each other.

The bed in the center of the room is huge and soft, and the creamy white covers are filled with rose petals Sebastian leaves every week, forming a simple diamond.

The diamond symbolizes me. He got the idea from my name--Crystal--saying that I really am a crystal, or, more accurately, a diamond. My soul is pure and rock-hard, he says. Unbreakable. Unshatterable. Untouchable by anyone but him.

I'm his diamond.

His angel.

And he's my savior.

Sebastian stops with his slow kisses after a minute. He pulls back and watches me for a while, taking me in, and I take him in too. He really is the kind of person I should be afraid of: handsome and slick and 100% mysterious. He's tough on the outside, like he's been through a lot. I can see it in the scar on his jaw, in the hardness of his skin and the gruffness of his voice. But something about him is so tender, so raw and real and hurt as I am, and it just makes me want to stay with him, heal him, maybe even love him so much more. I don't understand my feelings for Sebastian. I don't understand my attraction to him. But I think that's the point. Because if I don't understand it, I can never lose it like I did with everything else. And let me tell you this: I don't want to lose Sebastian.

I don't want to lose the one person I have left, even if I will never really know him.

'Want to hear a joke?' Sebastian asks after a while, with that distant look in his eyes, like he's thinking about me in as many inappropriate ways as I'm thinking about him.

I raise my eyebrow, biting back a smile. I never really could predict what Sebastian did or said. Maybe that's what I liked about him. I liked that he was so mysterious, so hard to make sense of. 'A joke?'

'Yes, angel,' he says, stepping back, seemingly deep in thought. 'A joke. I'm capable of them too, you know.'

I feel myself smile. 'I'll be the judge of that.'

'Okay.' He moves closer to me, kissing my cheek ever so slowly, his tongue dragging against my skin, and then pulling back. 'Ready?'

I savor the feel of him against me. 'Ready.'

His eyes light up a little. He's always liked challenges. 'Knock knock,' he says, watching me intensely.

I play along, hiding my smile. 'Who's there?'

'Sebastian.'

'Sebastian who?'

He doesn't take his blue eyes off of me as he says, 'Sebastian who is not wearing any clothes.'

I almost laugh. Almost. My heart skips a beat at the heat of his stare, feeling the tingles he gives me creeping into my skin. 'Was that just a trick to get me turned on, Sebastian who is not wearing any clothes?' I say to him.

'Of course,' he says, jaw tight, smile perfect and seamless. He keeps staring at me, dancing his tongue between either end of his mouth, and I'm so fascinated with the movements of his lips that I feel myself gravitating closer and closer to him. I can't resist him. I can't resist him and he knows it. 'Now, more importantly,' Sebastian says, 'did it work?'

He's dressed in a tux and black bowtie, his dark pants smooth against his thighs. My eyes focus on the bulge in his pants, and I realize how much I want him there, but can't have him--big thanks to rule #1. I have to work not to squirm at thoughts of Sebastian and me, of him inside of me, and a blush comes over me, hard and warm.

When I was a kid, my parents were total workaholics. They were sports agents, always have been, and they always went on business trips, both across the U.S. and across the globe. Half of the week every week until I turned eighteen they were away from the house, away from me, leaving me at home and totally alone. Sometimes they never even told me they were leaving; they just left. But I still loved them. I still needed them more than anything, especially when I failed out of college sophomore year, and I had them, until two years ago.

Or at least, I told myself I loved them.

Whenever I was sad, I always used to throw myself into dance. I loved it with every fiber of my being. It was a part of me, a piece of my soul I couldn't reverse. The routines, the people, the bliss it gave me--all of it became one with my mind and heart. Dance helped me escape everything else, kind of like Sebastian does, but more than that, something about dance always pulled me in. There was something beautiful about all of the different movements and poses, something magical in the stories dance told. Dance made me feel free, made me feel alive, made me feel whole, but then I lost it, like I lost everything else.

Two years ago, after my parents were murdered in what the police determined to be a robbery, I felt like I had nothing left. Depression had eaten away at me for a long time, but I always clung to the fact that I still had people in my life, people that mattered to me, people that I couldn't leave, to keep me from doing anything to stupid. But then, just like that, all that was gone. And I had no one.

I was twenty the night I attempted suicide a few days after their murder, but it of course didn't work. I tried to jump off of our three-story building, to break myself and my body once and for all, but the only I thing I ended up breaking was my leg and all chance at ever dancing again. Now all that's left of me is a bunch of shards, shards Sebastian is trying to put back together.

Sebastian always told me that dance made me graceful, angelic, supple, like my movements were the key to a world filled with delight he wanted to unlock in me. He said I was an acrobat because of my dance past, and not just an acrobat in bed. He said something about me--the way I walked, the way I thought, the way I was--was so smooth and graceful, so perfectly wonderful, it was like I was always performing for him. And sometimes, just sometimes, I think he's right about that. In a way, I'm always performing for him, and I don't want to stop.

Sebastian is the audience member who I'm effortlessly pleasing, and he is returning the favor.

I take a step toward him now. He watches me carefully, with that hawk-like expression of his, waiting with a gentle amusement to see what I do next. 'Yes,' I whisper hoarsely. My eyes lock with his, and the connection I feel makes my heart speed up. 'Yes, it worked.'