“But?” I say, sensing that my queen has more to say.
She leans back in my embrace, sudden emotion flaring in her eyes. The lights are turned down low, giving the tears that are sparkling in her eyes a hidden yellow sheen.
I reach up and brush them with my fingertips, a fierce stabbing entering my gut.
I need to find whoever put these feelings inside of her and snap every bone in their body, my chest swelling with animalistic fury at the thought that she’d ever be sad, ever have to feel anything other than floating on clouds happy.
“Tell me,” I say.
She spins away from me, gripping the edge of the switchboard.
“Tell you what?” she whispers, and then laughs as though she can giggle away the crying.
“I’ll never stop being able to read you, Lena,” I mutter, moving up behind her slowly. I place my hands on her shoulders to steady the trembling. “What happened to you?”
She sighs, a strangling sound coming from the base of her throat before she laughs again.
“I used to think if I just kept laughing, I could keep away the tears, you know? But it doesn’t seem to be w-working …”
She explodes into a torrent of sobs, her entire body quivering like the ground before an earthquake, and it tears through me, too.
Jagged edges zigzag through my body as I watch my sweet queen turn to pieces.
I grab her and pull her into me, moving my hand through her hair and letting her cry warm tears into my chest.
“It’s okay,” I whisper, squeezing her shoulder. “It’s all going to be okay, Lena.”
“Is this real, Lorenzo?” she cries, looking into my face as black eye makeup drifts in rivers down her cheeks.
Even crying, her beauty is undeniable, coming from somewhere deep inside of her and captivating every part of me. She’s more than makeup and artistry and clever cosmetic trickery.
She just is.
“It’s real,” I growl. “It’s the realest thing I’ve ever felt. You’re mine. Always.”
She smooths her hand over her cheeks, nodding shortly. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize.”
“I’ve gotten makeup all over your shirt,” she whispers.
I glance down and see that she’s right. Her eye makeup has left black smears all over it. I laugh grimly and softly cradle the back of her head, and then move forward to smear her cheeks against my shirt. She giggles as I rub more and more makeup onto the fabric until there’s more on my shirt than on her cheeks.
“You’re crazy,” she whispers, fighting back the tears.
She walks to the leather corner couch that sits beside a full size faceless mannequin. The mannequin is a modern art piece that is carved of granite, chips and nicks purposefully littered up and down its contorted form. I’d much rather have a painting or perhaps a Roman statue, but I’ve never been here before and I guess this modern art piece was put here by the studio’s manager.
She drops down and picks at the leather with her red painted fingernails. I move closer and sit down next to her, but lean back slightly, sensing that she needs space to articulate whatever’s hounding her mind.
“I was sixteen years old,” she whispers, rubbing at her face. “I guess you could say I was a little messed up from growing up in the orphanage and being bounced around foster families, none of which ever worked out. I don’t know.
“Anyway, there was this football player, basically the star jock that all the girls wanted and his name was David. I didn’t even like him, not really. But then one day he came to me and started saying I was the love of his life, that he’d had a crush on me since middle school. I was just so flattered and I just let myself get whisked away with the moment. I didn’t even want him, not specifically. It was just nice to be seen for once. I was such a nobody in high school.
“He told me to meet him at this lake near the school at midnight. He really messed with my head. He said I should get ready for the craziest night of my life. Maybe he could tell I was nervous because he gave me this bottle of vodka and told me to drink that before I came.”
I clench my fists so hard my knuckles protrude against the skin, the beating of my heart like a war drum. Suddenly, it’s like I’m standing in a muddy field during a war of the past, a sword clenched tightly in my fist, ready to face down a whole army of Davids.
I want to cut and slice and roar as the blood showers down around me.
“What did he do to you, Lena?” I snarl.
“When I got to the lake,” she whispers, “he was waiting there for me. I’d only had a sip of the vodka, but he made me drink more. Then he stripped off my clothes and said he wanted to see me naked. But he didn’t. He just wanted to push me in the lake.
“Thankfully, it was almost summer break and it was a hot evening, so the water wasn’t too horrible. But when all the cheerleaders and football players came out from the trees, where they’d been hiding, I was just so embarrassed. They only hung around long enough to laugh and make sure I wasn’t going to drown, and then they left. I put my clothes back on and tramped back to the orphanage, and then they made fun of me at school. God, I so don’t miss high school.”
I leap to my feet as my body fills with the searing lava of a thousand volcanoes, my veins burning and scorching every inch of me. I put my whole body into the swing as I clench my fist, battering the solid granite modern art pieces.
My fist connects and chips of stone fly away, the impact surging up
