I scream her name again, even though I know she wouldn’t hear it if she was standing only a few feet away. The darkness and the angry sound of crashing waves are enough to hide any number of sins.
Hers and mine.
For the longest time, I wanted to break her. Tear her into bits so I could examine every piece until I figured out exactly what fascinated me so damn much. I succeeded, but she isn’t the only one who has been broken.
In the beginning, this had mostly been about the money. And maybe a little bit about how much I got off on forcing her to be what I want. Everything seemed to make so much more sense back then — even the worst of what I’ve done seemed justifiable.
But now, I’m just disgusted with myself.
King of Deception.
Vice Lord.
The guy who has never heard the word no.
My reputation is as big as the waves crashing onto the beach and as powerful as the undertow threatening to pull us out to sea. I tell myself I’m more than the things people say about me, but I’m not convinced that’s true.
Maybe it has never been true.
I see a dark shadow in the meager light, and I fight through the water toward it, driven by instinct.
Everything about her is dark. Her hair. Her eyes. Her thoughts, at least the ones she shares with me. But that didn’t stop her from becoming the only spot of light in my otherwise colorless world.
And I let all of my worst impulses nearly destroy her.
When I squint, there is the barest outline of a figure moving through the waves. The white dress is what gives her away. She has gone far enough out that the water has to be past her waist.
I’m running without a conscious awareness of what I’ll do when I reach her. Like every other interaction we’ve ever had, I’m operating on an instinct I’ve never fully understood.
As I chase her into the water, I realize I would give anything to rewind the clock to a time before we became what we are.
Before tragedy robbed me of a real childhood.
Before I stole her voice.
Before fate and bad luck forced us together.
Before secrets and lies drove us apart.
Before it all went wrong.
I follow her into the sea like I’d follow her to the ends of the earth if that is where she leads me. Even if it is impossible to go back, I can move forward. Into tomorrow. Into the future. Whatever place she chooses to go.
Even death.
If she throws herself on the mercy of the gods, then I’ll jump off the cliff after her.
At this point, it’s only a question of who gets to her first.
Oblivion or me.
Thirty-Seven
I wake up with sunlight streaming onto my face and a restraint on my arms tying me down to the hospital bed.
My body feels like it just got run over by a truck.
I’m only awake for a few minutes before a nurse bustles in to check my vital signs and remove the restraints. Clearly, they only had me tied down in case I woke up and tried to kill myself again.
Did I try to kill myself?
They ask me that question enough times that you think I’d have a clearer answer. I remember feeling a blackness descend over my mind, so deep that I couldn’t see any way out of it that didn’t involve just being done with all of it.
All of it meaning…life, I guess.
But with the sun shining brightly on my skin through the window and several locked doors between me and Vin, it was getting easier to see the forest for the trees.
I don’t want to die. I just want to be as far from Deception as it’s possible to get without actually leaving planet Earth.
Eventually the doctor comes in, pleasant-faced but eager to get to the point. He explains that I nearly drowned and that I was technically dead when they brought me in. My heart had to be restarted at some point.
I guess Vin and I have that in common.
“What happened?” he asks.
But he really means, Did you do it on purpose?
And I don’t have an answer that will satisfy any of us. They won’t let me go until I assure them that I’ve returned to sanity, although I’ll have to be here at least a few days for monitoring.
I say all the right words, like an intelligent person would. It seems silly to ask someone if they’re suicidal when anyone who truly is would never admit to someone who might stand in their way. I guess the better question is can we still save you?
The answer is yes, at least for now.
But I made it clear from the moment consciousness returned that I don’t want them to let Vin anywhere near me. Even with the faintly coercive nature of my hospital stay, I still get a say in who comes to visit. There isn’t anyone that I particularly want to see.
Especially Vin Cortland.
He doesn’t try very hard to get in, according to the nurses. As soon as they told him that I wasn’t going to see him, he stormed off without so much as a backwards glance.
That’s what I get for falling in love with a monster.
My hand keeps straying to my belly, and I don’t realize it until I find my palm stroking there, searching for any hint of a developing bump. I know I’m not far enough along for anything to be physically different, but my mind can’t focus on anything else.
How can something be so barely real and also entirely destructive?
No matter what empty promises Vin made, college is off the table. The $100,000 he promised me won’t be enough for paying tuition and raising a child, especially since I wouldn’t have time to work on top of all that. Vin would probably help if I asked him, or
