Pieces (20 page)

W
HEN JESSE
came home, Naomi was on the couch facing the balcony doors. The lady’s laundry hanging on the line was swaying back and forth in a gentle breeze, reminding Naomi of seagulls on the horizon. She was aware Jesse had returned, but couldn’t tear her focus away from the laundry. Jesse would see dinner unfinished on the counter, half-prepared artichokes and sliced lemons, noodles draining in a colander in the sink. They were probably sticky and ruined by now.

“You went shopping,” Jesse said, standing in the middle of the living room. She could feel him looking at her.

“I did,” she whispered. “I made it out the door. I didn’t get lost.”

“That’s great.” He came closer and knelt beside the couch. His head obstructed her view of the swaying clothes. She moved her attention to his face. He gently touched her shoulder. “What’s the matter? Are you still upset about me having to leave you every day? I thought you would be okay with this.”

“I am,” she answered, the words coming out in a croak. “I’m ... this is all so new and I feel so alone.”

“Alone? I’m here with you, even if I leave for a few hours. If you need me, you can call me on the landline down in the lobby. I wrote down my number for you. We’ll get you a cell phone soon, okay?”

“Okay.” She closed her mouth and then opened it again to tell him about the phone she already had, but couldn’t force the words out. Instead, she moved her attention to the buttons on Jesse’s shirt. He dressed so nicely in clean, pressed clothes. She had ironed a few of his shirts already. She guessed she would be doing it a lot more, but it didn’t bother her. For a moment, she compared the way Jesse dressed to the rip in Finn’s jeans. She would see her parents again—someday, somehow— but what about Finn? And why did she care? He had Carly now, and she had Jesse. She wasn’t in love with Finn like she was with Jesse, but there was something about Finn, so casual and carefree and open, a splinter twisting into her heart.

XVIII

December

N
AOMI MADE HERSELF GO OUTSIDE AT
least once a day. On the weekend, she and Jesse went to see the sights, but when the workweek rolled around again she wandered Trastevere, exploring everything deeper, finding shops she could lose herself in for hours. When she felt inspired enough by the medieval feel of the town and its rustic buildings and maze-like streets, she pulled out her camera and started taking pictures and video. She was surprised how many Italians she met spoke English. Many of the local men watched her. They had sun-browned skin and eyes swimming with passion as they strolled the streets or sat at their tables with their mochas and lattes and espressos. Some of them followed her with a lazy stride, their eyes focused on her body in ways she wasn’t used to. As long as she stayed where there were people and tourists wandering about, they eventually fell away and she could keep walking without falling apart.

She found a shop selling art supplies and began filling the apartment with pencils and oil pastels and stacks of paper. She loved the way the supplies smelled earthy, different from her supplies back home, as if they were more real.

When she was back at the apartment, she spread out paper on the desk near the balcony doors and then lined up her pastels along one edge. They were so pretty, with ivory wrappers covered in Italian words she couldn’t read. She sketched the sky and the laundry line, and then the old woman who had hung up her clothes the other day. For hours, she lost herself in drawing and coloring. She tried to push back any uneasiness she felt about Jesse and the words he had said when she was in the bathtub—
Thanksgiving break is barely over and they won’t know anything is wrong for a while.

Wrong.

So many things could be wrong, like the anger she had seen on Jesse’s face when he had looked at his father, or the fact that she had snuck around Jesse to buy a phone, or how dark she felt inside whenever she thought about all those texts and phone calls from her parents.

There was nothing to do about any of it now. She picked up an oil pastel the color of the artichokes from the market. She rubbed her thumb along the soft, slick surface before setting the tip of the pastel to paper, coloring in her sketch until she lost herself in a sort of stupor, a desperate attempt to force out everything unpleasant. Mostly, she wanted to get rid of her constant memories of the house and Eric and the bedroom. So often when she closed her eyes, she saw him. Whenever she heard a deep male voice speaking Italian it morphed into Eric’s voice. Every time she chopped garlic, she thought of him. She realized that without a counselor to guide her through all her disturbing thoughts and memories, they were getting the best of her. They were like the mazes of Trastevere. Her counselor-free summers had never turned as dark as this. It was Italy. It was the realization she was living here, where Eric and the others wanted to live, that was killing her inside. They were stuck in prison and she was living their dream. Evelyn’s dream. Eric’s plans. Her life now. Every night, she fell asleep in Jesse’s arms, knowing he loved her and would take care of her forever. But no matter how hard she tried to make herself believe everything was how it should be, she knew she was deluding herself.

The calls and texts from her mother kept coming.
Naomi, please call me. Please. Did you go stay with that man you were talking about? Hasn’t the semester started again already?

And then Finn sent another text.
Please let me know you’re okay. I went to see Becca, but she hasn’t heard from you, either. She said you moved back home? What happened with Jesse? Oh, and I have something great to tell you about my mom.

That night, a few hours after she read Finn’s text, Naomi buried her face in her hands. She couldn’t keep lying to Jesse. It felt so wrong. Everything was stacking up around her, forcing her emotions into a space so small she knew she would burst any moment.

“I got a phone,” she said into her hands during dinner.

Jesse was quite for a moment. “You ... what?”

She lifted her head from her hands and stood from her chair. Walking into the living room, she found her phone in her purse and returned to the table.

“It’s a global phone,” she said, her voice trembling as she watched confusion sweep across Jesse’s face. “I got it before we came here because I was afraid of feeling cut off ... or something. I was afraid you would see it in airport security, but you didn’t seem to notice with all my other crap I had to put through the scanners.”

Jesse’s confused expression melted into disappointment. Naomi could see he was trying to control his emotions. He swept away the negative expression and looked up at her with a calm, sweet smile.

“I’m so sorry for making you feel like you might be cut off,” he said, reaching for the phone. “You don’t have to apologize.”

Breathing a sigh of relief, she sat in her chair and leaned back. “I need to tell my parents what’s going on. Everyone’s going to think I’ve been kidnapped again, and I can’t deal with that. I have to tell them.”

Jesse nodded, his face still calm. “I think we should block certain numbers,” he said. “Namely, your mother’s ... until you’re ready to deal with this. She’ll be alright until then.”

Naomi watched him take the phone and then navigate through some screens. A crease formed between his eyes. “Finn is texting you?” he asked, lowering the phone.

“Y-yes.” She didn’t like the way he looked at her all of a sudden—that steely glaze over his eyes. He wouldn’t make her block Finn. He wouldn’t. Shakily, she said, “He’s concerned, that’s all.”

He softened his expression, gazing at her with what almost looked like pity. “I think you might be able to handle things easier if you don’t talk to him for a while.”

She reached for the phone. “I’m not talking to him. I haven’t even texted him back. I haven’t talked to
anyone
.”

“Naomi,” Jesse said firmly, “don’t lie, please. There’s a text here to your mother. I asked you not to talk to her.”

Folding her arms, she grunted. “Telling her I’m fine is hardly talking to her. And that’s all I’ve texted.” She glared at Jesse as he stood and walked into the living room. He was doing something to her phone— punching buttons, scrolling through screens. “What are you doing?” she demanded, standing up from her chair. She put her hands on her hips.

“I’m making things easier for you.” His back was to her, and suddenly she hated the way he hunched his shoulders forward, the way his muscles in his forearms slid under his skin as he moved his fingers wildly across the phone. She wasn’t sure what to do or say. He had never acted so rashly before—at least not toward her— not since that night he rushed her out of the house to help her escape. She hadn’t wanted to leave, she remembered. There had been a gaping hole in her chest as she had walked away, but Jesse had kept pulling on her, and then when he drove her to the police station and ordered her out of the car, she had thought her shattered heart would never heal. And it hadn’t. Not yet.

“Jesse,” she said in as calm a voice as she could. Her throat was tightening with a surge of fear. “I want my phone back. I don’t want people blocked on there. I promise I won’t talk to them until you think I’m ready.” She reached out a hand even though he couldn’t see her. “Please?”

Finally, he turned around. “Your password for your online phone account is
Jesse128,
isn’t it?”

How the hell did he know that? Her jaw dropped open. “Yeah.”

He smiled. “I thought so.” Turning around again, he kept working on the phone.

It shouldn’t have surprised her that he had guessed her password. It was his name and birthday, after all. It was her own fault for choosing something so obvious.

He finished whatever he was doing and turned around to face her. “I’ve changed your password on your account so you can’t make any changes. I’ve deleted everyone on here but me, and I’ve blocked your parents and Finn from being able to text or call you. It’s for your own good, Naomi. Trust me.”

She lowered her arm and it flopped back to her side. “Can I still access the Internet? What if I want to check my e-mail?” Not that she received a lot of e-mail. She checked it maybe once every week, but at the moment it seemed like her last lifeline to home.

“No, I’ve disabled that too.”

“Why?” she whispered. “Why would you do that? It’s been almost two weeks. People are going to know something is wrong by now.”

Jesse’s eyebrows knit together. “Do you think coming here with me was wrong? Are you regretting your decision?”

It was then that she felt the age difference between her and Jesse. He would turn thirty next month. He was an adult and she was barely old enough to legally drink. She hadn’t even finished college. Maybe he knew what was best, but as she let her focus drift from his face to the phone in his hand, something inside her twisted into knots.

“I don’t know,” she squeaked, her knees giving out from under her. She sat back down in her chair. “I have nothing back home, do I?”

“You have your parents,” he said, his voice gentle. “I know they mean a lot to you, so I promise you can see them later when everything is settled.” He walked to the table and set her phone near her plate. “I’m not upset with you for getting a phone, but for now, just be happy with how things are. Okay?” He touched her shoulder, sliding his finger down her arm.

She picked up her phone. It felt different. Empty. She couldn’t call her mother now, even if she wanted to. She couldn’t answer Finn’s desperate text messages. She couldn’t find out what he wanted to tell her about his mother. There were Internet cafés in town, or she could call her phone service and set things back to normal, but she didn’t want to be dishonest with Jesse again.

“I don’t know how to feel,” she said, dropping the phone onto the table. “All you had to do was ask me not to talk to anyone.”

“That
is
what I asked you to do.”

She looked up at him. “Are you not going to trust me now because I got the phone behind your back?”

His finger paused on her arm. “No, I understand why you got it, and of course I still trust you. I think this will make it easier for you not to be tempted, that’s all. I can’t stop you from calling your parents if that’s what you want, but ask yourself ... is it what you want right now?”

She looked away as a sigh escaped her lips. “No.”

XIX

T
HE NEXT EVENING, JESSE CAME HOME
from work with a thin brown box tucked under his arm. He steered Naomi out of the kitchen and into the bedroom, where he set the box on the bed and told her to open it.

“You don’t have to buy me things,” she said as she tucked her fingers under the lid and pulled it off. Inside was something flat wrapped in white and gold striped tissue paper.

“I want to buy you things,” Jesse answered, wrapping his arms around her from behind. He watched over her shoulder as she picked up the tissue paper. It was limp, clothing of some kind. Once she had it unwrapped, she ran her hands over the smooth black material and then pulled it out of the box. Holding it up, she watched it fall into shape. It was a dress with a plunging neckline and a knee-length skirt. When she turned it around, she saw the back was cut to reveal her shoulder blades. She blushed. She definitely wouldn’t be wearing a bra with this outfit.

“This is sexier than any dress I’ve ever worn,” she said, turning around in Jesse’s arms. “Where the heck am I going to wear it outside of this bedroom?”

Jesse smiled and leaned close enough for his forehead to touch hers. He smelled of cigarette smoke, which seemed odd. He didn’t smoke. He must work with people who did. Everybody smoked here. “To a nightclub,” he answered. “It’s about time we went out at night and did something fun. I’ve found the perfect place.”

“A nightclub?” she asked, her mouth going dry. She remembered her night with Finn, the sweat on his neck, the way he smelled, his body moving in time with hers.

“Yeah, don’t you like to dance?” Jesse touched her cheek. His expression was sweet and endearing. His eyes pleaded.