Drawn To You (8 page)

T
ime crawls
by at a snail’s pace. No matter how many customers I help and how many books I shelve and reshelve, I swear the clock’s actually going backwards.

Sampson’s suspicious of me today. He keeps trying to catch me off guard by asking why I look so nice, which is oddly sweet in an overprotective dad sort of way. Audrey helped me put together today’s ensemble – a pretty patterned bubble skirt and knit crop sweater borrowed from her closet – and my hair’s actually tamed into a fishtail braid over one shoulder. I even took an extra thirty minutes to do my makeup the way I used to, with a full cat-eye and blush and everything.

“I’m trying to clean up for the customers,” I say, not meeting his eye. “I’d have thought you’d be glad I don’t look like a… what did you call me?”

“Certified ragamuffin,” he says.

“Yeah, that.”

He runs a hand through his beard and
hmmms
at me. “You sure there isn’t something, or
someone,
I ought to know about?”

I heave a dramatic sigh and fling my hand over my forehead. “Father, you’ve caught me out, for I am eloping with a Montague, thy sworn mortal enemy.”

Sampson responds with a blank stare. “Monta-who?”

“You’re impossible.” I shake my head and go back to shelving cozy mysteries. “I felt like being fancy today. Don’t worry about it.”

“Speaking of fancy, we got in a new shipment of Cat Fancy magazines. Make sure you put them out before five. That’s when the cat ladies start rolling in after picking up food for Fluffy and Mittens.”

“Yes, sir.” I give him a mocking salute and he rolls his eyes skyward like he’s asking the heavens why he bothers with me.

For the six hundredth time since my shift started, I go behind the front desk to pull my phone out of my bag. No messages, and the clock only reads 3:30.

It’s going to be a long day until seven o’clock.

A
s I’m ringing
up some high schooler’s copy of
High Times,
he nervously looks over his shoulder at Sampson. I can’t stop the chuckle that bubbles up.

“You know weed is legal here now, right?” I say.

“I
know,
” the kid snaps, sneering at me. “If you’re 21.”

“So turn 21, then. In the meantime, they can’t arrest you for reading about it. Shoo.” I wave him off and he gives me another scowl before snatching up his magazine and rejoining his friends outside.

I pull out my phone again.

It’s now 3:50. I groan and slump off to the warehouse ladder to pull down those Cat Fancy issues.

T
hree long hours
and several cups of coffee later, I’m practically vibrating from nerves and caffeine. Ezra should be here any minute. He hasn’t texted, so I assume that means he’s on schedule. I hope.

Sampson notices my fidgety behavior and shakes his head at me with a smirk. He’s got a fitted t-shirt on today, revealing another tattoo on his bicep. This one must be new, or maybe I just haven’t seen him sans-flannel in so long I forgot about it. The piece is a long thin blade with an intricate handle and the name “MacLeod” engraved on it. Underneath on a ribbon, the lettering says, “There Can Be Only One.”

Before he can ask more prying questions, I point to the tattoo and say, “Is that your family motto or something?”

He glances down at his arm and then slowly looks back up at me, completely scandalized.

“You’ve never seen
Highlander?
” he says. “I’m offended, Mia. Honestly offended.”

“Hey, you look at me like I’m speaking an ancient dialect every time I mention an artist who sounds vaguely French, so you’ll forgive me for not knowing all your weird film references.”

“But you like movies,” he argues.

I cluck my tongue. “I like
classic
movies.”

He puts his hand to his chest. “
Highlander is
a classic. How dare you?”

I laugh and nudge him on the arm. “We can argue about the merits of film later. Go do your inventory, I’ll wrap up out here and let you know when I’m leaving.”

With a grumble, he agrees, shaking his head as he walks toward the back room. I take a deep breath and smooth my skirt, then check my phone one last time.

It’s 6:57.

I’m actually doing this. I’m going on a
date.
I haven’t been on a real date since…

The bell above the door jangles, catching me by surprise. I drop my phone and let out a nervous laugh, dipping behind the desk to pick it up. When I stand up, I’m wearing the biggest grin.

“It’s about time,” I say. “I thought you were going to be --”

I freeze, my smile shattering into a thousand pieces and falling off my face. I’d assumed it was Ezra. It’s not.

The front of the shop’s empty. There’s no sound besides the slowly dying ringing of the bell.

“You look great,” the guy says.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” My voice is frozen solid, cold as ice.

Damien takes a hand out of his jacket pocket and runs it through his short hair. He licks his lip, shifting from one foot to the other and furrowing his brow like a confused goddamn puppy.

It’s the look that made me fall in love with him three years ago.

It’s the look that makes me hate him now.

White-hot rage overtakes the cold that settled in my chest and I rush around the counter, growling, “What. The. Fuck. Are. You. Doing. Here.”

The sound of his voice grates on my eardrums.

“I needed to see you, Mia,” he says. “We need to talk.”

I shake my head and clench my fists. “No. You need to get out. Out of this shop, out of Portland, out of my life. Forever. Do you understand me?”

How the hell did he know I work here? Who’s he been talking to?

Who’s betrayed me this time?

It’s getting so hard to breathe. Panic claws its way up my throat. He can’t be here. I came here to get away.

Damien sets his jaw and raises his head. “I’m not going to leave until you listen. There are things I have to say, all right?”

He crosses the store, reaching for my hand, and I reel back like I’ve been electrocuted.

“Don’t you touch me,” I snarl. “Don’t you dare. There’s no room in my life for a cheater and a drunk. You can go to hell.”

He looks annoyed, but he doesn’t try to touch me again. “I’m in a program, okay?” he says, crossing his arms. A spark of anger glints like iron in his eyes. “At least I
did
something productive after what happened. I didn’t run away.”

The air rushes out of my lungs at his words. I’m too stunned to respond. He might as well have slapped me.

He uses the silence to continue. “I finished my stay in rehab last week. I knew the very first thing I had to do when I got out was come see you. This is one of the steps of my therapy.”

I recoil back to the counter, as far away from him as I can get, and manage to find my voice again.

“What is?” I say, and I don’t even know why I’m asking. I shouldn’t care.

“Seeking forgiveness,” he says. His eyes shine with tears, his mouth twists in pain. As if he has the right. It makes me hate him even more.

My laugh is high and forced. “Forgiveness? What, you thought you would show up unannounced at my damn job and say you’re sorry for what you did, and I would absolve you so you could go on your merry way? Are you kidding me?”

He cringes away from me, and I’m glad for the space. The farther he is from me, the less my skin crawls.

“I am sorry,” he says, his words coming out strangled. “I can’t ever make this right, I know that, but I’m so, so sorry.”

I need him gone. There’s no air in this room anymore, and I can’t breathe until he’s gone.

“Get out of here and don’t come back,” I whisper.

He shakes his head and looks at me with renewed fire. “I can’t do that, Mia. I need you to listen. I need you to forgive me.”

“Get out, get out, get out!” I shove him, but he catches my hand and holds it against his chest.

I’m paralyzed by his touch. Fear and nauseating fury thunder inside me, pulling me in a million directions. Bile rises in the back of my throat and I try to pull away, but Damien’s grip is iron.

“I made a mistake, but I’m trying to pick up the pieces,” he says, his tone desperate. “Please help me. Please forgive me. Don’t I deserve to have a life?”

I try again to pull away, my panic mounting. There’s a weapon on the edge of my tongue. It’ll hurt me to use it much more than it’ll hurt him to hear it. But it will still hurt him. So I use it.

“Didn’t she deserve to have a life?”

At once, he lets me go and I stumble away from him. The broken pieces of me that were just starting to mend shatter all over again, and I watch the same thing happen to him. Damien folds in on himself, clutching his stomach like his heart imploded and squeezing his eyes shut. A cry rises in my throat and I struggle to keep it in.

The room tilts sideways.

Somewhere in the distance, there’s the sound of a bell. Everything’s a blur. Damien’s talking, shaking me, and I’m yelling or screaming, I’m not sure. There’s another person beside us, strong hands prying Damien’s fingers off my skin. I clutch my hand to my chest and gasp for air. I manage to register Ezra gathering fistfuls of Damien’s jacket and getting up in his face, backing him toward the door. Ezra shoves him, hard, and when Damien tries to talk to me around him, Ezra uses his body to block our eye contact. Finally, the bell rings again and Damien’s gone.

He’s gone. Something inside me uncoils.

Then Ezra’s in front of me, his gentle fingers lifting my chin so all I can see is him. Tears sting the corner of my eyes and I try to blink them away.

“Are you okay?” he says. “Did he hurt you?”

Did he hurt me?

God, if only Ezra knew.

I take a deep, shuddering breath.

“No, it wasn’t like that, not exactly,” I say, fighting to keep my voice steady. I pull away to gather my things. My fingers are numb and shaking as I zip up my jacket.

Ezra’s brows tense up and his jaw clenches with concern. He’s treating me like a spun glass figurine, like I might shatter any second. What destroys me most is that he’s not entirely wrong. I’m cracking everywhere. Every wall I’ve built over the last ten months is crumbling. It’s not supposed to be this way. No one here is supposed to know.

“Can we just go?” I say in a strangled voice. Before he answers I’m already rushing for the door.

I’m half a block away when Ezra catches up and stops me. “Hey,” he says. “Mia.”

The sidewalk bustles, the steady stream of foot traffic parting around us. A couple passes by, laughing on their way to dinner, pushing a double stroller with a pair of screaming twins. A man in a suit bumps into my shoulders. I feel like I’m drowning, like I’m lost. I just want to disappear. With all of these strangers, it would be so easy to melt into the crowd. But Ezra is here, squeezing my hand with a tender pressure. He won’t let me drift away. He anchors me to the present, to him.

“Mia,” he says again, brushing a finger across my cheek. It comes away wet with tears. I hadn’t realized I was crying. “That was scary back there. Talk to me. Whatever it is, you can tell me. Who was that guy?”

His questions open up the stitches I sewed in my heart and I try to pull them closed again. “He’s my ex,” I manage. I take a shaky breath, straightening my shoulders. I pull on my armor again, guard myself with ice. “Just my horrible ex, trying to make nice.”

He’s part of why I’m so messed up,
I want to add, but I don’t.

Ezra isn’t buying it, though. “That wasn’t your typical breakup baggage,” he says. “What’s going on?”

Why does he have to keep pushing?

My seams split open. My armor cracks, leaving me defenseless and alone in the pulpy mess of my pain. I curl over on myself as it rushes out, a sob escaping my clenched teeth. I try to free my hand, but Ezra’s grip is firm. Not iron and grit like Damien’s, but warm and steady as stone. I’m drowning and he’s trying to save me.

But Ezra doesn’t realize that it’s too late.

What was I thinking? That I could be normal again, that I could go on a cutesy date and drink cutesy beer and make cutesy flirt-talk with a beautiful guy like someone who isn’t a wasteland inside?

Ezra doesn’t deserve this. He deserves someone who isn’t broken.

“Mia…” he starts, tracing a finger down the side of my neck, and his voice is so full of genuine comfort that it sends another jolt of pain clean through me.

“I can’t,” I sob. I wrench myself free, backing away from him. “I’m sorry, I can’t do this.”

Confusion, hurt, maybe even anguish—they’re drawn across his features, interlacing the raw agony of his emotion with his beauty. He looks like one of his paintings, the darkness folding in on itself, but illuminated by an indestructible glint of hope. It strangles my heart to see him like this, so I turn away. “I’m sorry,” I repeat, but now it’s just a whisper. Before he can say anything that would make this more gut-wrenching than it already is, I back away and disappear into the crowd.

I
’m not
sure how I got back to the parking lot outside student housing, but I did. My face itches and my eyes ache from driving the entire thirteen hours between Maple Valley and San Francisco without stopping, except for gas. The dried tear tracks on my cheeks don’t help. I cover my face with my hands and suck in air. It makes my lungs feel raw.

My boyfriend’s a cheater and a liar, and that’s not even the worst of it.

For the six millionth time since I started driving, my ringtone plays from deep inside my bag. I’ve managed to tune it out with my blaring music up until now, but I finally yank my phone out, powering it down without looking at my missed calls. I don’t want to talk. There’s nothing to say.

The battery was dying, anyway.

I lean back on my headrest with my eyes closed, blearily wondering how I’m even still conscious. I haven’t slept since yesterday. It’s mid-morning now, and there are people everywhere filtering by on their way to classes. Three days ago, I was among them, thrilled that I got to be a student at San Francisco Art Institute, among the next generation of artists getting ready to change the world.

Now all I want to do is go up to my dorm room and sleep for a week.

I kick my door open, get out, and slam it, startling a few passersby. I don’t care. I shove open my trunk and pull out my bag. It’s packed for a long weekend at home, including the nice dress I was going to wear when Mom and Dad took me out to a belated twenty-first birthday dinner at my favorite restaurant.

I didn’t even get the chance to unpack before I came back here.

Happy fucking birthday to me.

Climbing the stairs to my second-story room feels like an exercise in masochism. My body hurts. My head hurts. My heart hurts.

I drop my keys twice before I finally manage to push my way into my bedroom, where Kimber is frantically buttoning her pants. I shoot a quick glance up at her bed, and sure enough, her new girlfriend is clearly getting dressed under the covers. I snort and roll my eyes as I dump my bag and climb my ladder to roll onto my own bed.

“Sorry, sorry,” Kimber says, and I’m not sure if she’s talking to me or to her lady-friend.

I try to force myself asleep, but my brain is working overtime and refuses. There are some creaks and thumps as the other girl climbs down, then some mutterings and whispered goodbyes. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to tune it out. Seeing a happy couple is not what I need right now.

Once our door clicks shut, Kimber reaches up and smacks me on the leg.

“Hey, dude, talk to me,” she says. “You weren’t supposed to be back until Sunday night. You could have called to give me a heads up that you were on your way home. Somebody’s been calling for you on
my
phone and I at least could have told them you’d be here soon. They sounded worried.”

I laugh, but there’s no humor in it at all. It sounds and tastes bitter. Apparently not answering my cell phone wasn’t a strong enough hint to leave me the hell alone.

“I really don’t want to talk about it,” I grumble into my pillow.

She climbs up the first two rungs of my ladder so she can punch me in the hip and I sit bolt upright. Her face is set, determined, and I kind of want to yank her lip ring out.

“What the hell?” I snarl.

“I was having a really nice morning cuddling with a really cute girl and then you had to barge in like a freaking moose. Something obviously happened and someone’s worried about you back home. I’m your friend and I’m annoyed, so tell me something. Did you even stop at my folks’ place to rest? You could have driven off the damn road.”

Kimber’s from Arcata, a ways up the coast. We’ve been roommates for two years, and her folks always let me use her old room for a nap when I make the trip up home so that I don’t have to do the whole stretch in one go.

“I was fine, and it’s none of your damn business, okay? Let me sleep.”

When I flip over and bury my face in my pillow, I have to choke back a sob so she doesn’t keep bothering me.

Kimber’s phone rings, buzzing against her desk, and I grit my teeth.

Kimber doesn’t answer it. “That’s going to be for you,” she says. She really does sound pissed.

“I don’t care,” I say through my gritted teeth.

“Fine,” Kimber sighs and I hear the thump as she jumps down and goes to get the phone.

Whoever it is, they can fuck off. I’m going to nap and then I’m going to go to the commons for a pint of ice cream.

“Hello?” I hear Kimber say. “Yeah, Ms. Kavanagh, she just got here. I’m sorry she worried you.”

There’s a pause. “I don’t think she wants to come to the phone right now.”

Another pause.

Then, “Oh my god. Okay, yeah, I’ll get her on. Oh my god, I’m so sorry.”

Somewhere in the fog of my brain, I understand that something isn’t right. I raise my head and turn to look at Kim, who’s holding the phone away from her ear and looking at me with wide eyes.

“Mia, you really need to talk to your mom,” she says.

Her tone spreads a numb sort panic inside me. I climb down the ladder and take the phone from her. A heaviness settles in my gut, a small ball of molten lead that burns me up inside. When I put the phone to my ear, I hear my mother’s hitched breathing and realize she’s crying. My mouth tastes like bile.

“Mom?” I croak. “What’s going on?”

“We were worried sick, Mia, damn it,” she sobs, and I know it’s bad because Mom doesn’t swear. “Why didn’t you answer your phone? For hours and hours. We couldn’t take it if both of you…”

Everything around me goes very quiet and very still, like I’m frozen in a bubble of time.

“Both of us?” I repeat.

Mom’s crying too hard to answer and then Dad comes on the line. He’s not crying, but his voice sounds ragged and old.

“It’s your sister,” Dad says. “She was in a car accident with Damien last night. He was driving, and the police are pretty sure he was drinking.”

My knees give out under me. Kimber grabs me as I sink to the floor.

“What?” I whisper.

“He’s got a broken arm,” Dad says. He’s stating the facts in this mechanical voice, like turning computer will help him stay strong. That’s a bad sign. The last time I heard him like this was when we found out Nana had cancer.

“I don’t care about him,” I say, and I mean it. “What about Iris?”

There’s a pause. It feels like it goes on forever, swallows me whole. Then Dad says, “She’s still in surgery. They… keep telling us her condition is critical and they’re doing all they can.”

My mouth moves without sound for a few seconds before I manage to say, “But she’s alive. She’s going to be okay. Right?”

He doesn’t say anything. My mother’s crying echoes in the background.

“Dad,” I beg, my voice cracking. “Tell me she’s going to be okay.”

“I think you’d better come back home as soon as you can, baby,” he says. “We’ll wire you some money for a plane ticket. Turn your phone back on. I have to go be with your mother now.”

“Dad?” Tears are welling up in my eyes, my throat, my entire body. I feel like I’m drowning.

He’s barely audible as he says, “I love you, baby. Come home.”

The line goes quiet and I know he hung up. I drop the phone into my lap. Kimber’s sitting on the floor next to me, her arm around my shoulder. She says something, but I don’t register it.

My sister’s in the hospital, unconscious and alone, surrounded by cold metal and sterile people she doesn’t know.

My sister’s dying 800 miles away.

Reality crashes and I twist my hands into my hair as the room falls apart all around me, because this is my fault.