Scars from a Memoir (6 page)

One of his hands covered mine, and he placed the other on my cheek, moving it so I faced him. “Don't be afraid.”

How could I not be? Josiah and Dave, the only two men who'd shown a little bit of interest lately, treated me like I was still a whore as soon as I was honest with them. Once the truth came out, every time Asher looked at me he'd see my scars. Not just the ones on my skin. The ones I buried inside.

“I did some shit, shit that would make you sick.”

“We all have regrets.”

“Not like I do.” I shook my head and looked down. “I hurt innocent people; people died because of me. If the cops hadn't busted me, I'd still be messed up. I spent two-and-a-half years in jail, then three months in rehab, and now I'm in sober living.”

“But you're clean, right?”

“Yeah, I'm clean, but you don't get it.” I stood and walked over to the water, taking a seat at the edge of the pond. I wrapped my arms around my legs and begged for rain. Not a drop fell from the sky.

“You're right,” he said from behind me. “I'm not an addict, so I don't understand what you went through.” He sat next to me and pulled my legs, turning me toward him. Once I was settled, he put his hands on the tops of my sneakers. “Make me understand.”

A light from one of the buildings was shining on his face. It made his eyes glow. They were gray with swirls of brown on the outer edge.

“I thought the time I served and being sober would be enough to pay for my mistakes, but my past is still haunting me.”

“Did you know that guy?”

Dustin and his messenger weren't the only people who haunted me. Asher wouldn't know that, though. I hadn't told him who had died because of me.

“No, my ex sent him to woo me,” I said. “He wants me to help him win his appeal.”

“Are you going to?”

“He was guiltier than me. I was just an accomplice.”

He ran his fingers through the hair that hung by the side of my face. After a few strokes, he tucked the strands behind my ear. “He can send whoever he wants. I won't let anyone hurt you.”

“I don't understand why you want to help me. You barely know me.”

His gaze softened, and he pulled my hands into his lap, covering them with his. “I know you better than you think.”

“But I haven't told Sada anything about me. She—”

“Sada didn't tell me anything.”

“Did you read the articles about me in the paper?”

The expression on his face was the same one he'd had when he found me outside his apartment. He was holding something in. What could he be hiding?

“Nadal isn't my only brother. I have another one—an older one.”

Was his older brother one of my Johns? I didn't want to ask, just in case that wasn't it. He probably assumed I'd been a prostitute, but saying that word would solidify it.

“His name is Jesse,” he said.

A giant lump formed in the back of my throat.

“Not the same Jesse who was dating my brother?” I asked.

He nodded, and when I tried to stand, his hands flew to my shoulders and stopped me. “I was going to tell you at the party, but the timing wasn't right.”

Jesse and Michael had been together for over a year by the time I found out Michael was gay. Michael had tried to tell me about him before, but I was too strung out to listen. They were still dating when my pimp killed him.

“How well did you know Michael?”

“We were good friends.”

It suddenly all made sense. Sada must have told Asher she was bringing me to his apartment, and when I showed up, he matched my name with the pictures he'd seen of me at Michael's. He followed me outside because he wanted to make sure I wouldn't leave his place and score some dope. That's what Michael would have wanted. He was honoring my brother, so he'd given me his phone number. The reason he wanted to go for a walk with me wasn't that he liked me. He hated me as much as Jesse did.

I threw his hands off my shoulders. “I have to go.”

“Nicole, this doesn't change how I feel.”

I'd already passed the bench, but I turned around and took a step closer. “How you feel? I know exactly how you feel.”

“Tell me, then.”

I put my hands on the back of the bench, grinding my palms against the wood. They were wet and slid over the surface. “When you look at me, all you see is Michael's killer.”

“That's not true.” He kneeled on the bench. Our eyes were level. His had beamed with strength when his foot was on that guy's throat, but now they showed sadness. “I knew of you then, and I'm beginning to see who you are now. There's a truth in you that proves you could be different. You didn't lie, and that's what I had expected.”

“What do you want from me?”

He didn't smile or move his mouth, but the corners of his eyes pointed down and his eyebrows rose. “I just want to take you for a walk.”

A laugh escaped from my lips. Nothing he said was funny, but laughing hid the quivers that rattled my body and the tears that filled my eyes.

“Just a walk?”

He nodded. “For now.”

-6-

THERE WERE THOUSANDS OF STUDENTS enrolled at Northeastern, and Sada just happened to be friends with Asher. She could have chosen to take me anywhere that night she'd brought me to his apartment. I had to believe that was more than a coincidence. But was it to punish me, or was I supposed to fall in love with him? Maybe both.

My past had collided with my future in the most messed-up way.

If I had met Jesse like Michael had wanted me to, I might have met the twins. I'd at least have heard their names or seen their pictures. Instead, I chose to abandon my brother when he was struggling with coming out. Heroin entered, and Michael exited.

My father shut down whenever I mentioned Michael, and my mother just sobbed. Asher was my only solid connection. Whether he used drugs and whether I was ready for a relationship weren't important. I couldn't lose what we had.

What I didn't understand was why, after everything he knew about me, I'd caught his interest. People didn't visit the murderer of their loved ones on death row. They sighed with relief when execution day came. But Asher wanted to take me for another walk instead. I couldn't let my questions keep me from finding him a place in my life. Being near Asher meant I was closer to Michael, so I called him the next morning. He got out of class an hour before my shift ended and came to the café. He sat at one of the tables, with a large coffee and a soft, covered notebook and wrote. Even if it was just short glances between sentences, I knew he was watching me. I could feel his stare throughout my whole body.

When I finished my closing duties, I walked over to his table. “Are you ready?”

He got up, folded his notebook in half, and put it in his back pocket. Once we got to the sidewalk, he asked how I was feeling. I hated that question. Until I'd gone to rehab and was forced to spill, I'd never been good at sharing my feelings. Practice hadn't made me any better. “Confused,” I said.

“I'm sure you have a lot of questions,” he replied.

Asher didn't act as though we were on a deadline, but I wanted all the answers before we reached the next street. I just didn't know what to ask first.

“Nadal knows we've been hanging out, so if you ever want to come to our apartment, he'll make sure there aren't any drugs there. Jesse knows too.”

The sidewalk was so busy that we had to weave through hoards of people. Asher reached for my hand, making sure we didn't get separated, and led me into an alley. He sat against the side of the building. I joined him.

“What do they think about…us?” I asked.

“Nadal and I may look alike, but he's like my father—quick to judge and only willing to hear one side. His side, usually. Jesse's like me. We think with our hearts.”

“I can see why Tyme wants to date the freckled one.”

That was the first time I heard him laugh. It was deep and honest. Asher had a funky haircut and a pierced skull, but underneath was something soft.

“Tyme isn't my type,” he said. “I like women who aren't afraid of their darkness. There's a little bit in all of us; some just choose not to embrace it.”

“What if it's not just a little bit? What if it's all of me?”

He looked at me for a few seconds and then pulled me to my feet. With my back against the brick, I just stood there, silent. He placed one hand beside my face and leaned down. “You don't see me running, do you?”

I gazed up into his eyes and shook my head.

“I'm not scared of what I know,” he said.

“You should be.”

He laughed again. This time his tone was lighter, but his smile was just as wide. “Your past only makes you more beautiful.” His hands went to my cheeks, and his lips hovered over mine. “Tell me you want this.”

No one had ever asked before.

“I want—”

He gently parted my lips, surrounding the top one and then the bottom, his tongue teasing both. His hands never left my face, pulling it closer, though there was hardly any space between us.

To stop his hands from moving, I gripped his forearms. I didn't want him to ever let me go. His lips became hungrier, and his body pressed against me. But when his thumbs pushed into my skin, like he was trying to squeeze out all my emotions, I felt something inside me grind to a halt.

Both rapes had left me with scars: a horseshoe-shaped mark under my chin from when I was in college, and memories from the night Richard—my old drug dealer—had forced himself inside me. My body had already been taken and abused, so it was the only thing I'd been willing to give to men. But that wasn't how I felt anymore. The attraction to Asher was more than physical. I wanted to make sure those feelings were real before I let him peel off my layers.

As I was about to pull away, he moved his face back and stared into my eyes. “I'll never hurt you,” he whispered.

I wanted to believe him. A part of me did.

“I'm a mess.”

“A beautiful mess.” He ran his thumb over my bottom lip. “We'll take it slow.”

*   *   *

Tiffany looked awful. She'd been studying for a week straight and pulling all-nighters. Other than coffee and cigarettes, I didn't think she'd eaten in days. I made her a sandwich, but when I got out of the shower, the plate still sat in front of her, untouched.

“Let's go to a meeting,” I said.

She wasn't required to go, but that didn't mean she should skip them as she'd done for the past week. Without looking up from her
textbook, she said she couldn't take a break. This was her hardest semester, and she needed to ace her finals next week; otherwise she wouldn't get accepted into her core classes.

I stood in front of her with my arms crossed. “You're powerless over your addiction.” When she didn't respond, I yanked the book off the table. “Get dressed.”

The addicts at our meetings were at various stages of sobriety. The rookies, who had just graduated from their first shot at rehab, would initially share their story. Then they'd mostly just listen. Eventually they'd start showing up late and would leave once the meeting was over. After a few weeks, maybe a month, they'd stop coming altogether. For most addicts, at least the ones I knew, it took more than one attempt at rehab to get sober. I was on my third.

The vets were hardcore followers of the Twelve Steps, the mentors of the group. They believed silence was a sign of relapse and encouraged the newbies to express their feelings. Before we swarmed around the coffee and cookies, the vets would ask us to join hands and pray for God's will and the power to carry it out.

During the first year of sobriety, relationships weren't encouraged. With a twelve-month foundation, we would learn how to add sex and love into our lives instead of using them to replace drugs. I didn't mention Asher when one of the vets called on me and asked how I was doing. He was my little secret. Lying was also a sign of relapse, but I was only hiding our kiss. Until that kiss turned into something more, no one needed to know.

Tiffany, with three years of sobriety, was considered one of the vets. But during the meeting, she stayed silent and even fell asleep when one of the newbies shared her story. She said she hadn't been sleeping because of finals next week and apologized to the group. She got some stern looks from the other vets; they said she needed to put her sobriety first and stop skipping meetings. She nodded and then went over to the table to pour a cup of coffee while the rest of us recited the prayer.

Once we got outside, I asked her why she didn't say the prayer. Instead of answering, she told me about her psychology professor. They'd been emailing and talking on the phone, but they were
waiting until the end of the semester to hang out. She said if the faculty busted him dating one of his students, he could get in a lot of trouble.

Tiffany hadn't been in a serious relationship since getting sober. She'd gone out with a few addicts, but all of them had relapsed. Her professor was the first nonaddict to understand her addiction and still show an interest after she'd told him about her past.

“It takes someone special to love us, Nicole.”

Josiah and Dave had both been addicts, but even junkies despised me for what I'd done to earn my drug money. Asher accepted my addiction—as well as my role in Michael's death and everything Michael had told him about me—and the things I'd shared so far. Did that make him amazing or totally insane?

“That's why when you find him,” she said, “you don't let him go.”

“Do you think…” The woman up ahead caught my attention. She was sitting in a doorway with a blanket underneath her and a bag at her side. She held a cardboard sign. Panhandling had once paid for my drugs. I had stuffed my belly with socks or toilet paper and hoped the people passing by would feel sympathy for my baby bump.

I grabbed a dollar out of my wallet, and when I bent down to place it in front of her, I read the sign. It said, “6 Months Pregeanat, Plaese Help.” I had written the same thing on my sign, but I think I had spelled the words correctly.

I held the dollar out in my hand. “Here, take this.” She was wearing a hood that covered most of her face, and her head was slumped forward. I couldn't tell if she was nodding out or just sleeping. If she had overdosed, her chest wouldn't be rising and falling. When she didn't respond, I wiggled her foot, and she finally picked her head up. Her face was covered in dirt, her left eye was swollen shut, and her lips were cracked and flaky. “Sunshine?” I asked.