When we’re both spent, she collapses onto the bed, and I pull out and lie next to her.
She turns her head, her hair slicked against her forehead with sweat. There’s a question in her eyes. I don’t want to answer it.
I roll out of bed and reach for my clothes. “You’re paid up.” Fuck, I’m such a prick.
“Paid up?” she asks, still sounding a little dazed.
“Yes, your debt is settled.”
“So I got fucked, and then I got fucked, and now I have nothing to show for any of it.” She sits up and pulls the blanket to her chest. “I’m back where I started. Will you at least tell me your name?” she asks sadly.
I stand, dress, and walk to the door. I should walk out and not look back. After all, this was the arrangement. Only this. Nothing more. I’m a hard man, someone who has never let anyone get close. Because the last time I did? I wound up with a knife in my back. Even so, I want more from her. It’s just a feeling, a desire—but it’s one I’ve never felt. Acting on it, though, that could lead to another knife in my back, and this one could be the end of me.
“Please?” she asks.
“My driver will be waiting downstairs. He’ll take you home. Don’t bother asking him any questions. He won’t answer.” I stride out and walk away from her.
Her sob echoes down the hall and breaks off a piece of me that I thought was made of stone.
11
Lily
“I’ll see you again.” I hug Chelsea even though she smells like BO. The hazards of strange roommates and summer in New York.
“You won’t.” She laughs. “At least now I can use the closet as a, you know, closet.”
“You need another roommate if you’re going to make rent.”
“Good point.” She pulls a weed vape from her pocket and takes a hit. “Good luck.”
“Bye. Tell the other girls I said bye, okay?”
“Will do.” She takes another hit then closes the door in my face. I’m pretty sure she won’t mention me leaving to the other girls. But that’s okay. The Lily that lived here was just a ghost anyway.
I trudge down the hall and start the long journey away from this big city. First the subway, then a train ride over to Jersey. When I get back to my hometown, everything looks the same. But I’m different. Sadder, I guess.
I’d left my tormentor’s house that morning. I still couldn’t find out who he was. I tried to find an address as I was being driven away, but there was no street number, and no street for that matter. It was off an unfamiliar backroad outside Bishop’s Landing, but that’s all I had. I don’t think I could even remember the way to get back there. Not that he’d want me. He took what he wanted, and then sent me away.
I’d moped for two days, then packed my things and made my choice. Mom needed me. My lies had gotten me nowhere. In fact, they’d put me in a hole, because I kept finding myself thinking about my mystery man. How he’d taken care of me despite his harsh words. How he’d made me feel when I was beneath him.
“You’re here.” Mom smiles as I enter her room. Her care nurse squeezes my elbow, then walks into the hall.
“Where have you been?” She starts to pull the oxygen tube away from her nose.
“Leave it.” I sit on the bed beside her. “You breathe better with it in.”
“I know.” She rests one of her age-spotted hands over mine. “It’s just bothersome when I’m trying to talk. How’s the city? You’ve been gone too long. You look thin.”
I eye her own narrow frame beneath the covers. “Pot calling the kettle black.”
“My lungs are shot. I have an excuse.” She smiles as she says it and reaches up to pat my cheek. “I missed you.”
“I missed you, too. Any news from Doc Lincoln?”
“Same.” She shrugs. “The surgery costs a ton, and they don’t have any donor lungs for me at the moment, so it’s moot anyway.” She takes a big breath, as big as she can.
I hate to see her struggling like this. Breathing should be easy, but it isn’t for her.
“Come here, my Lily pad.” She pats her shoulder. “You’ve got that look about you.”
“What look?” I lie down, curling up beside her like I did when I was little. Even though she’s been