circling around that topic for the past couple of months.
“Your emotional responses are somewhat outside of the norm,” was how he’d put it, his pale brown eyes intent as he stared over the top of his bifocals.
I’d describe it far more bluntly: something irrevocable had happened to me the night my mother vanished, a kind of fracture that nothing would ever fix.
“Don’t say that.” Paige rose and came around to sit next to me, her hands tender on my face as she cupped my cheeks. “You couldn’t write with such passion and visceral emotion if you didn’t feel.”
She’d always smelled of fresh, wild things, and I drew it in with every breath. Desperate to hold onto this small piece of her. I’d almost forgotten her scent. Almost forgotten the depth and beauty of her irises.
“According to several major critics, my characters are cardboard cutouts and the only thing that saved my first book is the insane twist in the plot.” Paige had seen me burn the shredded pieces of those reviews.
“Hundreds of other reviewers call you a shining light in popular fiction.”
Lifting my hands, I tugged Paige’s off my face. “When I write, I’m in someone else’s head. My characters are like dolls I can manipulate. Just like I manipulate people in real life.”
Dr. Jitrnicka nodded approvingly inside my head. “Be honest, Aarav. Show your true self.”
Touching her cheek with my fingers, I smiled and it was fucking sad. “Get away from me, Paige. I’ll chew you up and spit you out and you’ll have nothing to show for it but pain and scars.” Leaning in as tears formed in her eyes, I kissed her pale pink lips. “You can’t save me. I’m well beyond that.”
So far beyond that I was capable of murder. The person who’d killed my mother was as good as dead. All I needed was their name.
The intercom buzzed.
Picking up the remote handset on the nearby side table, I said, “Yes?”
“Aarav, I have a Detective Regan and a Constable Neri here for you.”
“Send them up. Thanks, Bobby.” After hanging up, I kissed Paige one last time before I got up with the crutches snugged in my armpits.
Wiping the tears off her face, she rose after me. I watched as she put on her shapeless black coat. Her eyes were red-rimmed when she looked at me. “You’re a far better person than you think, Aarav. No matter what, you can always call me.”
“I know.” I also knew that I never would. I’d save Paige even if I couldn’t save myself.
The police were heading toward my door when Paige stepped out. She gave me one last look of entreaty before heading toward the elevator. It took everything I had not to scream at her to stay, to be with me even if I was a fucking mess.
The cops didn’t look at her, their attention on me.
“Detective, Constable,” I said as the elevator doors closed on Paige’s face. “Come on in.”
35
Once they stepped in, I nodded toward the sofas. “I can’t offer you coffee but I have soft drinks.”
“We’re fine,” the senior officer answered.
Neri, meanwhile, had taken a seat but was scrutinizing everything around her without seeming to do much at all. She wouldn’t learn anything from this room—I’d had it decorated by an interior designer so it gave the right impression for a successful young author. The real me lived in the bedroom and study areas—mostly the study. Even Paige hadn’t spent much time in there . . . but I had allowed her in. The only lover I’d welcomed into that space.
“I resent anyone else in my writing area,” I’d said in that infamous interview where I’d been photographed on my bike. “It’s like they’re sucking my creative energy with their silent request for attention.”
The “prima donna” taunts had come quick and fast, but the quote had also spawned a number of think pieces by other creative types. One had written: “It eats away at my creative soul, this need that presses in on me on all sides. I crave the beautiful isolation of Thoreau’s Walden Pond and feel selfish for turning my back on those who offer me only love.”
Yep, one of my misanthropic brethren. Also one who hadn’t done his research. Thoreau’s cabin wasn’t in the middle of nowhere, he had plenty of company, and oh, he probably asked his mum for meal deliveries since she lived so close.
No one had ever had the balls to ask me why I published my work, if I