Page 104 of The Kiss of Deception

Upstairs, reigns the unspoken rule of always leaving the doors open when we’re not inside. Right now, the only door that’s closed is the master room—the one we shared the past nights.

I don’t give myself time to think. I twist the doorknob and enter. The bed is unmade, ruffled sheets and crumpled pillows and only oppressive white—no trace of her. Earrings are scattered in the dresser, the scrunchies I steal and collect next to the polaroid of us.

“Zoe?”

Her name hovers in the air under the stomping notes of the song. No answer. Nothing.

The bloody path angles towards the ensuite bathroom door—closed. I bulldoze right through the door.

“Oh my God!” Zoe’s scream slices through the tension-filled air. It doesn’t tilt with the note I was terrified of. It’s the familiar infuriated inflection. “What the hell, Blackstein? You scared the fuck out of me!”

“What the hell, Zoe?” I yell back, ridding my windpipe of the crushing pressure strangling me from the moment I got home. My voice breaks, shaking as my hands do. “What the hell?”

I have enough presence of mind to direct all my senses to cataloging her, making sure all her limbs are intact. I can’t.

Because her body is obstructed from my view from the neck down—Zoe is in the bathtub. She soaks in the porcelain freestanding tub as bubbles and a light fog dance around her, giving her an ethereal aura. All rested and relaxed as my insides crumble upon themselves and fight to realign.

“Miles?” she says around a tentative smile, laying back down against the welcoming slope of the tub. “Come here.”

My legs flutter like they might give out under me. But I’d do anything Zoe asks. So, I walk over to her, unsteady but determined steps hovering above her mere inches away.

Unmoving, she awaits with a fierce soft look, as though she knows she can chase my demons away with the flick of a finger.

I drop to my knees and, without a second thought, push her damp strands to her back in order to wrap my hand around her neck. My thumb seeks her heart on her collarbone, the steady rush of her pulse working like a tranquilizer, soothing mine.

“You scared the fuck out of me.” I lean into her, fusing my forehead to her temple. “You scared me, Zoe.” The warmth of her wet, pebbled skin under mine assures me she’s real, the beat of her heart rising and retreating on my thumb with her breaths assures me she’s okay, and I can breathe again. “God, woman. I come home to find bloody—literally bloody—floors and screaming music… It was a horror movie scenario down to a T.”

“And how would you know that? You don’t watch horror movies. You get scared, then can’t sleep at night.”

That is Zoe’s way of apologizing, I realize—trying to draw pull my lips into a smile. It doesn’t work. The muscles of my face are strung too tight to do anything but gulp in her sweet scent.

“Not an appropriate time for jokes.”

“A bit ironic, coming from you,” she murmurs under her breath.

It’s like we’ve both agreed to keep our tone low, a lull. Even through the roaring song, we don’t have to be loud to hear each other. Our whole world resides in the small inches between us.

“I’m serious.”

“Now that sounds like a joke.”

“I mean it, Zoe. Can you imagine what I thought?”

“I’m sorry.” She sighs. Suds of soap swallow her palm as it emerges, smearing them on my face as Zoe cups my cheek. “I cut my foot on some glass we must have missed at your party.”

She lifts her foot to rest up on the rim of the tub, revealing a diagonal gash right in the middle of her sole. It doesn’t seem too deep—only enough to write an ominous bloody script all over the house.

“I came up searching for a band-aid or antiseptic or something. And then I thought, well, why not try the tub while I’m here? It’s been tempting me for days. It didn’t occur to me how it would look to you. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t know. You don’t understand.” I release a frame-shaking breath, purging the poisoned air that stuck to the walls of my lungs when I saw the first spectrum of crimson. “If anything happened to you—”

My finger releases her heart to brush a featherlight kiss across her scar.

I can’t finish my own sentence. I can’t bring myself to even imagine a world without Zoe.

“I’m okay,” she reassures, drawing sudsy circles on my skin with her thumb.

“Don’t you ever scare me like that again,” I plead.

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