Page 69 of Look, Don't Touch

I slap the tears from my face, turn to look my siren in the eye and admit—not my most dangerous secret, but my most horrifying one.

“I killed her.”

Hailey is the only person I’ve ever told. I never expected to tell anyone. Not ever. But I’d imagined telling someone a thousand times through the years. In each imagining, I’d spill my guts and they’d scream or weep or look at me like the devil incarnate.

My siren’s chin rises. Her jaw firms and her tears cease. “Good.”

The hinge of my jaw opens and then closes without a sound. My heart, which had been waiting to scatter the last of its pieces into my guts, firms.

“You gave Pepper mercy, a mercy you couldn’t give yourself. You took control in the only way you could in a fucking horrific situation.”

“He hadn’t hurt her in two days. She wasn’t hurting for once. She was happy for a minute,” I argue.

“But you knew it wouldn’t last. You knew he would hurt her again and worse.”

“I did it fast. I don’t think she felt more than a second, but then I…I was completely alone.”

Punching things is my usual outlet, but I couldn’t lift my arms right now even to defend myself. I feel as though I weigh more than this car. My shoulders hunch, and sobs wrack my body. They shake me from the very depths of my blackened soul and rip their way out in an animalistic ruckus.

“Cry,” she encourages. “I’m going to touch you, and I want you to keep crying.”

Hailey hooks a hand gently around my nape. She guides my head to the crook of her shoulder. Her tears fall on my face, and mine fall on her jacket.

“Good,” she assures. “Cry. You were alone. You were hurt terribly.” Her finger smooths down my cheek. “You may still hurt, but you are not alone.”

Today is the day of doing things I never do.

I looked a man in the eyes as I orgasmed. I hugged that man, held him until the feeling left my fingertips, and then my arms, and then my legs, and then I held him some more. I canceled all my afternoon appointments. And now I am riding in my elevator with said man because I invited him up to my place because I couldn’t stand the thought of him going back home to that big, beautiful, empty house just yet.

Who the fuck am I?

The elevator stops on my floor, and we awkwardly shuffle off. Or maybe it’s just me. “I’ve never had anyone up before,” I blurt like a weirdo. “A man,” I clarify while trying to steady my quaking hand to put the key into the lock.

His hand settles over mine. It’s warm and steady. “I don’t have to come in if you’ve changed your mind.”

I meet his red-rimmed eyes. Beyond that barest hint, you wouldn’t know the man had bawled his heart out just an hour ago.

I’m sure my eyes are puffy, and my cheeks are splotched.

“I haven’t.”

One corner of his mouth tips in a hint of a smile. He helps me insert the key and removes his hand. “You were the first woman in mine,” he adds.

Am I even still alive?

Everything in the last several hours has been an out-of-body experience. Like a dream wrapped into a nightmare, then twisted round and round, so that one bleeds into the other. Back and forth. High and low. Sweetness and sorrow.

I nod and turn the key.

The moment I open the door, Plinko’s incessant meows demand my attention. “Oh.” Shit. I’d forgotten about the little guy in respect to Arlo’s aversion to touch. Add that to the trauma he’d just spilled about his own pet, and I look at him in a panic.

“It’s okay,” he assures. “I didn’t forget that you have a cat.”

“Oh.” Eloquent as ever. I step inside and flip on the main light switch. The hallway sconces and the lamps in all the rooms spark to life, filling the space with an amber glow.

Plinko stares up at me expectantly. His tattered ears are uneven, and his smoke-gray fur flies every which way.

I scoop up Mr. Cutie, his new nickname, and usher this beautifully haunted man toward the living room. “I’m going to give him some dinner. Speaking of, my favorite takeout menus are in the credenza. First drawer. Have a peek, and we can arm wrestle over our top picks when I finish.” I turn toward the kitchen but turn back. “Something to drink? I have red or white wine, French bourbon, vodka, water.”

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