Page 41 of Mama Si's Paradise

“But wait, because that’s not even the best part, and since we’re sharing life stories, you’ll be the first person to hear this, Autumn.” Coming closer to the edge of the seat, he looked at me straight in the eyes and whispered, “Turns out, it was all a setup. The driver, who’s currently in jail, the call my fiancée got that made me her hurry down the highway, thinking I was in the hospital, the brakes on the truck that slammed into her. It was all a setup, Autumn.”

“Bywhom?” I breathed, heart slamming in my chest, my hands slightly shaking.

I’ll never forget the smile on his face in that moment. The torment in his eyes. “By the biggest mastermind you’ll ever have the misfortune of meeting—my mother.”

I gasped—third time now.

“Yes, yes, and yes—to whatever you’re thinking,” he said.

“I’m literally not thinking anything. You’ve left me…thoughtless.My mind is an abyss right now. Nothing in it.” I shook my head, touching my temple.

He laughed again. “You’re welcome.”

I stood up to go get him more whiskey, but he pulled the glass aside.

“Your mother might have killed your fiancée, Johnny. I can get you a damn drink.” And that’s exactly what I did.

We talked some more, possibly over an hour, and he toldme about his shitty family, and I told him about my shitty childhood.

“Here’s another question for you, Johnny, since you’re so honest,” I said eventually. “Why are you here?”

He looked confused for a second. “I told you, my friends?—”

“No, I mean what were you hoping to get tonight after you were already in this room?”

“I don’t know,” he finally said, and I didn’t know if he was being honest, either. “But you want to know what I want right now?”

Heat spilled all over me, this one different from the whiskey. This one sobered me up in an instant, and my instincts were already screaming,run. Go. Move!

In that second, as I held his eyes and held my breath and held onto that glass for dear life, I realized I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t fuck this guy just because he was here and he’d paid for it, no matter what kind of a life I was living and what kind of money I was making.

I just couldn’t do it.

“What?” I choked, contemplating how to go about telling him. Telling Mama Si. Already seeing myself leaving this room, taking off everything Mama Si had bought me—again—and leaving the mansion with nothing but my train money in my pocket.

The same thing repeated in my mind over and over and over…

“I want to lie down on this bed,” said Johnny, making goose bumps rise all over my skin. “Close my eyes and breathe.”

It was everything I could do not to gasp a fourth time. “Just…breathe?”

He smiled like he knew exactly what I was saying. “Just breathe.”

That’s what he did. He left the glass on the nightstand, took his shoes off, lay down on the bed, and he breathed.

The seconds ticked in my head.

One, two, fifteen, a hundred…

“You can join me if you’d like. Lay with me. Breathe with me, Autumn,” he said after a little while.

I looked at the mirror hanging on the wall. In my mind, I saw Mama Si’s face.Men are simple creatures,she said. Maybe this was true for Johnny as well.

So, I did as he asked. I lay on the other side of the bed, as far from him as I could get, but Johnny wouldn’t try to touch me or even get close to me at all. I knew deep in my bones that he wouldn’t—and I knew what he was here for, too, even if he didn’t.

It was exactly whatIwas here for as well—silent company. Just a link to the world to reassure me that I existed while I swam worlds away to the thoughts in my head and tried to make sense of them.

I stared at the white ceiling for a long, long time, listening to his steady breathing, creating a melody of it in my mind, but eventually my eyes drifted shut. Eventually, sleep took me, and I was calm. I was peaceful. I felt completely safe.

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