Page 5 of Karma

“We need to talk,” I say to Grim. “Outside.”

He groans, but I turn and walk out, because I need to get away from the noise of the song that’s making my head spin, away from the smell of sex and death in the air that’s turning my stomach, away from the rotting wildness that might’ve just driven the final nail in the coffin of what was, of what might’ve been, of the love that used to be my home, my safety, my anchor. The love that’s now less than ash in the wind.

I’m afraid he won’t follow, but he does, all the way into the shadows beside the building where the noise isn’t so very loud that I can’t feel my heart beat.

My heart’s racing and my eyes are burning. Almost as bad as the tattoos on my arms. This is another ending. I can feel it. And I don’t want to know. I don’t want to talk. I just want what was.

I grab the lapels of his riding jacket, surprised to see my hands shaking.

“What’s happening to us, Grim?” I ask, my voice shaking too.

He’s a big guy, with muscles that radiate power and energy. His slanting eyes are sometimes as clear and blue as the summer sky and his bristly black hair makes him look like a wolf. Free and dangerous. Strong and wild.

But now his usually piercingly blue eyes are flat and black, and his hands are like two vises as they close on my wrists.

“Nothing’s happening,” he says. “It’s already happened. There’s no way back. And I’ll be damned if I spend another night pining over what was. It makes me sick.”

My eyes burn worse than ever. I don’t want to pine either, I don’t want to regret, I don’t want to wish for things that can never be again.

“But I still love you,” I say. “So much.”

I try to melt into him, but his strong hands on my wrists are holding me away. I regret going soft now. But I could always be vulnerable with him, because I knew he’d always protect me.

Now his eyes are just two black stones.

“I love you too, Karma. I love you more than life,” he says. “But it’s not enough. You’re hurting and I’m hurting you, and together we’re just hurting worse. It’s gotta stop. I’m leaving first thing.”

His words hit me like fist-sized balls of jagged hail. He can be so mean when he’s drunk.

“What are you saying?” I ask, my voice catching in my throat and so weak I hardly recognize it. Where’s my anger? Where’s the strength that I fought so hard to find?

“I’m saying it’s not working anymore,” he says. “I’m saying I need my freedom. I need to be a lone wolf now.”

“What about me, huh?” I ask. “What about me?”

He finally releases my wrists and pulls me into a tight embrace, the kind that only he can give, the kind that fills my belly with fire and makes the world stop spinning so very fast. He smells so good, like wood and fine liquor, like the clean sheets I yearn for and the wild zest of our love as we mess them up.

I lean my head back for a kiss that would make all those things even better. But he just gives me a peck on the forehead and holds me tighter.

“You’re a strong woman, Karma,” he says. “You’ll survive.”

The way he says it makes me think he doesn’t know if he will. And here we are again. At the end of another heart-breaking conversation.

He lets me go so completely it feels like he never held me at all.

“You can’t be serious, Grim,” I snap, somehow finding the strength he accused me of having.

“I am,” he says. “I can’t lose you too.”

His eyes are blue like the clearest skies again. For the first time in months, he doesn’t look older than he is. He looks young again.

“What kind of bullshit is that?” I ask. “You don’t want to lose me so you’re breaking up with me?”

He shrugs. “It’s better this way. Easier. Time to be hard again. It’s the only way to survive.”

Then he gives me a long look, his gaze caressing me from my lips to my boots, making me feel like that first time he showed me just how fiercely he loves me. But all that’s in the past now, frozen in a time that is no more. It might as well be a million years ago.

My mind is rushing and buzzing with all the things I want to say, to scream, to beg for. It all boils down to one little word. “Stay.”

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