Page 79 of Never Enough

He turned Gem down a wooden sidewalk leading out onto a pier. During the day, men used it as a place to sit and talk as they pretended to fish. At this time of night, it was deserted.

“I didn’t want to like you. But despite the charm and jokes, you were honestly concerned about me being hurt and wanted to make sure I was taken care of. You were temptation itself, and I tried to use snark to push you away. You just kept coming at me, and with one kiss, you became a drug. My eighteen-year-old self would have followed you to the ends of the earth if you’d asked, but even I knew that you were out the door in a few hours. You were my first, and all I could hear in my head was Da’s voice, like always, reminding me not to be a fool. Not to be distracted by a pair of pretty eyes and a fit body. I alwaysheard him in my head—things he claimed he told me were for my own good, but now I see they were things to bind me to him. To prevent me from becoming my own person. To make me into himself. The only way he could do that was to drill into me over and over the mistakes he made with my mother, hidden in the guise of how others would use me for their own ends. The irony was, he was doing that very thing to me.”

They were at the end of the pier now. A soft rumble of thunder came, letting them know that a storm was brewing over the ocean, and a bolt of lightning flashed in the distance. Nemo pulled Gem between him and the wooden fencing. Her head rested where he knew she’d be able to hear the heartbeat he felt pounding in his chest, and he buried his nose in the curls at the top of her head, breathing her in, trying to send her comfort without words.

“When I managed to steal the Saturn Diamond for him, I was on top of the world. I knew for sure that he’d be so proud of me. He’d love me best of his children. That he’d forget his bitterness toward Mum and become a real father.”

“Let me guess. He got more demanding.”

“What’s the saying? Bingo?”

Nemo squeezed her to him just a bit tighter. “You hear his voice in your head, don’t you? Telling you all the ways you’re a fuckup. Telling you all the reasons I, or someone like me, couldn’t possibly love you. Couldn’t possibly find any value in you. Because you’re just a girl, and a little girl at that, and, therefore, of hardly any use at all.”

She looked up at him. Her eyes had this appearance of always being wide open or of her always being shocked. Maybe it was the crystal blue of the irises that made her always seem startled and fearful. His memory went back to one of their encounters years ago, when, in his head, he’d likened her to prey spooked by the predator. She’d been standingso still he couldn’t even tell if she had been breathing, and he could see every moment of her debating with herself, deliberating running from him or remaining frozen and waiting for him. Her slight build made her more waif-like, and the paleness of her skin made her seem more fragile, but he knew for certain that his little sugar cat was anything but weak. Vulnerable, maybe. But never ever weak.

“How did you know that?”

Give her honesty or no?

He lifted one hand from around her waist to brush back what he referred to as her rebel curl, trying to push it out of her eyes as the breeze blew it across her face. It just kept flying into her eyes, making her smile at his endless fight.

“Guess my nickname should be Sisyphus, too,” he whispered, kissing the tip of her nose.

They both giggled at his reminder of how she nicknamed herself after the man who’d angered the gods and was punished by being given the destiny of rolling a huge boulder to the top of the mountain, only for it to roll back down to the base once he got it there.

Then the smile went a little sad. The corners of his mouth were still turned up slightly, but his lips were otherwise straight.

“You answer him sometimes,” he shared. “Out loud. In a whisper, but I hear it. I don’t know if anyone else does, but like you… I’ve trained myself to hear noises far more subtle than most people would pick up on.

“Then there’s the look on your face when you hear him. People might mistake it for concentration on whatever you’re doing or looking at. But it’s different. Not angry. Not sad. Almost as if you’re…” He searched for the word. “I don’t know. Resigned? That doesn’t feel like the right word.”

“That you’ve come to accept what you are to that person?You’ve come to understand that the way they think about you is how they will always think of you, and nothing you can do will change it, and that’s just how it is?”

“Yeah. Like that.”

Gem pursed her lips and nodded, her eyes at chest level on Nemo. “Yes. I still hear him. I tell myself that he was wrong about me. That it was when I was stealing that I was hardly useful to anyone. After all, those were things, and things don’t make anyone a better human being. They don’t make us more capable, more honest, more empathetic, which is what the worldneeds,and we, in turn, can be useful. Purposeful. And things don’t add to the world, either. They’re just… there.”

“It’s why you went to work for Loki and company. You needed to prove you and your talents were useful.”

Her smile twinkled like the stars reflecting in the pupils of her eyes. “Exactly.” Then the smile disappeared. “Lately, Da’s voice found its way back in there. Even though I know his words are untrue, my failure over the last six weeks has brought him rushing back. I guess the reason I’m talking to him out loud is because I’m trying to push him out of my head since responding to him inside my head doesn’t seem to be doing the trick.”

Nemo tucked her head back to his chest. “He’ll go away again. This was just a bump in Le Chatte Noire’s perfect past. Now you see how the rest of us mere mortals survive.”

She laughed, which, in turn, made him laugh. He rocked her back and forth in small sways, but even though the laughter died, the rocking did not. They simply rocked together in the ocean breeze.

“There’s another reason I know what you were feeling,” he admitted.

“What’s that?”

“Midas.” He looked out at the storm over the ocean,creeping ever closer. “My whole life, Midas has had to look out for me. When I was born, our umbilical cords got wrapped around each other and nearly killed me, and when they finally managed to extract me from my mother, I came out with two dislocated shoulders, which have since turned into a bonus for my work. Midas has always felt responsible for that, despite the fact that there was no way he was.” Nemo shrugged. “Shit happens when you’ve got two babies struggling to get out of you. I certainly never blamed him for it, although we give each other shit constantly about killing each other in the womb.

“We had a father in our lives, but he left when we were young. Although Midas is only eight minutes older than me, he became the man of the house, and I became the irresponsible son.” Looking out over the ocean, there was a smile on his face and a laugh in his voice, but his eyes and his words held sadness behind them. Regret. “I was always getting into trouble. I didn’t even have to go looking for it. It found me, and often. Fights. Bad marks in school. Trouble with the police. And every time, Midas was there, bailing me out of trouble, sometimes literally.”

She studied his face before she spoke. “The fights were over your brother, weren’t they?”

He looked down at her. “Pretty smart for alittlegirl, aren’t you?” he joked. “Yeah, they were. Midas was always so serious. A nerd from day one. Loved taking things apart, making them better, and putting them back together again. He loved books and maps, and his math skills were off the charts. Don’t even get me started on anything tech related.”

“So he got picked on,” Gem guessed, “and your bad marks were because you were trying to keep an eye on him.”

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