Page 77 of Shattered
CHAPTER 21
Rourke
Melissa’s chin flinched at my answer. The lamp posts along the street shined on the sheen of mist gathering on her skin. The asphalt was wet and reflective. I adjusted my stance, my shoes scraping against the road.
“What’s the problem?” I asked.
Her eyes blinked rapidly, and she shivered. The cold was finally getting to her. A car went by, swerving around her, but she didn’t move, still standing in the middle of the street. I rested a hand on the top of the car, exuding my confidence. I was answering her honestly, like I always had.
“I don’t understand,” she said slowly. “How did you know?”
She acted like it would have been hard to figure out. “Melissa is a common name,” I said. “Lucky guess.”
“It doesn’t seem like a lucky guess,” she said, steadying her voice. She came forward, finally meeting me near the car and not standing in the middle of the damn street. “I usually don’t tell people my real name is Melissa. No one at the Dahlia District. It’s a way to protect my identity.”
“And I usually don’t tell people my name is Garrett,” I said.
“Come on, Garrett. Stop screwing with me.”
I scowled, then added, “You told me your real name. You simply forgot. Accept it.”
She shook her head, still not understanding. “Was I drunk? When did I tell you that?”
“The second night we met.”
I was practically screaming the truth, trying to shove it down her throat and into that empty heart of hers. That second night in her bedroom, she had stammered out her birth name and corrected herself, saying that her name was Mel, but we both saw through those layers of protection, the instinct to hide her true self from the world. Even from me.
But there was no hiding now. Mel was what she gave to everyone else. What she gave to Garrett.
Melissa was who she gave to me, but only in the mask.
“Was it at the Dahlia District?” she asked. “The first time we went to the Terrariums?”
How could she truly trust me, if she couldn’t even come to grips with who I was?
“You should go back to the gallery,” I said, nodding behind her at the luminescent windows of the building. “Your mother is probably looking for you.”
“Don’t say that,” she said. She stepped into my arms, her eyes urging me to hold her. And for a moment, I indulged. Holding her for what could be the last time.
But then she glanced to the side, looking inside of the tinted windows, knowing what she thought was there. The painting for her tattoo. The finished canvas she had given to me. To Rourke.
“You hurt him,” she whispered. “That’s what it is. You must have hurt Rourke. How did you find him?”
That was where she was going with this? Was she truly that dense, or was she in denial?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.
“You hurt him. Rourke, the Angel. You took my painting from him because you knew he was visiting me.” She shook her head. “Admit it. You hurt him!”
I grabbed her by the shoulders. “Listen to yourself. You sound insane, thinking a serial killer is coming to visit you like an unrequited lover.” I lowered my voice, my chin meeting her ear, my teeth snapping as I said the next words, “I’m not the one in denial, Melissa. I gave you so many hints as to who I was. Your denial of the truth is another example of you hiding from what’s real. From accepting your true self. You can’t even be genuine with yourself.”
She slapped me, the sound echoing down the street. Blood rushed to my face.
That fucking woman.
I turned slowly to her. Confusion sparkled in her eyes, but she was ready too, her fists clenched, teeth bared.
“I suppose you think I deserved that,” I growled.
