Page 58 of There Are No Saints

Cole nods slowly. “Including you,” he says.

“Especially me.”

* * *

I leavebrunch in a kind of a daze, wondering how in the fuck Cole Blackwell now knows more about my sordid history than my closest friends. He’s relentless . . . and hypnotic, the way he fixes me with those deep, dark eyes, never looking away for a moment. The way he absorbs everything I say with none of the usual displays of sympathy or irritating commiseration. He just soaks it in and demands more, like he plans to drill down to the core of me, strip-mining my soul.

He insisted on paying for the meal, leaving an extra hundred-dollar bill as a tip for Arthur.

I can already see how he uses his money to manipulate people—including me. I cashed that two-thousand-dollar check because I had to, because I owe Joanna for rent and utilities, and I have to pay the credit card bill for the replacement cellphone, and my hospital bill, too.

Cole knows exactly how much leverage he has over me, and he isn’t shy about leaning on the lever.

And yet, despite the fact that he’s clearly callous and manipulative, and he left me to fucking die in the woods, I still find myself walking with strange lightness down the hilly streets to my sparkling new studio.

Maybe because he wasn’ttryingto make me feel better. In fact, it’s the first time I’ve ever mentioned this topic without hearing the words, “But it’s your mom . . .”

Cole offered no sympathy. He also offered no excuses. No fucking platitudes. No lies.

I spend the afternoon working on my new painting. I’ve never felt such confidence in a piece of my own work. It seems to come alive under my hands, like it has a mind of its own. Michelangelo used to say that—that the sculpture was always there inside the marble. He just had to release it.

That’s how I feel today. The painting is already there, inside the canvas and inside my brain. My brush is exposing what already exists. Perfect and whole—all it needs is to be unveiled.

* * *

15

Cole

This obsession with Mara consumes me.

It’s all I think about. It directs every action I take.

I’ve never felt so out of control—which upsets me.

My fantasies have always been a stage spread below me, on which I arrange the actors like a director. I indulge them at will.

Now I find myself fantasizing about Mara, with no intent or control. Without even realizing I’m about to slip into another daydream more real than the world around me.

I see every element of her face, her body . . .

When I first laid eyes on her, I barely found her tolerable. In fact, her bitten nails and air of obvious neglect disgusted me.

But now, some bizarre alchemy is working itself upon me. Every element of her person becomes increasingly attractive to me. The slimness of her figure and the dreamy way it moves when she’s lost in thought. Those elegant hands that seem to enact the most clever impulses of her brain with no barrier in between. The mix of innocence and wildness in her face—and that expression of rebellion that creases her eyebrows, that raises her upper lip, baring her teeth.

She’s determined to defy me at every turn, even though it’s obvious I’m infinitely more powerful than her. She’s stubborn. Self-destructive, even. And yet she’s not some pathetic, broken victim. Her will to live, to thrive, to never, ever, ever give up in her relentless pursuit of her goals . . .

I’ve never seen myself in another person before.

Much as Shaw desperately wants to believe that we are one and the same, I’ve never felt a kinship with him. Very much the opposite.

There is only one god in my world. I was alone in the universe.

And now I see . . . a spark.

A spark that interests me.

I want to hold it in my hands. Manipulate it. Examine it.

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