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“I’m not lying.”

“I didn’t say you were lying. But it’s not true. There’s more to you than just that. You have passion in you. Dreams. It’s not empty inside. Trust me. I’ve met a lot of empty people.”

Suddenly, I was sad. I was pretending. Always pretending. Even now. Pretending to pretend. Was that really all my life was?

“Thanks for believing in me,” I said listlessly. “The one person to tell me to follow my dreams is a psycho serial killer.”

“Psycho? Excuse me?”

“You rip people’s faces off.”

“Rip is such a rough word. I cut their faces off. Surgery is a precision skill.”

“Whatever.” I blew my nose.

“You know, you remind me of a quote. ‘If I had a desire, it would be to be free from desire.’”

“Sounds like me. Who said that, the Dalai Lama?”

Rien smiled.

“Charles Manson.”

“No way.”

“Sounds like you, huh?”

“Okay. Okay. I walked right into that one.” I chuckled sadly.

Rien stood up, and I wanted to take his hand and pull him back down onto the couch. Oh, God! I wanted a serial killer to comfort me. I felt so goddamn empty.

“I’ve got to go to the grocery store, my dear little psycho,” he said. “I’ll be back.” He reached over to the shelf and pulled out a book. It landed on the couch cushion next to me.

“Manson: A Biography,” I read aloud.

“Maybe he’ll give you some good ideas,” Rien said, his eyes twinkling golden brown. “For what you want.”

“From the grocery store? I want a cupcake.”

“Sara, I mean it.” His expression softened. “Think on whatever it is you want. Or if you really do want… nothing. I’d like to know.”

“What do you want to know?”

“What you want. What makes you tick. What makes you you. Surely you’re not such a psychopath as Manson. Or maybe…”

“Maybe what?”

“Maybe he was the sane one.”

“Only you would think that,” I said. I held up the book in front of my eyes so that Rien could not see me cry. I did not want him to know how much it meant to me that someone cared about what I wanted, even a little. The words blurred behind my tears as the door closed behind him.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Rien

How could I kill her? I’d only just begun to understand her. I walked down the sidewalk meditating on the strange fascination that had come over me.

She was my plaything, yes, but as I peeled back her defenses, I saw more to her than she saw in herself. I could not cut out that consciousness, no, not with what I saw there. I could understand her frustration, at least in part. There was no way I could tell her, though.

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