52

Calvin

The cloud surrounding us is pungent, thick, and elucidating. What Cataline’s numbing should be healed by now. “You’re not ready for this,” I say.

Her eyes close as she sinks deeper. She’s more assured than I’ve ever seen her, as if very little truly matters to her. I might as well be watching her from outside the window.

She sighs, coaxing her hair over her shoulder. “I’ll never be ready,” she says. “But I don’t want you to go.”

Leaving her to find peace would be the right thing to do. But I can’t convince myself, after tonight, that she’s better off without me. I might be the piece that’s missing. I’m definitely the reason that piece is gone.

Time is slow as she brings the orange light to her lips. Her eyes are lidded, and she’s peering at me over the joint, sucking and watching. After a beat, smoke leaks from one corner of her mouth. “I haven’t been properly fucked since the last time you were inside me.”

“Christ, Cataline,” I say, standing from the bed. The image of her body flush against the dining room floor as she took every inch of me is burned into my brain. I could do it again right now, take her just as hard. But another part of me, a new part, wants to remove every article of her clothing and touch her everywhere at once, slowly and as fast as possible. I haven’t felt out of control this way in years.

“Where are you going?” she asks as I back away.

“I don’t trust myself.”

She sets the joint in an ashtray on her nightstand and just looks at me. When enough time has passed that I think she’s going to let me go without a word, she blinks. “Why did you come here? To screw with me some more?”

“You know that’s not what I want.”

“Just get out. I didn’t even know until tonight that I’ve been waiting for you. How fucked up is that? And now that you’re here, you’re leaving? Have you been hiding in the shadows, waiting until I’d put some parts of myself back together?”

“That isn’t fair,” I say, crossing my arms to allay my reaction. “This is new for me too. I didn’t come here to hurt you.”

“Goddamn it. I’m so tired. If you’re going to shatter me, then be a fucking man and do it already.”

“That’s not—”

“Do it, and get out.”

“I don’t want to break you. I want to heal you.”

“You’re not a healer,” she seethes. “You are everything that’s wrong with me, but I still love you. Is that what you want to hear? I love you, even though you’re the worst part of me.”

I push the heels of my hands into my eyes. “I know I am. I know.”

“Finish what you started. Break me for good. Tell me you don’t love me and that you never will.”

My heart pounds inhumanly hard. I want to throw her on the bed, hit her, fuck her, and make love to her all at the same time. “I can’t tell you that,” I say, “when the truth is that I do.”

“No, you don’t,” she says through her teeth. “You want to control me. That’s not the same thing.”

“You’re right. I want to control you. I want to make you love me, own you from the inside out. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love you too.”

She stands up and walks straight for me. Two tiny palms connect with my chest as she shoves me backward. “You’re a liar. You don’t love me. Say it. Say you don’t love me.”

I catch her wrists in my hands. “I can’t.”

“God,” she cries up at the ceiling. “Just finish me off. All these years I’ve been clinging to the memory of you, and I can’t do it anymore. I—”

“I can’t take back what I did!” I explode. “You have to deal with it. Wake the fuck up. Deal with the pain, and move on.”

“Get out,” she shrieks, ripping her arms from my grip. I jump out of the way when she picks up a stiletto and launches it in my direction. She sits on the bed and sobs into her hands, and every wounded mewl is an incision in my black heart. I want to go to her, but I know I can’t. Not until I know I can stay as long as she needs me to.

The next day, the wound I’ve torn open is throbbing with need for Cataline. She’s the only thing on my mind. Seeing her again is the first time I’ve felt anything since she left. And I never stopped worrying about her, but today the worry is like an extra limb. She cut herself when I wasn’t there to stop her, to take the pain for her. When I think of another man failing to heal her, I’m indignant at the intrusion on our life.

The smooth control of being in the driver’s seat calms me, so I drive until it’s after midnight and I’m outside Cataline’s apartment. I climb her fire escape, remembering how breeze lifted the white curtains the night before.

Through her open window, moonlight makes her an angel in the dark. Her naked body is outlined by a thin white sheet that drapes over her curves as she lies coiled into herself. She sleeps alone, but even if she didn’t, it wouldn’t matter. Her boyfriend will be debris from the explosion of us soon enough.

I whip my t-shirt off and drop it on the floor. My shoes and everything but my briefs follow. I’m so hard for her it hurts. Only her. From the moment I met the little girl whose life had just been irrevocably changed, Cataline and I were permanently interwoven. I press my front to her back so only the sheet separates me from her warmth.

She awakes with a start, jerking away immediately. When she flips on her back with her hands in fists, I grab her wrists and force them down against her chest. “Shh,” I say. “It’s me. Calvin.”

Her heart beats up against her ribcage, and there’s terror in her eyes. “Calvin,” she repeats as she blinks rapidly.

“I’m here.”

“I didn’t mean what I said,” she whispers suddenly. “You’re not the worst part of me. And you are a healer. You healed everybody but me.” I can barely hear her next words through her cracking voice. “Can you just hold me?”

I release her, and she shifts back onto her side. My arms surround her in a tight embrace, and my face buries in her hair. My leg links with hers over the sheet like it belongs there. I wait to fall asleep until her breathing evens out.

In the morning, she’s in a chair by the window wearing nothing but a white, satin nightie and scrunched wool socks. Her feet are crossed at the ankles as she stares out the window.

I sit up and wait until she looks over at me. “You’re really here.” Absentmindedly, she pulls on the thin strap at her shoulder. She turns her head back, looking at the window. “But I guess you always have been,” she murmurs, “watching me, protecting me.” She sighs. “Why didn’t you tell me what everyone was saying about Hero?”

“There was nothing either of us could do about it.”

“Some called you a freak. They put a huge bounty on your head. People were scared, Calvin. Couldn’t you have prevented it?”

“Maybe. But it was time to give up my title. I’m not anyone’s hero, I just do what I have to do.”

She looks back at me. “You’re a wanted man.”

“Hero is, yes.”

“But there are still Hero sightings.”

“I couldn’t stop. I just had to learn to be even more careful.”

“If I’d known . . .” She pauses, and I watch her fingers glide back and forth along her forearm. “Maybe I would’ve stayed.”

“I wouldn’t have let you stay out of pity.”

She frowns. “Why’d you come back here?”

“Part of me wishes you would move on and be happy with someone else.”

“I have someone else.”

“He can’t put you back together like I can.”

She just stares at me, her expression tired. “No. He can’t.”

“I don’t deserve you, but I won’t let you go. I’m back for what’s mine, what’s always been mine.”

“I don’t want Hero. I want Calvin.”

“You have Calvin.”

She shakes her head. “I can’t be with two different people. It almost killed me the first time.” She looks at her hands, and I get up from the bed. “New Rhone was never your problem,” she says, her eyebrows gathering. “What your parents did to you was unfair.” Her eyes drift up to mine again. “They put the world on your shoulders and left it there when they died. Nobody ever helped you carry it. I’m sorry your childhood was stolen like mine.”