Bitter Angel (20 page)

Jay is standing uncomfortably with his arms folded across his chest. We should be discussing details, plotting, but nobody speaks. He’s probably plotting on his own—a hundred different ways to keep me a hundred miles away from Alpha and the bar and Harrison Road.

I love him for it, but if he thinks he’s going to shut me away in a bubble tonight, he’s seriously underestimating me.

While Trigger works, I cross the room to the window, my gaze spanning the campus. It’s a beautiful sunny fall day. Students crisscross each other in every direction, going about their day in blissful ignorance.

I envy their ignorance. I hate them for it. Then I hate myself for hating people I don’t know, especially when my main goal right now is to save someone I don’t know.

Splaying my hands on the sill, I notice Trigger’s wallet and phone. With my peripheral vision, I peek sideways at Trigger, who’s still working, then at Jay, who now has his back to us, reading a poster with charts and numbers that’s taped to one of the cabinet doors.
Jay and his posters.
I’m too far to read it, but I can tell Jay is pretending to be engrossed. His stance is too stiff.

I turn back to the window, listening intently to the clink of bottles as they hit the metal table, the soft tap of plastic as Trigger lines up the syringes, the glass tinkle as he mixes something in a beaker. With my focus on the brown, orange, and yellow leaves of a maple tree twenty feet away, I reach down and lift Trigger’s phone to my chest. I look down. Thankfully, it’s not a password-protected touch screen. It has a small front screen. I press a random button to prompt the backlight and see he’s already enabled the vibrate setting, which means the keys are silenced.

As I press the button for recent calls, the only sound I can hear anymore is the pounding of my heartbeat in my ears. I see the number and memorize it. I close the phone and set it soundlessly back on the sill, then I chant the number in my head.

When I turn around, Jay is staring at me. He saw me. I can tell by the deep suspicion all over his face with the barely there squint of his right eye.

I lift my chin and stare defiantly at him. Suddenly, I feel very fidgety. I need space. I glance over at Trigger’s progress. He’s still in the middle of mixing drugs and filling the syringes with his mixture.

“I have to pee,” I blurt out.

Neither stops me as I head for the door. Neither says a word, but Jay watches my every step. On my way out, I subtly swipe a marker from the metal shelf of a small dry-erase board. The door shuts behind me, and I walk fast through the halls, searching for the nearest restroom. I have this frantic need for privacy. I have to find a place to write down this number before it leaves my head.

I bang through the door of the women’s restroom and lock myself in the nearest stall. I uncap the marker, holding the cap between my teeth, while I roll my eyes over my body for a place to write, somewhere Jay won’t think to look.

I can’t do it on my arms because I have a short-sleeve tee on. My stomach is probably the best place. I lift the bottom of my T-shirt above my bra so it doesn’t slip down and poise the marker just above my belly button. Briefly, I wonder if dry-erase markers even work on skin. I discover swiftly that they do. I jot Alpha’s number down sloppily and upside down, so I can read it.

Once I’m sure it’s dry, I let my shirt fall back into place, and then I lean my arms and forehead against the cool metal walls of the stall.

Why did I just do that? Why did I sneak Alpha’s number? What will I do with it?
All these questions are reviving my headache.
Why did I do it? And what was Jay thinking when he saw me? Does he think I’m planning something without him?

The answer is yes. Jay does have a reason to worry. But right now, bringing these guys down is my number one priority. I don’t think he sees it that way. He barely argued against my don’t-just-save-the-day-but-save-the-future speech as Trigger made all those vaccines. I half-expected him to go all protective as he did in the car earlier.

I’m sure it’s nothing, but I’m calmer now that I have something
I can fall back on in case everything else goes to hell. It might require leaving Jay behind somehow. I don’t want to do that, but I will if I need to. I will if it means ending this. They never did agree to my proposal.

My protesting bladder reminds me that I really do have to pee, so I relieve myself, wash my hands and face, and dry them with unrushed luxury.

For the next half hour or so, I keep myself busy in the bathroom. There’s no way I’m going back in there to watch Trigger make those
just in casers
. I don’t have the guts to be around Jay right now either, not when I’ve spent this time coming up with all sorts of ways to ditch him after Trigger is gone.

Of course, we’ll meet with Alpha first. But if that goes awry, or he never shows, then what? After the cop thing, I don’t have much faith in plan A’s. I now see that there should also be plans B–Z.

If I don’t get away from Jay, he’ll find a way to extradite me back to Ohio, where he’ll probably keep me hostage for the next fifteen years until I come to the conclusion that he was right to take me away. I’ll just have to admit that I was going a tad nuts when I said all that stuff about psychic dreams and maybe there never really was a Trigger, or an Alpha, or an H, or a Brandon. I must’ve just accidentally gotten high the night before, even though I’ve never touched drugs in my life.

I’ve completely forfeited any germ phobias as I sit on the floor near the sinks, my back relaxing against the tiled walls. No one comes in. I’m not disturbed once, but the room isn’t silent. The water in the toilets makes a running noise every few minutes, one of the sinks is dripping, and of course my thoughts add to the symphony.

I’m so absorbed in the rhythm of it—the toilet noise, the dripping water, and the words in my head—that I jump when I hear the door open.

Jay peers at me. “Hey.”

“Hey,” I reply, coming to my feet.

We’re alone, surrounded by the soothing grays, browns, and blues of the tile, though I feel anything but soothed.

He clears his throat. “You okay? You never came back. I could tell you needed space.”

I let out a breath through my nose, gulp, and hold back tears. He never ceases to surprise me with how well he knows me.

My voice sounds rusty as I tell him, “Yeah, I’m okay. I couldn’t go back in there and…” I fidget with my fingers.

He nods. “C’mere.”

Reaching out, he tugs my hand and pulls my back against his chest, nuzzling his cheek against mine. I see our tender reflection in the mirror. From the outside, we look like normal sweethearts sharing an intimate moment. On the inside though, we’re both brewing.

His arms wrap around me as he sways us gently, calming me. I close my eyes and allow myself to be swept away to another time and place.

We’re not really here in this laboratory bathroom. We’re seventeen and back in my bedroom. My parents are at work still, and I’m warm, safe, and satisfied after making love. He’s spooning me, our bodies forming a perfect S-shape as we curl against each other. We’re hugging so tightly that I can feel his abdominal muscles tightening. His hand brushes the hair from my shoulder, exposing my neck. As I wait for his lips, I hear the tiniest clip-clop-clop of something plastic and hollow hitting to the floor. Then I feel an almost painless pinch.

My eyes flutter open, and the moment comes to a screeching halt. I’m frozen in horror at what I now see in the mirror. Jay is behind me, holding me. The picture is still tender, but in his hand is one of Trigger’s syringes protruding from my neck.

I totally forgot how good he is with a needle. That’s why I barely felt it. His mom has been a diabetic since he was three, and he’s given her hundreds of insulin shots over the years. Jay’s mom has never been good at taking care of herself.

As the needle drains, he whispers in my ear, “I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry, but I can’t risk you. I know you’re planning something. I can see it. I know you too well, and…I won’t. I just won’t. You’re too precious to me.”

He pulls the needle out and lets the empty syringe clamor to the floor, much more noisily than what I’m now realizing was the needle cap earlier.

I gape into the mirror as he gives me what I was waiting for a second ago—his lips. They kiss lightly over where the needle just was, and he licks away the dot of blood. I don’t know if he’s asking for forgiveness or understanding.

He looks into my eyes through the mirror, allowing me to witness his anguish, but there’s no regret. “There’s something I didn’t tell you before. I had a dream too. At first, I forgot about it with your freak out this morning. But after we were in the car, and you told me everything, I had time to think and it all started coming back. You and I were in a club, and we were waiting for someone. I don’t know who it was, but it wasn’t a pleasant dream, Lil. I was terrified and couldn’t figure out why. Then in my dream, we had a moment, and you had this look in your eyes. This fuck-everything, caution-to-the-wind look. I didn’t understand it then, because that’s usually just you, but this was,” his voice cracks and drops to a whisper, “different. Now I’m fucking terrified because you’ve had that look in your eyes all day. Like you’ll do anything, even it kills you.”

His eyes slip shut, and he kisses my neck again. I watch a solitary tear stream down his cheek. He sways us back and forth, lulling me as the drugs course through my veins. The shock of knowing he had a dream can’t even touch me. I’m too frozen from the fact that he just plunged a needle into my neck, and too heartbroken from that one tear.

Despite his sweetheart disposition, I’ve only seen him cry once. During our senior year, his dad knocked his little brother around so hard that he had to go to the emergency room for a broken nose. That was only a glimpse into his dad’s greatest hits. The number one was when Jay’s father karate kicked his mom when she was five-months pregnant, which broke two ribs and took the baby’s life. She’s always been a frail person, along with the diabetes.

Jay was only five years old when that happened. He was too young to do anything then, but after the broken nose incident, he took charge and got his mom into a shelter for battered women. That only lasted until Jay went off to college.

Right now, he’s wondering if he’s becoming his father. That’s what that tear means. I can see it in the pain all over his face. I feel it in the tender but desolate way he holds me.

I know he’ll never be that man. Never. Still, the betrayal stings like a thousand needles to the heart.

I love you.

I forgive you.

Both are viable replies, but I can’t. I just can’t.
He won’t risk me, and I can’t give him the words he needs.

“I’m going with Turner,” he says. “I know what we need to do now. We’ll take care of everything, I promise.” With one arm supporting my weight, his other hand catches in my hair as he begins to really choke up, his throat on the edge of a sob. “I don’t expect you to forgive me. I just can’t lose you. You’re my butterfly,” he whispers.

It’s ironic that he grasps that he might lose our relationship, but he’ll risk
it
to not lose
me
.

With seconds left, I’m too shocked to react. I don’t fight, don’t move, don’t blink. I only stare at our embracing reflection as he begins to hum his lullaby for me. The same one he sang to me last night in my bedroom. The one that once soothed me as I cried myself to sleep. I can’t cry now, but I listen as my eyelids are forced to close.

Baby, don’t listen.

Close your ears and eyes.

Let the tears fall,

But don’t let in the cries.

The night is almost over,

Soon to wash away.

Baby, don’t listen.

I’ll hold you ‘til the day.

Close your eyes. We’ll run away

To where the sun will shine.

Give me your heart,

And I’ll tuck it inside of mine.

Run away. Run, run, run.

Take my hand. Let’s go.

Your heart is safe inside of mine

Because I love you so.

Close your eyes, baby.

I’ll shield you from the storm.

Your heart is safe inside of mine,

Forever, forever warm.

Your heart is safe inside of mine,

Forever, forever warm.

Though the drugs take me long before he gets the whole song out, I sink into the velvety, rough timbre of his tenor voice as it takes me back to a place where the sun used to shine.

Where I thought my heart was safe.