Kissing Midnight (21 page)

But it doesn’t work. It never does. The truth comes leaking through. “No,” I say. “I really saw him. And I made the mistake of telling my mother, and they put me in a hospital and…” I stop. If I talk about Westgate, I will remember the monster and everything else I saw there, and I can’t. Not out here in the dark. “And they put me on medication,” I finish lamely.

He moves a little closer, his face concerned. “Did it help?”

I shrug. “A little.” It did, of course. The medicine is the thing that finally blocked them out so I couldn’t see them. But it never made me believe they weren’t there. Not really. Not deep down.

“I’m still in counseling,” I say stupidly.

“Good.” He comes and stands beside me and leans his elbows on the railing of the bridge, looking down at the water. “I mean, good that you’re getting help.” He’s trying to say the right thing. Dev always says the right thing. He turns to look at me. “It does help, right?”

I nod. “Sure. I guess.”

“Good.” He nods, and frowns down at the dark water again, thinking. I can only imagine what this must be like for him: He likes this girl—maybe even loves her—and she turns out to be a psychopath straight out of a mental ward. I’m sure he’ll tell his buddies this over drinks some day, and his story will top them all.
And then I still had to spend the night out there with her
, he’ll say.
What choice did I have?

“Here.” I hold the lock out to him. “I don’t blame you if you just want to toss that in the river. It’s okay.”

“What?” He looks up at me, surprised. “Are you crazy?”

I laugh uneasily. “I thought I just told you I am.”

He stands up. “I mean, why would you think I would want to throw away what we have just because you went through a rough patch?”

“Dev,” I say, “it wasn’t just a rough patch. I had a mental breakdown. I had hallucinations.”

“Because something awful happened. You lost someone you loved and you wanted him back. That doesn’t make you crazy, Saintly, that makes you human. And it’s over, right? You got help, and now it’s over.” He is watching me carefully, looking for my reaction. “You haven’t had any episodes since you got help, right?”

I should tell him about Jesse, but somehow that feels…private. Like it’s not just mine to tell because the conversation belongs to her, too.

Which proves how crazy I am, I guess.

I just nod, but Dev accepts my silent lie. “And you only saw your brother, right? You never saw anyone else?”

Well, that seems like a strange question.

It’s almost as if he knows.

But that’s my paranoia. Of course he couldn’t know.

I lie again, this time out loud. “No, nothing else.” I wish it were true. Or, I think I do. My mind goes back to Jesse again, her gray eyes full of understanding. Why do I keep thinking of her?

I push her aside and focus on Dev. His shoulders have relaxed a notch. He reaches out and puts an arm around me and pulls me close. He places a kiss on the top of my head. “I’m glad you told me,” he murmurs into my hair. “And if you see anything again, you’ll tell me, right? Promise you’ll tell me right away.”

I nod.

“Good.” He pulls back and smiles at me. “Now we just need to find a good spot for this lock.”

I stare at him, surprised. “You sure you still want to do it? You don’t want to throw it away?”

“No, not now when it’s so close to—” He stops himself, as if her were about to say something wrong. “Now when we’ve gotten so close,” he amends. “Of course I still want to, if you do.” He raises one eyebrow, questioning, hopeful.

Another gust of wind rushes past us. It’s freezing cold, but I feel like it’s lifting my heart up. “Yes. I still want to.”

“Good.” He rubs his cold hands together. “Now, where to put it?”

I laugh out loud with relief. “Well, this spot is free.” I point to a gap in the railing. “Looks like someone hacked right through to get a lock off. That’s pretty extreme.”

I snuggle against his shoulder. “Guess they didn’t have an expert lock-picking tutor like I did.”

Dev sighs. “Poor schmuck. Well, I guess if a relationship is that bad, you do what you’ve gotta do.”

“Yup,” I say. ‘Just lucky to get out alive.”

“You know,” Dev takes my hand and tugs me gently to the other side of the bridge, “I think we should avoid that spot completely. Bad juju and all that.”

“Agreed.” I look around for another spot. The locks really are beautiful. “You know, they remind me of when I used to visit my grandmother in Mexico and she would take me to church with her. The church had a wall of
milagros,
“miracles”—little silver charms that people hang there to give thanks for having made it through some hardship, like a heart if they survived a heart attack, or a dog if they found their lost
perrito
, that sort of thing. These locks are like
milagros
of relationships.”

“I like that.” He leans down and kisses me softly. “Like giving thanks for having survived long enough to be in each other’s lives.”

“Exactly.” I smile at him shyly. We’ve both been through a lot to get to this moment. We both know how lucky we are to be alive.

“And I think I’ve found the perfect home for our little heart.”

“Good,” I say, “because it’s freezing out here!”

“Then let’s get this done!” Dev opens the lock with a tiny brass key. Then he loops the padlock through the railing. I can see our initials shining in the moonlight. “Okay,” he whispers. “Together.”

I put my hand over the cold metal of the lock. Dev puts his hand over mine, big and warm.

“To a new year,” Dev says.

I shut my eyes. “To a new year.”

Together we squeeze the lock shut. It fastens with a satisfying click. I open my eyes and laugh, the sound clean and crisp in the cold air. Dev gives the lock a little tug. “On there tight.” He smiles. “That will last forever.”

“Good.” I feel giddy with my own boldness, talking about forever like this.

“Now,” Dev says, “you have to throw the key.” He holds out the tiny key, and I take it. “Throw it out in the middle, in the deep water, where no one will ever find it.”

“I’m a terrible thrower,” I say.

Dev laughs. “You got this, Saint.”

“Okay, here goes.” I throw the key as hard as I can. It arcs out into the darkness, flashing like a fish in the moonlight, and hits the river with a tiny
plink
. The black water swallows it whole.

Dev whistles appreciatively. “Wow, that thing is gone.” He puts his arms around me from behind, swaying slightly, enveloping me in warmth.

“Yup,” I say. “If you ever want to get rid of me, you’re going to have to go deep-sea diving.”

“And if you ever want to get rid of me, you’re going to have to get a hacksaw for the railing.”

I turn around to face him, still circled in his arms. “Well,” I say, “lucky I want to keep you.”

“Very lucky, indeed.” He presses me back against the railing and kisses me, hard enough that the locks around us tremble. For a long minute, I’m lost in him: the lines of his body against mine, the sound of our breathing blending with the rushing river, the warmth of his lips as he kisses hungrily along my jaw line and down the curve of my neck. Dev’s fingers twine into my hair at the nape of my neck, his other hand sliding down to the small of my back, pulling me closer against him. I moan softly as his lips work their way back up to mine, kissing me deeply. When he reluctantly pulls away, I feel like I’ve been down under the black water myself, and I’m only now coming up for air.

“Let’s go back to the house.” His voice is rough with longing.

I can only nod numbly. I don’t trust myself to speak. My knees are melted, and my head is spinning. It’s all I can do to stand and let Dev draw me off the bridge and back to the path. Holding hands, we run as fast as we dare on the icy ground. The snow has started to fall, big flakes pressing tender kisses on our cold cheeks. Behind us, the locks shudder in the wind, clinking goodbye to us as we dash through the little stretch of woods and out on the other side, toward the golden glow of the kitchen lights shining through the back windows of Pour Toujours.

We burst through the back door laughing and I know we must look ridiculous, running like a couple of kids, my hair half wild from the wind, but there’s no one there to see us. Our table has been cleared and a single key left in the center of it, on a gold-rimmed china plate. Dev snatches it up as we rush by and in a second we’re up the stairs. He kisses me again as he unlocks the door to our room, fumbling the key blindly into the lock until the door gives way and we half-fall into the little room, giggling like crazy. I get a quick impression of the room. It’s not opulent like the restaurant; more like a provincial French cottage with a four-poster bed plush with white lace linens and hand-sewn quilts. A fire crackles in the arched fireplace, and the snow swirls against the window. It’s beautiful, but I have no time to admire it.

I’m too busy admiring Dev. God, he looks so handsome in the firelight, little flakes of snow clinging to his red curls. He shakes his head like a dog and sends the snow flying, grinning at me. But his expression turns serious again when I slip off my jacket and sit down on the edge of the bed, watching him. He tosses his own jacket in a corner and pulls off his shirt and sweater. I catch a glimpse of the words tattooed on his arm—
a corps perdu
, “lose the body”—and I know they mean “be in this moment,” but all I want to do in this moment is
find
the body, his and mine. Pushing me gently back against the snow-white pillows, he lies down beside me, kissing me slowly but with such intensity it takes my breath away. My hand winds into his hair, still damp with snow, and I pull him over on top of me, the warm weight of him pressing me deeper into the soft quilts as we kiss for what feels like forever. I’m breathing hard, each breath in time with his, my chest rising and falling against him as I spread my legs slowly to let him press one leg between mine. It’s such a delicious feeling, I give a little moan of frustration when he pulls away. “What are you doing?”

“You’ll see.” He swings his leg over me so he’s straddling my hips and reaches into the pocket of his jeans. My breath catches a little when he pulls out a condom—
this is real
, I think,
we’re really going to do it
—but he sets it on the bedside table and pulls out something else, a little square of paper. “What’s that?”

He smiles playfully. “Temporary tattoo from the Cracker Jack box in the car.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“Well,” he says, “let’s see what the directions say to do with it.”

I don’t want to do anything with it. My breathing is still ragged, my lips warm and buzzing from our kiss. “Come on.” I pull him back down to kiss me again, but our lips meet only for a moment before he pulls gently away again.

“Patience, Saintly! I’m reading the instructions.” He peels the little plastic strip off the tattoo and tosses it aside. “It says ‘Decide where you want the tattoo.” Setting the tattoo aside for a moment, Dev undoes the top button of my shirt. Eyes locked with mine, he works his way down, undoing each button deliberately, until my blouse lies open, my lace-edged bra exposed. I can see my breasts rise and fall with each breath, my nipples hard against the satin. Dev hooks the strap of my bra with his finger and pulls it slowly off my shoulder, pushing the lace edge of my bra until most of my breast is exposed. He looks down at me open admiration on his face. “I think this is a beautiful spot.”

“Dev.” My voice comes out breathy. “Come on.” I squirm a little, impatiently, under him and hear his breath catch as my pelvis bone rubs against the seam of his jeans.

But he doesn’t give in. “Shhh,” he says, “I’m working here.” He picks up the tattoo and reads, “Moisten the desired area.” He gives me a wicked grin. “Okay.” He slides off me to lie down beside me and kisses the chosen spot. I can feel my heart pounding against his lips. The beat quickens as his lips travel lower, dangerously close to the lace edge of my bra. He slides one finger under the fabric, tugging it down a little lower, his finger brushing against my hardened nipple so that I bite my lower lip and suck in my breath. His smile widens, pleased at my response. “I think this is in our way, don’t you?”

I nod silently, unable to speak, and Dev unhooks the front clasp of my bra and pushes it aside. “Oh, so nice,” he breathes, and kisses the spot again, this time cupping my bare breast in his hand, his thumb playing over my tender nipple until it aches. “What do you think?” he whispers. “Is that wet enough?”

I moan in response. I know I am quite wet enough now, aching to rub against him. But Dev gives his full attention to the little tattoo. “Press firmly,” he reads. “Okay.” He lays the little square of paper over my heart and presses it there, at the same time slipping his leg back between mine, pressing it up against me in a way that makes me squirm deliciously. “Moisten again as necessary.” He lays a quick kiss on the square of paper, trailing his lips down to take my breast in his mouth, his teeth gently grazing my nipple as his fingers peel away the paper. My back arches as my whole being tries to get as close to Dev as humanly possible, and I can see the little red and white heart tattoo he has left over my heart. Written in the middle are the words “Be mine.”

Yours
, every part of me sings as all my millions of worries fall away. I shut my eyes, trembling as his fingertips skim over my stomach and find the button of my jeans.
I want to be yours.

Dev

When I wake in the middle of the night, for a minute I can’t remember where I am or who I’m with. It’s a disorienting feeling—this midnight could be one of a million I’ve lived and the girl silhouetted under the sheets beside me could be one of a million girls. I run my hand over the curve of her side, as if my fingertips can read her name there, written in a language my mind has forgotten.

Saintly.
Immediately, our conversation on the bridge comes back to me, the memory as strong and dark as the cold river that rushed beneath us. I had pushed it aside for the night to enjoy the sex, but there’s no avoiding it any more. She told me she saw her brother’s ghost, that she had to be put in a mental hospital. But is she actually crazy?