November 9: A Novel (26 page)

Could it be . . .

My curiosity is piqued. I stretch on my tiptoes until I can reach it, but I only pull off the top page just to see what it is.

by

Benton James Kessler

I shouldn’t read this. I should put it back.

But I have a right to read it.
I think.
I mean, it’s about my relationship with Ben. And I know he said he didn’t want me to read it until it was finished, but now that he’s no longer writing it, surely that cancels out his one and only rule.

I still haven’t decided what to do when I take the entire manuscript off the shelf. I’ll take it to the kitchen. I’ll get something to eat. And
then
I’ll decide what to do with it.

I flip off the light switch and slowly open the closet door. Ben is in the same position, breathing heavily, on the verge of what could be considered a snore.

I walk out of his bedroom and into his kitchen.

I carefully place the manuscript on the table in front of me. I don’t know why my hands are shaking. Maybe because his true thoughts about me and us and everything we’ve been through is all right here in front of me. And what if I don’t like his truth? People have a right to privacy, and what I’m about to do is violating every bit of his privacy. It’s not a good way to start out a relationship.

What if I just read one scene? Just a couple of pages and then I’ll put it back and he’ll never know.

I already know what I want to read about. Since the moment it happened, it’s been eating at me.

I want to know why Kyle punched him in the hallway during our second year together. It had nothing to do with me, so that should be a safe enough scene to read without feeling too guilty about it afterward.

I do my best to flip through the manuscript without absorbing any of the sentences. Ben makes it easy to find, considering he’s divided up the chapters by his age. The fight happened the second year we were together, so I find the chapter labeled, “Age Nineteen” and I pull it in front of me. I skip through his internal dialogue while he waited at the restaurant for me to show up. Hopefully one day he’ll let me read this, because I’m dying to know his true thoughts. But I refuse to read all of it. Compromising with my guilt by just reading a few pages still makes me feel like shit. I can imagine how I’d feel if I read the entire thing.

My eyes skim over the page until I see Kyle’s name. I pull the page in front of me and begin reading in the middle of a paragraph.

The front door opens and she looks up. I can see by the excitement in her eyes that it’s more than likely Kyle.

My stomach turns from the nerves that have just become heavier than rocks.
Fuck.
He said he wouldn’t be home until after seven tonight.

“Is that Kyle?” I ask Jordyn.

She nods, pushing past me. “He took off early to help me,” she says, walking to the sink. She grabs a napkin and dabs at her eyes. “Tell him I’ll be right out. I don’t want him to know how much I’ve been crying today, I feel like such a spaz.”

Shit.

Maybe he won’t remember. It’s been so long now and we’ve never talked about it. I take a deep breath and head back into the living room, trying to hide the panic. He can’t ruin this for me.

“All is well with Jordyn,” I say as I reenter the living room, hoping to play off my nerves. I stop short when I see him, because the look on his face lets me know he definitely remembers. And he’s pissed.

Kyle’s jaw hardens. He tosses his keys onto the entry table and points at me. “We need to talk.”

At least he’s pulling me away from Fallon to discuss it. That’s a relief. It doesn’t look like he’ll be saying anything in front of her. I can deal with him in private, that’s not an issue. I can fight my way out of the shit I’ve gotten myself into, but the last thing I want is for Fallon to be brought into it.

I smile at Fallon because I can tell by the look on her face that she’s aware something is off with Kyle. I want to reassure her that everything is okay, even though it’s so far from it. “Be right back.” She nods, so I follow Kyle down the hallway. He stops just outside his bedroom door.

He points in the direction of the living room. “Can you please explain to me what the fuck is happening?”

I glance back to the living room, wondering how I can possibly talk my way out of this. But I know there’s nothing he’ll believe other than the truth.

I put my hands on my hips and look down at the floor. The disappointment in his eyes is hard to see. “We’re friends,” I tell him. “I met her last year. At a restaurant.”

Kyle releases a disbelieving laugh. “Friends?” he says. “Because Ian just introduced her as your fucking
girlfriend
, Ben.”

Shit.

I do what I can to diffuse his temper. I’ve never seen him this angry. “I swear, it’s not like that. I just . . .” Dammit, this is so fucked up. I throw my hands up in defeat. “I like her, okay? I can’t help it. It’s not like that’s what I set out to do.”

Kyle looks away, running his hands down his face in frustration. When he turns around again, I’m not prepared for what happens. He pushes me, hard, and I slam into the wall behind me. His hands are pressed against my shoulders and he’s pinning me against the wall. “Does she know, Ben? Does she have any idea that you’re the one who started that fire? That you’re the reason she almost
died
?”

I feel my jaw tighten.
He can’t do this. Not today. Not to her
. “Shut
up
,” I say through clenched teeth. “
Please
. She’s in the other room, for Christ’s sake!” I try to push him off me, but he shoves his arm against my throat.

“What kind of fucked-up situation did you get yourself in, Ben? Are you an idiot?”

Just as the question leaves his mouth, I see her walk around the corner. She stops short as she takes in the scene, and the shock that appears on her face reassures me that she didn’t hear anything else.

I slam the pages back on top of the others.

He’s fucked up.

Ben is a twisted, fucked-up writer. How dare he take something real . . . something that I suffered through . . . and turn it into fiction with a ridiculous plotline.

I’m pissed.
How could he do this?
But then again, he didn’t finish it, so am I even allowed to be angry?

But
why
would he do this? Doesn’t he know how personal that story is to me? I can’t believe he would try to capitalize on such an awful tragedy.

I’d almost like it better if he
was
telling the truth and he really
did
start the fire. At least then I wouldn’t feel like he was taking advantage of my story.

Why would he make up part of the fight when everything else surrounding the fight between him and Kyle actually happened? Did he even make up any of it at all?

I laugh at myself. It’s not true. He didn’t meet me until two years after the fire. There was no way he could have been there. Besides, what are the chances he would run into me on the anniversary of the fire, exactly two years later? He would have had to have been following me.

He wasn’t following me.

Was he?

I need water.

I get water.

I need to sit down again.

I sit down.

Spin, spin, spin. The web of possible lies is spinning, my mind is spinning, my stomach is spinning. It even feels like the blood in my veins is spinning. I stack the pages of the manuscript back into a neat and tidy pile, just as I found them.

Why would you write this, Ben?

I look at the cover and run my fingers over the title.
November 9.

He needed a good plot. Is that what he’s done? He just fabricated his plotline?

There’s no way he could be responsible for the fire. It makes absolutely no sense. My father is to blame. He knows, the police know and I know it.

I find myself lifting the cover page off the stack. I stare down at the first page of the manuscript, and I do the only thing I can to find more answers.

I read.

by

Benton James Kessler

“To begin, at the beginning.”

—Dylan Thomas

Prologue

Every life begins with a mother. Mine is no different.

She was a writer. I’m told my father was a psychiatrist, but I wouldn’t know for sure since I never had the chance to ask him. He died when I was three. I have no memory of him, but I suppose it’s for the best. It’s hard to grieve people you don’t remember.

My mother had a master’s degree in poetry and completed her thesis on the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. She quoted him often, although her most favorite quotes weren’t from his world-famous poetry, but rather from his everyday dialogue. I never could tell if she respected Dylan Thomas as a poet or a person. Because from what I’ve learned about him in my research, there wasn’t much to respect about his character. Or maybe that’s what is to be respected—the fact that Dylan Thomas did little to gain popularity as a person and everything to gain it as a poet.

I suppose I should get on with how my mother died. I should probably also get on with how a girl who inspired me to write this book relates to a story that begins with my mother. And I suppose if I get on with both of those things, I should also get on with how Dylan Thomas relates to my mother’s life, most importantly her death, and how both led me to Fallon.

It seems so complicated, when in fact, it’s very simple.

Everything relates.

Everything is connected.

And it all begins on November 9th. Two years before I came face to face with Fallon O’Neil for the very first time.

November 9th.

The first and last time my mother would die.

November 9th.

The night I intentionally started the fire that almost claimed the life of the girl who would one day save mine.

I stare at the pages in front of me in complete disbelief. Bile rushes up the back of my throat.

What have I done?

I swallow hard to force it back down and it stings.

What kind of monster did I give my heart to?

My hands are shaking. I’m unable to move. I can’t decide if I need to read more—to get to the next page where it’s obviously going to state that everything I read is a work of Ben’s magnificent yet twisted imagination. That he’s found a way to make our story marketable by mixing fact and fiction. Do I read more?

Or do I run?

How can I run from someone I’ve slowly given myself to over the course of four years?

Or is it six?

Has he known me since I was sixteen?

Did he know me the day we met in the restaurant?

Was he there
because
of me?

So much blood, all of it, every drop is rushing through my head, even my ears begin to ache from the pressure. Fear grips my body like I’m a cliff and it’s dangling from my ledge. It grips every part of me.

I need to get out of here. I grab my phone and quietly call for a cab.

They say there’s one down the street and it will arrive in a few minutes.

I’m consumed by so much fear. Fear of these pages in my hands. Fear of deception. Fear of the man asleep in the next room who I just promised all of my tomorrows to.

I scoot the chair back to get my stuff together, but before I stand, I hear his bedroom door open. On high alert, I swing my head over my shoulder. He’s paused in his doorway, wiping sleep from his eyes.

If I could freeze this moment, I would take full advantage so that I could study him. I would run my fingers over his lips to see if they really were as soft as the words that come from them. I would pick up his hands and brush my thumbs over his palms to see if they really felt capable of caressing the scars they were responsible for. I would wrap my arms around him and stand on my tiptoes to whisper in his ear,
“Why didn’t you tell me that the foundation you taught me to stand on is made from quicksand?”

I see his gaze flicker to the pages of his manuscript that are gripped tightly in my hand. In a matter of seconds, every thought he has flashes across his face.

He’s wondering how I found it.

He’s wondering how much I’ve read.

Ben the Writer
.

I want to laugh, because Benton James Kessler isn’t a writer. He’s an
actor
. A master of deception who just completed a four-year-long performance.

For the first time, I don’t see him as the Ben I fell in love with. The Ben who singlehandedly changed my life.

Right now, I see him only as a stranger.

Someone I know absolutely nothing about.

“What are you doing, Fallon?”

His voice makes me flinch. It sounds exactly the same as the voice that said, “I love you,” just an hour ago.

Only now, his voice fills me with panic. Terror consumes me as a rush of unease takes over.

I have no idea who he is.

I have no idea what his motive has been these past few years.

I have no idea what he’s capable of.

He begins to advance toward me, so I do the only thing I can think to do. I run to the other side of the table, hoping to put a safe distance between myself and this man.

Hurt washes over his face when he sees my reaction, but I have no idea if it’s genuine or rehearsed. I have no idea if I should believe everything I just read . . . or if he made it all up for the sake of having a plotline.

I’ve cried for lots of reasons in my life. Mostly from sadness, sometimes out of frustration or anger. But this is the first time a tear has ever escaped because of fear.

Ben watches the tear roll down my cheek and he holds up a reassuring hand. “Fallon.” His eyes are wide, and they hold almost as much fear as mine. But I have no idea anymore if what I see on his face is real. “Fallon, please. Let me explain.”