Miss Anna was the one who made those perfect breakfasts; it certainly wasn’t me.
I didn’t need much to start my day.
Selene wasn’t listening to me, though. She’d put her dress back on and was looking thoughtful.
She walked barefoot toward me, looking at my empty cup.
“You aren’t just going to have that, are you?” She sat down on a stool and ran a hand through her hair. It was wild, but even when sleepy and disheveled, she was glorious. If I’d listened to my instincts, I would have already bent her over the kitchen island.
“We slept together,” I said, dodging her question. I had far more important things to make clear to her. “But it doesn’t mean anything. So don’t get ideas.” I leaned on the kitchen island and looked seriously at her so she could see how real my words were. She nodded and smiled, not at all offended or upset.
“You have this irritating habit of changing the subject,” she complained calmly, and her demeanor confused me. “Also…you didn’t need to specify any of that. I know it perfectly well. Just like I know that you’ve never slept like that with anyone else and that I was your first in this too.” She gave a one-shouldered shrug, and I stood up straight.
I considered her words. I actually had slept platonically with someone before but never voluntarily, as I’d just done with Tinkerbell.
Selene really did understand how many things I was sharing with her for the first time. Or maybe she was just trying to get me to talk.
She wanted to hear me say it, to admit the effect she had on me.
“What do you know?” I sneered at her, taking up my characteristically arrogant stance. Babygirl smiled again and fixed the neckline of her dress, where my gaze immediately zeroed in. There was my breakfast, right there under that flimsy layer of fabric. I’d had her there next to me all night long, and yet I’d restricted myself to some adolescent dry humping that left me with nothing but an unsatisfied longing that would linger inside me for a long time to come.
“I’ve learned how you are now.” She gave me a wink, and I stepped back. She didn’t know the first thing about me, unless she had somehow learned what happened to me when I was kid, which was highly unlikely. She might think she knew me, but that wasn’t at all the case.
“I have to take a shower. By the time I get out of the bathroom, you need to be gone,” I ordered firmly. I was being a real dick. First by kissing her, touching her, wanting to fuck her, and crossing lines with her that I absolutely shouldn’t have been crossing with anyone. And now I was giving her the fucking boot because I was incapable of keeping myself under control when she was around.
I felt like I no longer knew myself.
“I’m going back to Detroit tonight.” Selene got up from her stool and walked past me without a glance, heading straight for her shoes. She bent down and grabbed them, pinching them between her fingers. “And who knows when we’ll see each other again?” She brushed her bangs to one side, revealing part of her scar, and again I had that numb feeling of deep wrongness. But I didn’t make any attempt to keep her there with me. I watched her walk toward the door, saw her open it and cross the threshold, and still I remained motionless, just staring as she walked away.
“Oh, fuck you,” I whispered to myself. “You total dickhead.”
I knew exactly where I’d gone wrong. Selene didn’t deserve that kind of treatment, but I couldn’t be any different than I was. If I’d let her get into my soul, I would have come out the other side destroyed. Every beautiful thing came to an end, and she could very well be the beautiful thing that would spellmyend.
I headed into the bathroom, her coconut smell still in the air. I could smell it everywhere I went. I undressed and quickly got into the shower. Cold water would clear my head. The solitude would give me a chance to gather myself.
I stayed under the spray for about an hour, but my yearning for her did not go away. Nor did the thought of running after her and making the most of our last moments before she left for Detroit.
“I like her, but you can’t be with her. If you choose her, you’re abandoning me,” muttered a high, childlike voice, and I turned sharply to the glass door of the shower. Drops of water snaked down my body, dripping into a pile of soap suds on the floor below me. I smoothed my wet hair over the back of my head and tried to focus on the vague figure I could just barelyglimpse through the frosted glass. With one quick movement, I shut off the water and grabbed a towel to wrap around my waist.
I saw the Boy in the bedroom doorway. He was standing there with his basketball under his arm, an Oklahoma City basketball jersey draped over his skinny torso, and blue shorts that skimmed his scabby knees. He was covered with dirt, his hair was an unruly chestnut mess, and he watched me with a sad, listless look on his face. I was not surprised to see him. He almost always showed up in the bathroom to talk to me.
“I can’t be your host forever.” There, I said it. I had finally admitted that two souls could not coexist in one body. Sooner or later, one will have to give way for the other. I knew this interplay between us was becoming a true problem.
“You’re evil,” he answered sullenly, fleeing into the bedroom.
“I’m just being honest!” I snapped back impatiently.
I followed him, trailing water everywhere, but I didn’t care. I stopped short when I found him on the bed, the basketball clutched to his chest and his gaze locked on something on the floor. I looked down to see several sheets of paper, torn in countless pieces. I felt my heart pound in my throat. My hands were shaking. My head spun, and I clamped my lips together, looking furiously at the Boy.
“What did you do?” I asked in a menacing whisper. He popped up on his feet and backed up, never taking his eyes off mine. They were my drawings. He had ripped them up and tried to hide them under the bed.
“What didyoudo?” he yelled back accusingly, and a sudden vertigo made me clutch my forehead. I struggled, unable to get a breath.
“Go away!” I yelled, and he flinched away from me. I was in a fog of rage. I immediately began hunting for my phone. This situation was getting out of hand, and before I tried to cope with it in my usual misguided way, I decided I needed to talk to the only person who could understand me.
I found my phone and hunted for my therapist’s contact. It was hard to keep my fingers steady—every muscle in my body was being rocked by inexplicable tremors.
“Hello? Neil?” He answered on the second ring.
