“Disney movies were a special thing she had with her mom,” he tells me. “I know cartoons weren’t what you had in mind, so thank you.”
There are hundreds of Disney movies in this world, and Sadie chose the one with the noteworthy evil stepmother, but I don’t say that. Edison didn’t care, and all that matters is what he thinks. Doting, pure, trusting Edison. I kiss him and he growls, a sound that fills me up. His fingers dig into my hips and he hoists me onto the counter, kisses me deep.
My breathing is ragged. My hand scrapes the stubble on his jaw. Our eyes meet, full and wanting, squeezing every drop out of the first moment we’ve had alone together since last night. All day I’ve wanted him, and yet I’ve barely had any time to think of him with all I’ve had to deal with between Dara and the situation with the little lightning bolt.Not to worry, love, I promise him, my lips around his earlobe, my tongue awakening goose bumps on his neck.We’re only getting started. There is so much more I can do for you.
“She’ll wonder where I am,” I say. “I should go.” I tear myself away and leave him wanting. I look over my shoulder and see the astonished, delirious happiness on his face.
He’ll wait for me. He’ll be right here where I want him.
In the car, I turn on the radio. I have five minutes to learn something new about Sadie. So far, I know that she doesn’t interject and so it’s hard to know what she’s thinking. I scroll through a rock station, a catchy pop song that’s been playing on every store radio for weeks, and find Sarah McLachlan on a static-filled AM station. “Possession,” a rare treat, and one of deep kismet. Like “Stairway to Heaven,” it’s magic.
Midway through the second chorus, Sadie gifts me with her thoughts. “This is pretty.”
The song is older than both of us, long before her 1997 hit “Angel” would become the official anthem of sad ASPCA commercials.
Sadie is humming, having already picked up the melody. A high soprano I would have pegged her for.
A lot of people think “Possession” is a love song, but it’s based on the myriad of love letters from an obsessed fan. He sued her, but then offed himself before anything could come of it. It was a deluded love. He let it overwhelm him because he could only see her from afar—a little songbird he would never cage. The lawsuit was a last desperate grasp at having her near him.
Celebrities are a terrible target. They’ll never love you. But there were so many beautiful women he could have found down here on earth, out of the stage lights. Rather than thousands of letters, he should have waited. He should have let that lust, that agony, that love, collect within him until he thought the weight of it would crush him. He should have channeled it into a single kiss beneath an umbrella on a rainy afternoon, a squeeze of his lover’s hand. He might have survived then.
I think Sadie can hear how sad this song is. She has big eyes like a Precious Moments figurine, and they’re thoughtful now. She doesn’t share whatever she’s thinking, because she’s a careful one. Bonding with her will be a slow project, ultimately rewarding. When Edison goes missing, she’ll come to me with tears in her eyes. She won’t fling herself into my arms the way she did for Edison, but rather she’ll show her grief to me with the steady understanding that we must address our sadness if we’re going to be strong enough to go out there and look for him.
I pull into the driveway just as the music trails off and gives way to a commercial for a used-car dealership. She thanks me for the ride. The front door opens before she’s even halfway up the walk. Her father, sharply dressed, stands in the rectangle of light. The humorless expression on his face tells me everything I need to know about why Sadie can’t stand being home.Fun time is over now. You have exams coming up.
This time, when I return to Edison, I don’t knock. He’s in his favorite recliner, soda can in hand, and he looks up when I let myself in. “You really should lock your door, you know,” I say.
In answer, he holds out his arms to me. I sink into his lap, and my head fits perfectly in the space between his chest and his chin. “Don’t worry,” he says. “I’ll protect you if anyone breaks in.” He chuckles at his own joke, a rumbling vibrato in his chest, but he falls silent when he sees the look in my eyes.
I kiss him the way that we did in the kitchen, and the air changes around us. He raises the remote and shuts off the television.
“You’re not like them,” I say against his mouth. “From church.”
He reaches behind my head and slides the elastic from my ponytail so gently I barely feel it; my hair falls around my shoulders, and he holds it between his fingers.
“Neither are you,” he says.
I want to tell Edison the truth, which is that I loved him the moment he came into that diner. Alone, searching for something. Searching for me. I’ve been all across the West Coast with my sisters, and I traveled a thousand miles just to find him.
That he’s here, solid, in my arms, astounds me.
He nudges my chin with his knuckle, tracing his thumb across my lower lip. “What are you thinking?”
How beautiful the need in your eyes would be if I wrapped my handsaround your throat. The silent, desperate begging.I’d let go just before I nearly lost him, hold him as he gasped air back into his lungs. Tell him he’s mine, wrap my legs around him. Make him see how much he needs me.
My mouth closes around his thumb, my tongue stealing a taste of the salt of his skin. “I’ll never tell,” I say.
“What is it?” His voice is low and heavy with need. He wants all of Jade—every inch of her body, every thought in her head, every word that she forgets to say out loud. He keeps them like bits of sea glass so that he might hold them and think of Jade when she’s not near. But how I want him to know me. The first love of my life, and, I deeply suspect, the only.
I hold his face in my hands, the stubble of his cheeks biting into my skin. He is softness with secret edges, little bits of pain I unwrap like gifts. As I draw nearer, he closes his eyes, expecting a kiss. But I stop when our mouths are just a hairsbreadth apart. “I want you to tell me who hurt you,” I whisper.
“What?” His eyes open, still dark with longing.
“That night you were drunk, I put you to bed, and you said, ‘Don’t let me go over there. I’ll kill him.’ ” I stroke the tender skin under his eye with my thumb. “You were so sad.”
He studies me, his gaze moving from my eyes to my mouth. When he tries to stand, I tighten my thighs around his hips, rooting him to the chair. I’m careful not to use too much strength, not enough to frighten him, but enough to show him that he can’t escape me.
Tell me. Tell me what he did so I can hate him too.
