Bailey’s mom…
Damn it! I hadn’t even thought of that loose end.
“You got a flight to New York and met up with Neil without me finding out. Congratulations.” Her voice went hard. She had me dead to rights. I chewed on my lower lip like a kid who knew she’d once again broken the rules. She heaved a sorrowful sigh, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Forbidding you to see him won’t do any good. We both know that,” she reflected, sounding defeated. I’d never seen my mother look so dispirited.
“I can hardly recognize you these days, Selene. It’s like you’ve completely lost your common sense.” She stood up then, wiping her hands with a paint-smeared cloth. “You don’t notice what’s going on around you. You’re just bewitched by that boy’s looks. But beauty isn’t everything in a man, and neither is…” She paused, looking pointedly at the visible bruises on my neck before taking a deep breath and shaking her head. “Neither is what he’s offering you. And what, really, is he offering?” she continuedsharply. “A spot in his bed? It seems to me that he offers that to everyone. Why do you think you’ll be any different?” She raised her voice, and I blushed violently while my heart pounded in my chest. “The fact that your father is so devastated about this relationship should tell you something. I am telling you, that boy is no good for you. He’s older; he’s sly, calculating, and vicious. Neil is everything a parent doesn’t want for their daughter!” she yelled.
I staggered back, incapable of responding. I had known that, sooner or later, we were going to have this fight and that my mother would tell me what she really thought. I’d been confident for a while that she didn’t like Neil and didn’t trust him either. Still, it made me sad to know we thought so differently about this. It had always been just the two of us, a tiny but indestructible family unit, but now she seemed so far away from me…
“Mom,” I said, moving closer to her, and she stepped back to duck my attempted hug. “I don’t know what’s going on with me.” I burst into tears, letting loose with all the feelings I’d kept inside for way too long. I was lost, and I constantly wondered if I was taking the right path. I had no doubts about the feelings that tied me to Neil, but I had many about what exactly awaited me at the end of my journey with him.
“It’s like I’m trapped in this bubble. I can’t think clearly; my chest aches whenever I see him. It’s like… It’s like he’s holding me captive. The more I try to stay away from him, the more the chains around me tighten.” I sobbed as she stared at me in shock. “I feel alive when I’m with him. The whole world just goes away. Neil has this ability to overpower every part of me and slip under my skin. It’s like being locked in a cage and tossed into the deepest part of the ocean, and that sounds terrible, but it actually turns out to be the best place I’ve ever been,” I admitted, all in one breath and confused all over again.
My mother looked frightened by what I was telling her, while I was just so bewildered by Neil that I didn’t fully register what I was saying.
I knew that he was a wild creature and that he was a controversial, amoral man who loved making himself inscrutable and elusive. One who reveled in being contaminated and needed to contaminate others in return. Ever since I’d woven my life in with his, I wasn’t the naive, pure-hearted girl thateveryone remembered. I was not the same Selene who had believed that she could offer him salvation or redemption. I knew now that would be impossible. I had accepted Neil the moment I allowed him to weave threads of damnation all around me.
It was too late now.
“This won’t last,” my mother said after a few moments of hesitation, and she sounded more like she was trying to convince herself than me. “It’s going to end, and you’ll go back to being my daughter. The girl I raised, the one I instilled my values in. Don’t give up on your education; don’t lose sight of yourself. Have the experience of this kind of relationship, but always remember that he is not all that exists. I’m here too. I’m your mother, and I want what’s best for you, starting with you achieving your goals. Don’t throw your future away over one guy, a passing infatuation. You are so young, and you still have so much to learn about the world…” She rubbed her forehead, and I didn’t appreciate the way she was talking to me. Neil was not some high school sweetheart, the dizzy thrill of a first kiss, or a momentary crush. He wasn’t some idol whose poster I’d stuck up in my room or the cute boy in school everyone went nuts for.
Neil was just Neil.
Every part of me was with him, even when we were far apart.
And the name for that feeling was not “passing”…
It was forever.
Because he was…mine.
* * *
Days went by.
Slowly. Too slowly.
I kept texting Neil, asking him how he was doing and to just please check in with me but to no avail.
He never bothered answering, and my disillusionment only grew.
I began to think that he regretted taking me to the clinic and giving me a look at such a personal part of his history.
But by then, I had learned to read him: Whenever Neil took any kind of step forward, whenever he demonstrated his vulnerability in any way, hewould immediately turn on his heel and run back to his walls. He had to protect himself from everyone, even me.
He pushed his feelings down, keeping a tight leash on them so no one could hurt him.
Kimberly had put that terror in him, teaching him that love could only be shown through lust and physical pleasure. It was why Neil couldn’t deal with a real relationship and might never be able to do so.
Still, his absence had an irreparable impact upon my daily life.
I became increasingly annoyed by guys looking at me in the hallways at school. I avoided all the basketball players—Ivan in particular—after that party at their frat.
Janel was the same as she ever was, though now she never missed an opportunity to remind me how violent and dangerous she thought Neil was. Bailey, meanwhile, maintained that he wasn’t as bad as everyone thought and that she’d like to meet him in person to prove that theory.
I spent long afternoons poring over my books, both to reassure my mother that I was not about to abandon my education and to distract myself from thoughts of that human tornado with the golden eyes.
Why couldn’t he just take the time to tell me he was okay?
