“You’re saying you’re not attached to this appendage?” Sergei asked, again with that mocking smile.
“No, I’m not. It’s not even mine. I mean it is, but it isn’t.” I forced myself to stop talking. My panicked rambling was not helping my case. I dared to ask, “Am I in trouble?”
“That depends on how honest you choose to be with me.” Sergei closed the lid to the box and set it aside, folded his hands on his lap, and waited. I didn’t want to give him my life story or go into any detail about our relationship, but I had to give him something, and the lies were too hard to keep up with anyway.
“Are you going to tell anyone?” I asked.
“I can keep a secret,” he said with a wicked gleam in his eyes.
“You’re going to think I’m making this up,” I warned.
“Try me.”
I imagined you were in my head, telling me what to do. I took a few deep breaths. I could do this. It was only Sergei’s morbid curiosity, after all.
“I have a demon boyfriend.”
I thought Sergei would laugh in my face—I was kind of anticipating it in fact—but he only nodded for me to continue.
“Wait, you believe me?”
He shrugged. “I believe that you believe it. Please, go on.”
“Okay. Well, where I grew up, the neighborhood is kind of rough. There were these gang members who used to pick on me. And one day, they were holding me down, about to break my ankles, when Henri—that’s my boyfriend’s name—he body-snatched one of the guys and cut off their leader’s finger. Then he gave it to me as a kind of present. I didn’t want my mom to find it, and I didn’t think I could just throw it away, so…”
I stopped and waited. I thought Sergei might tell me I was crazy or send me to the school shrink, but he only tapped one finger to his chin.
“Does this demon boyfriend tell you what to do?”
“Not really. I mean, the other day I was in a funk, so he told me to get out of bed and take a shower, but he doesn’t, like, control me.”
“But he communicates with you pretty regularly?”
“Most days he’ll check in. He has kind of a demanding job.” Shit, I shouldn’t have said that.
“What does he do for a living?” Sergei asked. I couldn’t tell if he was teasing me or not. I supposed it didn’t really matter, so long as they didn’t kick me out of school.
“Um, I don’t really know, but he has to do a lot of overnights. Like a nurse or a firefighter, I guess you could say.”
Sergei nodded as if he understood. “And are you committed to this demon boyfriend?”
“Pretty much.” I motioned to the box. “You can see for yourself, he has a bit of a temper.”
“That he does,” Sergei said. “Tell me, Mr. Bell, have you ever been to a doctor or seen someone who might be able to explain this unusual… phenomena?”
“No,” I said, feeling stupid. He’d tricked me. Of course, he thought I was crazy. He was only questioning me to embarrass me, like when he’d ask me to perform a complicated sequence in front of the class only to detail everything that was wrong with it.
“You look upset,” Sergei observed. “Why is that?”
I figured at that point, I had nothing to lose. If Sergei wanted me to be honest, then I’d be fucking honest.
“I mean, it’s obvious you think I’m mental. You’re only asking me questions to make fun of me. Like when you single me out to humiliate me in class.”
He stiffened a little at that, but I couldn’t tell if it was real or only for show. “I humiliate you?”
I nodded. If I said more, I might start crying.
Sergei sat up a little in his chair. His eyes were deadly focused on mine, pinning me just like in class. I held my breath and waited.
