Neither of us slept much these days.
I unlocked the door and elbowed my way inside, then kicked it shut with the toe of my boot. I went straight for the kitchen sink, using my wrist to turn on the hot water. The blood on my knuckles had dried to a cracked rust, but as soon as I stuck my hands under the water, it turned crimson before sliding down the drain.
Once I had rinsed most of it off, I doused my hands in soap and scrubbed every crease in my skin, using the nail brush I kept by the pump bottle to get beneath my fingernails.
It had been a messy night. Thankfully, Amelia had been long gone by the time things got interesting.
Water streamed down the drain as I rested my forearms on the edge of the sink, taking slow, deep breaths as I stared at the brush. But instead of the rough bristles cleaning someone else’s blood from my hands, I saw corn-silk hair wrapped around my fist as I?—
Fuck.
Nope.I couldn’t go there. I hadn’t gone there in years. When I first started working for John Valentine, I had tried to compartmentalize my job and my personal life, still entertaining relationships in my free time. That was, until I realized that with John Valentine, there was no such thing as free time.
If you were on his payroll, every minute of the day belonged to him, whether you were on a job for him or not.
I was a quick study and made a habit of not learning hard lessons twice.
I rinsed the nail brush and doused it with disinfectant before spraying the entire sink and giving it a thorough wipe down. Iwent back to the front door and did the same to the doorknob and my keys.
My eyes began to glaze over as I wrote down the events of the day like a lovestruck kid scribbling into a diary. That’s what it felt like, at least. Useless monologuing with no one listening.
I went through the routine of putting my clothes directly into the washing machine with a hefty scoop of OxiClean to break up the hemoglobin, then started the cycle before laying out tomorrow’s clothes and my motorcycle boots by the bed.
Nothing with laces, of course. Laces were a liability. They could come untied. Make running difficult or make me trip. No laces.
Like every night that preceded tonight, I looked around to make sure I could leave in less than thirty seconds, closed my eyes, and tried to sleep.
Usually, fractured images of whatever I had done that night played through my mind in a macabre montage until I opened my eyes to study the mostly empty apartment that could have belonged to anyone but me.
But not tonight.
Tonight, when I closed my eyes, I smelled lavender. I pictured flickering candles, books on the end tables, and baseball memorabilia. I pictured hair the color of sunlight and Atlantic eyes. I pictured a tacky bachelorette tiara and smeared mascara.
And then I fantasized over all the things that would smear Amelia Hawthorne’s makeup. Good things. Things that would make her look at me the way she did when I saidgood girl.
And for the first time in years, I slept.
6
AMELIA
Sunday, May 18 | 12:30 p.m.
“Cheers!” Vaanya said as she raised her glass. Laughter bubbled up as the six of us clinked glasses, toasting the end of the semester. The spring afternoon was blissfully warm, easing my worries, and the view from the rooftop restaurant was unmatched.
I loved the architecture of New Haven, and seeing it from a bird’s-eye view was a special privilege. There was something to be said about the minuscule designs etched into each crevice, steeple, and gable. It wasn’t about each building being massive and record-breaking. The devil was in the details.
I yawned before feigning a sip of my French 75. My late-night activity yesterday had me dragging today. Thankfully, school was out and I was a free woman until August.
Celebrating the end of the semester had become a long-standing tradition. One that I wasn’t so sure was going to come together this time. Thankfully, half of the group chat finally chimed in—after a little prodding from me—and offered theirpreferences of where they wanted to go for our celebratory lunch.
The six of us—Jake, Vaanya, Courtney, Marcus, Caitlin, and me—had met during our time as teaching fellows at Alcott. We had initially bonded over being in the weird period of life where we were still students while our fellow graduates were going off into the “real world.” With their departure for greener pastures went the friendships that had formed in our first few years. High school friends were long gone, now getting married and starting families or diving into their careers. On top of that, many of our relatives didn’t quite understand why we would continue to chase degrees and sometimes grew distant or hostile.
It was trial by fire that had immediately forged us into a close-knit bunch.
But now, we were bona fide Alcott faculty. Well, except for Jake. He and I had been in the running for the same teaching position. I landed it and Jake took a position at a university in Storrs. Our friendly academic rivalry had never come between us. In fact, out of the six of us, Jake was probably my closest friend.
Even though he wasn’t on Alcott’s payroll, he still joined us for our end-of-semester celebrations. It was tradition.
