Light trickles in from the part in the curtain. It’s not strong light—the streetlamp stands several yards away—but it’s enough so that once your eyes adjust you can make out the bedroom.
We lie in my bed, Erik and I, and stare at the ceiling, both of us sweaty and spent. While we were going at it—our hands and lips exploring the familiar terrains of our bodies, my hand squeezing Erik’s bicep when he entered me—it was like any other time, a recognizable rhythm, both of us already knowing what the other liked, but this was the first time we were together in my apartment, the first time Erik has ever seen the inside of my apartment, and now a sense of awkwardness tinges the air, Erik no doubt wanting to ask why the place is so bare, why I don’t even have a TV. I’ve been living across the hall from him for nearly a year, and it looks like I’ve just moved in—or am ready to move out.
But Erik doesn’t ask. He lies beside me, catching his breath, and then starts to sit up, twisting to place his bare feet on the carpet.
I don’t move. Don’t even tilt my head. But I watch him in the dark, his broad shoulders rippling as he starts to stand. He thinks he’s supposed to retreat to his apartment now, because that’s what I always do once we finish. I’ve never lingered for more than a couple minutes. At first making an excuse for why I needed to leave, and then, once it became clear to Erik that I’d rather sleep alone, making no excuse at all. Just slipping out of bed, redressing, and then ghosting through his apartment to the door where I would peek out first to make sure none of our neighbors were there before darting across to my apartment.
“You don’t have to go.”
His shoulders twitch. Clearly he wasn’t expecting me to speak.
“I have to work tomorrow.”
He says it without looking at me, standing to pull on his boxer shorts.
“What time?”
He pauses and turns his head slightly to the side, so I can make out his profile in the dark.
“I go in at noon.”
“What time is it now?”
He grabs his watch from the nightstand, checks the time.
“Almost three thirty.”
“Good. So there’s no hurry.”
I pause a beat, watching him.
“But if you need to go, go.”
He sits back down, the bed springs making their usual soft cries of protest. He twists, curling his left leg on the bed, and reaches out to run his finger down my arm. Even in the dark he doesn’t look at me, staring instead at my arm.
“I like you a lot.”
“I like you a lot.”
He keeps running his finger up and down my arm, still not meeting my eyes.
“No, I mean I really like you. I think about you all the time. When you’re not around, I …”
But he trails off, shakes his head.
“Never mind.”
I say, “I know.”
He looks at me for the first in several minutes.
“You do?”
“Yes.”
Neither of us says anything, though, nothing to further the conversation. We keep staring back at each other in the dark until Erik retracts his finger and takes a breath.
“I don’t know how much longer I can keep doing this.”
“I know. So let’s go get a cup of coffee sometime.”
“I’m being serious.”
“So am I.”
He appraises me, trying to study my face in the dark.
“I realized the other day, despite us doing this every so often, I don’t know anything about you.”
This, I want to tell him, is a good thing. The less he knows about me the better. He doesn’t need to know about my past life. As for my current life, there isn’t much to know. There’s a backstory, but I’ve long since stopped thinking about the cover Atticus gave me. I eventually told myself there was never any reason to use it. I was never going to get close to anybody again.
After several seconds have passed in silence, I nod so Erik knows I heard him.
“I know. I don’t know much about you either.”
“To be honest with you, Jen, I want something more.”
“So do I.”
I’m almost as surprised as he is by the words as they slip out of my mouth.
He says, “You do?”
I reach out and grab his hand, give it a slight squeeze. But for some reason, I can’t say the word. Not yet. Not until I’ve come to terms with the past twenty-four hours. The thrill of holding a gun in my hand again, of squeezing the trigger. I’ve never gotten a thrill from taking lives, though I have to admit there’s sometimes been a satisfaction watching what I’ve thought of as evil people die. I’ve often questioned what kind of person that makes me. And while part of me may have felt alive tonight, another part knows that road leads to a lonely life and probably a lonely death.
Erik keeps watching me, waiting for me to say the word.
I wet my lips, try to speak, can’t. Clear my throat and try again.
“Tell me something nobody else knows.”
The request catches him off guard. A slight frown crosses his face.
“I can’t think of anything off the top of my head.”
“Did you grow up in Alden?”
“No.”
“Then tell me where you grew up. Tell me about your childhood.”
Erik watches me for another moment, still not sure if I’m being serious. Then he takes a deep breath, stares off at the thin line of light streaming in through the curtain, and tells me about his childhood.
About how he never knew his mom. About how his grandmother raised him. About how just before his sixth birthday, his grandmother had a stroke and passed away. About how he then ended up in the foster care system, going from one family to another, never meshing with any of them, and about how as he got older he started acting out, being aggressive with his peers, stealing from the corner stores, the crimes at first petty but quickly escalating until he was thirteen and stole a car to go joyriding, and how then he ended up in a juvenile detention center for a year and when he was released he was sent to a place up north, to a woman named Ruby who took care of kids like him, kids who had no family, and there were other kids at Ruby’s house, a few other boys who also started out with petty crimes and which had snowballed into worse things, and at first Erik was defiant with Ruby, just as he was defiant with every other adult in his life, but Ruby was patient, almost too patient, wearing him down with her patience, and she was kind too, kind but strict, making it known to Erik and the other boys in the home that she had a certain set of rules and those boys were going to abide by those rules, no ifs ands or buts about it. Of course, Erik and the other boys tested those rules, tried to push the boundaries, but Ruby had a three strike policy, and the boys quickly learned she wasn’t playing and that after the third strike they were kicked out of the house, and word would often get back to the other boys still in the home how good they truly had it, how Ruby may be strict but that she actually cared, that she actually gave a damn, and this was something Erik had never experienced, not since his grandmother passed away, somebody who gave a damn, because sure some of the other foster homes were run by good people who cared, but he never got the sense that they truly cared, that they really gave a shit. It was in Ruby’s home that Erik started learning about respect, started doing better in school, started taking care of himself, and right out of graduation Erik joined the Marines because the Marines managed to get his past charges expunged, and he spent several years in the Marines before he met a girl he wanted to marry, but something happened and that girl went away, and Ruby—whom he still kept in contact with all this time—encouraged him to forget about her, to get on with his life.
“In the end, there wasn’t much I wanted to do. I just … wanted to disappear. And so I looked around for some jobs, and being a deputy here in Colton County was one of them, and guys I knew joked that being a black man in Texas wasn’t the best idea, but the county was the first one to call me back and hire me, and so …”
He shrugs and looks at me for the first time since he started telling his story.
“Here I am.”
I reach out, squeeze his hand.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Telling me that.”
He shrugs, and smiles.
“Your turn.”
I smile back.
“Not tonight. Later. Maybe when you buy me that cup of coffee.”
“Wait”—his face all at once serious—“I thought you were buying me coffee.”
At first I smile, and then I laugh, and it feels good because I don’t remember the last time I laughed like this, a genuine, pure laugh.
I squeeze Erik’s hand again, and I pull him toward me. He’s stronger than me, but he lets me pull him, falling back down onto the bed so he’s on his side, his head on the pillow, staring back at me.
I whisper, “Stay.”
He watches me for another moment, and then he leans forward, kisses me on the lips. It’s not a short kiss, and it’s not a long kiss, but it’s a kiss I don’t think I’ll ever forget. Because he doesn’t say anything afterward, and neither do I. He just lies there, and so do I, and for the first time I don’t think about my past life or the people I’ve killed or even the two men I killed tonight. All I think about is Erik, being alone with him in this bed, and it’s enough to make me feel something I haven’t felt in a very long time.
Safe.