“Sure you’re okay?” Clive asks.
I walk away from the TV and toward the window and look down on the entire panorama of New York City and Central Park and the crowds of people swirling around below us in slow motion, each of them going off purposely in one direction or another, like they’ve captured by some filmmaker who’s made a living map of the world.
Only I’m not on it.
And I am feeling more alone than I’ve ever felt and I don’t know where to turn anymore because if the guy I am obsessed with actually was one of the massive NYPD patrol that backed up the feds assigned to put my dad behind bars for the rest of his life, where does that leave me? And even if he wasn’t, he is on their side. Otherwise what is he doing working for the NYPD?
Ro is right. Someone like me cannot fall for a cop.
I start feeling this overwhelming rage at Michael and everything he stands for. Then again, what did I expect? It’s not like he led me on. Everything that’s happened was my doing.
So really, what’s left? Go home and maybe call up Dante. Tell him that I’ve been thinking about him, and I know where that will go. But at this point I don’t care anymore. At least I know who he is and which side he’s on and all that truth means a lot, and anyway, he’s not all complicated like Michael and I can just close my eyes.
Clive comes back into the living room holding two mugs of hot chocolate. He hands me one, which I don’t feel like having, but there’s an expression in his eyes like a little kid who hopes you’ll like his surprise. I take the mug and smile at him because that is so Clive to think of something like hot chocolate at a time like this. I sit down next to him and sip it.
“It’s the best hot chocolate I’ve ever had.”
He smiles this megawatt Clive Laurent five-year-old happy-to-please grin, which does make me feel better. Not only that, something about sharing hot chocolate with him does help, which could be the chemical perk-up thing in chocolate.
But whatever, Clive knows my mood is changing because he picks stuff like that up on this visceral level. I finish the whole thing and get warm inside and say without really thinking, “it’s so warm in here, don’t you want to take off the scarf?”
He looks away and doesn’t answer.
“Clive?”
He turns back to me and his face changes and grows distant, which gives me an uneasy feeling. He looks down for a few seconds as though he’s deep in thought before he reaches up and slowly unties the scarf. I sit back and look at all the books on his shelves, half of them about history, and think about how he reads so much and how smart he is. And I look up at him again just as he pulls the scarf away, watching my face, waiting, with this expectant look.
My eyes get wide and I feel my mouth open. There’s a thin white scar all along his neck.
“Now you know why I wear the scarf, Gia. I tried to kill myself.”