Ignorance is bliss. At least that’s how my life was before. Aspen was my emotional ground zero. The start of my downfall. The straw that broke this camel’s back. I don’t even understand that saying. Like how much straw, exactly, can a camel carry? And why straw? Why not something useful like apples or goats or bags of rice? But nope. I’m buried under cereal crops, chaffed and flattened and dried out. Goddamn Nico.
The past four weeks my hurt has morphed into anger, the emotion thick enough to chew. This is why I never offered up my heart, why I kept men at a distance. The hollow left in Nico’s wake is as deep as the chasm Rose chiseled. She’s in jail, refusing to speak with me, and Nico, the man who’d promised he’d be my rock, has shut me out.
As a teacher, I gave my classes the same art history assignment each year: Choose a famous work of art—painting, sculpture, or building—and describe how it’s a reflection of you. It was an exercise in expression, pushing the kids to look deeper, see art as more than lines and shades. For the most part, it worked. The only kid who thumbed the experience was Eric Trembley. His memorable one line: Michelangelo’s David wishes his package was as big as mine. He did not get an A.
If I had to write my five hundred words today, I’d ace the project. I’d be the Leaning Tower of Pisa: crooked, birthed with inadequate foundation, one earthquake from crumbling.
Somehow I’ve held my ground.
I sift through my closet, looking for my Nikon SLR camera. The thing’s a dinosaur, but there’s something about working with film that’s exciting. Sasha and I have been discussing my portfolio, and if I round out the images with hopeful shots of life after living on the street, she thinks she can get me a show. My photos in a real, live gallery.
Yesterday I returned to the slums I visited with Nico. I shouldn’t have gone by myself, but it was my personal fuck you to him. Childish and dangerous, but empowering. I brought blankets and nonperishable food and snapped a pile of photos. I didn’t see Joe or his nutsack, but there was a couple huddled together, kissing like they were by a fire at the Ritz, not in a rat-infested slum. Their love cracked my thin veneer, and I choked on a sob. Still, the hours I’ve poured into photography have been my salvation.
Unable to find my camera, I study my room—for the third time—as though I can conjure it. Then I remember the boxes in the hall closet. My phone buzzes on the way, Shay sending me a text: If we have Sawyer kidnapped by pirates until the wedding, do you think Lily will mind?
As annoying as he’s been, he and this wedding are the only other things keeping me sane, but they don’t keep me busy at night. That’s when the anger I direct at Nico slips. He hasn’t messaged me, and I haven’t messaged him. Stubbornness seems to be our motto. Instead I listen to music. I watch TV. But the second I close my eyes, I see him, crave him. If I open my eyes, I picture Rose behind bars. Loneliness is my constant companion.
Sawyer’s overinvolvement in the wedding is the perfect distraction.
I reply: If we tell him the secret to magic is found at the North Pole, he’ll probably go.
Shay: He’s driving me crazy. Now he wants to drop from the ceiling and do the vows suspended. The man will ruin our business.
Not on my watch. The first Sawyer hurdle was when he suggested getting married on those water hovercrafts. Then he wanted to have the wedding two weeks after Lily put on the ring, refusing all rehearsals, claiming it ruins the beauty of the moment. We settled on two months. The nuptials are four weeks away, the December date fast approaching, and he keeps throwing us curve balls.
Say yes to everything and then do the opposite. I grin at my reply.
Genius, Shay writes. Come shopping with me. Lily’s organizing flowers, and I told her I’d take care of the centerpieces. We can talk bachelorette party.
My Saturday afternoon plan consists of snapping enough photos to neutralize the images of Nico crowding my brain. Time with Shay might prove more successful, and I can still bring my camera.
We decide where to meet, then I pull out the boxes from my closet—two left from my move. I drag them by the couch and sit on the floor. I leaf through the items: a cubist sculpture I made in high school, my first sketchbook, and the squished fishing hat Shay gave me that reads Bite Me. Underneath the memorabilia is my coveted camera and a few rolls of film. I rescue them and frown at a white box below. An unfamiliar white box.
I’m about to pull it out when thumping comes from my front door.
Hope floods me at the sound, irrational in its force. Maybe Nico has changed his mind. Maybe he’s stopped being such a pigheaded man and has decided helping me isn’t a big deal. That leaving me was the worst decision he’s ever made. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Scrambling to my feet, I reach the door in six long strides. When I swing it open, my hope sinks like a rock.
The man who was at my apartment a while back is shifting from foot to foot. The one Rose wouldn’t talk about. He scratches his neck and sniffles up a storm as his gaze darts over my shoulder. The November air is cool and damp, but a sheen of sweat beads on his upper lip. His bloodshot eyes are visible this time, as is the pallor of his gray skin. Again, his familiarity itches at me. Again, I come up short. But the unease I felt the day I saw him here returns. Tenfold.
“Rose around?” he asks.
The second he opens his mouth, it clicks. No, not clicks. The gravity of awareness crushes me with dread. His gapped teeth poke out, teeth I remember seeing outside the shelter the day I found Rose. The creep with the shaggy hair and hard eyes. Rose was awkward and distant that day, until this man appeared with his wife beater and gapped teeth, and she hugged me, facing him. She sang a different tune after that, a tune that included claiming she didn’t know the man.
I shift back and close the door an inch, enough to slam it shut if need be. “Rose isn’t here. She doesn’t live here anymore.”
He winces as if I’ve slapped him, then he mumbles to himself and pulls his hair so hard I’m surprised he doesn’t yank out a chunk. “Maybe she’s got some stuff still here, left behind? I don’t need much. Just enough to get by tonight.” He sinks his hand into the pocket of his hoodie and emerges with a handful of crumpled bills. “Just enough for the night. Just to get by,” he repeats.
No. No. Oh God, no. Bile collects in my throat, and I almost heave. He’s looking for a score. At my apartment. The apartment he visited recently and left clutching a white box like the one I just found. Holy fucking shit. “There’s nothing here,” I shout and slam the door.
I double lock it and press my forehead to the cold wood as the implication sinks in. Rose took my charity and thanked me and told me how happy she was, then she used my place to sell drugs. Am I that naive? Was it all an act? I’ve met with her lawyer, tried umpteen times to set up meetings to see her, but she’s frozen me out. With each rejection, I cursed Nico. If he had only said yes, if he trusted me and believed in my sister, she wouldn’t be in jail.
Failing her has saturated me with misplaced guilt.
My shock hardens into red-hot anger, my pulse raging as I stomp over to my living room. I yank out the white box and kick the rest away, then I fall onto the couch and drop the offending package on the coffee table. I fold my arms and stare at it. The thing taunts me like a time bomb, tick tick ticking toward a truth I loathe to face. Praying this isn’t what I think it is, but knowing better, I pick it up and slice my black thumbnail under the taped edges. I lift the top.
And whimper. It’s a wretched sound, weak and shaky.
Tiny crystals are tucked inside, a neat Ziploc full of treachery. It screams sucker, chump, and a thousand insults I deserve. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. I can’t piece through her lies, can’t even decipher what was real and what wasn’t. She used me. My home. My love. My need to have her in my life. My guilt over the dragonfly brooch.
And I let her.
If I’d remembered why that guy was familiar, I wouldn’t be here now. If I’d listened to Nico, I could burrow into his arms instead of wishing I could sever mine. I drop the bag and jump to my feet, practically hyperventilating. God, I wish I could scream at her and tell her this is worse than anything our parents ever did. Worse than the neglect. Worse than the sting of my father’s backhand across my cheek. This is betrayal of the soul.
Since I can’t scream at her, I simply scream. Once. Loudly. So forceful my throat burns. The aftermath is cathartic. Briefly. Until I remember Nico and everything I messed up. I lost him in defense of a liar. He was right to look at me with disdain. I opened my door to Nikki. Let her into my apartment. That creep could have returned that day. The sight of him could have dragged her back to a time she struggles to forget. Rose could have sensed Nikki’s history, read into the dark circles always cradling her eyes. Seen her as an easy mark.
Every concern Nico had about me could have come to life.
I pace a hypnotic rhythm, fisting my hands and flexing my joints. There has to be a way to make this right. Apologize to him, admit I was wrong—oh, so wrong—and get these drugs and any memory of my sister out of this house. Shaking out my hands, I take a deep breath, then a few more.
Panic won’t help me. I need a plan.
If Nico’s not working today, he’ll be at the rec center; Saturday afternoons are always busy there. But I have a key to his apartment. He gave it to me when Rose moved in. An escape, he’d said. If only I’d listened. He hasn’t asked for it back, and I haven’t offered. Hope, maybe? Neither of us ready for this to be the end?
I practically dive into the kitchen and wrench a notepad from the drawer. Taking my time, I write him a letter, each word thick with remorse: what Rose did, my fear of losing the only family I had, how blind I was. How sorry I am. The last part blurs with moisture from my tears. What if he says no? I fold the paper, stuffing my hope and heart in an envelope, then I tape it to the offending box. Instead of canceling on Shay, I text that I’ll be late. There’s no way I’ll survive alone this afternoon.
* * *
The second Shay sees me, her already large eyes pop wide. “Are you okay?”
I must look as horrible as I feel. “Nope. Not okay.”
We’re in Chinatown, pedestrians brushing against us as they hurry by. The day is as gray as my mood, the stores packed with spices and piled vegetables, exhaust billowing from the traffic. Shay grabs my wrist and drags me into the nearest restaurant, a small place with barbecued ducks hanging by their feet, their reddish-orange skin glistening in the window. We sit at a small table against the wall.
“Is it Rose or Nico?” she asks.
I cradle my purse on my lap, needing something to grip. “Both.”
“Tell me everything.”
My words tumble out, my fury over Rose and a repeat of what I wrote Nico. Shay and Lily know about our argument and how he left, but I haven’t bored them with the details of my wretchedness since. Like after Aspen, it was easier to avoid the subject than dwell. But I’m tired of dealing with things on my own. Shay listens as I unload, wincing as I tell her about the box. How I left it in the middle of Nico’s floor with the note, asked him to deal with it. Wrote that I’ll testify against my sister. Whatever it takes. I couldn’t stomach going to the station myself, instead leaning on him. I had no right, but I panicked.
My last line begged him to give us another chance.
“Wow.” Shay’s monosyllable sums it up. “I wish I had some words of wisdom about Rose, but I’m so angry with her, I’d like to karate chop her in the neck.”
“That makes two of us.”
“Your life’s like a John Grisham novel.”
“I could live without the plot twist, and the predictably evil sister.”
And the clueless heroine.
Thoughts of Rose have me wanting to light things on fire, but confusion lingers, too. The past six months, so much of my life has revolved around her. She’s part of the reason I moved to Vancouver. I fussed over her in my house, tried to keep her happy, thought she was the source of my newfound peace. Believed I needed her forgiveness.
Truth is, I only needed mine. Needed to accept we were both victims. What she did for me back then will always mean something, even in the face of her duplicity, but in the aftermath of her betrayal, Nico’s absence is the greater loss. I was so caught up in being angry I didn’t realize losing him was a thousand times worse than losing Rose. And Nico didn’t falter. He sensed Rose would hurt me, but he knew I needed to figure it out on my own. He gave me his heart and cared for mine, and I threw it all in his face.
Now, maybe, there’s a sliver of hope I can get him back. I hang my purse on my chair and remove my jacket, unburdening my body and mind. I rest my elbows on the table. Shay mirrors my pose—her in a bright blue blouse, me in a black, skull-printed top—nothing but old men slurping noodles around us.
“What do you think Nico will do?” I ask.
She rips her wooden chopsticks apart and rolls them over each other. “I think Nico is in love with you, but he’s a man of principle. Asking him to lie for Rose, especially when he sensed she was trouble, will be a tough hurdle for him to jump. But he knows why you did it, and I’d like to think he can move past it.”
“It’s a lot for him to swallow.”
“He’s a lot for you to swallow.” She winks.
I snort, her dirty humor a needed reprieve. My levity doesn’t last long. “He never told me he loved me, and I know how freely he’s used those words in the past. Maybe he didn’t feel that way.”
“But you love him?”
My throat burns. “Yes.” Denial will get me nowhere.
“I saw how he looked at you, Rave. It’s how Sawyer looks at Lily, how Kolton looks at me. That man is head over heels in love with you.”
“I don’t know,” I say, desperate to believe her.
“I do.”
If only she were right. But talking about it and admitting my feelings warm me as much as the green tea our waitress pours. A month ago, I was excited to share my love life with Rose, thinking I needed a sister to confide in. It’s silly, really, yearning for something so imagined. I was too young when she left, and I built our relationship up in my mind, never stopping to think about what I had. What I still have—Lily and Shay. Our friendships are thicker than blood. They won’t always fill the void I feel on holidays and birthdays, but I’m luckier than most.
“What if he can’t forgive me?” I ask.
She sips her tea. “He’d be a fool. You put it all on the line for him. Give him time. He’ll come around.”
But nausea clenches my stomach. I’m sick about the evidence I left at Nico’s and the statement I’ll no doubt have to give. Time for a topic change. “Let’s talk wedding. Did you organize the ceiling lights?”
Her green eyes spark. “Taken care of. Sawyer might not be getting his superhero extravaganza”—she gives me jazz hands—“but we’re turning that space into a galaxy. It’ll be breathtaking.”
“You sure you don’t need my help?”
“As long as you have the photos covered the night of, we’re good. It’s best we stick to our strengths. I don’t ever want work messing with our friendship.”
“Amen to that.”
We’d made a pact that Over the Top Events gets burned to the ground before it affects our bond. I was straight with the girls, telling them I was mainly interested in the photography side of the business. I helped with the initial setup, and we brainstorm ideas together, but I don’t plan to give up my apprenticeship, and my street project means the world to me. Not like the girls need my help. Lily works part-time for Sawyer and Kolton, using her free hours to shop for flowers and listen to bands. We’ve chosen the boys’ office as the venue, the massive loft with its tall ceilings and industrial vibe the perfect blank canvas for Shay. Her design skills will turn it into the moon and stars and sun.
We order pho and a side of spring rolls, then I pull out my phone. Nico won’t be home yet, but rational doesn’t define my present state of being. He will call. He will call. He has to call. Unless he freaks that I dropped that bomb on him and bolted, because I was scared to deal with him in person. Like an idiot. The more I think about it, the more insane it seems.
As I place my phone on the table—face up just in case—Shay says, “Let’s talk bachelorette party. It’s in two weeks, and we haven’t chosen a bar.”
But my mind is on that box on Nico’s floor. “I can’t believe I left drugs in Nico’s apartment. What the fuck was I thinking?”
She plays with her chopsticks instead of answering right away. Then, “I’m not sure what I would’ve done. Maybe gone to the station instead of his place? But it was a pretty big shock, and it’s not like the guy hasn’t dealt with drugs. I’m sure he’ll understand.”
Or he’ll have me arrested. “Should I text him? I should text him. What if he brings Nikki over or his nephew and the kid grabs the box and opens it and…oh, God.”
Moron must run in my family. I grab my phone and pull up his name, hesitating a beat. But I have to tell him what I’ve done. I made a bad decision. Several. I’m sorry for what I asked of you. For not listening to you. Rose lied. I found drugs in my apartment and kind of freaked and left them in yours with a note. Not sure why. I’m sorry.
I hit Send, but as soon as I do, a million other things I should have written run through my mind. I write them anyway—a barrage of texts, one after another. Our waitress brings us our food, but I don’t look up.
I’ve missed you so much.
I should never have asked you to lie.
I’m sick that Nikki was in my place.
It turns out I don’t need Rose. I just need you.
I can’t believe I left drugs in your apartment.
The last one sums up my stupidity.
Shay’s halfway through her soup, but I can’t touch mine. “He’s going to hate me.”
She puts down her spoon, swirls a spring roll in plum sauce, and bites off the end. Once she swallows, she says, “Have you told him the truth?”
I play with the noodles in my bowl. “Yeah.”
“Then he can’t hate you. Like I said, give him time.”
My phone buzzes then, startling us both. We eye the thing like it’s a transformer about to attack. She kicks my foot. “Check it.”
Sucking in a large breath, I tap my phone.
I’m taking the box to the station. Detective Crenshaw will meet you there. You’ll have to make a statement.
My heart fizzles faster than our neighbor’s sizzling beef. He didn’t mention the note or my texts. No acknowledgment of my apology or the “break” we’re on. With the high bar he’s set for those in his life, I shouldn’t be surprised.
“Bad news?” Shay’s brows are creased, her wild hair framing her concern.
“I have to make a statement, but it doesn’t sound like he’ll be there. It doesn’t sound like he’ll forgive me.”
She reaches over and grasps my hand. “I’m sorry, but I don’t believe this is the end.” When I don’t answer, she says, “We should get the check. I’ll come with.”
I mumble thanks as I fish for my wallet, my choices and mistakes so clear they’re startling. Nico is everything I want. It took an asshole of a sister and a pile of drugs to figure it out, but I’m ready to put him first. He’s a proud man. A man of principle, like Shay said. My request hurt him. Putting Nikki near a bad scene scared him. The fact that I shunned his advice about Rose pushed him away. But he kept the note I wrote in Aspen, rereading it for months afterward. Surely he’ll do the same now. He’ll reread my letter, and in a day or two or three, he’ll call me. He’ll accept my apology.
But he doesn’t.