Chapter 23
23
REMI
Before…
The visual media lab in my high school remains abandoned all but a few hours a day, so I take advantage when the temperature drops too low to hang outside in the commons. I rarely use the room for anything but a spot to disappear in the quiet since my needs have moved beyond the ancient software and outdated equipment. My phone has higher quality video, and apps offer better editing programs.
Having limited resources and tools helped hard-sell my skills and passion on my college applications. Raw, focused, and heavy in the story, which fits my style anyway. I may avoid the realities of my life as much as possible, but I expose it on film every chance I get.
I leave the lights off and settle in my usual corner by a window. The ledge has enough space to perch on, and I rest my temple against the cold glass. My breath fogs over a patch, and I go all gooey, watching it dissipate. Like the mirror on Halloween.
By now, most everything ties to Foster in one way or another. Even worse, I miss him during the in-betweens. I worry the fountain sealed my fate.
I check the message he sent earlier while I was in class. Raindrops cover a windowpane in the picture, the gray sky, the iron railing of his balcony, and everything else beyond out of focus.
He hasn’t signed into Wanderer today, so taking a chance he’s staying at his flat because of the weather, I pause the song playing through my earbuds. Foster apologized for not educating me sooner and started sending me playlists after Halloween. He mixes genres in some; others stick to a theme. I’ve never used music outside of a way to check out, but the songs he’s been selecting are like a creative hit. Now I hear them when I film or they inspire me to seek out a shot to fit.
My video chat goes unanswered, but I haven’t even restarted my music when he returns the call.
“No tours in the rain?” I say, camera on the school emblem on my uniform sweatshirt. I flip it, giving him a view of the empty media lab while his stays on what looks like a jersey. “Not what I expected out of my favorite guide.”
“Oh, I’ll guide the fuck out for a voice like yours,” a guy drawls, catching me off guard. “Tell me what you wanna see, and I’ll provide in the absence of Daddy Foster.”
After pushing past the shock of not-Foster talking, I quickly identify the owner of the Texan accent. “Are you claiming Foster’s my daddy or yours, Chase?”
Foster’s best friend hums for a second, tipping the phone back and forth as one would their head. “If I say yours, will you start calling him daddy?”
I laugh. “I’ll consider it.”
“Wait. Why the fuck am I hiding my face?” He brings the camera up and purses his lips before perfecting his dark hair in the picture-in-picture. Square jaw, deep espresso eyes with a promise of the unexpected behind them. Chase is a wildcard, and I’m willing to admit I like him. “Now, I’m sure you’re wondering, where is the sexy beast with a voice like honey who charms my panties off daily?”
“Exactly the wording I would have used,” I say dryly. “Are you sure he’s not your daddy, Chase?”
He winks and straightens, his white backdrop ending up a wall. An open doorway appears behind him after he walks through, and then the video washes out from him turning on a light. It rebalances as he switches modes, and a muscular back appears. Tan skin and tattoos and a white sheet draped low on his hip, the band of his boxer briefs visible. Foster’s asleep in his bed with a pillow over his head and a bicep on top, pinning it in place.
“He woke up long enough to blame me for his hangover and curse at the rain that’s been falling since we got in this morning.”
And send me a picture of the damn rain.
My eyes trace the lines of his body from a new angle until Chase returns my view to him. “I take it you’re not mad at him anymore if you went out together?”
He screws up his face as he sits on the mattress, the pillow and arm visible behind him. “I haven’t been mad at Foster a day in my life.” His mouth hitches, despite him sounding all business. Then his head jerks over his shoulder when the arm shifts. “Our time together might be over, Tour Remi.”
A deep groan transforms into a, “Dude. What the fuck?”
I cover my mouth to silence a laugh as Chase jumps up, spinning around to get away from Foster.
“For the record, she called me.” He winces through a smile and appears to duck. “That only hurt the pillow.”
“Give me the phone,” Foster demands, deep and growly from sleep. He sounds almost as hot as when he issues commands to me in a very different scenario.
“We haven’t even gotten to the discussion of how she’s going to provide for you.” Chase ducks again, and a pillow hits the wall behind him. “Fine. Ruin all the fun.” He looks ready to relinquish me and the phone, but then he lowers his gaze to the screen, and a devious smirk curves his lips. “But first, can I see your face?”
I expect to say no, but the conspiratorial look from Chase causes me to reconsider. “Why?”
“Obviously to hold it over Foster’s head,” he says, moving quickly, and then he’s slamming a door to another room and leaning back against it.
“You’re the fucking worst.” Foster’s muffled voice sounds mostly annoyed but holds a bit of amusement.
“What’s in it for me?” I ask.
Chase answers without thought, “I’ll pledge my lifelong allegiance to Team Fomi and send you a hundred bucks.”
I mull it over for a second. “Deal.”
He chuckles, and a quiet, “Fuck,” comes through the wood. I switch modes and am face-to-face with Chase through the screen.
“Goddamn.” His head shakes, grin wide. “A pleasure to meet you, Tour Remi.”
“You too, Chase.”
“Treat my boy right, yeah?” He straightens as I lower my phone, then the video darkens, the sound of the door. “Brother, you. Are. Screwed.”
“So much for not fucking the boat.” Foster sighs, and the picture flashes before I’m staring at a familiar chest. “I can’t believe you’d break my heart like that.”
“What can I say? I like him better.”
Foster’s jaw comes into view, a hand running over the stubble. “Liar.” The view fades, and when it returns, I have his ocean-blue eye and part of a white pillow. “Now I’ll balance with a truth. I decided some stuff last night.”
“Before or after getting drunk?”
“Before. Then I really decided while drunk.”
I maneuver the shot to focus on my eye and cheekbone. “What about?”
“Us.”
God, I am not anticipating the full-body reaction to two letters. A flutter in my stomach, a stumble of my heart, every inch of skin growing hot at the delivery.
“And what did you decide?” I ask, raspy and quiet.
“There is one.”
My mouth turns up. “I might like an us.”
A smile enters his eye. “Good. Because I also decided I’m coming for you.”
I want him to, so much it terrifies me.
“I’m making you mine,” he tells me, my pulse thundering. “I’m going to make you fall in love with me.”
“Yeah?” I say, but it sounds more like promise?
“Yeah, baby.” He seems as lost in me as I feel in him. “I am.”
The chimes dismissing classes sound, and I glance away before I decide to stay. “I have a class. Maybe we can wander later?” I look back as he nods. I’m about to end the call, but I stop. “Foster?”
“Hmm?”
“I think I might like all the other stuff you decided, too.”
But it’s another lie. There’s no thinking anymore when it involves Foster West. I want him, and I need him to be real, and I could already love him. All of those, and I’ve never really met him. Not in the smell him, touch him, breathe the same air sense. I haven’t even seen him all at once.
The other day, he said you can never truly see something until it’s right in front of you. He was referring to art and everything he’s shown me—at the time, the ?i?kov Television Tower with giant crawling baby sculptures on it. But it applies here, too.
I haven’t truly seen him, and he hasn’t truly seen me.
Foster just told me he plans to remedy the truly part. Maybe we don’t wait until then for the rest.
* * *
I play with the idea of showing Foster my face over and over again for the next week. But I always change my mind at the last second.
The hesitation has nothing to do with Foster being real—he’s so real it hurts. He always has been, even when I pretended otherwise, but the missing him part remains. It will only amplify if I see all of him. All I’ll want to do is see all of him. A problem considering he won’t return to the states for another fifteen days, so as much as I want to, I decide to wait until then.
Although I won’t be surprised if I fold at any point over the next two weeks.
The guy’s still a fever, primed to take over without warning.
Part of me hopes he will.
With only three weeks left in the semester, I feel lighter. I’m in far too decent of a mood to walk in the front door of the step-house after classes. So I follow the stone path around the side of the house. I secure my bag’s strap on my shoulder and start up the trellis. Only movement through the window freezes me. I duck to avoid being caught and take a quick sweep of the scene inside.
And what I see sends me scaling down—fucking furious.
I leap to the ground and tear around the house through the front door. It slams behind me, and I thunder up the stairs. The one to my room sits wide open when I reach it. My dresser’s yanked from the wall, drawers dismantled and on the floor, the trash from my bathroom scattered, the contents of my closet strewn.
And in the center of it all is my mom.
“Get the fuck out!” I shout.
She doesn’t hesitate, let alone acknowledge me storming in. All my anger and resentment toward this goddamn woman hits at once, and I shriek it this time.
“Get out!”
I rush to my stripped bed, dragged to the middle of my bedroom, where she’s trying to search under my mattress. My hand latches onto her arm, and I jerk her around before she rips away from me. Her momentum flings her against the bed, but she recovers fast.
“How fucking dare you,” she hisses, charging at me.
A side-step dodges her. She nearly stumbles into the hall before whipping around, which puts me between her and the destruction. Hot tears cloud my vision, every muscle tense and ready to fight if she tries to come closer. She has a fresh bruise on her cheek, a hand clamping over her side near her kidney.
“Pills?” I ask, voice shaky even on the single syllable. So much rage floods through me I need to scream, but I refuse to break for her. “Is that what you want?”
“What I want is to have never had you.” A disgusted twist in her expression accompanies the hate. “And now that I know what you’ve been up to, I’m looking for what else you’re hiding.”
I cross my arms, fists clenched. “Oh, do tell. What is it I’m doing, Mom?”
“Sneaking around with Roman Moore.”
Shock radiates through me, and I swallow, shaking my head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She chokes out a laugh. “Fucking liar. Elvin saw you in his car. He saw you all over each other, too.”
Everything from the other night closes in on me, from Elvin stopping me outside to what he said leaving the kitchen.
“Next time you need a ride, call me. I can keep a secret too.”
I chalked up the encounter to Daniel trying to scare me—sicking his favorites on me. But Elvin knew I’d been with Roman.
“You act like you’re so much better than me.” She picks at the bottom of her sweater. “But here you are, down at the bottom, fucking my junkie reject.”
My lungs struggle for air, and I speak through my teeth. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“He told ya he’s clean, right?” She has a sway to her stance and follows it a half-step forward. “He’s not, honey. ” The last word’s so condescending I almost lose it on her. “He’s used the same act for years. Plays the good guy until he gets what he wants. If you fell for it, you’re stupider than I thought.”
I force myself to ignore the ill feeling creeping through me. She’s wrong. She’s lying. She’s an addict grasping at sand. “Forgive me if I don’t believe the actual junkie he left when he got sober. Maybe if you covered your track marks, you’d be more convincing.”
Her lip curls as she yanks down the sleeve pushed up on one side. “Stay away from him, or Daniel will deal with it, you ungrateful whore.” She pauses before crossing the only remaining line I have with her. “Dimitri was smart, dying to get away from you.”
“Leave,” I demand, moments from unleashing on her. “Stay the fuck away, and don’t you ever say his name again.”
She snorts and turns. “Hate to break it to you, darlin ’, but he was a piece of shit, too. Always begged not to take you. He hated y?—”
I drive forward and thrust her into the hallway. She knocks into the banister, grabbing it for balance as I back into my room. I look her over, the same pathetic woman who’s repeatedly destroyed pieces of me along with herself. At least I have a few left. I’ll be damned if she ruins them too.
Gripping the door, I huff a breath. “You better hope Daniel’s there and feeling generous the next time you OD. Because I sure as fuck won’t be.” I slam it, lock it, and cover the bottom with pillows.
But it’s not enough. Not with my insides shredding. Her words are poison I thought I’d built an immunity to. Right now, they’re too much. Everything’s too fucking much. Tears streak down my cheeks, blood pounding in my ears so rapidly I’m shocked I haven’t passed out.
My dad loved me. He wanted me. Roman’s safe. He cares.
I scan around my room, the only place I’ve considered mine in so long. I have no clue how long she was in here. What she might have taken. My heart lurches, and I spin for my closet. Dresses thrown, boxes gone through.
“Please, please, please.”
I drop to my knees and dig through the mess. A surge of relief fills me when I uncover my contingency bag in the corner. Right there but completely missed. I still yank on the zipper and then check the side pocket. A sob breaks out of me when I pull out the red velvet pouch. Feel the SD card. I also find the pink envelope I stowed away at the bottom, needing to keep it secure, too.
Then I scramble to my feet, gripping the strap while I tuck the pouch away. I grab my school bag off the floor before pulling out my phone.
Months ago, I asked Roman why he stays. Why he continues to be treated like shit when he deserves so much more. He answered by asking me the same thing. I blinked as tears pooled and had to look away from him to stop them from falling like they are now.
My go-to is I’m terrified of the unknown. Of finding myself in a worse situation than the one I’m surviving now. Or I could end up in one I don’t.
It’s not a lie but not the all-encompassing truth. Even though she’s broken me in ways I likely won’t ever completely heal from. Even if every emotional scar, she’s had some hand in. Deep down, my mom’s always been part of why I’ve stayed. Guilt or responsibility or love for the woman I wish she could be.
I never told Roman any reasons, but I didn’t need to. He knew. And there’s a card in an envelope in my bag where he told me his.
When I open my messages, I pause at the window. The overwhelm hits, the doubts and fears and what-ifs, but I find R and text him anyway. I’m not sure my reasons are enough anymore—if they can keep me here another second. If that’s the case, then at least one of Roman’s won’t matter either.