Chapter 35
Mireya
Play - Wicked Games by Chris Isaak
Changes
It’s been a few days since Damien started leaving notes in my jacket during classes.
They never contain much, just a time and a place. Another meeting late at night, another part of the case to go through.
We’ve already retraced everything he showed me on my first day here, going over the investigation with the limited information the FBI had at the time.
We never focused on the timing of the events, because he’s a tyrant who doesn’t trust me yet.
And also because he wanted me to understand the case the way he did.
He said it was the only way to truly immerse myself in the case.
The strange part is that I know how to observe and lose myself in details that aren’t relevant. It’s the small changes that bother me.
Spending time with someone with authority, someone who’s as stubborn and curious as him. The new expectations and feelings of having to adjust myself to something new and a presence that is unfamiliar at the same time.
I like having routines. Classes, training, my evening call catching up with Milo and Edna, Hayzel and Ethan driving me insane. Because routines are good, they mean structure and stability.
If my days look the same, people stop asking questions. If nothing changes, no one notices anything. Going to the same spot late at night, drawing sketches but never fully finishing off any of them. Everything happens the same way regularly and it’s fine by me.
It’s true, I didn’t plan for what I’m putting myself in, and maybe that’s why I’m scared.
Changes of plan and improvisation are scary.
I zipped Blue into the front pocket of my oversized hoodie, tucking him close against my chest. His tiny body fits perfectly and I could feel the faint rumble of his purr.
The place I love near the cliff was always empty, so we sat there after eating dinner with Hayzel. She did ask a lot of questions, mostly because I was apparently late. I promised to tell her all about it tomorrow and thankfully she was already falling asleep so she agreed fast.
I rested my sketchbook on my knees, pencil hovering on the new empty page of my journal.
October is a really beautiful month.
It feels close to the end of a year filled with too much anxiety, and it’s still far from that last week of December where you reflect on every little wrong decision you made.
Seraphin Bay’s nights are one of my favorite things happening in October.
It’s colder, bluer.
Blue isn't cold like a lot of people would think about. Blue can mean hotter than red, even though most people still call red "warm." The hottest stars burn blue, and maybe that's why I particularly love looking at the sunrise here, in October.
It’s about 1 A.M and the week went out pretty quickly.
Blue’s eyes open for a few seconds as he looks around at the water, the sky, everything around and he is intrigued by this new place.
But judging by the way he went back into my sweatshirt, it’s too cold for him.
I wanted to leave him in the dorm but he jumped on me the moment I grabbed my keys.
Maybe he’s too tired of me leaving him there alone when I can’t sleep.
So he’s keeping me company tonight. His fur is warm, and I can see him falling asleep already.
I draw a line on the next empty page of the sketchbook, then another, followed by a curve that looks like a nose, but then I just stop and try something else.
This time it’s a hand.
Long fingers, visible veins beneath the skin.
For the first time in so long I don’t stop as fast. The pencil keeps moving, darkening the knuckles then the wrist. When I start tracing the beginning of an inked pattern I freeze.
My eyes settle on the tattoo. A compass.
I know that tattoo…
A long breath leaves my lungs and I hear myself whispering, “What am I even doing?”
I stop and close my eyes for a second. When I open them again, all I see is an ocean of unfinished drawings, each abandoned before they even had the chance to become anything at all.
I know there’s something in my head trying to get out, but it won’t let me reach it. So I shut the sketchbook close and stare at the sea.
A shadow fell over me at that moment. “Really late and cold for you to be here,” a voice said.
I glanced up, following the voice and here he is. Him. Glasses slipping down his nose, arms crossed, that grumpy, judgmental look I’m used to seeing whenever we work on something together.
My chest tightened a little.
“I like the quiet,” I said, shrugging. Blue twitched his ears, peeking out.
He lowered himself beside me, careful not to crowd Blue. “Why are you always hiding here?”
“It’s calm, plus you’re also strangely always here when I am, I should ask you the same.”
“Same as you,” he says finally. “But I’m not a student. I don’t have classes in the morning.” He lights a cigarette without looking at me. “You’ve been quiet today.”
“I’m always quiet,” I say, reaching for the pack he left beside him. “Can I?”
“You shouldn’t pick up bad habits from your teacher.”
A smile appears on my lips as I reply softly, “If it helps you sleep better at night, know that I already had it before your class."
He huffs a laugh, smoke curling around his face. “Not sure if I want to cross that line.”
I lean closer, enough for him to focus on something else. “It’ll be our little secret,” I whisper. “Right, Mister Caldwell?”
He looks amused, maybe even a little curious as I reach for the cigarette, but then his hand catches my wrist midair. “You almost distracted me enough to steal it,” he says.
“Almost worked.”
“It did.” His gaze flicks to mine. It’s fixed, and I’m hyper aware of the blue ocean in front of me. “The blue in your eyes is beautiful, Miss Vitelli,” he whispers in a low voice.
“Thank you,” I reply softly.
When I look down again, the cigarette is already between my fingers. He leans in close enough for his breath to graze my cheek.“See,” he murmurs. “I know how to distract, too.”
A laugh escapes me—and I smile at the situation. “So we can share it then?”
He nods, his eyes still on me. “Sure,” he says quietly. “You’re not my student up here on this cliff.”
A minute passes. Then my eyes land on the ink running down his arm and the compass I drew from memory that sits on his wrist. “I always wanted a big piece.”
He glances down. “What?”
“Your tattoo,” I say, exhaling. “I only have small ones,” I lied.
I have a big one, but it’s hidden somewhere he will never see.
“I didn’t know you had any.”
“They’re not visible to random people.”
He nods, like he’s not sure if that’s supposed to mean something. “Did you draw them yourself?”
"Yeah, all of them." I stub the cigarette, lift my shorts to show the small, inked star high on my thigh. “This one’s the oldest. I don’t even remember who did it. Some guy in the back of a club. I ran away that night and drank until I forgot my name.”
"Doesn’t sound safe in my opinion."
I laugh unexpectedly, because nothing was safe when I was younger. "I got it when I was fifteen.”
He raises a brow. “Fifteen’s too young for a tattoo.”
“Fifteen’s young for a lot of things,” I say.
I stare at the sea, the filter burning against my fingers, but I don’t feel it. I only feel the warmth of Blue against me, covered by my sweatshirt.
Fifteen was indeed young for a lot of things. Too young to understand why men came and went from our house like ghosts. Too young to realize what fear does when it stays too long in your body. Too young to be anyone’s secret.
I blink, trying to focus on the horizon, but it’s too bright, too white. My hand trembles. The smell of him, the way he killed me slowly and I still don’t know the name of my own killer. It still hurts. It hurts a lot.
Then I feel a finger under my chin, gentle, almost hesitant.
“Hey,” Damien says softly. “What’s that?”
I look up, confused. “What?”
“You’re dissociating,” he says.
I let out a weak laugh. “Happens a lot apparently.”
He smiles, cigarette resting between his fingers, then takes a drag. “How breakable are you, Miss Vitelli?”
I look at him through the smoke, and thought about laughing it off. Instead I tilt my head, stealing the cigarette again. “Very.”
His mouth curves again before he replies, “I’ve never been particularly good at leaving damaged things alone.”
“You should probably work on that, Mister Caldwell.”
He shrugs like everything he says is completely normal. “Bad habit,” he spits out. “I tend to make them worse before I make them better.”
His fingers brush mine before the cigarette is back between his lips as he takes another drag.
And I watch him, trying to understand what kind of man would look at someone with the need to know how easily they could break. “Isn’t that incredibly unprofessional?”
“I don’t care,” he says bluntly.
A laugh escapes me as I shake my head. “You’re a terrible professor.”
The corners of his mouth lifts again as he leans back on one of his arms. “I’ve been told,” he sighs. “Never been interested in being a good one.”
I raise an eyebrow, staring at him as his gaze fixes on me, “Then what interests you?”
“Anything that makes my job difficult,” he replies.
I laugh softly, looking away from him. “Then that’s your problem to fix.”
He takes another drag, still watching me. “I’m starting to think it might be yours too.”
For a second, we just look at each other. Then his eyes drop, tracing the faint line under mine. “You’ve got a scar there.”
“Oh.” I touch it without thinking. “That one’s old.”
He studies it, almost like he recognizes it. “Looks like mine.”
He does have the same. Under his eye, a long mark that is similar to the one on his nose. I touch it with the tip of my finger and ask, “How did you get yours?”
He closes his eyes for a second and takes a long breath before answering, “It was a long time ago, I was just trying to be a good kid.”
“I’m sure you were,” I replied, crushing the cigarette on the ground.
He laughs and shakes his head, “I’m sure you were too.”
I was, and it led me to be a sad one.
“Are you going back to your house tomorrow?” He asks, like he knows my routine already.
“Nope, staying here all weekend, I’m trying to make sure my little brother gets used to this rhythm.”
He laughs before tilting his head toward me. “Aren’t you a little overprotective?”
“Better to be overprotective than non-existent in his life.”
“You’re right,” he replies, looking back at the shore.
The cigarette burns between his fingers as his attention moves to my sketchbook, and I reach for it before he gets it before I do. But he’s faster and it’s already open on his lap.
“Wait,” I say, trying to get it back. He doesn’t look up and starts staring at it, one page after the other with care. A portrait without a face, a building missing half of its structure, and a hand that disappears halfway through the wrist. His hand.
My stomach drops when his eyes fix the compass tattoo.
“You made it look better,” he says as if it wasn’t already humiliating enough for him to stumble upon this stupid sketch.
I blink, and reply, “What?”
His thumb rests against the page and he doesn’t even look confused. “The tattoo.”
I look away, focusing on Blue’s presence and not be even more embarrassed because he’s not making a big deal out of it.
“I didn’t mean to draw that.”
“I know.” He looks back at the pages, the unfinished sketches everywhere and finally looks back at me as he takes another drag of his cigarette. “You never finish them.”
I shrug, avoiding meeting his eyes. “I don’t know.”
“You do.”
I look at him this time, trying to figure out how he is so cold and warm at the same time. “I lost interest.”
“No,” he answers quickly.
“You seem very confident about this,” I say, raising an eyebrow.
“I am actually,” he adds as his eyes drop back to the sketchbook. “People who lose interest don’t spend months returning to the same thing.”
I follow his gaze at all those beginnings, all those abandoned versions of things I wanted to finish and the pressure in my chest loosens a bit. “I haven’t been able to complete anything in a long time.
“How long?”
I hesitate before exhaling and reply, “Years.” It sounds worse now that I said it. “I can start something, I can see it clearly in my head and almost get there. Then the moment it’s close to being done, I just…” I shake my head and continue. “It disappears.”
He leans back, looking toward the ocean, the sketchbook still open on the page where his hand is engraved in ink.
“Bring it tomorrow,” he finally says.
I frown and tilt my head in confusion, “My sketchbook?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
His blue ocean eyes meet mine as they turn cold again. “Because I’m curious whether you’re actually incapable of finishing something or if you’ve simply convinced yourself you are.”
“I’ve been trying for year,” I repeat as if it wasn’t clear enough that it will never change.
“And you’ve been trying the same way for years.” I don’t answer, because he’s right. He looks at it again and continues, “You sit alone, overthinking every line. Then you judge it before it even has the chance to become anything.”
I run my thumb over the edge of the cover as I close it shut. “And what exactly is your solution?”
A faint smile appears on his lips. “You’re going to be distracted by me,” he starts.
“We’ll talk and you’ll draw. You’ll stop listening to every thought telling you that the shape is wrong or that it’s not good enough.
” He shrugs slightly as he finishes his cigarette.
“Art isn’t supposed to be calculated, it’s supposed to happen. ”
Then he gets to his feet, and looks down at me. “Nice drawing, Miss Vitelli.”
I look at him disappear as he walks back to the building and I whisper a small, “thank you…”
A few minutes later, I receive a text from Library.
Library: I’m going to the shore, if you want to join me.
I read it, then again and my thumb hovers over the screen. It makes me laugh because he could’ve just asked before leaving.
He’s my professor, it probably is inappropriate but it’s just talking. Nothing else.
Me: Let me get Blue home first and I’ll join.
Library: I’ll be parked at the same spot.
This is also not in my plans.
What am I doing?