Chapter 50 Monk
FIFTY
Monk
I’m not sure what wakes me, but the clack clack clack of keys drags my body into reluctant alertness. I stretch my arm out, patting the empty spot where Verity was when we fell asleep.
“Vee,” I call, looking toward the bathroom, but the light is off in there.
I reach for my phone on the nightstand to check the time. Two o’clock in the morning.
I throw my legs over the side of the bed and press my palms to the mattress for a few seconds, still orienting myself. I follow the sound through the hall, down the stairs, and into the living room. Verity sits on the living room floor with her laptop, her back against the couch.
“Vee, what are you doing?” I ask, my voice sleep-rasped. “Baby, it’s two o’clock.”
She glances up from her laptop, her hair wet and clinging in thick coils to her scalp. She’s wearing only a bra and underwear, transparent with water.
“Why are you wet?” I ask, frowning.
“I had to get this out of the pool.” She holds up her missing shoe and goes right back to typing, like it’s not unusual for her to be dripping on the rug in the middle of the night, her laptop and a shoe cradled in her lap.
A kernel of unease I’ve tried to ignore has been growing inside me the last few days.
I can’t help but wonder if Verity might be approaching a manic episode.
I’ve been hesitant to ask her about it because I’m no expert and she knows her body, her mind, better than I do.
But also we’re in a great place. Finally.
She’s been at my house more than her own, and I prefer it that way.
I want her around all the time. That intensity, that heat and affection and respect we had before when we were younger—it’s back, but so much better now that we are more mature and there are no secrets between us.
I didn’t want to mess that up by confronting her about something that I’m probably wrong about.
But tonight was real.
Yes, we had some of the best sex of my life, but there is a relentless energy swirling around Verity.
Cooking so much food. Diving into the pool for this one shoe and then just sitting here, soaking wet.
Being up at all hours, not sleeping. This happened before when we were at Finley, what I chalked up to her being stressed about school.
Those were all threads in a pattern. One I missed because I didn’t know what I was dealing with or looking for.
Now I do.
“I think you should come to bed.” I walk over, crouch down, and close her laptop. “Get some rest.”
Her head snaps up and she immediately opens the laptop again.
“Monk, you don’t understand.” Her eyes fix on the screen. “I need to get this down before it leaves again. I got it! I got the angle for the show.”
“I thought you already had it.”
She gestures toward the keyboard. “That was before this.”
“And this is?” I sit down beside her, ignoring how the puddle she’s sitting in soaks my sleep pants.
“Black Pearl!” Her face animates like someone pulled a lever. “It used to be one of the few beach towns where Black people could safely vacation.”
“Right, yeah.”
“You always hear about Martha’s Vineyard, Oak Bluffs, but you don’t hear as much about the beach in South Carolina called Black Pearl.
At the time, it was the only all Black-owned oceanfront in America.
So I woke up with this idea that combines the elements of crime fiction and drama the studio is looking for with the romance and history I love set in Black Pearl. ”
“Crime fiction?”
“Yeah, so it’s the 1940s and there’s this group of family friends who vacation at Black Pearl beach every summer.
One of the daughters goes missing, but it’s not just her.
Three girls have gone missing that summer.
So it’s a race to find the girls, solve the crime, but there’s also all these complicated family dynamics.
Like her parents were going to tell the kids they were divorcing, but this gives them perspective, forces them to communicate, brings them closer. That kind of thing.”
“Who’s gay?” I chuckle at the startled look she gives me. “I’ve seen everything you’ve ever written, and somebody always gon’ be queer.”
She covers her mouth and giggles, but angles me a searching look. “Have you really seen everything I’ve written?”
“Seen it on TV or movies, yeah, unless I missed something.”
“Why?”
I shrug, but consider it for a few seconds. “Even when I was angry with you, when I thought you’d cheated on me, I was still proud of you and all you’d achieved. Is that weird?”
“No, I felt the same way. When you won your first Grammy…” She shakes her head. “Even knowing you wanted nothing to do with me, I wanted to be in the room. Wanted to drink champagne and… just see you happy. I knew you deserved it.”
I’m not sure how to respond to that, but it means something to me that I was lodged as deeply in her thoughts as she was in mine even when we were on the outs.
“So who’s gay?” I ask again, trying to get us back on track.
“Well, there may be these two guys, detectives who are set for a bi-awakening as they investigate the case together.”
“I called it! This sounds great and I’m glad you found something you feel good about pitching.” I gently lift her hand from the keyboard and take it in mine. “But you need to sleep.”
“I will.” Her gaze shifts back to the screen. “Just lemme get this one last—”
“Vee, now,” I say, my tone firmer. “You told me not sleeping can trigger an episode.”
“An episode?” She snatches her hand from mine and narrows her eyes on my face. “Is that what this is about? We have one conversation about my diagnosis and all of a sudden you’re my doctor? You gonna get scared every time I do something you think isn’t normal?”
“I’m not scared. Baby, I’m concerned.”
“Don’t be.” She stands, pushing the wet hair out of her eyes. “I told you I have bipolar because you deserved the truth about what happened at Finley, and because I hoped it would give us a second chance.”
“It has. I’m not leaving if you have an episode.” I look up at her, wrap my hand around her calf and stroke the smooth skin. “I just want you to be okay.”
“That’s what I’m telling you. I am okay.” She steps out of reach. “You need to trust me when I tell you I have this under control.”
I let my hand fall to my lap and shake my head. “It just felt like déjà vu, finding you up working, knowing bad sleep can trigger stuff, and some of what you did tonight.”
“Tonight? You mean the sex?” She runs a trembling hand through the curls rioting around her beautiful face. “You think I’m gonna peg you every time I have an episode or something? If you didn’t want it, then—”
“This isn’t about that and I think you know it. It’s this nonstop energy, cooking like four meals in one, diving in the pool in the middle of the night.”
“Nothing about any of that is bipolar. It’s just me. I get enough of this paranoia and coddling from my aunts. I don’t need it from the guy I’m fucking.”
“The guy you’re fucking?” My brows lower and snap together. “That’s all I am? All this is for you?”
She presses her palms to her eyes. “You know I didn’t mean it like that, but you can’t assume every time I have a deadline and need to work a little harder, stay up later, that I’m on the verge of mania.”
“Look, I remember you said your best work came when you were hypomanic and manic, and that you’ve been struggling with this script, but all of a sudden, it comes together.”
“So you just assume I’m manic because I finally found the right angle?”
“No, but I haven’t seen you do your morning yoga in a long time. Your sleep has been shit. You said yourself you haven’t had time for pottery lately, and you told me hobbies help. Are there other routines you’ve been missing? You were drinking wine tonight. I never see you drink alcohol.”
“One glass of wine! What are you? My warden?” She sputters a disbelieving laugh. “I didn’t realize you’d been watching my every move in case I lose it.”
“I’m not.” I squeeze the bridge of my nose and blow out a frustrated breath. “If you say you’re okay, I believe you. I missed it before, and it cost us a lot. I don’t want—”
“Me to fuck someone else?”
In the thick silence following her comment, my jaw clenches, frustration grinding my teeth. “I don’t want to lose you again.”
“I lost you, too.” Her eyes swim with tears. “But if you can’t trust me, what are we even doing?”
“Never mind.” I scrape my hands over my face and shake my head. “Never mind. If you say you’re okay, then I’ll let it go. I don’t want to be paranoid or to smother you the way you think your aunts do, but don’t ask me not to care. Not to check on you, even if you get defensive.”
“I’m not defensive,” she snaps.
I rise to my feet, lifting my brows because she must hear that shrill note in her voice like I do.
“Okay.” She releases a half laugh. “Maybe I am sometimes, but I get tired of constantly being babysat and watched for signs of a mental break.”
“I don’t want to do that, but I also don’t care if we fight about it.”
She narrows her eyes and cants her head, assessing. “What does that mean?”
“I’d rather fight with you than miss something because I wanted to avoid a confrontation.” I rest my hands at the curve of her hips, pulling her into me. “I trust you. I don’t trust it. I don’t trust the condition not to sneak up on you or to trick you into thinking you’re okay when you’re not.”
“Let me be the judge of that.”
“And what if your judgment is impaired?”
“Don’t say that shit to me.” She steps out of my hold and turns away.
“Not when you have no idea what it’s like being the unreliable narrator in your own story.
What it’s like not to trust your own mind.
Afraid to even trust joy in case it teeters into mania.
Afraid to express disappointment because people wonder if it’s the beginning of a depressive episode. ”
I take her by the shoulder and gently turn her back to face me.
“And what about love?” I tip up her chin, search her eyes. “Are you afraid to love?”
“When I’m manic, I’m not sure I can even trust love because what’s real? Is it a hallucination? A fever dream? Something I made up to—”
“I’m fucking right here, Vee.” I press her palms to my heart. “This is real and I’m not going to let you talk circles around it.”
She lowers her head, shields what’s in her eyes with her lashes. “Look, I told you—”
“That you love me,” I remind her.
“And I do. But this, what we’re doing, it’s the same thing I saw with my parents.”
“And that scares you?”
“How could it not?” she shouts, looking up, eyes wide and panicked. “You weren’t there that night. No one was except me. I’ve seen what this thing can do to a life, to love. We’re already fighting about my condition. Maybe we both need to think about this before we go any further.”
“Are you saying you don’t want this?” My head drops back and I stare at the ceiling. “First sign of trouble and you’re ready to give up on us?”
“No.” She cups my face, pressing my chin until my head lowers and we’re staring into each other’s eyes again. “I just don’t want either of us to get hurt. Maybe this is moving too fast. We should both weigh the options and be sure.”
“I am sure, Vee.” I clasp her wrist, holding her hand against my face, and kiss her palm. “I just wish you were, too.”
This time I’m the one to step away, out of her reach. It stings, that I just handed her my heart, my future, and she’s not even sure she wants it. I tighten my hands into fists and shove them into the pockets of my sleep pants, struggling to rein in my frustration, my hurt.
“Monk,” she says, her mouth trembling, her eyes shadowed with uncertainty and fear. “It’s not that. I just—”
“I leave for New York in the morning,” I tell her, turning away to toss the words over my shoulder as I head for the stairs. “The offer still stands if you want to come.”
The only answer is the clack clack clack.
Happy fucking Valentine’s Day.