18. Eighteen
Eighteen
Sara
Idon’t look back. If I look back, I’ll fall. Every nerve in my body compels me to turn around, run back inside, and demand he finish what he started. He clearly loathes himself for ever kissing me, and I hate myself too for feeling the way I did when his lips crashed into mine.
You need to leave me alone, Liam.
I meant it. I think.
I’ve never felt so utterly powerless against my own desires. I’m totally fine. Absolutely peachy.
Shoving through my gate, I almost trip as it clangs shut behind me, and it's only then that I let the sob claw up my throat.
When I push through my front door, the house is empty.
Mom is at work. I lean against the wall, chest rising too fast, and wonder how much longer I can keep breaking like this.
I jump into a cold shower, trying to freeze my thoughts, but nothing can scrub off the feel of Liam’s hands or stop the memory of his mouth setting my lips on fire.
Nothing can silence his voice looping through my skull, rasped and ruined as if he hates himself for wanting me.
That stupid hunger I’ll never satisfy and it all seems obvious that I’m deliberately hurting myself by entering a wolf’s den.
Everyone who matters has shown me I’m disposable, forgettable. Isn’t love the endgame? Isn’t it what ignites the empty corners buried in our soul? My heart isn’t strong enough to give it to anyone, anyway...
It took me a few days to get a new phone and to notice my charming neighbor isn’t home, and more days to understand he left without a word.
At first, I told myself I was relieved. I can breathe again without Liam’s shadow looming over me.
But relief turned into emptiness as the weeks blurred, and that emptiness turned into hunger.
Without Liam, the silence presses on me heavier than his hands ever did.
Some nights I drown myself at Maggy’s lounge with Artemis’s laughter, Anne’s mischievous schemes, and Mimi’s endless chatter.
Hours spent at low tables under amber lights, Mediterranean breeze through open windows, and red velvet booth cushions cradling us to lean close and trade gossip.
Even when neighbors, acquaintances, and school friends drift in and out of our circle, the warmth remained.
These narrow streets know my footsteps, these cafés have memorized my order, and I know every merchant’s face, which I always politely acknowledge.
No matter how the loneliness claws at night until the world blurs, and I try to conceal it to the best of my ability, the pulse of this place tethers me to something larger than myself.
Anne has labeled me self-sabotaging, to which I reply with a “Can you blame me?” Thankfully, she reminds me each day that tomorrow will be a better day.
But tomorrow and the next tomorrow aren’t any better; Joe and Liam are gone—one dead and one as good as dead.
Until tonight particularly runs my blood cold.
“Do you know how to play poker?” Mimi inquires as we’re sitting in the red velvet booth from Maggy’s lounge.
She practically whispers as Artemis and Anne mingle with another group of girls who have just walked in.
Clem being one of them, and I wave at her.
The downside of knowing every other native in this village is that you can’t outrun anyone. Luckily, she’s one of the good ones.
I bring back my focus back to Mimi. “No, I don’t. Why are you asking?” I frown, cold sweat curls on my forehead as I force a relaxed posture.
“I’m getting into it. I was just curious.”
“Are there tournaments? Where do you play?” I ask, and she laughs.
“Not here. Maybe in Cannes.” She shrugs. “Around here, it’s mostly private games. Parties. Villas. Yachts. You have to know the right people.”
“Is that legal?” I push.
“Babe.” She snorts. “Half the people in this village do whatever they want and treat the law like an option. Especially in the summer.”
I chuckle along, but the humor quickly leaves my body as the briefcase, the money and chips under Joe’s bed gnaw at me, like pieces of a puzzle I’m not supposed to touch. Despite all the warnings nesting in my brain, I am too stubborn to wait for a truth to find me. I’ll find it myself.
Clem chimes in and sits next to me, snapping me out of my thoughts. “You girls should come to the Capitainerie and see all the boats come in and out for the race.”
“I’m sure it’s so beautiful from up there! What do you even do all day?” I ask her, smiling at the offer. It would be spectacular sitting inside that tower, right across from the lighthouse, but I have too much keeping me from wanting more these days.
“I’m in charge of letting the boats in and out, tell them where to dock. I monitor the cameras and the village lights by the lighthouse. It’s so fun to see the village lighten up! It’s beautiful up there. I get to read my book and stare at the sea…Come whenever.”
“I’ll bring my book and sit with you on your next shift.” Mimi says, and I nod at the sound of it, as we all drift back into conversations, but my brain is focalized on the poker games.
Walking back from Maggy’s lounge, my heels click against ancient cobblestones. I smile to myself at how messed up my life is.
Then I feel something…
My smile fades, as it always does…
I feel the weight of someone's gaze, heavy as a dead animal’s fur on my shoulders. It makes me spin so fast, my ankles twist in my heels, and I nearly topple over. The street stands empty, but I stop and wait. I won’t grant the satisfaction of hunting me.
My eyes focus on a movement that slips into the alley beside the Two Brothers Bakery.
Before I can blink and take a few steps towards the now forgotten shadow, only the lingering scent of cologne remains.
Why I keep my feet moving around the corner is beyond me, but as I step onto the road that curves toward the sea, headlights brutally illuminate me with their harsh white beam.
It’s just a parked car, not a predator’s engine growling low.
I've lost so much sleep my brain is pulling tricks, conjuring phantoms from grief and exhaustion, but someone with a familiar gait is in the driver’s seat.
I squint against the blinding glare, and as if they can read my mind, the tires shriek, the vehicle lunging forward with such violence I stumble backward, and the rush of air whips my hair across my face as it roars past.
A few afternoons later, I find myself in Mimi’s room.
She sprawls across her bed, incense curling from her dresser.
Her black hair splayed, and her blue eyes meet mine when I ask her to tell me more about the poker games.
She knows I’m here to ask questions I have no business asking, but she shouldn’t have talked about it if she didn’t want them.
I sit on the edge of her bed, waiting for her to either shut this down or throw me a bone.
Her smirk deepens, almost deviant. “What, you want in?”
“I’m serious, Mimi.”
She rolls onto her side, eyes narrowing, and her lips quirk with something darker.
“Yeah. I’ve heard things, but they’re not exactly poker games, Sara. They’re invitations with high stakes on yachts. If you don’t get an invitation twenty-four hours before, there’s no way to get on that boat.”
The words lodge in my chest. “And… what happens there?”
Mimi’s expression shifts, the smirk dimming. “What happens depends on who wins.”
A chill slides down my spine. “Okay, and?”
Her laugh is sharp, humorless. “There’s nothing that happens besides the aftermath I’ve seen of girls with new jewelry and men twice their age suddenly paying for their apartments.”
I press my hands into my knees to steady myself, wondering why Joe would have anything to do with these games that are clearly more than just poker. Liam tells me he doesn’t know — either he’s blind to the depravity, or he doesn’t know that Joe took part.
“And what Mimi? Are you one of those girls…?”
Her gaze sharpens. “Why are you asking?”
I force my face blank. “Just curious.”
She leans close, her blue eyes hypnotizing me. “A little too much curiosity and willpower will get you on one of those yachts, but once you’re on… you don’t decide when you leave. I saw how it worked.”
“How? When? Why didn’t you ever mention this before?” I risk asking.
“Last year, a little after my nineteenth birthday. I needed some cash after my mom’s divorce got so nasty. No one knew… I made sure of it.” Mimi tenses. “I'm not very proud of it. I needed to open up to you, and I figured it was time.”
“So did you… were you like a…?” I bite my lip, trying to sound the least judgmental, because I never would be. To each their own.
“I was just a waitress.”
“Mimi, did you… Did you ever see Joe at one of those?” Her eyes narrow at my question, but her expression shifts before I can decipher it.
“No, why would you ask that?”
“Would you be able to get me an invitation? I want to try new things he wasn’t a part of. It’s hard not to see him everywhere I go.”
Gosh, even my own lies taste like cow shit in my mouth. I don’t want distance from Joe. I want answers.
“Listen, if you need cash or something, I’d rather you ask me. Please stay away from those parties.” She pauses, thinking about how to word what she wants to say next. “I’d never judge you, Sara, but I wouldn’t suggest this route. Unless…”
“Unless what?” My stomach tightens.
She studies me for a beat. “Never mind. Yeah, sure I could, but that doesn’t mean I will.”
I eventually leave her house, walking to mine, my thoughts spiraling with too many things I’m unsure of.
Once you’re on… you don’t decide when you leave.
I shake off the incredible discomfort, and by the time I make it home and shut the front door behind me, someone is out there by my gate. Watching. Again.
And for once, I pray it’s Liam.