Page 27 of Shade
How could she?
I’m standing in front of the windows of the suite, the ones overlooking the city and I think back to the one and only time I’ve had Rhya here in Seattle with me. Two years ago.
For once in her fucking life, away from California, that day was the one day I saw her happy. That day I thought life would change for us. With coconut frosting on her lips, she kissed me, lied, and said I’d be her only.
“Do you think of dying, Shade?” I look at her, sugar-sweet cream on her lips, smiling up at me.
“No,” I tell her, though I’m not sure I’m being completely honest. I do. Sometimes. Hardly ever.
Freckled cheeks flush with the cool Seattle waterfront breeze. “Not at all?”
“Maybe a little.”
“Why is everything with you so planned? Don’t you ever think of not being the star?” I stare at her as she talks, searching her eyes for the answer to what drives her to questions like these. “Don’t you ever just want to run away and start over someplace fresh?”
“I am living right now,” I tell her, the crisp fall night slaps at my face with a spray of salty ocean-mist.
“I think I could start over, in a place like this where the rain is pure for my soul.”
I remember her face that day. I see her on the pier, eating the fucking cupcake, and I want to remember that as the last time I saw her, not the vision I have now of her, bloody, broken, gone. . . .
I once had a bad experience with coconut rum and gummy bears. Just the smell of rum now sends my stomach rolling. This, the image of Rhya even in the purest of days, much like that rum twists my stomach into knots.
Do you see the man by the window? The one crying, holding his phone in his hand to his head listening to the last message she sent him and remembering a city she wanted to start over in?
That’s a man who’s, by some degree, defined himself by saving a girl. He’s the same man who swore hewouldn’tdo it anymore and then she lethimgo. Who would he be now? How would he define himself if he wasn’t constantly trying to save her?
10:18 p.m. My phone rings. I don’t answer.
10:20 p.m. It rings again. Same caller. And I send my fist through the wall.
10:28 p.m. Rings again. This time I answer.
“She killed herself,” I tell Willa, hoping by saying it, maybe it won’t hurt anymore. I’m wrong. The words hit me. . . my skull. . . beats against my brain with a noise I’ll never shake. I clasp my hand over my mouth and squeeze to keep from screaming out my pain.
“I’m on my way up.”
“No.” I tighten my fist and look at it through teary eyes, the blood squeezing through my fingers where I’ve busted my knuckles. “I don’t need you to tell me it’s okay or get me to calm down. I just want to be alone.” My body tenses. My muscles protesting against the shaking is like they’re being torn from the bone. Ripped away like Rhya has been from my life.
“Shade. . . .” I can hear her walking, the noise of doors closing behind her and her frantic breath. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
Ridiculous? Do you see how that one word sets me off? Do you see the flush to my cheeks and the fire in my eyes?
“Fuck you,” I spit back. Ordinarily, I would never say that to Willa. “Stay away. Tell everyone else to stay away from me. Thisisn’tokay! It never will be! I don’t want anyone around me or trying to make me feel better.”
I hang up on her.
10:56 p.m. Willa calls back. She’s silent, but then says, “We need—”
“We don’tneedto do a motherfuckin’ thing. She’s dead, Willa.DEAD. Shit’s done. I’m not fucking around. Ido notwant your help,” I seethe into the phone, irritated she didn’t listen to me the first time.
She sobs into the phone. It’s probably shocking to her. My reaction. Rhya. All of it. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
“I want cupcakes from Cupcake Royal.” Cupcakes? I don’t even know why I’m asking for them. But then I demand, “Before midnight. Stay the fuck out of my room. I mean it. Call Tiller and tell him to get his own goddamn room tonight.”
She tries again. “Shade. . . .”
“No. I mean it.”
