David’s disappointment is clear. He scolds his older son before following our guests to the waiting room, either showing them out or making sure they really leave. Their voices travel through the empty office space, laughing amongst each other like they didn’t just threaten to kill their way through the city. Only devils can be so evil and make small talk after.
I leave the necklace on the table when it’s our turn to go.
Wilder drops us off at the apartment. I talk myself out of being disappointed when he doesn’t so much as look at me on the ride over. But when he drives away without saying goodbye, my heart breaks into bits and pieces. What did I expect? He owes me nothing, but he defended me anyway. Did I really think I could antagonize Luca fucking Coppola and get away with it?
Wilder and I shared a moment in his office, but we’ve been there and done that. He ignored me for months after the first time, and now I’ve given him a reason to pretend I don’t exist.
His life is on the line, and I deserve worse than his silence.
But it doesn’t make it hurt any less.
Lydia’s unraveling is gradual and then all at once.
She and Talent make it to their room before her tears ricochet off the walls. It’s Lydia’s anguish, but I stand at her bedroom door and feel it, hoping what little I take helps. The sound of her pain is guttural from deep down and as old as she is. Her carefully crafted fortresses stood up to everything but this. Every wall she’s ever built—barriers as tall as castles and as grand as mountain ranges—crumbles, shaking her very foundation until flat. What was it all for if in the end she still has to feel it? What’s the point if she can’t protect the only person she’s ever truly loved?
“Why is it so hard?” she cries out. “Why am I always so fucking lost?”
Talent is soothing, comforting, and strong when she isn’t. Which doesn’t happen often, but it’s happening now. His words are only for her, whispered into her hair or against her skin, maybe as he undresses her or maybe as he carries her to the bed. His tone is calm, sweet, persuasive—a declaration shared only between lovers. It softens the edge of her agony and eases her tears until their room is silent again and I walk away.
I light the candles on my dresser and the nightstands before I open the closet and unpack cartons upon cartons of new ones. Turning the gold and glitter dress box into a tabletop, I load it with candles and light them all. I burn them on the floor and on my bed. I hold candles against my body, and I hold them in my hands. My skin burns, and my fingers turn black from striking matches, but I sit amongst the blaze and think,this isn’t enough.It’s still too dark.
The memories are still too close. The feelings too real.
“What do you know about the harlots of the Bible?”Elijah asked. We’d broken into small groups for Bible study, and he chose me. Only me.
We sat in the corner of the large classroom, against the window with bars and a lock.
“Not much.”
Elijah scooted his chair closer to mine, until our legs touched, and I could feel his warm breath on my face. He opened the Bible like he was going to read to me, but he whispered instead,“Did you know that Mary Magdalene and Jesus kissed?”
“They did not.”
“Sure they did,”he insisted.“All of this lost gospel turned up in the thirties or forties. It’s not included in the Old Testament because the implication of these texts would be devastating to the church. They say Mary knew Jesus better than anyone else. They say she was his favorite disciple. They say Jesus and Mary were intimate.”
I elbowed Elijah and laughed off such nonsense.“Blasphemy.”
He shook with laughter.“Jesus shared the secrets of heaven with her. Do you think he’d do that if they weren’t fucking?”
“Then she was a temptress,” I said.I’d known Elijah for an entire year, and his language no longer shocked me. But this was sacrilege. This was new even for him.
“I heard they were married. She even carried his child. And they kept it a secret.”Elijah shrugged.“Mary stayed with him during the crucifixion, and she was the first person to see him come back from the dead. When she married someone else, Jesus took her husband as one of the Twelve. It could have been out of the goodness of his heart, or he was jealous.”
“Elijah,”I whispered, scandalized. But my heart sped up, and my cheeks warmed in excitement.“Shame on you.”
“That’s when she became a whore,”he said.“I mean, her first husband died for everyone’s sins, leaving her behind. He’s reborn, attends her wedding to a new man, where he turns water into wine. Jesus knew she’d need a drink after she found out he recruited her new husband to follow him. Why is anyone surprised she went on to sell her body?”
“None of that is true,”I insisted.“You’re being bad.”
“The point is, everyone has Mary Magdalene pegged as some lowly prostitute, but Jesus forgave her. He forgave all the prostitutes in the Bible, right? It makes me think that maybe things like kissing or sex before marriage isn’t really that bad.”He closes the Bible and turns to me. Elijah moves my hair off my shoulder and says,“If Jesus did it, why can’t the rest of us?”
I meet Talent by the coffeemaker the next morning, with blisters on my hands and the taste of sulfur in my mouth. The ends of my hair are singed off, and the entire apartment smells like blown-out candles. I knew better than to sleep with them on my bed, but the candles on the floor burned through the night.
“Did you light a bonfire in there last night?” Talent pours me a mug of coffee. He’s dressed for the office, in another sharp suit and expensive pair of shoes. From the outside, he looks utterly normal and pristine. But I can’t be the only one turned inside out with anxiety.
“I may have gone a little overboard,” I admit. “How’s Lydia?”
He’s good at hiding it, but I spot worry in the darkening of his eyes. It’s in the way he swallows too hard and hidden behind his sad attempt at a smile. Talent’s showing up and going through the motions, but a dark cloud hangs over all of our heads today.
