“Blaze says he’s all kinds of fucked-up,” Tan says.
“Yep, he is,” I agree.
“But you want him all the same.”
I nod at her words. “I do.”
“Do you think you want more?”
“I do, but he doesn’t. So, I haven’t asked.”
“You should. Because you’re going to get hurt. Call it off, Rochelle. Especially if he doesn’t want you.”
“He does,” I say in my defense.
“He wants your body. There is a big difference.”
I smile at her. “When did you get so smart?”
“I just know what hurt does to you. You lock yourself away.”
She’s not wrong. I’m good at hiding when I need to. The last time I did it, after my grandparents died, I was trying to hide with Marcus.
“I have to go,” I say, standing, then I lean down to cuddle her. “Can I come back next week?” I say into her shoulder.
Tanika tenses but relaxes at my touch. “Yes, I’d like that.”
I smile down at her. “It’s good you’re getting help, Tan. It takes a strong woman to do that.”
Sad eyes look back up at me. “You wouldn’t call me strong if you knew what I had planned to do.” A tear leaks free from her eye and slowly rolls down her cheek.
“But here you are.”
“Here I am,” she repeats my words, trying to smile for me.
I give her a small wave and off I go.
Looking at my cell for any missed calls from Marcus, I see none. It’s been a week now, and I know I said I would be the one to call, but I was silently hoping he would.
Chapter Seventeen
Marcus
“Do it,” Blaze yells next to me.
“Will you shut the fuck up,” I argue with him.
“If you had done it already, we wouldn’t be arguing,” he yells back.
“Well, if you shut the fuck up already, it would be done.”
“Fine, call me when it’s done.”
“Nope.”
“Arghh… just fucking ask her.”
“Nope.”
I can hear him grunting into the phone. “Ask her.”
“No,” I argue back. He won’t win, and he knows it. But that doesn’t stop him from trying.
“Just ask, you owe me this.”
“Nope. Now, I have to get back to work. So, fuck off.” I hang up on Blaze, pulling my mask back down and working on the body in front of me.
My brother once asked me when I was eighteen and he was seventeen, did I know what I wanted to do with my life.
At that time, I didn’t.
It wasn’t until our drugged-up mother had an overdose, and we had to go view her body at the crematorium, that I knew exactly what I wanted to do.
There was a viewing room and a man who showed you the bodies. I stayed well after everyone was gone. I sat in the dark corridors and watched him work. I was fascinated. I could see myself doing what he did, and when he placed my mother into the fire, it was then I knew it was my calling.
I loved my mother once, so fiercely despite all the bad. I loved her. It was the last time I swore to be blinded by a woman’s love.
My mother never once cared for us. We were irrelevant to her. Just a check which I ended up taking to feed Blaze and myself.
Blaze fell into a gang.
I fell into the dead.
Ironic.
It was poetic justice, really.
A loud bang comes on the door, and I know who it is straight away. Pulling my mask off, I walk outside to see Blaze. He’s leaning on the side of the building with a cigarette to his lips.
“Is she single?”
“Aren’t you with the other one… in rehab?” I argue back at him. He wants to know about pretty girl’s sister. I haven’t spoken to pretty girl for at least a month now. She hasn’t called, and I haven’t bothered.
My need for her is fucking strong, though, and it takes everything in me to stay away. So, I’ve taken on extra work. And extra workload from Blaze too.
“Yes, I just want to fuck her. Nothing more.”
“You sound like me,” I say, shaking my head and walking back inside. He hates this place. Hates it with a vengeance, so much so he hardly ever walks inside, always stands at the door.
“It’s because you showed me how to be this way,” he yells, as I get further in. “Just call her. You know you want to. You haven’t been with anyone else, maybe she will be good for you.”
“Love and relationships are never good for anyone,” I yell back at Blaze.
I look up and see him step through the door, just a fraction, so he can see me better. He wipes at his forehead and thins his lips—I know just coming in here this far is killing him.
“I’ll go see her, tell her how much of an ass you’ve been.”
“You’ll do no such thing, and if you do…” I close the door to the fire, “… I’ll put your ass in here and watch you fucking burn.”
Blaze waves off my threat and walks out. Pulling off my gloves and mask, I go straight out after him, but he’s already on the back of his bike with helmet in hand.
“At least fuck someone else. You’re a moody cunt.” He pulls the helmet on over his head.
“Who says I haven’t.”
Blaze starts the bike and revs it loud. It’s pitch black, close to midnight, and no one is around.
“You haven’t. I know you haven’t.” Then he pulls away.
I hate that he knows me so well. That he’s the only person on this earth who knows my fucked-up ways and still stays around.
They say love is something that suffocates you. That love is a permanent weight that will never lift you up, and forever hold you down, in that one spot you don’t wish to stay in. People are blinded by love and lose themselves in it. Some will take a fist to the face, a knife to the throat, and call it love.
My mother had a love like that. She was stuck in a state where she couldn’t escape, and I watched her time and time again trying to escape from such a love.
But love is like a tornado. No matter how many times you try to get away, it will spin you back right where you started.
I watch from my truck as Rochelle walks out of her work, her skirt is extra short today. Shorter than yesterday’s skirt, anyway. She smiles at a man as he walks up to her car, but I can tell it’s forced. Rochelle is someone who’s sweet, and far too pretty. She’s too good for the ugly that lurks just around the corner.
The only form of death she has known is the most recent one of her grandparents.
Someone like Rochelle doesn’t know what death is really like, only the outside of it.
She doesn’t know what pain is like—only the emotional kind.
A part of me despises Rochelle. I want to not want her. Actually, I want to hate her. But as I sit here watching her back away slowly from a man, I see I also want to protect her, and hold her, and most of all, fuck her.
She’s becoming my second addiction.
And I’m not sure how I feel about that.
How I feel about wanting her so much when she’s so good.
Pretty girl isn’t right for me, but that doesn’t change the fact that I want her.