I press my face against the window, watching the man jog off into Lincoln Park. He moves quickly for someone so massive.
Then I sink back in my seat, feeling like the whole car is spinning around.
What on earth just happened?
I can’t believe I kissed him.
That was my very first kiss.
I went to an all-girls boarding school. And while that didn’t stop any of my classmates from finding romantic partners—male or female—I never met anybody I liked enough to date. I never had the time, or the interest.
In all my wildest imaginations, I never thought my first kiss would be with a criminal. A kidnapper. A carjacker. And who knows what else!
I don’t even know his name. I didn’t ask him, because I didn’t think he’d tell me. I didn’t want him to lie.
My heart is slamming against my ribs. My dress feels too tight around my chest, and I keep breathing faster and faster.
That ten minutes together in the car seemed like hours. And yet, I can hardly believe it happened at all. No one else would believe it if I told them.
I can’t tell anyone about this. For one thing, my father would be furious. Also, as foolish as this sounds, I don’t want to get that man in trouble. He stole the car, yes, but he didn’t hurt me. He didn’t even take the Benz with him.
Actually . . . he was quite a gentleman. Not in manners—he was rough and abrupt, especially at first. His voice sent shivers down my spine. It was deep and gravelly, definitely the voice of a villain.
He didn’t look like a gentleman either. He was huge—both tall and broad, barely able to fit in the car. His arms looked as thick as my whole body. He had ink-black hair, rough stubble all over his face, black hair on his arms, and even the backs of his hands. And his eyes were ferocious. Every time he looked at me in the mirror, I felt pinned in place against the seat.
Still, I believed him when he said he wasn’t going to hurt me. Actually, I believed all the things he said. The way he talked was so blunt that it seemed like he had to be honest.
I press my palms against my cheeks to cool them off. I feel flustered and hot. My hands are hot, too—they’re not helping.
I can’t stop thinking about his eyes looking back at me, that rough voice, and those insanely broad shoulders. His huge hands gripping the steering wheel . . .
I’ve never seen a man like that. Not in any country I’ve visited.
I feel my phone vibrating in my little clutch, and I pull it out. I see a dozen missed calls and many more messages.
I pick up the call, saying, “Tata?”
“Simone!” My father cries, his voice thick with relief. “Are you alright? Where are you? What’s happening?”
“I’m fine, Tata! I’m okay. I’m at the History Museum, at the corner of Lincoln Park.”
“Thank god,” my father cries. “Stay right where you are, the police are on their way.”
I couldn’t leave, unless it was on foot. I never got a driver’s license.
It only takes minutes for the police to arrive. They pull me out of the car and surround me, putting a blanket around my shoulders, asking me a hundred questions at once.
All I say is, “I don’t know, I don’t know,” over and over.
They take me directly back home, on my father’s insistence I’m sure. He’s already waiting out on the front porch. He pulls me away from the police, telling them not to ask me any more questions.
Mama keeps kissing me and holding my face between her hands like she can’t believe it’s really me.
Even Serwa is awake and down from her room, wrapped up in her favorite fuzzy robe. She hugs me too—not as hard as Mama. I hug her back just as gently. My sister is ten years older than me, but a head shorter. I rest my chin on her hair, smelling her familiar scent of jasmine soap.
Once the police are gone, the real interrogation begins.
My father sits me down in the formal living room, demanding to know what happened.
“A man stole the car, Tata. I was in the backseat. He told me to get down and cover my eyes. Then he dropped me off.”
The lie comes out of me with remarkable ease.
I’m not used to lying—especially not to my parents. But there’s no way I could explain to them what really happened. I don’t even understand it myself.
“Tell me the truth, Simone,” my father says sternly. “Did he touch you? Did he hurt you?”
“Yafeu—” Mama says.
He holds up a hand to silence her.
“Answer me,” he says.
“No,” I say firmly. “He never touched me.”
It was me that touched him.
“Good,” my father says with immeasurable relief.
Now he hugs me, wrapping his strong arms around my shoulders and squeezing me tight.
I wonder if he would have done that if I had been “touched?”
“You missed your party,” I say to Mama.
“It doesn’t matter,” she says, tucking a lock of pale, shimmering hair behind her ear. “Mon, Dieu, what a city! I knew this would happen. Everyone said it’s all criminals and thieves here, shootings every day.”
She looks at my father with reproach. It’s always his choice which appointments he takes, where we go. Only twice has my mother put down her foot with him—when she was pregnant with my sister, and then with me. She insisted on going home to Paris both times so we would be born on French soil.
My father’s personality is so strong that I’ve never seen anyone win an argument with him. I’ve certainly never done it. He’s like a glacier—cool, and immovable. Nothing can stand before him. He could crush an entire city in his path, given enough time.
It took an immense amount of will to escape the poverty of his birth. Nobody else in his family made it out. He had three older sisters—all three died or disappeared while he was still a boy. His parents are gone, too. He’s a world unto himself. He’s Jupiter, spinning around the sun, and Mama, Serwa, and I are tiny satellites, pulled along in his orbit.
I don’t think Mama minds, generally—she told me she fell in love with my father the moment she laid eyes on him. She’s been devoted to him since. He was incredibly handsome—tall, lean, as sharp as if he were carved out of obsidian. But I know it was more than that. She was an heiress, born in luxury. It was his obsessive drive that she loved. She’d never seen anything like it amongst all the children of privilege.
On their wedding day, she handed him control of her trust fund. In one year he grew it to three times its original size.
I wonder if there really is such a thing as love at first sight.
What does it feel like?
Does it feel like an arrow shooting into your chest, every time a pair of coal-black eyes fix on yours?
I can feel my face flushing all over again, just remembering.
“What is it?” Mama asks me. “You look strange. Do you need water? Food?”
“I’m fine, Mama,” I assure her.
My father is getting up from the couch.
“Where are you going?” she asks him.
“I’ve got to talk to Jessica.”
Jessica Thompson is his assistant.
“Right now?” Mama says, that line between her eyebrows appearing again.
“Immediately. She’s going to have to issue a press release. There’s no covering up the fact that our daughter was abducted. Not with all the commotion at the hotel.”
This is my father’s way—as soon as one problem is solved, he’s on to the next. I’m safe, so the next task at hand is damage control.
“It’s fine, Mama,” I say. “I’m just going to go to bed.”
“I’ll go up with you,” Serwa says.
I know my sister means it kindly, but honestly, she’s probably the one who needs help up the stairs. She’s currently in the throes of a lung infection, and her antibiotics aren’t working.
As we climb the wide, curving staircase, I slip my arm around her waist to help her up. I can hear her wheezing breaths.
My bedroom is the first on the left. Serwa follows me in, sitting on the edge of my bed.
I turn around so she can unzip my dress for me. I’m not embarrassed to be naked in front of her—Serwa is so much older that she’s always taken care of me, from the time I was little.
I step out of the dress, hanging it up carefully again in the closet. I only wore it a short time, and I never danced in it—there’s no need to send it to the cleaners.
As I hunt around for my favorite pajamas, Serwa says, “So tell me what really happened.”
I use the excuse of the pajamas to avoid looking at her.
“What do you mean?”
“I know you didn’t tell Tata and Mama everything.”
I find my pajamas with the little ice cream cones all over them and pull them on.
“Well,” I say, from inside the comforting darkness of the pajama top, “he was very handsome.”
“The thief?” Serwa cries.
“Yes—shh! Mama will hear you.”
“What did he look like?” Serwa whispers, her eyes bright with curiosity.
“He was huge—like one of those Russian powerlifters. Like he eats a dozen eggs and two chickens every meal.”
Serwa giggles. “That doesn’t sound handsome.”
“No, he was. He had this brutal face, broad jaw, dark eyes . . . but I could see he was intelligent. Not just a thug.”
“You could tell that just by looking at him?” Serwa says skeptically.
“Well . . . we talked a little too.”
“What!? About what?” she says, forgetting to be quiet again.
“Shh!” I remind her, though this house is massive and it’s unlikely anyone could hear us unless they were standing right outside the door. “Just . . . about everything. He asked where I was from, where I lived, and why I was crying before the party.”
“Why were you crying?” Serwa asks, frowning.
“Tata found out about Parsons.”
“Oh,” Serwa says. She knew I was applying. She was too kind to tell me it was a terrible idea. “Was he angry?”
“Of course.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, hugging me. “Cambridge is lovely, though. You’ll like it there.”
Serwa went, just like she was supposed to. She graduated with distinction, with a master’s in macroeconomics. She was offered an analyst position with Lloyd’s of London, but before she could start, she caught pneumonia three times in a row.
My sister has Cystic Fibrosis. My parents have paid for every type of treatment under the sun. And often, she gets better for months at a time. Or at least, she’s well enough to attend school or travel. But always, right when she’s on the cusp of her next achievement, it brings her low again.
It’s been the shadow hanging over our family all along. The knowledge that Serwa’s life is likely to be shorter than ours. That we only have her for so long.
That would be tragic in and of itself. What’s worse is that my sister happens to be the kindest person I’ve ever known. She’s gentle. She’s warm. She never has a bad word to say about anyone. And she’s always been there to help me and support me, even when her lungs are drowning and she’s weak from coughing.
She’s still so pretty, despite her illness. She reminds me of a doll, with her round face, dark eyes, flushed cheeks, and hair pulled back from a straight center-part. She’s petite and delicate. I wish I could hold her like a doll and protect her from anything awful happening to her.
I don’t tell Serwa about the kiss. It’s too bizarre and embarrassing. I’ve never behaved like that before. She’d be shocked. I’m shocked at myself, quite honestly.
“Well, I’m glad you’re safe,” Serwa says, squeezing my hand. My hand is bigger than hers. All of me is bigger—I grew taller than her when I was only ten years old.
“I love you, onuabaa,” I say.
“I love you, too,” she says.
Serwa goes back to her own room. After a moment I can hear the sound of her vibrating vest whirring away, knocking the mucus out of her airways.
I put on headphones, because that sound makes me sad.
I lay in my bed, listening to my Apocalypse playlist. I never listen to peaceful music to go to sleep.
I squirm under the covers, remembering the moment my lips met the lips of the thief . . . heat flooded through my body like a match thrown into dry grass. The flame spread in all directions, consuming everything in its path.
It was over in an instant, but it keeps repeating again and again in my brain . . .
I drift off to the sounds of “Zombie” by the Cranberries.
