THE NIGHT WAS RAINY AND cold, almost cold enough for snow but not quite. I was glad for the coat I’d invested in with Vicious’s money. I didn’t even feel guilty.
My new boss, Brent, a man in his late thirties, lived near the apartment we were about to vacate, so we’d shared a cab and then had a quick drink while he filled me in on what to expect at the exhibit.
My new job at the gallery was just an internship, and the pay was awful, but when Rosie saw the look on my face, she’d basically forced me to say yes. My baby sister was feeling much better and was picking up her old job as a barista once we moved. A job where the tips were great, and the owner was flexible with the hours she could work.
I tried not to give myself too much crap for agreeing to work for Vicious in the first place. My situation was dire, with Rosie’s health and everything, but never again. I was glad it would be over this weekend after we moved into our new place. I was eager to release myself from Vicious’s painful claws.
It was the New Year, and he was my resolution. I was done with him.
Brent and I hurried the short distance to the gallery through the horrible weather, and I heard a familiar voice that made my heart stop.
“Emilia!”
My first instinct was to not turn around, to keep on moving, especially since my new boss was there. But I wasn’t capable of ignoring anyone. Not even him. I spun slowly on my heel, the sleet lashing on both our faces as I drank Vicious in. He ran across the street to get to me, his whole body tensing when he noticed Brent next to me.
“Who the fuck is this tool?” He scowled.
Oh, God.
I blushed furiously, turning to Brent with a crimson face. The last thing I wanted was for my new job to start off this way. I inwardly cursed Rosie for telling Vicious where I was, because I knew he had no other way of finding out I would be here. Then I proceeded to also inwardly curse Vicious for having a broken gaydar, because Brent was clearly playing for his team, not mine.
“I’m so sorry, Brent. Please don’t mind him.” I kept moving, my eye on the entrance door ahead.
Brent quirked an eyebrow but thankfully didn’t say whatever was on his mind at that moment.
Vicious chased us, his long strides catching up with our hurried steps with ease. “I don’t care who this fucker is. We need to talk.”
“Please turn around and walk away before this evening ends with a restraining order. I’d hate for it to ruin your glowing finance career.” My face was dead serious and my voice so cold I wasn’t even sure it belonged to me.
We were power-walking on the sidewalk as he jogged beside us on the street, his hands tucked into his wet coat. I refused to glance at him because I knew I’d surely cave if I did.
“It’s important,” he said, ignoring my threat.
“Not as important as my career.”
“I’m not leaving this spot until you talk to me.”
Brent was looking all kinds of uncomfortable beside me, his expression begging for cues about how to respond: Did I need help? Did I want some time alone with this guy?
Sleet slashed down angrily and blew icy needles in my face, each like a sharp slap.
I narrowed my eyes at Vicious. “Stand here if you like. Turn into an icicle. I’m going inside to work.”
I let the doors swallow Brent and me and even managed not to look back once as I tramped into the gallery. Over the next two hours, I downed three glasses of champagne and discussed art with avid collectors. But not even my new job and Brent’s animated nods at everything I’d said made me feel better. My mind kept drifting back to Vicious and the fact that he had returned to New York.
The evening dragged. I was so angry—furious, to be exact—that he’d managed to ruin this for me too, that I spent the majority of my time plotting how to strangle him in my head as I patiently mingled with strangers and chatted about the merits of the paintings up for sale.
When it was time to leave, I called a taxi to pick up Brent and me. Twenty minutes later, the driver texted to inform us he was waiting outside. We waltzed through the doors—I was able to see the yellow car from the across the street—when a big shadow appeared in my peripheral vision.
Vicious.
He was soaked, wet to the bone, standing in the blowing sleet, glaring at the entrance door to the gallery, rubbing his palm over his ice-covered hair.
I sucked in a breath and wheezed. Had he been standing there the whole time? His clothes were heavy with water and his cheeks no longer tinged pink from the cold. He looked blue. Shivering. Freezing.
“Go.” I nodded to Brent, pointing at the cab. “I’ll catch another one. I have to deal with this.”
“You sure?” Brent pulled up his coat hood to shield his head from the sleet. He didn’t appear too eager to discuss my love life with me in this weather. Rightly so.
I used my hand as a visor to shade the sleet from my eyes and nodded. “Absolutely. He’s just a high school…friend.” The lie felt sour in my mouth. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Brent gave Vicious another curious look. He must’ve looked like a complete loon to him. After a brief beat, Brent disappeared inside the taxi and it drove away, red lights dancing as they chased the night traffic of New York.
The sleet was stabbing at our faces as we stood in front of each other, but I didn’t say a word. He looked at me helplessly, a lost puppy, and I wondered how I hadn’t seen it earlier. The complete and utter nakedness of his feelings. The pain. The ache. All the things that made Vicious vicious.
“You waited here the whole time?” I swallowed a sob. Because it really was sad, underneath all the anger I had for him.
He shrugged, but didn’t answer. He still looked a little perplexed. Like he, himself, couldn’t believe he’d done what he just did. Waiting for me in a winter storm.
“I don’t want to help you with Jo,” I said. I didn’t, but I still wanted him to get justice. I tried to convince myself that Vicious had other options to explore. His ex-psychiatrist…Eli Cole…
“Not what I’m here for. She’s inherited every single penny my dad had.” His voice was as detached as always. I barely had time to process this new information before he dropped another bomb. “Don’t quit.”
“I already have. Sent my resignation letter in the mail. Thought it’d be better this way, seeing as Dean is back and everything.” I watched as he squeezed his eyes shut, like this was another blow he wasn’t expecting.
I knew Dean was back in town because he’d left me a Post-It note on my door, informing me that my “steady dick” was out of town, but that I could still go up to the penthouse and ride another rodeo if I was feeling lonely.
Disgusting prick.
“Why?” Vicious asked.
“Why?” I almost laughed. The real question was why I’d agreed to work for him in the first place. “Because you have issues, Vicious. You treat everyone around you like crap. You had sex with me in my ex-boyfriend’s bed and then you take Georgia up to your hotel room, the night before your father’s funeral.”
You know, in a nutshell.
“I don’t give a shit about my father. You know what he let Jo do to me.”
“So you rushed home for the money? You disappeared without a word to me. I thought you were hurt or sick when you didn’t show up on Christmas Eve for dinner and didn’t answer my calls.”
“I was out of it when I got the call about my Dad,” he seethed, barely moving his mouth as he took a step closer. Our chests brushed, shivering against one another. “You were right, okay? I do have insomnia, and I sometimes lose a grip on things. Then my phone was dead, and I forgot my charger. Happens to people all the time. And Dean’s place? Yeah, it was a shitty thing to do, but was it really the end of the world? Did you fucking die?” He crooked one eyebrow.
I almost laughed. He looked so dead serious. Like I was the one making a big deal out of nothing.
“And about Georgia…” he continued. “You and I aren’t exclusive. We established that long before I touched you.”
My heart sank. Pain filled the space between us like a black hole we were both scared to fall into. “You did. And now I’m telling you that I don’t do non-exclusive relationships. I’m asking you to accept that, respect that, and leave me alone. You made it perfectly clear that I’m not your girlfriend. And that’s fine. But I don’t think we should keep in touch. We’re bad for each other. Always have been.”
I took a deep breath, thinking about my eighteen-year-old self. Alone and scared, staring at the world through wide-eyes and erratic heartbeats, with no one to look after me but myself. The bus rides from city to city. The “I’m-okay” letters to my family. The hurt, the shame, the pain. All Vicious’s fault.
“You know…” I smiled sadly, ignoring the sleet that threatened to freeze us to the sidewalk. “I used to think of you as a villain, but you’re not my villain. You’re your own villain. To me, you were a lesson. An important brutal lesson, nothing more and nothing less.”
I lied, because I wanted him gone. Because I wasn’t a good person at that particular moment. Visions of him clawing Georgia’s dress, the same one she wore ten years ago, assaulted my imagination. After he touched me. After he marked me.
“I’ve already secured myself a job at the gallery. This time, you don’t get to make the rules. This time, Vicious, you lose.”
That night, I did something I hadn’t done since the day I moved out of my parents’ house. I pulled out The Shoebox. Everyone had that shoebox with their little sentimental secrets. Mine was different, because it wasn’t full of things I wanted to remember. It was full of things I wanted to forget. Still, I’d carried it everywhere with me. Even to New York. I tried to convince myself that I’d taken it with me because I didn’t want anyone to find out about it, but the truth was, it was hard to let go of what we were.
Of what we could have been.
In a small and tattered Chucks shoebox lay the reason why I fell in love with Baron “Vicious” Spencer in high school.
It was a tradition at All Saints High to have an anonymous pen pal from the same school and same grade for the whole year. Participation was mandatory and the rules were simple:
No foul language.
No dropping hints about who you were.
And absolutely no switching pen pals.
Principal Followhill, Jaime’s mother, thought it would inspire students to be nicer to one another because you could never be sure that you weren’t actually talking to the pen pal you’d established a written friendship with. It was surprising how such an old-school, dated game stuck. People didn’t actually mind writing to their pen pals, it appeared. I saw the looks on people’s faces when the designated teacher for that day slid envelopes into their lockers, wishing they could pounce on said teacher and ask them who the heck their pen pal was. It was useless, though.
Principal Followhill was the only one who knew who was writing to whom.
But the students never did. The letters were always printed, not handwritten, and we were supposed to sign with fake names to keep our identities hidden.
All the same, I grew attached to my pen pal from the very first letter I received during the first week at my new school. Maybe it was because no one gave me the time of day at All Saints High. Black had decided to start our conversation like this:
Is morality relative?
—Black
It was a philosophical question an eighteen-year-old wouldn’t normally ask. We weren’t supposed to share our letters with other students, but I knew for a fact most pen pals talked about school, homework, the mall, parties, music, and just regular stuff, not this. But it was the beginning of the year, and I was feeling hopeful and pretty damn good about myself, so I answered:
It depends on who’s asking.
—Pink
We were only required to exchange one letter a week, so I was excited to get a letter back in my locker only two days later.
Well played, Pink. (Technically, you’re breaking the rules since I can tell by your name that you’re a girl.) Another question coming your way, and this time, try not to get around it like a pussy. When is it okay, if ever, to disobey the law?
—Black
I actually giggled, for the first time since I’d gotten to Todos Santos. I licked my lips and thought about the question all afternoon before I wrote back a response.
Well, Black, (and I fail to see how Pink is any different from Black. Clearly, you’re breaking the rules too, because I can tell by your name that you’re a guy), I’ll give you a straight, surprising answer: I think it’s okay to disobey the law at times. When it’s a necessity, an emergency, or when common sense overrules the law.
Like civil disobedience. When Gandhi went down to the sea for salt, or when Rosa Parks took a seat on that bus. I don’t think we’re above the law. But I don’t think we’re below it either. I think we need to be level with it and think before we do things.
P.S.
Calling me a “pussy” is breaking the no-foul-language rule, so technically, you’re practically an anarchist in the realm of this pen-pal world.
—Pink.
The answer came the same day, and it was an all-time record. Nobody was overeager to write more often than they had to, but I liked Black. I also liked the anonymity of the project, because I was starting to believe that Black, like everyone else, was treating me like crap daily just because I was the daughter of servants. I could use a friend.
I’m semi-impressed. Maybe we should break more rules by you coming to my house tonight. My mouth is not only good for talking philosophy.
—Black
I flushed red and crumpled his letter, throwing it into the trashcan next to my bed in my room at home. Here, I thought I was talking to someone who was actually funny and smart, and all he wanted was to get into my pants. I didn’t answer Black, and when I absolutely had to send my weekly letter, I responded with:
No.
—Pink
Black, too, waited until the very last day before he answered me next time.
Your loss.
—Black
The next week, I decided to stop playing games and write something lengthy. It was a bad week. The week when my calculus-book incident happened. Vicious took over my thoughts, so I tried to quiet him down by thinking of other things.
Do you think we’ll ever crack the riddle of aging? Have you ever wondered if maybe we were born too soon? Maybe one hundred, two hundred years from now they’re going to find a cure for death. Then everyone who lives will look back at us and think, “Well, they were screwed. We’re going to live forever!” Muahahaha.
I think I might be a pessimist.
—Pink
He answered the next morning.
I think it’s more likely that these people will have to deal with the wrecked, polluted world we left them because we did fuck-all and partied hard when they weren’t even a sperm and an egg yet. But to your question, no, I wouldn’t want to live forever. What would be the point in that? Aren’t you hungry for something? Don’t you have dreams? What weight and significance do your dreams have if they don’t have a deadline? If you don’t have to chase them today because you can do it tomorrow, in a week, a year, or in a hundred years’ time?
I think you’re just realistic, and possibly weird as shit.
—Black
I didn’t write him the next day because I was getting ready for another important exam, though I was planning to write him that evening. But it was too late. Black wrote another letter.
I didn’t mean it in a bad way. Your weirdness isn’t a turn-off.
—Black.
I bet that’s just a pickup line to try to ask me to come to your place again.
—Pink
I sighed, hoping this wouldn’t mean another dry-spell from letters. But Black wrote me after two days.
You only get one chance, sweetheart. I’m not going to ask again. You missed the train. Besides, I have a nagging feeling that I know who you are, and if that’s the case, I don’t want you anywhere near my bed, or inside my house.
Can wars ever be just?
—Black
My heart pounded fiercely in my chest for the whole day. I looked around in the hallways, trying to catch someone who might’ve looked at me funny, but no one did. Everybody acted the same way. Meaning they either ignored me or sneered at me. Other than Dean. Dean was hitting on me constantly. I wanted so badly to tell him no, wanted to explain that it was a bad idea, that I had feelings for his friend, but even I knew how pathetic that sounded. Falling in lust with your bully. Craving someone who found you disgusting.
Either way, I didn’t answer Black. I’d decided I’d give him a curt answer when I absolutely had to and steer the conversation elsewhere like last time. But I couldn’t. Because another letter came the following day.
I asked you a question, Emilia. Do you think wars can be just?
—Black
Now I definitely knew who he was, and every time I sat next to him in Lit class or saw him down the hallway, I looked the other way, somehow feeling angry with myself for talking to Black so freely. It was like Vicious had an intimate piece of me, now that he had access to my unabashed truths. Which was, of course, stupid. And as if there was any doubt left, my next letter from Black came to me two days after, but it wasn’t waiting in my locker. It was sitting on my desk, in my room, at the servants’ apartment.
Why do you never fight back? I stole your book. I bully you. I hate you. Fight me, Help. Show me what you’re made of.
—Black.
We exchanged blank pages for the remainder of the month. My letters to him were devoid of words, though I sometimes doodled something offensive when I was particularly bored. His letters to me contained nothing at all. I sometimes smelled the pieces of paper he sent me. I sometimes rolled them between my fingers, knowing he’d touched them too.
And then I started dating Dean.
I felt bad about it the whole time, but I did it anyway. I wasn’t using him, because I did like him. I didn’t love him, but love wasn’t something I necessarily thought I should feel at such a young age. It might’ve been easier to think that Dean didn’t love me either. Besides, we were good together. We had fun. But we both wanted to go to out-of-state schools and it made things lighter and less serious between us. At least I thought so.
Shortly after I started dating Dean, Black began writing again.
Can you tell the difference between love and lust?
—Black
I humored him, not because I wanted to, but because I relished every chance I had to talk to him.
Lust is when you want the person to make you feel good. Love is when you want to make the other person feel good.
—Pink.
The next time I got a letter from him, my hands shook. And they would continue to shake for the next few months as Black crawled into my soul and took a seat in the pit of my heart, making himself comfortable.
And if I want to hurt the person, is that hate?
—Black
I answered:
No, it’s pain. You want to inflict pain on the person who caused you to hurt. I think if you hate someone, you just want them gone. Do you really hate me, Black?
—Pink
It was the bravest question I’d ever asked him. He took the whole week to get back to me with that one.
No.
—Black
Do you want to talk about it face-to-face?
—Pink
Another week passed before he answered.
No.
—Black.
We ping-ponged for the remainder of the year, talking about philosophy and art. I was dating Dean, and Vicious was sleeping with everyone else. We never mentioned our real identities again. We never admitted to one another, not in person and not in the letters, that we were who we were. But it was becoming clearer that we were compatible.
And every time I saw him walking down the hallway with his lazy smirk and a harem of cheerleaders or his football crew trailing behind him, I smiled a private smile. A smile that said that I knew him more than they did. That they might hang out with him every day and attend his stupid parties, but I was the one who really knew the important things about him.
Even when he tried to kiss me that night, we didn’t discuss Black and Pink. If anything, the next week, he wrote to me as if nothing had happened. As if Vicious and Black were completely different people.
The one and only time he’d admitted to being Black was on the day I left Todos Santos for good. Our pen pal project had ended weeks ago, but I still found an envelope on top of my suitcase. The handwriting was unfamiliar, but I still knew who it was from. The outside said:
Open when you feel like you might forgive me.
I still hadn’t opened it.
Not even after we had sex, because I knew that wasn’t about forgiveness. That was about satisfying my need for him. And now? Now I still couldn’t forgive him, but finally my curiosity had won out over my self-control.
I pulled the last letter out of my shoebox, the paper yellow and brittle, and read it.
You were always mine.
—Black
