Swap Out (5 page)

Her shoulders shake, and my left foot drops to the floor as I sit forward, covering our hands with my other palm.

“You don’t want this, Luca,” she whispers, and I shrug.

“You don’t know me that well. You have no idea what I want.”

She looks up at me, then rolls her eyes before she wipes at them. “I don’t know you, huh?”

“Nope,” I say and shake my head. “Did you know once upon a time, I was in a cult?”

“You were
what
?” she exclaims, and I wink at her.

“Don’t know everything, do you?”

She huffs, but a smile tugs at the corner of her mouth.

“Zoe, all I’m asking is you consider letting me be whatever you need. Do whatever you need me to do.”

“What I need,” she says, then blows out a breath, “is for you to let me do this.”

“If you never even considered the alternative, then why even tell me? If I had no say in the outcome, and you had already made up your mind, then what good did it do to bring me in on the…” I fumble for a work, finally settling on, “Situation?”

She bites her lip, then takes another breath. “When I tell you why, you will realize the person I am. That what I said in the kitchen was nothing but the truth.”

I tighten my hold on her hands, looking her squarely in the eyes. “No matter what you say, you will never get me to believe that. But you can do your best.”

She swallows, and I prepare myself.

It’s all an act, a desperate attempt to infuriate me into not caring.

“I told you,” she starts, her voice controlled, “because I am going to have to live with the consequences of my actions. I will always know what I did, the position you put me in and the choices you forced me to make. And if I have to live with that, then you will too.”

I exhale, then bring our hands up and uncover hers, pressing a long kiss to the back of her hand. Then I move, kneeling down in front of her, and she gasps.

I look up at her, taking in her eyes and everything about her, then cup her cheeks in my hands.

“Someday, someone is going to love you. He is going to make you his whole world, and there will be nothing you will be able to say or do to push him away.” I smile sadly. “God help that man, because you’re going to drag him through hell.”

She closes her eyes as the first tears slip out, and I ignore them.

“As for the life of our child…” I shake my head. “That guilt rests on you. And you alone.”

My touch disappears from her skin, and I stand, looking down on her.

“Goodbye, Zoe.”

I leave without another word, and she doesn’t stop me.

And for the first time since they’ve healed, I can feel each of the six shots that are scarring my back begin to bleed. I can see the non-existent dripping of blood, cascading down my spine and painting my legs. But it’s not the five that were embedded in my body before being dug out that will keep me awake tonight. It’s the one that went through me, carving through the meat of my shoulder and finding an unintended target.

Tonight, I’ll be haunted by the face of the person I failed to save.

I finish my beer and drop it into my trashcan, the one currently overflowing with bottles. There’s an appropriate time for everything.

Stumbling, I head to my refrigerator and open it, scowling when I see that was the last one. I drank the rest of the case already? Fuck it, I’ll switch to whiskey. I don’t care. I usually try not to drink it because it always ends bad, bad, bad. Like three dislocated fingers and a sore jaw, my keys magically appearing in my ice tray and a tire missing from my car along with multiple holes in my memory
bad
. But I don’t want to know what’s real right now.

I grab the bottle of Jack Daniels off my counter and spin the top off, letting it fall to the floor. And without bothering to hesitate, I lift the container of my self-destruction and drink and drink and drink some more. My throat burns and stomach gurgles, but soon I won’t feel anything. Not anger. Not helplessness. Not regret.

I take a breath and swipe the back of my hand over my mouth, keeping my jaw locked shut when it all tries to come back up but I keep it down. It needs to stay where I put it and do exactly what I need it to. Erase.

I set the bottle down and stretch out my arms, rolling my neck and jumping a few times to try to get my blood pumping faster. I want it to coat my veins, to rename my existence and turn back the clock. Or turn it forward to a place where I don’t remember the name of the girl who did her best to destroy me, and all with a finesse sociopaths would try to model.

Empress Zoe, the sickest, craziest, soul-sucking succubus to ever grace this planet. I should have known since all she drinks is coffee.

“Let’s get to work,” I say and smirk at the bottle of Jack, my hand clumsily knocking it an inch to the side when I go to pick it up, but I catch it at the last minute before it crashes to the floor. Chugging, I walk back towards my living room, but I stop in place when the whiskey fucks with my hearing.

It has to be the whiskey. Because no one should be knocking on my door. Unless it’s Sunday already because I have some vague recollection of making plans with my buddy Scott. But I don’t remember what they were, and I don’t even know what time of day it is. Or
what
day it is.

I hold up the bottle so my eyes are level with the dancing label. “Did you knock on my door?” I ask, but the bottle just stares back.

I scoff and wait, then the sound happens again. I shrug to no one, then stroll over and open the door.

“Fuck, it’s dark out here,” I mumble, then lean against the doorframe and take a long pull.

Zoe doesn’t respond, just standing with her arms hugged around herself as she stares at me. She’s all splotchy and her eyes are red and mascara smudged like she’s been crying again. Sucks for her.

“You kill my kid yet?” I ask, and she flinches while I take another drink.

“It’s barely Saturday morning. You left my house three
hours
ago.”

My brow furrows. “That was like, a fuckin’ week ago.”

“No, Luca, it wasn’t.” She sniffles and then wipes at her eyes. “How drunk are you?”

I tilt my head, then consider. “Drunk enough that I forgot to slam the door in your face. Speaking of which…” I smirk, then straighten. “Buh bye.”

I swing the door closed and turn away, already three swallows in towards my couch when I hear the latch click. Huh. Took longer than normal. I collapse on my sofa and prop my crossed ankles on the coffee table, groaning when I see Zoe standing on the wrong damn side of my door.

“Can’t you just…like…disappear already?” I take another long swig and she shakes her head, then walks toward me and holds out her hand.

“Give me the bottle, Luca.”

“Why, you want a drink?” I slur. “Guess it doesn’t matter, huh? No long term consequences you have to be worried about.”

She crosses her arms. “I wasn’t going to drink it.”

“Why? What the fuck do you care? And why aren’t you
gone
yet?”

She huffs and then moves around to sit next to me on the couch, and when she lays her hand on my arm I flinch away from her.

“Get away from me. I fucking hate you.”

She sighs, her hands falling to her lap and her voice quiet and ashamed. “Luca, I know I was crazy earlier, but I promise I am calm now and I want to talk to you. That’s all.”

“No!” I yell. “I tried to talk to you and all I got was ‘My soul is dead and I’m the devil and
boo
, I’m so scary.’ Oh, and let’s not forget ‘I’m a vindictive bitch and going to make your life hell just because I fucking feel like it.’”

She turns towards me, pulling her feet up and hugging her legs, and I look away, taking a long drink.

I don’t care how pitiful she acts or how much she cries. I tried, and she made her own stupid choices. She can suck it up like the rest of us.

“Luca,” she starts, and I roll my eyes and take another drink to drown her out. But unfortunately, I still hear her when she says, “I made a mistake with you.”

“So you’ve said,” I mumble, refusing to look at her.

“No,” she says quietly, her fingertips gentle on my jaw when she turns my face back towards her.

The shape of her is fuzzy and slipping between one and two Zoes, her ponytail falling forward over her shoulder starting to slither into a serpent promising a slow and painful death. Any second her teeth will probably sharpen into fangs, and it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if she hissed and then lunged to rip out my jugular.

“I should have stayed away from you from the beginning, because you don’t deserve this,” she says, and I forget to blink. “But I couldn’t stay away, no matter how much I told myself I was being selfish.”

I stare at her, then chuckle cruelly. “You weren’t here because you wanted me, Zoe. You were just making sure the choke collar was locked tight around my neck. We both know it.”

“What?”

“
Control,
Zoe,” I growl, and she swallows. “That’s all you care about. It wasn’t about me, it wasn’t even about sex. It was about you trying to keep me in line and behave how you wanted. Except you missed one little detail: I don’t bow down to you, and I won’t.”

“Is that what you really think? That I was manipulating you?”

“No,
you thought
you were manipulating me. But you weren’t. I was a step ahead of you the whole time. What do you think about that, Miss I Make the Rules? Because guess what? You don’t make shit! I rule me, not you.”

She shakes her head. “You’re not making any sense, Luca.”

“I don’t have to make sense. And get out!”

She winces, and I look away again and take another long drink. “Please stop,” she whispers, and I look to her with a glare and then drink some more.

She closes her eyes and shakes her head, and when I’m damn good and ready and not a moment more I set down the bottle, letting it balance precariously on my knee like a trophy.

“This is what you wanted,” I say and loosely smile. “You wanted me to hurt, to feel regret, to drown in guilt. I’m just doing what I always do, Zoe. I’m giving you exactly what you want.”

“No…”

“You win.” I grin sloppily. “You should be happy. Why aren’t you happy?”

“Because I’m worried.”

I snort. “You don’t care.”

“I do,” she says, nodding. Her eyes sparkle with tears as her hands cup my jaw. “I do care, and I want you to stop.”

“You are so fucking bipolar. One minute, you hate me. The next, you care? Do you have any idea how much therapy you need?”

She nods. “I was in it for years, but…” She blows out a breath, and my brow furrows. “I couldn’t be fixed.”

“What are you talking about?” I mutter, my eyes starting to droop closed. I make them open and the whole world spins for a moment, Zoe in the middle.

“I mean what’s wrong with me, the things I did.”

“The people you killed?” I slur, and she nods, sniffling.

“Yeah.”

“Hmm.” My eyes close and my head falls forward, bobbing on my neck until it’s tilted back up by delicate hands.

“Luca, give me the bottle,” Zoe says more firmly, and I huff.

“No, get your own.”

“Give it to me!” she snaps, and I groan.

“Selfish…”

Weight leaves my left hand, a loud thunk following it before I’m being shifted and can suddenly smell Zoe’s lotion. I moan at the softness of her skin and nuzzle a little closer, and Zoe sucks in a breath and then the world tilts.

“Seriously?” she says, but my only response is a hum when dainty nails start pulling through the back of my hair.

“What’s that sound? It’s so fucking loud.”

“My heartbeat,” she says quietly. “You decided you needed to lay on me.”

“But I don’t like you.”

“I know.”

We stay quiet for a while, and I almost drift off under the sensation of her nails in my hair, the lullaby of her heartbeat. But my mind is reminding me that tonight may be the only time she’d ever dare to answer my questions, and I need to know the truth.

“Zoe?”

“Mm-hmm?”

“Who’d you kill?” I ask, and suddenly I’m a lot warmer as arms and legs wrap around me. What the hell am I doing laying on her anyway?

Because I know I’m on my couch, but Zoe is between me and the black leather. I can feel the hem of her V-neck shirt against my cheek, the button on her jeans scraping my abs. My hips are centered between her thighs, my right arm under her back and my left hand settled on the curve of her waist. But there’s something else between us, and it’s the reason she hates me.

That’s what she said. That she hated me.

“Are you going to remember any of this tomorrow?” she says, and I faintly shrug.

“Probably not.”

“Okay,” she breathes. “When I was sixteen, I…I got pregnant.”

I lift my head and look at Zoe, and she holds my gaze.

“Yeah,” she says, and I lay my head back down on her chest because it’s too heavy not to.

“Abortion?” I ask, even though I already know the answer, and I feel her nod. “Why’d you do it?”

“I thought I loved him,” she says, and I have no idea what that means. How one equals the other. But she doesn’t seem like she’s going to elaborate so I just shake my head.

“No wonder you’re crazy.”

She lightly laughs. “Five different therapists have told me how because I refuse to forgive myself, or him, that I will continue to harm those around me because that’s how I choose to punish myself. By driving everyone away.”

I take a deep breath, dizzy and drunk and so confused about what’s happening. Because she just blurted out—if I’m right about what she’s implying—the most fucked up thing I can imagine, like we’re close or something. Like she trusts me. But we don’t talk like this because she doesn’t trust me, and I don’t trust her either.

Granted, there have been times when I thought I could. Times when I wondered if there could be more. A certain look she’d give me when no one was looking, and for a fleeting moment, the other night when it felt like we were making love instead of just having sex.

But she always makes me push the thought away when she turns on me, yelling about this or being irrational about that.

Like how she only informed me about being pregnant so she could drop the bomb that she wasn’t going to stay that way.

But once again, here I am. Because instead of cutting myself loose, I keep letting her back in, giving her another chance. Curiosity or masochism, I don’t know what it is. But it sure as fuck isn’t healthy. She’s like cancer that I keep volunteering for.

“What happens when they keep coming back for more punishment?” I ask, and she takes a deep breath, her palm cupping my cheek as I listen to her heartbeat speed up.

“That’s what scares me the most about you.”

“You’re not scared of anything. Least of all me.”

“I am,” she whispers. “I’m broken, Luca, and I’m sorry I can’t give you what you want. I will never be able to trust you, or love you—”

“You won’t even try.”

My mind stumbles at what I just said, because I don’t know where that even came from. Christ, I need more therapy than she does if I’m actually trying to convince her to stick around.

“I
can’t
. But that’s not because of who
you
are. And you’re right, I am lucky to have you,” she says softly, and my brow furrows. I must be drunker than I thought, because there’s no way Zoe would ever say that. “Any woman would be,” she continues, and that’s it. That’s how I know this isn’t real. I’m probably lying in a coma on my kitchen floor.

Screw it, bring on the weirdness because this is all fake anyway.

“Why can’t you give it a chance?” I ask, frustrated. If I’m going to have a conversation with a figment of my imagination, I may as well be honest. I lift my head and look at her. “Do you think I’m going to do what that guy did? You think I’m going to force you into something or that I’m going to bail?”