Page 51 of Rooke
“What does that mean?”
“I stole it from one of your neighbors.” He slams the door shut on me, cutting off my horrified gasp. He climbs into the driver’s seat and slams his own door, clipping his seatbelt into place. Rooke holds onto the steering wheel with both hands, eyes directed straight ahead. “Aren’t you going to put your seatbelt on?”
I continue to stare at him with my mouth open.
“Jesus Christ, Sasha.” He leans over and grabs hold of my seatbelt, yanking it across my body, fumbling as he tries to drive the metal clip home. I snatch the seatbelt away from him, ripping it from his hands.
“Seriously? You’re seriously worried about me buckling up when the car we’re in is fuckingstolen?”
“I was joking. Fuck. This is Jake’s car.”
“Who’s Jake?”
Turning on me, his eyes are blazing, filled with fire. “Jake is my roommate. I’ve lived with him for the past four years. You’d know that, but you don’t ask pertinent questions about who the fuck I am or about my fucking life. You just focus on the stupid shit that doesn’t matter to anyone but you. But you’re going to, Sasha. I’m not going to let you panic your way out of this one. I’m done, okay? I’m done standing back, allowing you to fuck this up, waiting for you to figure this shit out on your own terms. If I have to force you to see this, I will. Do you think I won’t lock you in a basement and fuck you stupid until you can finally see how important this is? Do you think I won’t hold you hostage until you admit how you feel? That you’re in love with me? That the way I touch you turns you on beyond words? I’ve been to jail, Sasha, and it’s literally the worst place on earth. It stinks, you’re worried about getting ass raped twenty-four fucking seven, and the food is enough to make you puke three times a day. I despised it there, but I’m willing to risk going back if it means you’ll quit this shit and just behave. Do you hear me? Do you understand?”
At what point do I give in? He speaks these words of truth to me, and I’m blinded by them. I can’t see which way to run, or which way to turn. I’m turned around, lost, and so afraid of the consequences of really allowing myself to fall for him that I push and shove against the very idea of it like a little child, refusing to accept the inevitable. There are a thousand ways to get hurt every time I step foot out of my front door, though. My heart is a resilient muscle now. It’s taken such a beating, had so many experiences at fighting to heal itself over and over again, when I thought there was just no way I would ever recover from the pain I was in, and yet each time I’ve found a way back, to heal, to recover and to keep on stepping through that front door.
If he hurts me, I can get over it.
If my heart gets broken again, what’s one more fracture amongst a spider’s web of scars?
Rooke presses his lips together, nostrils flared. He swallows, and his Adam’s apple bobs, shifting the ink on his neck. There’s a wild and untamable light in his eyes that reminds me of a storm out at sea—distant and far away, but obviously savage and dangerous in nature. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t move the car. He waits.
After a long time, I take a deep breath and I close my eyes. “Okay, Rooke.Okay. You win. I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”
TWENTY-FOUR
LET GO
ROOKE
Once when I was fourteen, I walked in on Sim and Richard. They were fucking. Or rather, they were havingintercourse. My mom was laid out flat on her back, eyes vacant and staring up at the ceiling, and my dad had this look of concentration on his face that made him look pained. They didn’t see me standing there in the doorway of their bedroom until Richard finished his perfunctory thrusting and collapsed onto the mattress. Sim turned her head, and there was a brief moment where we were connected, she was seeing me and I was seeing her, her pale pink silk nightgown still rucked up around her hips like a rape victim, and she looked exhausted. Beaten down. She looked so much younger than she did during daylight hours, when she was rushing around, cleaning, talking on the phone with her friends and telling me to keep my feet off the furniture. She was someone I didn’t recognize, and for a heartbeat in time I felt sorry for her. Then, the anger crept in around her eyes again, her mouth pulling down into a grimace, and she was back. Sim. My mother, annoyed and disappointed in me for the fifteenth time that day. Except this time she was embarrassed, too. It took me a while to figure out why: that having someone witness the mechanical, unpleasant nature of the love making she shared with her husband meant someone else knew there was no actual love left in her marriage.
I vowed back then that when I had sex with a woman, I would dedicate myself to her enjoyment. I would make sure shewantedme to be on top of her. I would make sure she was dizzy with wanting me and everything I had to offer.I swore I would know how to please her.
Did that mean I went out and I fucked a bunch of women to gain experience? Yes. Did that mean I got my ass beaten by seniors in high school when I screwed their cheerleader girlfriends? Fuck yes. Nearly every day of the week, before I was packed off to juvi. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t unsafe or stupid. I had a condom in my pocket at all times; I knew that it actually had to get used instead of just sitting there. As a result, while my stupid friends (Jake include) were all filling prescriptions for antibiotics to clear up their chlamydia and a colorful array of other nasty STIs, my dick was in perfect working order. When I got out of juvi, I fucked my way across New York, learning about a woman’s needs. It’s a thing of beauty, a woman’s body. Far more delicate and fragile than any clock or car engine I’ve worked on. I know how and where to touch, though. Where to lick, where to kiss, where to excite.
Sasha and I sit in silence as I drive her home from the hospital. Side streets whip by in a blur. Yellow taxicabs weave erratically through the traffic. The rain comes down so hard it’s next to impossible to see out of the windshield. My mind wanders as I go through the motions of shifting gears—where I’m going to kiss her first. Where I’m going to touch her. How many times I’ll make her come. How many times she’s going to scream my name. I have a solid plan by the time I pull up outside my place.
Sasha squints blearily out of the window, looking up at the building beside us. “This isn’t my house,” she says.
“I know. This is my house. I know you’re tired. I know you’re sick. It’s time you came here, though. You’ll be comfortable. You’ll be taken care of. Don’t even think about arguing with me, okay?”
She looks stumped for a second, then shakes her head. “I wasn’t going to.”
Well there’s a surprise. “All right then.” I get out of the car and I take my jacket off. By the time I’m around the other side of the car, I have it held out for Sasha to shield her from the rain. I can feel water trickling down my back, in between my shoulder blades as I walk her slowly to the house.
“Which apartment is yours?” she asks. Her hair is wet. Despite the shadows under her eyes, as well as the slight bruise there too, she looks fucking phenomenal. I find this is when people are at their most captivating. At least their most honest. She’s not wearing a lick of makeup, she’s getting soaked regardless of my best efforts, and she’s leaning against me for support. I want to scoop her up and crush her to me, hold onto her forever.
“I don’t have an apartment here,” I tell her. “It’s all mine. The whole building.”
“What? The whole…?” She looks up, eyes taking in the first floor, then the second, then third and the fourth. “What the hell, Rooke? How can you afford this?”
“I told you. I’m a spoiled little rich kid. My parents gave it to me as a living inheritance.”
She blinks, seeming to try and take in the information. “Wow. And I thought my place was overkill. So…only two of you live here?”
“Only the two of us. And don’t worry. I’m on the top floor. Jake’s two floors down. Sound doesn’t travel well at Chez Blackheath.”
