Page 121 of Make Me Sin (Bad Habit 2)
This isn’t real. I’m having a nightmare. This can’t be happening.
I don’t realize I’ve spoken aloud until Heavenly glances up at me. “They think the tumor is what caused his chromesthesia. It presses on the optic nerves.
He’s probably had it since childhood, but he only found out about it four years ago, when he had a CT scan after he was hit in the head by a bottle someone threw onstage. That little scar above his eyebrow? It’s from that bottle.”
With a shudder of horror, I remember something A.J. once told me.
So you started fighting for your keep.
Earlier than most, because I was big, and always angry anyway. I didn’t understand why I was so different, why I saw colors in sounds and no one else did. I felt like a freak.
“So because he refused surgery to remove the tumor, they gave him a year. He was stronger than they thought, obviously.” She laughs softly to herself, shaking her head. “He’s too stubborn to die on schedule.”
I’m sick and reeling, but I manage to ask, “Why would he refuse surgery?”
She pulls in a deep breath through her nose, then lets it out all at once. “Because even if they could successfully remove the tumor, he’d be blind. He said he’d rather die.” She looks at me, her eyes glittering. “That’s what he thinks he deserves, anyway.”
Tears stream down my cheeks. I don’t bother to wipe them away. They don’t matter. Nothing else matters.
Heavenly looks at the ceiling. “He used to talk about you. All the time, all he could talk about was you. You know it was him who had the elevator and security gate fixed in your apartment building, right? The management company didn’t move fast enough when he threatened them with a lawsuit, so he paid for it out of his own pocket. Twice what it should have cost, not that he cared. He would have paid any amount to make sure you’d be safe.”
My mouth is open. No sound is coming out. But Heavenly isn’t paying attention; she keeps on talking, telling her story as if she’s grateful to finally be getting it off her chest.
“We watched this movie together once, Moulin Rouge!. There’s this part where someone sings something like ‘Suddenly my life doesn’t seem such a waste,’ and he turned to me and said, ‘That’s it. That’s how I feel about her.’ This was before the two of you were together. And then when you got together, I didn’t see him again until the Memorial Day party.” Her voice breaks. “And I was really happy for him. For you both. And also, really, really sad because I knew you didn’t know. He didn’t want you to know.”
She looks at me again, and now her eyes are wet. “He hated himself for letting you fall in love with him, knowing he didn’t have much time left. And at the end, he thought it would be better if he made you hate him, too. He thought it would be easier for you, when the time came, if you’d already put him far behind. He didn’t have the strength to walk away from you, so he made it so you’d be the one to leave. And he knew the only way he’d be able to stay away from you today is if he brought me, so you’d hate him all over again. He thought he was doing the right thing. For you.”
Heavenly pauses, swallowing. She whispers, “Right or wrong, Chloe, everything A.J.’s done since the day he first met you has been for you.”
I’m moving. The decision wasn’t made in any conscious part of my brain; my feet are just obeying some urgent, subconscious command. I run out the door, flying over the short path back to the ballroom with my heart in my throat.
Dying. Dying. Dying. It echoes inside my head. I can’t let that happen. He can’t die, not now, not ever. I have to tell him, I have to let him know about the baby, make him change his mind about the surgery—
The sound of people screaming makes me falter, then stop. Abruptly, the music inside the ballroom cuts off. The shrill, high-pitched squeal of feedback from a microphone fills the night air, and then there’s an eerie silence.
From somewhere behind me, a cop comes running. He pushes past me, barking into a handheld radio. In his other hand he holds his gun.
I bolt toward the ballroom. People have started streaming out in panic, some of them screaming, some silent and white faced with fear. I run past them, shove my way through one of the doors, and look wildly around, trying to find the cause of the uproar. Twenty steps in, I come to a dead standstill.
In the center of the empty dance floor stands Eric. He’s got my terrified, crying mother in a chokehold.
He’s holding a gun to her head.
“Where is she?” he screams, looking around wildly. He drags my mother backward toward the abandoned stage.
Everything takes on the quality of a dream. I move in slow motion, my feet heavy, the sound of voices muffled and distorted like I’m underwater. Someone is calling my name; it’s my brother, standing near our table, his arms stretched out toward me, his eyes terrified. I ignore him and keep moving, walking numbly toward Eric.
This isn’t about my mother; she’s only a placeholder. I know he’ll let her go when he gets what he’s really come here for.
He spots me. His lips pull back over his teeth. I notice he’s favoring his right leg, the one that A.J. broke. He snarls, “You!”
My mother sobs.
Several police officers with drawn weapons advance slowly through the retreating crowd, shouting for him to drop his weapon.
Eric raises the gun and points it right at me. “You ruined my life,” he yells, his eyes wild.
I’m frozen in terror. My vision narrows to a circle with my mother’s face and Eric’s behind it. I know this is the end. Instinctively, my hands cover my belly.
