Tonight, I stroke her bare shoulders and I tuck myself around her. I press my face against the warmth of her arm and allow myself to inhale the sweet scent of her skin. Even covered in my soaps, she smells like a woman.
“That feels good,” she murmurs, and I freeze.
I contemplate closing my eyes and faking sleep, because I’m not sure I can stand talking to her. More so than even her body, I’ve become addicted to her words.
“I thought you were asleep,” I whisper.
“Not anymore.” I can hear the smile in her voice, even though I can’t see her face from where I’m lying.
I kiss her arm. “You should go to sleep.”
“I will,” she says though a yawn. She moves her arm so it’s around my back and shoulders, and this time, I close my eyes. It feels good. Her fingers skate over my skin, and I feel her lips touch down atop my head.
“Are you going to tell me?” she whispers.
“Tell you what?” I whisper, too.
She twines her leg around mine. “I want to know why you said what you said in the shower. That you can’t ‘keep me.’” Silence closes around her words. With my head against her ribs, I can hear her heartbeat.
Ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom.
“At first I thought you didn’t want me like that,” she says quietly, “because I was scared you didn’t. But now…now I think maybe I was wrong.” Her fingers skate through my hair, bringing out goosebumps on my head. “Will you just tell me? Please? What that makes you want to stay so…far from everyone? Is it…what happened to your parents?”
A wave of ice-cold dread washes through me as I think about what she said earlier. About Marissa. I remember the last time I saw her, lying so still on the pink bedspread inside her dorm room. I remember her voice through the phone down at the jail. I remember the casket—and I know I can’t tell Suri. Someone like her…someone so kind and generous; Suri would never understand.
Now that we’re as close as we’ve come to be, I’m not sure how to evade her questions—so I roll over with my back to her.
“Marchant,” she whispers. “I have another question. Do you have a baby?”
*
SURI
Remembering the picture is what woke me up. The black and white picture I saw that night in the silver picture frame, right before I heard Marchant’s footsteps coming down the hall and I dropped it by the curtains. I sneaked out of bed tonight and found it right where I left it—underneath the floor-to-ceiling curtains. One look at the image in the moonlight and I can see it’s definitely a baby. Bigger than Lizzy’s baby (I recently received a text’d image of something that looked like a lima bean).
I crawl back in bed, and a few minutes later, Marchant rouses. I lie as still as I can while he strokes my body, more gentle than he’s ever been when he thought I was awake. I’m starting to get the feeling there’s a lot he isn’t telling me.
I lean closer to him now, staring at the wide plane of his back. “Is the date on your side a child’s birthday?” I murmur.
For a moment, he goes absolutely still—not even breathing. Then he jolts up and whirls around to face me.
“What the f**k do you know about a child?”
“You left this picture out.” I grab the image from underneath my pillow and hold it out.
He snatches it away from me. He looks furious enough to spit. “That’s not your business.”
“I didn’t mean to find it. Marchant, talk to me. I care about you. You can trust me. Are you a father?”
He’s out of the bed in one easy motion, but he doesn’t leave the room. Nor does he put down the picture frame.
“Do you have a child somewhere?” I press.
“No, I’m not a f**king father, okay?” Belatedly, I notice that his chest is heaving. “I don’t have a child.”
Understanding dawns on me, and I nod slowly.
“You think you understand?”
“I think I might,” I answer softly.
“Well you don’t.”
Maybe I should let it lie, but he looks so upset. “Did the baby’s mother take him or her away from you?”
“You don’t want to know what happened. I’m just your f**k buddy, remember? It’s irrelevant to you.”
I lean forward. “I think we both know that’s not true. I’m your friend, Marchant. I care about you.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I know you’re a nice guy who’s only an ass**le when he’s using drugs. I know you still grieve for your parents, and I bet you’re grieving for this baby, too.”
And all at once, his shoulders slump, and he raises a hand to cover up his face. “It was a girl,” he whispers. “Marissa was the baby’s mother.”
My heart twists. Is that why she was calling? Do they keep in touch?
“I haven’t talked to her in seven years,” he says, rubbing a hand back through his hair. He’s pacing now, not even looking over at me as he talks. “I don’t know why she would call. There’s nothing I can give her. Everything is done.”
“What happened?” I whisper.
He lifts his eyes to mine, and they’re so bleak, I know. I know for sure.
Tears rush into my eyes. I blink quickly. If he lost a child, it makes sense that he doesn’t want to get close. He’s had a lot of loss in his life. Too much.
He strides closer to the bed and leans over the footboard. “Don’t look at me like that. I don’t need your pity.”
“I don’t pity you.” I scoot closer to him, reaching out, but he takes a giant step backward.
“You know why I don’t have a daughter, Suri? Because I told her mother to have an abortion.”
*
MARCHANT
There it is. The most significant fact of my life—my March 15—spilled at her feet. I watch her face and see the horror in it.
“It was after my parents died. I drank a lot on the plane ride to New Orleans and I thought at first that I was just f**ked up over what had happened. But then I got back to my room at West’s place, where I lived, and f**ked our housekeeper.” Suri’s eyes widen, and I give her a miserable smile. “She was awful; this black-haired creole woman. Mean as a f**king viper. Nobody liked her, but I wasn’t thinking straight. After that, I did a bunch of Hunter’s coke and got into a fight with someone at the frat house. Broke an armchair. I was so damn mad—at everything.