“I’m okay with the kissing,” I told his feet.  “But the rest was going too fast for me, okay?”  Grandma’s hours of chewing me out had ingrained in me one important fact: I could not give a boy too much or he’d lose interest in me.

He grinned from ear to ear and perched himself on my bed.  “But you liked the kissing, right?

I smiled back.  “Yeah.  But what does it—I mean—are we . . . “ I couldn’t even finish I was so embarrassed.

His entire gorgeous face was flushing in pleasure.  “Yes, Scarlett.  Of course.  We’re together.  We’ve always been together.”

I was bright red and I couldn’t look at him anymore, but I needed more assurances, something concrete.  “S-s-s-so you’re my . . .”

“Ah, Scarlett,” he said softly and fondly.  “I’m your boyfriend.  You’re my girlfriend.  Yes.  Is that what you were getting at?”

I shot him a look.  “Isn’t that something you’re supposed to ask a girl, not tell her?”

He got a real kick out of that, in fact I didn’t think I’d ever seen him happier.  He leaned close, touching our foreheads together.  “Not this.  Not us.  Neither of us have a choice in this.  You and I being together is not a question, Scarlett, it’s a fact of life.”

And he kissed me.  And kissed me.

After that we were making out every day.  Every chance we could get.  We kissed goodbye, we kissed hello, we kissed in the woods on the way home from school.  Anywhere we went where we thought no one was watching, but he was true to his word.  He didn’t take it any further until I was ready.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-TWO

“Go to Heaven for the climate.  Hell for the company.”

~Mark Twain

PRESENT

Dante ripped his lips from mine so abruptly that it felt like a Band-Aid coming off.

He was panting into my face.  “Tell me you don’t miss this,” he said emotionally.

This was what made him such a bastard.  We were over, had been for years, but it didn’t matter.  If he had his way, he’d keep me tied to him in so many ways I could never break loose.  He was cruel like that.

I subjugated every pathetic thing inside of me that jumped to do his bidding.  I would not feel what he was trying to make me feel.

“I don’t miss this,” I managed to get out through my constricted throat.

“Liar,” he breathed at me, madness in his eyes.

I shuddered, my own madness coming out to play.  “No.  No.  No.  I’m not the liar.  You know why I don’t miss this?  Because it’s a lie.”

It was his turn to shudder.

“Because it’s a lie,” I repeated.

He flinched.

“It was always a lie.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It was always a lie,” I repeated.  “Want to know how I know?”

“Stop.”

“I won’t stop.  I’m not finished.  Want to know how I know?”

“Enough.  Stop it.  You’ll say any horrible thing when you’re in a temper.”

“I will, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t the truth.  What we had was always a lie.  I know because if it was real it wouldn’t have ended.  It felt like forever, and forever was a lie.”

I’d won the round, I noted numbly as his shaking body withdrew back to his side of the car.

He gripped the steering wheel, staring straight ahead, shoulders hunched.

After a few drawn out minutes of silence he started driving again.

“You’re terrible at truces,” I said.  It was an effort to keep my voice from trembling.

He nodded jerkily.  “Ditto, tiger.  Peace was never your strength.  You were born for battle.”

“Look who’s talking?”

His mouth twisted.  “A match made in hell.”

Wasn’t that the truth.

The problem with us was that he and I had become deeply attached in our formative years.  Young me had become essential to young him and vice versa.

We were too precisely built together, each too profoundly shaped by the other. Every part of us had been assembled as one piece.  Of course we did not function well after the construct had been ripped violently apart.

And of course I would despise the one who had done the ripping.

The car was silent as a tomb until we were nearly at the house, both of us trying to regain some composure, trying to reconcile ourselves to the past and come back to the present.       

“Is my dress really too tight?” I asked him as he pulled down the long winding road that led to the house.

Grandma always got her digs in, and they always found a place to fester.  I’d known the dress was flattering, provocative even.  But was it trashy?

Dante cursed.  “God, she always could get to you with her venom.  No, it’s not too tight.  You look amazing.  Perfect.  Gram would be proud.”

“Thank you,” I said simply.

“Damn,” I cursed as I took in the transformation of Gram’s large driveway.  Parking attendants had apparently been hired to manage the large influx of vehicles for the reception.  They were trying their best to valet each one, using the front lawn to fit in as many cars as possible.  “Gram would have hated this.  She loved to keep her lawn pristine.”

Dante cursed.  “What in the actual fuck?  Goddamn my mother.  This has her stamp all over it.  Keeping up appearances when the fact is these people can walk a few fucking feet instead of ruining Gram’s lawn.”

He was right.  There was a paved road a mile long leading up to the house with plenty of shoulder room, i.e. ample parking.

But Adelaide had always hated Gram and it surprised me not one bit that she was messing with the property that had once been hopelessly out of her reach.

Dante refused to use the valet, parking on the shoulder just shy of the chaos.

“I’m going in the back entrance,” I told him as I opened my door.  “I need to freshen up,” I added, feeling awkward.  “Um, see you around.”

I took off.

I carefully redid my makeup and then lingered in my room for a cowardly amount of time.

It was just so unpleasant, the sounds of a large gathering in Gram’s house with the woman herself absent.  It felt wrong and I didn’t want any part of it.

But then I thought about all of the vultures down there circling, all of the blood-sucking opportunists that had come, not for Gram, but to eye up the property she’d left behind, to speculate about who she’d left it to.

I had to go down, had to be there to thicken the ranks of those who were genuinely mourning her loss.

It didn’t start out well for me.  In fact, it couldn’t have started worse.

I took the back stairs down to the kitchen, because I knew the place well.  I went straight for the liquor in the butler’s pantry, pouring myself a liberal tumbler of scotch that I was sure was up to even Dante’s standards.

I downed it, then poured another.

Only when I was in two deep and holding a third did I move to venture out into the melee.

Unfortunately I didn’t get that far.

This place, these people rattled me and so I was uncharacteristically clumsy.

I’m sure the liquor didn’t help make me more coordinated, to be fair.

I moved to open the door that swung out from the kitchen into the formal dining room, but I mistimed it, and  one of the many servers that were taking trays around frantically came in right as I was going out.

Half of my glass ended up on my chest.

The server, a young nervous guy, apologized profusely and brought me a stack of napkins.

I set down my glass, took the napkins, and waved him off.  I started patting at myself, wondering if I should change.

At least I was wearing black.

The liquid came up easily, but the napkins left little white fuzzies all over my bust.

 Fumbling with it, I opened my little clutch, taking out a moist towelette that I kept in it because I was one of those girls that knew the proper purpose of a handbag, which was to be prepared for anything.