Black Christmas (Plus Bonus Story "Black Supper") (2 page)

He looked up at me, his eyes wide.

“What happened to you?” He swallowed. “What the fuck happened?”

I pulled my arm away from him, tugging the sleeve down over my arm.

“Someone was holding you,” he said, his voice still shocked. “Who, Miri? Who took you?”

My lips pursed.

Truthfully though, I didn’t know how to answer him. I thought about everything in Bangkok, about what happened. Where did you start in a story like that?

How did you begin to answer a question like that?

“Were you held hostage, Miri?” Nick said, his voice lower, but firmer.

I met his gaze, still struggling to think.

Still, Nick and I didn’t lie to each other.

Well, not usually.

“Yes,” I said, shrugging.

“I’m going to kill that fucker,” Nick exploded. “I’m really going to kill him this time, Miri.”

I shook my head. “It wasn’t Black’s fault.”

“The hell it wasn’t! That’s the
second
time he’s nearly gotten you killed... in less than six months, for crying out loud...” Nick looked me over, that more stricken look back in his eyes. “Miri... my God. What happened?” Seeming to see something in my face at the question that time, he winced, backtracking. “Are you seeing anyone?”

I stared at him blankly. “Seeing anyone?” For some reason, I couldn’t comprehend what he meant. For a second I thought he was asking me if I was dating.

“Trauma counseling,” he said. “Jesus, Miri. You’re a fucking psychologist. You of all people should know you need to see someone after something like this––”

But I was already shaking my head, as soon as I understood. I spoke before I knew what I intended to say.

“No, no... no,” I said, still shaking my head. I wrapped my arms around myself, still shaking my head. “No, I don’t think so, Nick. I will. But not yet.”

“Not yet?” He stepped closer to me and I backed off, almost before I realized I’d done it. I saw that impact him in some way too and bit my lip. He lowered his voice, talking to me more gently than maybe he ever had.

Somehow that only made it worse.

“Miri,” he said, holding up a hand. “Miri... this is big. This is really big. This isn’t a small thing. You need to talk to someone.”

I swallowed, avoiding his eyes. I knew Nick knew what he was talking about. While we’d been in Afghanistan, he’d been taken once. I knew some of what happened to him there, what they’d done to him. I hadn’t been his shrink, of course––we both knew that probably wasn’t a great idea, just because we’d been friends for so long. Even so, we’d talked. A lot.

Over a lot of alcohol mostly.

“Please, Miri,” he said, his eyes serious. “Please. As your friend who loves you...” He stopped on the word, as if it shocked him. “Please, okay? I’ll make the appointment for you. I’ll drive you there... wait for you. If you don’t have anyone, we’ve got a good guy. He does critical incidents... not just for cops. He’s talked to a few kidnap victims too... including vets.”

I nodded. I’m not sure I was really hearing him, though.

“Okay,” I said. “All right.”

“You’ll do it?”

I barely hesitated that time, nodding. “Okay. Sure.”

I think I just wanted that look out of Nick’s eyes.

I watched him stalk off the mat, unwrapping the bindings on his knuckles as he went. I saw a puzzled look from our coach as he looked between the two of us, but I also felt him intuiting to stay out of it. Even as I thought it, he went back to giving pointers to the other paired fighters sparring on other parts of the mat, pretending he hadn’t noticed that Nick and I weren’t doing the exercise with everyone else.

I could feel where Nick was going, too.

Being a psychic sometimes gave me information I neither looked for, nor really wanted.

He was going to get his phone. He was going to make an appointment for me right now, even if it meant calling his “guy” at his private residence and threatening him with bodily harm to make a hole in his schedule for the very next morning.

Nick was a “get it done” kind of guy. It was how he coped.

I knew that about him.

I was okay with it usually, but now I wished he was a little less proactive. A little less Type-A, maybe. A little less afraid for me.

All of what happened in Bangkok felt too recent, too new... too raw. It also, paradoxically, seemed so long ago now. I wanted it just to go away. I didn’t want to talk about it with Nick’s guy, no matter how good he was. I didn’t want to talk about it with anyone.

But that’s not really true either, is it Miriam... ?
a voice whispered.

It was my voice, not Black’s.

The words still clutched at my heart.

I bit my lip, watching Nick on his phone. I watched him frown, pacing back and forth in the carpeted observation area filled with folding chairs that overlooked the sparring mats.

Of course Nick was right.

My “shrink” brain knew he was right. Although the days had blurred together in the time since, confusing me, I’d only been back from Bangkok a week at that point. Ten days at most.

It hadn’t been long at all.

The truth was, I wanted Black.

Some part of me hated that I wanted him, but I couldn't help it. I’d never been dependent on anyone like that before. I’d never been that kind of person.

But I wanted Black.

And Black was gone.

HE CALLED EVERY night.

He called during the day, too.

He called me through his work, trying to reach me at my desk at the building on California Street. He tried to reach me through his assistant, who even routed calls into the apartment’s intercom system while I was still sleeping in his bed. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to quit my job yet, even apart from the six-month contract I’d signed with Black Securities and Investigations, so technically I still worked for him.

I still refused his calls.

When I worked out of my old office on Fillmore, they routed calls from him there, too. I didn’t answer those either.

After another week had gone by, he started sending me things, too.

I didn’t open them.

When I moved out of his apartment, he knew. Someone on his team knew at least, since the packages started showing up at my old apartment in the Richmond instead.

I think it was around the fifth package I received that I started bringing them back to the building on California Street. I left them in his apartment rather than his office, placing them in an orderly line along the smooth, volcanic-stone bar in his kitchen.

Nick’s trauma guy, another vet turned shrink by the name of “Roger,” although about twenty years older than me, asked me why I didn’t open any of the boxes. That was our fourth or fifth session, I think. By then, I’d told him that I didn’t blame Black for what happened to me in Bangkok. I told him that I understood that Black needed to leave, that I knew it had nothing to do with me, that he probably had good reasons for not telling me where he was.

Roger asked, so then why not open the boxes?

I didn’t know how to answer.

I didn’t know how to tell him that I didn’t even want to touch them, since somehow every one of those packages felt like him.

Whatever answer I eventually gave, I could tell it didn’t satisfy Roger.

I wondered if he was talking to Nick about me.

Either way, Nick came by a lot.

He didn’t call ahead, probably because he knew I’d tell him not to come. He usually brought wine. A few times he brought harder things.

One of those nights, I kissed him.

I think it confused him more than anything, although he kissed me back. After those first, awkward few seconds, he kissed me back harder... and then enthusiastically enough to catch me off-guard. I slid my arms around his neck when he pulled me against him. My mind went blissfully blank for some part of that as I lost myself in his lips and tongue.

Something made me pull back though, not long after he started undressing me.

Nick was hard by then, turned on enough that both of us were having trouble thinking straight. Maybe I’d expected him to be the one to say no. Maybe I’d been waiting for him to do that, and let it go on too long as a result. Either way, I ended up feeling guilty, and like I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it to Nick––and it wasn’t only the weirdness of trying to seduce one of my oldest friends while he felt sorry for me and both of us were drunk.

I didn’t want to think about what else made me pull away.

Nick left not long after.

I could feel guilt on him, some sense he’d let things go too far, too.

He didn’t let that stop him from coming by my apartment to force me out of the isolation of my cave, however. He showed up the very next night, another bottle in hand, his trademark smile curving his lips. He pushed his way through my front door before I could make up my mind whether to let him in, then he was on my couch with the remote, flipping through channels and muttering about comedies on pay-per-view.

He also told me he’d invited Angel.

She showed up maybe an hour later, three bags of Chinese food in tow and looking like she just got off work.

Nick brought Angel along more often than not after that, I noticed.

Another thing changed, too.

That same day, the phone calls from Black finally stopped.

IT DIDN’T SNOW in San Francisco. Well, it maybe had one or two times, in my entire life.

My point was, unless you’re really big into shopping or hanging out downtown, it’s easy to forget when Christmas is coming here. I usually tracked it more through decorations on the stores and in the malls, and sometimes on my neighbor’s and friend’s houses.

I’d been doing a lot less of that this year though.

Shopping. Going to friends’ houses. Going to parties.

I’d been doing a lot less of everything, really, and I’d never been a big holiday person before.

It’s hard to face holidays when you’ve lost most of your family. My sister and I lost our parents when we were kids. I lost Zoe not long after I turned eighteen.

For the same reason, I also didn’t want to stay home for the holidays on my own, though.