Summer's Desire (46 page)

The video shows him in a cage of some
sort, bare to the waist, his lip dripping with blood, and the expression on his
face is one of perfect savagery. He's pummeling on some other guy who's inside
that cage with him, and he's terrible in his strength and speed and sheer
ferocity. There's a huge crowd pushing from all sides toward the cage, chanting
encouragement, and—

Jessica stops the video.

"That—in case you didn't know, moron—is
underground cage fighting," she purrs, full of malice. "Totally
brutal. Illegal as hell-out. The moment Principal Adams gets a glimpse of this,
Seth's expelled, less than two weeks before graduation. The moment Coach Bohlen
sees it, and then all those college coaches who wanted Seth to play football
for them find out—his scholarships are gone so fast it'll make his head spin.
The moment the police sees it..." She chuckles. "Let's just say that
being banned from football will be the least of your lover boy's
troubles."

As if in a haze, I take two steps toward
her, not even knowing
what
I want to do—just that I absolutely cannot
let her keep that video.

Guessing my intent, she lifts the hand
with her Smartphone high above her head and shakes her head mockingly. "Moron,
believe me, you don't want to try anything. This video is already backed up on my
Mac at home, so if you act up, all it'll gain you is you'll make me madder."
She bares her teeth in a menacing smirk. "You don't want that,
right?"

"No," I whisper, standing perfectly
still. "I don't."

"I couldn't believe my ears when
Andrea told me about the stunt you pulled Saturday. You're a persistent little whore,
aren't you—couldn't be pried off Seth with a crowbar! Well, maybe this video
will do the job then."

I just stare at her, feeling blank and
empty.

"So what you'll do, whore,"
she spits out, "is you'll be gone in two days. I don't care how you do it,
I don't care what you tell Seth—but you'll break up with him permanently. If
you're still here when your time is up, Seth's done for. If I find out you get
together with Seth later—and I will find out; I have friends at U-M and they'll
tell me if you're ever seen even looking at him from a distance—he's
done
for
. Clear enough for you, moron?"

My tongue is glued stuck to the roof of
my mouth.

"I asked if you got it, moron!"

"I understand."

"Good. Two days." She walks
away, her shoulder bumping me hard as she passes me.

The door slams behind her, leaving me
surrounded by perfect silence—in the boundless sea of dead hopelessness that is
my soul.

* * *

It's after school hours, and I'm walking
with Seth from my locker where I left my books. The hallways are empty.

"Sunny, what's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," I tell him
with perfect calm matching the perfect blankness inside me.

"Sunny, you've been off since
lunch. Disconnected. Please tell me what happened, baby."

I stop right there and look at him. His
face is cast in lines of anxious confusion.

"Nothing much happened, Seth."

"Sunny—"

"Just that I had a little chat with
Jessica and found out about your activities of last Friday night."

He turns ashen; the only remaining spot
of color in his face are his electric blue eyes. "My activities?" he
rasps.

His grip on my hand has become
unbearably tight, a part of my mind recognizes distantly. But it's as if I'm disengaged
from my body, disengaged even from Seth for the first time in my life, so I
don't bother to protest his painful grip.

"The cage fighting," I elucidate
coolly.

If his face was colorless before, now it
may as well have turned to white marble. His eyes flash with a dozen emotions
in just one blink of a moment: guilt, shame, rage, guilt again.

Then he shakes off his temporary
paralysis, and as quick as thought—as quick as I saw him move in the cage when
he was raining vicious wallops on his opponent—he pulls me into an unoccupied
classroom nearby, closes the door, and presses my back against the wall, caging
me between his arms.

"You lied to me, Seth."

"No!" he denies hoarsely.
Then, with a note of shame: "I just didn't correct your assumptions."

"You withheld the truth from
me."

He leans unbearably closer, his hands
moving to frame my face with utter gentleness. "Sunny, baby... I would've
done anything to protect you from this truth."

"Because I'm weak?"

"Because I don't want you touched
by the darkness in my life!"

"Then why did you do this?!" I
burst out. "For God's sake, Seth, why? Why fight at all?!"

His shoulders slump in defeat. "Because
we need the money."

"So it's my fault," I
conclude, miserable.

"No! Sunny, it wasn't my first time
fighting in a cage." His voice turns softer, pleading: "But you gave
me a better reason to fight—not for any meaningless, selfish reason, but for
us
.
So that we can stay together, run away together if we have to, build a life
together no matter what."

"Oh God, Seth..." I try to
turn my face from the intensity in his, but he doesn't let me. So I keep
looking at him and ask him brokenly, "How can we build our life on blood
money?"

"It's not blood money! Or if it is,
it's money that
I
have bled for! I've never fought anyone who didn't
know exactly what they were doing, I've never killed for this money! I've
always ended every fight as fast as I could. I've fucking earned this money,
Sunny! And don't ask me to feel sorry for getting it the only way I know how
when this money might make the difference for us between being able to stay
together or not."

I shake my head, overwhelmed and
confused and so wretchedly in love with him that I think I'd shatter if he
weren't holding me so carefully.

"Sunny..."—his eyes bore into
me with uncompromising possession—"I'd kill if I had to in order to keep
you by my side. Weighed against that, a few bouts of cage fighting are
nothing
!"

And the scariest thing is I totally get
what he's saying. Because there's nothing I wouldn't do for him. There's
nothing I wouldn't sacrifice for his well-being. And that's exactly what I was called
upon to do: sacrifice everything.

"How did Jessica know?" I ask
him dejectedly.

He flips from consuming intensity to
cold rage in the blink of an eye. "Andrea, had to be. It's her brother
Luke who first got me into cage fighting, years ago. He's the one who lets me
know about the fights. And Andrea always has her nose stuck in his business, so
she can find out everything he knows at any time, if she wants to."

And obviously, she shared her knowledge
with Jessica, who went to record the fight.

Kind of ironic, actually—in a
heart-breaking, soul-rending kind of way—that Seth took that cage fight for our
future and, by doing so, handed Jessica the one weapon that could ensure that he
and I don't get to have a future together at all.

Seth slowly leans his forehead against
my own. In a voice gone soft again with tenderness and pleading, he says,
"I'm sorry, Sunny, that you had to find out this way."

My lips twist into a bitter smile.
"You're sorry I found out at all."

"I'm sorry because you're upset,
Sunny. I don't want you to ever be hurt—especially not because of me. I'm so sorry,
baby, that I've disappointed you." His gentle, earnest voice batters at my
defenses, grounding them to dust. I'm helpless before his pain and his love,
and my pain and my love, and I'm bleeding inside and I want to howl like a dying
animal because I have to give up Seth's love, and pain will be all I have left.

I raise my hand to his chest and push
him away from me. It's like pushing against granite, and I could never move him
if he didn't want to be moved. But after a heartbeat, he obeys my wish to be
free and steps back. Our bodies aren't touching anymore.

"Sunny..." His voice alone is
like acid over my bleeding wounds, and I avoid his eyes because I know that
looking in them right now would really finish me off.

"I need to head to work," I
tell him, my voice once again inflectionless.

"Sunny, we aren't finished
talking—"

"We've talked enough. I need to go
now."

Out of the corner of my eye, I see his
hand reaching out toward me... then stopping, curling into a fist, and finally
falling down.

"I'll drive you," he tells me
huskily.

"No. You've got track, and it's
late already."

"Fuck late and fuck track.
Sunny—"

"I need to be alone right
now." Through an immense act of will, I manage to lift my head and meet
his gaze—and oh sweet God, his tortured eyes almost bring me to my knees with
the terrible, terrible depth of our shared pain. "Seth, I'll be home
tonight when you come home. We'll talk then."

He still looks as if he wants to argue, as
if he doesn't want to let me go... but finally he gives a sharp nod. And he
lets me leave.

But I don't go to work.

I go back to our apartment, where I curl
myself on top of our bed and cry for hours without stopping.

Then I mop my tears and call Ms. Walker.

And finally, I pack a small bag and hide
it behind the closet.

Chapter 32

He gets home
early; he must have also skipped work today.

I'm waiting for
him, seated on the sofa. I'm holding an open book—I don't even know which—and
staring into space.

When I hear the
lock, my gaze sharpens and moves to the door. An instant later, he opens the
door and I see he's breathing maybe just a bit harder than normal, as if he's
come up the stairs running at full speed. His gaze snaps to me at once, almost as
if I had pulled on my end of that flexible but indissoluble string that binds
the two of us. Maybe I have.

His face is taut
with anxiety, but the moment his eyes find me, it's as if the worst of the
tension seeps out of him. Then I smile at him, and his eyes widen. In a flash
he's discarded his bag, slammed the door shut, and materialized beside me on
the couch, his body pressing against mine. His hands rise to my face and cup it
gently, and his eyes delve searchingly into my own.

"I'm
forgiven?" he asks me in a voice laced with caution and hope in equal degree.

I nod, and I
don't even get to finish the movement before his mouth unerringly finds my own.
His tongue pushes demandingly against the seam of my lips, and I open up for
him, and he deepens the kiss. Our mouths play off each other in a passionate battle,
our lips and tongues the weapons of choice and wielded to bone-melting,
reason-banishing effect.

My hands rise
and splay on his shoulder blades, and I try to pull him closer. One of his
hands lowers from my face to curl around my nape, and keeps me pinned for his
kiss—but I am a willing prisoner. His other hand starts on a downward journey
of exploration, with my body its chosen landscape. I'm a quivering instrument
in his masterful hands, and he knows exactly how to play me to achieve the
highest of notes. He's heat and he's passion and he's the kindling to all my
smoldering embers. And under his touch, I light up.

With subtle
pressure, his body urges me down, and I let myself fall back on the sofa. His
weight comes down on top of me, and I rejoice and welcome it with a moan.

I don't know how
long we kiss and touch and strain together—time loses all meaning for me. But
he does pull back eventually, before we lose all of our clothes. And I let him.

For now.

*
* *

Evening has fallen,
and we're staying close but not touching. I'm on the couch, once again
pretending to read, and he's sitting on the floor beside me, fiddling with yet
another of his mechanical projects.

He frowns
suddenly and starts to look around, as if searching for something. He moves the
tools and the parts he has lying around, but doesn't seem to find whatever he's
looking for. He rises fluidly to his feet, heads to the kitchen area, starts
digging around in one of the lower cabinets there.

"Seth, what
are you searching? Can I help?"

"No, I
don't think so," he tells me distractedly. "Unless you know where
I've left my transistor packages."

"Umm, what
are those?"

"Semiconductors
that control how much current flows through a circuit," he explains without
pausing in his search.

"Nope, never
seen those."

"That's all
right, Sunny. I'll find the little buggers." He moves to the bedroom.

I set the book
aside, lie down, and close my eyes.

Two minutes
later, I get this sense all of a sudden that I'm being watched. The perfect quiet
around me hasn't been disturbed by even the whisper of a sound, but beyond any
doubt, I feel Seth's presence beside me.