Synopsis
Grant is damaged, selfish, and undeserving of love…or so he thinks.
Jessa is happy, in love, and has overcome her past…or so she thinks.
Grant and Jessa can’t stop thinking about one another since being introduced at a party a month ago. And despite their differences, they can’t seem to stay away from each other either. However, both are hiding secrets of less-than-perfect pasts, fearing what will happen when those mistakes come to light. As they grow closer, they each battle their own insecurities, and neither believes that they are worthy of the kind of love that they both still want. So if it’s true that opposites attract, what happens when the similarities begin to surface?
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Excerpt
I stand there, swaying, digging for my Metrocard as
the bus finally begins to pull away from the curb. The light ahead on Delancey
Street is green, and beyond that is the long expanse of the Williamsburg
Bridge. My heart is thudding against my ribcage, each beat threatening to crack
the thin veneer of stability I have erected around me and let it all out: all
the tears, the heartbreak, the grief. The loneliness. The lust. I just manage
to swipe my Metrocard, catching myself on the handrail as the bus lurches
ahead, when I hear it.
Marcus pounding on the bus door.
I don’t know why, but I turn to watch him.
Everybody else thinks he’s just a guy who missed the bus in the rain, who knows
he can’t catch a cab when the weather’s like this, who’s pissed he’s going to
have to wait to get across the bridge.
But I know he’s chasing me.
That Marcus Roma, for once, is the one chasing me.
Now, from inside this bus, from the other side of
what might as well be an impenetrable barrier, I can look at him. I can look at
him run after me, a look of desperation on his face that I’ve only ever seen
once or twice, and only when he didn’t know how to help me. Marcus Roma raw is
too much for me to handle right now. Maybe ever again. No one else has ever
seen through me like Marcus, no one else has ever stripped me of all pretense.
It was always intoxicating. It was always a rush.
It always made me so very, very vulnerable. Once it
made me strong, too. Now?
Now it would just make it all that easier to fall.
But would it? And here is where I really start to
drive myself crazy, in the seconds when I’m watching Marcus run in the rain,
falling farther behind the bus with every step. Because now that I’m not
standing in front of him, exposed to those eyes, I’m thinking, Maybe this is actually what I need.
Maybe I need to yell at him. Maybe an explanation
would end it. Maybe it would exorcise the ghost of Marcus Roma from my life
once and for all and I could move on.
Or maybe this is just my body making rationalizations
for what it wants. Which is Marcus.
Five years, and I’ve never forgotten the feel of
his hands on my body.
My throat tightens up and my mouth goes dry. We’re
on the bridge. Marcus is far behind us. The rain slams into the big, broad
windshield of the bus as we speed toward Brooklyn, and I’m thinking about how I
just ran. I never used to run. That’s not what I do. I’m a fighter.
Marcus taught me that.
I fought my way through after my parents died in
the accident, with Marcus’s help. I fought for Dill. I fought for my own
freedom. And I just ran from Marcus, because I wasn’t sure I could fight…
What?
I’m kidding myself. I know what. I know what I had
begun to feel for him before he left, what I never stopped feeling, even after
he was gone: no man has ever made me feel like that. Like he could turn me
molten with just a look. Like I could drown in him, like I wanted to drown in him. Like I loved him so much that everything
else faded away, like I could live on that feeling alone, burning bright and
beautiful in the dark of my wounded heart.
I’ve thought about what it felt like to have Marcus
Roma touch me so many times. What it was like to have him inside me. Even after
he abandoned me without any explanation, even after he broke me, even after he
did all that knowing exactly what it would do to me, he’s still the only man
I’ve ever dreamed of. I’ve had other men since then, and every time I’ve been
painfully aware of how much they were not Marcus.
Fuck him for that. Seriously.
I’m angry and overwhelmed and I’m feeling way too
many things in a short period of time, like all the joy, rage, loss, grief, and
lust of those years is condensed into this one moment on a public bus, speeding
across the Williamsburg Bridge, and this is the one time I can’t shut down my
brain. I can’t stop myself from asking what if? What if I don’t see him again?
What if he just doesn’t care to try again? What if this is it?
What if this is the last time I see him, and I’ve
run away?
Great. I get to add shame to the mix of emo crap
I’ve got brewing inside me. I feel like I’m going to be sick. Apparently it’s
noticeable, because a guy sitting up front actually gets up and offers me his
seat. You have to be very pregnant or very old or, apparently, very much on the
verge of totally losing your shit in public to get that offer.
I say thanks, but no thanks. I grip the handrail
harder. I need to feel myself grounded to the physical earth, not resting on a
seat, mind free to wander and think about all the what-ifs. About how, if I’m
truly honest, for that one second when I locked eyes with him, I felt like I
did back in the old days. Like I wasn’t alone in the world. Like I had a
teammate. Just because he could see me and I could see him.
And if there’s one thing I still need, almost more
than I need my next breath, it’s to feel like I’m not alone in the world.
Except that I am. And I have been, since Marcus
left. Maybe when Dill is older I won’t feel like that. But right now I’m all
Dill has, and I have to stay strong and sane. Which means no chasing after the
man who made me this way, or letting him chase after me, or indulging in any of
that hopeful bullshit that is sure to get my heart broken all over again.
So it’s done. He’s gone. Probably he won’t try to
contact me or anything, since he hasn’t tried to already. It was just a chance
encounter, and now it’s over. That is a very good thing.
So why am I hyperventilating? Why is my palm
sliding down the handrail, slick with sweat?
Why do I feel nauseous when I think, it’s over.
It’s been
over. Christ, Harlow, get a grip!
People are still looking at me. I’m soaking wet, my
blonde hair plastered to my head, my leather jacket beaded with rain. I can
feel that my lips are blue. The bus is slowing down, running into traffic on
the other end of the bridge, and I think this is good. This will give me some
time to get myself together, to get my head right before I have to go home and
see Mr. Wolfe.
And then it hits me. Mr. Wolfe. Marcus.
Both back in town at the same time.
That can’t be a coincidence.
I think that, and relief blossoms in me. Because
Marcus isn’t here for me. It’s not about me; it never was. He’s here because
Mr. Wolfe is here. Marcus is still working for him. So even if I’d decided that
getting some kind of closure, or an explanation, or whatever was a good idea,
it’s not like I’d get it. Because Marcus isn’t here for me. I just dodged a
major, major bullet.
This is what I tell myself while the bus lurches
toward the other end of the bridge. This was a lucky escape; bullet dodged. I
can’t ever be in a position where I want more from Marcus than he wants from
me. I can’t let him back in my life.
And it’s not a problem, because he’s not here for
me.
I tell myself this over and over and over again.
By the time the bus slows to a stop in Williamsburg,
I’ve calmed down slightly. Figuring out that Marcus still doesn’t give a crap
is somehow liberating, I guess because it’s a familiar kind of pain. Like, that I know how to deal with, if only
because I’ve had a lot of practice. It was just the shock
of seeing him that put me off balance. I’m over it now.
I’m totally over it.
I climb down the stairs, out of the bus, almost
expecting to see, like, sunshine and bluebirds and whatever else—that’s how
liberating that thought feels. Marcus is across the river, on a different
island entirely, and out of my life, and if I can just avoid him from here on
out, I will only have the real estate developers and Mr. Wolfe to deal with.
So, no worse than things were when I got up this
morning.
I’m expecting the clouds to part and the sun to
shine, but obviously it’s still raining. That’s ok, too. I let it wash over me,
imagining the relief I’ve convinced myself I’m supposed to feel, trying to let
it flow through me all over again before I walk home in the rain, umbrella-less.
I close my eyes, turn my face up to the sky.
When I open them again, I see Marcus.
Standing tall, breathing hard, his black hair wet
with rain. Hat gone. Coat open, white dress shirt soaked through, his pecs and
abs contracting with every strained breath. Pale gray green eyes on fire.
“Harlow,” he chokes out.
He’s still holding my umbrella.
He ran.
He chased me across the bridge. He beat a bus, across the bridge.
To catch me.
He’s panting still, out of breath, and now it’s
like he’s stolen mine, too. He takes another step toward me and this time I
can’t look away. His eyes have me. It’s the same, the same as it always was,
only different, now, too: more.
There’s all those years, all those shared memories flying between us, swirling
around in an invisible field that I know we both feel, all those things that we
know about each other that no one else will ever really, truly know, no matter
how much we might want to tell them, because they weren’t there. It was just
us. Just Marcus and me.
And those eyes, seeing through me.
And now there’s what’s different about it, too.
What’s changed. How I can’t ignore the man he’s become. Jesus God, no one could
ignore that. Can he see through that, too? Can he see me watch his body move,
watch how he brushes that black hair out of his eyes, how the rain is caught on
those long eyelashes? How when he licks his lips, moving toward me, I’m
transfixed?
The thing between us is alive, I swear to God. All
that history, all those memories, and now this,
this unique awareness of the physical man in front of me, and the way my
traitorous body responds: it’s a living thing, whipping between us, drawing us
closer, something blind and stupid, fierce and feral. It’s choking me, making
it hard to see straight, to remember all the reasons I have to be afraid for my
heart. All I can see is that strong jaw, those huge shoulders, that tie dancing
in the wind, water dripping down his face while he looks at me with those
beautiful, sad eyes…
No single human being has ever hurt me the way
Marcus Roma has, and now he’s back. And I don’t want him to leave. And that
will be my downfall.
If I let it.
“What are you doing?” I whisper. It’s all I can
think to say. I don’t understand any of this. Why is here? What does he want
from me?
“You ran,” he says. Like that’s an explanation.
“I can’t,” I say. I don’t know what to call what’s
happening, or what might happen, but with every step he takes toward me, I
know.
“I can’t,”
I say again.
Marcus’s face screws up like he’s in actual pain.
“Please, Harlow,” he says. “Just talk to me.”
He puts his hand out. Such a simple thing, and yet
it means everything. I stare at it for I don’t know how long, not trusting
myself to look him in the eyes again. The worst part of this is that I want to
take it so badly. I want…whatever I can get.
And that is pathetic.
If it weren’t for Dill, I’d throw myself at his
mercy all over again. My heart is pounding, my blood rushing in my ears, my
body and soul screaming for some kind of release from the last five years of
torture. From five years of not knowing why.
From five years of thinking he just didn’t care enough, of thinking that I was
just that easy to throw away.
And I’d do it all over again, if it weren’t for my
responsibilities.
“I don’t talk to ghosts,” I say, and walk away.
I walk away, but I don’t escape. Not even a little
bit. I feel his eyes on me the whole time. I feel him, with me. And all the way
home, the only thing I can think is: What
does Marcus Roma want from me?
After all this time, what does he want?
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