Buy Me, Sir

I flick through family photos and Melissa points out her mum and dad, like it needed saying.

I look under the sofa and under the TV. I flick through her brother’s DVDs and her mum’s old exercise videos.

I learn nothing other than she’s a girl living in her parents’ wake. Picking up the pieces of a shattered life.

“Doesn’t feel so great when you’re not the one doing the fucking snooping, does it?” I snap, but she doesn’t say a word.

She doesn’t have many beauty products in the bathroom, just basic shampoo and conditioner and a kid’s bubble bath.

She uses sanitary towels not tampons, and her toothbrush is pink.

“Which is your bedroom?” I ask and she points to the door at the end of the hallway. “Tell me to leave,” I say, “or I’m going to tear your fucking room apart.”

“Never,” she says. “I’ll never tell you to leave. I can’t even believe you’re here.”

“Suit yourself,” I snap, and step on in.MelissaI can’t believe he’s really here.

I don’t even dare to hope that this isn’t over.

But he’s here. He’s here.

He’s angry, and wound tight, and his eyes are wild and dark, but he’s here.

I follow him into my bedroom and tell him to go ahead. I tell him to do whatever he wants. I’m not interested in secrets. I’d cut open my soul if I could, just to show him what’s inside.

He stares at the old Debating Society certificates on my wall. He picks up the framed family photos on my dresser.

He smells my old stuffed teddy bear and opens my wardrobe and tears through my clothes. There isn’t much in there, it doesn’t take long.

It doesn’t take him long to rummage through my makeup box, either.

The drawers under my desk are filled with old college books, he flicks through the legal ones and he swallows. “This really was your dream?”

I nod. It’s all I can do.

And then he sees it, my battered old chest of drawers on the far side of my bed. The one with all my crystals laid out on top, my Kings and Castles CD still open by the player.

“You didn’t show me these,” he says as he picks up a piece of bloodstone.

“I didn’t have them then,” I say, and I’m not lying. These additions were all for me.

He holds up the CD case. “Research?”

I shake my head. “I only bought that last week, I wanted the physical copy.”

“Fucking hell, Lissa,” he snaps. “You changed your whole fucking life for me.”

I shake my head. “Only at the beginning. I thought I was playing…” My smile hurts. “It’s funny how pretending to be someone else can help you find out who you really are.”

He stares at me. “You think this is who you really are now? Amy pissing Randall?”

I shake my head. “I think she’s just the start. I was nothing after they died. I was nobody. Being Amy Randall was the best thing in the world.”

It really was. Being her was everything I ever dreamed it would be. Loving him was everything I ever dreamed it would be.

And more.

So much more.

“Knowing Amy Randall was the best thing in the world,” he says.

He takes a seat on my bed and rubs his temples. “I should go.”

“Please don’t.”

His eyes burn into mine but I don’t look away. I’ll never look away.

“Then you’d better put the kettle on,” he says.AlexanderHer kitchen is cramped. She nudges me with her hip as she reaches for a clean mug, and I wonder how they ever fit three people in this place.

I shouldn’t be here.

My threats to Claude will be working their way back to my father if they haven’t reached him already.

I have no interest in taking them back, which means my window of escape is limited.

He’ll be gunning for me, and so will his associates.

I shouldn’t be here, I should be planning my exit, packing up the things I want to take with me.

But I still don’t want to leave her. Not even after everything she’s done.

“I’ll be leaving London tomorrow night,” I tell her. “Any longer and the chances I’ll make it out reduce dramatically.”

She tries to hide her fear as she stirs my coffee. It’s instant crap and it tastes bitter as shit, but I don’t care.

“You think they’ll come after you?” she whispers.

“I know they’ll come after me. I’m far too much of a liability.”

“So what then? You keep running?”

I shake my head. “A few months under the radar and they’ll realise I’ve no interest in blowing their cover. I’ll slip down their target list.”

“You’re sure?”

No. I’m not sure.

I’ve become far too fond of this hope novelty recently.

“Would you still have come with me?” I ask her.

“Knowing what you’re running from?”

I nod.

Her eyes hide nothing from me. “Yes,” she says. “So long as Joseph was safe.”

Joseph.

I had no idea he’d even existed. No idea she was holding so much together. A baby, a full-time job, moonlighting with me three times a week. The soup kitchen.