Sempre (Sempre 1)

He smirked. “It’s the drug. It’s why, in the past half hour, you’ve mocked me, gotten fresh with me, and confessed to me.”

“So when it wears off, I’ll be in pain and embarrassed? Probably even in trouble, too.”

“No reason to be embarrassed,” he said. “And nothing will top you escaping out my window, so I wouldn’t worry about being in trouble anymore.”

She picked at her short brittle nails. “Did I get you in trouble, too?”

“No more than I get myself in daily,” he said. “He came up here in the middle of the night and nailed it down, though, so no more scaling trees for either of us . . . until I get it open again.”

“I panicked,” she said. “I thought he was going to kill me.”

“He wouldn’t . . .” He wouldn’t kill her? Carmine wasn’t sure if he believed those words. “Why did you think that, anyway?”

“He said the same thing my master said when I saw him murder a girl.”

Carmine didn’t know what he’d expected to hear, but that wasn’t it. “You saw a girl die? Is that the worst thing you’ve seen?”

“Maybe. I’ve seen a lot.”

“Like?”

She averted her eyes. “Like my mama being raped.”

As much as those words sickened him, Carmine was immensely grateful for whatever pharmaceutical company cranked out those potent little yellow pills that made her open up. “That’ll never happen to you here. You know that, right?”

She nodded but didn’t appear to be convinced.

“Look, sex can be great between people who want it, but I’d never touch a girl unless she wanted me to. None of us would. That’s wrong.”

“Do you love those girls you touch?”

“No.” He felt bad about admitting that.

“Have you ever been in love?”

He stared at her, unsure of how to answer. “I don’t know. I’m still figuring out what love is.”

“Me, too,” she said. “It’s confusing.”

He pursed his lips in thought. Could she feel what he felt? He couldn’t ask her, though. Even if she said yes, he couldn’t be sure it wasn’t drug-induced.

Leaning back on the bed, Carmine stared up at the ceiling as Haven spoke, her words slurring from exhaustion. “Carmine? What’s the worst thing you’ve seen?”

He contemplated whether to answer. It was a story he’d never told anyone. His family knew the technical parts, the shit that made the newspaper, but he never talked about what he saw.

Could he tell her?

He looked at her and smiled when he saw her eyes closed, lips parted as she lay there, fast asleep. He would have told her, he realized. He would have told her everything.

* * *

When Haven woke up, muscles throbbed she hadn’t been aware of. The intoxicating scent of cologne invaded her lungs, assaulting every cell in her body when she took a deep breath. It reminded her of the smell of the air in Blackburn when a storm came and it rained for two days.

Haven sat up, needing to clear her head, and stretched her back as Carmine retrieved a bottle of Tylenol. He sat down and gave her the pills before grabbing a half-full bottle of water from his nightstand. “I promise I don’t have any diseases.”

She took it from him and drank the rest of it before handing the empty bottle back to him. He shrugged as he tossed it onto the floor in a pile of dirty clothes. The room was somehow messier than the last time she saw it. “I could clean your room for you.”

“I’m not gonna make you do that.”