Page 37 of The Associate
What the fuck was that?
∞∞∞
The restaurant was charming, even Sam could admit to that.
Dark wood wainscoting, checkered tablecloths of red and white, the soft strains of an Italian opera playing from hidden speakers. It smelled of garlic, simmering tomatoes, and the faint, floral perfume of the single candle flickering between them.
Samuel had chosen it for its neutral ground, its lack of stark lighting, its reputation for being “nice but not too fancy.”A safe, nondescript box in which to perform a necessary, grueling act.
Penny Covington sat across from him, her hands folded neatly in her lap. She was dressed in a simple, knee-length navy dress with a lace collar, her hair pulled back in a soft twist. She was pretty in a way that felt like a watercolor painting; all soft edges and gentle hues.
When the waiter brought their menus, she smiled and murmured athank youwithout meeting his eyes. When Samuel made a clumsy joke about the number of pasta shapes, she laughed, a light, tinkling sound, and her gaze immediately dropped to her napkin, a faint pink blush coloring her cheeks.
She was sweet. Genuinely, disarmingly sweet. Kind in a way that felt effortless and untouched by cynicism. As she spoke about her Sunday school class, her face lit with an earnest passion.
“The toddlers, they’re just sopure, you know? They have these tiny little questions about God that are so honest.” Her voice was soft. She asked about his work at Voss & Wise with a polite interest, looking genuinely interested in his answer.
And it was killing him.
Every gentle laugh, every demure glance, every sincere question was a nail in his coffin. He sat there, nodding, forcing a polite smile onto his face, while inside he was splitting in two. One part of him was playing his role: asking the right follow-up questions, complimenting her dedication, keeping his voice calm and pleasant. The other part was a raw, shrieking thing trapped behind his ribs.
She’s so nice,the trapped part whispered, a dirge of self-loathing.She’s everything they want. Everything you’re supposed to be able to want.
He watched her delicately twirl spaghetti onto her fork, her movements neat and contained. She was a creature of a world he understood perfectly; a world of clear rules, modest dresses, and quiet devotion. A world that had, with surgical precision, tried to cut the desire out of him. Sitting with her felt like being presented with the blueprint for a normal, sanctioned life, a life that would heal the fracture in his parents’ eyes and grant him a permanent, if numbing, peace.
But the blueprint was written in a language his soul could no longer read.
His mind, treacherously, kept throwing up contrasts. Her soft laughter against the memory of a low, commanding voice ina silent elevator. Her downcast eyes against the piercing, dark gaze that seemed to see straight through him. The sheer, placidsafetyof her felt like a suffocating blanket compared to the dangerous thrill of being underhisscrutiny.
Each time she smiled at him, a fresh wave of shame crested, hot and acidic in his throat.
He was deceiving her. He was using her kindness as a shield, her innocence as camouflage. He was a wolf pretending to be a lamb.
“Your mother says you’ve been so busy with some merger,” Penny said, her voice pulling him back. “It must be very demanding and tiring.”
“Yes,” Samuel said, the word tasting like ash. “Very.”
He took a sip of water, his hand steady only through immense force of will. Penny was talking about a church picnic. He nodded, making a soft sound of agreement. He was building a life raft out of her normality, board by polite board. But with every smile he forced, every nod of feigned interest, he could feel the cold, deep water of his own truth rising up around him, threatening to pull him under for good.
He was drowning in the very thing that was supposed to save him, and the only face that flashed in his mind, the only presence that made his breath catch with something other than dread, was the one that belonged to the man who was the embodiment of everything this dinner was meant to erase.
The conversation drifted to the upcoming church festival. Penny was describing the quilt raffle with an earnest enthusiasm, her hands gesturing gently above the tablecloth. Samuel nodded, the motion automatic, his mind a million miles away; or, more accurately, sixteen floors up, in a sterile office that somehow felt more real than this warm, garlic-scented room.
As she leaned forward slightly to emphasize a point about the hand-stitched patterns, the collar of her modest dress gaped a fraction. The candlelight, previously painting everything in soft, forgiving gold, caught on a thin, pale line of raised skin just below the curve of her left shoulder blade.
It was a narrow scar. About three inches long. Perfectly straight, with the faint, parallel ridges of stitches long since dissolved.
Samuel’s breath vanished.
His fork, halfway to his mouth, froze. The gentle opera, the clatter of distant plates, the murmur of other diners; all of it receded into a roaring, white-noise silence.
He knew that scar.
It was the twin of the one hidden under his own shirt, high on his right shoulder blade. A souvenir from Restoration Hills. A mark from a “corrective session” with a flexible cane after he’d been caught whispering to the boy in the next cot.
He stared, his polite smile frozen into a rigor-mortis rictus. His mind, which had been so adept at building walls between this dinner and his past, between Penny and his truth, suddenly found those walls paper-thin and blowing down in a cold, silent gust.
She has one. She has one.
