Page 41 of Devil

Am I a stalker? Or is she just one of many?

Hopefully she’s already beginning to grasp the answer to the first question. It will be more comfortable for her the longer she has to get used to the truth.

“It’s all for you,” I tell her. “And we can always get something else if you don’t like these.”

She picks up the jar of imported shampoo and screws open the lid. “It smells like apples,” she says, surprised.

“I didn’t know what brand you used, so I found something that smelled the closest to what I remembered.”

A self-deprecating twitch of her mouth. “My brand isn’t imported from Italy, that’s for sure.”

I make to leave the bathroom and then I pause. “You’re the first person to stay here overnight, Birdie. You’ll be the first person I’ve ever lived with.”

“Oh,” she says, and I was right, it had been a question scratching the inside of her thoughts. And then, like she can’t help herself, she asks, “Really?”

“Really, pretty bird.” I smile at her. “No need for jealousy.”

Red comes into her cheeks. “I wasn’t jealous.”

I don’t push the issue. As much as I love the idea of her feeling possessive, I want her honesty more. I want her confidences, her queries, even her accusations. It’s not a surprise—I’ve had a very long time to think about this—but I am struck again by how much I just want herwords, no matter what they are. I want her opinions about shampoo; I want her coffee order; I want her turning to me in the truck to ask if I remembered to turn off the lights in the warehouse before I locked the door.

I want her to talk to me. So much. Her voice is like the music of Heaven for how rare it is for mere sinners to hear.

“Take as long as you want in the shower,” I tell her. “The hot water won’t run out.”

19

BIRDIE

He’s notin the bedroom when I creep from the bathroom a long time later, flushed and scrubbed and smelling like the fancy leave-in conditioner I found waiting in the drawer he said was mine.

I’m so tired I can barely keep my eyes open. The painkillers have started to wear off, and my shoulder hurts, and my calf hurts, and even with the duct tape still wrapped around it, it thrums like an exposed nerve. It reminds me that I’m slightly damaged goods at the moment, although maybe he won’t notice, surely he doesn’t need my calf for...the things he wants to do.

I want to go straight to bed, but it’shisbed, and what if he didn’t really mean what he said about wanting me to sleep? What if it’s a test of some kind, and I fail and then there’s no money for Busy, or he decides that he’ll tack an extra day on to the year to make up for today?

Hoping Bell’s offer was made in good faith, I’ve already dressed in my pajamas—another tank top and a pair of sweatpants Paxico bought at Walmart and then gruffly informed me didn’t fit him. I don’t normally wear pajamas in summer—by May, I’m already sleeping naked in the farmhouse—but Bell’s converted warehouse is air-conditioned enough to lift goose bumps on my arms.

I can’t just get into Bell’s bed, though. It feels like I’m doing something foolish, reaching for the eaves of a gingerbread house to snap off a bite. I can’t help but worry that the minute I let myself relax, I’ll be punished for it. Paxico would say that’s the Catholicism talking, but I think it might be the capitalism, because at least you can eventually pay your way out of Purgatory. There’s no paying my way out of this life with a job at Buddy’s Gas Mart.

I creep downstairs on bare feet as quietly as I can, not really sure what I need to see to feel reassured that I can sleep but needing something regardless. The stairs are open to one side—the side facing the living area and the courtyard—which is empty. When I get to the foot of the stairs, I still don’t hear him.

I move slowly around the corner until I finally catch sight of him in his office. Broad shoulders, bright hair. His back is to me as he sits with his feet propped on his desk, and I can just barely catch the iPad in his lap, the glimpse of a white tablet pencil as he lifts it between strokes. I wonder what he’s drawing, if it’s for work or pleasure. There was no other student in that class who was as rawly gifted at drawing, and drawing with anything: charcoal, ink, colored pencils, even sidewalk chalk for a fundraiser once. He instinctively understood lines, proportions, depth, and he could see the tiny details that rendered somethingreal—the irregularity of a feather on a wing, the sagging crater of a smallpox vaccination scar. Any fine arts major would have committed a mortal sin to have a talent like that, and there he was, an architecture major instead, a semester away from forsaking the charcoal for CAD.

Before Bell perceives me staring at him like a ghost, I go back upstairs. I take another handful of ibuprofen, plug in my phone, and lie down. I texted Busy earlier to tell her I would try to visit on Monday, but I haven’t gotten a response yet. That’s not unusual, and the staff over at the cluster housing do a thrice-daily wellness check when they deliver medications, so I know I’ll hear if anything is amiss. I make sure the ringer is on—it always is, unless I’m at Mass—and then lift the corner of Bell’s duvet. It feels expensive, and the sheets, when I touch them, feel expensive too, soft and cool and finely woven. The pillowcases are silk.

I keep to the very edge as I lie down on the bed and cover myself up. It’s been made dark in here—some technology inside the window glass itself rather than curtains or blinds—and it’s a little chilly, and the bed is so soft. I try to pray as my eyes close, but I don’t know what to pray for. To avoid temptation? I’ve embraced it; I’m in its bed.

To have my trespasses forgiven? When I plan to trespass again every day for the next year?

No, I can’t think of a single prayer to pray. Even offering up my suffering for the sake of salvation of others feels wrong right now. A sacrifice that wouldn’t please God, smoke that would refuse to rise to Heaven and coil listlessly on the ground instead.

I fall asleep with nothing to say to God or his saints, my leg and shoulder throbbing, breathing in the faint incense-and-pepper scent of my new employer.

I wakelike someone swimming to the surface of a pond, the world growing clearer and brighter by degrees, and I become aware of all the aches and throbs in my back and shoulder, of the pulsing in my calf. I become aware of Bell sitting on the edge of the bed next to me, stroking my ankle.

It’s morning, I think. The next day. There’s a tray on the table next to me, coffee and fruit and a thick slice of toast with butter and jam on top. Steam is coming from the coffee cup, so the tray hasn’t been here long, which means Bell hasn’t either. And even though he’s barefoot, he’s dressed for the day—black trousers and a black sweater vest with nothing underneath.

Heat rushes to my cheeks when I consider that he probably slept next to me and I had no idea. He was in this same room, feet away, getting dressed. What if he slept naked? What if I touched him while I was sleeping?