Tommy… Sokolov.
Just putting my name with his makes me shiver. I’ve been a few different Tommys in my life, most recently Claremont, but this is the first time a last name meant anything to me. This is the first time someone has wanted me, as me. Not Tommy the child, or Tommy Claremont, or Tommy the victim who needs to be saved, or Tommy the prostitute who will bend over for petty cash–me, as just Tommy. But he says I’m not just Tommy, anymore.
Don’t be stupid, he didn’t mean it like that. It was like a figure of speech or something. Just… just don’t… don’t.
Fuck me. I’m doomed. This isn’t going to end well, I can already tell. I should get out now, while I still can. I know that. But there’s this greedy need inside me that demands that I stick it out on this ride. The monster inside my chest, the one that’salways there even when I wish it wasn’t, is screaming for his attention. Screaming to take it, hold it, hoard it. Hold it in my hands, wrap it around me.
I look at my fingertips, stained with charcoal from my new pencils, and I wonder…
Chapter 18
Tommy
I almost don’t answer the ringing phone on the living room coffee table, thinking that maybe it’s Young-gi’s, until I recognize it as ‘mine’--the one Kira gave me. I’ve never had a call before, never answered it before. I didn’t even charge it, I think Young-gi must have done that. I glance over to the hallway, but there’s no sign of Young-gi. We’d gotten back to his penthouse only an hour or so ago, after an entire day of meetings, and now he’s taking a shower and decompressing, much like I’ve just finished doing. So he isn’t in the room.
Feeling weirdly like I’m doing something I shouldn’t, I hesitantly pick it up and answer. “Hello?”
“Tommy, thank god, I’ve been so worried!” Kira’s voice coming through my phone makes me simultaneously relax and squirm with guilt. Because I did it again, ruined her night with violence.
“Sorry, Kira,” I begin, earnest and ashamed. “I’m really sorry–”
“Don’t be!” she interrupts, almost hotly. “Your friend, Georgie, he told us everything! I can’t believe it! Poor Georgie, he was so scared. You didn’t do anything wrong trying to save him.”
She hesitates, and I hear the unspoken ‘but’... Because I didn’t just save Georgie. I didn’t stop there. Didn’t leave when I could have or just run Oscar off. I chased him down, and beat him. Just like with Brian.
“I probably shouldn’t have gone so far,” I mumble, looking at my knuckles. She takes several breaths, like she’s about to speak but then changes her mind. I squirm some more, conflicted,upset because I’d only just gotten her to feel safe around me again.
“I-I don’t know, Tommy,” she finally says. “I heard that the fight was… well. But Georgie was in danger so… I don’t know what I would’ve done. You did save him though, and that counts for something.”
That counts for something.Like it’s a tally system, and I need the scales to even out or she won’t be able to condone my actions. I sigh. My knuckles are clean now, barely any bruising or split skin from the fight, but I can still feel the tingling of Young-gi’s fingers tracing the blood there, can still hear him whisper in my ear ‘good boy.’
He didn’t think it was too far.
“Well, anyway,” I hurry to change the subject. “I’m sure Young-gi will bring me back soon. The meetings took forever and then we had to stop at his other office to do more boring work stuff, so maybe not tonight since it’s getting late, but probably tomorrow.”
Silence on the line. I glance at my phone, wondering if the call dropped. “Kira?”
“He didn’t talk to you about it?” She sounds wary, unsure. “Um, you know, you can ask him about it. I’m not sure what his plan is, honestly. It’s all up in the air.”
All up in the air?What the fuck? What does she mean by that? How is it undecided? I’m supposed to be her fiancé, and that means I’m staying with her…
Unless… He’s firing me?
He just said I was his this morning, I remind myself, then shake my head. It’s no use to listen to what people say. People lie. He could ditch me at any time, and if I’m surprised by it, I have no one to blame but myself and my gullibility.
“Okay,” I say, unwilling to pry. Afraid she might tell me something I don’t want to hear. “I’ll ask him.”
“Okay, yeah, ask him,” she repeats uncertainly. I hear a feminine voice in the background, and Kira’s muffled reply. Then, “Hey, Tommy, let me call you again later. Janessa just came over. She says–” Her voice lowers, presumably so only I can hear, “that she has something she wants to tell me. Do you know what it is?”
There’s fear in her voice, no doubt about it. She’s afraid of another betrayal or more bad news, maybe. But there’s something else, too.
But, it’s not my place to tell her that secret. “No, sorry,” I lie.
See? People lie all the time.
We say our goodbyes, and I sit on the couch for a minute, mind churning. I’m left feeling a little like she’s just let me go, kind of cut me loose. Like she just took an exit ramp off a highway I’m still on, and I have no idea where I’m going anymore, but I know that she’s not going there with me.
It’s … scary. And sad. And annoying.
