“Lying.” He corrects.
I let out a broken laugh. “Does it matter now? I thought you were buried deep in the ground.”
That finally gets a reaction. His hands leave mine. I hate the emptiness immediately. He moves back, creating distance rather than pulling me closer.
"Who told you I was dead?" He’s there, but he’s not touching me, not anymore. I hate it.
I close my eyes. “My dad.”
“Fuck.” He says it under his breath then curses again. I don’t turn around but the sound of something hitting the wall makes me nearly jump out of my skin, and then the sound of a hammergetting taken to a sculpture fills the room. I squeeze my eyes shut until he’s finished. Pieces of clay go flying by my feet.
I wait and then I finally turn around. He’s staring at me like I’ve just handed him a loaded gun. His blue eyes are wide with fury; he’s gripping a hammer with his right hand. Instinctively, I step back like my sculpture is somehow going to protect me.
"I went to your funeral." I confess. “It was raining.”
His jaw flexes. “What?”
My voice cracks. "I wasn't allowed out of the car, I ran anyways. I ran across the street and stood behind a tree." The memory of the rain pelting my hair assaults me. I’d been freezing.
All the color drains from his face. He’s white as a ghost as I talk. "I watched people dressed in black with black umbrellas talk about you but I couldn’t make out the words, I couldn’t hear anything.
I wipe angrily at my eyes. "I thought one of them was carrying you but it was impossible to see all the details because of the rain. Because it was mixed with my tears and my vision was blurry and because I was a coward hiding behind a tree."
The silence between us is unbearable.
“They lowered your casket into the ground. People dropped white roses onto the casket—white roses and purple?—”
“Lilies,” he whispers. “Because the person they were burying wasn’t me, it was my mom.”
“Yes, I know that now because you told me. But I didn’t know then.”
“I was there too. In the car. They wouldn’t let me out because of the trial. Had I known you were there…” He falls into silence.
“You would have killed me,” I say for him.
He shakes his head. ‘I would have run.”
My head jerks up. “What?”
“To you. I would have run to you. And like the rain that day, I wouldn’t have stopped.”
16
“She was not part of the plan. That was the first mistake. Wanting her was the second.”—The Count of Monte Cristo
JUDE
Her jaw drops. Does she not believe me? She’d been my safe space and ripped it back so fast my head spun, but seeing her there, after my mom’s death. It would have been a last-ditch desperate attempt to find that safety again. She would have been my umbrella, and I would have collapsed like a weak pitiful child at her feet.
I should leave. The sane thing to do. Walk away. Do not unpack what doesn’t need to be unpacked but doing so means I don’t get answers. I just didn’t realize the answers would be as painful as this, or that I’d want to comfort her instead of rage and yell.
It’s after hours, and a few students are still in the studio next door. This one’s empty. I quietly walk over to the door and flip the lock, drop the hammer on the table next to the door and don’t stop walking until I’m right in front ofher, directly underneath the light illuminating her project. Just another project involving me, like the ghost of me before, this is apparently the prince of me in the present.
She takes a step back until she’s pressed against the table. I open my mouth and look down at the damn frog with my tattoo on it like she accidentally etched it in, at this rate she’s going to accidentally shape my face instead of the damned amphibian’s.
Her hands really are her truth, while her words can’t be trusted. Maybe that’s my answer. I hold up my hand then walk over and grab a brand-new slab of clay; I use the string to cut it down to size then carry it over to her.
I stare at the damn frog.
