Page 79 of Into the Fire

“You know how it is, Vi.”

“Are you out of danger? Or whatever?”

He nodded.

“So you’re good?”

She’d always been able to read him at a glance, and right now especially he felt like he had no control over what his face might show. He didn’t know where to look. Had her eyes always held that much yellow? A tendril of hair twisted down her cheek, touching the edge of her mouth. Her perfume—orange blossom and vanilla—brought him right back to that casino floor, sitting next to her for the first time.

Can I sit here?

I’m having an unlucky run. If you’re smart, you’ll get as far away from me as possible.

Don’t worry. I’m not that smart.

He forced his gaze downward. “I’m good,” he said. “You doing okay?”

She laughed. “I live in South Pasadena. I’m working for my parents. My parents. Overseeing housing units. And I’m doing my best making sure the tenants have what they need, you know? Making sure we’re good landlords to them, at least better than my dad would be, but it’s still … I’m in this job I hate in a life I hate and I swore I’d never be here again and it’s all my fault and all my own choices and here I am wondering how the hell it happened.” She wiped at her eyes. “So no. If we’re being honest, I’m not very good.”

“I’m sorry.” The same two stupid words, but he said them with everything he had, and she must have sensed it in his voice, because for the first time it seemed she actually heard them.

For a few moments, they stood in the breeze, not knowing what to do. It was no longer dusk; night had happened all at once, the gathering inside vivid behind plate-glass windows and the two of them out here, invisible.

“It got so awful,” she said. “Between us. And we said awful shit. But I would’ve gone through it with you. I would’ve been awful with you. Until we weren’t.”

She was crying freely now, and there was no anger, only pain laid bare, and whether that was from the rawness of Grant’s death or the moment, he didn’t know.

“I understand,” she said. “Believe me, I understand. Maybe that’s why I’m so angry.”

“Understand?” Max said. “Understand what?”

“That I was…”—she had to fight out the word—“damaged.” Her voice was constricted, squeezed tight with grief. “You didn’t want to be with me because I couldn’t have kids anymore.”

The words cut through him like a scythe.

“What?” He fought to catch his breath. “No. No, no, never. Violet—never.”

“Why, then?” she said. “Why?”

He opened his mouth. It clutched, but nothing came out.

He couldn’t tell her.

He could never tell her.

She studied him an instant through glassy eyes and then turned and hurried away, arms crossed around her stomach to hold herself together.

He stayed rooted to the walkway, the faint melody of conversation and string instruments reaching him on the wind.

At some point he told his legs to carry him back to the taxi, and they obeyed. And then somehow he was in the backseat, bathed in the scent of the pine Little Tree freshener spinning from the rearview.

The cabdriver tilted the mirror and for once didn’t offer a smirky crack. “Where would you like to go?” he asked.

Max considered the question in a larger context and realized he had no fucking idea. He had to clear his throat twice before he could speak.

“Hollywood police station, please.”

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