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“And that’s so bad?”
“When you come attached with my family name, it is. I need to have a good reputation so no one suspects me.”
“Wow.” I relax into my seat, fingering the bottle of apple juice as he pulls out of the parking lot. “Since when did you come to that conclusion?”
“Since a boy in elementary school was called a bully for giving me a bloody nose. When the fact was, I broke his toy. No one believed him after he beat me up because in the world’s eyes, he had a bad reputation and I was the victim.”
“You weren’t.”
He lifts a shoulder. “They believed it. That’s what matters.”
“Does that mean everything you do is make-believe?”
“To an extent.”
“So…your true self is the beast?”
He smiles, a predatory one. “Is that what you call me in your head?”
“Just answer the question,” I blurt, embarrassed to my bones.
“I wouldn’t say I’m him entirely. Just like not every part of you is the prey.”
“That’s what you call me?”
“That or toy.”
For some reason, that doesn’t feel odd or degrading. I get off on the name-calling during sex, but this feels different. Almost like our secret language.
I stare at Sebastian. Like really stare at him and his sculpted beauty that’s fit for models. Why would a person like him get off on that depravity? What turned the boy who was beaten up at school into the beast?
“Do you keep those two facets of you entirely separated?” I ask.
“Maybe.”
“It’s a yes or no question.”
“The answer depends on your answer.”
“My answer to what?”
“What happened to you?”
My fingers tremble and I jam the straw into the bottle of juice, then take a long swig. “I was born without a father and…it fucked me up. When I was younger, I looked at other kids and hated my mom for not letting me have a father. Then I thought maybe she had me from one of those fertilization clinics and I was supposed to be fatherless. You might say that’s not a big deal. I thought so as well until I realized I wouldn’t be the same if I’d had a father. O
r maybe I’m just trying to make an excuse and be…normal. Because normal families don’t have bad shit happen to them.”
“They do.” His voice is quiet. “My parents were normal people without much ambition. They were so normal and righteous, they left my grandparents’ sides to live a bland life, but they died in an accident, anyway. Striving for normal didn’t save them. It may have made their deaths more imminent.”
“I’m…sorry.”
“Why?”
“Huh?”
“Why are you sorry?”
“Isn’t that what people say in these circumstances?”
