Page 7

Indy

Getting the tears was the easy part.

Sully had no shortage of vials with cork stoppers, and I had plenty to cry about.

With twenty-four hours between us and what I was struggling to believe would not be another rejection, Sully took the opportunity to get some rest. She suggested I do the same but, after an hour and a half rolling around in a nest of floor pillows, I remained maddeningly awake.

I showered and took a razor to the peach fuzz masquerading as stubble on my cheeks, then put on some clothes that hadn’t been fondled by a demon.

In case our deal brought Loren home, I wanted to pass for put together.

Putting together an ensemble from the limited selection I’d brought from the trailer forced a bit of creativity.

I was used to a wider variety, and it was clear this would-be wardrobe had been packed in a rush.

After a lengthy debate, I settled on a cold shoulder top and pleated miniskirt that showed off my shaved legs.

The addition of combat boots and a chain belt gave punk vibes that I hoped would convey I meant business.

To Moira, not Loren.

He was unfazed by my eccentric clothing choices.

It was funny to look back and realize how little he’d changed in a hundred years, while I seemed to emerge after every rebirth like an increasingly flamboyant butterfly.

Dressed and clean, I clambered up onto the sink counter and sat.

Using the framed wall mirror, I applied eyeliner and shadow, then added glitter to the smattering of freckles on my cheeks.

I was still remembering, like a student cramming for a history test, and I was alarmed to realize that part of me missed the emptiness.

I would never tell Sully.

Hell, I wished I could deny it to myself, but I felt crowded now.

Crushed. And missing the person who helped it all make sense.

The vial sat on Sully’s kitchen counter, filled to the brim and swirling with specks of glitter.

My eyes ached, but at least that was done, and I hoped it would be enough.

How much fluid did it take to purify a demon’s soul?

A drop? Or a vat? Maybe Moira wanted to bathe in the stuff and come out as sparkly as a cheap stripper.

If so, I would have to keep feeling sorry for myself until I was wrung dry.

Day bled into night, and I paced the apartment.

My boots were made for walking, and I was apt to wear them out.

That, or rub a path in the floor around the chalk circle waiting to summon the demoness a second time.

When dawn broke, I opened one of the living room windows and crawled out onto the fire escape.

Three floors wasn’t far up, but I had a decent view.

The colors of sunrise washed over the gritty city streets.

Hot pink and creamsicle orange painted the brick buildings, and the air was clearer than usual.

I wasn’t actually a bird, but I had the spirit of one.

It was that quiet voice I heard from time to time, so much weaker than it used to be.

Loren told me that his hound talked to him, saying primal things like kill and hunt .

He said it felt like he had to fight for control of his own mind, but my phoenix was more like a friend.

At least, it had been.

In recent years, it seemed we’d grown apart.

But he liked high places where he could touch the sky, so this moment was a bit of a peace offering, an attempt at strengthening a bond worn thin.

I hadn’t sat long before I heard a throat clear behind me.

I glanced back and saw Sully standing inside the window, holding a coffee mug for herself and a glass of milk for me.

“Got room for one more?” She nodded to the metal ledge.

“Sure.”

She passed me the milk, then crept out onto the escape.

Her careful steps were heralded by the iron creaking protest at the added weight.

While she settled, I sipped the milk and watched cars crawl by on the street below.

She sat cross-legged, bumping her knee into mine before she asked, “Did you sleep?”

I shook my head.

“Couldn’t.”

“Did you use?”

My nose wrinkled, and I turned, ready to retort with what was obvious to me.

But she didn’t know about my supply or lack thereof, so I resigned myself to mumble, “I’m out.”

“Good.”

In rehab, they said addicts were good at making excuses.

I wondered if my need to remember was exactly that.

Tripping through my past lives was a less despicable reason to get high than taking pills because I liked them, or because my body craved them.

But I had my memories now, so I didn’t need drugs.

They were medicine, and I was cured.

Sully’s dreads draped over her shoulders as she sat slouched.

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

Since the day she picked me up in Pennsylvania, we had been tiptoeing through a minefield of uncomfortable topics.

The first of which was how I’d gotten utterly fucked up in a family-friendly campground and was that way when she found me.

Strung out in the Airstream, watching To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything!

Julie Newmar, and giggling madly.

It turned out the old guy from the campsite next door was a war veteran with a titanium hip.

He hobbled around the campfire but insisted he was man enough to deal with the pain of having his bones replaced with a metal ball and socket.

He didn’t need prescriptions to manage his body.

But I did.

He handed over a few Percocet after I asked politely, then warned me to pace myself because I was “just a little fella.”

I inhaled the damn things like they were oxygen.

Then came the movie, and the confused boner about Patrick Swayze in drag, and Sully being far too nice.

She’d been too nice ever since, even when she insisted that I get clean and go to Narcotics Anonymous meetings.

It was all pats on the head, cautious smiles, and calling me sweetheart.

After three weeks of handling me with kid gloves, she must have been full to the brim with hard truths, and it was risky to open myself up by asking, “Talk about what?”

Her brow scrunched in contemplation until she simply said, “Anything.”

“Damn it, Sully.” I set my milk on the rusty fire escape floor and faced her with my arms crossed.

“I remember you, too, you know,” I said.

“We used to be close. You used to be honest with me. We were honest with each other.”

She cut her gaze toward the horizon as I continued.

“I know you have shit to say, so say it. I can take it.”

Bold words from a guy who spent half the night sobbing into a bottle.

The sun warmed Sully’s skin, enhancing the rich umber color in her cheeks and the mahogany of her lips as they twisted into a frown.

“I don’t want to be the reason…” She trailed off, drew a breath, and tried again.

“If I pushed you into something…” When that attempt failed as well, she frowned and settled to say, “Loren asked me to protect you.”

I snorted.

“Fuck him.”

Sully glanced over, her dark eyes wide and somehow also scolding.

“I can’t imagine you mean that any way but literally.”

I didn’t mean it, but I was angry.

Mad at Loren for how he had handled things in this lifetime and so many others.

He thought he was taking burdens away from me but, in doing so, he took control, as well.

He rendered me ignorant and helpless, so I was forced to rely on him.

And I did. I trusted him implicitly, but it turned him into a martyr, throwing himself into danger for my sake.

I resented that, and it scared me to think he might resent me for it, too.

“I want you to come to work with me today.” Sully’s statement pulled me from thought.

“And every day,” she added.

“You’re gonna earn back the cost of that wine you drank.”

Drank, then wasted by vomiting it back up.

“And I’m taking you to your meetings from now on.” She laid her hand on my knee.

“I’ll even sit with you if you want.”

The offer stalled me.

As alone as I felt in that community center room, Sully’s was not the company I wanted.

She had done her best the past few weeks to fill a void she just didn’t fit, and I didn’t have it in me to pretend she did.

“I was thinking Loren could take me…” My protest wisped away on the breeze as my fingers curved around the milk glass, letting it cool my clammy palm.

Sully seemed to sense my hesitation, and she saw straight through to the fear at the core of it.

She slid her arm around my shoulders and tugged me close.

“When he gets back, I’m sure he will. I bet he’ll hold your hand and everything.”

Tipping my head onto her shoulder, I huffed a laugh.

“Not likely in front of a bunch of strangers. You’d think we were the only gay men in New York the way he carries on. Like it’s the 1950s…”

Loren might have been prudish in public but, when we were alone, he fawned over me.

His constant contact, affectionate glances, and sweet smiles made my heart skip.

In bed at night, he held me close, tucked into him and treasured.

Unbelievably adored.

In this lifetime, we hadn’t had much of that.

Things had been strained since my overdose.

Looking back, I saw how hard it was after every rebirth.

My shy, sad boy retreated into himself like my deaths were a personal affront.

He grieved me over and over, and now I felt a measure of that loss.

“I miss him,” I said.

If I were a broken record, that would be the name of my title track.

Sully snugged her arm tighter around me.

“I know, sweetheart.”

We considered the sunrise in mutual quiet.

We had hours left till we could call on Moira and, while working in the gallery was better than swinging my legs off the fire escape until evening, waiting was misery.

“She said she doesn’t want my tears,” I mumbled.

Worse than that, she’d laughed at the thought.

Laughed at me .

Sully polished off her coffee, then rested the mug on her thigh.

“She said she would consider it. And she might have been bluffing.”

“What if she wasn’t?”

“Then we’ll try something else,” Sully replied.

“We have tried something else.” I wrung my hands around the milk glass.

“We’ve tried everything else.”

I faced forward, watching a flock of pigeons land on a nearby highline.

I wanted to be higher than this, farther away.

Elevated enough to make the world and its problems seem small.

On the ground, or three floors above it, the bad things felt so much bigger than me.

Towering, and I was caught in their shadow.

“Indy?” Sully prompted.

My head cocked toward her.

“Yeah?”

She stood, dusted down her front, then held out her hand.

“Let’s get some breakfast and go to work.”