Beautiful Musician (5 page)

I wanted to fire a bullet through
mine. A full metal jacket. But it was better this way. She had to
stop depending on me.

“
Breakfast,
Abby.”

“
I know. I know. I’m
getting ready.” Her voice vibrated. She was walking in circles,
searching for shoes. She went after the first two she saw, an
orange flip-flop and a red tennis shoe.

Holy fuck. I should help her. I should
make it all right. But what was the point? I would only be enabling
her.

Then again, how could I send her out
there like that?

“
Damn it,” I said. “Look
at yourself.”

She took my statement literally and
studied her reflection in the mirror. A wrinkled dress and
mismatched shoes. She didn’t seem to know how to fix her
appearance, so she turned to me for help.

I went to her dresser and grabbed a
pair of jeans and a T-shirt for her. This was the last time, I told
myself. From here on in, she was on her own.

She managed to put them on, but her
shoes were still a dilemma. I dug around in her closet and found a
pair of combat-style boots similar to mine. I even tied the damned
laces for her.

Before she left the room, she stood in
the doorway and stared at me with her big, wounded eyes, waiting to
see if I’d changed my mind about going with her.

I made a motion with my hands, sending
her away.

She trudged down the hall alone. Even
in her tough clothes, she looked like an urchin.

I cursed myself to hell.

Shout at the
Devil
.

Shout. Shout. Shout.

I left the treatment center and went
for a walk, heading down a busy street in my black garb and
screw-the-universe attitude.

I wandered into a liquor store and
spotted a bottle of whiskey that made my mouth water. But I
couldn’t buy it. The clerk behind the counter couldn’t even see me,
let alone accept my money. Another reminder that I didn’t exist in
this world.

Maybe I could steal it. I’d been an
accomplished thief when I was younger. I’d ripped off plenty of
shit in Room 105. I had no idea if that would work here,
though.

Still, it was worth a try.

Bold as you please, I fisted my prize.
Easy as that, I had the bottle in my hands. Thing was, I didn’t
know if I was grabbing the genuine article or if it was just a
figment of my mind. But it didn’t matter. Fake whiskey was the same
as imaginary whiskey. Nothing I did was real, anyway. No doubt
about it, I was a nonentity, a non-person, like all of the other
assholes from 105.

Speaking of which…

As soon as I strolled out of the
store, Bud and Face appeared.

“
Go the fuck away,” I told
them.

“
You’re acting like a
self-serving prick,” Face said.

“
No shit,” came my
response.

“
Slow down, son,” Bud
said. Aside from the compassion in his eyes, he looked like his
usual self, puffing away on one of his cheap-ass cigars.

“
I’m not your son.” I
jerked away from the meaty hand he placed on my
shoulder.

I glanced around the parking lot and
noticed a dumpster. I made a beeline for it.

Face and Bud followed me.

I sat on the ground behind the
dumpster and leaned against a concrete block wall. Why I was
keeping myself hidden didn’t make sense, considering that I was
invisible. Maybe I just preferred being in the shadows.

I twisted open the bottle, seconds
away from drowning my sorrows.

“
That isn’t the answer,”
Bud said.

I glared at him. “Piss
off.”

He huffed out a fat man’s breath and
plopped his butt down next to mine, the smoke from his cigar
curling between us. “You treated Abby like crap this
morning.”

“
She needs to be free of
me.”

“
No, she doesn’t. You’re
the sanity in her life.”

“
Yeah, right.” I scowled
at him, then at Face, who was hovering above us. “We’re all part of
the insanity.”

“
Speak for yourself, you
dipstick.” Face spun around to showcase his birdlike skills, his
fingers flapping in the garbage-fueled air. “I’m as normal as it
gets.”

Bud lifted his bushy eyebrows. I
couldn’t help but react in the same way. Face looked downright
maniacal. Mr. Potato Head and Humpty Dumpty had nothing on
him.

I raised the bottle to my lips, but I
didn’t take a drink. I was thinking about Abby’s expression and the
hurt I’d put in her eyes.

Flustered, I threw the whiskey at the
side of the dumpster and the glass shattered, spilling the amber
liquid. How could I have purposely hurt the girl I loved? I was
supposed to be her dearest friend, the guy who appeared to her when
she needed warmth and affection. She’d created me to be someone she
could count on, the goodhearted bad-boy.

“
I behaved like a
bastard,” I said.

“
The bastard of bastards,”
Face mocked.

“
You need to make it up to
Abby,” Bud said.

“
Will you guys help me
figure out how to do that?”

“
Of course we will.” Bud
was all for it.

Face was, too, even if he harassed me
about it the entire time we headed back to The Manor, telling me
what a stupid son of a bitch I was. A useless jerk. A turd that
belonged in the toilet.

I let him berate me. I didn’t care
what kind of names he called me. All I cared about was repairing
the damage I’d done.

And proving myself to Abby.

Chapter Nine

I spent most of the day with Bud and
Face, working on a surprise for Abby. Then I waited to see her. She
didn’t come back to her room until evening, and by then Bud and
Face were gone. But they didn’t intend to stay, anyway. This was
about me and Abby.

She didn’t seem to be confused like
she’d been earlier. Somewhere between then and now, she’d gotten a
little stronger.

“
What are you doing here?”
she asked.

“
I’m making an
apology.”

She clutched her middle. “I don’t
forgive you.”

I deserved a swift kick to the heart,
so I stood there and took it. “I don’t expect you to come running
into my arms. I know I need to earn your forgiveness.”

Tears pricked her eyes, the dampness
emerging like pinpoints of light. “Go away, Seven.”

“
I can’t.” I wasn’t going
to give up that easily. This was our first fight, the only falling
out we’d ever had.

“
I don’t want you here.”
She tightened the hold on herself.

“
If I leave now, neither
of us will ever get over it.” I could tell that she still loved me.
It was evident in every fragile move that she made, in every blink
of her eyes, in every catch of her breath.

I still loved her, too. Nothing could
ever make me stop. “Please, let me make it up to you.”

“
You were mean to me. You
aren’t supposed to be that way.”

“
I’m only human.” Or as
human as a hallucination from Room 105 could be. “People make
mistakes.”

“
What if you get mean
again?”

Clearly, she didn’t trust me. “I
won’t, I promise.” I couldn’t bear for her to become paranoid of
me. “I would die for you, Abby.”

She shivered, the chill going straight
to her bones. “Don’t say that.”

“
But it’s true. I’m alive
because of you. You created me. I owe you everything.” My heart, my
soul, my life. “You’re my world.”

“
You’re mine, too, but
that doesn’t make it any better.” The lights in her eyes, her
tears, threatened to fall.

I tried for a smile, my secret charm.
Or so I hoped. “I have a surprise for you.”

“
What kind of surprise?”
She sounded curious, but cautious, too.

“
Come outside with me and
I’ll show you.”

“
Outside
where?”

“
In the
garden.”

“
It’s not open at
night.”

“
I know. That’s part of
the surprise. Us sneaking out there together.”

She appeared to be considering her
options. Was she wavering, deciding if she should grant me the
forgiveness I sought?

I held out my hand, waiting to see if
she would accept it.

She stepped forward, and my pulse
jumped to my throat. Finally, I was making headway, inching toward
my goal.

Our fingertips touched. Heat.
Electricity. We gazed desperately at each other.

“
Seven.” She said my name
in the softest of ways.

I opened my arms, and she walked into
my embrace. I wrapped myself around her, holding her as close as I
possibly could.

Nothing had ever overwhelmed me more.
She’d created me, and I was healing her, taking away the pain I’d
caused.

“
I’m so sorry,” I
whispered.

“
It’s okay.” She put her
head on my shoulder and suddenly her tears began to
fall.

I held her while she cried, running my
fingers through her choppy hair. I loved her messiness. I loved
everything about her.

“
Abby?”

“
Hmm?”

“
Can I kiss
you?”

She raised her head. Her face was
streaked with salty rivulets. But she smiled anyway.

“
You can kiss me from now
till eternity,” she said.

“
Then that’s what I’m
going to do.”

Were we actually saying this kind of
stuff to each other? It sounded like the script from a cornball
movie. We probably looked as if we were filming one, too. Bud
would’ve been proud.

Our mouths came together, our tongues
meeting in passion-drenched need. An image flashed into my mind:
the honeysuckle flowers that grew wild on her aunt’s property. When
we were kids, we used to pluck them off their vines and suck on
their sweetness. Abby tasted like that, only sexier.

She pressed against me. I was too tall
for her, and she was standing on her toes, her combat boots tapping
mine.

This was the kind of attachment dreams
were made of. The fucked-up guy and the crazy girl.

We kept kissing.

And kissing some more.

Life as we knew it was going to
change. After tonight, everything would be different. We couldn’t
go back and do things over. But by the same token, our future
remained uncertain. Only now wasn’t the time to think about
that.

When I lifted my mouth from hers, she
said, “Your barbell does make kissing hot.”

She had no idea what else I could do
with it. But I wasn’t going to take her in that direction. I moved
gently away from her.

“
Let’s go outside,” I
said, eager to show her how truly romantic I could be.

Chapter Ten

I opened the window, and she gaped at
me.

“
We’re going to sneak out
that way?” she asked.

I nodded. “It’ll be easier than trying
to slip out the front door without being seen. Or one of the side
exits or whatever.” In actuality, Abby could leave anytime she
wanted. This wasn’t a mental ward, like at a state or county
hospital. Her admittance to The Manor had been voluntarily.
Fancy-ass places like this usually were.

She climbed out the window first, and
I followed her. She glanced back and grinned. “Good thing my room
is on the first floor.”

The Manor didn’t have multiple
stories. “Everything here is on the first floor.”

“
I know, but good thing,
huh?”

I smiled. She was being girlish and
giddy. I grabbed her hand as soon as our feet hit solid
ground.

I guided her around the side of the
building and toward the garden. We crept around like cat burglars,
only we wouldn’t be stealing anything.

We came to a stone wall with an iron
gate shaped into a whimsical design.

“
What should we do now?”
she asked.

“
We’re going to go over
the gate.” It seemed easier than trying to scale the wall. “Just
put your feet through the swirls at the bottom and keep climbing
until you reach the bar at the top.”

She nudged me ahead of her. “You go
first.”

That was probably a good idea. Once I
was on the other side, I could help her down.

I climbed the gate like a primate,
moving up and over it as if it were a tree. Thankfully there were
softly lit security lights keeping the area from being too
dark.

“
Your turn,” I told
her.

She took her time, clutching the
wrought iron carefully. Once she got closer to me, I circled my
hands around her waist, making sure that she didn’t stumble before
her feet touched the earth.