Contact Read online

  The moment our lips connect my mind ignites with electric bursts. The burning is so intense I nearly pull away, but instead I kiss him harder. I see everything he is, everything he’s experienced and felt and learned in a lifetime. A little boy running barefoot down a cobbled street in a small Guatemalan town; savoring the sweet tastes of mango and coconut; standing in the warm torrential rains, arms outstretched, head tipped back, mouth wide open.

  But there are bad memories, too, ones he’s buried deep. A father struggling to make ends meet, taking out his frustrations on his boy: a calloused hand, a leather belt, a wooden dowel, whatever was convenient and within reach. I feel the fear, the betrayal—too painful even for me. I move through them quickly only to discover an even darker void—the trauma of leaving his home and family behind, of entering a new country, a new world, and trying to find his place in it.

  His more recent memories slip around each other like ice cubes melting on fevered skin. I see him at school watching someone from a distance, a girl—me. He liked me then? The realization startles me. And I see Craig, my boyfriend, and David’s intense loathing of him. Then there are his memories of seeing me at Dr. Walsh’s office, the fundraiser, everything over the past few days. I feel the depth of compassion he felt watching me fall apart tonight, wanting so much to comfort me, knowing he couldn’t.

  And the longing—his agonizing longing—for me.

  Our kiss ends, and I look up at him. I want to ask him, is this for real? But I know it is. I know everything about him. I know that his every thought is for me, that he wants so desperately for me to understand how he feels, but that he would never compromise my trust in him. Never.

  I kiss David again, and this time he kisses me back—hard and passionate. My fingers brush up the back of his neck into his hair. I’m so consumed with him I don’t even feel the pain anymore. His lips skim along my chin and throat, the tops of my shoulders. His hands caress my back—delicate, like a whisper. He smells so good—vanilla and spice. I breathe deeply, letting him fill my senses.

  I hear the crutches hit the sand as David’s arms slip around my body, holding me even closer. But I want more. Feeling a desperate hunger for contact, I grasp the hem of David’s shirt and lift it, dragging it up his arms until it comes free. Warmth radiates from his russet skin, smooth and curved over joints and muscles. Wearing just my thin cotton tank top, I feel horribly exposed. Fighting the impulse to wrap my arms defensively around myself, I wrap my arms around David instead.

  Touching him again, all I see is him. His passion envelopes me completely, like the shield of warm night air that surrounds us. My hands sweep over the contours of his shoulder blades and spine down to the small of his back. Gliding up again along his sides, my fingers graze a patch of raised, irregular skin—a scar.

  At that moment something inside of David shifts—a change so subtle I might not have noticed if I weren’t so connected to him. He stiffens ever so slightly in my arms, and a thought—no, not even that—an impression leaches from his psyche into mine:

  Regret.

  I have just witnessed things David has kept hidden for years, things too painful to exhume, let alone share—especially with someone he hardly knows. All this time I’ve been so worried about myself I never considered what it might be like for David—for anyone—to be so exposed.

  I peel myself away from David. Stepping back, I put a distance of two or three feet between us.

  “Mira?” His expression is one of surprise, confusion. “Is something wrong?”

  Heat radiates into my cheeks. My throat constricts. “I’m sorry, David,” I say, wrapping my arms defensively around my overly bare body. “I’m so sorry.”

  Part of me hopes I’m wrong, that I misunderstood what I felt—what he felt. But when his eyes briefly flit away, ashamed, I feel a sharp stab in my heart. I quickly lean over, scooping my hoodie off the ground, and shake the sand out of it.

  “You’re leaving?” he asks, half-smiling like he thinks I’m just playing a joke on him.

  “Yeah, I’m leaving.”

  “But why?”

  I take a moment to look at him, at his eyes full of stunned hurt and questions. For a second I almost want to stay, to ignore the fact that I’ve trespassed where I wasn’t invited. But then I remind myself that everyone has secrets, and some of those secrets are best left buried.

  “Have I offended you in some way?” David asks.

  “No, of course not,” I lie, knowing how hard he tried not to offend me. It wasn’t him who broke off the kiss—it was me. “It’s been a rough night, you know? I’m tired, and I just want to go home.”

  He probes me with his eyes, searching for evidence of my lie, but the anguish in my face, in my heart, is as real as anything. First losing my mother, and now losing him. It has been a rough night—a horrible night.

  “Let me drive you.” David snatches his shirt from the ground and slips it on over his head all in one smooth motion. Then he reaches for his crutches.

  “No, you said yourself you can’t drive,” I remind him, my eyes aching with the threat of tears.

  “I was teasing. I think I can handle it.”

  “I really would prefer to walk. All right?”

  David drags his fingers through his hair, frustrated. “Whatever I did, whatever I said—”

  “I’m good,” I say, crafting a smile. “It’s all good.”

  I pull my sleeves to my fingertips and head down Foothill Boulevard, walking briskly toward home. I don’t look back.

  The mansion is dark and still when I arrive. I let myself in through the back door via the key Helen keeps hidden beneath one of those fake plastic rocks in the garden. I don’t bother turning on any lights as I wander through the kitchen and dining room. Slants of pale blue moonlight drift through the windows, casting an almost iridescent glow on everything. The face of the grandfather clock at the foot of the stairs glares accusingly at me, its hands nearing three a.m.. Despite the late hour, I’m not tired. Emotionally spent, yes. Physically exhausted, yes. But having only just gotten news of Mama’s death less than two hours ago, sleep seems a self-indulgent luxury.

  The sick roiling in my stomach returns with a vengeance. I compel my legs, heavy with fatigue, to climb the stairs and carry me to my bedroom. Down the hall the door to my parents’ room stands open. I recall again that Papa is not home. He’s four hundred miles away in Sacramento. For once I wish he were home just so I wouldn’t be alone tonight.

  My room is dark except for the red numbers on the face of my iPod dock, which bathes the room in crimson shadows. Discarding my hoodie on the corner of my bed, I glance down at my naked arms, tinged the color of blood. Lifting my left hand, I slowly rotate my wrist until the narrow ropes of scar tissue gawk at me like lifeless worms affixed forever to my skin.

  I should have died. Not her.

  A cry catches in my throat when I think of Mama lying on that gurney, the white sheet draped so gracefully over her body. I think of Papa, fleeing to the Capitol to escape the burden of watching her die. I squeeze my eyes shut, hastening tears.

  If I had died maybe Mama would still be alive. That stupid fundraiser would have been cancelled. Papa would have been home comforting her. She wouldn’t have been alone. And David . . . I would never have met David.

  I cross the floor to my bathroom and switch on the light. The sudden brightness burns my eyes. I close them for a moment then slowly reopen them, letting them adjust. I stand at the sink, the oval mirror framed in carved oak beckoning to me like the magic mirror in the story of ‘Snow White’, but I can’t bring myself to make eye contact. Avoiding my gaze, I jerk open drawer after drawer in the cabinet below. I find what I expect to find: toothpaste, toothbrush, hair-bands, make up. In one drawer is a three-week-old electric razor that my parents bought to replace the disposable ones I used to use. Papa and Mama both got one, too. There hasn’t been a razor in the house since I was in the hospital. Mama’s needles and lancets are gone. And Helen ke
eps the kitchen knives under lock and key—obeying Dr. Walsh’s strict instructions. For the past three weeks everything sharp or even remotely toxic has been kept out of my reach. Until now I haven’t cared. I don’t even know where Papa keeps everything let alone how I’d get into it if I did.

  Slamming the last drawer shut, I hunch forward, pressing the heels of my hands against the marble sink. I let out a frustrated, feral growl as I strike one hand against the counter hard enough to hurt. The collision sends a burning tremor up my arm. Finally I raise my eyes to the mirror.

  What I see before me is unrecognizable. The face I know, but the person in front of me looks as hollow as a dry well. Eyes ringed red from crying, the souls of all those she has touched have driven her own soul away. Where is the girl I used to be, I wonder—before Mama, before Gaudium?

  Balling the fingers of my right hand into a fist, I smash it into the strange girl’s face. The glass splintering reminds me of a frozen pond cracking. When I lower my hand I see the fragmented face in the spider-web of minute fissures. I punch my fist against it once more. This time the shattered shards of mirror slough off the wall, landing on the counter and in the sink with delicate tinkles. I stare at the void left by the broken mirror, a desolate irregular circle of wall. But I’m not interested in walls. Walls, like secrets, should be left alone.

  Instead I fix my gaze on a long, jagged triangle of glass resting against the faucet. I carefully wrap my trembling hand around it, feeling the sharp edges bite into my skin. How ironic, I think, that just hours ago these very hands were unwillingly damaged by shards like this. I lift the glass and bring its glistening silver tip to my wrist. I press down until the skin bows, creating a tiny bowl, and I recall how it was before, the blood droplets bubbling, swelling, merging into a single crimson line. Strangely I’d felt no pain. In fact, when I cut into myself I could almost feel the pain inside me being released.

  But of course, it didn’t release anything, didn’t change anything, except how Mama and Papa treated me. I remember Mama coming into my room, me with the razor blade still pinched between my thumb and forefinger, my blood dripping onto the carpet. Her eyes had darted from my wrist to my face, comprehending in that single glance all the agony and desperation I couldn’t express to her in words. I hadn’t touched her in weeks, and yet I knew from that glance that she wouldn’t judge me, wouldn’t scold or condemn me.

  I dropped the blade and reached for her. “Mama?” I cried, and she came to me, snatching the sheet off my bed, winding it tightly around my wrist, dialing 911 on her cell, and somehow embracing me all at once.

  “You’re all right,” she repeated over and over. “You’ll be all right, Mira. I swear on my own life.”

  I think of her now, the point of the mirror shard yearning to bite into my arm. And I know—I can’t do this to her again. Not again. It would break her, losing me, like losing her has broken me. But she wouldn’t want that—not for me.

  “You’re strong, Mira. You’ll be all right.”

  I drop the shard into the sink and take a deep gasping breath as if I’ve just come up for air after being submerged in icy water. The smell of copper pricks my nostrils, blood filling the creases on my palm. I haven’t cut myself, only reopened an earlier wound. I grab the towel hanging behind the bathroom door and wrap my hand in it. Then I turn off the light.

  I lie down on my bed without bothering to fold back the covers or kick off my shoes. My head finds comfort in my pillow’s caress. That’s when I notice the swath of moonlight on the wall just across Mama’s photo collage of me when I was young. I look at the faces and am reassured. I know that girl, the one my mother saw through the camera lens. If I can’t connect with the girl in the mirror, at least I can connect with this one. I can see myself the way Mama saw me.

  Finally fatigue claims me. I pull my knees up to my chest, close my eyes, and fall asleep dreaming of Mama and David—and of snow angels.

  I wake to a loud thumping sound. I hear a shrill bell…more thumping. The numbers on my iDock read 7:22 am. Four hours! I’ve been asleep four hours! Who the heck would be pounding on my door so early in the morning?

  Rolling off the bed with a groan, I reluctantly make my way downstairs to the entry and open the front door. I’m greeted by the smell of sunrise and juniper, and to my utter astonishment, David is there leaning on his crutches, his fist poised for another round of thumping.

  “Oh, hey,” he says, lowering his hand. “You up?”

  “I am now.”

  “You saw me, didn’t you?” he asks without hesitation. “That’s why you left last night. I didn’t know what to do at first, couldn’t figure it out, but I walked—hobbled around town all night—”

  “What? Hobbled?” Still in a daze from the abrupt end to my sleep, I can’t wrap my head around what he’s saying. “You’ve been up all night?”

  “Yeah. But then I realized what—why you—Mira, you didn’t have to leave.”

  I don’t know why, maybe because of surprise, maybe relief, but I want to touch him again. I move toward him, but he steps back, more an instinctive response than a conscious one. He looks down, embarrassed.

  “Sorry,” he says, tightening the grip on his crutches. The space between us feels awkward. I don’t like it. I try to brush it off.

  “Are you okay?” I finally ask.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” he says uncertainly. “I liked it, you know—kissing you. I’ve wanted to kiss you for a long time. But I’m just not sure how I feel about—that, you know?”

  “All right.” I say it like it’s no big deal, even though it hurts. “Then we won’t do that again, okay?”

  David looks up at me, suddenly concerned. “I’ve hurt your feelings, haven’t I?”

  Squashed my heart underfoot like a cigarette is more accurate.

  His gaze drops again. He stares at the space between his feet. “I never wanted to hurt you, Mira.” His voice is barely a whisper. “But until last night no one knew. Not even my mom. At least I never told her, though now that I’m older I can’t imagine any mother not knowing something like that.”

  His eyes flicker to mine, and then back down again. “If she did know, she never did anything to stop him.”

  I respond cautiously, not sure how much he trusts me, if at all. “Your scar—”

  He shrugs. “My dad came home drunk one night, grabbed a burning stick from the fireplace and hit me with it. My shirt caught fire. Burned me before he put it out. I was ten.”

  The emotions I felt when I touched that scar come back to me, the shame and fear of a young boy, the resolute determination of the man to keep his weakness hidden.

  “When Tio Ramón suggested I come live with him in California,” David continues, “I jumped at the chance. I didn’t care about getting a visa or any of that. I just wanted to get out as soon as I could. Ramón arranged it. I suspect maybe he felt the same urgency as I did.”

  He releases a slow, strained breath, and his eyes connect with mine.

  “Mira, I care about you. I want to be with you. I just—I’m just not ready to—”

  His eyes fill with need—a need for me to understand, a need for time, for forgiveness.

  “It’s good,” I tell him. “It’s all good.”

  And it is.

  David relaxes, the rigid tension in his body melting away. “Okay,” he says, smiling. He takes a deep, cleansing breath and laughs a little.

  “So,” I begin, stepping away from the door to invite him in, “are you hungry?”

  It’s Helen’s day off and one of those rare opportunities to take control of the kitchen. I remove a carton of eggs from the fridge along with some cream, butter, and grated cheddar cheese. David searches for a whisk.

  “You know, we could go grab a couple of breakfast burritos from Bergie’s,” I suggest, though the thought of warmed-over powdered eggs and stale tortillas makes me cringe.

  “Nope. I’m making you breakfast here.” One corner of David’s mouth cree
ps up a little. “And don’t say ‘no’, or you’ll hurt my feelings.”

  I can’t resist his crooked smile, so I reluctantly agree.

  “Ta da!” he says, brandishing a metal whisk in the air. “Perfect. Do you have any onions, tomatoes, mushrooms?”

  “Onions in the pantry,” I tell him. “Tomatoes there on the counter. You might find some mushrooms in the fridge.”

  “Great. Let me handle this then.”

  “What about your leg?”

  “I’m fine, Mira. I’m not crippled. I can handle breakfast.”

  “But then what’ll I do?”

  “Shower.” David makes a funny face at me, pretending to pinch his nose.

  “All right. I do have sand in my hair. But when I’m done, there had better be a feast ready.”

  “I solemnly swear.” He holds up three fingers, the Boy Scout sign.

  I reach into the bag of cheese and withdraw a pinch of orange strands, tossing them at him, and then head to my room. After gathering some clean clothes, I lock myself in my bathroom. The mirror fragments still lay in the sink. I make a mental note to clean it up later. As I start to undress, my cell phone vibrates in my pocket. It’s a text from Frank Felton, the doctor from the Casey Institute.

  I have some more info. Call me. Please.

  Snapping the phone shut, I toss it onto the vanity. After I undress, I step into the shower and let the hot water cascade down my skin as my thoughts turn to last night with David. The physical sensations were the same as all the other times, the electrical surge, the explosion of images and feelings. But even though he made it clear how he feels about being seen that way, for the first time in a long time I didn’t hate being touched. To be wanted, to be loved that much—and to know it with absolute certainty—was the most wonderful experience I have ever known. The only touch that ever came close was Mama’s.