Jacqueline’s chest rose and fell, rose and fell, her br**sts lush handfuls I wanted to feel against my chest, against my palms and fingers and face as I sucked those hard, pebbled ni**les.

As if I’d said this aloud, she whimpered softly.

‘Soon, baby,’ I whispered.

At the third button, I could have shoved the jeans down – they were loose enough. I paused. She panted. Fourth button. I pushed the jeans down and stepped out of them. Her eyes grazed over all of me. She licked her lips. Yes. Her hands clenched, tight fists at her sides. One knee rose restlessly.

Boxers down and off.

She started to rise, but I pointed at her and shook my head. Stay. There. Reading the silent command in my eyes, she lay back down, biting her lip.

I took my wallet from the desk behind me and removed the condom, rolled it on. One knee on the foot of the bed. Her soft skin was a feast, and I wanted to devour her. She spread her legs, just enough to welcome me. I wanted to slide the tip of my tongue from her ankle to her thigh, licking and charting an unhurried, torturous course. I wanted to taste her, but that would have to wait, because I had to possess her. Now. I crawled forward, my body shaking with anticipation, just as hers was.

When I rose over her, she reached for me and I paused, staring into her eyes, and then rocked into her, fully. Her arms surrounded my shoulders, fingers clutching the hair at my nape as she cried out. Sweeping my tongue through her mouth, I kissed her, holding myself still. Mine, I thought. Yours, her body answered. I began to move, and she held tight, humming and moaning, crying and pulling me inside, everywhere I wanted in. She came apart seconds later and I plunged my tongue into her mouth, stroking deeply and swallowing her pleasure, making it mine. I growled her name, shuddering, and dragged her with me as I collapsed at her side.

I love you, I thought, but heard nothing in return.

Her fingers moved over the petals tattooed over my heart.

‘My mother’s name was Rosemary. She went by Rose.’ I stared at the ceiling.

‘You did this in memory of her?’

I nodded against the pillow. ‘Yes. And the poem on my left side. She wrote it – for my dad.’

Her fingers traced the poem, and I shivered. ‘She was a poet?’

‘Sometimes.’ My mother’s face smiled down at me – a memory that I couldn’t place now. I held on to whatever I could of her. ‘Usually, she was a painter.’

Jacqueline made some comment about the artist genes and engineering parts that comprised me, and I laughed at this visual, wondering aloud which were the engineering parts.

She asked if I had any of Mom’s paintings. I told her that some hung in the Hellers’ place, since they used to be so close. I would, perhaps, show her those. Others were in storage in the Hellers’ attic or Dad’s.

She began questioning me about their friendship, and at first I thought she was merely curious about the longstanding relationship between the Hellers and the Maxfields.

‘They were all really close – before.’

Before was an uncomplicated word, and it would never express all I’d lost when my timeline split in two, hurling me into an after I would never escape. I couldn’t reach through that curtain, ever, and see my mother as she was. Touch her. Hear her voice the way it should have been.

‘Lucas, I need to tell you something,’ Jacqueline said, and there was an uneasy tenor to her voice. I turned my head, watching her face as she told me she’d been curious and had searched for my mother’s obituary online.

I knew well enough what she’d found. The nightmare from which I could never wake. My heart went stone cold, and I could barely breathe. ‘Did you find your answer?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered.

Pity. That’s what I saw in her eyes. I lay back, eyes stinging as I thought of the news articles she must have read. I wondered if she’d sifted through the facts to see my part. My guilt.

I braced, trying to come to terms with this. No one outside the Hellers and Dad knew the details. I’d never spoken of them with anyone. I couldn’t bear to even think about it – how could I speak of it?

Then I caught what she’d just said – that she’d talked to Charles.

‘What?’

‘Lucas, I’m sorry if I invaded your privacy –’

‘If? Why would you go talk to him? Weren’t the gory details in the news reports sickening enough for you? Or personal enough?’ I shot off the bed and pulled on my jeans, my voice like ice, like a razor, cutting into my skin. My wrists burned. I don’t know what I said to her and what I didn’t – the details I’d never uttered aloud. It didn’t matter. She knew them all.

I sat, head in my hands, struggling to breathe, reliving it – please, God, no –

A distant noise woke me, but I rolled back over, kicking off the sheet. I was hot, but too lazy to get up and turn on my ceiling fan. I lay on my side, staring out the window to the backyard, thinking about Yesenia, and the coming weekend. I would hold her hand. Kiss her, maybe, if I could get her alone. If she let me.

God, it was hot. I flopped on to my back. To be thirteen was to be a furnace. I burned off food and energy like a flame sucking down oxygen. You will eat us out of house and home by the time you’re fifteen! my mother said while watching me finish off the leftovers she’d intended to reheat for our dinner. We’d ordered takeout instead. She didn’t want all of hers, so I’d finished it, too.

I heard the noise again. Mom was probably up. She prowled around the house sometimes when Dad was gone, missing him. I should check on her … My clock read 4:11. Ugh. Four hours until I would see Yesenia. I could get up early, get to school early. Maybe I would catch her without all her giggling friends, and we could talk about … something. Like my upcoming game. Maybe she’d want to come watch me play sometime.