“I don’t know what us is.”

My eyes were burning. The smoke, maybe.

“It could be whatever you want it to be, Livvie. Or it could be nothing. It’s up to you.” I knew the moment the words left my mouth they were a lie. She scowled at me.

“No, Caleb, it’s not so simple. It’s been a year. A fucking year! You never gave me the chance to be angry with you. You just disappeared and left me to worry that maybe you were dead. I had the FBI up my ass and the whole time—the whole time—I defended you. I defended what you did to me because I loved you and you’d just risked everything to save me. And now you walk back into my life.” She wiped at the tears on her cheeks. “And goddammit I can’t bear the thought of being without you again. But there’s all this other shit too. All the things I never let myself feel because I didn’t want to admit that maybe Reed and Sloan were right. Maybe I can’t love you.”

Adrenaline coursed through my veins as my dormant and underutilized emotions were accosted.

“Please,” I heard myself whisper. I didn’t even know what I was asking for. Perhaps it was only that I wanted her to stop saying those things. Her words hurt me. They hurt me more than I thought anything could hurt. They hurt nearly as much as the memory of Rafiq’s eyes going dead. My own words taunted me.

“I did think it was really cute when you said you loved me though.”

Livvie, in her infinite capacity for compassion, put out her cigarette and wrapped her arms around my waist. I took the lifeline she offered and held her in my arms. I might have squeezed her too hard. I didn’t want to let her go. I couldn’t.

“Caleb,” she gasped. I loosened my grip but didn’t let her go. “I don’t want you to disappear again. Please, promise me you won’t.”

I searched blindly for my voice and had to clear my throat before I could speak.

“I promise, Livvie. But I… I don’t know what to do. I’ve never been here before.”

“Neither have I, Caleb. And we’re seriously more fucked up than anyone else I know.” She laughed morosely. “But you have to give me time. You have to let me be mad at you. You have to promise that no matter what I say or do, you’ll forgive me. You’ll wait for me to let it go.”

So many emotions and I couldn’t let them out. I settled for stating the obvious.

“Livvie, I’ll forgive you whatever the hell you want. You don’t need my forgiveness; you never have to ask for it. It’s yours, Livvie. Anything that’s mine to give is already yours.” I placed my fingers in her hair and tilted her face up to mine. Her lips were salty with tears, her mouth tasted like smoke, but beyond that there was just Livvie. I needed Livvie.

In my best interpretation of every superhero movie I’d ever seen (and I hadn’t seen too many by that time), I lifted Livvie into my arms and carried her inside. She kindly gave me directions to her bedroom. We made love on her pastel-yellow sheets amidst a ridiculous amount of throw pillows.

***

Later, after we’d finished having sex, Livvie engaged me in conversation. It reminded me of Mexico. We had always been better in the dark. I’m going to spare you and, admittedly, myself the agony of the details of what happened after we finished making love. You know what Livvie went through. You know the truth about my past. After that night, I knew it too.

I learned my name had been James Cole. I had been born to an American named Elizabeth Cole and a man known only as Vlad. I was five when I’d been kidnapped and sent to live as a whore. My mother killed herself when I was twelve. I couldn’t help but take notice I’d been taken under Rafiq’s care around the same time. I wondered if he’d known my mother was dead when he’d decided to “rescue” me.

I couldn’t remember her face. I would always remember Rafiq’s. Meanwhile a voice nagged me: Vladek is your father. Your father is still alive.

“Are you okay?” Livvie whispered against my neck. I could feel her tears dripping on me. I could feel her arm wrapped tightly around my chest. I could feel her heart beating against my ribs.

I felt. I fucking felt and it was awful.

I pulled her close and ran my fingers across the small of her back, taking whatever comfort I could find in having her close to me. She was alive. I was alive. We were together. I tried to focus on that.

“No, Kitten. I’m not okay,” I whispered. “I don’t know how long it’s going to take for me to be okay. I just know that as long as you’re with me, there’s a chance that one day… I might be.”

She squeezed me. So much was trapped inside me, and her love—or whatever it was she felt for me —threatened to coax it out. I fought to keep it all inside, where I could control it and no one could use it against me. My life was fucked up. It always had been. There was no point in dwelling on things I couldn’t control or change. My mother was dead. Rafiq was dead. Livvie and I were alive. End of fucking pity party.

“I’m so sorry, Caleb,” she sobbed. I closed my eyes to blink the burning and stinging away. “It wasn’t your fault.”

I swallowed hard.

“I wish that were true. Once, it may have been, but it stopped being true a long time ago. I did what I did, Livvie. It was my fault.” We were quiet for a minute as the words settled. There was something I needed to know. “Livvie, why did you change your last name to Cole? Was it for James? Or… me?”

“Caleb, I know who you are. It doesn’t matter what I call you as long as it’s what you want.” She sighed. “I did it because…” She shifted uncomfortably.

“You loved me.” I closed my eyes. “Trust me—I didn’t miss the past tense. I understand.” I didn’t understand.

“Caleb, it’s not…” she whispered and pressed closer. “It’s just… what you said about change. We’re changing. We’re both different, and until we know what that means, I don’t think—”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Livvie. I just want to be here. Right now. With you. Fuck the rest of it, because I don’t care. If there’s anything else you need to tell me, please do it now. Let’s get it over with and tomorrow we can start over. I want to start over, Livvie. Can we do that?” I kept stroking her back. It kept me grounded.

“I’d like that. But what will we tell people? We can’t tell them the truth, and I can’t leave my life behind again, Caleb.”

“What about the FBI? Are they still watching you?” I had a momentary flash of rage as I imagined coming face to face with Agent Reed. I’d pound his face into the ground—present tense!

“I’m supposed to meet Reed on Thursday. I know you don’t like him. Hell, I’m not sure I like him.” I could hear the smile in her voice and it irritated me. She’d compared him to me one too many times. “But he’s a good guy. He wanted to check on me since I told him I felt like someone was watching me. Aside from him and Sloan, I don’t deal with the FBI. I don’t have anything they want.” She nudged my ribs. I sighed.

“Well, you didn’t. You do now. With any luck you’ll be able to get rid of Reed easily. Tell him you have a secret admirer from school or something. I’m sure you do anyway. If you tell him there’s nothing for him to look into, he’ll be suspicious.” A voice in my head asked me if I could get away with getting rid of him for good. I calmly ignored it. I was determined to be someone different. I didn’t want to be a killer anymore.

“Okay, but what about the other stuff?”

“One day at a time, Livvie. I’m not ready to start explaining our relationship any more than you are. Let’s take our time coming up with our story.”

She propped herself on her elbow and leaned down to kiss my chest. She wiped at the wetness she had left on my shoulder.

“I swear I’ve done more crying in the past two days than I’ve done in the past year.” She smiled. “I think I’m done now. I really didn’t want to have to tell you all that stuff. It broke my damn heart when I had to hear it from Reed, but you deserve to know about your past.” Her gaze traveled from my eyes to my chest. She stroked me casually with her fingers. “The way you looked that day… he wasn’t worthy of your grief.”

I placed my hand on top of hers and cleared my throat.

“It’s over. I don’t want to talk about it.”

Her expression turned playfully wistful.

“If you’d have found me sooner, we could have celebrated your birthday. I lit a candle for you last month. I had to eat the cake myself.” She smiled. Her words were strange to me, but I laughed too.

“What kind of cake?”

“German chocolate. It was soooo good,” she groaned. I smiled, and at last it was truly genuine.

“Well, it’s just as well. I don’t eat a lot of cake.”

“I do! Then again, I’m eight years younger than you and my metabolism can handle it. You have to watch your handsome figure.” Her hand shifted down my chest and rubbed my abdomen.

“I think I do alright,” I said. I wasn’t shy about my body. I had no reason to be. “So weird to have a birthday, though. Do you think I look twenty-seven?”

Her smile was coquettish.

“I think you look… delicious!” Her hand traveled further down my abdomen until she brushed my cock with her fingers.

“Delicious, huh? That’s a new one. I was thinking virile, or the male personification of perfection.”

She laughed out loud. Her laugh was infectious. I loved the way it was a little too loud to be lady-like.

“Oh, Caleb. You’re those things too. But right now? I’m more interested in your tastiness.” She slid down on the bed and took my cock in her hand.

“Oh! Well in that case… taste away. If you have any more cake, I’d be happy to provide the frosting.” She wrinkled her nose and I laughed.

I lay back and let Livvie blow more than my mind.

CHAPTER FIVE

Livvie’s meeting with Reed went okay. He wasn’t an idiot though, Livvie recounted to me. He wanted to hang around for a few days and make sure Livvie was safe. I didn’t like him. I suspected his visit had more to do with uncovering secrets than keeping Livvie safe.

He spoke to Livvie’s friends, her co-workers, even the kid at the restaurant Livvie liked to go to. It was a good thing I had paid someone to give my note to the waiter. If he’d given Reed my description, we would have been pretty screwed. It took a great amount of will power to steer clear of him. I knew there were certain things Livvie would not forgive.

Livvie and I had no contact during Reed’s visit. I discovered more nightmares and a level of boredom I had never experienced before in my life. I was grateful for the internet until I was unable to resist doing a search for “Missing child+James Cole”.

There were a couple of results, but nothing that jumped out at me. I was kidnapped before the internet had become commonplace, before Twitter and Facebook, and 24-hour news. Back then, milk cartons and mailers were the best people could do. James Cole never stood a chance.

That night I dreamt I was trapped inside a child’s body. I was with Narweh again and my strength meant nothing. He laughed at me. I didn’t go online for a week.

I never like it when I dream. It’s usually about things I’d rather not think about. When I was a young boy and worked in the brothel, I never dreamed. At least, not that I can recall. There were mornings when I would wake and have new and interesting ways to murder Narweh when the time came—but I never attributed them to my dreams.

The first dreams I can recall began when Rafiq brought me to live with him. The uncertainty of my new fate had the tendency to terrify me. I have never felt comfortable sharing my feelings—especially my doubts, fears, hopes, and desires. They are what make me vulnerable and more than anything, I hate being vulnerable. Once Rafiq had gained my trust, once he had given me a destiny and a purpose, I didn’t dream so much.