“Good. Stay.”
We lay still,our breaths mingling and calming together, heartbeats slowing. A nick of panic cuts through the haze of being one with her.
I’m in too deep. I’m falling off a cliff into unsettled waters, unsure if there’s a riptide below the surface.
What will she do when she finds out who I am?
A sudden awareness of my vulnerability opens my mouth and I say the words that could break us in an instant.
“You don’t recognize me, do you?”
The question balances on a tightrope stretched between us. My heart climbs up my throat and I hate that. I don’t want to feel vulnerable in this moment. What if she does realize who I am and her contempt for me back then resurfaces?
I would kill her.
And then I’d kill half of New York.
They would need a new word to describe the kind of rage I’d unleash on the City.
She lifts her head.
“What?” she asks quietly.
I exhale to force my shoulders back down.
“We were at school together. High school.”
I roll over to face her. I don’t want to see her expression—I want to dissociate completely. But I have to see her reaction, read into it, and see if she still feels the way she used to.
She frowns. “Berman High?”
I nod, my gaze zooming in on the smallest indications she might remember something.
“You were at Berman High?” Her face brightens first then turns a greyish color which sets my pulse on edge.
“I used to get the PATH train from Jersey every day.”
“What… class?”
“I was in the same class as you.”
“Y-you were?” Her eyes glaze over a little and she looks past me to a spot above the bed. “I don’t remember.”
My insides practically melt with relief.
“That’s okay. I was a quiet kid, believe it or not. Hated school, especially that one.”
“Right,” she says, not really listening.
I press my finger beneath her chin and pull her gaze back. “Are you okay?”
She swallows and some of the blood drains from her skin. “I, um… I don’t remember a lot from that time, really. I’m sorry. I wish I did.”
I watch her carefully—I need to be sure she’s telling the truth.
Something seems to snap behind her flailing focus. “That’s so weird though… I was at school with the great Il Diavolo…” A smile curls her lips. “Don’t take this the wrong way but I find it hard to imagine you at school.”
“What do you mean?”