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She could smell the guilt on him like she smelt the shadows and alcohol. It was a woman’s intuition, she supposed, to sense guilt and regret. To seek out fault and sin in a man like a bloodhound and chase after it even as it disappeared down a rabbit hole; to sink in stinging fangs and not let go until whatever it was had been shaken to the point of breaking because hell hath no fury.
(“I saw the necklace. It’s nice. You must be feeling guilty about something,” she said.
It was a nice necklace.)
Zoë wore the gift like the extension of a fantasy it was; it was too classy and too elegant and sat at the wrong point on her throat, but that didn’t matter because Jarod had bought it for her and that made it worth wearing.
(Miss Parker knew that the necklace would have hung perfectly from around her neck; she knew Jarod knew this too and that was why he had bought it.)
When Miss Parker did something that made Jarod happy, he bought her a gift she may never receive.
(When Zoë did something that made Jarod happy, she might have received a gift he’d bought for someone else.
Miss Parker was almost sure Zoë noticed and liked to pretend she didn’t.)
(He snuck in through the bathroom door like always. She sat down and nursed a scotch and feigned irritated surprise.
Like always.)
“You’re late,” she said.
“I know,” he said, and kissed her gently.
She left it at that; there was nothing more to say.
It happened the first time they fought.
They’d argued before, of course. She’d get annoyed at him, yell at him, call him a moron, fall into an irritated silence. He’d sulk or mope until she found it impossible to be mad at him a moment longer. But nothing had ever been serious --
(He practically shook with silent fury. He told her to stop being stupid.
She pulled her gun and threw an ashtray at his head and told him to get the fuck out of her house.)
-- and Sydney didn’t answer his phone.
“It’s three am in morning, Jarod – there sure as hell better be a good reason why you couldn’t have snuck in and out without having to wake me up,” Miss Parker informed him, arms crossed, gun in hand.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and he looked as if his best friend had just died.
(Maybe she had, but that was decades ago.)
At three o’clock in the morning and in her living room, Miss Parker thought the fact that his girlfriend wasn’t talking to him was the least of his worries. She also thought it was pretty damn funny, if it weren’t for the timing, and.
[and, and, and…]
and she didn’t argue when she felt his lips on hers, because her hands were slipping beneath the black leather of their own accord and he tasted so good, and vaguely of apples and nothing like young Jarod at all.
[and, and, and…]
She didn’t argue; she let it happen.
[and, and, and…]
The next morning he was gone; he bought gardenias (Miss Parker’s favourite) and got down on his knees and begged for forgiveness.
Zoë’s favourite flowers were yellow tulips, but she wiped her eyes and accepted them anyway.
The second night was relatively uneventful. The third night he woke and found the space next to him empty.
He stepped out of the bedroom and found her sitting in the dark – nothing more than a faint silhouette and a lighter, flicking on and off and.
[and…]
(Her gun sat in her lap.)
“Get out.”
(Jarod blinked, then frowned.
“Where’s the fire?” he would’ve asked if he was anyone but him.
“Miss Parker?” he repeated instead.)
“You talk in your sleep, Jarod.”
He could only nod.
Jarod tasted like apples.
He was sweet and he was sin; he was good for her and poisoning her all at once, and she still hadn’t decided what she thought of that.
Jarod was temptation and he was tempted; they both were.
There was something dangerous within him like the danger that she craved. He could be her accuser, her forgiver, her downfall and her saviour all in the one breath and at the same time so predictable, so him.
(He talked about Zoë like she was the other woman in their relationship.
“She’s just another pretend, isn’t she, Jarod?” she whispered savagely as she stroked him once, twice; ran her thumb over the tip.
His jaw went slack as he came.)
He kissed her slowly and surely, his fingers walking contradictions along the curves of her body and expanse of her skin. They brushed her lips, her throat (no necklace hung there now), her shoulder, the swell of her left breast, the smooth plane of her stomach. He pressed his mouth to hers as he poised above her.
“I love you, Jarod,” Zoë told him, as if she just thought he should know.
It hurt him that all he could muster was a smile as he entered her.
Miss Parker sought Zoë out on her own, her gun heavy in its holster and the smoke wafting around her face like a scene in an abstract art film with a name like On Scotch and Cigarettes, only in French or Spanish with subtitles.
The girl – and that was how she appeared to exist, to her; a girl – was breezy and beautiful and all sunny disposition and smiles. She wore a sundress like her second skin and her voice was gentle and vaguely husky, as if she had a permanent cold that refused to budge. Parker tried to convince herself it got on her nerves.
“Hi there,” the redhead offered cheerfully, walking over and extending her hand . “I’m Zoë. Have we met?”
“No,” Parker said. She tilted her chin upwards and ignored the proffered handshake. “I’m a friend of Jarod’s. From Blue Cove.”
I was in the neighbourhood and.
(It was true; she was playing the hunting dog again. Sniffing at heels that were nowhere to be seen in the daylight.)
She informed her of this offhandedly, in the tone of a woman that was unabashedly fucking another woman’s man. There was plenty of subtext, like you don’t know me but you know my brother, and I’ve seen every piece of him you’d wish you hadn’t, but nothing tasted sweeter than the knowledge that she had the power to rip the pretender’s world to shreds with nothing more than a glance.
The fact was that all she had to do was allude to something and their small piece of heaven would come crashing down around them. That Zoë knew so little that she would leave Jarod based on the assumption that his affections for her had waned.
(He was only happy as long as he had the best of both worlds. He was only happy as long as no one was asking him to choose.)
“I should be going. Tell Jarod I stopped by.”
She’d only taken six steps – click, click, click, click, click, click, and.
“If I see him, Miss Parker,” Zoë called, evenly. “There’s a good chance you might bump into my… into Jarod before I do.”
“She’s a pretty girl.”
“You stay away from her,” he growled.
“You going to marry her?”
The question hung in the air in precisely the way she planned. His jaw clenched.
(She knew things would still be the same, even if she and Thomas were the coupling in question, and that stung.)
She found it so unlike him that he stayed anyway; but his actions were a paradox and that in itself was the very essence of Jarod and.
Three months later --
“Jesus, Jarod. You have a girlfriend.”
“And all of a sudden this bothers you?”
She dodged his efforts to block her path and walked briskly into the kitchen to pour herself a scotch.
“No. I couldn’t give a damn what you do in your spare time.”
(“Zoë. You do Zoë in your spare time. Somehow not exactly the way I believe commitment is supposed to work. If you see her as something you do in your spare time, maybe she shouldn’t be risking her ass to be with you.”)
“But I can see that it bothers you. I don’t need your problems.”
She stood behind him, whispering venomously in his ear. It seemed like the only time she could get through to him (get him to listen, admit, agree) was when she had her hand around his dick and her breath hot in his ear.
“I don’t doubt that the Jarod she knows loves her with all his heart. But you’re not that person she knows, Jarod. She’s just another pretend, no matter how much you don’t want to admit it. Because deep down you know, without that pretend, you’re nobody. And that scares you.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t I? Or am I just hitting a little too close to home? Tell me. What are you going to do when she wants a ring on her finger? What are you going to tell her? That sorry, you can’t marry her because you don’t exist?”
“Paperwork isn’t a prob –“
“Paperwork doesn’t define a person. Maybe these days it seems like it but writing something down doesn’t make it true. Writing I love you, and they lived happily ever after the end doesn’t make it true.”
He turned around and was shocked to find her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. If she’d been anyone else…
(But she wasn’t.
“You should go,” she said.)
“I should go,” he said, voice hoarse.
He ran his hand through his hair and she nodded and turned away and.
He left without another word.
(“The real question is, what he would choose if ever he was forced to make that decision.”
“There’s nothing keeping him here, Sydney. God knows he deserves a life.”
“And if he goes? What will you do?”
“I’ll follow him.”
“You can’t chase him if he doesn’t run, Parker.”
She took a deep drag from her cigarette before blowing smoke in the doctor’s face.
“Watch me.”)
“Jarod’s gotten lazy,” Lyle informed her. “It’s a girl.”
He held her gaze a moment longer than he should. She shivered inside.
She didn’t open the file she imagined contained photos of a convertible and a girl with a sunny disposition; she didn’t need to.
“It always is,” she said.
“Jarod.”
(“So make him choose.”
“I can’t.”
“You’re scared that his choice may mean more to you than you want it to.”
“No. I’m scared that he’ll hate me.”)
(“Why can’t you people just leave him alone? Why can’t you just let him be happy?”
Even if it is a lie.)
“This has to stop, Jarod.”
(“Don’t tell me you’ve finally decided to get a conscience,” he joked softly, cupping the side of her face.
“Started listening to it,” she corrected.)
She wondered if there was too much between them now; water under the bridge and kisses like apples and the past, so much past and shadows. She wondered if too much between them was enough to make him stay. If maybe, too much was enough to push him out of her world forever.
(She felt like their roles had been reversed when she told him what there was between them was enough.
She felt like him, because they both knew she was lying.)
“I can’t…” She paused, rephrased and. “I won’t… let it keep going on like this. She doesn’t deserve this.”
He stayed silent, a black and white television screen, all eyes and soul and.
[and, and, and…]
and it almost broke her heart. Only she’d spent long enough pretending she didn’t have one.
“Miss Parker –“
“I’m sorry, Jarod.”
“You’re –“
“- making you choose.”
(Sometimes she wished he’d just hate her.)
Jarod chose the sun and the stars and red curls like she knew he would; it broke him just like she knew it would, too – only the Jarod Zoë knew could handle that. The real Jarod disappeared off the map without a trace.
(“Underneath, you’re nothing but a nobody.”
It scared him to think she was right.)
(Miss Parker chose the pillow that smelled like him, it was just another memoir of what she’d lost to the centre, just like the shirt that was just as soft.)
Miss Parker stood proud as always and kept her chin up when they came for her. She handed over her gun, and Lyle pulled her against him to murmur in her ear.
“It looks like the princess was left in the tower this time.”
“Maybe the prince found out the slipper didn’t fit her so well any more,” she replied.
(He left yellow tulips on her grave.)
“You were always going to wonder if you’d made the right choice, weren’t you?”
He glanced up in surprise. The air was still cool beneath a copper dawn, and he supposed he deserved to be standing there alone, no one to share it with. And yet she was standing there like a memory from a dream and.
[and…]
“I noticed,” Zoë said, stepping closer. “It… it would have looked nicer on her.”
“You make me smile,” he told her, as if he just thought she should know, as she slid her arm around him.
She dropped the necklace on the green carpet at her feet, beneath a marble stone and In Memory Of. Beneath the bridge and the shadows.
(Like always.
“We’re friends in graveyards, remember?”)
“I could cry with her.”
“I know,” she said softly.
(The old Jarod wouldn’t have mourned; they would have felt his wrath with the fire of a thousand suns.
They would have begged for forgiveness.
But who was to seek vengeance now? He was just a nobody.)
(“He wanted so much for us to be the same person. Maybe in his mind, we were.”)
“I’d always thought making you smile was more important,” she confessed.
“I need…” He began to quiver, ever so slightly. “I just needed to… I want you to stay,” he pleaded.
“I can’t be her.”
“No,” he said. “But… Zoë...”
“We’ve had a lot of good times together, Jarod, and I wouldn’t trade that for the world. A part of me will always be waiting for that vacation you promised me. A part of me will wait for you for forever. But for now…”
She leaned up and kissed him chastely on the lips, and it hurt him more knowing that he may never see her again, and.
It didn’t ache as much as he thought it should.
(“What do you want from me, Jarod?”)
“For now, you need to cry.”
