Wise Men

Chapter 4

I escorted Vi back to her room. Whatever had happened at the parking lot resembled some strange backdoor drug scandal when the only thing physically given was a piece of loose leaf with a phone number and address written on it. She was visibly shaken by it, and I couldn’t blame her. I felt the same way. Despite how minimal it seemed the entire event had a tense air that seemed only an inch away from a knife in the gut.

Or maybe I was just getting paranoid.

God, could we use a drink right about now.

She sat at her desk chair and pinched the bridge of her nose. Her roommate, Brittany was out partying every night, which left the dorm empty but for Vi and me. I pulled over a chair, realizing that tonight I wasn’t just an escort.

Her red hair cascaded down shuddering shoulders like a waterfall of liquid fire. Tears rushed down her face despite effort to hold in each silent sob. It was rare to see her like this, and it took everything away from me not to scoop her up in my arms and rock her to sleep. It was only a tad bit more important to learn why she was so upset.

Instead I rubbed her pale shoulder, her skin smooth like wet plaster under my fingers. The touch seemed to soothe away her tears, but I could feel the quivering of her heart in the beat beneath her skin. I kissed her forehead, but decided not to be an utter cliché and tell her everything was going to be alright. I was a terrible liar anyway.

“There’s something really wrong with me, isn’t there?” she asked between sobs.

Someone could have stuck needle between my ribs and I’d have been in less pain. “What’re you talking about, Vi?” She knew that I thought she was perfect. Saying so would have been redundant. She never believed me anyway.

She swallowed a sob like an overcooked piece of chicken. “You saw him out there. He’s a fucking lunatic!” She looked up at me with eyes with crisscrossed lines of red and pink. “If I was at all practical I’d step away from him—from this!” she choked on her words as more tears formed at her eyes. As wet tears surfaced and rushed down her cheeks she looked away from me. I could smell wine like poison on her breath.

“You’re not more insane than the rest of us, Vi.” I wiped the tears from her face. Her face stiffened into one of resolve, then fell into an empty smile. It frightened me to see her this way—so sure yet so torn about her next thought that two halves warred within her.

“But you’re not in love with him.”

I didn’t know what to say. Her words must have been strangling me, for she took my hesitation as an invitation to continue. “I must be one sick fuck.” The smile at her lips made her eyes crinkle in such a way that sadness flowed from them like a river. The tears messed up her makeup and left smudges of black around her eye, making her look as though those beautiful eyes has sunken in, as though she had aged ten years in the process of a moment.

“God, no!” I exclaimed. The problem was I had no way of rationalizing or even supporting this self-destructive fantasy she carried with her. Each time he casually brushed her off and repaid her smiles with disdain another part of her died away. He would eat her up from the inside out until there was nothing left but the person I used to know. There was no way to fix that without breaking her heart though I feared no matter where this tragic attraction led her, she’d have to sacrifice her soul to reach it. So I did the only thing I could do.

I hugged her and rocked her back and forth as she sobbed in my shoulder. All the while, I tried to whisper soothing things into her ear, I stroked her soft hair, tangled my fingers in her long locks; but I could not help but think that Revelin would eventually destroy me as well.