But Noah took a slight step back, pulling away, and tilted my face up with his hand. “This is going to sound mean, but I don’t mean it that way.”
“Just say it.” I sniffed.
“You’re gullible, Mara,” he said quietly, and his voice was kind. “An easy mark. A few weeks ago it was hypnosis and Santeria. Now it’s possession and tarot.”
“She didn’t do a tarot reading.”
Noah sighed and dipped his head. “It doesn’t matter what she did. What matters is what you believe. And you’re highly suggestible—you hear something offhand and suddenly you think it’s an all-embracing explanation.”
I glared at him, but there was no heat behind it. “At least I’m trying to find one.”
Noah’s eyes closed. “I’ve been trying to find one for years, Mara. It hasn’t led me anywhere. Look,” he said as he opened his eyes, taking my hand and lacing his long fingers through mine. “We’ll go straight back to her and I’ll double her money to admit the truth and she’ll tell you she made the whole thing up. To put on a good show. I’m not letting some con artist upset you this way.”
“She didn’t take my money,” I said quietly. “She didn’t have anything to gain by lying.”
“You never know what another person stands to gain or lose by anything.” He pulled me back onto the path. “Let’s go.”
When we made it back to her tent, a sign was hung over the entrance that said BACK IN ONE HOUR. Noah ignored it and pushed the flap open.
The fortune-teller’s daughter sat in a small overstuffed armchair reading a magazine. There was a Ouija board on the table in front of her. I looked away.
“Where’s your mother, Miranda?” Noah’s eyes roamed the small tent.
The girl cracked her gum and looked at me. She blew a fat pink bubble, then sucked it back into her mouth. “She got you good, huh?”
Noah arched an eyebrow at me.
“What do you mean?” I asked her.
“You bought her Madam Rose crap?” she asked me. “Look, her real name is Roslyn Ferretti and she’s from Babylon, Long Island. You’d get better predictions from a Magic Eight Ball,” she said to me. Then turned back to her magazine.
Noah tilted the page down with one finger. “Where can we find her?”
Miranda shrugged. “Getting high probably, behind The Screaming Dead Man.”
“Thanks,” Noah said, and we left the tent. He held my hand and walked like he knew where we were going. “See?” he said gently. “It isn’t real.”
I didn’t respond. I didn’t trust my voice.
An intimidatingly tall tower rose in front of us, right next to the Ferris wheel. A small car ascended slowly into the air; I assumed it would eventually fall in one drop. We hooked back behind the ride, searching for the woman as we walked. Noah led me around a patch of dirt; we wandered until it became grass and then, finally, we saw her.
Madam Rose, aka Roslyn Ferretti, was sitting perched on a small rock, the hem of her skirt pooled at her feet. Smoking a joint, just as her daughter predicted.
“Hey,” Noah called out.
The woman coughed and hastily moved her hand behind her back. Her eyes were bloodshot and unfocused. When she recognized me, she shook her head. “I already gave you your money back.”
“Why did you say those things?” I asked quietly.
Her eyes roamed over the two of us. She lifted the cigarette back to her mouth and inhaled deeply. “Because they were true,” she then said, exhaling the words in a cloud of cloying smoke. Her eyes began to close.
Noah snapped his fingers in her face. She pushed his hand away. “Listen closely,” he said. “I’ll give you a hundred dollars to admit you made it up.”
She looked at me then, her eyes suddenly sharp. “Did you tell him?”
I opened my mouth to insist that I didn’t, but Noah spoke before I had the chance.
“A thousand,” he said darkly.
She gave him a long look. “I can’t take your money.”
“Don’t fuck with me,” Noah said. “We know you’re a fraud, Roslyn, so please do yourself a favor and admit it.”
Her head dropped, and she shook it. “That girl, I swear.”
“Roslyn.”
She lolled her head back, like this was some kind of giant inconvenience. “He paid me, okay?”
The hair rose on the back of my neck. Noah and I exchanged a glance.
“Who paid you?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Some guy.”
“What did he look like?” Noah pushed.
“Tall. Dark. Handsome.” She smiled, and tried to take another puff. Noah plucked the joint from her fingers and held it in front of him, just out of her reach.
“Be specific,” he said.
She shrugged lazily. “He had an accident.”
“An accident?” Noah asked. “A limp? A prosthetic limb? What?”
“Talked funny.”
Noah rolled his eyes. “An accent. Right. What sort of accent?”
“Foreign,” she said thickly, and began to giggle.
“This is useless,” I said. But at least she hadn’t described Jude. A small relief, but still.
“We’re not leaving until she tells us exactly what happened,” Noah insisted. “Was his accent like mine?” he asked her.
She shook her head.
“What did he say to you?”
She sighed. “He told me to bring you into my tent,” she said to me. “He told me what to say to you.” Then she lifted her face up to Noah. “And he said you’d offer me money and that I couldn’t take it.”
“When was this?” I asked her.
“About ten minutes before I saw you.”
Noah ran his hand over his jaw. “I don’t suppose he gave you a name?”
She shook her head.
“Are you sure?” he pressed. “There’s no amount of money I could offer you to tell us?”
A sad, brittle smile appeared on her lips. “God knows I could use it, sweetheart, but I can’t take money from either of you.”
“Why not?”
Her gaze drifted off into the darkness. “He told me I couldn’t.”
“So what?” Noah asked. “Why listen?”
Her voice grew quiet. “Because he’s the real deal.” Then she reached out her hand. Noah gave back her joint, and she stood.
“I’m truly sorry,” she said to me as she passed by, leaving Noah and me alone. The tower above us was just about to fall; but even though everyone in it knew what was coming, when it dropped, they still screamed.
Noah fit his hands to the curve of my waist. “Tell me,” he said.
He looked inhumanly beautiful under the lights. It almost hurt to look at him, but it would have hurt more to look away.
“Tell me,” he said again. There was need in his voice, and I didn’t have the strength to refuse.
“She said I have to let you go.”
He drew me closer. Brushed a strand of hair from my face, trailed his fingers along the curve of my neck. “Why?”
I closed my eyes. The words ached as they left my throat. “Because you’ll die by my side if I don’t.”
Noah slid his arms around me and fitted me against him. “It isn’t real,” he whispered into my hair.
Maybe it wasn’t. But even if it was . . . “I’m too selfish to leave you,” I said.
Noah pulled back so I could see his smile. “I’m too selfish to let you.”
40
WHEN WE MET BACK UP WITH MY FAMILY, I put on my happy face. I was still haunted by what Roslyn had said and the idea that someone paid her to say it, but when I managed to sneak a minute alone with Noah after we got home, he said he’d have Investigator Guy look into it, kissed my forehead, and left it at that. My face fell, but Noah didn’t see it.
Or he ignored it.
Noah would try to find out who paid her off, I knew. I trusted him. But I wasn’t sure he trusted me.
I was suggestible, he said, an
d Noah was the opposite. Eternally skeptical and arrogant about it. Yes, he went along with anything I wanted, no matter how strange—the Santeria stuff, burning that doll. And tonight, with the fortune business; he gave in to me too, even though he thought Roslyn was just high, that her words had no more weight than a horoscope. Noah indulged my every whim, but they were more than that to me.
Which made me wish I had the freedom to look for answers myself.
I knew I should be grateful not to be locked up in a mental hospital already and I was, but it was hard not to feel like a prisoner in my own house instead. And I wasn’t just under my parents’ observation—I was under John’s, too. I wanted him watching me and the house, absolutely. But even though I felt safer now, I didn’t feel free. That wasn’t his fault, and it wasn’t Noah’s.
It was Jude’s.
Noah did ask me to come to his room after everyone fell asleep that night, and even though I was frustrated and tired and still thinking about my crappy fortune, I went. Obviously.
When I opened the guest room door, Noah was in bed—still clothed and reading.
“What book?” I asked, closing the door and leaning against it.
He showed me the title: Invitation to a Beheading.
I smiled, but it didn’t reach my eyes. “I recommended that to you.”
“You did.”
“And?”
“It’s sad,” he said, placing the book on the bed.
My brows knitted together. “I thought it was funny.”
“Cincinnatus is in a prison of his own making. I find it sad.” He tilted his head at me. “You’re still upset.”
It wasn’t a question, but I nodded anyway.
“In that case, I have a proposal.”
“I’m listening.”
“You’ve been doing exposure therapy at Horizons, yes?”
“Yes . . .”
“To overcome your fears.”
I nodded again.
“And one of the things you’re afraid of is hurting me.”
“Killing you,” I said quietly.
“If we kiss.”
If I lose control. “If we stay together,” I said, thinking of Roslyn’s words.
“You want to do both?” Noah asked evenly.
So much. “Yes.”
“Then my proposal is this: that we approach it the way you would any other fear. First, you’ll imagine an encounter with the source of the phobia.” A half-smile appeared on his lips.
I saw where he was going with this. “You want me to imagine kissing you?”
“I’ll guide you through it.”
“Then what?”
“Then,” he said, “you’ll get closer to the source, but you won’t confront it yet.”
“And how exactly will that translate?”
“I’m sure I’ll think of something.” The timbre of his voice woke me up.
“When do you want to start?” I asked.
He looked up at me from the bed. “Come here.”
I obeyed.
Noah sat me down opposite him so that we faced each other. His eyelashes nearly swept his cheekbones and he bit his bottom lip and my breath caught as I stared.
Easy, there.
“Close your eyes,” Noah said, and I did.
“I want you to imagine us somewhere you love.”
I nodded.
“Somewhere safe.”
The room evaporated around us as he spoke. I walked through the hallways of my mind and opened the door to the house I grew up in. Where I played with my old toys on the floor. Where I had sleepovers with Rachel and laughed at her jokes and told her my secrets.
“Where are we?” he asked, his voice soft.
“My old bedroom.”
“Describe it.”
“There’s old, dark wood furniture that used to be my mom’s when she was younger. It’s antique. Pretty, but a little scratched-up.”
“What else?”
“The walls are pink, but you can’t see much of them under the sketches and drawings and pictures.”
“Pictures of . . .”
“Me. My family. Rachel,” I said, my voice nearly hitching. I took a deep breath. “Landscapes and stuff. I tacked everything to the wall.” I remembered it perfectly. “The papers flutter when I open or close the door, like the walls are breathing.”
“Tell me about your bed,” Noah said, the hint of a smile in his voice.
“It’s a twin,” I said, the hint of a smile in mine. “Oak, like the rest of the furniture. A four poster.”
“Blanket?”
“A really heavy quilt. It was my grandmother’s. Goose down and really thick.”
“What color is it?”
“Ugly.” I grinned. “A weird brown and black and white geometric print from the sixties, I think.”
“Where are you in your room right now?”
“Just . . . standing in the middle of it, I guess.”
“All right. If I were in your room, where would I be?”
I saw it with vivid clarity: Noah in my doorway. “Standing there, in the doorway,” I said, though our bodies now were just inches apart.
“I’m there, then,” he said in that warm, slow, honeyed voice. “It’s dark outside—night. Is there any light in your room?”
“The lamp on my nightstand.”
“All right. I walk into your room. Should I close the door?”
Yes. “Yes,” I said, my breath quickening.
“I close the door. I cross the room and meet you in the middle. What then?”
“I thought you were the one guiding me through this.”
“I think you should have some agency too.”
“What are my options?”
“You could read obscure poetry while I play the triangle, I suppose. Or we can smother ourselves in peanut butter and howl at the moon. Use your imagination.”
“Fine,” I said. “You take my hand and back up toward the bed.”
“Excellent choice. What then?”
“You sit down, and pull me down with you.”
“Where are you?” he asked.
“You pull me onto your lap.”
“Where are your legs?”
“Around your waist.”
“Well,” Noah said, his voice slightly rough. “This is getting interesting. So I’m on the edge of your bed. I’m holding you on my lap as you straddle me. My arms are around you, bracing you there so you don’t fall. What am I wearing?”
I smiled. “The T-shirt with all of the holes in it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, why?”
“I thought I’d be wearing a tux in your fantasies or something.”
“Like James Bond? That sounds like your fantasy,” I said, though the image of Noah in a crisp tuxedo with his artfully messy hair—his bowtie undone, hanging around his collar—I swallowed. My blood burned beneath my skin.
“Katie hates it.”
“The T-shirt?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s your sister.”
“So I should keep it?”
“Yes.”
“All right. I’m wearing the T-shirt. And below that?”
“What do you usually wear to bed?” I asked.
Noah said nothing. I opened my eyes to an arched brow and a devious grin.
Oh my God.
“Close. Your. Eyes,” he said. I did. “Now, where were we?”
“I was straddling you,” I said.
“Right. And I’m wearing . . .”
“Drawstring pants,” I said.
“Those are quite thin, you know.”
I’m aware.
“Whoa,” he said, and I felt the pressure of his hands on my shoulders. I opened my eyes.
“You swayed a bit,” he said, dropping his hands. “I thought you might fall off the bed.”
I blushed.
“Maybe we should take this to the floor,” he said, and stood. He stretched, and it was impossible to ig
nore the strong line of him, standing just inches away. I rose too quickly and wobbled on my feet.
He grinned and took a pillow from the bed and placed it on the floor, indicating that I should sit. I did.
“Right,” he said. “So what are you wearing?”
“I don’t know. A space suit. Who cares?”
“I think this should be as vivid as possible,” he said. “For you,” he clarified, and I chuckled. “Eyes closed,” he reminded me. “I’m going to have to institute a punishment for each time I have to tell you.”
“What did you have in mind?” I asked archly.
“Don’t tempt me. Now, what are you wearing?”
“A hoodie and drawstring pants too, I guess.”
“Anything underneath?”
“I don’t typically walk around without underwear.”
“Typically?”
“Only on special occasions.”
“Christ. I meant under your hoodie.”
“A tank top, I guess.”
“What color?”
“White tank. Black hoodie. Gray pants. I’m ready to move on now.”
I felt him nearer, his words close to my ear. “To the part where I lean back and pull you down with me?”
Yes.
“Over me,” he said.
Fuck.
“The part where I tell you that I want to feel the softness of the curls at the nape of your neck? To know what your hipbone would feel like against my mouth?” he murmured against my skin. “To memorize the slope of your navel and the arch of your neck and the swell of your—hey.”
I felt his warm hands on my shoulders. I opened my eyes. I must have been moving toward him while my eyes were closed, because I was almost in his lap.
“You should stay on your pillow,” he said.
But I don’t want to. “I don’t want to,” I said back. My fingertips ached with the need to touch.
“We shouldn’t rush this.”
But I want to. “Why not?” I asked.
He stared at me. At my mouth. “Because I want to kiss you again,” he said. “But not if any part of you is still afraid. Is any part of you still afraid?”
That I might hurt him? Kill him? If we kissed? If we stayed together?
“I’m not afraid of you, Noah,” I said out loud.
“Not consciously.”
“Not at all,” I said, shifting back and crossing my legs.
He tilted his head. He didn’t speak.