“Fine. You win. Let’s go to the roof.” I was ready to fight with him for real, but I wasn’t willing to do it front of dozens of milling patrons of fine art. I didn’t know what had come over me. Maybe it was my lack of decent sleep. Maybe it was all the confusion that had been bubbling in the back of my head all day, threatening to boil over every second that I didn’t clamp a lid on it. Maybe it was just that I was confused and unsure and overwhelmed, and I had no clear answer to the problem I never wanted to face. I wasn’t sure what it was, but something had flipped like a switch, and I felt like I couldn’t even anticipate my own next move.
All of the uncertainties from the past few weeks were swirling through me, and Saxon had managed to stir the proverbial shit. Now I was feeling so unlike myself, I didn’t know who I was exactly. I wasn’t usually edgy. I wasn’t usually angry. I wasn’t usually melancholy. But I felt all those things, and confused and excited and unsure at the same time.
Holy shit. Maybe I was having a long overdue mental breakdown.
Once we stepped onto the roof, I tried to use the benefit of the biting wind to clear my mind, but it was no use. I felt tipsy and dizzy, and the only good thing was that I was feeling it with no one but Saxon as a witness. The roof was probably more popular when the weather wasn’t in the low fifties with a stinging wind.
He lit a cigarette and looked at me to see if I’d say anything. I didn’t.
“Pretty up here.” He looked at me wolfishly.
“Yeah.” I sighed, tired of all the beating-around-the-bush and mind games. So I said what I thinking, the way I knew Saxon wanted to but didn’t have the guts to. “You are really good looking. And attractive in a lot of other ways. I don‘t like to admit that I feel that way about you, but I do.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Thanks?”
“No thanks needed. I’m just tired of games.” And then I said the words that had been alive in me since September, hibernating somewhere every happy second I spent in Jake’s arms. I said the words that might crush every good thing I had. I said them because I couldn’t feel right caring about Jake so much, but living some private Saxon fantasy in my head. I said it out of desperation and out of hope. I said it hoping the whole thing would blow up in my face, and at the same time hoping it would work out better than I had ever imagined. I said, “Let’s do this.”
“Do what?” His black eyes were alive with tiny gold flames, and I knew that his question had more to do with wanting to hear my answer than actually needing to know.
And then I made a proposition to Saxon that I wasn’t sure I could live with. But I honestly felt like I had no choice. Or maybe I honestly felt like it was my only choice.
I grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket and pulled him close to me, the aggressive jerk to his system bringing a surprised smile to his mouth through the cloud of cigarette smoke that curled around his head. “Let’s see what there is between us, if anything. Just you and me, just between us. And if we just go with it, maybe it will relieve some of this tension. Okay?”
“How far are you willing to go?” Saxon asked, the cigarette now dropped and smoking from the cool ground of the roof.
“As far as I want to, but no farther. No cowardice.”
He looked at me and shook his head, not able to process what I proposed. It broke my heart to do it, but I lifted my hand and pulled my posey ring off. I dropped it in my pocket and looked up at him. Images of Jake flashed painfully through my head, but I pushed them back.
“I’m no one’s girl but my own.” I forced the words out, my voice shaky. “Just me. Just Brenna. And I’ll do what I want.”
He reached up and grabbed my shoulders. “You want to kiss me.”
“Are you sure it’s not just your wishful thinking?” I shot back.
Because a kiss was real. That went beyond words or even gestures. A kiss was a kiss, and it couldn’t be taken back.
“Ask yourself,” he threw back. “If you’re not too much of a coward.”
So I pulled him again by the lapels of his coat, and I was satisfied that I shocked him silent this time. I reached my face up and kissed him, my lips firm and hot on his. He was taken aback by it, almost pulled his head back, but I kissed harder, then opened my mouth a little. He relaxed and pressed into me. I balled my hands at his coat and screwed my eyes shut and kissed him hard. He wrapped his arms around me and lifted me up, closer to him, and kissed deeper.
Finally I pulled away, breathing hard.
I had broken everything. I had smashed what I had with Jake.
I felt like throwing up. I felt like punching Saxon in the face. I didn’t feel like kissing him again.
“Was it good for you?” I asked, my voice as nasty as I felt.
“Brenna.” Saxon’s voice was a ragged edge, but he didn’t say anything else.
“So now we’ll do whatever I want whenever I want. Seduce me, Saxon. Do your worst! How long have you been telling me that you wanted me out of your system?” I yelled into the cold air over Paris. “Let’s do it, then! I‘ll get you out of my system, you get me out of yours! And I bet it will be so damn cool and fun!” I was gasping for air.
“Brenna.” He went to put his arms around me again. His voice was calming, and I could see in his eyes that I was freaking him out a little. Good. I was freaking myself out a little.
What had I done?
“Get the hell away from me.” I put both hands on his chest and pushed hard. He stumbled back. “I don’t want to see you. And it has nothing to do with Jake. I fucked that up, didn’t I? Now go! Go!”
Saxon looked like he was thinking about what he should do next. But he couldn’t come up with anything. So he left, looking over his shoulder at me as he went.
I had beat him at his own game. I gripped the railing around the roof hard. I had beat him, and I felt like curling into a ball and putting the covers over my head and just not coming out. What was I supposed to tell Jake? What was I going to do now?
I stuck my head into the wind, leaned over the railing and drew the air deep in and blew it back out. From the pit of my stomach, I screamed loud and long until the poisonous feeling that was pouring through me left, and I felt empty.
If anyone thought it was weird that some random girl was hanging over a railing screaming her head off, no one stopped me or checked on me. Saxon didn’t come back.
Coward!
I felt like I shrank and grew in those few minutes. My heart, at least what my heart was, shriveled a little and hardened. And my ego and anger grew. It grew so much that it even encompassed Jake. I tried to hold onto it as hard as I could, because I knew I would need it that night, when we talked.
If we talked.
I took my camera out and hung over the railing, pointed it down and focused on the street. My own hair got caught in the frame, and I thought that was a good thing. It was a little piece of me falling down farther than was safe. I snapped the picture.
I went back into the museum and found a wild, colorful Fauve painting that was so bright it looked furious. I snapped a picture, not caring if I was supposed to or not.
Mom found me, was worried, and I hugged her hard, breathing in the smell of her perfume on her bright green sweater, but I didn’t explain anything. I ate a sandwich in the cafeteria with her and had an apple after. I took a butter knife from our serving set and plunged it into the fruit, then snapped a picture.
“Bren?” Mom eyed the oozing fruit. “Are you okay? You’ve been a little quiet.”
I felt like I was buzzing, like there was some kind of electrical current running through me, like I was filled with neon.
“Did you ever want something that wasn’t good for you?” I asked forcefully. “Like did you ever want a piece of chocolate cake when you were on a diet?”