She sat with her legs stretched out before her, ankles crossed, arms propping her up, head tilted back to the sky like she was sunbathing. The bottom of her sweatshirt pulled up enough to reveal a sliver of pale skin. Her blood would be so potent against that skin. So alive.
“Some people would say you’re weird,” she said. “Come up here and sit in the woods alone with your bare feet in mud.”
“I told you, didn’t I?”
“Why do you come up here?”
“To relax, like I said.”
“I don’t believe you.”
His ears felt warm. “Why not?”
She rolled her head side to side and then turned to him. “I think you followed me up here.”
“Didn’t I already answer that question, too?”
“You lied because you don’t want me to think you’re a freak.”
His palms were sweating. “Do you?”
“Think you’re a freak?” She laughed. “You did punch a teenager in a parking lot this morning.”
His hand slipped into a fist with the memory. “Probably shouldn’t have done that, huh?”
She thought about it. “The kid was an asshole.”
“Right.”
“But someone might have seen you.”
“Someone did,” he said. “You.”
She tilted her head back and sunlight washed over her face and down her white neck.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Mercy Higgins was surprising herself with every passing minute. Somewhere between her initial embarrassment and self-consciousness and his vague answers about why he liked coming up here so much, Mercy discovered a girl who would have had great times at frat parties and maybe let girls suck shots off of her stomach.
Leaned back, head tilted, chest arched, she felt like a model. It didn’t matter she was wearing a baggy sweatshirt and her rattiest jeans and her hair was knotted behind her. Victor knew her as the quiet bookstore girl. And that was it. She didn’t have to stay that way. She could be the come hither vixen. Men always fell for that. It was all about attitude. Cosmo said so.
“What if I told someone? What if I reported you?”
“You didn’t,” he said.
“I still could.”
“You won’t.” His voice wavered just a little and she giggled. Being a vixen felt wonderful.
“And why is that?” she asked.
When he didn’t respond she fought the urge to open her eyes. He was panicking now, genuinely worried that she was going to report him for punching some stupid kid in the face. Moments ago, Mercy never would have been able to play this game. She would assure him that she wasn’t going to tell anyone. She’d apologize for making him nervous about it.
That woman was gone. Or at least on hiatus.
“You’re not going to report me,” he said, “because you liked that I hit that kid. He had been acting like an asshole. That pissed you off.”
“That’s why you hit him?” She broke character, looked at him.
He was staring at his feet. The mud was cracking off in clumps.
“Some people deserve to be hit.”
When he lifted his head there was something in his eyes she hadn’t noticed before. Something like darkness. Something a little scary.
“I guess so,” she said.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to get so intense.”
She laughed weakly and waited for the darkness to lift or harden into something more tangible but it didn’t change, just floated there in his face like a cloud. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back. Dad would be back soon. She hoped so, anyway.
There was a long pause, maybe a few minutes. A few crows were cawing back and forth somewhere not too far away. The breeze had chilled and when it ran over her body she fought the urge to curl back into a hunched-over, cross-legged position like a little kid. She had the upper hand and she couldn’t let it go. Couldn’t let this guy think she was weak or easily won.
“I haven’t been honest with you,” he said.
“Oh?”
“I did follow you up here.”
She suppressed a smile teasing at her lips.
“I might have come anyway but when I saw you at the diner, I thought there might be greater meaning in it.”
“Like what?”
“Like destiny.”
“That’s kind of heavy-handed, don’t you think?”
He paused. “When I come up here, I always find some purpose. There is always a reason I am where I end up. Like fate. And on this mountain it is so much stronger. I feel at home. When I saw you coming up here, I knew I had to come, too. I knew this mountain was telling me something, giving me grand purpose.”
“Which is?” she asked.
“I have always thought you were beautiful. At the bookstore. And when I saw you this morning, there was pain in your eyes. But you were still beautiful. This mountain has given me so much and now it has given me the chance to spend a few hours with you. I’m not trying to be weird or anything; it’s just the way I see it. My purpose today has been to spend time with you.”
It was the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to her and she had no idea how to respond.
TWENTY-NINE
It didn’t take much to be charming. His mother had taught him all he needed to know about it. It boiled down to knowing what you wanted and telling the other person exactly what they needed to hear so you could get whatever it was you were after.
Some nights when his mother came home drunk and maybe stoned or high on some other narcotic, she would launch into long tirades about humanity. This included extended rants against the establishment, which from what the young Victor could gather, meant anyone who made more money than she. But her talks, her seated on the couch, glass overflowing with red wine in hand, inevitably came back to her strategies for success.
Her number one strategy for success? Be charming, of course.
She would wear some low-cut shirt that hugged her breasts, often going braless so while she spoke, Victor would find himself staring at her nipples. Sometimes they would stick out at him like tiny accusatory fingers.
“You can get whatever you want, honey,” she’d say. “You just gotta seduce ‘em. You gotta be charming. Charrrrming.” She would drag out the “r” in charming like it was some exotic word.
She would rub her legs together and yank at her skirt, which barely reached mid-thigh. If she caught him staring, she’d rub them slower as she spoke and ask him if he wanted to see her special place. Before she would, however, he had to charm her, had to practice the technique and make her proud.
Mercy Higgins said nothing for almost a minute. He had played her well. Been his charming best. Mother would be proud.
Finally, she stared at him like a love-lorn puppy and said, “Thank you.”
“It’s what the universe wants,” he said.
She blinked. “What do you mean?”
“Like fate, I guess. I was supposed to follow you up here. Supposed to spend time with you.”
“You think everything happens for a reason?”
He smiled. “Maybe.”
Her face darkened. “So, my mother dies of cancer--that’s for some reason?”
He felt like he had taken a wrong turn down a dead end road. “I’m sorry,” he said.
She was shaking her head and apologizing. “I’m sorry. There’s a lot on my mind right now. I didn’t mean to be so antagonistic. I want to believe everything happens for a reason. I guess I just don’t see what the reason could possibly be.”
“You need some guidance,” he said. “You need to find your purpose. What the universe wants you to do.”