Eighteen
A shower, a change of clothes, and a batch of caramel oat cookies later, there was still no word from Saul. I had considered going to Lily’s penthouse and seeing if they were there more than once, but I didn’t. I kept waiting for Rio to text that Saul was okay.
After putting the cookies on the cooling rack, I topped them with oat-milk chocolate chips so that they would melt slowly and coat the tops then walked over and picked up my card to the Hendrix IV. They may not be there, but I could at least give it a try. Sticking it into the back pocket of my cut-off jean shorts, I headed for the door.
I didn’t get far. Saul was coming up the stairs when I stepped outside. I wasn’t sure if I should hug him, ask if he was okay, ask about Lily, or tell him to call Rio immediately. Instead of any of those things, I just said “Hey.”
He stopped at the second step from the top and looked at me. There were dark circles under his eyes. “Hey,” he replied.
We stood there like that, neither of us saying anything. He looked so defeated. We barely knew each other, but I realized I cared for him. I had been worried about him. I liked him. More than I should. More than was smart.
“Where’s Lily?” I finally asked.
He sighed and rubbed his temples. “Hospital,” he said. “She’ll be okay.”
“I’m sorry, Saul,” I told him, not sure what I should say. I had never known anyone who dealt with something like this. My mom no longer seemed difficult. I would call her tonight and see how she was. Her vanity and selfishness I could live with. There were much worse things that she could have done.
“Yeah,” he replied. He dropped his hand back to his side. “I don’t know why I came here.”
I didn’t say anything right away. I waited to see if he was going to say more. He didn’t.
“Maybe coming here is a habit. Gran used to be here and I assume you used to come to her for help with Lily.”
He glanced off into the yard then back at me. “That would make sense,” he said. “But it’s not why.”
“Oh,” I replied.
“She talked about you. Honey did,” he said, his gaze coming back to mine. “She talked about how sweet you were and how sheltered your life had been. She spoke about how although you were born to a teenage mother that you both had made it work. You had a plan for life and were on the right path.” He smiled then but it didn’t meet his eyes.
“She left some shit out though that might have been helpful that first day when I saw you struggling to put boxes in your car and I stopped to help.”
Knowing Gran had talked about me to Saul felt strange. I had never heard her speak of him or Lily, but he had known about me. He had stopped that day to help me because he knew who I was and what I was doing. It made sense now.
“What did she leave out?” I asked him.
He let out a hard laugh and shook his head then looked off into the yard again instead of at me. “She left out that your eyes express your every thought,” he replied. “She left out that when I looked into your eyes the first time I would find it hard to fucking catch my breath.”
He turned his gaze back to me again. “She left out that I could see just how damn sweet you were by looking into your eyes and she left out that it would be impossible for me not to want to be around you after I met you.”
There were no words for this. I stood there staring at him, thinking possibly I may have fallen asleep and this was a dream. I knew what I looked like the first time we met and I was well aware that there wasn’t anything about me that would make a guy like him want me.
“But if she loved you so much then why the hell did she ever tell me about you? If she hadn’t told me about you, I wouldn’t have stopped that day. I wouldn’t have known who you were. I wouldn’t have given a shit that you needed some help.” He sounded angry.
“What does that have to do with her loving me?” I asked confused by his train of thought.
“Because, Henley, I am fucked up. She should have kept you from me. My life is a dark fucked-up mess. Everything about it. I’m not nice. I don’t have a damn clue what my path is or where to get on it. All I know is I have an addict for a mother and if I don’t keep her alive then no one else will. That’s what I fucking know about my future. It’s a dark, sad story and you don’t fit into it. You’re light and motherfucking rainbows. Me? I’m some level of Hell.” He stopped ranting and ran a hand through his hair, causing the curls to fall in a messy disarray. There was so much pain in his eyes I wanted to cry. This beautiful boy who I thought had walked out of a tropical vacation commercial appeared to have it all, yet he was tortured.