“Let people feel the weight of who you really are, and let them fucking deal with it.”

I am breathless—my mouth open and my eyes glazed. An orgasm for the truth.

He drops a piece of paper on the bar next to my empty glass and walks out the door.

The spot on my forehead where he touched me is tingling. I reach up and rub it. The weight of who I am. It isn’t my responsibility to deal with it. It is theirs. Muslim is right. I am, what I am, what I am. Stay or leave.

His words settle over me. I narrow my eyes against them. I don’t have to believe. I don’t. But I do. And that’s when things change. Can change wash over you in a matter of seconds? It just takes the right moment, the right words, the aligning of brain and heart. I will fight.

Muslim Black is staying in Manresa Castle. I hear it’s haunted to high hell—dead women tortured by love and all of that bullshit. You can’t even die and escape a broken heart. Depressing. Haunting or not, there’s something about Muslim that tells me he won’t mind a few ghosts. I don’t call him right away. I carry the slip of paper in my pocket. It feels like a live thing. It’s just your curiosity, I remind myself. Did he creep me out, or was I attracted to him? Maybe it was both. What does that say about me anyway? When I do finally call him, he answers the phone saying my name. The voice that encumbers enough rasp and spice to make every hair on your body stand on end. And then it says your name. The E’s are breathy, the last letter strong. It’s his own way, and no one has ever said it like that before.

“Hello, Helena.”

“How’d you know it was me?” My heart pounds, and I have to bend over at the waist and hide my face between my knees until it’s time to talk again.

“I don’t give people this number.”

“You gave me the number.”

“I can’t hear you…”

I sit up and say it again.

“You’re not people,” he says.

I wonder if he’s lying on the hotel bed or walking around the room.

“Who am I?”

I hear him shifting the phone around. Perhaps changing positions. Is he weighing how best to answer me? I don’t want to be part of his game; that’s not why I called. When he answers me, his voice is rich, back to normal. “You’re Helena. Isn’t that enough?”

I sniff. “Don’t do that,” I say. “Try to make me feel special so you can hook me.”

He’s quiet for a moment, and then he says, “Okay.”

“Can you teach me how to do what you do?”

“Which is what?”

I don’t want to play that game. I want him to read my mind like before. Not make me beg.

“Never mind.” I start to hang up the phone when I hear him say, “No, no, no! Wait. Helena…” Did his facade falter? I’m curious. Which is the only reason I bring the phone back to my ear. I don’t have time to be sorry for calling, because then he’s telling me what I want to hear.

“Yes. Yes, I’ll teach you.”

To get what you want, but to still be suspicious—it’s a grimy feeling. Like you’re doing something wrong. And I am, aren’t I? I decide to check Muslim’s motives, not mine.

“Why?” I ask.

“Because you asked me to.” And then, “Would you like to meet for dinner?”

I agree to meet him at Alchemy the next night. I suggested somewhere light and warm with lilac walls that reminded me of Greer, but Muslim wanted Alchemy.

“I like the name,” he said, before we settled on six o’ clock.

I dress all in black, but when I look at myself in the mirror, I look deranged and frightened. So, I change into a beige sweater and ripped blue jeans that Greer says make me look like a sexpot. My topknot is extra large and in charge as I walk down to Alchemy at 5:55. I do not feel in charge, and that is the point of Muslim Black, I suppose. Am I really doing this to get Kit back? Or am I in some sort of grieving, fascinated rebound phase? Who cares? I tell myself. Just do what you need to. Whatever that is. Before I walk in the door to Alchemy, I take a selfie, titled: Hooked.

Muslim is already sitting at the table, a drink next to his hand, the glass sweating. I’m glad I’m not the only one sweating. Wait, Kit. How long has it been since I’ve thought about Kit? When he sees me, he stands up. He’s not a city boy. That’s something my dad does, and he does it because his dad made him.

“Seems you’re never without one,” I say, slinging my purse over the back of my chair. He waits for me to sit down, and then takes his own seat.

“Says the girl who drinks whiskey at three o’clock on a weekday, while picking up sociopathic men.”

What can I even say to that?

I lick my lips and order a nice, feminine glass of wine to go with my mirth.

Muslim watches everything I do with interest. When I laugh and joke around with our server, he watches us with a small smile, his eyes traveling from her to me. When I drop a butterball on my lap, and then five minutes later almost knock my glass of wine over, he laughs and shakes his head. If he hadn’t admitted all of those things about himself earlier, I’d think he was enamored with me. It’s all part of his ruse. I respect that—in the kind of way you respect a rattlesnake. It has me on edge, biting the inside of my cheeks. I’m waiting for him to strike, poison me. But he’s surprisingly normal, natural, charismatic. Oh my God, he’s so good at this.