Photographs of Graves

“You're his girlfriend?”

“You two got together?”

“You're in a relationship?”

Within the next hour I had heard all of these questions. I curled up in bed, arms wrapped around my bear, and recoiled from the images. The dynamic was already changing, pushed into a different plain by my peers. I resisted, but in the way that a sparrow tries to fly against the wind in a heavy storm: The fight was valiant but, in the end, futile.

Eventually I just settled into the concept. It took about two weeks to grow comfortable with the title, but eventually I did. It took hours of meditation and listening to mind-numbingly repetitive music to sit and think (or not think) , but eventually it worked. Soon I found myself waking up naked next to that man more nights than not, and even having breakfast with him, Mikael, and Dan in the mornings. I got to know pretty damn well how I looked in Graves' boxers, what the three guys looked like drunk, and that they really didn't care that I looked like shit in the morning.

I tried to alternate nights for the most part , spending equal amounts with Ana and Marion as I did with Graves and his boys, but it was hard because, frankly, the sex was simply great. We didn't go every night but it was at least a few times a week. It was great for my abs and thighs, though: I was pretty happy with the workout.

And I worked. Every day. And, surprisingly, I really loved it. Ana was hurt for a while that I was spending so much time with Graves, but after thinking over what she would do in the situation she forgave me and we got to working how we did before. Eventually Marion even brought us out to follow around a case, a diplomat that was allegedly forging checks and stealing money from the state. We clumped in with the paparazzi, my elementary Dutch now good enough to pick up a lot of what they were saying.

”You thief! You bastard!”

”Give us back what you stole!”

There were a lot of protestors. It wasn't like American protests, where people pushed over each other and jammed the streets with soap box speeches and booze, but more contained. There was more respect shone here. That did not, however, take away from their anger, just give it a different manifestation. Men and women in front of us were clamoring over each other, microphones outstretched, fighting to get a statement from the flustered diplomat. But alas, he was escorted by the police safely into a building and the doors clapped shut behind him.

We left without a sound bite. We rode back to Morrow & Sons, Marion sitting pensively all the way there. She had said a few things into her pocket recorder while we were getting pushed through the reporters and protestors but I didn't catch any. I watched her, wondering what she got from that mess.

“Arden,” she asked abruptly.

“Yes?”

“Why do you think that, in a time that Europe is doing so poorly as a whole and unemployment and homelessness is so high, already wealthy men feel like they can line their pockets with the money of taxpayers and middle class civilians?”

I didn't have an immediate answer for that.

“I'd say it has something with wanting to maintain their standard of living. They're wealthy and powerful, used to that lifestyle, and have a sense of entitlement when it comes to keeping their luxury. They probably rationalize it by saying they'll do something in return or telling themselves they're doing it for their families and not their own selfish desires.” I shook my head. “But honestly I don't understand their mentalities.”

Marion smiled but said nothing else.

Ana leaned against me on the way home, tired and agitated by the screeching of the bus' breaks against the pavement. I closed my eyes, imagining a place that wasn't overcrowded and noisy and smelled like ass to pass the time.

I dreamed of running along the shore of Lake Michigan with my dogs and Zoe. She was laughing, kicking her legs up against the surf. My dad was trailing somewhere far behind us, walking with my step mom and my little brother. The waves crashed against our legs. Cerberus and Sky barked happily, wading into the water with their tails high and tongues lolling.

Something screeched in the distance that sounded like grating metal or a shrilling phone. I looked up, trying to find its source, but Zoe just kept running with Cerberus and Sky.

”Keep up!” she called back.

I ran after them into the water. The sun was glaring in my eyes. I heard my dogs barking further in, but I couldn't see them because the sun was just too bright.

The wave hit me, pulling me under out of the blinding light and into complete darkness. My dog's barking was drowned by bubbling water, ice cold against my skin, as I went deeper. I couldn't figure out which way was up...

I landed on my knees in a dimly lit room where I had fallen, knees bruising against the hard wood floor. I ran my fingers through my short curls, fingers short and tiny and bitten down. A woman was against the floor, hair long and lush and beautiful, her lovely face drawn in shock. The bottle of gin she had been drinking shattered against the floor, its contents oozing like blood across the wood. She was wrapped in a sheet that covered her lovely, naked body, and behind her stood a man with broad shoulders and a stomach that was pregnant with beer. He was swearing, filling my ears with his profanity as he quickly tried to dress. The woman reached out to me. I recoiled.

”Arden, Ari, my lovely baby,” she whispered soothingly, ”Mommy loves you. Mommy loves you. No, this man is just helping mommy with something, that's all. I still love daddy. Baby, this is juice, I promised I wouldn't start drinking again...”

But I was too old. I knew what was happening. I shook, my hands clamping around my young ears and I screamed, wailing in hatred and anger and anguish and betrayal and all the things that an eight year old couldn't understand.

”No!” I screamed, my eyes opening onto a sickly lit bathroom and ugly tile flooring. I was rushing forward, diving through the dripping red that was spreading across the floor from the overflowing tub. The lovely face was withered now, her luscious hair matted with blood and water and alcohol. In one hand she loosely held a bottle of gin and in the other a razor.

She tried to smile at me, but her mouth was frothing.

”I love you," she whispered, ”Mommy loves you, Ari."

Nine year old me grabbed my mother, pulling at her, staring into those dying green eyes that were so similar to mine. I had been late getting to my mom's house today; I had wanted to stay home with dad, but he insisted. Something about settlement.

I ran to the phone and called 911. Water and blood made the phone slippery in my hands and I was shaking so much.

”Help, I cried into the receiver, ”There's been a suicide.”

The world screeched and shuddered in flickering lights as the phone fell through my fingers and the cracking floor.

“Ari, Ari!”

I opened my eyes to a pair of heavily mascaraed blue ones.

“We are back!” she said, smiling. “And you were turning and saying something in your sleep. It was strange.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled, getting up. I sighed, closing my eyes and steadying myself before getting off the bus.

I knew how that story ended. The woman lived. The paramedics got there in time and took the woman to the hospital immediately. She hadn't cut like she was supposed to if she wanted to die. She'd only nicked a major artery, not slit it. I went home to my dad. My mom went was institutionalized for alcoholism and suicidal tendencies. Dad got remarried when I was ten. My little brother was born when I was eleven. Life moved on.

I got off groggily, head still fogged up. It had been a nightmare I'd gotten therapy for until I was thirteen, reoccurring periodically until I was fourteen, then occasionally happening from then on at random times when I didn't expect it. It had been about seven months since the last time I'd been graced with its presence and I'd nearly forgotten about it.

“Ari, you seem confused,” Ana said worriedly. I'm pretty sure she was going for “dazed”, but she didn't have that word in her vocabulary yet.

“I'm fine,” I said hurriedly, “Just bad dream.” I got to work writing down various things about the diplomat and the hoard of people around him today, delving in before Ana could ask any more questions.

Since that day when I was seven I had hated my mother. I had hated her because I couldn't believe she could do that to my dad and me. Because she hadn't been able to keep control. Because she had said “I love you” and lied. Because after all of that, the divorce and the cheating and the drinking, she had tried to take the cowards way out and kill herself.

Because, all by not being able to be the woman I needed in my life, she had taught me that even love when it seemed real could be all a lie and sometimes even those closest to us will tear us apart for their own selfish desires.

I was off my game for most of the day after that. I packed up at seven and headed for the coffee shop, still quiet and thinking. I messaged Zoe that “it had happened again” and she sent me a simple note saying “I'm sorry, love you babe <3” in response. I tucked my hands in my pockets. It was August now, and Zoe would be coming to Europe in about a month. I was suddenly very glad about that and ruefully thought that I hadn't found her a Spaniard yet. Oops.

“Murphy?”

I turned around and nearly collided with Graves. He was on his way to the coffee shop as well. He blinked, looking me over, before pursing his lips.

“What's up? You've been off all day.”

I snorted and waved a negligent hand. “It's nothing, honestly.”

He didn't press, just put his hand in mine and walked with me.

“Are you coming over tonight?” he asked as we walked into the cozy coffee shop. I thought about it before shaking my head.

“No,” I sighed, “I think I need a night to myself.”

He nodded and ordered his coffee. We sat down in our usual window seat. Ana, Mikael, and Bastion were sitting at a corner table and waved. Cosette was outside smoking with friends.

“Want to talk about it?” he asked.

“No.”

We didn't talk about it. I never told him about my mother, another one of my secrets that I'd subconsciously sworn to keep, alongside Oliver and Chicago. I went to bed alone, curling up in a bra and yoga pants with my grizzly bear tight in my hands for emotional support and dream catching purposes. I thought of Cerberus and Sky, who would sleep in my room back at home and protect me from the skeletons in my closet. Part of me wished that I had chosen to be with Graves, but I knew that today I just couldn't handle love.

“Fuck you, mom,” I whispered, sinking my head into my pillow.

I had loved her first, and I still loved her in the way that a little kid always does with their parents. But she had been the first to break my heart. I didn't want my heart broken again.