“Okay,” Robbie says, surprising me from my thoughts. My first reaction is anger, but that fades away as soon as her fingers touch my back. I glance over my shoulder from where I've knelt next to the bookcase and catch sight of her shapely calves, her low patent heels. “Where should I start?” Robbie removes her fingers from my shirt and reaches down to slip off her shoes, carrying them to the hallway and dropping them onto the hardwood floor outside the bedroom. “I can start cutting up the carpet if you want. I did it a few years ago when my dad was remodeling the inside of our house. It's more tedious than anything else.” Robbie puts her hands on her lower back and takes a deep breath, the ghost of a smile hovering around her lips. “Do you remember volunteering to help me carry in the new carpet rolls?”
I say nothing and turn back to the bookshelf.
The truth is, I do remember. My lip curls as I snatch up a copy of The Iliad and stuff it into the box. The lid goes on and I lift up the entire thing from the floor with a grunt, carrying it into my bedroom and setting it down next to my bed. Aliyah's book smiles up at me from a green and gold cover, and my heart skips a beat. Without realizing what I'm doing, I step towards the bed and drop to my knees. My hands grasp the book and drag it towards me until I'm resting my forehead against the cover.
“Luke?” Robbie asks, her footsteps drifting in my direction. I ignore them until I hear the soft brush of bare feet treading across the threshold of my bedroom. “Are you okay?” A pause filled only with Robbie's soft breathing follows. On the outside, I'm calm, if a little melancholy. On the inside, I'm a raging storm. “I'm sorry,” she says after awhile. “I didn't mean to stir things up.”
“Things are always stirred up for me, Robbie,” I say. I keep my forehead pressed to the book, like if I sit here long enough, Aliyah will come out of the pages, laughing. “I carry this in the back of my mind all the fucking time.”
“Maybe that's your problem,” she says, coming in to sit on the bed next to me. The bed. Robbie is on my bed. I don't let women anywhere near my house, let alone my fucking place of rest. But I feel okay. How can I feel threatened by a girl whose energy is the color of sunshine? “There's a time and place for tragedy, and for mourning. After that, it's time to move on because to honor the person you've lost, you just have to. How can you relive their memories if you're not in a happy place?”
“You're eighteen years old. What do you know about loss?”
“I know my mom isn't my biological mom. She died when I was eight years old. The woman you see me with is actually my step-mom, even though I don't call her that.”
I stay silent, staring at my bedspread and listening to Robbie's matter-of-fact words. Whether they're true or not, she believes them, believes she's felt true loss. Who am I to judge anyway? I didn't love my mother enough to care when she passed away. A woman who doesn't protect their child from an aggressive monster like my father isn't worth loving.
“Was Aliyah your wife?”
“She would've been,” I say, putting to words a story I haven't spoken of to a single other human being on this planet. “If she hadn't been murdered when we were eighteen.”
“I'm sorry, Luke.” Robbie scoots closer to me, until her thigh is touching my arm. And then she leans down and gives me an awkward hug. And it feels good. Fucking good. I don't know how to process the emotion, so I pull away and sit on the floor, looking up at Robbie with a blank expression. She smiles at me, even though there are tears in her eyes. Are they for me? But no. I think they're for Aliyah, and that makes getting rid of Robbie an even harder thing for me to do.
“You should go,” I say again, but the force of the statement just isn't there. I'm sitting on the floor of my bedroom staring at a teenage girl on my bed. What's the matter, Lucas Carter? Have you forgotten who you are, what you do? There are only two options: let the beast have the girl or watch her walk away. There's nothing else for you.
Robbie starts to speak, to fill the silence with her lilting voice, when another sound breaks through the hallway.
“Roberta! Roberta, where are you?” It's Robbie's little sister, Tera. What fortunate timing.
Robbie and I share a look just seconds before Tera bursts in through the door panting. Thank God. I'd forgotten I'd left the front door open. If I had kissed Robbie, if I had … taken things further, what might've happened?
“I've been looking everywhere for you. Mom wants you to come back to the house and help her with the prep for the block party. We're baking pies!” Robbie smiles at her sister and then looks back down at me. I keep my gaze focused on the child. Her bright blue eyes mirror her sister's, but her hair is blonde and curly, a puffy halo that surrounds her tiny head. I wish I could've had children, but the odds were not in my favor. I dredge up a smile I don't feel and rise to my feet, patting Tera on the head as I pass by.