Chapter 14: Wicked Fame: Chapter 14

I sigh, lying awake on the bed three hours after Francesca has left. My blood hasn’t cooled after the sex. Her screams still echo in my ears; her trusting eyes as she let me hurt her are burned into my retinas.

Every thought in my head is Francesca, Francesca, Francesca; the way she held me, the way she fit perfectly around me, and most of all, how right everything felt.

Comfortable. Warm. Like home.

I must be going crazy. This is the sleep deprivation from last week talking.

But the bright, hopeful feeling blooming in my chest leaves no room for doubt.

Francesca. With her talent and dreams of being famous, her kind heart and gentle soul that sees the good even in scum like me. If I taint that, I won’t be able to handle the guilt. But my hands are bloody and violent, and all I can do is slowly corrode her with every breath she takes in my presence.

I refuse to accept it. I refuse to accept that I feel something more for her than physical compatibility. That I care about her so much that even now, I’m wondering if she’s really alright in her studio, or if she’s simply torturing herself with her demons again.

Burying my face into my hands, I groan.

It’s too fast. I haven’t known her long enough. She’s a user, an addict. It can’t be her.

Anyone but her.

If I leave now, if I put an end to this now, it will only be a fling. But if this drags on, then both of us could lose more than we’re prepared to lose.

I drill my head into the pillow, praying for sleep to claim me.

Night used to be the time of the day when my mind was the clearest. Now it’s when I am assaulted by unwanted thoughts of a future I never imagined before.

A chef with my own restaurant—I haven’t been able to get the idea out of my head since she put it there. The pictures grow, bleed, and flow from that starting point. Coming home to Francesca, a home filled with the scent of roses and paint, burying my head in her pretty hair as I whisper, “How was your day?”

Before I can finish my train of thought, my feet betray me. One minute, I’m spread-eagled on the bed thinking about how to steal her car and get back to New York.

The next, I’m turning the door handle to her studio.

“You need to lock the fucking door, Francesca,” I boom as soon as I step in. “This place is in the middle of nowhere. Anybody could walk in and kidnap you.”

“Is that what you’re here for? To kidnap me? Because I might go along with you willingly if you can take me far, far away from art forever.”

Her eyes are rimmed with red, the bags under them swollen. Signs of her crying.

A cold fist grips my heart. She’s not okay.

My gaze arrows to the canvas. There are pencil marks on it, but nothing else.

Concern incinerates my logic, rationality, and reason.

Reaching around to her back, I wrap her in a hug. “What’s wrong, baby?”

“I can’t paint.”

“Because of the voices in your head?”

“They’re endless. I feel scared of disappointing someone the moment I pick up the brush.”

“What are the voices saying to you?”

“The same things.”

“Who are these people?” I probe because I want to know. “What do they look like?”

“Why does that matter?”

“Because I’ll need their names and addresses if I’m going to stuff them in a coffin.”

Laughter bubbles out of her. “I doubt that’d help. They’re immortal inside my head.”

“Then kill them. Take a knife and slit their throats so they can’t talk anymore.”

Her body shivers under my arms. She wriggles, turning around until her azure gaze clashes with mine. There’s heat in those expanding pupils. Heat and fear.

Her greedy fingers coax the muscles in my jaw to soften. Back to her old tricks, isn’t she? Trying to escape again.

“Let’s focus on art for now. We just had sex.”

“I need you now. Gabriele, destroy me again. I have to stop thinking.”

“Talk to me. What happened?” Pure animalistic sex doesn’t do it for me anymore. I need to be intimately entwined with the thoughts and the demons in her head while I’m tangled with her body.

I must hear every voice that passes through that mind. I have to rip away every thought that hurts her.

Because only I can hurt her, and I always make it pleasurable.

“It’s too hard,” she admits. “I got this great idea after I talked to you. I even sketched it, and I felt like I could finally make it happen. But it’s so much darker than my usual stuff. I’m afraid it won’t be good enough to display in the lobby of an apartment building. I’m afraid they’ll hate it and tell me to paint something else. And that will shatter my confidence.”

Dropping her paintbrush, she cradles her head against my chest.

“Do you want to be liked by everyone or do you want to be free to draw whatever you desire?”

She double blinks at my question. “Both.”

“Here’s the thing: you can’t control if you’ll be famous or if critics will love your work, but you can decide if you’ll be free.”

Her hot breath swishes past my ears. “Gabriele, I’m glad you’re here in Woodstock. I love that you’re so different from me. You don’t look for anybody’s validation and do as you, please. Because of that, your perspective is the exact opposite of mine. You make me see things I could never see on my own because my mind doesn’t work like yours.”

The reverence lacing her voice makes me wrap my arms around her tighter. It feels strange to have someone praise me like this, praise my mind. I’ve never been told I’m intelligent or my thoughts matter. My body has been my tool of trade, not my brain.

“Why do you want to please people so much? Do you think you’re not worth anything if nobody loves you?”

Her lips tremble, telling me I’ve hit the mark. “I don’t know what value I have in the world. If I can’t create great art…then how does anyone benefit from me being alive?”

I croak out a laugh. “How do you think anyone benefits from me being alive?”

I kill and drag humans into vices like gambling and drug addiction. If they piss me off enough, I even ruin their lives. Yet I’ve never felt like I don’t deserve to be alive. It was my strong instinct to survive that made me choose a life on the streets, then a life of crime. I want to survive by any means possible. I want to live, even if my life doesn’t have any meaning.

“I benefit from you being alive, Gabriele.” Francesca hugs me back. “This might be hard to believe, but you’re an important person to me. These last few weeks…I don’t know how I’d have survived them without you. You’re my stalker, but sometimes it feels like you’re my savior.”

“We’re going off track,” I hiss.

“When I can’t sleep at night, I miss your voice. I miss your harsh jokes, and how easy it is to say whatever I want when I’m with you. I don’t have to wear a mask or play a role. Sometimes, I wonder why you’re the only person who accepts me as I really am.”

A cold wave crashes over me. I’m afraid. I’m afraid that she’s too emotionally invested in what’s simply a sexual relationship. I’m scared she’s too emotionally invested in me. But at the same time, I’m elated.

I want her to feel something strong for me. I want her to see me as more than an addiction, more than a muse, more than someone she needs to achieve her dreams of fame and success. I can’t pinpoint why I need that when this is just a physical exchange between us but I do.

“This isn’t like that,” I remind her. “You’re imagining things.”

“Yeah. Sorry to unload this all on you when you came just for a good time. I’ll make it up to you tomorrow.”

“We were talking about how pointless my existence is in the world, so how did we end up here?”

“I was just reassuring you that you’re needed in the world,” she says. Static clings to my skin at the glide of her fingers over my nose. “Your existence is definitely not useless.”

I want to reassure her of that, too. But I’m not the kind of man who can lay out my heart in front of a girl who could crush it without even trying.

I swallow, unable to suppress the dream that has haunted me endlessly.

A world where I’m a civilian. A life with morning kisses and afternoon lovemaking and early dinners leading to late-night snuggles. Falling asleep in her arms, day after day.

Coming home to her.

‘How was your day?’

And what would be her reply?

In my head, the vision ends there. But the cramp in my stomach demands to go further.

Curiosity pushes the weirdest question out between my teeth. “Francesca, if we were living together and I came home after work, what would you say to me? Like, as soon as you saw my face. What’s the first thing that’d come to your mind?”

“Is this some reverse psychology question?”

“Just answer me.”

“Well, if you just returned from work, I’d say…” Her palms cup my face. She beams a smile so dazzling, it spins my head. “Welcome home. I missed you and I can’t wait to get frisky with you.”

Someone must have shot me while I was lost in her eyes because I can’t feel my heart beating anymore.

Welcome home.

Why is she so fucking perfect while also being the biggest red flag on the planet?

Is this what they call irony?

Is this what they call destiny?

I should have never come here. There is no way that this won’t end badly.

She will wreck me. I will ruin her.

Our version of love won’t be romantic; it’ll be a twisted aberration.