The Muse Read online

On the bookshelf, instead of books there are tens of journals, dates scrawled on the slim white spines. I run a finger across a row, tracing the chronological order, seeing dates from this year.

  Despite the temptation to pull one free, I let my hand fall and instead move to the desk, grazing my palm over the cool laptop. Tucked beneath the computer are post-it notes filled with his slanted scrawl. One of them peeks out, and before I can turn away, I see my name.

  Shock explodes, shooting icy needles through every inch of me. I hear a small sound like that of a wounded animal, but don’t immediately realize it’s from me.

  Will Cabot is the name of the boy I thought I loved. The boy who, after four months of dating, decided he didn’t want to wait for my consent to have sex with me.

  My arm shoves the laptop aside, exposing a series of notes.

  “Oh my God,” I whisper.

  There are others, but the words blur into streams of black. My breathing is loud and ragged. I can’t feel my lips. My chest feels heavy, and inside it… a steel hammer pounds steadily into my heart, grinding it to dust.

  Everything he’s ever said to me has been a lie. Everything.

  “Iris.” My name is a horrified gasp. “Let me explain.”

  Rufus pushes against my side, warm and solid, his nose digging affectionately into my hip. I carefully slide the laptop back and turn, tucking my freezing hands into my armpits. Why are my teeth chattering? The question floats through me and away.

  “You’re writing a book about me,” I whisper, staring at his chest because I can’t look at his face.

  “No,” he says desperately. “It’s about your father. It’s just research, please. God, you were never supposed to see that.”

  Panic cleaves me in two.

  Adrenaline surges into the void.

  Unsafe. Not safe. Run.

  Obeying my body’s command, I shove past him, tearing up the stairs and slamming the bedroom door behind me. I make sure it’s locked, then scramble in my bag for my phone. Hands shaking, I almost dial Claire. But she doesn’t have a car, and I can’t handle her asking Griffen to get me. So I dial the only relative I have in the state.

  Miraculously, Allison answers. “Iris! How are you?”

  My voice comes on the third try. “Ally, I-I’m really sorry to ask this. But it’s kind of 911. Can you come get me?”

  “Absolutely. Are you okay? Where are you?”

  I tell her the address. “I’m okay. Physically, at least. How far away are you?”

  “I’m just leaving work. I’ll be there in under ten.”

  “Thank you,” I whisper, and disconnect.

  When I crack open the bedroom door, the hallway is empty. Downstairs, Rufus tackles a squeaky toy; I hear thumps and happy barks, but nothing else.

  One step at a time. Go.

  I walk down the stairs, numb and robotic, made of cold metal parts. As the living room becomes visible, I see James sitting on the couch. His back is to me, his head braced in his hands.

  Walk outside. You can do it.

  My footstep creaks on the final step and I freeze. Rufus looks up from his toy, ears perking excitedly as he sees me.

  “Sit,” says James sharply. Whining, Rufus lowers to his haunches. “Do you need cab fare?”

  Brokenness rises, a searing storm. “I don’t need anything from you,” I snarl.

  The muscles in his back tighten. “For what it’s worth, I was going to tell you. I just didn’t know how.”

  “Tell me what?” I ask with rising volume. “That you plan on telling the world how a stupid girl got her brother killed and nearly died herself?”

  James drags hands through his hair and laces his fingers tightly at the back of his neck. “No. Yes. Fuck. It’s a biography. I couldn’t leave you out of it. The accident… it changed Richard. His life, his writing—”

  A sudden epiphany rocks me on my heels. “This was his idea, wasn’t it? Motherfucking Father of the Year, Richard Eliot. Ruining my life from beyond the grave.”

  James rockets to his feet, spinning toward me. “He tried to help you, Iris! A thousand times. I’ve read every letter he sent you that you returned unopened. He told me about the times he tracked you down, begged you to see him. To talk to him. He wanted to pay for your schooling, for reconstructive surgery, for therapy. You shut him out!”

  I shake my head slowly, finally meeting his gaze. “Richard Eliot walked away from his family because he wanted girlfriends more than he wanted us.”

  “That’s not true,” he seethes. “Your mother was the one who had the affair. It tore their marriage apart.”

  Like a physical blow, the words catch me in the stomach. I clutch my middle, gasping for air.

  “You’re lying,” I gasp.

  Regret swiftly replaces his anger. “Iris—”

  “No!” I yell. “Fuck you, James. Or should I say congratulations? You can now write about my scars with firsthand knowledge. Don’t forget to include my longstanding habit of falling for men who use and discard me. Chalk it up to my—apparently misguided—daddy complex.”

  My phone buzzes in my hand, and a second later a car honks outside. I meet James’ tortured eyes and feel nothing. No sorrow, no attraction, no betrayal, no love.

  “Since you're such an expert on my father, you should know he left everything to me. If you write any of that shit about me or my mother, I’ll use all his money to bury you in lawsuits for the next twenty years. I’ll tell everyone who will listen that you seduced me—your student—as a means of researching your book. We’ll see how long it takes for your publishing company to drop you, your agent to fire you, and every university in the country to blacklist you.”

  Lips thinned, James nods sharply. “Can’t say I blame you, Iris. But I’m writing it anyway.”

  The final, untouched piece of my heart drops into darkness.

  “I hate you,” I breathe.

  He flinches, then smiles sadly. “As you should. But until you read it, may some small part of you know that I never lied about my feelings for you. From the moment I saw you, I’ve been yours. Mind, body, and heart.”

  My sight blurs with tears. “Fuck you,” I whisper, and flee across the living room, out the front door, and down the steps.

  As I hit the walkway, my knee twinges—almost gives out—but I ignore it, limp-running to the car at the curb. I yank open the passenger door and tumble inside.

  “Go, go, please,” I chant, turning terrorized eyes on Allison.

  She hits the gas.

  17. denouement

  I stare at the stained glass windows high above the altar in Stanford Memorial Church. The pews behind us are packed with students, faculty, and staff of the university. At the lectern, the dean speaks of my father’s time at Stanford. I hear words like honor and kindness and loved and my fingernails dig half-moons in my palms.

  “Iris, baby, are you sure you want to be here?”

  I don’t reply to the worried whisper, because the only answer I can give would require me running down the central aisle screaming at the top of my lungs.

  My poor mom probably thinks I’m overcome by grief. Either that or seconds from the psychiatric ward. I’ve barely spoken to her since flying down Monday after hastily informing my professors that I would, in fact, be taking a week’s bereavement. Phillip and my sister Victoria have likewise welcomed me with open arms. Like Allison, they insist on worming their way into my heart through unfailing acceptance and sympathy.

  It’s not their fault I can’t muster the decency to return their affection. The problem is my brokenness, which no amount of kindness can fix.

  Since Saturday, I haven’t felt… right. Like everything decent, hopeful, and good in me switched off when I read that first post-it note. This is the first time I’ve left the family’s palatial Palo Alto home since arriving; I’ve spent most of the week holed up in a guest bedroom. When I’m not sleeping, I’m writing, and when I can’t sleep or write, I numb my brain with television.r />
  Not until this morning, when I saw the brochure for the public memorial at Stanford, had I considered accompanying my mom. The actual funeral isn’t until tomorrow, and truly, I’d rather be swimming with sharks at the moment, but there’d been a name listed under the contributors to the service.

  James S. Beckett.

  The knowledge that he changed his plane ticket, arriving a day early in order to speak on my father’s behalf, had so incensed me that I’d told my mother to wait for me as I dressed.

  At the lectern, the dean wraps up his speech with, “Please welcome internationally acclaimed author, Stanford alum, and a close friend of Dr. Eliot’s, Mr. James Beckett.”

  As James takes the dean’s place at the lectern, there’s a wave of murmuring from the back of the church where the bulk of the students sit. Like my father, James is a legend here.

  In a tailored black suit and crimson university tie, his dark hair only marginally tamed, he looks exactly like the forbidden fantasy of coeds. Alluring and a little wild. Deviant and brilliant.

  I fucking hate him.

  And I still want him. So badly that even now, arousal stirs low in my belly.

  Damnit.

  “I first met Dr. Eliot as a freshman…”

  My mom leans close to whisper, “Isn’t he—”

  “Yes,” I hiss. “My professor.”

  She sits back, a thoughtful look on her face as James tells the congregation several anecdotes that trigger laughter. His answering wry smiles twist the knife in my heart to unbearable levels; I stare down at my clenched hands.

  “…many of you know, Richard was a complex man.” More knowing laughter. “When he was working on a poem, he was temperamental, contentious, and often unreasonable. Especially when a student asked for an extension.” More laughter.

  His voice softens, becoming solemn. “And yet, there was little in the world he loved more than teaching. Poetry itself, perhaps. But his greatest love of all was his family, who we’re honored to have with us today.”

  My head whips up in time to see him gesture at my mom and me. He meets my frigid stare with a sad smile, then looks back at the congregation.

  “I’ve had the recent honor of teaching Richard’s daughter, Iris, at the University of Washington. A novelist of incredible promise, Iris is a testament to Richard’s legacy. His talent, his mark on the world, lives on in her.”

  Son of a bitch.

  It’s a miracle I don’t yell the words. Instead, I jerk to my feet, eliciting startled whispers and a horrified gasp from my mother. Head down, I move carefully past the others in the row, then walk down the red-carpeted aisle toward the distant doors.

  Hundreds of eyes follow me.

  James’ voice reaches my ears as I cross the empty antechamber. “…just as brilliant and complex as her father.”

  I push open the doors a little harder than necessary and walk into the blinding sunshine.

  After a tense drive home—in which my mom asks me what happened and I tell her I don’t want to talk about it—I borrow her car and go for a drive.

  I don’t truly contemplate where I’m going until an hour-and-a-half later, when I hit the coast of Monterey and a tiny, familiar parking lot. Several blocks behind me is the church my parents were married in, and tomorrow, the small, windswept cove is where we’ll scatter my father’s ashes.

  I walk onto the damp sand and sit. Alone in the cold, I stare at the ocean long enough for the sun to drop below the horizon, for the temperature to dive. I don’t feel it.

  I don’t feel anything.

  When a car door slams behind me, I close my eyes and prepare to tell my mother everything. To demand the answers I want. But it isn’t her voice that comes softly to my ears.

  “I had a feeling you’d be here, love.”

  I laugh bitterly. “Don’t call me that. You may think you know me, James, but you don’t. Leave me the fuck alone.”

  Instead, a warm coat falls around my shoulders. I grab it, intending to throw it to the sand, but before I can, he sits behind me and wraps me in his arms.

  “Let me go,” I say through my teeth.

  “No,” he whispers.

  I buck, but there’s no power in it. I’m half-frozen, famished, and haven’t slept without nightmares for a week.

  “Why are you doing this?” I ask shrilly. “I don’t want you here. I don’t want you.”

  “I know,” he says against my hair. “But I’m a prick, so I don’t give a damn. You may think you’re hiding it well, but I can see your pain. And I want you to know you’re not alone.”

  “Fuck you,” I snarl.

  “Mmm, if you’d like,” he murmurs impudently. “My hotel’s not far.”

  I laugh hoarsely. “Drop the act. You got what you wanted.”

  He makes a pained noise. “I know I lied to you and that you’ll likely never forgive me. But I never lied about wanting you. I still want you. So much.”

  From my broken place comes the words, “If I keep sleeping with you, will you leave my mom out of the book?”

  He goes very, very still. “You really don’t trust me at all, do you? Not even after everything we’ve shared? You think I wouldn’t use every ounce of diplomacy I possess to tell their story? That I wouldn’t do my utmost to be impartial?”

  I twist in his arms, searching his shadowed face. “No, I don’t. I don’t think you’re impartial, having only heard my father’s side.” I shove his arms away from me. “And what about Will Cabot? Are you going to talk about him, too? Impartially? For a stupid decision he made as a teenager and the guilt he lives with for the accident?”

  James reels backward in shock. “Are you bloody serious? He raped you, Iris, and got off scot-free when you wouldn’t press charges.”

  I climb unsteadily to my feet. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Get your facts straight, asshole. Yes, he roofied me, but Derrick showed up before anything happened. And Will came to me later and apologized, and told me he wasn’t going to go through with it. That when Derrick burst in, he was trying to get me dressed.”

  James doesn’t say anything for a long time. Then he stands, brushes off his slacks, and retrieves his blazer from the ground. Before I can surmise his intent, he steps close and cups my face, thumb brushing across my cold cheek.

  “I’m so sorry, love,” he whispers. “If you ever need me, all you have to do is call. Goodbye, my little muse.”

  Then he’s gone, striding toward the parking lot. I wait until he pulls away before walking stiffly to my mom’s car and getting inside. Turning on the engine, I huddle in driver’s seat as heat blasts from the vents. As my body thaws, it begins to shake violently. Misery claws through me, expelling in a strangled scream.

  I see James’ handwriting on yellow post-it notes.

  Never pressed charges for assault.

  Not attempted assault.

  Assault.

  No long-term relationships—PTSD?

  “From the accident,” I whisper. “PTSD from the accident.”

  Dropping my head to the steering well, I think back to that night, digging past the hazy memories of that fateful drive. I remember… whispering. Laughing. I remember… suffocation. No, not suffocation. Being held down. And voices. More than one.

  Just do it, Will.

  Don’t chicken out.

  Okay, okay.

  Grab her legs.

  Derrick yelling. Fists meeting flesh.

  You raped my sister, you piece of shit! You’re fucking dead!

  Sobbing—my sobbing.

  Derrick?

  I’m coming, sis. Another punch. She just saved your life, asshole. Enjoy your final days of freedom, because you’re going to jail for a long fucking time.

  Bile rises in my throat. I jerk open the car door in time to vomit my stomach lining onto the asphalt. Between heaves, I whisper a litany of, “No, no, no.”

  I don’t know how much time passes. Seconds. Hours. Eventually the convulsions lessen a
nd fade, and I spit on the ground. I finally feel the effects of winter, my skin rippling with goosebumps under a sheen of cold sweat.

  Tires crunch in the parking lot and headlights sweep over me. A car door opens and closes. I hear running footsteps.

  “Iris? Baby, are you okay?” My mom’s gentle hands draw the hair back from my face. “I was driving here when I got a call from your professor. He said you needed me? What happened, darling?”

  I stare into her worried face and ask the question with an answer I never wanted to know.

  “I was raped, wasn’t I?”

  Tears fill her eyes. “Oh, baby girl. You remembered?”

  “I-I don’t know. Maybe.” I grip her wrists tightly. “Tell me. God, please just tell me.”

  In a shaking voice, she tells me.

  “One of the doctors noticed blood. In the preliminary exam, they thought it was your cycle or another injury from the accident. You were in such bad shape. In surgery for hours. But that doctor insisted on a rape kit and blood test. They found…” She chokes back a sob. “Tearing, traces of latex. But no other p-physical evidence. And you tested positive for Rohypnol. Someone came to speak with you a few days later. Do you remember?”

  “Vaguely,” I whisper.

  Her grief-stricken eyes meet mine. “You didn’t have any memories of the assault. I was told it was either a side effect of the drugs or post-traumatic amnesia. One of the doctors even said it was a blessing. The night was so hugely traumatic for you, with Derrick…” She stifles another sob with her hand. “Baby, I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry. I’d give anything in the world to take away your pain, then and now. I should have done something.”

  “You did everything you could, mom,” I say. And it’s true. There were months and months of sessions with a female psychiatrist, whose leading questions about that night had angered me and eventually distanced me from her help.

  I think of the look on James’ face as I defended Will. The rage, the dawning horror as he realized I didn’t know. All these years, I’ve believed I lost my virginity to my first college boyfriend.

  I’m so sorry, love.