Sinners & Saints (Sinners & Saints #1) (13 page)

           
“Well,
Juliet… I’m starting to like you more and more.”

           
She
shrugs. “I’m pretty likable.”

8

SCARLETT

I need a bath after that rude encounter
with that little bitch, Juliet Spears. How dare she come at me like that? I
need to refresh and maybe enjoy some alone time with Patrick who has been
waiting for me at our condo.

           
“Patrick!”
I call once I walk in.

           
“We’re
in here, babe!”

We? Who the
fuck is we?

I step into the living room and
immediately forget all about the English twat. The woman in front of me outdoes
any one of my enemies.

“Hey, babe.” Patrick walks over to me
as I stare at his mother and sister who are too comfortable on our couch,
glaring at me. “My mother and sister decided to surprise us.”

“How lovely,” I force my excitement.

His mother stands up in her all white
jacket and skirt. Her dyed brunette hair falling over her shoulders is just as
stiff as her personality. Jane Townsend is a woman of many accomplishments. By
accomplishments, I mean being a trailer park townie in Ohio who scored a very
wealthy man. She met Patrick’s now deceased father when he was attending
college in her Godforsaken town and hit the jackpot once she became pregnant
with Patrick’s older brother, Ian. Patrick’s father did the honorable idiotic
thing and married the white trash.

“Hello, Jane.” We greet each other with
air kisses on the cheek as usual. I think we both secretly wish those kisses
could poison one another.

“Hello, Scarlett. Always a pleasure,”
she says with a tight smile.

His brat of a little sister, Rebecca
Townsend, never hides her dislike for me. I can respect that even though the
only real reason she dislikes me is because her mother told her to.

“Hi, Rebecca,” I say. No response.

“Rebecca.” Patrick eyes his sister who
is still texting on her phone. “Say hello.”

“Hey,” she says still looking at her
phone.

“Patrick told us you were at Eleanor
Ashworth’s home,” Jane says.

“Yes, I was.” I sit down on the other
couch next to Patrick.

“I hear her home is still a shelter for
vile, reckless youths.”

“Mother,” Patrick speaks in a sharp
tone.

“It’s okay.” I place my hand on his
chest and lean in closer to him. I always have to make it known to her that the
ownership of Patrick has been transferred. “My past is my past, Jane. I regret
it all. Now I am all about Patrick and our love makes me better. I just hope
one day you can see that.”

I wait with the sweet smile on my face.
The more of a bitch she is to me, the more upper hand I have with Patrick. So
go ahead.
 

“Of course, dear.” But of course she
doesn’t have the balls to fully challenge me.

JULIET

“Everything is going well, Mum,” I say
through the computer screen.

           
“Good,
are those other children being nice to you sweetheart?”

           
I
laugh a little. “Yes, they’re not as bad as you think.” That’s an
understatement.

           
I
hear my dad’s laughter in the room. “Vivian, give it a rest.” My mother gives
my father a look and blows a kiss at me.

           
“Talk
to you soon… Love you sweetheart.”

           
“Love
you too.”

           
My
father appears on screen once my mother leaves. The old man has a warm spot in
my heart. Every time I hear his voice or see him, I just feel safe.

           
“How
are you doing, rabbit?” Rabbit is a nickname he gave me when I was a child. He
says I was hyper, always hopping around and had an unhealthy addiction to
carrots. I’ve grown out of that now. I bloody hate carrots.

           
“I’m
good, Dad. How are you?”

           
“The
usual. Dealing with vultures and plotting ways to distract your mother from
being paranoid.”

           
I
laugh. “Only you can handle her”

           
“Of
course because I love her no matter what just like I love you. We miss you
around here.”

           
“I
know, I miss you too. It does get lonely, but the people are entertaining enough
here.”
           
“I
bet.” He squints his eyes in the screen. “Who’s that behind you?”

           
I
turned around. I’m pleased to see August peeking his head in.

           
“Hi,
come in.” He hesitates, biting his lip. I wave my hand towards me, urging him
to. He walks in and carefully sits on my bed, looking at my dad on the screen.
“Dad, this August Mandrake. He is my favorite person in the house.” August
begins smiling, his cheeks turning red.

           
“Hello,
August,” my father smiles. “I’m glad to see you are meeting good people,
rabbit.”

           
“Rabbit?”
August asks, smiling.

           
“Yes,
but only he can call me that
—
don’t you
start.”

           
“Rabbit,”
August repeats again. “I want to show you something,”

           
“Go
ahead, rabbit. We’ll chat soon,” Dad tells me.

           
“Okay,”
I say to August then look at my dad. “Love you, Dad.”

           
“Love
you too.”

           
His
face disappears and August wastes no time, grabbing my hand and dragging me
upstairs to his room. I am stunned by what I see.
 

           
“I
want to show you m-my new maze.” He points to his wall that’s painted in black
chalkboard. A maze indeed, he has. It’s just like the one I saw in his
sketchbook. It has to be thousands of paths intertwined together. Passageways
overlap each other. It is so complex. It’s genius. It’s giving me a bloody
headache just staring at it.

           
“How
long do these take you, August?”

           
“Twenty-three
hours and fifteen minutes. Sometimes eighteen hours and two minutes,” he
answers like it’s no big deal. “The ones in my sketchbook take lesser because
chalk is messy. It’s really messy and I like it to be clean on the wall. It has
to be clean. It has to.”

           
I
raise my hand to it.

           
“Don’t
touch it!” He looks horrified. “Only I can kill it. Only I.”

           
“Okay.”
I place my hand back to my side and stare back up at it. “This is amazing,
August.”

           
“Thank
you. I- I- I like to draw mazes and then when Hugo comes back, he’s going to
try to figure out how to get through it. He won’t be able to though. He never
can. He usually gives up after thirty minutes to an hour.” He laughs to
himself.

           
“How
long have you drawn these?”

           
“According
to Hugo, since before I could talk. I couldn’t talk until I was eight.” He
holds up eight fingers still looking down.

           
“That’s
okay. You were just a late bloomer. So was I.”

           
“Hugo
always knew what I was saying though,” he adds. “He knew when I was happy, sad,
hungry, when I- I thought something was funny. He always knew.”

           
I
smile at the thought and imagine a young Hugo and August.

           
“I
can do a lot of things. I can play chess, Chinese checkers. It took me three
weeks to learn both. I beat the best kid at our school when I was twelve. It
also takes me under a minute to solve a Rubik’s cube. When people ask me how,
they think it’s through algorithms or some number method, but it was just by
the colors and the paths of those colors. I suck at math. People are stupid.
They think all people like me are great in math. That’s so stupid. Some of us
suck at math.”

           
“Which
is you, apparently” I say amused.
           
“Exactly.
Hugo tells me that people are stupid so never mind them.”

           
“He
might be right about that one.”

           
“I’m
good at a lot of things, but I only like drawing mazes. I visualize everything
I see through the maze. The more intricate it is, the more intense I am. The
more I’m feeling. The more I’m thinking.”

           
“Let
me guess. You think a lot.”

           
“Yeah,”
he snickers. “I can’t help it. I just…” He raises his hands over his head,
clawing at it. “Everything I see or hear goes inside and stays inside…
forever.”

           
“It
must get tiresome.”

           
“That’s
why I like it when Hugo rubs my head or- or when I watch
Lost
on my Netflix.” He laughs a little. I go back to studying the
maze on the board, smiling at how amazing August is.

           
“Juliet,
can you be my friend?” he asks me out of nowhere.

           
I
laugh a little before answering. “We’re already friends, August.”

           
His
smile grows wide. If people like Hugo wonder why I show kindness, this moment
is the answer to their wonder.
 

HUGO

I enjoy pleasuring women. I enjoy the
screams and gasps that escape from their throats and then the tears that fall
from their eyes. Yes, I’m not overstretching it; I have made women come with
tears. I don’t think it’s because I’m the best fuck in the universe. I just
think it’s because the women I usually fuck have been sexually oppressed for so
long that they are actually suffering from hysteria. Studies should be
conducted on the housewives in the suburbs and the socialites of the Upper East
Side. Brooke always screams. She always cries. She screams my name every time
she comes and she cries every time after. It’s her guilt that consumes her and
I sort of enjoy it.

           
It’s
always a pattern with Brooke. She thinks it’s bold and fun to have sex in her
marital bed while her husband is at work and the kids are out with the two
nannies. We fuck like two jackrabbits for an hour and a half. I make her come
three times and when the last one arrives, I pull out and watch as the tears
flow down her cheeks. She turns over to her side, staring off. She’ll stay like
this for at least twenty minutes.
 

           
“I
need a glass of water.” I get out of bed and go to her bathroom to clean up. I
throw away the condom and throw on my pants.

           
“After
the water, you should leave. Kids will be back from their play date soon,” she
tells me.

           
I
walk out of the bedroom and head down the long white hallway of her family’s
condo. It’s an open space once you arrive in the foyer
—
the kitchen, dining room, living room
—
it’s all connected in one large space.
I go to the refrigerator, opening it up. I grab a bottle of water and close the
fridge door back. I sense someone here. I turn my head to the right. The little
blonde boy can be no more than nine or ten. He stares up at me with sad brown
doe eyes. They look like glass.

           
“Let
me guess,” I say in monotone. “The nanny brought you home early.”

           
The
boy says nothing, only sniffs and here comes the tears streaming down his face.
I sigh, rolling my eyes. I then squat down to meet his height.

           
“I
was like this the first time I caught another woman coming out of my father’s
office. I cried and for the first time, my little heart was broken. You’ll get
through this. It’s part of the price of luxury, kid. There will be plenty of
random strangers coming out of your parents’ bedroom when the other isn’t home.
Soon, after a couple… it will start to become the norm, like the norm is that a
favorite food for a seven-year-old kid like you is lobster or crème brulee.
Luxury has its own normality, my mother always told me that.”

I rise back up, standing straight. The
kid’s eyes grow darker, just like mine did when I confronted the woman my
father had been sleeping around with while my mother was at the gym. It’s like
looking in the fucking mirror. You know that unsettling feeling I get when I’m
with Juliet? Well now I’m getting an unsettling feeling again. Only this time
it’s different.