Page 28 of Surrender to Me
Chapter 17
“Hey, that opening was killer last night!” Clay shouted down the hall as I came through the front door. “Misty fell in love with that one of the couple.”
I ignored him and went to my bedroom. The comforter lay in a crumpled pile on the bed, and most of my clothes and belongings were at Owen’s, which made my heart sink even more. I slunk into a heap. The stale smell of the sheets was comforting and wrong at the same time. It reminded me of home, home with my mom, like it was familiar, but it wasn’t where I belonged anymore. But where did I belong? I was living in a community full of artists who hated me, who didn’t want me there, with the ring leader jackass of the century, and only a few people to support me. I laid on my back, looking up at the ceiling, counting the popcorn texture like it could number the reasons why I shouldn’t be there anymore. My mother didn’t even live in San Francisco anymore, for fuck’s sake. I turned over onto my stomach, hiding my face in the suffocating mattress and screamed, my noise muffled and my throat sore. My phone buzzed, and I groaned, not wanting to talk to anyone. Owen’s name flashed on the screen. I need to talk to you, his message said.
In addition to living in a supposed community of artists, there was the Owen problem. I wanted to believe that we could be happy together, forgoing the mess that we created with the Foundation. But then there was Poppy. I knew that she was menacing and manipulative, but there was a hint of reality in the things she had said. Was she right that I didn’t know him, that I couldn’t handle the dark side of him? I thought of the night in Monterey where he was a completely different person: he treated me like I was a toy he could discard. His eyes were different that night, vacant. Like he wasn’t there. Like nothing mattered at all. But was that the real him? Was I willing to find out?
A loud knock sounded on the bedroom door. “What?” I yelled.
“We need to talk,” Owen said. “It’s important.” He sounded frustrated. From inside of the covers, I debated whether to open the door and be polite, or not to bother at all. It’s not like he didn’t know how to turn a doorknob.
I decided to be polite. I stood in the doorway. “What?” I asked.
“Are you going to let me in?” He nodded inside. I shrugged.
We both sat on the bed and I busied myself with flattening the edges of the top sheet, straightening the same square repeatedly, while I waited for Owen to explain what was important.
“Are you busy?” he asked, nodding at the sheet.
“It’s better than waiting for you to talk.”
His eyes narrowed, then he sat up. “We bought another company. We’re expanding tenfold. Headquarters will be in New York.”
New York? It was on the opposite side of the country. “Principal Laboratories?”
“I never planned to stay here this long,” he said. He looked out the window, and I followed his gaze. It was icy outside; frozen dew glimmered on the grass. Layers of ice collected on the car windshields and in black on the road. It would be even colder in New York, a coldness that I couldn’t even imagine. But it would still be more miserable in San Francisco without Owen.
“The question is,” he paused, reaching for my hand, “whether I’ll be commuting between the two coasts, or if we’ll be moving there.”
My stomach dropped. “Hold on a second,” I said. “Did you say ‘we’?”
He smiled. “I can commute or we can move together,” he said. “But I’m not leaving without you.”
I couldn’t understand how we had gotten to this level in a few months. Move in together? Not only that, but move across the country together? Move anywhere for a man? I didn’t know what to say. The thought of uprooting my life, the attempt to transplant in a new city, a place where I didn’t know anyone was frightening, especially when I had worked hard to get where I was—
“It’s one of the best cities for art,” he said, cutting off my thoughts. It was one of those dream cities for aspiring artists, a place I only thought about in the abstract. But I had never considered moving out of California. I had grown up here. My mom was here. Even if we didn’t live in the same area, she was only a couple of hours away by car. “I understand that you have reasons to stay here—”
“Reasons?”
“A degree to finish, your mother,” he paused, a careful expression on his face. “But I want you to consider it.”
Wait, was he saying what I thought he was saying? “Are you asking me to drop out of the program?” I asked.
“The Foundation can only take you so far. You have to take yourself the rest of the way.”
He was right and I knew it, but it was terrifying to think of leaving everything behind, of doing art without the guidance of professors and mentors. I had been working for this for years, and to drop everything because a man asked seemed outrageous, no matter how beautiful Owen was, even if he was able to see inside of me like I hadn’t seen myself. Damn it; the little romantic voice in my head argued that maybe he was worth it, even if he was a man. And besides, I had been questioning my place in the community. A fresh start sounded nice in a way.
“We’d live together?” I asked. “Officially?”
“I’m partial to spacious living arrangements, but I’m willing to make adjustments.”
I smiled for the first time in a while, since before the opening. What he meant was that instead of seventeen rooms, he’d do with eight, I thought. But then I was reminded me of what Poppy had said. He could tear you in two. There’s a darkness in him that he can’t escape.
I didn’t want to ask him about that yet. I changed the subject. “Michael ruined my sculptures,” I said, cringing. “Everything’s pretty much destroyed.”
“What? That fucking—” and he cut himself off. Even if I liked cursing myself, it was always weird to hear Owen say something so...impulsive. “I’ll get that—”
“The police are involved. You don’t need to be involved too.”