Page 13 of The Saint

“Back to work, soldier,” I snapped, putting as much command as possible into my shaky voice.

Something shifted in Lev, turning him from sometime-lover to loyal soldier in an instant. With a sharp nod, he told me, “Yes, ma’am.”

There were questions written on his face, but they were left unspoken as he turned and walked off. I watched him go, feeling like a miserable fool for treating him so harshly.

He was a friend. A man who’d given me the pleasure of his company on long nights in a faraway place. We’d never spoken of what went on between us, of what we wanted out of life.

To me, that life wasn’t at his side. It never had been.

I only hoped he understood. That perhaps he felt the same way.

When Lev rounded the corner of the house, I rushed to the lounger and the notebook lying there. My heart raced as I picked it up, as my fingers grazed over the pencil lines etched across the surface of each page.

Sketches on plain white paper. Of D’Angelo and Queenie, a look of admiration captured on each of their faces. Of Queenie and Mateo, the blush on her cheeks noticeable even in charcoal and white. Of the lieutenants and their families, talking to one another as they had throughout the night.

Of me, kneeling at my three-year-old niece’s level, listening to her tell me stories of her family and friends. As if we’d known each other forever instead of just the past few months. Her eyes sparkled in the picture, the way they had as I spoke to her just hours ago inside. Her pure innocence and happiness glimmered on her face, as if this were a photograph, not a hand-drawn sketch.

But it was the last picture in the notebook that had my throat tightening and my heart squeezing.

The picture was unfinished, but what was there was too much.

Me, face turned to the moon overhead, arms wrapped around me as if keeping me safe. But it wasn’t just my own arms wrapping me up. The unfinished part of the picture?

It was a man.

Tall. Broad shoulders. Dark cargo pants. Thick arms embracing me. The outline of a face lowered to mine.

Written faintly in the background, letters so dim they were barely there, were words that haunted my dreams since the first time I’d read them years ago.

Some days I think I could disappear

No one would know

No one would care

4

JAEL

Any fears I’d had of having nothing to do seemed unfounded for the next week. I packed up my meager belongings at the Medina’s warehouse, where I’d lived since coming back from the farm. Avi and Eytan were kind enough to get my things from my mother's house so I wouldn’t have to go back. Once they’d moved those to my new apartment, my brothers helped me get furniture and groceries, setting up my new place and helping me settle in.

But after that?

After that, the boredom set in. There was nothing to do.

Nothing, but staring at the pictures in that notebook I’d found.

I couldn’t bring myself to give it away. To D’Angelo, Queenie, or one of my brothers.

I couldn’t give it to Lorenzo or Carmen Giordano, the parents of the man who still thought he could disappear.

I couldn’t bring myself to leave it alone, this piece of the first and only boy I had ever loved.

It ate at me, those words written on that paper and etched into my heart.

When Rolly and I were kids, he’d told me he felt that way. That no one cared if he was around. That he feared he’d never fit into the family that shared his blood. To me, those words were the sharpest knife, scarring my flesh, tearing at my heart.

To me, a world without Rolly was a world in which I didn’t want to live.