Because You Love to Hate Me(30)

I angled my body toward him, one shoulder inside the dorm, one shoulder out. “What do you want from me, Jim?”

He shook his head. “Don’t make me say it. Not if you can’t.” His voice was softer now. His body, his face moving ever so slightly toward me. “Or can you?”

“You’re going to leave, aren’t you?” Our faces were mere inches apart now. “Once you find what you’ve come for, you’ll leave. But I won’t.”

“You could, though,” he murmured. Closer. Closer. “Come with me, Shirley.”

“Where?”

“Outside.”

“I need more than that, Jim.” My forehead scrunched up. “I’m not like you—I like walls and rules and structure.”

“I see.” He gave a tiny nod, and the bomb finally went off. Detonating in my rib cage, it kicked out a single, booming heartbeat straight against my ribs.

Then it happened. Finally, and so gently.

That’s the only word I can find to describe what we shared. The way Jim pulled me to him. The way he leaned in. The way his gaze flicked from my lips to my eyes, making sure I wanted this.

I did. So badly I thought I would drown from wanting.

He closed the space between us. Our mouths touched. Just a brush of skin—his upper lip grazing my lower. That was all it was, but I couldn’t breathe. Or move. Or think.

For the ten seconds or ten minutes or however long our lips hovered together, I tasted the outside. The real. The free fall of Jim and me, together for one perfect moment.

His hands, warmer now, tangled in my hair. My hands, a bit colder, cupped his face. Deep. Long. Starving. Jim kissed me like we were dying.

Because time was up, and this was good-bye.





This story ends with a kiss.

I mean, sure: while I watched Jim disappear across the rooftop, the night folding over him, I prayed that I would see him again. That our time was up for now, but not forever.

Yet I knew. People don’t kiss like it’s their last, unless it is.

The next day, a Saturday, I went to the library. I had no other way of finding Jim. No phone number, no e-mail. And though I didn’t think he’d actually be there, I went to check anyway.

You probably don’t remember, but it was a gorgeous January day. So bright that sunshine cut right through those foggy windows, and the sparrows sent shadows flying across the floorboards.

On my chair lay a tattered red book with gold letters stamped onto the cover. Grimm’s Fairy Tales, it read, and a chuckle bubbled in my chest at the sight of it . . . until my eyes hit the chessboard, atop which two pieces glowed in the sunbeams.

A white queen and a black king, tipped sideways.

Checkmate.

I didn’t cry. I thought I would, but as I sat there staring at those pieces, no tears pricked behind my eyes. No sobs gathered in my lungs. Instead, something warm shimmered through me. From my toes, it gusted and raced and grew until all I could do was clutch my arms to my chest and smile.

I smiled so big it actually hurt my cheeks. It hurt my ribs and my lungs, too.

Eventually, I scooped up the book of fairy tales. There was no message or anything inside—I hadn’t thought there would be since the book and the chessboard were message enough.

Then I sauntered languidly away from the table, away from the sunshine and the sparrows and the landscaping. Away from that stolen world trapped between. And as I walked—with a very Rebellious angle to my strut, if I do say so myself—I thought everything was going to be okay.

I thought, like an idiot, that we would be together one day. That I was in love with him, and he, despite everything, was in love with me back.

But I was still just Madame Bovary, clinging to fairy tales that could never be. Which is what had set us apart from the very beginning, though I didn’t see it until too late. It’s what will set us apart forever: what we believe in. Or rather, the fact that I, Shirley Holmes, believe in something at all . . .

And he, Jim Moriarty, does not.





Now here we are, and nothing’s okay.

I need to apologize for what happened to your family. For what Jim did to them and so many people when he released those files.

Scandal in Bohemia, they’re calling it on the news, and then there’s a picture of your mom with the headline Senator Rita Watson’s private e-mails hacked; Evidence of bribes in the Senate.

I think I helped him, Jean—I think I helped Jim get access to those files that have left your mom facing expulsion. But I swear I didn’t mean to. I swear I didn’t know what I was doing. All I can guess is that Jim somehow used your e-mails to gain access to your mom’s server, which in turn gave him access to all her files.

I also know that this Scandal in Bohemia has everyone freaking out and blaming your mom. But while the media and the masses are so focused on the pawns getting crushed by kings, they’re forgetting that not all kings are bad.

Jim’s certainly forgotten it, if he ever knew it at all. That’s why I have to stop him before any more files get leaked. Before any more innocents get hurt.

I know, I know. We’re supposed to start our first semester together at Harvard in a month, but I can’t do that anymore. Don’t you see? Not while your family is hurting. Not while Jim Moriarty is still out there somewhere, walking free.

But I’ll find him, Jean. I’m taking a class on computer forensics now, and everything I learn I’ll use to make this better. Being a lawyer was never for me—at least Jim was right about that—but helping people and getting justice for the victims . . . that is me. Starting now and on my own terms.