“Jack is your father,” he said. “Do you think you’ll mourn him when he dies?”

I didn’t hesitate. “No.”

I would never mourn him. I wish a painful death onto him with my every waking breath.

“Isn’t it the same thing?” Michael asked. “He’s a horrible parent too. He’s a horrific excuse for a human being, but he’s still your father.”

“It’s not the same at all,” I answered.

“Why?”

I hadn’t ever put it into words before, the way that I hated my father so much that it literally made me hurt.

“Because my father destroyed and took away the most precious thing in the world to me. He took my mother from me. He took away the one thing that brought me happiness and peace, and that showed me who I wanted to be.”

“I’m the one who did that,” Michael said with pain in his voice.

“No, you’re not,” I said as I looked his straight in the eye.

“We have all been strong; my mother, me, you…all of us. My father is a coward. He has made other people carry out his cruel intentions, and he has laughed at the suffering of those around him. All that he does is destroy. It isn’t even my hatred for him that will keep me from mourning his death when that glorious time comes. It is my purpose. I can’t bring my mother back, and no amount of hatred for him can. But when the time comes for his death, I will not feel anything at all except for the glorious fulfillment that he is forever extinguished. That is why I cannot mourn him.”

Michael stared at me in awe. I even surprised myself at how strong I sounded just then.

“Your mother was not like my father. She may not have been good to you, but she didn’t take away someone who was. There is no other pain like that.”

Michael bent down over the side of the bed and pushed all of the gauze and bandages that I had resting on my knee to the ground. He kissed me and winced slightly as he lifted me up onto his lap with both hands.

They say there is a fine line between strong emotions; that fear and anger, hatred and passion, sorrow and bliss, are all shades of the same brilliant color. That makes sense when you think about how easy it is for them to bleed into each other.

I sat with my hips spread open against his lap, and as he kissed me, I rocked myself against him until he was too swollen and hard to stand it. Michael flipped me over and in a frenzy of strewn clothes and aching bodies; he thrust himself into me until I was filled completely by his throbbing heat. All the colors of our emotions encircled around us then, as frenetically as our tongues encircled within each other’s mouths. And if I were to imagine what it would be like for the stars to collide in love-making, it would have been this.

The exhaustion that comes when both your body and mind have exerted beyond the limit is swift and complete. Michael and I lay together when our bodies had finally begged for rest, my shoulder laid against his chest as he held his hands wrapped over my breasts, and we both looked up at the ceiling above us.

“I need to ask you something,” he said.

“What is it?” I tilted my head to the side to lean my cheek against his chest, and he kissed my forehead softly.

“Have you told any of us that you are in love with one of us?”

The question caught me by surprise. “No.”

“Is it because you don’t love any of us?”

“No.” I felt his chest exhale beneath me.

Then, he asked the million-dollar question. “Lisette, do you think you will ever choose just one of us?”

It was a question that needed to be asked, but not one that I knew the answer too, at least not yet. I hadn’t told any of the men that I loved them, even though the words had been said to me more than once. But it wasn’t because I didn’t feel the same way; it was because I loved them all.

When I didn’t answer for a long moment, he spoke again.

“If you do choose one of us to be with,” he said. “I want it to be me. I’m pretty sure that I can’t be without you.”

“And what if I can’t choose?” I asked.

“Then I still want it to be me.”

And the power of his words etched themselves right onto my heart next to Julian’s.

Making me more confused—and more frightened—than I ever thought possible.

30

My dreams that night were laden with confusion.

Everyone seemed to be in them; my mother, all three of the guys, Marta, and my father, even some people I didn’t recognize, but that felt strangely familiar. Everyone seemed as if they were running around like rats in a maze trying to find something. But the strangest part was that no one really knew what it was that they were looking for.

Only my mother seemed to know. She kept calling for me softly to follow her, except every time I got close to her, it ended up being Marta in front of me instead. Then the dream started to change. It turned into some kind of game, like tag. The guys and I were laughing, and everyone seemed to be having fun.

My mother tagged someone who was running past her, a boy who looked a little bit like Michael but with a slightly smaller frame and more angular features. He was handsome, and his platinum blonde hair shone beneath the light. He laughed when my mother tagged him, and then he turned and looked at me.

“Tag,” he said before running off in another direction.

I tried to run after him and tag him back, but I couldn’t ever seem to catch him. He was always slipping just out of my reach anytime I got close. Then suddenly, everyone was trying to tag this one, single boy. And no one could catch him.

When I woke up, I still remembered the boy’s face. And it troubled me because it seemed more like a memory than a dream. I had the nagging feeling that I had seen the boy somewhere, but that I couldn’t remember where and somehow my subconscious had just decided to bring him out to play in my dreams.

Even after I had gotten up and washed my face in the bathroom sink, Michael still asked me if I was okay because I looked pale. I told him about my dream, and he asked what I thought it meant, but I didn’t have an answer.

When we sat all together over coffee, I told Julian and Adam about it too. I figured, at the very least, they would be entertained by the thought of all of them playing tag in my dreams with me. But Julian made a strange face when I described the boy.

“What is it?” I asked when I saw his face.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “But that description sounds a lot like someone I think I’ve seen before.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

Weird.

Julian and I both seemed to remember the appearance of someone that we couldn’t remember ever having met. But later in the day, a letter was delivered. It was from my father and was addressed to all of us. And all I wanted to do was burn it.

“I can’t believe he would have the nerve to invite us there!” Michael shouted as he threw the invitation down onto the floor.

Adam bent down and picked it up to read. “Yeah, I have to agree. That takes some serious balls.”