Artifice - Man x Man - Book Six

Chapter 38

My fingers drag up my arm as I push up the haphazardly rolled sleeves, Marisol gestures to her room and closes the door. I prepare myself for whatever is to come, be it resentment or actual admissions for her feelings, but she proves to be genuine as she sits me in a chair in front of a large mirror. 

"Do you want a haircut?" 

My eyes meet hers in the glass, examining her face. She looks like someone trying to piece her life back together, just as I am. Her full upper lip is curved down as she concentrates on my overflowing abundance of hair. She runs her fingers through it, testing its thickness and getting a measure of its length. 

"He likes it long, but do you like it? "

Cocking my head to the side, I focus on the assortments of products across the vanity table. The variety of colors and bottles, heights, and sizes. Was this her job? 

"Do you like doing hair?"

Almost sheepishly, she nods. "It's a guilty pleasure of mine; Doe hardly ever lets me cut his hair, and I've already gotten Tyler to let me do him, so you're next. Helen needs more hair, poor thing." She pulls lightly at the roots, seeming pleased with the quality of the mane I've brought her. 

"Red as velvet..." She sighs, shaking her head like I do when I think of that man. "Tyler is a good kid."

I nod, softening in my fondness for the young man. "He's unreal in how good he is. I didn't think there were still people like that."

She snickers, taking a comb and running it through the dense, unkempt mop of hair. I'm glad that I showered. "There are a few. You are pretty good." Her eyes flick up as she spots my expression in the mirror, offering a casual wink. "You saved a lot of people yesterday."

"It's my job." I remind her but the praise is nice, I try and sit still as she combs yet I feel as though I'm being put into a trance with the soothing nature of the task. "I'm not doing so well at it, I'm surviving but I'm not thriving. I fucked up, Soli.. I got Reid killed, I almost killed Helen... I don't deserve to sit here like this. As if nothing happened."

Her comb pauses. "Reid knew exactly what he was doing. People die, Nic. All the time, every day... all over the world. It sucks when it's people we know, but I think we are all just trying to do our best. Focus on the good that you're doing. You are changing lives."

Grasping a pair of scissors, she starts the process of shortening and I shut my eyes tightly, unwilling to watch. "Verando isn't having an easy time either. I think he'd live in that city and we'd never see him again if he had his way, some days. Most days he comes home so exhausted he can't eat, he just plays the piano or sits around in a daze. It's weird." 

I can't help but scoff because it sounds so normal to me.

"You have to trade with him, food for things he wants. Information usually. When he can hunt, he eats more frequently." Her hands rest on my shoulders, and she gives them a gentle squeeze. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't tell you how to run your house."

After a long moment, she begins trimming again at a slower pace. "It's not my house, Nic. I just- It's really nice to see. I spent so much time trying to extract things for Doe, unpack him, and figure out what makes him tick. When I knew him, we were trying to survive. But you know him, more intimately than I ever have. 

I know of him, I know it all, and he hates me for it." 

It makes me swallow, I feel as though I've heard this warning before. The warning to stop digging, to accept who I have in front of me, and let his past be his past. 

"It's nice to see him look happy. It's nice to see him look scared. He is so damn angry."

I frown, "He's not angry, he's sad." I corrected her quickly. "Well. He can be angry but he's just very sad. It consumes him sometimes."