Dark and Shallow Lies

by Ginny Myers Sain

For dinner, Honey cooks more of my old favorites, and it makes me feel loved. Comfortable. Safe. And I’m grateful for that.

In numerology, eleven can be the number of power and wisdom. But it’s also the number of imperfection. It’s chaos and disorder. A world in disarray. The undoing of the ten. Everything out of balance.

The rain is still falling. And that seems right.

Hart looks up toward the dark sky, then he takes a long drag off his cigarette. I wish he could breathe out hurt, the way he breathes out smoke.

I’ve never seen anyone cry like this. Like every sob is scraped up from somewhere deep inside him, made up of equal parts blood and guts.

“Knowing is hard,” he says, “but it’s a thing you can survive. The not knowing will kill you in the end. It’s the secrets that fester.”

Twelve is the number of completion. The closing of a circle. The end of the cycle. Twelve months in a year. Twelve hours in a day. Twelve tribes of Israel. Twelve-bar blues.

It hits me hard how every single one of us—everyone in the whole wide world—is walking around with missing pieces. I’m not the only one with holes.

“Can I do what?” “Leo told me that your mama could start fires. With her mind. He said he’d seen her do it. Once. A long time ago.” Hart’s stopped shaking. Finally. “Can you do it, too?”

She kisses me good night and heads upstairs to bed. And I just stand there. Stunned. Because I know Honey loves me. And I know she wants to protect me. Keep me safe. I get that. But I’m not like her. I can’t live with the holes.

Not anymore. I need answers.

“Lots of people fall in love with monsters,” he tells me. “Only they don’t realize it until it’s too late.”