I want to believe that Gara fancies me above others. Or that I am special to her. But outside of the bedroom, she still keeps her distance. She lets me hang around when she composes at the piano, though.

But nights when she feels particularly rotten—which is often—she disappears into someone else's room.

I should be steadfast and demand something solid. That isn't my way though. My pa's teachings always involve patience. I've inherited that weakness. Gara is a force and there's no holding onto something beyond my understanding.

Each show is a hit, each party a success, each song an instant favorite, and nights like these—when everything goes well—are the nights when she's at her worst.

She doesn't even cut me a glance when she passes by in a crowd.

Now and then she opens her bedroom door and spies me. I'm never certain if she will open that door wider for anyone at all who happens to be there.

She does that often, though—lets me in when she sees me watching her room.

More than once, the thought occurs to say no, but I go. And I can admit, as pathetic as it is, a lot of the times I'm the one knocking on that door instead.

We never talk about the bruises on Gara's body, or the nights of quarreling she lives through. When she parties too much and everyone leaves her there on the floor, I help her up for as long as she'll let me. And when she needs her dislocated shoulder put back in, cringing, I do that for her as well otherwise she'll bang it against the wall. And I can't stand it.

She isn't the only one who reacts to the fame, either. Each praise the household receives 'on behalf of that amazing talent' it's as if the fists are heavier, the cuts deeper. When an interview comes around, Gara's face is spared, but that doesn't apply to her stomach and back.

A time or two I pass by a scene in the kitchen I rather not recall. Even then she doesn't seem to care about any of it. She doesn't care about any of it.

Love making—and I laugh to call it that because I don't think she can love anyone—becomes a challenge. I can't stand to lie on her for fear I'll make it worse. She gets her way eventually.

As she lies in my grip, I poke her skin with my index, tracing the bruises.

The worst part...I feel proud that she'll let me touch her after she's been dragged around and beaten down. It's not true comfort, but it's a comfort to me. I need that comfort, that assurance that she's still around.

I even start considering something I shouldn't.

"Maybe we should...should do something in public like Bailey and his woman," I suggest.

Gara feigned sleep. It isn't often that she does, but I know that means I've crossed some line.

I try again. "Were you and he...?"

Snuggling closer, Gara shakes her head. "Me and Bail? Nah. I need nothing intimate from the likes of him, and vice versa. He helped me find pretty faces for the man of the house now and then. And I guess...I guess I gave Bailey more than enough credits for whores he would have hired cheap, anyway, ya know? He's a jack-of-all-trade. Knows someone who knows someone sorta thing...."

Whores? I know Gara's history profile back and forth. I've never come across anything but the insults calling her a whore. "Wait...is...is that why you're here? Why you got stuck?"

Gara's an expert at hiding her emotion unless someone knows where to strike. This time her sob sounds more like a laugh. My jaw drops when she chuckles clearly. She is laughing.

"You want to hear something fucked up?" She says. "It's mine."

I lean away, trying to get a better look at her. "What's yours?"

"The house, the money, the title. Everything. It's mine. I'm not living off that bastard's credits, he's living off mine. And it's killing him. It's eating him up inside because he could work through this century and the next and he'll never have as much monetary credits as me. Hell, he could spite me and not use any—he's tried it." Gara laughs again. "But when he comes back to it, to all the lush those credits can buy, he just fucking hates that. That's the only satisfaction I have."

Gara's public profile doesn't go into much detail, only that she spends big. I have all her albums, and the remakes she's touched up. Hell, I've considered working the mines myself just to afford any autographed copies up for sale. My pa took on three mines in a month trying to get it for me as a gift rather than let me do such a dangerous job. If not for that, I might have never been cured of my need for a collection.

But if Gara's riches come from a time before her fame, there's no end to her money, and it's all hers.

"Then...why?"

The chuckle fades, muffled by my chest as she mutters against my skin.

"I guess for me it's just another pill, just one that I have to work harder to manipulate well. And I pull the strings the way I want to, or need to."

I lie stunned because I've never thought of it that way, that it's intentional or something she seeks out. The pills can be fun. Never has the thought occurred to me that they are as abusive as a fist to the jaw.

"Sometimes, when he's beating on me, I pray for a mistake," she admits.

My interest in the theater has all but faded by now. I have a different focus. "We should leave. Why don't you leave?"

Gara rolls over onto her side of the bed. "Leave? I'm never leaving. Not until this fucker kills me."

I don't have anything to say.

"So your father's really from the top?" she asks at length.

I'm embarrassed at first, but I trust Gara; she won't make fun of my pa. "Yup."

Staring up at the ceiling, Gara mutters, "You think it's as bad as they say?"

As bad as they say? People die daily trying to get in here. My pa must have known the rot would never heal but he risked it seven times, lived most of his life with six open sores just to get away from it.

I don't have time to answer because something else occurs to me.

"Why do you ask?"

Gara doesn't speak which is unlike her; whenever she stays in bed after we fool around, she always has something to say.

She can't be suggesting what it seems, but I ask anyway.

"You wouldn't go up top, right?"

The laugh took time to come, but it did come. "Me? With how small I am? Although...it's the only place I haven't looked." She snorts out a laugh. "But that's madness. I shouldn't even consider it."

But she keeps staring at that ceiling as if she is.

"Do you really love him that much? Can't you try to give that much love to someone else? Anyone else? Even once?" I ask because I'm too jealous to fight it back.

Gara glances at me, and says something unexpected. "You mean someone like you?"

My face burns, but the pang in my gut is what draws my focus.

"I like being around you," she admits. "So stick close. Maybe when I fall off again, it's you I'll fall right in front of."

Those words resound through me and I can't tell if it's pride or hope, or some sort of desperation to believe I might fill such a huge gap for her. I take her at her word though.

She glances in my direction and asks, "What are you doing here anyway? You must have trained with Job for a reason."

I tell her about my father's plans for me. My pa'll be getting out of the medical section soon and I'll have to face him then. I haven't had the nerve to visit him which is awful on my part.

"Then don't be ELETE," Gara says. "Me and Blue were gonna be guards. Incredibly sexy guards who shagged on our break times." She chuckles. "But what I liked were the interrogators. They're a branch of the ELETEs that don't see combat; it's the only branch that pays well and you can start as a guard. Anyone can be a guard. Then work your way up to an interrogator. It'll be ELETE but less carnage. It'll take a while, like ten years, but that's a way to go."

"So let's do that," I say. "Why don't you do that?"

"Told you. I'm staying right here. I'm not that far gone yet. I'm holding it together. I'm waiting right here for him to come back. What if the day I leave, the day I take off, he walks right into that charred room and sees all his shit burned to the ground? What if he comes in here, and I'm long gone and I missed my chance?"

I want to tell her how foolish she's being, but that'll never work. If I mention anything against it, she'll probably go contrary to my suggestions even more.

"So long as you don't fire me," I say. "I guess I'll be here, too. It'd be a bad fit, anyway. Ten years to be an interrogator is a lifetime away."

"A lifetime? It's only ten damn years, love." Gara rolls over and gives me a smile. "You'll just be in your thirties. That's not bad at all. What about me? I'd be damn near forty."

I get quiet, though I try to smile. Gara doesn't seem to appreciate it.

"What?"

I shake my head. "Nothing. I just thought it's a long time away."

"It's just ten years...." She squints at me. "How old are you?"

My pulse quickens but I'm relieved that I can put her mind at ease. "Seventeen in two days."

She catches her breath but doesn't otherwise move. Her eyes explore my features, studying me as if she's never seen me before, and then her mouth falls open.

"Get up."

"What?"

Gara rises into a sitting position, slips from the bed, and begins to dress.

"Get your shit. Get your shit right now. You're sixteen fucking years old?"

Everything happens so fast that I barely have time to put my clothes on. The room stops spinning when she opens the door and throws me out despite my height.