His arms and long body drew me to him. I tipped back my head. We were the only things in here made of flesh. We began to kiss the way we used to. Blood in my ears; taste of desire in my mouth. I felt him swelling, strangely high against me, and pressed myself there, courting ruin. I sensed rather than saw the forms against the dark: the heaving shoulders of my mother, my father’s backhanded salute, Robin lying wounded under the water-grained slab. Antonio’s mouth was taut and leathery, tasting of wine and peanut skins. No one knew we were here. Smiling Erica didn’t know, and neither did her boys, flinging themselves across the grass. I had hunted him down, I had brought him here. I had the power to make things happen, to fling and smash, to inflict damage.

His hands cupped my jaw and neck. He came up for air to murmur, “It’s still—” or maybe “You’re still—” and in a panic I shoved him to pry us apart. But Antonio would not hear of it. He was gathering me up, finding my lips again, pressing on with the drama we had both started, as he’d always done and I’d always let him, as though it was unstoppable. He inched his hand down the front of my body, whispering. I was weak. We had done it standing up before, in the shower or the kitchen, laying ourselves down to finish. The channels were already cut. We would remember what worked, what pushed us over the edge.

Antonio began kissing me again, his fingers locked behind my neck, both of us straining to get to what we needed in this underground place where everything echoed and nothing rang true. His hand slid into my blouse and found the naked point of my breast. I jumped as though stung, and shrank away. Desire swerved and stalled. No! Not there. Not for you. He moved his hand to the small of my back.

The darkness enclosed us, a barrier nothing could pass through. All I wanted was her shy, shining face, in pencil so hard to look at and impossible to reach. Beseeching eyes, stubborn lips, smooth young features in the skull of babyhood and death. We wanted things from each other we could only partially and poorly give. She was with me. She was watching me. She was waiting for me to speak. Longing shuddered up my spine, numbing my arms, blocking my throat, trying to escape from my feeding mouth. She was spoken for. She was gone.

I forced him away, violently this time. “Sorry,” I whispered. “I can’t.”

Antonio let me go. He was breathing hard.

“Oh, Evie,” he said at last, arms at his sides, knowing better than to touch me. “We are only human.”