I Will Cross the Sea and See the Endless Plains

Junior year, my rich girlfriend bought me an apartment.

It was in the most expensive tower downtown, right next to the love nest her childhood-sweetheart ex had bought for his working-class girlfriend.

The first day I moved in, she gave me my orders.

One month. If you can't break them up, you're out.

I nodded hard, then chose my words carefully.

"The building fees on this place are too steep. I can't keep it up. Once it's done, could we swap it for cash instead"

She frowned, plainly disgusted.

"Whatever you want."

I pressed my lips together and made her a promise.

"Don't worry. Once it's done, I'll disappear completely."

She looked at me like I was an idiot.

"I told you to break them up. I never said anything about breaking up with you. Where'd you get that idea?"

I blinked.

But the thing was, once this semester ended, I was leaving to study abroad.

If we didn't break up, what was I supposed to do, keep her around for the holidays?

01

Melanie Gilbert had a temper.

I thought about it and decided not to correct her.

Anyway, once she landed her childhood sweetheart, there'd be nothing left for a tool like me to do.

"What are you standing there for? Hurry up and take some photos, post them."

"Don't forget to tag the location."

The woman on the couch shot me a glance, then tossed me a phone.

Newest model on the market, no screen protector, no case.

I fumbled it into my hands.

Then I snapped a few shots of the view outside and the room inside, and paired them, smoothly, with an over-the-top caption.

Loving someone is like tending a flower. Thank you to my Mel, for giving me the first real home I've ever had in my life~

The second it posted, the phone wouldn't stop buzzing.

I didn't even need to open it to know that eight out of ten comments were snide.

The other two were just flat-out trash talk.

Couldn't be helped. Melanie had set up the phone.

The contacts were either young lords and ladies as high-nosed as she was, or bootlickers like me.

And those were exactly the crowds that could carry a rumor straight to the ears of whoever Melanie wanted to hear it.

Sure enough, half an hour later, the doorbell rang.

Guy Fisher was here.

Melanie went to answer it. I was in the kitchen, staring blankly at the chicken soup bubbling on the stove.

The two of them said something out in the entryway. I couldn't quite make it out.

Then the man's voice came closer and closer.

"where is he? Bought you an apartment after three months? I'd like to see what kind of man slipped you this love potion"

I took a deep breath and walked out of the kitchen.

Straight into Guy Fisher, storming in full of fury.

The instant he saw me, he froze.

Two seconds later, he burst out laughing.

"Melanie, have you lost your mind, or have you just been reading too many body-double stories? Where'd you dig up somebody who looks this much like me?"

The woman stood behind him, her gaze settling heavily on him, but she said nothing.

I wiped my hands on the apron, awkward, and forced out a smile.

"Hi. You're Guy, right? Mel's mentioned you a lot. I"

Before I could finish, Guy's hand was already clamped around my chin.

Those eyes, seventy percent the mirror of mine, brimmed with careless malice.

"No wonder the circle says you're all fawning and fake, that you'll post everything but a straight shot of your own face. Turns out you just don't have the face for it."

"This face cost a fortune, didn't it?"

His grip on my chin hurt. All I dared do was throw Melanie a look, begging for rescue.

She only glanced coolly at the hand on my chin and sighed.

"Guy, don't mess around. What if you hurt your hand? You need it for the piano."

Guy let go.

The next second, a slap landed on my face, not light, not hard.

I froze. He smiled.

"Tsk. Pretty convincing, actually."

"So tell me. With a face like that, how much are you planning to squeeze out of her?"

My left cheek burned faintly.

I suddenly remembered being a boy who'd done something wrong, and my mother's ruler always coming down across my face.

Harder than this. Louder than this.

But it hurt just the same.

"Answer."

The woman's voice pulled me back out of the strange drift of my thoughts.

I looked into eyes deep as a black pool and couldn't tell what answer she wanted.

Maybe all I had to do was make Guy jealous.

"Young Master Fisher, I'm not with Mel for the money. I really do like her."

As if he'd heard a great joke, he started laughing.

Then just as quickly he stopped, the rims of his eyes gone red.

"Melanie, when we broke up, you're the one who said a good dog stays out of the way and a good horse doesn't turn back for old grass."

"What, are you lower than an animal now?"

"I'm telling you, I already have a girlfriend. Stop coming around, stay out of my life"

Melanie let out a cold laugh.

"Girlfriend? That gold-digger who picks the campus cafeteria when you take her to dinner?"

"Still better than you!"

I quietly backed into the kitchen.

Rich people really did know how to play.

Even a reunion after all this time needed a throwaway stand-in as a background prop.

If this were a novel, someone in my position would have to fight three hundred rounds before he got to exit.

But I had other ideas.

After all, from the very start, I was never here for her.

Guy shoved Melanie hard on his way out.

She sat on the couch, her face dark.

I came out of the kitchen and edged over carefully.

The apartment was dead quiet. She frowned and said in a low voice,

That's the first time he's ever laid a hand on me. All over that woman.

The truth was, I didn't really know the whole history between her and Guy Fisher.

I only knew that a year after they broke up, she still couldn't let him go.

And me, I couldn't let go of her money.

Three months ago, the same day I was crowned the campus heartthrob of Ashford University's physics department, Melanie came to find me out of nowhere.

First thing out of her mouth was fifty thousand, asking if I wanted to be her boyfriend.

I gritted my teeth and turned her down, no spine at all.

I don't sell myself.

She suddenly laughed.

A whole row of even white teeth flashing in the sunlight.

I'm not asking you to sell yourself. I'm asking you out.

Every word came down like a note from an angel.

Down onto me until I was dizzy and my heart raced.

Back then I thought Melanie wasn't as bad as the campus forums made her out to be.

She had to be a really good person.

A really good person who also happened to be rich.

So when I saw the boy on her phone who looked seventy percent like me, it took me zero seconds to accept the fact that I was a stand-in.

In fiction, the stand-in usually doesn't end well.

So I didn't try to copy Guy's clothes or his expressions. I only played her emotional crutch and her love-life bodyguard when she needed one.

And picked up a little extra cash on the side.

Melanie was the most generous person I'd ever met.

When she was in a good mood she took me out for nice meals, took me sightseeing, and tossed money my way now and then.

When she was in a bad mood, she loved throwing money around.

A course I had to retake, she'd offer ten grand as a starting price to make it go away.

Group events she didn't want to attend got dumped on me, and the cash she handed over was never less than four figures.

The moment Guy so much as stirred, she got even crazier.

Like she wanted to tell the whole world how loyal the boyfriend she'd bought with her money was to her.

In three months, I'd saved up enough for tuition to study abroad.

My academic advisor, who knew my situation, was a little surprised, and hinted, carefully, that maybe we should talk.

I knew my kept-man reputation had already spread across campus.

People said all kinds of things.

But I honestly didn't care.

Compared to growing up in an orphanage from the age of four, what was any of this?

Melanie wanted nothing from my body and nothing from my heart. She only wanted this face.

For this face, she bought me a new phone, took me to upscale restaurants, and threw in the occasional surprise.

This apartment was her gift to me last month.

I'd just come out of the lab, barely stepped outside, when she dragged me off to the county property registry office.

Two bedrooms, one living room, an excellent location, in one of the city's famously luxurious developments.

When she bent her head to sign, the sunlight through the window lit the side of her face, her long lashes casting shadows under her eyes.

For one second, my heartbeat lost its rhythm.

Something got into me, and I caught her hand while she was still signing and asked quietly,

Melanie, what if I didn't want this apartment, and someday the two of us

She frowned slightly.

You don't get to not want it. Guy's living right next door with that woman. How am I supposed to relax if you're not there keeping an eye on things?

Only then did I understand that she'd bought me the apartment purely for Guy.

I nodded, and that stumble in my heartbeat slowly settled back into calm.

Then it clicked for her.

Someday, what?

My pen tip paused, and then I smiled, light as air.

Nothing.

After that, I threw myself into it even harder than before.

In other people's words, I had even less shame.

Mornings I spent in the lab, afternoons buried in the library.

On days with no classes, I did the coursework she couldn't be bothered with and signed in for her at the classes she didn't want to attend.

Breakfast, I'd get up half an hour earlier than anyone else, buy it, then go out of my way to deliver it to her, even though she didn't need it at all.

I honed my lapdog skills to perfection.

So when I heard Melanie's question just now, I answered without thinking.

Guy definitely just can't let you go. The second I finished saying that, he got upset.

The line between her brows did ease.

But her eyes suddenly landed on me.

I didn't think you actually cared about me. You always look like someone whose eyes light up at the sight of money.

Cared?

Before I could sort that out, a slender hand brushed the side of my face.

Does it still hurt?

I shook my head.

Her touch grew more suggestive, her voice soft.

You did well this time.

My eyes lit up at once, and I ventured carefully,

Then besides the thousand for the social media post, could you throw in another thousand? I did take a slap, after all

Catching her face going dark again, I quickly changed my tune, lowering my voice.

Five hundred works too.

Her face went completely cold, and she pulled a bank card out of her pocket.

There's a hundred thousand on this. Call it buying out your month. Enough?

To a rich girl, a hundred thousand was nothing more than the price of an afternoon tea.

She probably meant it to humiliate me.

But I couldn't hold back the curve at the corner of my mouth even a little.

Enough, more than enough.

A thousand per social media post, that's a hundred posts.

Two thousand per errand, that's fifty errands.

Three thousand per time I took the blame, that's

Before I could finish the math, she spoke again.

Starting tomorrow, invite Guy over to eat with us every meal.

I hesitated a little, remembering the back of Guy as he'd walked out.

What if he won't come?

That's for you to figure out.

With that, she went back to the bedroom.

I held the bank card and told myself quietly, inside,

Just this last month left.

Come on, Ian.

Getting Guy to come to dinner turned out to be easier than I'd expected.

Because I cleverly invited his girlfriend too.

Funny how it worked out.

When I went to knock on the door, she was standing there with a takeout box from the dining hall, in the middle of an argument with Guy.

I knew exactly which counter that food came from.

Because it was the cheapest one.

And there was no way Young Master Fisher could stomach that kind of thing.

I named off tonight's menu on the spot.

An hour later, four people sat around the dinner table.

The mood was strange.

I bustled back and forth, serving dishes and fishing for topics.

Almost no one paid me any attention.

Melanie's eyes kept drifting to the two across from her, and she barely tasted her food.

Guy shot me the occasional mocking glance, one corner of his mouth curling.

His girlfriend was the only one who played along, praising my cooking, saying guys who study science are clever.

She even offered to help me wash the dishes after we finished eating.

The smile on Guy's face froze all at once.

What are you doing? Since when is it your place to wash dishes

It's fine, it's fine, I've got it I jumped in to smooth things over.

She wasn't the least bit intimidated.

A person should have a sense of gratitude.

Guy's voice was shaking.

One meal and now you owe him gratitude? I gave you a place to live

I never wanted to live there in the first place.

Mavis Winfield! Do you have to be like this all the time?

I've told you, if you think we don't fit, then let's break up.

I watched, dumbfounded.

I hadn't expected them to blow up like that at all.

I hadn't expected, either, that someone could actually live off a man and still refuse to bend.

In the end Guy slammed the door and left, and Mavis didn't stay to wash my dishes.

By all rights, the two of them fighting should have made Melanie happy.

But she sat at the table, and at some point she'd lit a cigarette.

She rarely smoked.

The last time was the day I found Guy's photo.

That time she'd blown the smoke straight into my face without a care, laughing, asking if I minded.

This time there wasn't a trace of a winner's pleasure on her face. Her eyes settled on me, dark and unreadable.

No one to wash your dishes. That must sting.

I froze for a second, then shook my head hard.

I like washing dishes.

Miss Gilbert really was hard to please.

I could tell she'd been driven half out of her mind.

And she still had to take it out on me in the pettiest way.

I had no choice but to swallow it.

Luckily her phone rang and pulled her attention away.

There was crying on the other end of the line.

Melanie was out the door almost before she'd thought about it.

Afraid something had happened next door, I trotted a few steps after her.

And then I saw it: Guy had pulled her against him, his head bowed against her neck, silently crying.

I looked for a few seconds.

Then I turned my eyes away.

Back in the kitchen, I knocked a bowl to the floor by accident.

A sharp piece of porcelain cut my finger, and blood welled up at once.

I didn't feel any pain, and I didn't go for the first-aid kit.

I just crouched on the floor, staring at the beads of blood that kept seeping out.

But my head was still on that scene from before.

Until, behind me, there came a scream.

Then a woman's furious shout.

Ian, you think you can get away with this?!

I looked up, dazed. Melanie's head lifted from the man's arms, and the look in her eyes was pure, towering rage.

When had they even come in?

I asked her quietly:

What's wrong?

She was so angry she laughed.

You have the nerve to ask what's wrong?

You knew the door was open, so you broke a bowl on purpose to get my attention. Do you have any idea Guy faints at the sight of blood?!

I glanced at Guy, still clinging to her, refusing to let go, and opened my mouth.

I didn't know, and I didn't

She cut me off, her voice cold as frost.

Ian, the least a person can do is know their place.

Don't pull these cheap little tricks in front of me again, or I can't promise I won't take back what I've given you.

I went rigid.

After a long moment, I found my voice.

All right. I'm sorry.

She looked down at me from above.

Clean this up, then get out. You can come back in once Guy's recovered.

With that she didn't spare me another glance, taking Guy by the hand and walking into the bedroom.

I wrapped a tissue around my still-bleeding hand and cleaned everything up.

Then I pulled on my coat and stepped outside.

The empty hallway was bright with light.

Late autumn was closing in, and when the cold wind blew through, I slid slowly down the wall into a crouch.

Then I took the vocabulary book out of my pocket.

For a long while, in all that quiet, I heard myself sniff.

The polished floor tiles held a faint reflection of what I looked like just then.

I smiled at the me down there.

It was fine.

Melanie and I were only ever two people in a deal, after all.

That night I waited a long time, and no message ever came from Melanie.

The clock hit one, and my whole body had gone stiff with cold.

People who have been poor can bear the cold. What they can't bear is the cost of getting sick.

On the third sneeze, I quietly opened the door and slipped back inside.

I didn't go to the bedroom. I curled up on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, knees drawn to my chest.

Only when my body slowly warmed and I was drifting off did a shadow fall across the couch in front of me.

The smell of cigarette smoke reached me. I fought down the urge to open my eyes.

Even with them shut, I could feel the heat of that gaze on me.

What had Melanie come for?

Maybe to warn me.

But in the end she didn't "wake me up."

One cigarette finished, and she left.

And I opened my eyes and couldn't fall asleep again.

At six in the morning, after a quiet, quick wash, I didn't go back to the bedroom.

I just found two half-dry shirts on the drying rack, pulled them on, and went out.

After all that trouble, I caught a cold anyway.

Afraid of catching it from me, Melanie didn't have me cook again.

But Guy still came over often.

The young master and young miss loved ordering a whole table of expensive delivery.

My only job was to come out of the room once they were done, mask on, to clean up the wreckage.

Sometimes Mavis came too, but she only ate in silence.

Silently watching as Guy deliberately leaned close to Melanie's ear and grinned, right in front of her.

She didn't get angry.

She'd even help me clear up, then walk into the kitchen and ask where the dish soap was.

I told her not to bother, because Melanie had someone install a dishwasher.

"Stop washing them by hand from now on. It doesn't get as clean as the machine."

When Melanie said that, she glanced at my hand, still wearing a bandage.

There was something in her look she seemed about to say and didn't.

I figured it was disgust.

So I didn't tell her that when I said I liked washing dishes, I meant it.

Those years at the orphanage, washing dishes was the one job that earned me my first piece of candy.

Later, in school, it was washing dishes in a little diner that earned me the first ten-dollar bill of my life.

It was like the trump card of my gray little life.

But how would a rich girl ever understand.

She didn't need to.

That day, Mavis's face was ugly when she left.

The next day, she asked to break up.

Guy clearly couldn't accept it. He nearly tore the room next door apart.

Melanie, though, was in a good mood.

She took me to the highest-view upscale restaurant in Los Angeles and opened a very expensive bottle of red wine.

I held the glass, sipping in small mouthfuls, a little light-headed.

Melanie lazily lifted her eyes and suddenly said,

"Still want to see the ocean? Your birthday's in a couple of days. I'll take you."

I froze for a moment.

I remembered when I first took her fifty thousand dollars, grinning so wide my eyes disappeared, and she asked what I wanted the money for to be so happy.

I said, offhand, that I wanted to see the ocean.

Because the only photograph of my mother was taken by the sea.

Standing in front of the water, she smiled soft and sweet.

Growing up looking at that photo, I always drifted off wondering if maybe the sea had some secret power, something that could bring out the hidden side of my serious mother.

The thought had rooted itself deep.

But I'd never once acted on it.

I hadn't expected Melanie to remember.

The alcohol left me warm all over, and I said yes, happy.

Before we set out, I made a point of putting on the limited-edition sneakers Melanie had given me.

It was only when we arrived that I learned Melanie hadn't come out to sea to celebrate my birthday.

She'd only come to take Guy's mind off things.

And besides me, the people along to cheer him up included that crowd of her friends who had never had any use for me.

"Damn, this really is done up to match Guy, isn't it?"

"Aren't those the kind of shoes Guy likes to wear? Tsk. No shame at all."

"Say what you want, this little schemer really is something else. A bit more flavor than the real deal."

"Look at him, we've nearly scared him to tears. Miss Gilbert, you didn't tell him this was a private date, did you?"

Standing at the edge of the group with her head down, listening to Guy talk, Melanie looked up and glanced at me at that.

Her expression was careless.

"You lot, don't scare him."

The group scattered, the talk died down.

But the ill-meaning looks stayed.

I stood in the corner. Now and then a server passed by, and by the time they reached me all that was left was juice that couldn't fill a stomach.

I drank two glasses, and my stomach burned.

Then my phone got a message from my advisor.

"Ian, the review's gone through. You can book your flight."

I let out a breath. My mood finally lifted a little.

I turned to head outside, head down, sending a message.

I didn't expect the sudden force behind me. I toppled straight into the champagne tower beside me.

First the cold, then the pain.

Then the sound of the crowd around me bursting into laughter.

And last, I saw Melanie in the very center of the crowd, brow furrowed, lips pressed tight.

Broken glass all over the floor. By the time I dragged myself up out of the mess,

I could no longer tell where I'd been cut. Blood dripped down my arm.

Guy spun around in a panic and pulled the woman into his arms.

A server came over and draped a bathrobe across my shoulders.

"Miss Gilbert says to go rest in your room. She's staying with Young Master Fisher. If you can't look after yourself, try not to come out."

"She also said... if you insist on distracting her, I'm to arrange for you to go back right now."

The sea looked pitch-black and bottomless in the deep night, waves slapping the rocks in my ears.

I looked over at Melanie.

She wasn't looking this way at all, her head down, watching only Guy.

The wind hit me and I shivered.

"Fine. Then I'll trouble you. I want to go back."