BLACKOUT

by Olivia Evans

  I turned in a circle. “This is really cool. What, ah, what are we doing here?”

  Bat smiled. “We’re gonna paint.”

  I laughed. “I can’t paint.”

  “Sure you can. Put this on.” She tossed me a smock.

  I stared at the smock, my mind as blank as the canvas in front of me. “Why are we doing this?”

  Bat let out a low laugh. Her expression was guarded. “This is the only release I have these days. Well, I have group, but that’s not enough. I need more. I need to let out the anger I have inside me so I don’t attack people in the street and end up back in jail. It’s all I have.”

  I watched Bat drop her brush into the thick paint and, in a quick twist of her wrist, flick the liquid toward the canvas. The blue paint leaped across the bright white background like a ferocious animal pouncing on unsuspecting prey. In that moment, I understood. I looked over the colors next to me and picked the brightest color in the group—it looked like marigolds—and dropped my brush deep into the paint. In a movement much like Bat’s, I propelled my arm forward, scattering the paint across the canvas. It splattered over the surface, angry and with purpose. I couldn’t stop after that. Again and again, I dipped my brush until that wasn’t enough and I dropped it on the tray before submerging my hands in the colors, smearing thick lines of paint across the canvas until I was sweating and fighting for air. I blinked at the image in front of me and felt the breath leak from my lungs. Colors swirled around the canvas, angry and calm, mean and tender, but at the center was a tornado of black paint, a circle of the things I couldn’t see, things I couldn’t remember. My life was a rainbow of colors surrounding a vortex of black that I couldn’t escape, no matter how vivid I tried to make everything else.

  I fell to my knees, and my hands hung limply by my sides. “I don’t know how to deal with this.”

  Bat moved next me and joined me on the floor. “I can’t help you, Lonna. I wish I could, but I’m way more messed up than you. I tried to kill myself, for fuck’s sake.” She let out a sad laugh and wrapped her arm around me, hugging my body against hers. “We were dealt a shitty hand. I want to kill the bastard that raped me. You just want to know who the bastard is that raped you. Closure comes in a million different forms—we just have to help each other get to the finish line.”

  Bat looked away, and her jaw tightened before she turned her gaze back to me, her eyes intense. “I didn’t want your help. I wanted to tell you and Gavin to go fuck yourselves and leave me alone. I wanted to end it for good this time, and you two stubborn assholes came to my apartment and made me feel like you cared and I mattered, and I suddenly didn’t want to die. I both love and hate you for that. Then you showed up at group and you were so upset, and I finally got it. I fucking got it. I wanted to help you. I wanted to be needed, to be useful. And that was all it took for me to change my plans. Don’t let it go to your head, but you’re kind of the reason I’m not dead. So, thanks for that.”

  I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t count the number of times I’d felt exactly how Bat described. How many times had I contemplated if it wouldn’t just be easier to go to sleep and never wake up? Then Krista would come home to the apartment and I could tell she was sad about something, and all I wanted to do was make her feel better. To make her feel anything but the raging worthlessness that sucked me down like quicksand. Maybe it was a distraction, a way for me to hide from my pain, but the reason why didn’t really matter in the end. What mattered was I was able to pull myself from the darkest places my mind had ever ventured. And somehow, thankfully, I had managed to be that for Bat.

  I threw my arms around her shoulders and pulled her against me, my paint-covered hands sticking to her clothes and hair as I buried my face against her and cried. She sat stiffly for only a moment before her arms circled me and her own tears fell. We cried for the loss we’d nearly endured had she given up. We cried for the hopeless fear we both shared. And we cried for the friendship and hope our tragic encounters had created.

  “I don’t know what my life would be like if I’d never walked into that support group. I was a wreck. I wasn’t eating, and when I slept, I had nightmares. When I didn’t have nightmares, I felt like a monster for feeling normal. I stopped going out, and I almost lost my dream job. My entire world was collapsing around me. Then I walked into that room, and while it didn’t happen overnight, my life changed. I’m still fucked up,” I laughed, leaning away from Bat and wiping under my eye with my arm. “But I’m less fucked up today than yesterday, and with any luck, tomorrow will be even better. Please don’t make me do it alone.”

  Bat sniffled and dropped her chin to her chest, her breath coming in shuddering gasps. “I’m so angry. Humiliated. And that makes me even angrier because why the fuck should I feel humiliated? I didn’t do anything wrong, but I feel nothing but shame.” She looked up, and her red-rimmed eyes blazed with fury. “Fuck that asshole for making me feel less than. Less than human, less than special, less than scum. Less than the woman I was the day before. But I won’t give up,” she promised, her voice softer. “We’re more than a hashtag.”

  I nodded, a sad smile pulling at the corner of my mouth. “Fuck a hashtag.”

  Bat laughed and pulled me to my feet. “Hashtag fuck a hashtag?”

  I joined her laughter. “Hashtag fuck a hashtag.”

  Her face turned serious as her eyes moved to my painting. “That’s some expressive shit, Lonna. The black, that’s his face, yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What about all the color around it? What’s that about?”

  I shrugged. “It’s everyone else. You. Krista. Pearl. Melissa.” I bit my lip and dropped my eyes. “Gavin.”

  Bat smirked. “That explains all the yellow and blue. I thought those colors reminded me of someone.”

  I followed her gaze, and my lips parted in surprise. In the lines of marigold that looked like Krista’s hair and the browns and blue-grays that hinted of her and Pearl was an overwhelming mixture of Gavin’s honey-brown hair and baby-blue eyes. “Shit,” I whispered.

  “You’ve got it bad.”

  I swallowed and looked in her direction, finally feeling the strength to voice the words that had been trapped in my throat for weeks. “He terrifies me,” I admitted. “I feel like I know everything and absolutely nothing about him. I want him to tell me what happened for him to end up at our meetings, but I’m not willing to tell him my story. I’m a hypocrite. The first time I saw him, I thought he was some kind of fucking predator that got off on hearing women’s rape stories. What kind of asshole does that make me? In college, my friends and I would rate guys based on the shape of their ass and make bets on the size of their dicks. How are we any better? Some of my friends would get so outraged, myself included, when a guy would tell us we had a hot ass or nice tits, but were we really any fucking different? And the worst part is, on some level, I still feel that way. I was raped, why the fuck should I defend a guy?”

  Bat licked her lips and shook her head. “I can’t say I agree with you, because I don’t. I never rated guys or speculated on the size of their dicks. I didn’t have a lot of girlfriends, but the ones I had were like me. Maybe there are girls like you say, but there are also girls who aren’t. It’s hard for us to justify that kind of behavior.”

  Shame reddened my cheeks. Just as it was unfair for me to think guys at rape support groups was weird, it was unfair to think all girls objectified men the same way my friends and I had. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” Bat said with a reassuring smile. “I have good and bad days. Some days, everyone is equal. Others, men should all die from crabs eating their dicks off. It’s a give-and-take kind of reality.”

  A laugh burst from my throat, and I felt a lightness in my chest for the first time that day. “I don’t suppose you know more about Gavin than you’ve admitted?”

  Bat reached out to squeeze my hand, her face sympathetic. “We should all be allowed to tell our stories when
, how, and to whom we want. Don’t take that away from him. You wouldn’t want it taken away from you.”

  “Something bad happened to him, didn’t it?” I asked, a sinking feeling settling in my chest.

  “Gavin’s a lot less broken since he met you. That’s all I can tell you, Lonna.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Bat looked at my hands and shook her head. “You got paint all over the both of us, didn’t you?”

  I shrugged and gave her a sheepish grin. “Yeah. Your hair is going to be a bitch to wash later. Sorry about that.”

  Bat touched the back of her hair and grimaced. “Well, it wouldn’t be the first time.” Pulling a scarf from her smock pocket, she wrapped it around her head, tying it in the front. “Let’s get cleaned up and grab dinner. I’m starving.”

  We spent the next half hour cleaning before carefully putting our paintings in Bat’s storage area. She told me I could come by and pick it up the next day, and I wasn’t sure why, but the thought of leaving it caused my chest to tighten. I wanted that dark, ugly, rainbow swirl of good and bad in my apartment. I wanted to see the proof that even with the bad, good was all around me.

  I forced myself not to ask her anything else about Gavin. She had been right, after all. Who was I to take away his opportunity to tell me his story in his own way? Just like I would get the opportunity to tell him about my experience. Eventually. Soon. For the first time since we’d met, I felt like I needed to tell him what happened. I wanted the swirl of colors around me to overtake the shadows. Push them into the dark where they belonged. When Bat and I went our separate ways later that night, a heavy, yet resolved feeling settled in my chest. When I felt like the time was right, I would tell him. I’d tell him everything. I really did have it bad.

  “So, do you have plans for Halloween this weekend?” Gavin asked, poking at his food.

  I swallowed and set down my fork, suddenly no longer interested in my food either. Usually, Halloween was a no-brainer. Krista, Ethan, and I would dress up, go barhopping, and watch the sun rise from whatever graveyard had been deemed the most haunted that year. This year, however, would be drastically different. For starters, I had zero interest in getting wasted. Secondly, Ethan hadn’t been back to the apartment in weeks except to pick up some of his things and apologize for his behavior. I’d been surprised when he’d suggested we needed a little space between us, admitting he had some things to work through. The apartment felt strange without him, but it also gave me a sense of peace. Gavin had obviously been pleased.

  “I don’t know,” I said with a shrug. “Krista and Brett are going to some big party, but I think I’m going to pass. What about you?” I tried to sound nonchalant, but I hated the thought of Gavin at a party with half-naked girls hanging all over him.

  “One of the organizers of another support group wants to get a bunch of people together in costumes to visit the children’s hospital. I thought you might want to be my date. You could go as Dorothy, and I could be a Munchkin.”

  I laughed, my hand flying to cover my mouth when the sound rang out in the quiet diner. “You as a Munchkin? You’ve got to be kidding me.” The thought made me giggle again.

  Gavin shrugged. “Flying monkey?”

  I dropped my head in my hands. “God, no.”

  “What should I be, then?”

  I pulled in a breath and peeked up at him. His hair had grown out since I’d met him, the wild strands curling at the ends. His blue eyes sparkled with mirth. He made me feel so many things just by looking at him. The answer was suddenly clear as a bell. “The Wizard.”

  “Why the Wizard?” he asked, his expression quizzical.

  It was my turn to shrug. I dropped my eyes to my plate and picked up my fork. “Because he’s the one person Dorothy believes can give her everything she wants.”

  I felt Gavin’s warm hand slide over mine. He was silent for a moment, and it took everything I had to keep from holding my breath. When he spoke, his voice was low and sincere. “Those are big shoes to fill, but I’d love to try.” His underlying, unspoken words were loud and clear. I lifted my chin and smiled, warmth flooding my body.

  “It’s a date, then.”

  He nodded. “It’s a date.”

  “I swear you two make my heart sing. I remember when Bill looked at me the way you two look at each other,” Pearl said with a sigh, causing Gavin and me to laugh and shift uncomfortably.

  “Who are you kidding, Pearl?” Gavin asked with a grin. “I saw you two mooning over each other five minutes ago.”

  “Mooning?” I giggled. “How old are you again?”

  Gavin’s expression was indignant. “It has nothing to do with age. It’s a southern thing.”

  “Damn straight,” Pearl agreed.

  I rolled my eyes playfully. “Fine.” My phone beeped, and I looked at the screen, seeing a text from Krista asking when I’d be home. I’d forgotten I’d promised we’d watch a movie. “Crap,” I muttered. “I need to get home. I promised Krista we’d hang out.”

  “I’ll grab your check,” Pearl said, stepping away quickly.

  I frowned. “I’m sorry I have to go.” Since my afternoon hanging out with Bat a couple weeks earlier, Gavin and I hadn’t been able to spend much time together. Between football season and preparation for basketball, Gavin had put in a lot of hours at Georgia Tech.

  “It’s okay. I have this weekend off. We’ll have Halloween, and maybe we can have dinner and watch a movie or something at my place.”

  “I’d like that.”

  In front of Lucky’s, Gavin kissed me slow and sweet, the feel of his lips against mine sending flames to the tips of my toes. I stepped into the waiting cab, my knees shaky as the car pulled away from the curb. Images of his smile played on a loop in my mind all the way to my apartment.

  “It’s about time you showed up,” Krista joked when I walked inside.

  “Gavin had a couple hours of free time and wanted to get dinner. I’m sorry, I totally forgot we were supposed to hang out. I haven’t seen much of him lately.”

  Krista rolled her eyes. “It’s completely fine. Anything that makes you look all gooey-eyed and happy is fine by me.”

  “Gooey-eyed?” I shook my head, thinking of Gavin’s word choice earlier. “You and Gavin have so much in common.”

  “Of course we do. We’re both awesome people. Now go change and get your ass back in here. I’ve poured you a glass of wine, and I have a new horror movie ready to play.”

  “Horror? Really? Have you learned nothing?” Every year around Halloween, Krista always got the idea to watch a scary movie, promising she wasn’t going to have nightmares. And every year, I ended up with her huddled against me in my small bed, swearing there was a ghost or a demon or whatever other creature she’d conjured in her head, hiding in her room.

  “This year is going to be different. Just you wait.”

  I pursed my lips, my expression conveying just how full of shit I thought she was. “Sure, it will.” I moved down the hall, ignoring her protest. Flipping on my bedroom light, I gasped at the large painting hanging on the wall. The painting I’d done with Bat. It had been in my room for weeks, and it still caused a feeling of panic and peace when I saw it. I remembered when I’d brought it home, how it had freaked Krista out until I explained it. Even though she understood its meaning, she made sure the door to my room was closed when I wasn’t home. I thought about the movie she had planned for the night and then the image of her creeping into my room, having forgotten about the picture. It would scare the shit out of her. I let out a small laugh and slipped out of my clothes and into my sleep shorts and tank. Tonight might be more comical than I’d thought.

  “How’s Brett?” I asked, sliding under the blanket and pulling the bowl of popcorn between us. Krista handed me a glass of wine and smiled.

  “He’s great. We’re great. I think he might be the one.”

  My heart stuttered in my chest. I’d never heard Krista say that about a guy. �
�Yeah?”

  She nodded. “I almost told him I loved him last night. I haven’t wanted to say those words to someone in so long. It freaked me the fuck out, so I stuck my hand down his pants and my tongue down his throat to stop myself.”

  “You’re ridiculous,” I giggled.

  Krista raised her glass, her face solemn. “No fucking doubt about that.”

  “What’s he doing tonight?”

  She looked away and grabbed the remote. “He’s with Ethan.”

  “Oh?” I tried to keep the surprise out of my voice, but since Ethan had moved out, Krista rarely brought him up. I think a part of her felt guilty for missing him, which was totally unnecessary. Ethan was her cousin, and they had been close their whole lives. I hated the thought of her feeling like she had to choose between us. “Are they doing anything fun, or are they at the gym?”

  “They went to some new bar in Little Five Points.”

  “Oh! I know which one you’re talking about. It’s supposed to have all these cool dart boards and something like fifty beers on tap. Ethan told me about it months ago, said he had to go opening night because of some huge contest they were having. I can’t remember if it was beer drinking or darts, but I’m sure he could win either.” I felt myself smile at the memory of his crazy rambling about the glow-in-the-dark dart boards and his belief that someone would leave that first night with a dart stuck in their arm.

  “Yeah, that’s it,” Krista said, her voice still wary. I sighed.

  “You know you don’t have to act like he doesn’t exist, right? While I was relieved he moved out to give us a little space, I didn’t ask him to do it. He made that decision on his own. I don’t hate Ethan—hell, I don’t even think I’m mad at him anymore. What he did was shitty, but no one is perfect. He doesn’t have to stay away forever. I hope you know that.”

  Krista smiled, and I saw a slight glimmer of tears in her eyes. “I know that. I just can’t believe he would do something like that after everything you’ve been through and how much you’ve fought to get back to feeling like yourself. I love Ethan, but he was a complete douchebag. And I hate that he put me in the position to pick a side. Because he did put me in that position, not you. He did this, and dammit, there is no other side to be on but yours.”