Choices

by Lyn Gardner

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Robin now understood what it felt like to be on death row on that final day. To take that long, silent walk to a room where within its walls is the inescapable. Hearts race, the hammering in chests so rapid it drowns out even the loudest of sounds and ears become useless for the resonance of the world no longer exists. Breathing turns ragged, stuttered inhalations that grow even shorter as the distance is closed between life and fate, and palms sweat as strides shorten, finally ending in a shuffle for the end of the journey had been reached.

  She stood at the doorway leading to her apartment, wondering what words of peace or harmony could bring this nightmare to an end once and for all, but as quickly as that thought entered her mind, Robin pushed it away. A year ago, that would have been her, trying to sooth through whispers of empathy and touches, soft and tender, the eruptions of anger and condemnation brought on by a Machiavellian skilled in the ways of duplicity, but that was then, and this was now. Pam had played Robin like a Stradivarius, but the horsehair of her bow was no longer intact. The strands had been shredded by truth, by a mind and a will that had returned in force, and it was that force which straightened Robin’s shoulders, lengthened her backbone, and lifted her chin. She took the final steps, and filling her lungs with air, Robin rounded the corner leading to the kitchen of her apartment.

  As she knew it would, Robin’s stomach flipped when she saw Pam standing in the living room, but then she noticed the chill in the air, and it was exactly what she needed. It was a reminder of where she was. A reminder of how far she had come in healing herself from the wounds the woman in front of her had so expertly inflicted, and a reminder Robin had nothing to fear from Pam, at least not right now. Right now, Pam was sober.

  Robin knew all the warning signs. The weaving stance, the droopy eyelids, and the crooked sneer, they were like lighthouse beacons signaling danger because drugs and alcohol were the fuel for Pam’s temper. Like gasoline on a fire, they would ignite Pam’s mood until it became an inferno of insanity. Without blinking an eye, everyone and everything would be dragged into the bonfire of her delusions, but without the propellant, Pam could be charming, conversational, and compelling. Of course, she was still a sociopath, and she still had her own agenda, but Robin wasn’t concerned about that. She had seen through Pam’s smokescreen months before.

  Pam’s face melted into a buttery smile as she ambled from the living room into the kitchen. “Hey there, baby. What’s shaking?”

  “You need to leave.”

  Hearing not one ounce of emotion in Robin’s tone, Pam arched an eyebrow. She had expected, at the very least, a slight wavering in Robin’s timbre, her response perhaps whispered, her body language, shielded and nervous. The groundwork Pam had laid out for so many months had always had that effect. It worked every time, and Pam set her jaw. It worked every time.

  “Why would I do that, baby?” Pam said, placing the empty beer bottle on the counter. “I just got here.”

  “Leave, or I’m going to call the police. Your choice.”

  “What are they going to do? Show up on horseback?”

  “I don’t care if they show up on tricycles. The point is they will show up, and you’ll be led away in handcuffs—again.”

  “Don’t threaten me.”

  “It’s a not a threat, Pam,” Robin said, holding her head high. “It’s called a restraining order.”

  “I just want to talk.”

  “You and I have nothing to talk about.”

  Pam cocked her head to the side. Robin’s voice had remained calm and detached, nullifying Pam’s belief this would be easy. She had always looked forward to challenges, and Robin had been a challenge, but once Pam had reached the apex of that mountain, returning to the summit was not in her plan. Running her fingers down the corners of her mouth, Pam sauntered over, opened the refrigerator, and pulled out another beer. “I’m going to get me a drink. You want one?” she said as she twisted off the cap and tossed it on the counter.

  “No.”

  Pam shrugged, taking a long swig of her brew while she sashayed over and opened the door to the spare bedroom. She wasn’t concerned with what the room held, but intrusion was always good for an emotional response, so Pam’s annoyance grew when Robin uttered not one word. Pam brought the bottle to her lips again as she turned and propped herself against the wall. Crossing her legs at the ankles, she smirked. “Aren’t you the least bit curious as to how I found you?”

  “I wasn’t hiding.”

  “No?” Pam said, pausing long enough for another gulp of her drink. “Then why wouldn’t any of your friends tell me where you were?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe they were trying to protect me. If you had any friends of your own, you’d know what I mean.”

  “I have more friends than you can count.”

  “No, Pam, all you have is a bunch of unsuspecting, innocent women you’ve ensnared in your web of grandiose fabrications, bullshit threats, and half-assed attempts at blackmail. If you actually had any real friends, you’d know that friends don’t have to tell their friends what to say and what not to say. It’s one of the most fundamental things about friendships...thus the name.”

  Pam’s eyes became slits. “Don’t talk down to me. I’m not stupid.”

  Guns have triggers, and so do people, and Robin wanted to kick herself because she had just pulled Pam’s. Robin knew the woman was intelligent. She had to be to manipulate and lie so effortlessly, but questioning her brilliance had always made matters worse. Then again, at the moment, it wasn’t Pam’s intelligence Robin was questioning. It was her own.

  One word is all it takes to change the tide, the flow of convictions dissipating with the ebb of regret, and Robin’s mettle washed out to sea in an instant. She was the one who was stupid. She was the idiot who had fallen for all of Pam’s tales of gloom and fables of grandeur. She was the fool who had believed the endless promises of change, and she was the imbecile who had taken Pam back time and time again, freely giving up all Robin had held important until there was almost nothing left...except Pam.

  Deep inside of Robin, a storm began to form as recollections of all that came before swirled together in a sickening stew of bitterness and loathing, yet in an instant, the tide changed again. Her regrets crashed against the shore, bringing with them all the words of hurt and anger she could muster, but Robin knew she had to fight against the strength of that current. The power of words unleashed and uncensored would only prolong this insanity, and it had to stop. It had to stop now. Pam wouldn’t listen. Pam wouldn’t hear. Pam would merely twist whatever Robin said into something bizarre and crazed. Truth would become fiction. Right would become wrong. Up would become down, and Robin no longer wanted to ride on the lunatic fringe of that roller coaster. No, she had to try to curb the velocity of what she wanted to proclaim, temper the sting just enough to get her point across because there were things Robin wanted to say. There were things she needed to say, and brainwashing herself into believing she could hide her contempt with carefully chosen words, Robin decided to say what was on her mind. As far as she was concerned, this was the only chance she’d ever get, and it was much too tempting to pass up.

  “And neither am I, or at least I’m not stupid anymore,” Robin stated, and going to the fridge, she opened it long enough to grab a bottle of water. She spun around as she loosened the cap, and lowering her chin, she looked Pam dead in the eye. “I’ve broken free of you, Pam. I’m free from your Svengali routine. Free from your lies. Free from your intimidations and your screams and your anger because I finally realized you’re nothing special. You’re not the be-all and end-all to every lesbian on the planet. You don’t speak for every woman alive, and you sure as hell aren’t the smartest person on the face of this earth. All you are is a liar and a thief, and...” Robin hesitated. The words were coming far too easily, and like a metaphorical snowball, they were rolling down a hill, gathering more pain, more shame, and more hatred with every syll
able. She told herself to stop. She told herself there was no point in the path she was taking, and setting aside the bottle, Robin fisted her hands and dug her nails into her palms. She hoped the ache could somehow extinguish another and smother the need to give as good as she had gotten, but the snowball had become an avalanche.

  Robin glared at Pam and finished her sentence. “And for shits and giggles, how about I throw in racist, too?”

  “That’s a lie!”

  “Which part? It can’t possibly be the lying part because I have a list a mile long of all the ones you told, and there’s no doubt in my mind you broke into Declan’s—”

  “I am not a racist.”

  “Really?” Robin said, folding her arms. “Really, Pam? Do all those bosom buddies of yours know how you talk about black athletes, calling them boys and believing they’re superior at sports simply because of their skin color? Or better yet, how about this? Have you ever dropped the N-word in front of them like you did in front of me?”

  “It’s just the way I was raised, and after you told me how you felt about it, I stopped using it.”

  Robin dropped her hands to her side and fisted them again. “Jesus Christ, do you hear yourself? Are you that stupid that I actually had to bring it to your attention?”

  “Do not call me stupid!” Pam growled as the tendons in her neck grew taut.

  Robin flinched. She had just stooped to Pam’s level, and that wasn’t who she was. Drawing in a slow breath, as she exhaled, Robin regained a modicum of control. “You’re right. I apologize,” she said, holding up your hands. “Name calling is your M. O., not mine. Mine’s always been the truth, so how about I just stick to that, not that you'd know anything about truth.”

  “I told you the truth about everything,” Pam said through clenched teeth.

  “You wouldn’t know the truth if it came up and slapped you in the face, Pam,” Robin said, her tone rising slightly. “You lied about jobs you never had. You lied about an education you never received. You lied about never taking drugs. You lied about rarely drinking. Christ, you even lied about how you chipped your fucking tooth.”

  Pam ran her tongue over the tiny notch in her front tooth. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “The first night we met you pointed it out. Do you remember? You said you’d been mugged a few days before, and I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. I piled on the sympathy to this stranger with her woeful story, but it was all make-believe, and since in your eyes, sympathy is a weakness, I became your prey.”

  “It wasn’t a—”

  “Yes, it was!” Robin shouted. “Pam, think back to the night when we were talking about family. You went on and on about your sisters and how they had never amounted to anything. You even handed me your phone, and as I was looking at their photos, you kept rambling on, picking apart their looks, their clothes, their everything. Do me a favor, Pam? Open your phone. Scroll to the one taken with your family a few years ago. Zoom in on it. Look at your face. Look at your smile. Look at the fucking chip in your tooth and tell me again how you were mugged.”

  Pam’s nostrils flared, her cheeks turning crimson as she glared back at Robin.

  “What? Did you really think I didn’t notice?” Robin said, rocking back in her stance. “I did, and for the life of me, I don’t know why I didn’t call you on it that night. Then again, I was fighting my own demons back then, but I’m not fighting them anymore, Pamela.” Robin paused long enough to pick up her water and take a drink. “Now get out. I’ve said my piece.”

  “What about my piece?” Pam said, pushing herself off the wall and standing straight. “What about all the bullshit you put me through?”

  “What, in God’s name, did I put you through?”

  “Everywhere I looked in your house was Declan!” Pam said, slamming her hand against the wall. “His books were all over the place and don’t even get me started on all the fucking photographs! School pictures on one wall, party pictures on another, pictures of you and Declan, pictures of Gabby and Declan, pictures of your mother and Declan. Jesus Christ, it went on and on.”

  “He’s my best friend, Pam.”

  “He’s also the man you fucked!”

  Robin shook her head. “You just can’t let that go, can you?”

  “It’s true.”

  “Yes, it is, and I’m not ashamed of it. I never was ashamed of it. It happened. Not all of us are gold stars, Pam, but that doesn’t make me any less of a lesbian than you are, and it sure as hell had nothing to do with what happened between you and me.”

  Pam lowered her chin as she considered her next move. “I’m not so sure about that.”

  Robin grinned. “Nice try, but that shit doesn’t work on me anymore.”

  “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Of course you do, Pamela,” Robin said with a sigh. “Just like always, you’re laying on the guilt, trying to make everything my fault so you can convince me that somehow it was the things I did or didn’t do that were the problem.”

  “They were!”

  “No, they weren’t,” Robin shouted. “You have lived your entire life piling one excuse on top of another. You always blame everything on everyone else. It’s never your fault, Pam, because if it were, if one flipping thing were your fault, you’d have to admit you weren’t perfect...and that would eat you alive.”

  “If you had been through what I’ve been through to get where I am—”

  “Oh, here we go,” Robin said, looking up at the ceiling. “This is the part where you moan about your life. Right? How you’ve always been misunderstood. How you were never treated the same as your sisters. How you were never given the breaks you deserved.”

  “I wasn’t. I had to fight and claw my way—”

  “Don’t you mean lie and bully?” Robin said, placing her hands on her hips. “Because that’s what you are, just a schoolyard bully who’s gotten away with this kind of crap for way too long. Well, not anymore, Pam. Not with me. Now, for the last flipping time, get out of my house!”

  Pam glared at Robin as she brought the bottle to her lips again, and she drained the rest of the beer in an instant. It felt good going down, cold and hoppy and her system welcomed its arrival. The drive to Michigan had been long and for the most part dry, and as Pam thought about that, the muscles in her neck began to strain against her skin.

  Because of Robin, for the past four days, Pam had been forced to drive sober, and because of Robin, for the past four days, Pam had been forced to watch how much blow she snorted. And now, after four fucking days and traveling over a thousand fucking miles, Robin had the audacity to believe she could just dismiss her? Send her on the way with a wave her hand? Pam clenched her teeth as she prepared to launch a torrent of insults and threats, but suddenly her posture relaxed. Her eyes darted around the room, and a knowing smile slithered its way across her face. Bingo.

  “That’s right,” Pam said, placing the empty bottle on the island as she scanned the kitchen. “The bitch who answered the door said this was your place. What did you do? Finally figure out you write like shit and decided to become a landlord instead?”

  “She is not a bitch!”

  Pam sniggered. “Well, now. It looks like I just hit a sore spot. I didn’t know you were into antiques? Does she creak when you fuck her?”

  Robin’s entire body went rigid. She wanted to rant. She wanted to scream. She wanted to cram every word of what she wanted to say down Pam’s throat because there was so much more to say, but Robin couldn’t. She knew it was pointless. She knew this would never end unless she regained control of her emotions. Robin took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m not doing this, Pam. Not anymore. Now, just get out and leave me alone.”

  Pam hid her glee. Alcohol and drugs weren’t her only addictions, and Robin had been feeding the last for several minutes. Attention, whether it is good or bad, is what egomaniacs crave the most. As long as they’re receiving it, the world is s
till revolving around them, as it should, and Pam wasn’t done gorging. Robin’s face was becoming mottled, stained by the simmering blood flowing through her veins, and she had clenched and unclenched her fists a half-dozen times in the past few seconds. Robin was now perched on the crumbling edge of a precipice, and Pam sucked in her cheeks. This was the most fun she’d had in weeks. God, how she had missed being the center of someone’s universe.

  “What’s a place like this worth, anyway?” Pam said as she swaggered over and scoped out the living room. “I could use some money, and by the looks of it, you still have plenty.”

  Robin’s shoulders slumped under the weight of Pam’s tenaciousness. “It’ll be a cold day in hell before I give you another dime.”

  “Speaking of cold, did you bite off more than you can chew, baby?” Pam said, and widening her stance, she looked down her nose at Robin. “Feels like you can’t afford to pay the heating bill.”

  Robin unconsciously glanced around the room. Focused on having to deal with Pam, she had forgotten all about Isobel. She filled her lungs with the frigid air, and even though breath could not yet be seen, Robin knew if Isobel got any angrier, frost would begin to form. Robin looked back at Pam. It was impossible to miss the superiority oozing from every pore the woman owned, and Robin’s blood pressure began to rise. Her only thought? Let it snow.

  “Do not call me baby,” Robin said through clenched teeth. “And what I can and can’t afford is none of your business, and it hasn’t been since the day you hit me.”

  “I never laid a hand on you!”

  “Oh, and I suppose you didn’t kick me or try to shove me over the sofa either?”

  “That’s a goddamned lie!” Pam yelled, taking a step closer to Robin. “I’ve never hit a woman, and I never will.”

  “Now who’s lying?

  “I never fucking hit you!”

  “And how, exactly, would you know that, Pam? You were blitzed out of your mind on drugs and whiskey. The only reason you know anything about that night is because you called Gabby, wailing and pleading to find out what you’d done because you didn’t remember one fucking thing when you woke up in jail the next morning. But I’ll have to hand it to you, Pam, because even in that state, even when you didn’t know shit, you continued to play your game. You called the one person you knew you could still manipulate, and you did, and Gabby told you what she knew, but she didn’t know everything, Pamela. Gabby didn’t know about you threatening to knock my teeth through the back of my head. She didn’t know about you promising to take a baseball bat to Declan’s skull, and speaking of Declan, Gabby sure as hell didn’t know that you, the out and proud gold star lesbian, tried to kiss him!”