The wind ruffled her hair. She shivered at the chill. “So it was just something to do. Unfinished business.”
“That’s one way of looking at it,” he said. “Another is that I did it because I’ve always loved you.”
“Oh.” Her shoulders clenched a little. “Is that real, or another opposite?”
“The real deal. I’m sorry I hurt you, Beth. I am.”
On the day she told him she was leaving the mental hospital to enter the foster care system, the pain had been overwhelming. They’d cried and hugged and promised they’d find each other on the other side, that they’d be together forever.
Then the day arrived. When she came to say goodbye, he pretended she’d already left and wasn’t there. She’d begged and screamed for him to say something, anything. He’d stared at the TV until she was gone.
Simple as that, he shattered her heart.
Silence could be cruel.
Beth shrugged, but she still wouldn’t look at him. “It’s in the past.”
“I wasn’t trying to hurt you. I was using you to hurt me. I know that doesn’t make it any better. It probably makes it worse. I just wanted you to know.”
He’d preferred the pain, the ache of longing for something he couldn’t have and therefore could never risk losing. An end in itself.
The Devil killed with comfort.
Beth turned to him, the glisten of tears on her cheeks. “I understand.”
“Your turn,” Deacon said. “Why did you kiss me back?”
“I’d just buried my childhood best friend, and I wanted to break something.”
He smiled. “I understand too.” All too well.
She wiped her eyes. “I might as well tell you that I never stopped loving you either.”
“Even after what I did?”
“I still love you, but I can’t figure out if it’s you, or just a memory.”
“We are our memories,” Deacon said.
They made Beth real amid so much illusion.
He leaned in to kiss her again, this time for all the right reasons.
16
LOSE
The sex was incredible.
For Beth, sex had always been about scratching an itch, only to make it worse.
Tonight, the itch disappeared as if it never existed.
Deacon’s pace quickened.
She raised her hips to push back against every thrust.
Oxytocin and endorphins, bonding and reward chemicals. The prefrontal cortex, insula, cingulate gyrus, and cerebellum lighting up with increased blood flow. The brain entering a trance state.
The whole so much bigger than the sum of these chemical parts.
Her mind flashed to Sunday worship in the Temple. The Spirit passing through her like electric current, leaving her raving and dancing.
Then her ego voided to the timeless place found in the singularity of a gunshot, what the Buddhists called Nirvana.
After the third time, Beth lay sweating on her bed sheets, stretching to bask in the post-orgasm glow. Her digital clock told her dawn would arrive soon.
Deacon panted next to her in the dark. “Wow, lady.”
“Amen,” she purred.
Many of her patients came to her with delusions stemming from love. Jealousy, rationalization, shame, excusing abuse. It was enough to make Beth wonder why the human race bothered with it.
At last, she understood what the fuss was all about.
For all these years, Beth had been missing out, making love to placeholders. She’d had few sexual partners because she’d never been truly able to let go. She imagined Deacon had had many, because to him the act had been meaningless.
Love, it turned out, made all the difference.
He said, “You’re still wearing it.”
“Wearing what?”
“The necklace I gave you.”
Beth fingered the little cross looped around her throat, which she’d worn for the past fifteen years. “It reminds me that there are some good, even wonderful, things I want to remember.”
Right now, however, it made her think of the Wardites. The necklace, it turned out, had once belonged to a woman whose devotion to God had brought her to die at Red Peak more than a century before Deacon found it. Beth imagined a beautiful woman in a simple dress, hungry for food and God, taking it off and placing it in its box before ascending the mountain to die.
In all the years since, everything had changed except what made people tick.
“I can’t believe you were here this whole time,” he said. “I’m stupid.”
“I told you I can’t save you.”
“No,” he said. “But I’m thinking love could.”
“The only thing that can save you is you. Take it from a shrink.”
Deacon smiled. “That sounds like too much responsibility.”
She shook with one of her belly laughs and drifted off to sleep.
Beth awoke the next morning more refreshed than she’d felt in years.
You got laid, her inner voice said. Congratulations. You’re a person.
She sat up and stretched. “Shut up, mini-me.”
Deacon was gone. Fifteen years in the making, their renewed connection made her feel reborn. At the same time, she was relieved to have her condo back. He trailed chaos wherever he went, oblivious to it.
The clock told her she didn’t have time for her morning jog, but she didn’t need one today.
Beth bounded out of bed to shower. Under the hot spray, she flashed to Deacon’s sweaty arms. The mysterious tattoos covering his flesh like an instruction manual for a man chased by demons.
While she poured coffee, she remembered that electric kiss on the pier. As she spread creamy peanut butter on her toast, she pictured him licking her thighs.
Beth got into her Mercedes whistling a joyful tune, thinking maybe Deacon was right, that love was a catalyst for cognitive change. A different higher power to believe in, one that could empower her to take ultimate charge of her scarred brain.
You’re still just the product of programming. You have no more real control of your life than you did yesterday, possibly less.
Sigmund Freud said humans were slaves to their subconscious conflicts. B. F. Skinner believed outside influences dominated behavior. Since then, scientists found genetics to be a major determinant in how people react. Some of them discovered brain activity increased before the conscious mind made a decision, suggesting the brain decided what to do an instant before its owner was aware that a decision was made.
In other words, maybe humans didn’t have free will. Adam and Eve had no choice but to eat the apple and curse their race forever. Beth’s parents could only choose to follow Jeremiah Peale into the desert and the grave. And Beth, the sum of genes and chemicals and experience, had no real control over her life, from Deacon breaking her heart to tumbling into bed with her a decade and a half later.
“That just means we’re destined to be together,” she murmured as she reached the building where she rented office space. She parked in the garage.
You could be destined to get hurt again.
“I can’t fight fate, right? The decision’s apparently already been made for me.”
You remember what he did—
“God, there is no shutting you up, is there?”
Any other time, replying aloud startled her critic and made it recede back into the calm murmur of inner dialogue, but today was special, likely the result of her not getting enough sleep. To her relief, the voice at last shut up when she reached her office and settled at her desk.
She checked for cancellations and requests to reschedule, reviewed her bills, and spent a half hour on the phone fighting with an insurance company. This out of the way, she prepared for the day’s one-hour sessions in her meeting room with its soft leather furniture, coffee table with a tissue box, healing-themed paintings on the walls, and gentle lighting from several floor lamps.
Gabe and Sara arrived on time to talk about
their sixteen-year-old son, Jake, who ignored his parents, didn’t care about school, and smoked pot every day. Beth worked with them to make sure they stood united in setting consistent boundaries and otherwise being predictable and firm in their parenting. After the meeting, she wrote up her notes on progress and next steps.
Janice arrived next to continue intervention therapy to treat her panic attacks, which had become so severe she thought she was having a heart attack. Beth had referred her to get a prescription for Zoloft, and they talked about how that was going before continuing their cognitive behavioral therapy, which involved identifying and altering the thought patterns that triggered fight-or-flight reactions.
Her third appointment was an assessment for Will, a new patient worn out by anxiety, which Beth traced to a series of childhood traumas. They agreed on a treatment plan and that they would meet again next week.
In all, it was a perfect morning in which everything went just right. People arrived, and they talked. She listened, and she talked. The air filled with words. Memories, feelings, desires, failures, and beliefs, all articulated, packaged, analyzed. Breakthroughs in understanding. The joy of realization and catharsis.
Over lunch, Beth caught up on her reading list and emails while thinking about going to Red Peak to again confront her own childhood, this time at the source. She pictured it as a romantic journey. She could drive down to Deacon’s show in a few days. She hated rock concerts, which were too loud and unpredictable for her, but it would be fun to surprise him and hear him sing. Even the idea tickled her.
The afternoon didn’t go as smoothly as her morning.
Beth had awoken flush with the love chemicals, oxytocin and dopamine, but these natural drugs were wearing off, and now her serotonin was dropping, elevating her anxiety.
This is your brain on love, she thought.
A different behavioral program.
The old itch had been replaced by another. The need to connect with Deacon. She dialed his cell and listened to it ring. When the phone went to voicemail, she terminated the call and tried again, and again.
Most nights, Beth stayed in to open a bottle of Cabernet and work, catch a movie over a bowl of popcorn, or both. She was used to being her own best friend, but tonight she felt alone in her condo. While the corn popped in the microwave, she stared at the spot on the gleaming counter where she’d wiped Deacon’s coffee ring and wished it would reappear so she could wipe it again.
For the next few days, she’d tried many times to reach him, but he never answered, nor responded to her voicemails and texts. She’d played it cool at first, then gave in to worry.
Did something happen to you? Call me.
Her patience soon wore off, and she found herself leaving angry messages culminating in a cutting rant.
You think you’re this boy who never grew up because his childhood was stolen, but I knew that kid. You’re just a typical selfish man.
The next voicemail: You blew it with the one woman who knew you. I’m done with you. Never call me again.
And then the next: I’m sorry about my last messages, I was upset. Can we at least talk about this?
Beth was turning into the person she advised her clients not to be. She’d always had a hard time letting things go. She also hated the silent treatment, which was eating her from the inside out.
Tonight, Deacon’s band was playing at Utopia. Cats Are Sad. He’d told her they’d named the band that because cats were independent creatures who didn’t give a shit about anything, but nonetheless suffered from loneliness and existential despair. He’d be unreachable for the whole night, she knew.
The perfect time to shake him off. She wasn’t a program, she was a woman armed with free will and a decade of self-actualization. To hell with mourning. She’d celebrate dodging a bus packed with chaos.
After a brief inspection of her wines, she selected her best, a 2007 Cabernet, a collectible. She removed the cork as the microwave dinged, and botched it. The screw ravaged the cork, which crumbled onto her counter.
Beth gritted her teeth at her handiwork. “Goddamn it.”
No. She had this. She scraped out the loose bits and pushed the rest into the bottle, pausing to allow the bottle to breathe and herself with it. Positioning a coffee filter over her glass, she poured out a generous quantity and sipped.
Perfect.
She filled a large bowl with the hot popcorn and went to her living room to settle on the couch in front of the TV. A quick breathing exercise purged the last of her negativity.
Her cell rang.
The bowl in her lap slid and toppled to the floor as she lunged for the phone. Popcorn tumbled across her area rug. Under the coffee table, under the couch. Her condo seemed covered in it.
“Goddamn it!” She answered. “Is this you, finally?”
“It is me,” the voice said, “but probably not who you expected.”
“James?” Dr. James Chambliss, still wanting inside her head.
“Is this not a good time?”
“James, listen—”
“We should finish what we started all those years ago. I can help you.”
Beth gazed at the mess in despair. “I don’t need to screw around with my head anymore.”
He went silent, though she knew what he was thinking. He’d been the one to see her back to her room after the Fab party. Her head was already good and screwed.
“Our hypnosis work back in 2012 brought you to the brink of uncovering a major traumatic memory you’d repressed,” he said. “Whatever you’d taken at the party almost brought it back. I can help you reach it, under safe conditions.”
“I don’t need to do anything, James.”
“Don’t you want to know what happened?”
“Everything in my life is perfect.”
Another pause. Again, she could guess what he was thinking.
He said, “There’s been a lot of innovation in the field since—”
Beth ended the call, shaking.
She couldn’t stand this mess another second. As she got onto her knees to scoop up the popcorn, her arm jolted the coffee table. The wineglass rocked.
“Shit!” She made to grab it and instead shoved it across the table to thud on the rug. A full glass of collectible Cabernet went flying with it.
Beth seized a throw pillow from her couch and screamed into it until she was gnawing on velvet. Tossing it aside, she stormed into the kitchen and returned with paper towels. She’d start over. She had this. Scoop the popcorn back into the bowl. Mop the wine. Roll the rug for the cleaners, or better yet, throw it away and call it a symbolic gesture of renewal. Refill her glass.
James actually could help if you—
“No,” she grated. “Just no.”
Beth started walking toward her front door. The spill could wait. She had a much bigger mess to clean up first. A giant coffee ring around her life that needed wiping until not a single trace of it remained.
Beth loathed rock concerts. Uniforms, groupthink, phony onstage antics, and a deafening wall of sound, all designed to produce euphoria that for the Family had been effortless thanks to loving worship and the boundless Spirit.
Utopia was packed to standing room only. The mood wild and cheerful and dangerous, somewhere between brotherhood and a riot. They’d all come to see the boy who survived the legendary final night. The kid who grew up in a cult that forced its members to mutilate themselves.
They wanted to hear him sing.
The stage stood empty under dimmed projector lights. The instruments awaited their players.
Petite and still wearing her suit jacket and skirt from work, Beth drew stares as she threaded the crowd with a plastic cup full of cheap red, searching for a decent sightline. Black T-shirts declared band names like ads for taste.
The DJ played trip hop to warm everyone up.
Beth found a spot near an emergency exit where she could put her back against the wall. The red was a little vinegary, but she drained it an
yway.
The patrons cheered as the stage lights flared. Scowling with cool, the band walked out and got ready with their instruments.
Then Deacon wandered out and stood blinking at the microphone like a kid at a spelling bee asked to spell Mississippi backward. He broke into a grin.
He said, “If God is everything, he is also the Devil. The Adversary. The Accuser.”
The crowd loved it.
Cats Are Sad launched into a heavy, pounding rhythm, and Deacon spread his arms like Christ and started to howl as the lights burned even brighter. It seemed to rise out of him like a soul departing a body still alive. Beth winced as the sound waves struck her ears at eleven hundred feet per second.
The Goth girl in front of her screamed and raised her fists. “Fucking yeah!”
The impressive freak-out rolled into “Shadow Boxer,” which Beth recognized from YouTube, the song that inspired a suicide and resulting storm.
Standing on the extended stage surrounded by people raising cell phones, Deacon sang with his head bowed. The skinny guitarist with dyed blond pigtails stared at her Converse high-tops, stomping effects pedals. The Rob Zombie look-alike drummer grinned as he savaged his skins. The weathered bassist and buxom keyboardist exchanged a private smile before returning their cool gazes to the audience.
The next songs arrived, one following the other like irresistible waves, each an ethereal, dreamlike mixture of searing lyrics and plaintive guitar distortion. The listeners settled into a trance state until Deacon paused to talk to them.
“I’m guessing most of you know by now where I grew up, and who I grew up with,” he said into the microphone. “Do you want to hear about the mass suicide? The body parts on the altar? The missing bodies?”
The crowd rustled in anticipation.
Deacon smiled. “The fact you do is why Jeremiah founded the Family in the first place. I’m going to tell you a different story tonight. Before the Family went crazy, they were good people. My mother. The best friends I ever had. The one woman in my life I ever loved. You want to hear something else?”
The room remained silent.
He said, “What happened hurt so much, and hurts right now, because I was happy. You only know how much you have after somebody takes it from you. After it’s all stripped away, the only thing you have left is life itself.”
The Children of Red Peak Page 21
