Cowboy Villain Damsel Duel

by Ginger Scott

  A year. We’ve been together for a year. I remember.

  “Remember me, Dom. Baby, please . . . remember.” I utter these pleas against her lips, knowing that at any moment, the light could yank me back.

  29

  Cowboy

  (Kellen)

  I need to learn to walk again.

  She called it some long name that I will never remember.

  “Coup-Contrecoup,” she repeats for my dad. He’s checking it against notes he has in a spiral notebook that he probably got at the Target down the road. He’s been to that Target nine times since I’ve been awake. His clothes are from that Target.

  Dr. Esher has been in here for twenty minutes explaining my situation to me in her incredibly gentle voice. I realize this is long for a hospital check-in from a doctor. I must be special. Someone else is probably waiting for her to show up and deliver news about their progress with a Coupe de Ville, or whatever she called it.

  Someone else. Dominica.

  “I dreamt you,” I say, finally letting the words break free. I’ve been staring at her face with such intensity this entire time that I feel I need to give an explanation.

  “Oh,” she says, stopping in the middle of her notes. She flattens the pen to my chart, folding her hands over it and crossing her legs to balance it on her knee. She leans forward to hear more. The gesture makes me laugh a little, which hurts my ribs.

  “What’s funny?” Her smile is the same.

  “Just . . . everything you just did there. It’s so . . . you.” My dad drags his chair in closer, leaning forward and looking concerned. I know, I sound crazy. His eyes nervously bounce between me and the doc.

  “It’s fine. Normal,” she says, assuring him with her hand out to nearly touch his arm. He relaxes back into his seat, but he’s perked up ready to leap in with hover-parent concern. It’s nice. I wonder if he and I are as close as I think we are. I wonder if all of that will come back to me, eventually. After the coupe thing.

  Things are coming back. I think if my arm weren’t stiff as a rail in a cast I would be able to feed myself. I’m definitely right-handed; holding the fork with my left hand is . . . entertaining.

  “I think we can probably talk about why you’re here.” She glances to my father, Jim. I had a feeling he was more nervous about it than the medical staff.

  “I wasn’t sure,” he admits. She reaches him fully this time with a reassuring touch to his forearm. I smile, or at least I think I’m smiling, because this action is so her, too.

  “You were in a pretty bad crash, Kellen. Do you remember driving the truck on Interstate 80 through Iowa?”

  I look away from her and work to picture it, but I don’t. I shake my head. “I wouldn’t even be able to tell you what the truck looks like.”

  Her mouth draws in tight as she nods. She moves her hand to my good arm, repeating the same reassuring gesture she did for my dad—for Jim. Jim is my dad.

  “It will come.” She seems confident, which makes me less anxious about this weird gap in my brain. I filled the space with make-believe.

  “You were driving alone. It was early in the morning, the police said. Maybe two or three. And there was ice.” She pauses to let me digest, and I try to remember the scene.

  “I’ve driven on ice before.” I don’t have a clear image of this in my head, but it’s something I just sorta know. I curl my fingers, both my good hand and the one hindered by a cast, and shut my eyes to envision the look of the steering wheel in my hands. There’s a gliding sensation, like the vehicle is on blades, or floating in water without a rudder.

  “You have,” Dr. Esher says. I open my eyes and they land on her encouraging smile.

  She’s patient while I soak in this important memory. She labels it a “foundation memory.” I’ll start to have more of those, and then fuzzy pictures will become clear.

  “Is that where the crash happened? On 80?” I don’t remember, just assume. She nods.

  “It is. There was another vehicle headed east. You were going west. The ice made it impossible to control the car.” She waits for my brain to catch up.

  I can almost grasp the moment, as if I see fringes of it but they unravel before the entirety comes into view. There was spinning. There was massive impact.

  “A car flipped.” I get that one piece. I think the car was silver, or maybe black. Or white. It flipped for certain. The sound replays, the crunch of metal on an icy highway, the creak of the frame while the car rocks on its side but never fully rights itself.

  The girl in the road.

  I suck in my bottom lip, and I’m not aware that I’m crying until Dr. Esher tells me so. My dad is at my side with his hand flat on my shoulder.

  “We’ll get there, Kellen. I promise,” Dr. Esher says. She moves to my other side and holds her hand opposite my father’s. He sniffles, so I don’t bother to look at him; I let him cry in privacy. “Today’s mission is just getting started. In about an hour, Nurse Pam will come by and help you sit up and stand. If you feel like it, maybe a few steps away from the bed then back again. But only if you feel like it. I won’t push until you need the push.”

  “I’d like to walk more,” I insist.

  Her tight smile is accompanied by a short breath. She rests her hand on me and pats a few times, then clicks her pen to recoil the ink.

  “I knew you would,” she says. “Baby steps though, okay? Baby steps.”

  I nod, but in the back of my mind I lock on to the idea that I’m going to leave this room before the end of the day. I’m going to walk by tonight, and I’m going to see what’s outside this room.

  30

  Damsel

  “What happened? Where did you go?” He’s clinging to me, and shivering. His body isn’t even cold, so it must be some kind of shock.

  I waited at that door, calling to him through the thick blanket of snow. I could barely see his form, but from what I could see, he was standing perfectly still. His body didn’t rock, his feet dug in. He was silent, almost as if he were asleep while standing there as the blizzard of the century descends upon us.

  I open my coat and hug him close, our bodies entangled while I sit straddling him on the floor, my legs wrapped around his body, his legs stretched under and around me. His heart pounds through the muscles of his back. I urge him to tuck his hands under my coat, to hold me close and feel my heat as I rub his back forcefully.

  “Remember me, please.” He keeps uttering the same request through ragged sobs. I’m not sure what happened, what snapped from the time I crawled through the window and moved to the door. He was out of my reach for a minute, maybe less.

  “I’m here. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay,” I say, not believing any of it. I don’t even know if this is real.

  His hands grip at my shirt under my coat, and his head shifts so our noses touch. His lips vibrate with his attempts to calm his breath. I fall into the same pattern, drawing in deep and slow breaths with him, holding the air together and then releasing. The tip of his nose is cold against my cheek. Maybe he’s experiencing some type of hypothermia.

  “You were right,” he says, finally able to speak clearly, a sense of urgency to his words put the panic in check.

  “Okay,” I say, nodding. I’m not sure which part he means, or how right I am.

  “Here . . . isn’t anything. This isn’t us. It’s our dream. It’s all our dream. Morpheus, the school, this warehouse, my lips on your cheek.” He stops speaking to gently press his mouth to me and hold it still, right by my ear.

  “Is this about Gia?” I haven’t been able to stop thinking about seeing her. There’s more to her being at the hospital. I know it in my gut.

  His shoulders rise under my touch, and his head shakes slightly as he pulls me somehow closer. It’s as though he’s clinging to me, afraid something will rip me from his grasp without warning. That thought gives me chills.

  “It’s more,” he says. I don’t understand, so I wait.

  Several
minutes pass of nothing but us embracing, his breath growing deeper with each inhale, his chest slowing but remaining fixed against mine. His right hand finally leaves the warm confines of my coat and he rocks back to look me in the eye while he runs his fingers through my hair in slow, methodical movements.

  “I’m going to have to go, Dom. I’m going to leave soon. I don’t want to, not without you, but I can feel it. I’m going to leave, and you . . .” He pauses to let a haggard breath escape his lips. “You’ll be here all alone.”

  He slowly shakes his head, and I study his eyes for more, for the things he isn’t saying.

  “Where are you going?” I ask.

  “They’re saving me.” That simple phrase chills me to the bone.

  “Is this the rapture? Am I being sacrificed? Are we all high and in rehab? I don’t understand. Tell me!” I shake him, holding his sides. “Just tell me, Justin!”

  Everything stops. I freeze with my mouth open, ready to yell more words, to force him to make me understand, when I realize I said his name. Justin. His name is Justin.

  Nausea moves in quickly and I push away from him; get on my hands and knees so I can heave at the ground. He’s next to me in a flash, his hand rubbing my back while he whispers that it’ll be okay. I can tell by the sound of his voice that he’s unsure.

  I squeeze my eyes closed while he tries to fend off my fears. He can’t because not even I totally know them. But I know they’re there, and I know he’s right. He’s going to leave me soon. I can feel it in the way I’m so cold and he’s growing so very warm.

  “Come with me,” he says, threading our hands together and lifting me to my feet. He pulls gently, guiding me back to the door. A siren blares in the distance and I halt, stiffening on instinct.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he says, turning to walk backward. He tips up my chin and holds his fingertips there, keeping our eyes locked on one another.

  “Nothing here is real. You were right. Cowboy . . . Kellen . . .” He laughs a bit, as if he’s caught some form of madness. Meanwhile, every step I take drives a stake of terror deeper in my chest and I am more certain that we’re all mad. And broken.

  And forever altered.

  He’s right about the siren. It fades the longer we walk through the alleyway, stopping by the river where the walkway turns into a series of huge, concrete steps. He helps me down the steeper ones by holding my hips, and when we’re near the shoreline, he crouches down and tugs me to kneel next to him.

  “Tell me how it feels,” he says, leaning slightly to the side to trail his fingers through the icy cold blue. Flakes of snow land on the river’s surface, almost forming a crystal-like film. It’s beautiful, like a good dream. The white breaks apart the moment he touches it.

  “Go on,” he urges.

  I push up the sleeve of my coat and lean forward, breaking the surface lightly at first, slowly submerging my hand. The freezing burn practically stabs at my joints, cutting through the thin skin of my hand. When I start to pull away, he reaches down to hold my hand in along with his.

  My eyes flit to his waiting smile, so faint and a bit melancholy.

  “It’s warm,” he says, as if he’s putting me in a trance to believe it to be fact.

  “It’s warm,” I repeat in a whisper. My teeth chatter, and his hopeful expression slips away.

  “No?” he asks, eyes painfully drawn in. I’m breaking his heart. He’s breaking mine.

  I shake my head. He pulls my hand from the water and cups it in his own palms, blowing warm air between his hands and rubbing my raw skin. I think the freeze burned me a little.

  “It . . . was warm for you?” I ask, knowing in my gut that it was. Life is warm; death is cold. He keeps rubbing my hands, ignoring the question as long as he can until he glances up to meet my expectant eyes. He nods softly, admitting that he and I are on different paths.

  “What did you mean when you said they were going to save you?” My mouth waters at the various implications. If he’s being saved, then I think maybe I’m not. Why wouldn’t I be spared? What have I done that is so terrible?

  Again, he doesn’t answer, instead pulling at my hand and holding it firmly until I follow his steps along the river. We get to a new row of buildings, a spot familiar to me, and he steps through another alleyway, this one lit with lights that stretch between the rows of windows a story up from where we stand. It’s a bit magical like this. I didn’t get to enjoy this view the last time I was here. I was busy looking for Gustavio.

  “Is that why? Because of what I did here? In this diner?” My eyes beg him to excuse my sins, as if he has power to do that. Instead, his mouth falls into an amused smile and he shakes his head.

  “No, I told you . . . nothing here matters. That’s why I can be King. This is the only place I have all the power I want. There aren’t rules here, only . . . lessons, maybe? Maybe that’s why we feel we have dreams. Or maybe it’s all just shit in our heads, broken nerves misfiring into pictures.” He shrugs as he spills out some weird psychology bullshit that sounds more like something I would say.

  “I thought you were a drug dealer?” It comes out like a cruel attack on his character, which I suppose it is, but what is he if he’s not the backstory he’s been living over here?

  “I am,” he concedes. He circles his head and rolls his eyes, indicating something vast and huge. “Everywhere. I deal in every life I’ve got.” He almost adds to his words, but stops to study my face, tongue held between his teeth as he looks deep into my eyes for something—maybe permission to tell me the very worst.

  Bright splashes of color catch my eye just over his shoulder. I let them pull me forward, out of the safety of the alleyway and into the wide open storefront. There isn’t a car on the street, or a soul eating in the diner, despite how open and bright it is. It’s like this because he and I make it so. We want a place to hide, to spend time together—alone.

  “I’ve never seen this before,” I say, pointing to the brick wall across the street. It’s a vibrant mix of swirls that form an enormous body of a pregnant woman, her child inside represented by dozens of images—fish, earth, cars, money, stars, smoke . . . fame. Some of the things are alluded to, but they speak to me, as does the expression on the woman’s face. She’s torn, unsure what she wants for her child, and maybe a little for herself.

  I turn back into Justin’s chest, my hand landing on his heart. The color temporarily puts a smile on both of our faces.

  “I know the man who painted that,” he says. I’m instantly jealous because I want to know people like that, too. I wonder if I’ll ever meet the man, or if this mural is real at all. Maybe I made it up, which would make it born from my imagination. That thought is soothing. I turn back to stare at it, resting my shoulders against his chest. He wraps his arms around me and sets his chin on my shoulder.

  “Why do you sell drugs . . . everywhere?” I ask.

  His body rocks while he considers my question.

  “Because it’s all I know. My parents are drug addicts. They’re the same people in every version of my life. I can’t get away from them, like maybe . . . maybe I can’t get away from who I really am. What’s funnier, though, is I remembered something else.”

  “Yeah?” I press on, even though what he just told me breaks my heart for him. Trapped is a terrible existence.

  “They don’t call me Cowboy, but I do play. I’m good, too. A receiver. And you—”

  “I’m your biggest fan,” I fill in. I don’t turn to look him in the eye because I’m so afraid I’ll lose this feeling, this thread I’ve managed to grab. “You and I . . .” I swallow, his warmth suddenly even more important than it was before—as if I need it.

  “My parents don’t care that I have talent and could go somewhere with it. They care about getting high, and having me around to steal from when they run short. And your family is so big and so wonderful, and your father absolutely hates me. I’m ruining your life, encouraging you to make all the wrong choices. I
’m—”

  “A no-good criminal with no future before him who will destroy everything I’ve worked so hard for.” I say the words for him, in my mind hearing them come from my father’s mouth. He said those words for real. He meant them. And I told Justin everything.

  That’s why we ran away.

  I begged him to take me with him, to never look back.

  His name is Justin Hawthorne. I love him.

  31

  Villain

  (Justin)

  She’ll blame herself. Or she will . . . if she ever wakes up.

  The funny thing about doom and being a habitual pessimist: you don’t see bright sides, even if they’re there. The only scenarios I see are she is either gone like a faded memory in the dust or awake and resentful and lost to guilt that makes it impossible for her to look at me.

  Either way, she’s gone.

  If she could talk to me right now, she’d give a third option. She’d say that sometimes life just happens, and that she sees the real me, and I’m good. She’d tell me that she believes in what I can become. But I will always believe that she will regret what she’s not.

  I met Dominica Salaya-Lopez our sophomore year of high school. It was my first year getting a shot on varsity, and also the first time I got caught with pills on campus. I didn’t really care about football, but I did care about the weird privileged rules that came with wearing that jersey around campus. You get a lot of lenient first warnings about things. For example, instead of getting expelled for carrying Oxy around in my backpack, I got two weeks of in-school suspension so I could take my tests and keep up with my work—work I wasn’t doing anyway.

  I saw Dom every morning for two weeks. She made it a point to look me in my eyes, to say “hello” even though all I did was throw a hood up to shadow my already sunken eyes. By the third day, she started helping me with an assignment without me asking. Actually, I tried really hard to get her to stop. She didn’t listen. She never listens.