by Ryan Schow
“I don’t think I can do this,” she said, turning to Garrison, her voice meek, completely contradictory to the fear dragging through her heart.
“It’s a state of mind.”
“What if I don’t want to do this? What if I can’t?”
“Then turn and leave right now.”
She thought of the alternative, about his threats, about his promise to ruin her and her family and she felt sick. She had a choice, but did she really?
He said she did.
Almost like she was having an out of body experience, she saw herself from a distance while feeling everything inside at the same time. Her fingers undid the buttons on her shirt, removed it. Hands unclasped her bra, let it fall to the floor. She undid her boots, pulled them off, then her pants and panties.
Standing naked before the body guard, Garrison Rich and these six silent men, she felt pieces of her soul flittering away, felt emptiness in the holes left behind. Too weary to cry, too broken hearted to mourn for the life she was losing, she wavered for a moment before someone’s hand caught her arm and steadied her.
Woozy, scared, she said, “Who’s first?” to which Garrison replied, “This is not a one-on-one scenario, Ms. Baldridge. But we have a doctor on staff, so try not to worry about your health that much. You will heal.”
“I can still leave?” she turned and asked, terror in her eyes.
“Yes.”
She knew the alternative. Knew it enough to not turn around, to not pick up her clothes and leave. Everyone does this, she told herself.
With that, the men began undressing.
5
When it was over, Sabrina lay there, ravaged, sore, shivering. The men dressed then left, not a single one of them having ever said a word. She tried to move to get dressed, but her body was so depleted, so abused she couldn’t do anything but lay there and sob.
This from a girl who was once incapable of crying real tears.
A few minutes later, the door opened. She didn’t even bother looking up. Her neck hurt from having it cranked sideways, from having her hair pulled so hard there were handfuls of loose strands flung across on the rumpled comforter.
“Sabrina,” the gentle voice said.
Her left ear was bleeding, so her hearing was off. Her nose, however, smelled everything. Beneath the overpowering scents of blood and spent love was that expensive cologne smell: Garrison Rich. He was suddenly standing over her, looking down at her with sad, nurturing eyes.
“I’m so proud of you.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but the cuts inside her lips hurt too much. A heady glob of blood gathered behind her last molar, but she was afraid to swallow it. She was afraid she’d choke. Her wobbly eyes clung to him in that moment, to the kindness he was showing. He was proud of her. Which mean she was done, that she’d sacrificed enough.
Then he started to unbutton his shirt, which brought fresh tears to her eyes.
In a loving, almost pained expression, he ran the back of his finger up her thigh and said, “You didn’t think you were done, did you?”
When he pulled off his pants, she started to moan, and then she started to cry.
“You can go at any time,” he said. “I won’t force this on you, but this is part of your sacrifice, and part of mine.”
All she heard was her voice, raw with devastation, and the words “No, no, no,” coming from her mouth over and over again, like a desperate plea.
“If you wish not to complete the ceremony, you may gather your belongings and leave. We do not force anything, my dear. This is your choice, your sacrifice.”
She remained huddled around herself, unable to control the revulsion in her body, the shaking. Get ahold of yourself, she told herself. There’s no more family. No more money. If not for Garrison Rich, if not for his promises, I’d be homeless.
Homeless and alone.
Broke.
You’re almost there, a voice inside her head said. It was her voice. The voice of reason. And with that voice, she paid with more of her soul, which left even deeper chasms inside her, gaping holes she knew for certain would never fill.
She lowered herself back on the bed, and through a sheer will of hurt and determination, she moved one leg left, and one leg right, then forced herself to look at him.
After he was done with her, he helped her off the bed and walked her to the shower, put her under its incredible rain-shower stream, and let the blood and shame wash down the drain. Eight times now she’s has sex and not one of them did she have sex for love.
The word irredeemable sprang to mind. For her, it fit perfectly.
When she turned eighteen, she promised herself she’d forget all these terrible things happening to her and be the nice girl who falls in love with the boy next door and lives her happily-ever-after. For a second, she clung with ease to this fantasy. This was a lie, though. A lie that quickly fell apart in her head. Her life would never be the same. Everything soft and innocent about her was gone. She gave it away.
Garrison handed her a new bar of soap and said, “Be sure to wash your crotch. After seven guys it can’t be too clean.” He left, made a phone call, then came back and said, “I just spoke to the doctor on staff, a lovely woman with an incredible resume, and she’s on her way up to tend to you. I have to go now, but order anything you want, and feel free to stay here until the dinner hour.”
“Order anything?” she said, sounding like she was lost in a fog. “You think I want to eat?” Standing there, naked, too weary to be ashamed, too numb inside to feel anything, she spit out a stringy glob of blood-drizzle and just looked at him.
“Point taken.”
He left and she remained in the shower, sobbing, wondering where her life was going from there. Ten minutes later, a woman entered the bathroom, opened the shower door and said, “I’m Dr. Crenshaw. When you’re done, I’ll be waiting for you in the living room.”
Sabrina didn’t even bother covering herself. Especially her vagina. She wanted the woman to see all the bruising along her breasts and inner thighs, on her face and around her neck.
It turned out, however, the woman never even flinched. Apparently this sort of thing was normal.
Welcome to the Alternate
1
After the funeral, I get home and my parents want to know where I’ve been. I tell them Cameron’s funeral. And my father? He’s like, “If you’re going to live here, I’d at least like to be appraised of where you’ll be when you leave town.”
“Why?” I ask him.
“Because I worry.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“It is to us,” Orianna says. They’re saying this to me over dinner, and Rebecca is looking on thinking, how am I going to fit into this family?
I look at her and say, “You won’t be the problem child, so you’ll fit in just fine.”
Her eyes flash wide at me. Orianna and Christian just shake their heads, like they can’t believe me doing that to her—reading her mind.
Back to my father, I say, “Look, my life is a bit complicated. I can leave for awhile to sort it out if that will make everyone feel more comfortable.”
“It won’t,” Orianna says.
“We’re just trying to figure this thing out,” Christian adds.
“Well can we not do it tonight? I’m seriously exhausted and all I want to do is eat dinner and go to bed.”
Rebecca clears her throat then says, “Is this how things are around here?”
We all say “No,” at the same time.
“With everything I’m going through, I’m sort of trying to figure out my place in the world and it’s a little…upsetting right now.”
“And it doesn’t help that she never wanted this for herself,” Christian says to Rebecca. “She fell into this life under false pretenses. Sadly…this is my fault.”
“It’s mine, too,” Orianna says.
“I’m as much to blame as either of you are,” I admit. Then, looking at Rebecca,
I say, “But at least we’re all able to admit it and so this is us moving on. I’m sorry if it’s a bit uncomfortable for you. It won’t always be this hard.”
I almost cringe at those words. Words Gerhard spoke to me. Words Georgia spoke to me. Were they not true, though? I suppose they were. In some ways life is much better than before. In other ways, I feel like I’m trying to hold back an avalanche with a wooden spoon.
Oh how I wish I would’ve never met my future self.
And what’s with this history book, and the sack of time travel devices? If I knew what either meant, that would be awesome—a start—but I don’t, so now I’m just irritated. It’s nothing a good ten hour sleep wouldn’t diminish, but I haven’t been sleeping all that well. It’s The Operator. He’s figured a way into my nightmares. He’s figured out a way to make sure I feel him, that I know he’s always in tow.
2
Before I go to bed, I meditate my way into a perfect, blissful nothingness. I don’t exist here. Nothing does. From this place of stillness, I drift down into the recesses of my mind, settling into the dark nothingness, into the lower-sea depths of it. From there, I feel his pull. The little iron box in the shadowy corner. Locked in a prison of my making, stuffed like old garbage inside that box with no way out but my death is The Operator.
I feel him; he feels me. Boy is he irate!
From there, I slip inside the box where he’s stuffed. I imagine him having a mouth and he does. I give him his old body back, but it’s just a trick. Me fooling him. Now he’s a body in a box. Psychically holding him hostage, pinning his imaginary body to the furthest wall of his cell, I staple his mouth shut, then stretch duct tape across it.
“Stay the fuck out of my dreams,” I say. “And if you can’t, this is how you’ll spend your eternity.” He just looks at me. “Go on, test me.”
He doesn’t.
In this little psychic game we’re playing, I’m standing in his cell holding duct tape and a staple gun. I change both these things out for a flame thrower. The low hiss of a blue flame is the only thing he hears. If I torch him now, I can make him burn for all eternity.
“If the staples and the duct tape don’t work, I can always turn this civilized little box of yours into an oven.”
He just glares at me, seething. In this state, under my control, I gave him an imaginary body. He’s now the boy with the explosion of black hair. And his eyes…the last thing I do before I leave his cell is burn them out.
The body might be imaginary, but I can make the pain feel real.
When I leave and swim to the surface of my mind, The Operator is screaming so hard the staples have ripped out of his lips and the top edge of the duct tape has popped loose. I don’t see this, naturally, but I can hear every last nuance of it and it pleases me immensely.
That said, I hate his constant tantrums. How they’re always playing out at the far end of some dark hallway in some subterranean corner of my brain. Tonight, however, I’ll take this tantrum in stride.
The next morning, getting out of bed in a good mood, I head to the bathroom, take off my clothes and then completely freak the hell out.
Standing on weak legs on the cold bathroom floor, stripped naked from the waist down, my eyes won’t stop seeing the black writing on the top of my thigh. At this point, I’ll be honest, I’m panicking. What does this mean? Who’s doing this?
Written on my left leg is the number 1945. My heart is racing so hard I break into a cold sweat. Putting my finger on the numbers, they smear a little bit.
I know what this is.
It’s a year.
After tying this to the history book someone snuck into the bathroom the other day, I understand. 1945 was the end of World War II. At least it was until it wasn’t. I try to rub out the numbers. As if wiping them away will change anything. Who would write on my leg?
Had I meditated that hard? Slept that deep?
With some work, I manage to smear the numbers some more, but whatever this is they’re written in, it’s not coming off so easy. I turn on the shower, pull off my shirt then turn the knob to extra hot in an attempt to chase away a chill.
That’s when I see the writing on my stomach. Scrawled above my navel, but just below my breasts, are four words: Welcome to the Alternate.
An involuntary moan escapes me. WTF?
The alternate what?
I take the longest, hottest shower ever, and then I do the best I can to pull myself together. When I get out of the shower, I scream. The girl who gave me the history book, the time travel marbles and this writing on my body is standing in the bathroom with a designer coffee in hand.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I ask.
“First off,” she says, sipping her drink casually, as if this is totally normal, “don’t get sassy with me, bitch.”
“And second?” I say.
“Get dressed. We’ve got things to do.”
“Yeah, well unless you want my parents and Rebecca to freak out, I’m not sure you should be here.”
Oh my God. I can’t believe I’m actually having this conversation!
“That’s what I want to talk to you about,” she says. I give her a funny look, the kind that says, hmmm…this should be interesting. “It’s not really going to be us they’ll be seeing. It’s just me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Um…yeah, you’re going away and I’m going to be you for awhile, which isn’t really me being anything other than you since really I’m just you and you’re just me and this is all really weird, but really freaking cool at the same time.”
The grin on her face, I know exactly what it means, although I have no idea why she’s feeling it because I’m certainly not feeling it.
Standing there, looking at my exact self, my future self in this body—my current body—I have to say, my whole world is turning inside out.
Smiling, future me says, “You need to get dressed. You’ll have to crawl my memories if you’re going to survive the next seventy one years with any kind of grace.”
“What?” I say, my voice small and concerned.
“Yeah,” she says. “You’ll be leaving in a little bit.”
“Leaving?”
“Yes, leaving.”
“Why?”
“You’re going to kill Hitler.”
“When?”
“In about two hours, give or take.”
3
So yeah, apparently the history book, the time travel devices and the writing on my body, that was future me, who just came from the past. With my door locked, and both of us eating a bowl of cold cereal, I have to say, I keep waiting to wake up. Instead, she keeps talking.
“So what is the alternate? You wrote that on my stomach, which was creepy by the way.”
“When we changed our DNA from Raven to this version of Savannah, we set the future on an alternate course in history. This is that course, and I have to say, so far, it’s better than our future as Raven.”
Okay, this is a totally different experience.
“Savannah,” she says, like she’s got the best surprise ever lined up for me, “we get to behead Hitler!” She says this with such delight I can hardly understand. “Do you know what that’s like? Of course, you don’t. Not yet. Just make sure you don’t get us permanently killed when you get there.”
“What do you mean permanently killed?”
“We land in the middle of a war. And maybe we die a few times. Well, not me…you.”
“What?!”
“First in the Battle of Berlin. We’re shelled inside the city, then spotted by the Red Army where we’re shot dead trying to escape and left on the battlefield, then again in Spain trying to kill Hitler the first time. But don’t worry about that. It’s not so bad after awhile.”
Horrified, I ask, “What’s not so bad?”
“The dying.”
I choke on my cereal, get some milk up my nose. Did she just say dying isn’t so bad? OMG, this me is very
different from future Raven. Where Raven was darkness incarnate, future (past) Savannah is light and airy, almost like she’s having fun. Trying to snort the milk out of my nose, trying to get it moving down my throat rather than out of my face, I’m thinking, there’s no way I’m going back in time.
“Think of dying as you getting some rest,” she says. “You’re going to need it.”
“So how old are you then?” I ask, power-snorting one last time to get the rest of the milk out of my nostril.
She has to think about this for a second. Then: “Eighty-nine.”
I blow out a deep breath, then there’s knocking on my bedroom door.
“Sweetheart, who are you talking to?” Orianna asks.
“Just talking to myself,” I say, and future (past) me claps a hand over her mouth and starts giggling.
“You sure?” she says through the door.
“Yeah. Positive.” Then to future Savannah I say, “I’m not leaving so you’re just going to have to figure something else out.”
“Crawl my brain. Seriously. It’s okay, you’ll see.”
After a moment, I crawl her brain, and for the next hour I experience my first full lifetime as Savannah Crawford-Swann. When I pull out of her, I look up and say, “We f*cking rock,” and she’s like, “I know, right?”
“It’s not all cake and ice cream though,” she tells me. “We have some dark years.”
“I saw that,” I say, reflecting on this life I have yet to live.
“So we’ll just bless it up then send you on your way. Now that you know you’re going, what you’re in store for, really, why are we sitting around scratching our nuts over this?”
“This must be how Margaret used to see us,” I say, deadpan.
She laughs half-heartedly and agrees.
“What are you going to do when I leave?” I ask.
“Go see our family. I’ve missed them so much. Just hearing mom’s voice through the door, I swear if you hadn’t cracked that joke, I would’ve started crying.”
