Secret Girl

by Terri Elliot

  SECRET

  GIRL

  By

  Terri Elliot

  © Copyright September 6, 2019 - All rights reserved.

  It is not legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental.

  1.

  It slips out of the little book and zig zags slowly in the air on its way to settle on the attic floor. My vision focuses on the dust hanging in the light filtered through the dirty window pane. My body is frozen still. The book resting in my hands has worn yellow pages with black, cursive handwriting scrawled across them. Despite the quality, I can still make it out. Having once taught third graders has gifted me with that talent. The first page begins like that of a trashy romance paperback. It says: “I am Casey Simpson, and these are my secrets.”

  That’s the first line. I haven’t read past it. I haven’t had the courage. I shouldn’t have picked the journal out of its place to begin with, but I...I don’t know what came over me. Curiosity, I guess, plain and simple. But now that I know who it belonged to--

  The front door creaks open beneath me, and as it shuts, the reverberation reaches up into the floorboards of the attic and jitters my feet within my slippers. I guess it’s more my own shock, having been surprised by his early arrival home. I wasn’t expecting my husband so soon from work. I lift my wrist and turn the inside of it towards my eyes to view the the tiny hands on the golden watch he bought me on our five year anniversary. They read three past three o’clock. Henry isn’t usually home until quarter past five.

  I turn and peer through the circular window overlooking our front lawn and peek down at our driveway. His prized luxury sedan rests there and my momentary consideration of home intrusion is chased out by relief. That is, until I realize what it is I’ve been doing.

  I quickly bend at my knees to retrieve the two dollar bill that fell out of the diary and return it to its pages. I pick a random spot halfway through and press it into place before stuffing the thing back into its place in a box marked ‘Old Nonsense’ among many boxes gathering dust just over our heads like a cloud of forgotten memories.

  “Honey?” I hear his voice travel faintly into the attic from the stairs. He’s coming up. I did tell him I was going to get some serious cleaning done today. I’ve told him for years I wanted to Spring clean the hell out of this place. He had to suspect I would at some point tackle the attic and its assorted mess. I resolve not to hide the fact I’ve been up here. But my eyes fall on the box. ‘Old Nonsense.’ I quickly shove the box with my foot towards the other end of the attic, where the daylight doesn’t quite reach. The words, written in thick, black marker, disappear into shadow. Only the outline of its corners shows against a backdrop of typical household clutter.

  His footsteps reach the top of the stairs, which puts him at the other end of the hallway, down which is the master bedroom, the second bathroom, a closet, the attic staircase, and an empty second bedroom.

  There’s a pause.

  Then I hear him again. “What’re you doing up there?”

  I stand in my position, my back to the round window, facing the light rushing upward from the hallway below.

  “What’s that, babe?” I call back to him.

  I hear him groan and march towards the attic staircase. I don’t know why, I feel butterflies beating against the walls of my stomach. I only read the first line. But that was enough.

  His head emerges into the attic, backlit by the yellow bulbs in the hallway. I can’t quite make out his expression. I choose to smile.

  “You’re home early,” I say, placing my hands against my hips.

  He takes a moment, then replies, “Yeah, I told the Davids I was feeling the early stages of a flu coming on.”

  “Oh, no,” I reply sympathetically. The diary slips out of my thoughts in favor of his health. I start to think of all the ways to boost his immune system. I haven’t had the flu in a decade. I don’t want to break that streak. “Get straight to bed, I’ll bring you some ecchenasia, zinc, and vitamin c--”

  He chuckles, cutting me off. “I’m not actually sick, Emily. Unless you count of work, in which case, I’m gravely ill.” He rises the remaining steps into the attic. Standing before me, in the small space of our attic, I’m taken aback by his size, for a moment forgetting he’s my husband, letting an ounce of fear trickle in before banishing it with rationality. Henry is so tall. He’s been putting on weight, but it looks good. He wears it well. How long has that been going on? I check his arms, they look thicker, his shoulders broader. Has he been working out? I can’t imagine when he would have the time. Unless he’s been selling excuses to leave work on a regular basis.

  My mind sometimes dizzies me, chasing after stray thoughts. Henry steps into me, I feel his hands warm against my hips.

  “Peterson almost blew it, but Matthews bought it hook line and sinker, demanding I get a head start on my weekend to take care of it.” His lips press against my forehead, and in the contact I can feel how sweaty I’ve gotten. I need a shower. I need to clean this dust off my body. I go to move to pass him, but his hands hold me in position. “Where are you off to? I came home to see you.” He looks down at the floor around us. The boxes, clothes, bags I’ve pulled out and attempted to start to organize. “What are you up to in here?”

  I smile up at him. “I told you I was going to clean this house, and I meant it.”

  He grins. “Fair enough.” His hands grip my hips tightly. “But you don’t have to tackle it right this very minute, do you?”

  “Oh,” I say turning my head away. “Henry, I need a shower, I’ve been hauling junk around all day, I’m sweaty and--”

  He kisses my forehead again, this time his nostrils inhale deeply. “I like you sweaty.”

  I scoff. “Not this kind.”

  He squeezes. “Sure I do.” He kisses me again.

  “Really,” I say.

  “You know,” he says, “I haven’t been up here since we moved in. Which means I’ve never taken you in this room of our house.”

  I feel my cheeks flush, either from embarrassment or frustration, I’m not sure. “You haven’t ‘taken’ me here because it’s an attic, Henry. Dust, spiders, and creaky floorboards hardly make for a romantic environment.”

  His hands ride up my back, pulling my ragged cleaning shirt up, pulling me into him. I lift my forearms, they become squeezed between us. “Who said anything about romantic? It doesn’t have to be romantic.”

  “It’s got to be more than this, at least,” I say, putting force into my arms, pressing against his chest.

  “Oh, come on, Emily.”

  “Henry,” I say. Then I look up into his eyes. “Can you even?” I ask.

  He pauses. I watch his eyes narrow. The light from the window behind me casts itself across his face, tightening his pupils into narrow pinpricks at the center of his green irises. He exhales through his nostrils, the breath cascades over my face. I don’t blink.

  Then his expression slumps, his grip loosens, and a pang of hurt comes into his face. I feel ashamed, but I can’t think of how to remedy. I wish I hadn’t said it. Why did I say that?

  Henry lets go of me and turns back to the staircase. “Should’ve stayed at work, or, hell, gone to a fucking movie or something,” he mutters as he descends the staircase. Instead of watching him, my eyes focus on a distance in front of me, where I can see into the history of failed encounters that riddl
e our recent past. This one etches itself into the near end of the hall, with the beginning a distance of eleven months away at its far end. I stare into it for a few minutes until my eyes return to the attic, and fall upon the faint outline of the box marked ‘Old Nonsense.’ I can feel it staring back at me, like it can see through me. Like it can see the burning desire at the center of me right now that wants to pull out that journal and read through it voraciously. Something unsatiated desires it, like a replacement for other cravings.

  No, I tell myself. There’s nothing in it for you, I say within the confines of my own thoughts. There, softly, another voice speaks, its opinion divergent.

  Read it, Emily, it prods.

  Read it.

  I shake my head, but then I hear the front door slam shut, the rattle shooting up into my feet and I turn to watch Henry get into his car and pull out of the driveway in a rush. “Really, Henry?”

  In the ensuing silence, the voice.

  I turn back to the box.

  If he’s going to act like a child, I tell myself.

  I cross the room and rummage, finding it tucked into the side, and pull it out to flip back to the first page.

  “I am Casey Simpson, and these are my secrets.”

  2.

  February 10, 2009.

  I am Casey Simpson, and these are my secrets. Maybe this is a foolish exercise, if I want them to stay secrets, I shouldn’t be writing them down, right? Fuck it. I need to express this, I can’t keep it inside me anymore. And if I can’t talk to anyone, the least I can do is write it down, speak to a journal to at least feel like I’m not holding all this inside myself. I just feel so isolated, and if keeping a diary is going to help, I owe it to myself.

  Or maybe I don’t owe myself anything. Maybe I don’t deserve anything.

  I don’t know.

  I guess I’ll start at the beginning. And the beginning of this story, my story, starts with one man. The man the rest of the story is irreconcilably changed by. A man by the name of Henry Peter Garner. The sordid love of my life.

  I met him on my nineteenth birthday, October thirty first, two thousand and eight. Just over three months ago. I can’t believe it’s only been three months.

  It was at a Halloween party at a bar in Silver Lake. Which one, I can’t remember. I was already fairly drunk by the time I arrived. A friend of mine, Natalie, was banging the bartender at the time, so not only did she get me in underage, but we got in for free and had fresh drinks passed to us every twenty minutes.

  I felt cool. I can’t explain why. For the same reasons every ego driven teenager seeks inclusion in the world of adults. It’s only been three and a half months since then. I feel lifetimes older.

  Henry approached me with a great deal of confidence, a trait not uncommon in men of his sort. He was broad and tall, fit and handsome. He had every reason to believe I would swoon when our eyes met. The world had trained him for that. With his sharp, green eyes I can’t imagine he had many women turning him away.

  Yet, there was something about his approach, dare I say slither? Something about the way he moved through the room, passing through the dim lights with a grin on his face, reminded me of snakes. Serpents are incredibly graceful, few people see past the scales and the rattling tongue to observe just how beautiful they can be. A serpent was the first seducer. It brought the world down around the first two people.

  When he introduced himself, he didn’t employ any pick up lines. When we spoke, the conversation was largely surface. And yet, the entire time, I watched something living inside his gaze, something like fire, but cold, and I couldn’t help feeling in danger. Such a stupid thing, women and danger. Those of us susceptible to it will never learn our lesson. I wish I got my kicks popping out babies, washing grass stains, I don’t know. Cooking? I barely eat. A steady diet of liquor, coke, and cock. What is wrong with me?

  But we’re not talking about me. We’re talking about the monster I fell for. He made short work of acquiring my cell phone number, and it was a pair of nervous days waiting for his call. And he actually called, instead of texting. I hate texting, my generation seems enamored with it. I’ll never find it a better mode of communication than the human voice. His was such a sinister one, low, with a hint of rasp, and a heavy dose of mischief that made me horny when he spoke. I knew I was attracted the moment he laid eyes on me, and I knew I was going to fuck him after that phone call.

  Plans were made, then missed. It took us two weeks to solidify a date night. Such is the way of dating in the modern era. No one sticks to their commitments, everything is transitory. Plans, friends, love. It comes and goes. I took no offense, and when we finally met up, he made the wait worthwhile.

  The date was nothing. Foreplay. Eyes and body gestures. I can’t remember a thing we said to one another, even a topic of conversation. I can remember the scent of his cologne. I remember the stubble on his jawline, rugged and dark. I remember the way the candlelight on the small, circular table separating us danced in his green eyes. I remember the hint of pain in my bottom lip from chewing it flirtatiously.

  We went back to his place. The sex was amazing--

  3.

  The book shuts automatically in my hands and a small cloud of dust rises to irritate my eyes. I can’t read on. It’s private. The girl may be dead, but it’s no excuse for rummaging in her personal diary. I can imagine how upset it would make me to think of someone flipping through my most intimate thoughts after my passing. Even the way she did. It’s inappropriate.

  I stare down at the book in my hands. My fingers run along the outside of its hardcover front, the short length of the top, the longer plunge down its side, like I’m outlining it. The way I used to trace the outline of Henry’s pecs when I laid my head against his chest. For a moment, I have an image of the girl lying with my husband. I wonder what sorts of things her fingers did in the idle hours between sex and slumber. Did they familiarize themselves with the dimensions of his physique?

  I shut my eyes and shake my head. I step quickly forward and stuff the book back into place, tucked within the box hidden in the shadows of the far side of the attic. I step back into the light and watch the box fade into darkness. Then I turn towards the stairs and resolve to finish my cleaning for the day.

  I step back into the hallway, golden light showering over me, the warmth of the interior of my house. The attic has such a strange hue, it’s the blue of natural daylight, but filtered through dust and grime, almost like the sun casting its rays through the past. Illuminating the ghosts of past lives, of people that once inhabited these bodies, but whose dead souls hang in the cobwebs of memory. When the stairs rise into the attic and I hold onto the drawstring a moment, I think about returning, but I bury the inclination in favor of a shower. I can feel the grime collected on my skin. I imagine the soothing stream of hot water cascading over me, cleansing me. That’s what I need, and then perhaps another chapter of my romance before Henry returns. Whenever that may be.

  I enter through our bedroom into the master bathroom, and turn the knobs on the shower. The overhead stainless steel square showerhead releases a steady flow that patters on the black stone floor. I step back and listen to the comforting sound while I watch myself remove my clothes in the mirror before the steam clouds it.

  Once I’m naked, I pause. I’m not sure if it’s the exhaustion or something else keeping me locked in this position, staring idly at myself. It’s been a while since I’ve done a real inspection, the way single people do. In married life, certain concerns have faded away, like how the world perceives me, whether I am an attractive woman or one not worth fantasizing about. I lay my hands against my hips and rub them. Before Henry, men chased after me. I turned heads where I went. I guess I still do, but it’s not so pronounced. My manner of dress has changed, I’ve put on some weight, I haven’t kept up my tan, my entire demeanor is different. My hands glide up the sides of my body, the steam filling the room makes my skin perspire. In the mirror, I still see myself
, though the cloud is encroaching. This body, its long, slender legs, wide hips, flat stomach, shapely breasts, pretty face, and long, auburn hair could have helped me in this life. I chose not to exploit it. I made Henry wait. Three months. He’s my fourth. Three boyfriends, and a single one night stand in college that yielded little but the recognition of the fact I didn’t need sex the way it appeared men needed it. I see the lust in their eyes, but I reject it. Even before marriage, when I was wont to flaunt, never was I so brazen to expose myself the way young women do today. Attraction is powerful, a beautiful woman, or man, for that matter, can utilize it, exude control, harness their looks. I did this. But I never exploited my beauty.

  Did you exploit yours, Casey? When you met my husband, did you give yourself to him in order to have him for yourself? And what then did you do when that grew tiresome for him? Because surely he tired of you the way he’s tired of me.

  I blink and hang my head. I take a breath, the humidity filling my lungs. When I lift my head again, my body is nothing but a flesh colored shape hidden behind the fog. Anything could be hiding behind that fog. Any number of women, any version of a thirty five year old white female. I suppose for some that woman is the same. I’m not like other women my age. For a moment, I envision a lump emerging at the middle of that shape, a round, pregnant belly. Then I picture the accompanying weight. A touch to the hips and thighs, some to the breasts and buttocks, arms, neck, cheeks. I peer down and rub my hands over my stomach. Smooth, and flat. Empty. Clean.

  I shake my head and quickly dart into the shower, upturning my face into the stream to let the water massage my face. I call out to the smart speaker to play classical and the room fills with the soothing melodies of Brahms. I don’t know much classical, but I’m starting to learn. I’m trying to learn a great many things. I’ve also begun wine tasting, a girlfriend suggested it. I might have a glass after this shower.