The Gorgeous Slaughter

by Christina Hart

  At least, that’s what I tell myself.

  I pack two bags, one rolling suitcase and one duffel bag, with enough clothes and makeup to last me a few weeks if need be. If he asks me to stay with him. His mother is gone. He’s alone. And if he wants me to, I’ll be prepared to stay, indefinitely. I pack four different pairs of shoes, including two pairs of sandals, flip flops, and my sneakers.

  I double, triple, quadruple check everything in my room to make sure it’s all off. No lights on. No doors left unlocked. I walk outside and toss my bags in the car. The sky is a little cloudy and the forecast is calling for rain and possible thunderstorms, but I know I can always pull over if need be. Charlie doesn’t live too far from me. And if he asks me how I got his address, I’ll tell him I looked it up. I’ll tell him I had to come see him. There are countless places to stop if the rain gets bad and inclement weather is not going to stop me from being there for him when he needs me the most. A little rain isn’t going to stop me from confessing my love to him.

  Once everything is loaded in the car I pull up the GPS and head to his house. As I’m driving, listening to music, I realize I have no real plan here. Just a goal. Find Charlie. Comfort him. Let him know someone is here who really hears him. Really cares about him. I wonder what I’ll do first. If I’ll go to his house, watch him from the safety of my car, building up the nerve to knock on the door. Or show up, lie, run away. Fail in my endeavor, chicken out. Pretend this never happened. Pretend I was never there. Chalk it all up to another false hope of potential love.

  But I can’t do that. Because if there’s one thing I’m certain of, it’s Charlie. Us. What we could be together. The life we could have together. I don’t know how I’ll do it. Introduce myself. Say hello. I don’t know what I could say other than the truth.

  I am here for you, because you need me. And that’s what people do when they care about each other. They show up.

  Shit, did I hear that in a movie once?

  I am here for you because I want you to know how special you are to me.

  No, that’s lame.

  I am here for you because you are not just a patient to me. You are not even a patient to me. You are so much more than that.

  No, you can’t tell him about POTG yet. Maybe not ever.

  I am here for you because I cannot allow you to go through this alone.

  I am here for you because I cannot fathom never hearing your voice in person.

  I am here for you because I need you.

  I am here for you because you need me.

  I am here for you because I love you.

  I am thinking the whole way. Should I tell him that I am the one he talks to from POTG? Should I leave that out? How much do I confess? Thoughts swirl around my head, circling the drain. Nothing seems like the right thing to say. Nothing seems like it will make this play out in the way I envision. The way our first time really being together was supposed to be. It was supposed to be perfect. It was supposed to be full of romance and yearning and lust and craving. It wasn’t supposed to involve burying his foster mother, with his horrible girlfriend at his side. The one who doesn’t deserve him. The one who doesn’t even know him. The girl who is always holding his hand when it should be me.

  And suddenly, I am aware that it is not me, that it might not be me. The girl holding his hand as he says goodbye to his mother. The girl sitting next to him in the church, with her head on his shoulder. The girl who will make him breakfast, lunch, and dinner in some sort of pathetic attempt to get him to eat even though she knows he won’t. He never eats when he’s sad. Did she listen to him when he told her that? The girl who will console him, rub his back. Tell him she’s sorry, that she’s there, that she’s right there. The girl who will make love to him afterwards to try to get him to forget for a while. The girl who will wake up beside him the next morning. The girl who will stay with him. The girl he will choose to stay with.

  And then I am aware of something worse. That it may never be me.

  I’m about five minutes into the trip, and the sun has officially gone down. I’m somewhere on Route 80, distracted with thoughts of Charlie and all the things that may not be meant for me to have. The sky is dark and clear and full of scattered stars but the forecast called for storms and it looks like they’re about to come. The temperature dropped recently and then the heat rose frantically. It threatened the peace that we’d had the last few days. I drive straight ahead, watching the sky. The glints of silent lightning striking in the distance. They light up the sky. It’s like watching your very own personal light show that nature is putting on just for you, boasting about its power and what it could do. Every thirty to forty-five seconds, light crashes through the sky in lines and waves. The barely visible clouds are illuminated and I watch the storm brewing from the safety of my car. The moon will be hanging out soon, just sitting there in its fullness. The sky wants to open up. I can see it. The thunder isn’t making noise yet but it’s brewing, building.

  I’m listening to The Lumineers on my CD player. Ophelia is playing. The sky is miraculous, incredible. It’s magical, mesmerizing. The tricks nature can play are impressive, frightening. I hope it doesn’t start pouring on the way. The kind of rain that’s so heavy you can’t see more than a few inches in front of you. I think about getting off the highway. Making a pit stop to wait it out, but the rain hasn’t started yet. I still have about fifteen minutes to go and no idea when the rain will actually start.

  I watch the show the sky is putting on. I imagine the thunder roaring and can almost hear it striking quietly in the distance. The flashes of purple and pink lightning stream the dark sky, lasting only a moment. If you look away for even a minute, you’d miss it. I’m so hurt by the possible truth and potential outcome of all this that I allow myself to become lost in the sky. In the lights. I’m so invested in the storm and the sky that I’m not even paying attention to the road ahead of me. I’m so taken by the impending storm that I don’t even see the deer run out on the highway in front of me. I’m involved in the light show, too involved in my own what ifs that I have no idea I’ll be involved in a different kind of crash as the lightning crashes around me. And the last thing I think of before I slam on the brakes and close my eyes, is Charlie.

  Forty-Six

  I come to somewhere on the side of the road, in an ambulance, strapped down. This feeling of being strapped down, I remember it. I don’t like it. I thrash and I ask what the hell is going on. I twist and demand they let me go.

  “You’ve been in an accident, Ms. Black,” the one paramedic says.

  This is when I know they found my fake ID in the dash and didn’t bother looking for my wallet in the car. I don’t correct them.

  “We’re just taking you to the hospital for some routine tests,” they assure me.

  “I’m fine, really,” I say. “I don’t want to go to the hospital.”

  “Ma’am, it’s routine procedure following an accident. You could be in shock right now.”

  “I’m not in shock.” I sit up as much as the straps allow but I am restrained. This feeling on my chest, it’s heavy, constricting. “Please take these off. Where’s my car?”

  “It’s just over there,” the one paramedic says.

  He’s young. Maybe twenty-five. Maybe.

  I look over to the direction he nods in and I see the scene. Cop cars and police lights blaring. The rain has started. In the darkness, in the glare from the blue and red lights, I see my car. It’s across the highway, on the shoulder, swerved to a stop. Angled in a way that tells me it got there by mistake. I was driving in the right lane when this happened and I want to see how much damage is done.

  “Is my car okay?” I ask.

  “Your car is just fine, just a little damage from where you struck the deer. And a little scratch from when the car behind you hit you and sent you sliding.”

  “Is it totaled?” I ask.

  “I don’t think so. I’ve seen way worse,” he says. And he smiles a littl
e bit, checking my pulse.

  He does this for a living, worries about people. Makes sure they’re okay. And in that moment I think we are so alike he just doesn’t know it.

  “Oh, good. I really don’t need to go to a hospital. I swear. I feel fine,” I insist.

  “You could have a concussion, ma’am. Let’s just make sure you’re okay before you get back in that car, huh?”

  His smile is still on. It’s so reassuring. So safe. So warm. He doesn’t want to make any mistakes and he doesn’t want anyone to get hurt and he just wants everyone to be okay. I think everyone in life should be this way. Just like him. This stranger in the back of an ambulance in the middle of New Jersey after I just hit a deer.

  I give in. Compassion in a man will do that to me. I give him a small smile. “Fine. Let’s just go make sure I’m okay before I get back in that car. But do me a favor?”

  He nodes and widens his eyes, waiting for my request.

  “Please don’t let them tow me anywhere. Have them bring my car to the hospital so I can leave after getting looked at. I’ll pay for it.”

  He smiles a little and nods. “Sure thing. I’ll be right back.”

  He whispers something to another paramedic. Someone newer. Someone in training, maybe. And he gets out of the ambulance and I watch through the window as he says something to the policeman by my car. The cop is shaking his head. And the sweet paramedic boy is shaking his head back and putting his hand down in the air like he means what he says. After what seems like a brief, heated little talk, the cop shakes his head in a way that screams “fine”. The nice paramedic shakes his hand and looks like he thanks him.

  A moment later he’s inside with me. And this is when I realize just how cute he is.

  “Your car will be at the hospital. Let’s just make sure you’re okay,” he says. And he grabs my hand and checks my pulse again, but I think this time it might just be because he wants to. Because he holds it, the entire way to the hospital.

  Before they drop me off I look at him. “What’s your name?”

  “Brad. Brad Cruz.” He smiles. “Your real name isn’t Marissa Black, is it?”

  I shake my head and smile back.

  We arrive at the hospital and I still have no idea what’s going on. They wheel me into the emergency room. Take off the straps. Let me loose. And instantly, I feel like some sort of caged animal. The straps may be off but I’m still enclosed. And now it’s in a hospital room. I have flashbacks and my anxiety starts to build inside me. I just want to get out of here. I don’t want them to try to keep me, contain me. Sedate me. So I try to stay calm.

  “Who would you like us to call for you?” a nurse asks me.

  “No one,” I say. And they look at me like I have five heads. But I don’t want my aunt to be called. She doesn’t need to worry about another incident with me. So I lie. “I can make my own decisions. I have no family, okay? I’m fine. I just want to get a routine check and then leave. My car is outside.”

  And the nurse leaves, with her clipboard. Her notes. The things they’ll write down about me. God. I hate it all. I hate the secrecy. The vagueness. The wondering what they say and why they say it. And the nurse looked at me like it was sad. No emergency contact. What a pity.

  But it’s not a pity. It’s not a shame. I won’t bring someone else down, waiting to hear if I am okay. That is not what relationships are for. And the nurse, she doesn’t understand that. Because her life is full of hospital rooms and x-rays and questions. What if they don’t make it? Who do we call, who do we tell? Who will announce the death of this stranger I’m treating? Someone will need to come collect their belongings. If not, what will we do with their stuff? And if they have kids, who will get the kids? We need to know who’s coming. We need space. More space for more victims. More space for more tragedies that life brings.

  But she doesn’t know that I am not a tragedy. I refuse to be one. I have always refused to be one and I’m certainly not going to start now. Not now, not in this hospital. Not here, after a sweet paramedic had to stop me from getting back on the road and carrying on, with no idea what I was doing. Not in an emergency suite too close to home after crashing my car trying to tell Charlie that I love him.

  And I just have one question for the nurse when she comes back in. “Did the deer live?”

  Please, nurse, please tell me I’m not a murderer. I don’t think my heart could take it if I was.

  Forty-Seven

  I notice the tingling and numbness in my right wrist right around the time the shock begins to wear off and I wish the young paramedic would come back. I wish there was a familiar face here. But the reality hits me.

  I am in a hospital very close to home, which means the police may know me already. The paramedics, at least, found my fake ID, which means the police most likely know about it since it doesn’t match up with my license and registration, etc. I sit there, waiting, wishing I refused to come here. And of course it’s my right wrist seeing as I’m right-handed. Bad luck never fails me.

  I push the buzzer for the nurse and she comes in, almost immediately.

  “Is everything okay?” she asks.

  “Yeah, it’s just, my wrist feels numb. I think something might be wrong.”

  She walks over to me. “Which one?”

  I hold out my arm and wince a little when she touches it.

  “There’s some swelling. It’s not broken but it might be sprained. The doctor will be in in just a moment. I’m sure he’ll have an x-ray done. In the meantime, I’ll bring you something for the pain and inflammation.”

  “Thank you,” I say.

  She nods and leaves the room, appearing a few moments later with two white pills and water. “Do you have any allergies?” she asks.

  I shake my head.

  “Okay, perfect. Here you go. This should help ease the discomfort a bit.”

  I hold out my hand and accept the gifts. “What is this?”

  “Tylenol with codeine,” she says. “Don’t worry, it’s not the strong stuff. Luckily, you don’t need that.”

  I smile and thank her as I take the pills. I wash them down with the water she gave me and wonder if it was from the tap. It’s borderline lukewarm and definitely does not taste like Poland Spring or even well water. But if these pills can get rid of this now dull throbbing pain, I’ll take them.

  The nurse leaves me and almost immediately afterwards, the doctor comes in. He introduces himself but as usual, I let the name slither over me, hardly touching me. I never pay much attention to strangers’ names. If I’m never going to see them or talk to them again, I’m not sure why I need to know at all, why I need to pretend like I’ll try to remember. I always do the same thing; I listen, or act like I am. Meanwhile, my brain defaults to trying to think of some sort of excuse for having the fake ID. Abusive or stalker ex-boyfriend? Did I have to change my identity once or twice to keep myself safe? I could go with that. They could believe that if I was convincing enough.

  I’ve been told throughout my life that I look innocent. At least at first. Before the layers peel away. Before the skin comes off. Before the soul peeks out and they get a glimpse at all the shit that’s buried beneath it. They at least say that before they get to know me and see how crazy I am.

  “Ma’am?” Dr. Something asks.

  And I realize I haven’t been listening to a word he’s been saying. “Yes?”

  “Did you hear anything I just said?”

  “Yeah, of course. You introduced yourself.”

  “Anything else?”

  “I’m sorry,” I mumble, letting out a small laugh. “I’m just thinking about my car and if it was actually towed here like I requested.”

  “Someone will be in here shortly to answer those questions for you. For now, let’s just make sure you’re okay, huh?” he says.

  I smile and nod. Like a good girl.

  “Now, I’d ask you which wrist is bothering you, but I can tell by the way you’re holding your right ar
m out that way that it’s that one. May I?” he asks, holding out his hands and inching closer.

  “Sure.” I hold out my wrist for him to examine.

  He takes it in his hand, delicately touches it, studying my face for any sign of pain or discomfort. “It’s a little inflamed. Definitely isn’t broken, but you may have a sprain. I’m going to order an x-ray on that wrist to be sure. Is anything else hurting you? Does anything feel abnormal? Sometimes the initial shock of an accident can distract you from feeling physical pain for a little while.”

  “I feel fine otherwise. Maybe a little whiplash and soreness in my neck, but that’s all. I’m fine, really.”

  “All right then. You sit tight. They’ll take you in for the x-ray in a few minutes and I’ll be back to see you after we have the results.”

  I nod and thank him.

  A few moments later, as promised, we go in for the x-ray.

  When I get back to the room, I scoot back in the bed and sit up, leaning against the back.

  I am looking around the room, waiting for the doctor, considering turning the TV on, wondering how much this bill is going to be, when someone else walks in my makeshift private suite here. A policeman. I recognize him from the scene of the accident. I saw him through the ambulance window.

  “Good evening, ma’am,” he says.

  He’s carrying two ziplock bags, and my purse. In one of the bags looks like an assortment of belongings, including my car keys and cigarettes. In another, I think I see my fake ID. I do not react in a way that says I’m caught. Busted. This response is crucial and he cannot call my bluff.

  I nod to him. “You personally brought me all my stuff?” I ask. “I’m not sure if that’s sweet or if I have something to worry about.”

  He shrugs and places the items down on the counter. “Do you have something to worry about?”