by Susan Lee
SHADOW OF THE KNIGHT
By
Susan Lee
Copyright ©2016 Susan Lee
All rights reserved
For my father. Always.
ONE
Mickey Lenz denied that she was a romantic at heart as she sat watching the young, far-too-trendy couple next to her nuzzle each other and wondering why she didn't have someone to nuzzle with. But the scars on her wrists reminded her of why. She tugged the sleeves of her leather jacket over the jagged reminders of a life left behind. Less than a decade stood between her and the sucky-face couple, but those years hadn't been filled with kisses and cooing. More like assault and battery.
Mickey thought of herself as smart first, talented a far second, with not-too-bad-looking a distant third. The reality was that she was smarter than eighty percent of the population, with a brain always in fourth gear, had a brilliant gift for art of all kinds, and possessed a dark, edgy beauty that could be overlooked in this day of skin and bones and stupidity.
She dragged her attention back to her tattered sketchbook, pushing her shaggy dark bangs out of her tired eyes. She had always taken a sketchbook with her everywhere and this one was just about full. Her drawings were stark black and white, yet there was an elegance and delicacy to them. They hinted at her quixotic nature, never quite sure which side she was on. She was supposed to be working on the next page of her graphic novel but tonight, all she wanted to do was draw love. Even if it meant drawing the sucky-face couple next to her.
The only problem was that she didn't know what that meant. Love. It was a word that had been tossed at her throughout her thirty-something years on this planet, but it never landed with any meaning. Love. Four letters. Used to manipulate, used to injure, used to cajole. But never used for what it was meant to mean. Love. "Fuck" could have the same meaning as far as she was concerned.
Finally, the sucking sound from the lovesick couple next to her reached epic proportions and they began a weird version of baby talk.
“Who wuvs ya, babeeeeeee?”the tattooed and pierced man-bun growled to his equally decorated paramour.
“You and your big, burly manliness is who wuvs us,”she oozed back at him, slathering his face with loud, smacky kisses.
Mickey decided she'd had enough. She slammed her book closed harder than necessary, breaking the mood for Romeo and Juliet, who glared at her as she packed up her art bag. She simply smiled at them, bumping their table roughly as she left. Passive-aggressive, sure, but it made her feel good anyway. Especially when one of their soy light almond milk bullshit latte-esque drinks tumbled over into their gluten-free, sugar-free tasteless hunk o’shit whatever the hell they were eating.
But once in her beat-up convertible, she felt the weight of the world come back. The couple made her mad because they had what she didn't have, what she felt she had never had. No one had ever wanted to suck face like that with her in public.
And while she found it mildly disgusting, she found herself wanting to, just for once, be that disgusting in public, have someone who couldn't keep his hands off of her. THAT MAN, the one who had driven her to carve into her wrists, couldn’t keep his hands off of her in public, but it was mainly because he was trying to control her every move and make sure she did exactly what he demanded of her.
Her haunted eyes wandered to the rearview mirror and she looked away quickly. She couldn't bear the history that was stored in those changeable hazel eyes. Maybe that's why she was alone. Maybe that history was too easy to read in her eyes. Maybe she needed new eyes. Maybe she needed them to close, for a long time, maybe never open again.
"Stop it," she barked at her reflection. "Just stop it." She had fought hard to keep those thoughts far away and she wasn't about to let them return now, not just when she was getting her life back together. She could fight the clowns in her head. She knew she could. But she also knew that it was a simple choice away to let the clowns take over. And that scared the shit out of her.
Mickey put her battered convertible into drive and aimed for home, hoping she could make it through the rest of the night without any more interference from the committee in her head.
• • • • • • • • • • •
Her routine was just that - routine. Get up. Shower. Breakfast. Work. Home. Draw, write, Netflix.
The only thing that varied was which comic book she read with breakfast and which show she would binge.
Jerry, her therapist, had said routine was good, would keep her grounded. It had been fine at first, but now it was making her bored and restless.
The day job was good. Sort of creative. She produced websites and it paid her well enough. Gave her enough freedom to play comic book artist at night and haunt comic book conventions when needed. And she had friends there. Well, maybe not friends friends. But at least people she didn't mind spending eight to ten hours a day with and who were mildly entertaining. And Patty Jones, one of the creatives she supervised, had become one of her best, most trusted friends.
Then there was Rick Crowley. Dark, just tall enough, handsome with just enough flaws to make him accessible, and amazing blue eyes that she could drown in.
Mickey sat at her desk, figuring out the hierarchy for a new website client, but she knew when Rick walked into the cube farm. She told herself that was ridiculous, but she thought it was still true. She struggled to keep her eyes on her computer screen, but they insisted on peeking up and over at the man who held her heart, despite the fact that he barely knew she was alive.
"Good morning," Rick cooed to the eyes peering over her cube wall. Well, in her world, he cooed. But in reality, it was probably just a normal greeting.
"Yeah, morning," she said back, trying for nonchalance and almost making it. Today, he smiled back at her, which meant she was going to have an amazing day.
But then something unexpected happened. Rick stopped. Then he moved to her cube. Startled, Mickey looked around to see if perhaps he was mistaken and aiming for somewhere else.
But, no, there he was, standing right in front of her, leaning against the cube wall.
"Hey, been meaning to tell you how much I liked what you did with Percussive," he complimented her. "I really dug how you integrated my functionality into your design. It was really elegant and intuitive. Not always an easy thing to pull off." He stood waiting for Mickey to reply, but her brain was stuck on the fact that he was within reaching distance. A long moment passed as Rick waited for a response. Finally, he just smiled awkwardly. "Anyway, thought you should know."
Mickey finally found her voice as he walked away. "Thanks, uh, Rick. Thanks. Yeah." He tossed a wave over his shoulder and she kicked herself soundly for being such an idiot.
"He can tell me I'm elegant and intuitive any time," Patty Jones sighed, leaning over the wall that connected her cube to Mickey's. She tipped her glasses down so she could see better, her kinky wild strawberry hair dangling in her eyes. "Damn, that man is one fine-looking dude." Patty wasn't alone in her assessment of Rick. Most of the women - and maybe a few of the men - worshipped at the idea of Rick. Luckily, he either didn't know it or chose to ignore it.
"Yeah, that was nice," Mickey agreed.
"You should have totally said something more than, 'uh, thanks'. It's rare that he actually comes out into the farm and says anything to any of us."
"Well, he's a programmer and they tend to stick to their side of things," Mickey commented. "He doesn't really have any reason to come hang out over here."
"Maybe if you turned your Bambi eyes on him more often, he would be intrigued enough to wander over here on a more frequent basis," Patty challenged.
Mickey watched as Rick shut the door on his teeny office. He was really more than a programmer. He ha
d recently been promoted to something to do with running the programmers. Mickey didn't quite get what his exact title was since the firm sort of made up titles and sometimes they made no sense. When she took over as production manager, her title became "Person in Charge of Stuff". Whatever. Better pay meant she had more money to feed her completely non-existent social life and build a nice little nest egg. What she was going to do with that egg she had yet to figure out.
Mickey really wanted to get up and go over to his door and just say something much more clever than she had when he was standing there. But clever wasn't always in her repertoire. She ran her fingers over her scars, pushing away any thought she had of doing anything more than admiring Rick from a distance. She had accepted her solitary existence a while ago and she knew it was best for her. Kind of.
"How's that artwork coming for the toy company?" Mickey asked Patty. Patty stuck her tongue out at her co-worker.
"Oh, sure, change the subject and make me go back to work," Patty teased. "I don't know why you're not doing it. You're the artist. I just cut and paste shit."
"'Cause I crunch numbers and schedules now," Mickey countered, "which is why you're cutting and pasting shit."
"Yes, ma'am," Patty scoffed, saluting as she dropped back on her side of the wall.
Mickey sat quietly for a moment, trying to ignore the clowns in her head who were starting to take up Patty's taunting. Stupid fucking clowns. They seemed to be getting louder and louder lately. She'd have to talk to Jerry about that at her appointment tonight. She was glad she was only seeing him once a week now instead of almost every day right after everything happened. But sometimes she felt like she could use him every day. He kept her on this side of crazy and some days, that line was hard to see, even now.
• • • • • • • • • • •
Walking to Jerry's office from her car, Mickey couldn't help but have Batman thoughts. Darkness swallowed her car as she walked through the parking lot. Her artist's eye followed the stark outlines created by the streetlights, the moon, the lights from the windows.
She loved the graphic nature of the night, where there were fewer greys and more contrast. Everything was mystery, everything was suspense. She loved the tension of the black. She sometimes wondered if that was what drove Batman - the tension of the night.
She would never admit it to anyone, but she often peered into the darkness, hoping to find Batman hiding in the hollows. In the depth of her own personal darkness, she had secretly hoped that Batman would rescue her from the abyss. Of course, he never did and she knew that the fantasy was just that - a fantasy. But that didn't stop the secret wish in her heart to be rescued.
Her session with Jerry went as it always did. Jerry was kind and gentle but didn't let her get away with shit. He knew when to call her on her avoidance techniques and when to let her just cry and be broken. His blonde boy-next-door looks made him feel safe and comfortable. He also could make her laugh when she thought there was nothing left to laugh about. He had been her therapist for two years now. She couldn't imagine her life without him, though she knew that day had to come.
They talked. And talked. She told him about her week, which had become very routine, which is what Jerry had suggested for her. Routine, sameness, repetitive. Keep it even, keep it simple, keep it safe.
Mickey knew she was bored. Bored with talking about the same thing over and over again. Jerry picked up on this and stopped her mid-sentence.
"What's with the attitude today?" Jerry asked, putting his pen and paper aside to stare her right in the eyes.
Mickey avoided his gaze, trying to figure out how to put things into words. "I dunno," she avoided but Jerry wouldn't accept that. She sighed, frustrated. "Okay. I'm bored. I'm bored, bored, bored. I know routine is supposed to help, but right now, it's starting to feel like a straightjacket."
Instead of chastising her, Jerry just smiled at her. "I was waiting for you to say that."
"What?"
"I'm glad you got a routine figured out because you needed that after your suicide attempt. To find stability so you could figure out how to get back on your feet. You've got that down. You know what you're doing. And now, we need to figure out how to let you enjoy your life, a little bit at a time."
"So, it's okay that I'm bored?" Mickey clarified, startled that this was his reaction. "I thought you'd be mad or that I was doing something wrong."
"Not at all," he assured her. "You're doing something right. But let's not jump off the bridge and suddenly add a million things to your routine. So let's start with one thing. What one thing do you want to add into your life that would make you not bored?"
Mickey's first thought was Rick. She wanted Rick. Or something Rick-like. She wasn't sure Jerry would agree to that, though, because a relationship is what drove her to open her wrists in the first place. They had agreed that those waters needed to be approached carefully.
"There's a guy, isn't there?" Jerry teased. Mickey couldn't hold back the blush that rose to the roots of her hair. "What's his name?"
"Rick," she admitted reluctantly. "He's a co-worker. And he doesn't really know I'm alive."
"Ah. And you want him to know you're alive?"
Mickey hesitated. She wasn't sure. So many "what if's" flooded her mind, as well as so many fears of what had happened before. She couldn't get a read on Jerry or what he thought. Sometimes she hated his therapist poker face. She wanted a hint of what she should say, but he just sat there with that fucking blank face focused on her.
"I don't know," she said honestly.
"Glad to hear you say that. It's honest and it's real. It's okay to not know. You can figure out if you want him to know you. You don't have to know today. Or tomorrow. But I'm happy to hear you express interest in someone, even if it's just a crush. Crushes are good. They're a start."
"Is it okay that I'm scared?" she whispered, almost afraid to admit this feeling. Tears hovered on the edge of her eyelids but she was determined not to let them fall. Jerry leaned forward and put his hand on her arm.
"Being scared is always okay," he whispered back. "One thing I hope you're learning is that fear, anger, sadness, anything you feel is okay. They're your feelings and you can own them. Fear lets us know when we're approaching something we need to look at carefully. Fear is good. Let it in."
She took a deep breath and let the tears fall. It felt good to let the emotion go instead of burying it deep inside where it would fester.
She cried for the possibility of Rick, and the possibility it would be nothing. She cried for all the hope that had been killed in the past. She cried for the terror inside, the terror that she was worthless. She cried because THAT MAN still had some piece of her, the piece he taught that she was worthless. She cried for so many things because she finally could cry. And it finally felt good.
• • • • • • • • • • •
At work the next day, Mickey decided to put into motion the things she and Jerry had talked about. Like actually speaking to Rick. Not putting him up on a pedestal, just treating him like any other human being. She wanted to protest that a guy this good-looking had to be hiding behind a secret identity and that, deep down inside, there was a superhero just waiting to get out.
But Jerry was just starting to acknowledge her progress, she didn't want to fuck that up with regression and drugs and more sessions. So she kept those moderately not-terribly-sane thoughts to herself.
She sat at her desk, trying not to hold her breath as she waited for him to come in. She hoped that he would speak to her again because she had practiced what she would say back to him over and over again last night, as Jerry had suggested.
"Write yourself a script or two," he had said, "so you won't be searching for words. Could be as simple as 'hey, how are you this morning' or 'I didn't say thanks for your kind words yesterday'. You know, whatever fits the situation."
She wrote out thirty-two scripts so that she could be prepared for anything.
&nbs
p; Patty saw how nervous she was and leaned over the cube wall. "Hey, you," she whispered. "You okay?" Mickey just nodded, not trusting her voice and wanting to save everything for Rick. That wasn't nuts, was it? she thought for a moment. Nah, perfectly fine. Jerry had said it was fine and Jerry would know.
Then the moment came and the door swung open and Rick entered the office. She felt Patty watching her watch Rick but she didn't care. Her hands were suddenly ice cold and she prayed he wouldn't take this time to actually try to touch her. She fought the urge to stuff her hands under her arms to warm them up because, well, that would look just stupid if he saw that.
She ran through the scripts in her head and threw out twenty-five of them. She sucked in a big breath as he came near her vicinity, knowing this would be the moment.
She was glad she had talked to Jerry about this because she felt ready and prepared to have a conversation. She also wondered briefly if others had this same problem when it came to speaking to someone they were secretly in love with or if it was just her. She decided it had to be everyone as well, otherwise she'd be certifiable.
She felt her smile slide into place as his steps brought him ever closer. Her heart was pounding so loud she was sure he had to be able to hear it.
His eyes moved up from his phone and finally made contact with hers. She tried not to stare and make it seem as though she had just looked up herself. Yeah, she had practiced that last night as well. An interminable moment passed before he smiled warmly and she was finally able to breathe out. This would be good, she thought, this would work out.
Then Brandon from sales shattered her world by intercepting Rick with some question and before he could manage the few steps to her desk, Rick was off with this asshat, leaving her with a head full of scripts, a heart full of anticipation and a mouth full of unspoken words.
"Dammit," she cussed loudly, slamming something small and unimportant down on her desk. Patty immediately popped up, startled.
