by Sonya Jesus
Smoothing out the wrinkles, layer by layer. “I kind of get it.”
There’s silence between the two of us, as we finished making the bed, which was a bit strange for her. “Addie, did I say something wrong?”
She pats the pillow and gazes at me. “There’s so much of Addison in you.”
Why does it hurt so much to be compared to someone who didn’t get it right? Who went back to the guy who hurt her? “How so? Did she go through a miscarriage?”
“No, she never had to go through something like that because she died.” Addie takes a deep breath. “She was eighteen weeks when she went back to him.”
My heart anchors to the heels of my feet. “I-I…I’m sorry, Addie.”
“The coroner told me when I went to identify her body. Despite the swollen face and discoloration, my beautiful little girl was still on that slab. I wanted to think maybe it wasn’t her, but it was…all the way down to the sun tattoo on her ankle.” Addie lifts her leg in the air and pulls down her sock. “I asked him to take a picture of it, and when I had enough strength, I got the same tattoo.”
“Why are you telling me all of this?” I’m still super sensitive, and my throat is burning. Dealing with my own loss is hard, adding on someone else’s makes it unbearable.
With a straight face, she sighs heavily and asks, “Are you in danger, Mercy?”
The heat of the question warms the room, and I deflect it. “Everyone here is in danger of going back to the person who hurt them.”
“I don’t mean from—never mind.” She comes around and sits on the bed, patting the space next to her for me to take a seat.
I sit beside her.
“Back in my day, I saw a lot of bad people do a lot of shitty things, and way too many good people paid for it, so if you ever need to tell me something—anything—don’t hesitate. What you say to me is safe, and I would never do anything that would hurt you.”
My throat tightens as her hand slowly glides over mine, and hesitantly, she taps it.
“Who you are is not defined by who you’ve been, and every minute you live is a reason to discover who you are.”
“What if I’m not a good person?” I ask.
She looks at the clock on the nightstand and waits. When the eight turns to a nine, she softly turns to me and says, “Then be one.”
“Everything is simple to you, Addie.” I smile as the thoughts of my runaway youth threaten to hurl me back into an anxiety attack. Arson, theft, breaking and entering—maybe Karma really is a bitch.
“No, life’s just hard for your generation. Young people have a different way of working through things. You all like to add the term ‘complicated’ to everything in life.”
“Sometimes things are complicated, Addie.” I look her in the eyes and wonder if my mom would be like her, or my grandma, or anyone who shared my blood. “Life kind of sucks a lot.”
“Yep, sure does, sweet thing.” She chuckles. “Especially when we have high hopes.”
I snort and shake my head in disagreement. “Never had those. I’m sure your daughter had things like college and prom…and whatever else normal girls worry about. I haven’t been normal for a very long time.”
“I don’t believe that. You’re falling short of your self-imposed expectations.”
“It’s called reality. I’ve never really had money to spare. Sometimes, I had no money. I’m surprised I survived this long.”
She lets out a very long breath and nods her head. “You’re very hard on yourself… I used to be that way too.” She places her palm on her chest and rubs the space between her breasts as if it hurts to remember. “The little girls in all of you still fear the monsters under the bed, and instead of shining the light on them and exposing them for what they really are, you pull them into bed with you and nurture them. You feed them and love them, and forgive them. And worst of all, you stay with them.”
That’s where she comes in, I guess. I switch the subject back to her daughter. “Addison?”
“She kept going back…” she says distantly. She sniffles and lowers her gaze to the floor. “The first time he put her in the hospital, she didn’t tell anyone because she thought she deserved those things. It didn’t matter how often I told her the contrary. She loved the man who constantly punished her for being…” Addie looks at the bright yellow walls. “… for being with him, for being herself, and having people who loved her. He took her out a little bit at a time, and I saw my girl disintegrate before my eyes. Every time she came back to me, she was less of herself.”
A knock on the door startles both of us. A girl in tight jeans and a loose T-shirt with sneakers stands in my doorway. The bruises on her face hide the beauty of her cheekbones, and the cut on her forehead does little to mask her perfect bone structure. She’s muscular and tall, but she’s a bit hunched over, probably from something broken. The discoloration on her arms and the sadness in her eyes magnetizes the air. Her big brown eyes penetrate us. One of them is circled by an ugly bruise, but they look as if they’ve been crying.
“Oh, Kelsie, darling.” Addie jolts to her feet, as do I. “I’m so sorry. I came in here to talk to Mercy, and I got distracted.”
“It’s all right,” she says kindly in my direction, and smiles. “Sorry to interrupt your conversation.”
“Nonsense.” Addie motions for her to come inside. “Kelsie, this is Mercy. Your new roommate. Mercy, this is Kelsie, who I came in here to ask about you, but got all in my feelings.”
We both smile at Addie.
“I guess you heard the part about my daughter.”
Kelsie nods and tucks her hair behind her ear. “A bit. I’m sorry.” She addresses me, “Nice to meet you, Mercy. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Addison snaps her head toward Kelsie, letting me know she didn’t talk about me much.
Kelsie chuckles and points over her shoulder at the kitchen. “There were two little guys in there, recruiting me to be a scorekeeper and talking my ear off about a tickle ref who makes flat pancakes.”
“Guilty,” I say, feeling a little bit more relieved.
Addie looks at me and curtly bows her head. “You’re safe. The other night on the couch was just a dream.”
“Couch?” Kelsie asks.
Because everyone knew what happened, and she was going to witness the night terrors, I tell her, “I have nightmares about things that happened to me ... before.”
She nods her head, but doesn’t press for more information. Thankfully.
I blush in my new roommate’s presence. “You can have the bed,” I tell her.
“No, it’s cool. I’m used to sleeping on the floor.”
I’m momentarily stunned by her comment. She sure as hell doesn’t look poor. There’s a lot of shine to her hair and logos on her T-shirt. Usually the girls wear something a bit less expensive and from the shelter’s closet. Since Addie picks them up from the hospital, they don’t usually show up with much, unlike Kelsie who has a small bag with her.
“I did a lot of camping with my father when I was younger, before he passed away.” She leans against the wall and analyzes the room, distracting herself from her new surroundings.
Addie picks up on the perusal also. “This is going to take a bit to get used to. I know you’re used to something a bit more luxurious. I don’t have the best of everything, like I told Ivy, but it’s free, and I have lots of love to give.”
Kelsie’s eyes darken as she clears her throat. “It’s perfect, and honestly, I needed to get away from my brothers…and him… I should have come right after the first time, but I went home, and he apologized and swore he’d never do it again.”
That’s a common thing around here.
“I believed him, until my brother’s best friend showed up and …” She runs her hand through her bruised cheek, recalling the blow.
Addie likes to finish people’s thoughts, so she goes for it. “He got jealous?”
“He got jealous enough to backhand me f
irst.” She points to the couch and flicks her head to me, asking if she can take a seat with the gesture. I nod and she continues, “He kept hitting me, expecting me to tell the truth about cheating on him, until someone intervened.” The last part comes out through gritted teeth, and I get the distinct feeling she fought back.
“I’m sorry,” I peep.
“Don’t worry about it. You probably have a similar story.”
Not exactly. Breaker never hit me and neither did The Butcher, probably because he couldn’t find me. All my bruises and scrapes were from the constant falls through the woods. “You’ve got it worse than me.” If Breaker had done something like that to me, I’d let The Butcher take me. That’s kind of pathetic to think about.
“We’re both here,” she says. Her eyes get softer around the edges as she studies me. “Neither of us had it good.”
I glance down and realize I’m clutching my arm to my side, and covering my stomach, unintentionally drawing attention to my torso. “The important thing is we both escaped, right?” The words I choose don’t reveal too much.
She rests her back against the sofa’s cushion and stares up at the ceiling. “Escaping their presence maybe, but still living with them inside my head.”
“Them?” Addie asks, as she takes one of the dusting wipes I had out and wipes down the nightstand. “Are you talking about your brothers?”
Ears like a hawk.
“Yes,” she says hesitantly. “The guy who did this to me is part of their inner circle.”
“Do they know?” I ask.
She smirks and glances at the bookshelf. “Are all of these yours?”
“No, but I’m working my way through some.” I take a seat on the bed while Addie grabs the hamper from the bathroom. “I’m going to put these in the wash.”
“No!” I jump to my feet, but quickly readjust my tone. “I mean, you must be tired. Why don’t you take a break and I’ll put those to wash?” I didn’t need her finding out I wet the bed.
“Nonsense. You barely slept. Let me help you.”
“Addie, you don’t—”
“My bones may be old, but I can move about just fine.”
Kelsie must feel the panic in my body because she joins in, “I’d be happy to help with the laundry.”
What did she know about laundry?
Addie nods and drops the hamper. “Well, if you girls insist. I’ll let both of you get to know each other. I have some work to do.”
“Do you need help?”
“No, I need to interview some new guards. I want to add a couple more positions.”
“Why?” Kelsie asks for me. “Everything okay?”
“Yes, but one of the men showed up early this morning and barged through, knocking down one of our guys. He wanted his kids back, and we had to call the cops.” Addie half-smiles and fixes the hem of her shirt. “I hate cops. They always snoop around and check if I’ve reported the abusers, but no names are mentioned within these walls, and half the girls here give fake names, so who am I going to report? I don’t require paperwork to be here, and I don’t ask for money.” She sighs heavily, giving us the impression she doesn’t always follow the rules. “At least he agreed to go to therapy. Maybe there’s some hope for that family.”
“Hope so,” I add. One happy ending wouldn’t be so bad in all the heartbreak.
Addie leaves, and Kelsie points to the sheets in the hamper. “You didn’t seem happy about her doing the laundry.”
“It’s just that…I had an accident.” I have no idea why I’m telling her this, but if she is going to be sleeping here, and it happens again, she will know anyway. “I get anxiety attacks. Really bad ones sometimes.”
“Because of your b-oy?” She slips up but apologizes. “Sorry, not sure how they are referred to here.”
“No one really uses real names, like Addie said,” I explain. “Pronouns work or anything that makes you feel good. Addie likes to use ‘monster.’”
“Then let the cursing begin. I never thought I would be in a place like this,” she admits, as she runs her hand along the armrest.
“It’s not so bad,” I reassure her. “The people are nice here, and it’s comforting to be around people who understand how much it hurts to love someone who isn’t right for you.”
She tilts her head, thoroughly enthralled with what I have to say.
“I don’t really talk much, but my doctor recently told me I needed to open up, so I don’t get so many anxiety attacks.”
“Talk to a therapist?”
“If you want to. We have group sessions, and you get to know a lot about people there, but you still get the benefit, even if you don’t talk. It’s inspiring to know you’re not alone, and that the fear you feel is warranted.”
“Are you scared?”
“Well, yeah…aren’t you?” I chuckle nervously, a bit uncomfortable with having to be social, in close quarters with someone, who is now my roomie.
Oh, God. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.
“I don’t know what I am…” She runs her finger over her bruises again. The small gesture reminds me of the girls from The Farm. “I’m really fucking pissed though.”
“Yeah, I think that’s normal. Most of the ladies talk about hate and love, as if they are the same thing.” Including me.
“They are very different, but sometimes the lines get crossed.” Kelsie flips through a book. “Have you read this?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
She reads the blurb aloud and then sums it up, “Sounds like smut and hot guys. Why not, right? We’re practically celibate in here.”
I chuckle. “Never thought about it that way. These used to be Addie and her daughter’s books, so nothing super recent. She’s organized them. On the left is all romance and fantasy, the middle has all the inspiration and self-help books, and on the right, are textbooks. The lower shelf is the sexy stuff.”
“Makes sense. They are the most worn out ones.”
“True. I guess when you stay here, there’s not much trouble you can get into.”
“Unless you bring trouble with you.”
I carry trouble with me. My mind veers toward the last time I was with Breaker. The day he shared a piece of himself and didn’t even know. Silence and echoes of memories force me to believe he doesn’t deserve the punishment of forget. Not that I could ever banish the way his lips felt on my skin, but on the off chance I could, how is that not torture to me?
Separating the man from the monster isn’t easy when he’s like an echo, constantly reverberating through the hollowness inside me. Flashes of our bodies together bounce off the surfaces, supplicating for an opportunity to fill the emptiness—to sustain life on memories.
It sounds awful, but it wasn’t—he wasn’t.
Breaker was gentle with me in his own way, and being watched by him after being his so many times aroused me. It made me feel special.
Which is also disturbing.
“You okay?” Kelsie asks, breaking me out of my thoughts.
“Yeah, I’m still processing everything that happened. It’s been months but time doesn’t make a difference when your brain keeps drumming him up. I want to hate him and rip him from my essence, but he’s always going to be there. The longer I’m away from him, the more I wonder if he’s changed or if he misses me…or if he forgot about me altogether and moved on to some other poor girl.”
“Would it be so bad if he forgot you?” she asks. Tearing the heart away from love isn’t as easy as conditioning the mind to hate.
“I don’t know… I like to think he feels bad somewhere deep down.”
“Why? You love him?”
Because I don’t want her to feel bad for loving the guy who hit her, I tell her the truth. “I think I fell in love with him at some point, but I wish I hadn’t.”
“Are you sure it’s love?”
“It’s something,” I tell her, “but I know that after all the crap I went through with him in my life,
I don’t hate him. I feel sorry for him sometimes.”
“That’s a dangerous road,” she cautions, using the book to point at me.
“Addie tells me that all the time. But it’s true. He used to tell me things about his past and things about his family, and sometimes it’s like he only had me to talk to, you know?”
She nods. “What kind of things?”
None that I would ever repeat out loud. “That’s not for me to say.”
“Not even to help you get through it?”
“I don’t have to get through his problems. Those are his sins to confess… I have enough of my own to work through.”
She remains quiet for a few minutes as she stares at some page in her book.
“That chair opens up into a bed, I think. There are sleeping bags in the main house, or you can take the other half of the bed.”
She nods, but is immersed in her book.
I sit back on my bed and put my feet up. In a little while I have to get lunch started, and a quick nap would help. “Addie was right, I am exhausted.”
“He doesn’t sound like a good guy.” I vaguely hear her, but I’m so tired, I drift off to sleep thinking, He wasn’t so bad to me.
11
Gold Bullets
Breaker
I answer the phone to hear, “Hi, this is Kelsie Borges, and I’m inquiring about your job position.”
“Kelsie?” She was supposed to check in yesterday. Those fake papers cost fifty grand, and another ten for rush delivery.
“Yes. Let me go somewhere a little more private, so we can conduct the interview.” It sounds like she exits the room with all the noise and closes a door. “Yeah?” Her tone automatically hardens.
She must be alone.
“What about ‘check in when on location’ don’t you understand?” Then again, I only got my phone back last night. I had been using Rom’s until I took mine in. Turns out it still worked just needed a new screen. Unfortunately, if I didn’t have my phone I wouldn’t have had to put up with Magdalena’s phone calls. Before Kelsie points out my lack of reachability, I tell her, “I’m always reachable. House, Rom, Stone. There is no excuse.”
