by Calia Read
“What do you have out there?” I ask her.
No answer.
“Do you have any family? Any friends out there waiting for you?”
She blinks slowly. I’m getting tired of trying to decode her blinks so I give up.
We sit there in silence.
“God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take which you please—you can never have both.”
I turn. Pretend Mommy is sitting at the table across from me. She’s staring at that damn plastic baby.
“Huh?”
“Ralph Waldo Emerson said that,” she says as she caresses the baby’s plastic cheek. “And he’s right. We can’t have both. We have to pick one.”
I turn in my chair. My back touches the wall and I cross my arms. “And you think we all want both?”
“Well…” she says slowly. “We’re all still here, aren’t we?”
Her words make my heartbeat slow. I swallow. “How long have you been here?” I ask.
She looks up at me and her cobalt blue eyes are piercing. Even though she’s crazy, I see knowledge far past my own. Knowledge that only experience and pain can give you.
“Three years,” she says.
This place—this prison—is her home.
“Most people will only spend a few months here. They stop fighting their truths. They accept them for what they are and leave.”
My chin lifts; I don’t like where this conversation is going. “And what about you?” I ask. “Where’s your truth?”
She points to the window. “My truth is somewhere out there. I didn’t want it three years ago and I still don’t want it.”
I sit up straight in my chair. Only two steps away is the person I’m afraid of becoming. I don’t want to be locked in Fairfax for the rest of my life. I refuse to let that happen.
Pretend Mommy smiles knowingly and leans close. I lean back. “Your truth is out there too, isn’t it?” she says.
My chair squeaks loudly as I stand. Pretend Mommy looks down at her baby. Instead of singing a sweet lullaby to her plastic baby, she sings an old hymn that sends chills up and down my spine.
She’s fucking crazy. Everyone around me is fucking crazy.
I walk out of the room slowly and when I get to the hallway, I quicken my steps.
I’m not crazy like them.
I know I’m not.
My door slams behind me. I do a quick sweep of the room. Lana’s dad isn’t here today.
I pace, picturing the frozen icicle, still hanging onto that weak, naked tree branch. Despite the freezing temps and strong winds, it refuses to drop.
I fall back onto my bed and stare at the ceiling. “You’re not crazy,” I say loudly. “You’re not a lifer.”
I inhale. “You’re not one of them.”
I think I’m finally starting to realize just how much time I’ve lost. I know it’s passed me by but the impact finally slams into me like a freight train.
I can dream. I can imagine and hope, but it will never change a thing. And the most terrifying thing is that I know, I know there’s more to the story. There’s another train coming straight at me, at full speed. Yet I can’t see it. I can only hear the ground slightly tremble. The tracks rattling beneath my feet. I can hear the sound of a whistle blaring.
But I can’t move.
All I can do is hope that when it does hit, I die in seconds.
“I’m not crazy,” I repeat. “I’m not crazy. I’m not crazy…”
That night, I don’t dream about Lachlan. Or Max.
I dream about Lana.
She’s twelve. Her waist length hair was in a French braid. She had just finished eating and was rinsing out her bowl. Her teacher would be there in ten minutes. Every day they would meet in the spare office upstairs for her lessons. Lana would start out with Social Studies and move on to Math. There would be a small break in the day for lunch and after she would have an hour of quiet reading. The last two classes would be English and then P.E., but Lana just saw that as extra time to ride her horse.
Her life may seem ridiculously boring to some. But she loved her simple routine.
She shook the water from the bowl, turned off the water and put the bowl on the drying rack. That’s when she felt him.
Her body became frozen as her dad approached. Her muscles locked up and all she could do was stare straight ahead. She counted the backsplash tiles as her dad stood behind her, his body against hers. He ran his fingers down her braid.
45, 46… she mouthed. Her eyes ran over every smooth tile piece. The square pieces were so small. She could count them for days.
“All that pretty hair,” he said.
65, 66. Her mouth was moving frantically. Her hands were shaking, but she stood still, waiting for her dad to stop talking and touching.
She waited, but he never moved.
“You have lunch at 11:30, correct?” her dad said. His breath touched her skin. Tobacco mixed with coffee. It didn’t mix well.
71, 72, 75… she messed up. It instantly threw her off. Her heart started to thump wildly inside her chest. Her lungs began to constrict, making her breathing shallow. She couldn’t think straight.
“Lana?”
Lana swallowed. “Yes, that’s my lunch.”
“Good.” He stepped back. “I’ll see you then.”
He walked away. The back door shut behind him. Lana sagged against the counter, feeling relief over his departure and dread for when he came back.
My eyes burst open.
Twelve-year-old Lana is bent over me. Her eyes are bloodshot from crying. Braid is loosened with strands all around her face. She has on a pink shirt, with flowers all over it. A pair of jeans, slightly rolled up and with chalk fingerprints.
She’s a genuine kid. Except for those eyes. They’re a decade older.
My fingers curl around my sheets. She exhales and it appears in the air like a fine mist. I gasp, sucking in the same air she’s breathing.
“Will you still help me?” she whispers. Her voice is small and young and so scared.
I answer instinctively. “Of course.”
Twelve-year-old Lana doesn’t look convinced. She stares at me with distrust.
“I will. I promise to help you!” I sit up. My arms reach out in between us. I want to hold her. Console her. Reassure her that I will keep my promise. But my fingers slash into thin air.
She’s gone.
I jump out of my bed, like it’s on fire. “No…” I drag out. I check under the bed. There’s nothing. I stand up on shaky legs. “No, no, no. She was here. She was right here,” I whisper out loud.
There’s nothing in my room.
No Lana.
No voices.
No dark eyes in the corner.
I turn in a circle, looking over every inch of my room. Everything starts to spin. Something akin to desperation takes over my body. I stop. The room continues to move. There is double of my bed. The walls multiply. Yet there is no Lana.
I drag my hands through my hair and groan. “I’m sorry, Lana,” I whisper. “I’m trying to get out of here.”
There is only the sound of the wind hitting my window. I turn and stare at it, like it’s the reason for all my problems.
I become angry. At Fairfax. My inability to get out of here. And Lana’s silence.
“I’m awake!” I yell inside my small room. “You have my attention! Why won’t you talk to me?”
Silence fills my ears.
“Come and talk to me. I’m listening! Talk… please.”
The light turns on. I whirl around. Mary’s standing in my doorway. She’s frowning at me.
Without thinking twice, I run to her. “Lana was here.” My finger shakes as I point to my bed. “She was standing over me and she was asking me to help her.”
The look in Mary’s eyes makes my voice shake. Pity mixed with disappointment. That’s never a good thing.
“I promise she was here,” I insist. “She was.”
> Mary’s hands are on my shoulders. She slowly guides me to my bed. “Of course she was.”
I look over my shoulder. “You don’t believe me.”
“I do.”
“You don’t,” I accuse. “She showed me what happened to her as a child and it’s a sign. She needs my help and that was her way of reaching out.”
There’s that pity and disappointment. Maybe I really am insane. Maybe this place is where I belong. My legs buckle. I drop to the floor. My knees curl.
Mary doesn’t call for assistance. She quietly sits down next to me. Through the blur of tears I see her stretch out her legs, her hands disappearing into the pockets on her shirt.
She lets me cry. I don’t know why she’s staying and what she plans on doing, but I’m grateful that she hasn’t left. Her silent support makes my tears subside.
Mary speaks up. “There are so many people here. Every single one has a life and a story to tell. Each one worse than the last. I don’t know your story, but I know it’s bad, and I know you’re terrified.” She tilts her head and the look she gives me is so motherly. “Naomi, I don’t want Fairfax to become your home. You deserve so much more than this. You deserve to live a good life, because you only get one chance to live.” She holds up a finger. “One chance. There are no returns. No redos, no matter how bad we want them.” She pats me on the shoulder. “Please make your life worth living.”
We sit there in silence. When I first came here I thought Mary was some uptight nurse who couldn’t care less what happened to me.
I realize now how wrong I was.
I tap my shoulder against hers. “Thank you,” I whisper.
She smiles. Her hand disappears from my shoulder as she stands up.
“Where are you going?” I say.
I like her company. I love her words. I want more of both.
“You need something to make you sleep,” Mary says.
She leaves. I sit there quietly. I stretch out my legs, just like Mary did. I don’t have pockets, so I just cross my arms. I don’t move a muscle. I’m hoping that if I mimic her movements, some of her strength will rub off on me.
It doesn’t.
Mary comes in a few seconds later. Pills in one hand. A small cup of water in the other. She holds them out to me. “Here you go.”
I take them numbly. Mary helps me up and I lay back down, waiting for the pills to do their job,
Mary walks to the door. Before she closes it, she says quietly, “Sleep well.”
I turn on my side and stare at the wall.
Doesn’t she know? I don’t sleep.
I dream.
I haven’t seen Lachlan in a year.
It felt like the life was being slowly sucked out of me. Most days I felt like I had no value, like I was a penny dropped on the sidewalk. When I felt that way I instinctively turned for Lachlan. Not having him there felt like I was missing a limb.
Last summer he came home for a quick weekend visit. Since he had graduated college, he’d stopped coming home for the holidays. His visits were next to none and I was resentful. I was sad. I was jealous because I wanted all his time. He was busy with his internship and I knew that. He was working hard. He was making his own money, and saving every dollar.
“Don’t be mad, kid,” he had said to me.
Kid. When I was ten I used to like the nickname, but now I was starting to hate it.
I crossed my arms and looked up at him. “Can’t you upgrade me to a different nickname? I’ve officially outgrown ‘kid’.”
He glared at me, a hard look in his eyes. “That’s all I call you!”
“Well, call me something different… oh… I don’t know, call me by my name?”
He shrugged but looked away. Thirty minutes later he was getting back into his car and driving back to his job and his apartment and his single life. I hated that I would be reduced to e-mails, texts and calls.
I watched him go and it felt like I had been standing here all 365 days, waiting for him to come back.
And now he was here. Finally.
I pulled on the reins of my horse and watched him. His back was turned as he talked with his dad. I wanted to call out his name right then, but I kept my mouth closed.
I tried to imagine what he would see if I did call out his name. Would he see young Naomi with braids hanging down her back and her knees scraped? Or would he see me as I am now? The braids were gone. I was taller. My legs were longer. My chest that used to have a ‘little something’, turned into a lot of something. My eyes that were once too big for my face, now looked just right. My cheekbones, the ones that I thought were too sharp and awkward looking on my face, now fit. I felt good about the girl who looked back at me in the mirror.
I knew that it was inevitable that Lachlan would also change. But he looked better than I could have ever imagined. His shoulders were broader. His hair was cut shorter. The longer strands on top were mussed from the wind. My heart twisted so tightly at the sight of him I thought it would break into a million pieces. I vowed to myself right then and there that I would never let myself go this long without seeing him again.
When he crossed his arms and kicked his head back to laugh loudly, I couldn’t hold my happiness in any longer.
“Lach!” I shouted.
I was off my horse in seconds and walking toward him with quick steps. I didn’t care that my blonde hair was probably crazy from the wind. Or that my cheeks were red from the cold air. None of that mattered because he was finally back.
Lachlan turned with a bright smile on his face. My heart did a little flip and I smiled back. As I walked closer though, his smile started to fade. He looked me up and down with his eyebrows drawn tight. When I stopped in front of him he said nothing. Just stared at me like he had never seen me before.
“That you, kid?” he finally said.
I tilted my head up to look at him and frowned. I had barely said two words to him and something already felt different between us.
“Stop calling me that.”
A faint smile was on his face but it was strained. Tight and controlled. “You’re different.”
“I’ve grown up,” I said.
“You have,” he agreed.
Not for one second did I imagine that we would ever struggle to talk to each other. I’d just assumed we would pick up where we left off the last time. But the last time was long ago. Too long ago. There was a silence between us that had never been there. I wanted it gone. I hated it.
“I’m so happy to see you,” I said in a rush.
I didn’t wait for permission. I leaned forward and wrapped my arms around his waist. Lachlan’s body tensed for a second before his arms hesitantly banded around my shoulders. We stood there, with our arms wrapped around each other. I had dreamed of being this close to him so many times and not letting go. He always hugged me, but it was always a friendly hug. More like a pat on the back. But we were past a few seconds and his arms were still around me. Butterflies that I always seemed to get when he was around had disappeared and instead, my body just tingled in every single spot that was pressed close against Lachlan. My nose brushed his throat and I smelled his scent instantly. It was outdoors, mixed with cologne. It was a heady scent to me—one that drudged up memories and reminded me that Lachlan’s arms were home for me. My fingers clutched the material of his jacket tightly.
My imagination was not limited when it came to Lachlan. I would think of the craziest scenarios of how he would suddenly fall for me. He would tell me how much he loved me. And then he would kiss me. It would be a kiss that could take every kiss and touch before him and make it disappear. But it always stopped there. Right now, my mind was giving me scenarios that involved more than kissing. My arms tightened around his stomach, inadvertently pressing him closer. My breasts were pressed against his body and I felt warmth in between my legs. It was like lighting a match. One minute there was nothing and the next there was nothing but light and heat.
It scared me enough t
o make me pull away. Lachlan looked at the spot I had been in seconds ago with confusion before he cleared his throat and looked around. Only a few inches kept us apart. I took a step back. “Tell me everything!” I demanded with a squeak in my voice. “How’s your new job? When are you moving back to McLean?”
So many questions. I couldn’t contain any of them. Lachlan would always keep in touch via e-mail. But his e-mails were brief. Quiet. They were nothing like seeing him in person where he would always go into great detail about his friends, school, or even something he had seen that was funny to him.
I lived off of those stories.
Lachlan’s shoulders visibly relaxed over my questions. “My new job is boring. I’m basically an errand boy, with a small cubicle as my ‘office’. And my ‘office’ is right next to this guy. I think his name is Darin. He’s a heavy breather. Creeps me the fuck out. I swear he does it to drive me insane.”
I laughed. “It still sounds exciting. Even with Darin the Heavy Breather.”
He hesitated before he slung a heavy arm over my shoulder. He used do this all the time, in a friendly way. But now my breasts were pressed against the side of his stomach and the heat of his body warmed me instantly. Tingles were back. He cleared his throat.
“Everything is exciting to you,” Lachlan said. “I could tell you I’m getting a root canal tomorrow and you’d be jumping up and down with excitement.”
I gave him a look as we walked toward the deck in the backyard. My hand had been hanging awkwardly at my side since we started walking. I wanted to reach out and touch him like he was touching me. I hooked it around his waist.
“And as for moving back to McLean, I don’t think that will ever happen.”
My head whipped in his direction. “Why not?”
“There’s more to this world than just McLean. A lot more. Trust me. Once you leave your home, you’ll never turn back.”
I nodded briskly, soaking in Lachlan’s words like a sponge. But he didn’t have to tell me twice about never coming back to McLean. I had no desire to stay here, but a part of me was scared at what else was out there.
“What about you? What’s going on in your life?” Lachlan asked.
