That’s the revelation that I have come to understand.
The love that I want doesn’t want me.
My laughter turns into screams as my dry throat cracks. My vision is still obscure, the only proof of my actuality the cold concrete that irritates the soles of my feet. A hard grasp tugs on my aching wrist, pulling me into a helix of warmth. Warmth. I hate remembering things. Good things. Sweet things. I try to focus, but the fog and heat are making the senselessness frame around me further.
‘Are you ready to be part of this empire Mrs. Alvarez?’ Words spoken by Mateo before the Mexican humidity swayed over my skin. ‘Are you my king, Mr. Alvarez?’ I answered back as lust and affection encircled me. ‘Oh, never fucking forget it. You bow down to no one else.’ We had a love, too. But it’s gone. I saw it behind the glass doors. He didn’t want to rescue me. He faded deep behind the blackness that I pulled him out of. He’s regressed. I’ve gone crazy. We are all fucked and destined for hell. I’m the lucky one, ready to meet it soon.
I’m pushed beneath the hot waterfall as soft hands dance over my body. You are worthless. But they loved me. You are destined for hell. I don’t care. I’ve seen glimpses of dysfunctional heaven on Earth. Your body is disfigured and disgusting. It doesn’t matter. They made me feel beautiful. My conscience is berating me, but I won’t let her win either. I smile under the waterfall as the smell of soap wafts up my nostrils while my hands remain at my sides. Several pairs of hands work on my body, cleansing the dirt and grime away, then moving up to my hair. I tip my head up as shampoo is lathered up, the aching of my abuse still lingering everywhere. I cannot kid myself, it has never waned.
Hands force me to look up higher and push my head directly under the water, rinsing the suds free. I open my eyes and stare at the white-tiled wall as the water drips down my face, creating one of the most therapeutic times of my existence. Strong arms force my legs apart as a soft cloth cleans my sore pussy and ass.
“Stand there and rinse,” a gentle voice coos.
I stare at the white tiles still, hoping that it’s an indication that I am soon to meet a wonderful end. I close my eyes and smile, letting my arms go out and pray in my head to a God I was sure never existed. Dirty, despicable girls never make their way to heaven. It’s useless to pray. I hate the internal voice that is playing in my head. She’s shouting more and more as time passes. The water disintegrates, instantly leaving me cold. A cotton towel is draped over my shoulders and I break again.
“No! No! He hates towels! Throw them all away! Now! Now!” I shout, tossing it across the showering room.
I refuse to stare at the people that are looking at me, judging, and seeing me as nothing but spare parts. My story is so much more than that. I can’t say goodbye thinking anything but that, but the wildness in my mind is becoming stronger.
“Take her in now,” the same voice says, making the nerves I don’t want to admit grow deeper.
I keep my head down as a chill bites my skin with each drip of water that rains over my body.
‘Stand over there by the heater, Mi Amor. You are still wet and need to dry. No towels.’
Before I understand what is happening, bright lights greet me. My legs have continued to move because this is something that I have wished for since I was birthed into this world.
“Lay here, girl,” a masked man states. His voice has a lighter accent than the others and less caring. Still, my eyes remain on my feet as the go in and out of reality.
I look up slightly, staring at a gurney with a white sheet draped on it. There’s a large, bright light over the top of the bed, probably so the doctors can see inside of the bodies that they take apart. My tired body ascends on top of the gurney, appreciating a bed to lie on, despite its stiffness. I close my eyes because this isn’t how I want to remember my goodbye. I hear footsteps, several sets, echoing heavily in the processing room. They don’t tell me what they are doing, because I know. I asked for this. A light sheet covers me and I have to withhold my urge to laugh again, yelling out to tell them that shyness isn’t in my vocabulary. Brief thoughts enter my distorted mind and I understand that this is the only way I will be good enough for Mateo.
I am only good enough if I am dead for Caesar and Mateo. If that is what it takes for them to love me, so be it. Stick the needle in my arm and let me have my last parting. I wonder if the images I saw previously of Mateo were real, and if so, will he take me like a lover just as the others?
A tough jab of a needle brings me out of my stupor as patches connected to wires are placed over my chest to a heart monitor. Tape is then placed over the area on my arm that will soon be injected with the concoction that will send me into a peaceful slumber. The beeping of the monitor starts and a rush of cold starts up my arm, sending a shockwave of anxiety through every cell of my body. I want to move and scream that I don’t want this anymore, but my mouth is paralyzed by the drug that was just injected into my vein. I open my eyes, the only sign that I have left before my goodbye is granted, one that I thought I wanted, but now I don’t.
Something isn’t right, but I can’t put my finger on it. My lungs constrict and I can’t breathe. My body is paralyzed by terror as I look around only to see masked workers checking the monitor and writing things down on a board. A shadow in the corner is lurking, watching as a piece of his heart is soon to die. Caesar stands there, pursed lips and arms crossed, still handsome despite the burn scars that cover him. His black eyes look at me just like the others. I want him to save me, and not like this, yet he stands there waiting for me to fall into a goodbye I thought I wanted.
“Her eyes are still open. Dale mas,”
My veins turn icy as my eyes beg to remain in the current to tell the people that I don’t want this. Fear. I am terrified of what I will see on the other side, but the drug wins and my eyes are too tired to fight. I am too tired to fight, and I fall asleep, greeting not dreams and happiness, but nightmares and pain.
The goodness I thought I had was nothing but a fucking lie.
Nothing is what it seems.
Svetlana
Dirty princesses were birthed from somewhere.
Cold shivers cover my tiny body. I try, but fail miserably, to wrap my small arms around my skinny legs, but it wouldn’t matter. The only person I love is on the other side of the door; the door that used to mean good things to me. Warm water and soap. Lots of soap to wash the dirt away, but there were never any towels. I always had to drip dry by the rumbling heater while my mother huddled in the corner, whispering terms of endearment in Russian to the man that she worshipped as it made him angry.
I was thrown out to the sleep in the hallway hours ago because I kept coming out from hideaway spot when my mother was having her alone time with the man that cares for us. He hardly speaks and I wish I knew his name.
Those were better times, sweet little dreams and secrets that my mother and I shared of warm microwave meals and baths. My eyes focus on the door where we go when we are desperate. That’s where the man that feeds us, bathes us, and doesn’t beat us lives. I think he might love my mommy. Maybe one day, I will be good enough for him to love me, too.
I wonder if anyone will ever love me.
I push my ear, which is still sore from Pavel’s boot, to the door, hoping to hear something sweet. Instead, there are cries. My mother’s pleas cannot go unnoticed. It’s the only kind of lullaby I have ever been sung, besides the echoing of knuckles on bone. That is another tune that is played about in my confused little mind.
I wonder if anyone will ever love me.
“Get off of me, puta! I cannot give you what you want! Pavel is sure to kill you soon enough,” the man yells.
The same man that saves us at all the right times, wiping the blood free from my mother’s face, is mad. Is that what we are to do? Cry and beg when you want someone to love you?
“No, Caesar! Please!” my mother yells.
I can tell how sad she is in her voice. She wants someone to love h
er, too.
“люби нас, Caesar!”
Love us, Caesar!
“You know I don’t understand that communist fucking slang, perra!”
I hear the music that sets my heart alight. Smack. Slap. Punch.
“Love us, Caesar,” I whisper, pushing my tiny fingers beneath the opening of the door.
“Love us, Caesar,” I state, trying my best to grasp onto the last bit of goodness that we have had.
“Love us, Caesar!” I cry, tears clouding my vision as my little fingers try to dig their way inside.
The door swings open and the quiet man that always helps us stands tall above me, holding my mother’s hair in his hands with her submissive body dangling beneath. I sniffle, wiping my eyes free of the tears that are prayers for a freedom from the prison of hell that we have been delivered to.
The look on his face isn’t the same as the other times. His hair is a mess, hanging over his forehead and his jaw is clamped down like he trying to chew a tough piece of meat. His nostrils are flared and his chest is moving like he’s been running, but I haven’t seen him running around. He’s angry. I know that Pavel changes when he gets angry. So angry. That’s what is happening to this man. The man that now has a name…
I put on the last brave face I have, reaching out to grab the bottom of his pant leg, “Love us, Caesar,” my voice a small whimper as I plead with every last bit of faith that I have with my big brown eyes.
He immediately drops my mother from his tight grip and she goes limp for seconds, then wrapping her arms around the bottom of his leg.
I wonder if anyone will ever love me…
Instead, I was tossed out to the hallway because my mother and that man, now who I understand is Caesar, wanted to be alone, and telling me to hide away more than once wasn’t acceptable.
Caesar kicks my mother away from his leg, and she goes flying into the hallway like a ragdoll I always wanted. He grabs me by my dirty pink shirt, which is several sizes too large, but it was doable because it covered my bottom. He yanks me inside of his apartment, and I smile because I think that I am being stolen away from the blackness of the streets and hatred.
I think someone loves me…
My bare toes dance over the rough floors and I think of a graceful ballerina floating across a stage to the arms of someone that adores her.
I think someone loves me…
My small hands meet his grip. His skin is warm. It isn’t cold like Pavel’s and he smells like lemons, soap, and cigarettes. I had lemonade once at the homeless shelter. I think it smells a little bit like what heaven would be like. Before I have time to understand what’s happening, my slight lungs are knocked free of their air as the hard floor meets my back. My dizzy stare meets Caesar’s, the man who finally has a name. I decide to try one more time. Maybe he is God. He’s been the only kind of good that has come into my life.
“Love us, Caesar,” I murmur between panted breaths.
His eyes widen as his shaking fingers make their way to his belt buckle. Will he beat me now, just like Pavel? I gulp hard, understanding that this is just how my life is going to be, tainted by the darkness, soon to be swallowed whole.
A loud thump and screaming from the hallway breaks him from me and he walks backwards until his back is up against the wall. He’s shaking his head no. He can’t love me. I don’t understand it, but something in my heart just wants to make him better. I get on all fours, trying to crawl over to him to beg for his love.
His boot meets my nose.
No one will ever love me.
“You are no princess. You are dirty just like your fucking whore mother. Get out!”
His voice is colder than ice, and I’m certain that part of me has died. His heavy, bloodied boot steps over me as his large hand grasps onto my hair, dragging me out to the hallway to lay like trash and cry alongside my mother.
The dirty princess was birthed from the tainted king, and soon, they would fall in love and their empire would come crumbling down.
Mateo
MY dear, do you know,
How a long time ago,
Two poor little children,
Whose names I don't know,
Were stolen away on a fine summer's day,
And left in a wood, as I've heard people say.
And when it was night,
So sad was their plight,
The sun it went down,
And the moon gave no light.
They sobbed and they sighed, and they bitterly cried,
And the poor little things, they lay down and died.
And when they were dead,
The Robins so red
Brought strawberry-leaves
And over them spread;
And all the day long
They sung them this song:
"Poor babes in the wood! Poor babes in the wood!
And don't you remember the babes in the wood?"
I had nowhere to keep her so I emptied out a glass jar of peanut butter, the sticky sweet smell filling up the whole space. I scrubbed it until the label and all it’s glue had was removed and I could see through the clear glass. Drying it in the oven so I know it's as sterile as I can manage here. The blood that was sticky before has dried and formed a crusty shell around her. I slip my sweet little love into the jar and seal it. Holding it up to the light, I see the sacrifice she made for loving me. Not sure what I should do with her, I place her in the freezer compartment of the old fridge that stands in the corner of the kitchen. It already smells of death in there. I don’t think anyone has cleaned it once since the sixties when it was obviously made. The level of filth here plays games with my need for order, I think that's why I stayed away. It also houses the memories of Lettie loving me; I believed her. I was such a fool to think any living person could love what I am. She was just trying to hurt me, punish me for Caesar leaving or worse, trying to fill the gap he had left. She loves him and no matter how wrong it is a love like that is beautiful, you can feel it flowing from them. Even covered in shit and blood he loved her, I could never have seen through the dirt and chaos. I know that she is going to be my demise if I am not hers first.
There is a liquor store not far from the hovel and I go to find something that will numb the pain of losing my little doll. Another person left me behind; maybe it is me that needs to die so that I can love them all again. I buy three bottles of brandy, I can’t handle the local tequila it is like battery acid and I don’t see the appeal at all. I pay premium for my drink of choice and carry the heavy bottles back to the hole I am hiding in. I am hiding, from what I do not even know, but this is hiding. I have crawled under my protective rock and I don’t want to come out. The door slams shut behind me and I collapse on the small dirty sofa - where she loved me. I immediately move as the reminder makes my stomach roll. Drinking from the bottle, I empty the first one quickly. The booze dulls my senses and the static in my mind, calming the bitter anger just enough to allow me to think about things with a new purpose.
Revenge. I don’t care about digging two graves, I am happy to die but I want her to suffer as much as I have. I want Lettie to die with me, she is killing me already.
Half way into the second bottle of free thinking, my phone rings. The screen reads an international number I don’t know but the small print below it says Spain. I pick up and slur out a hello.
“Hola, this is Mateo.” The words all bleed into each other and I stagger to the chair in the small kitchen so I am sitting up and don’t fall asleep while I talk.
“Mateo my sweet boy, how are you?” Oh god, the devil has my phone number.
“Abuela, what do you want?” I chug more of the golden courage down because I will need it talking to her.
“Where is Caesar, he isn’t answering his phone?” She is irritated. I can hear it in her voice the way her words get cut short.
“Killing people, where else would he be?” I am too drunk for this conversation. I in fact have probably hallucinated the cal
l in my stupor. I am still hurting over my sweet little dolly.
“Has he killed her yet?” She hisses the word her with a venom of hate like I haven’t heard in a while. She hates me that much, she says my name that way. I was the thing that caused the death of both her daughters and she blames me every single day. She would love for me to die, but she has enough fun punishing me for my sins.
“Killed who? He killed my sweet beautiful lover, ripped her heart out and left it for me. He is a monster, Abuela. You make such beautiful monsters.” The booze talks for me as I mumble and stumble over the words and thoughts.
“Mateo, that whore’s child needs to go. I won’t have that bastard of his inheriting this family’s hard work. You are at least from decent blood boy or I would send you the same way.” Oh, she means Lettie Doll, his child. Fuck, she would be the one to get it all. I feel a little pang of jealousy over that idea, I have worked hard to stay in the old crow’s good graces. This place is mine, I am doing so well. I can succeed.
“He fucked her, right in front of me. He loves her. She isn’t dead yet, almost, but not quite. When she is then I can love her too.” I let out a cackle that sounds as if I have escaped a mental facility. She will just love it that her son is fucking his daughter. She wants him to be normal more than anything and he never will be. Even better, it's all her fault he is a walking time bomb.
“Mateo, she would be perfect for you boy. Kill her.” The old lady hums a silly tune, waiting for me to answer her. I can’t because my head is exploding with alcohol and images of Lettie’s sweet dead body below me. “Mateo, sober up and call me back, you insane fool. Or I may just dispatch your left kidney somewhere.” I have angered the devil.
“I can help you. Give me a little time, Abuela.” She doesn’t say goodbye, she never does. I don’t think she likes the word. Unlike Caesar who has made it his mantra in life. The dial tone in my ear hurts so I set the phone on the table. I swallow down the rest of my drink before I pass out on the dirty kitchen floor and dream.
The Goodbye Girl (Red Market Series Book 2) Page 9
