Twisted Little Games

by Dee Palmer

  “Maria?” Her hand hovers somewhere between the doorknocker and the bell. I leap over the closed gate and skid to a halt, startling her such that she gasps and flusters to catch the box as it almost slips from her hand. What’s in the box?

  “Good lord, you scared me half to death Logan. You’re out!” Her wide eyes and shock are replaced with a wonderfully bright and genuine smile, which I completely ignore.

  “What’s in the box?” I snap, grabbing it roughly from her hands.

  “Logan, are you okay?” Her voice is filled with hurt, and I can’t bring myself to care as a tidal wave of fear surges through me.

  “What’s in the box?” I rip through the dainty string and tear the cardboard. Maria’s face is utterly horrified. She manages to speak with a catch in her voice.

  “What do you think? It’s Tia’s cupcakes. I know she doesn’t work for me anymore but you didn’t think—”

  I don’t hear the rest of what she’s saying. I can only hear the blood rushing through my veins and boiling up my insides. I burst through the door, rage and fear colouring my vision. My heart won’t beat I’m so damn scared, and I daren’t breathe. I round the kitchen door and see the open box of coffee and walnut cupcakes. Identical to the one I snatched from Maria’s hand. Why didn’t I open this yesterday? Why didn’t I check? I don’t know how many were in there originally, maybe twelve? The space in the corner would indicate the number but I can’t be sure, one is missing and one is crumbled and half eaten.

  A muffled retching sound fills my ears and triggers my feet into action, I fly from the room, leap up the stairs, leaving Maria perplexed and frozen at the front door.

  I round the corner of my bedroom and race to the en-suite. Tia is slumped over the toilet, her shoulders are shaking, and she arches her back with the force of more sickness. I’m on my knees.

  “Tia?”

  She wipes her glossy lips with the back of her hand. “I think I’m done.” Her voice is hoarse, and her red, swollen eyes would indicate she’s been doing this for a while. Not for long enough, though.

  “No…no you’re not. Open.” I thrust my fingers down her throat, and she heaves over my hand. Mostly water spills into the toilet bowl and dribbles down my arm. Her wide eyes question my sanity as I keep my fingers in her throat, and she coughs and chokes around my hand, fighting me. she manages to pull away enough to express her outrage.

  “What the hell Logan? What’s wrong with you?”

  “You have to get rid of it all, every bit.” I try to push my fingers back into her mouth, she ducks and dodges; her evasive manoeuvres thwart my attack.

  “Get rid of what?” She swats my hand away, but I’m more than determined to win this fight.

  “The cupcake.” I manage to grab her jaw and have to fight to keep hold. I risk my fingers pushing them so hard against her lips but I don’t care. “It’s poisoned. Maria is at the door. The cupcakes are from my sister.”

  “What? No.” The ‘o’ is enough for me to stick my fingers back inside and she retches around them when I press her tongue down and hit the back of her throat. I growl my response.

  “Yes.” She clings to my forearm and attempts to speak around the fingers filling her mouth.

  “Uut I haven’t eaten a uup-ake.” I understand enough to remove my fingers.

  “One’s missing.” I argue as she shakes her head. She looks so damn pale I’m not remotely convinced. My stomach is in knots, and I feel as sick as she looks.

  “It’s on the side table in the bedroom, Logan. I mean I was just about to take a bite when I felt suddenly sick and rushed in here. I haven’t eaten anything. I’m okay.” Her hands press either side of my face, making me focus on her, hear her words. I’m not sure if it’s me or her, but one of us is shaking. I draw in a breath and look deep into her eyes.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Logan, I’m fine.”

  “But the half eaten-no!” A fearful understanding haunts the words escaping my mouth and hangs ominously in the air with my unfinished declaration.

  “Logan?” Tia’s eyes widen as dread cloaks us both.

  “Logan! Tia!” Maria’s voice booms from downstairs. It has just the wrong edge of panic to be simply checking on our whereabouts.

  I run my hands rapidly over every inch of Tia, to check she’s really okay, but she is already fighting her way out of the bathroom and scrambling to get downstairs. I’m right beside her.

  I hit her back as she roots to the threshold of the kitchen.

  My eyes fall on the same heartbreaking site.

  Maria is kneeling beside a small mound of ginger fur and an even smaller pile of cupcake crumbs.

  “No!” Tia stumbles forward, I reach to support her but she crumples to the floor. Her hand shakes as her fingers tentatively stroke Sid’s limp, lifeless body.

  Logan takes the box of cakes and throws them against the wall. He runs his hands through his hair and lets out a sound so raw it burns my ears. I can’t bring my tear-filled eyes to focus on anything other than the soft fur filtering through my fingers as I continue to stroke Sid’s still warm body. I feel a hand on my arm and look up to see Maria’s sad eyes staring helplessly at me.

  “I’m so sorry, Tia.”

  I give a tight nod because I don’t trust myself to speak. My lips are pressed in a firm flat line and my chest shudders from the effort to contain the sobs. I am vaguely aware of Logan leaving the kitchen. I hear his heavy footsteps climb the stairs and a distant door slams.

  “Is there anything I can do, honey?” Maria asks, and I’m already shaking my head before I voice my reply.

  “No, Maria. It’s okay. No, thank you, though, and thank you for my—” A sorrow filled cry explodes from deep inside my chest, and I fold over onto myself, one arm wrapping around the hollow sadness clawing in my tummy, the other lying heavily on Sid.

  “Oh honey.” Maria’s arm rests across my shoulders. Her words falter because there’s nothing to say. She hauls me into an awkward sideways hug, and I try and pull myself together. It’s not like he was my cat; we only met yesterday, and it makes not a toss of difference, no matter how many times I run those words through my head.

  He’s dead and it’s just so sad.

  “I hate to be leaving you like this, honey, but I gotta get going. I’m looking after the little one today and—”

  “Oh no, it’s fine. I’ll be fine, thank you again.” I roughly rub the streaks of tears from my cheeks, and as Maria lifts herself to her feet, I give Sid a light pat, a final stroke, and then I stand too.

  I show Maria to the door, and she gives me a silent, heartfelt hug. I feel sick to my stomach, and as soon as I close the door, I make a mad dash to the downstairs toilet. I reach my target in time when my stomach violently heaves nothing but bile and saliva into the bowl. My stomach feels bruised and my heart aches. I slump against the icy-cool porcelain, close my weary, sore eyes, and let the tears fall.

  I don’t know how long I’m there; exhaustion pulled me into sleep, and I wake with a crink in my neck, drool at the corner of my mouth, and a numb arse. Logan is standing at the door, his expression so darkly distant I have to take a second look.

  “Logan, are you okay?”

  “Come on, you need to get dressed.” He holds his hand out to me, my legs are locked, and I need the support to get up off the ground. I stumble forward, trying to ignore the unpleasant niggle in my gut. He’s avoiding eye contact, and he didn’t answer my damn question. He releases my hand as soon as I find my feet, and the loss of contact feels like more than simply letting go; it feels like severance.

  “Logan, what’s wrong?” I dip to try and catch his gaze. His evasion is stealthy and sends an unpleasant shiver along the length of my spine.

  “Nothing I can’t fix.” He glares right through me. I place my hands on his cheeks, forcing him to look at me, not through me.

  “Stop it, Logan. Stop it now.”

  “Stop what?” His brow crinkles with his pie
rcing glare, yet his delivery is remote.

  “This…this shutting down!” I want to shake him. He feels rigid beneath my fingertips, my pleas failing to penetrate this newly erected wall between us. “Stop blaming yourself. This isn’t your fault.”

  “Oh I know it’s not,” he snarls. His hands grip my wrists, squeezing to the point of pain. His eyes dance with a darkness I’ve never seen before. “It’s her fault, and she is going to pay.”

  “Are you going to call the police?”

  He huffs out a twisted laugh. “And say what? Report the death of a cat that doesn’t belong to me? That I suspect it’s been poisoned? No, Tia, I’m not.”

  “There’s no need for the fucking attitude, Logan. I’m upset too, but it’s not my fault either.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong.”

  “What?” I tug my hands from his grip, his accusation, striking like a heavy palm across my face. I stare, disbelieving and utterly broken.

  “If you weren’t here, that wouldn’t have happened.” He points behind him in the general direction of the kitchen.

  “You’re blaming me?” I can barely get the words out. They scour my throat with the acrid taste of his accusation.

  “If you weren’t here, you wouldn’t be in danger.” A thunderous look settles uneasy on his face, his dark eyes stormy and troubled.

  “Logan, I’m not.” I try to soothe his escalating worry with my calming tone, only nothing seems to be getting through, he’s like an impenetrable rock.

  “Not what, Tia? Not in danger?” His voice drops to an eerie calm, and I get a surge of sickness swill in my tummy when he recites his terrifying list of truths. “That wasn’t a box full of poisoned cupcakes for you in the kitchen? That wasn’t a cupcake on the side table up in the bedroom just ready for you to take a bite? Christ, if I’d stopped to tie my fucking shoelace you’d be dead.”

  “I didn’t eat—”

  He bites out, cutting off a sentence I couldn’t complete. “You can’t even finish the train of thought because you know I’m right.” I let out a shaky sigh, feeling the ominous weight of his words. My shoulders sink, and my stomach drops.

  “So what are we going to do?”

  “We aren’t going to do anything. This is my problem and I will fix it.” My hackles rise with every one of his emphasised inflections.

  “Nice, Logan, and what am I supposed to do? Just sit back and watch you tear yourself apart trying to find a fucking ghost, and then what? I clench my hands into tight, angry fists as adrenaline and frustration pump furiously through my veins. “Am I supposed to silently watch you commit a crime which will probably get you sent to prison?” I fail to keep my voice remotely level as panic colours my every thought. “Not fucking happening Logan! I won’t lose you too.” I’m unashamed I’m falling apart before his eyes. He needs to see this. He has to know he’s destroying me, and I have to convince him, whatever he’s thinking, it’s a bad fucking idea.

  “Princess, you already have.”

  “Don’t say that, and don’t fucking call me princess.” I’m shaking head to toe. Tears fill my eyes, and I’m furious they won’t stop. I rub them dry and try to get my head straight. I don’t understand what’s happening. I don’t understand any of this. I squeeze my eyes tight and pull air deep into my lungs. Pressure throbs inside my head like the tick-tock of a bomb, and when I open my eyes and focus, I swallow as the timer hits zero. Boom! “Logan, what’s with the bags?”

  He follows my gaze to two large suitcases and a rucksack. His expression is impassive, and my heart squeezes out its last beat. I shake my head with the unthinkable reality unfolding in this waking nightmare.

  “You can’t leave.” I stutter out the words clogging my throat.

  “I’m not. It’s me she wants, and she knows exactly where to find me,” he states flatly.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I can’t have you here, Tia. I can’t have you in my life. I won’t be responsible for the death of someone else I love. I won’t.” He straightens to his full height as if the extra few inches will distance himself enough to not feel the impact of his decision.

  “Logan?”

  “You need to leave.”

  “You don’t mean that.” I reach my hand toward him, and he snatches it in his and pulls me forward. He grasps my chin with the other hand and locks his vacant glare on mine.

  “Don’t I? Look in to my eyes and tell me you think I don’t mean every fucking word. Get. Out. Of. My. Life,” he hisses, and I feel each word plunging into my heart like a lethal blade.

  I see it now.

  I see it all.

  Raw and ugly and true.

  I can’t fucking breathe. I curl my fists and hurl them at the immovable wall of muscle towering over me, thumping, pounding with every ounce of fury and frustration until my arms drop to my sides, too weak to lift my hands for one more blow. He’s like a statue. My body is wracked and ruined. My tears ran dry somewhere between desperation and devastation, about the same time as all my hope. I stumble back and look up at the stony features of the man I love, so changed in that fraction of time.

  How did this happen? I know why, I just can’t comprehend how.

  He won’t look at me, and I hate him for that.

  “Coward,” I whisper as I step around his mountainous frame. He flinches at the word or my nearness; I can’t tell. I don’t know anything anymore.

  I feel like I’m watching myself from the outside, or on autopilot. I feel a numbness, like a drug, creeping through my veins and sedating every cell, yet not quite erasing the agony. There are nightmare stories of surgeries where the patient is paralysed with anaesthesia and can still feel every cut and slice of the scalpel. They just can’t scream. I wonder if I can.

  I reach my bedroom, strip out of Logan’s T-shirt and head straight to my bathroom. Turning the dial to scalding hot, I step in the shower and rub my skin raw, trying to feel something other than the unbearable heartbreaking pain shredding my heart into a million fucking pieces.

  This can’t be happening.

  My eyes sting. My body won’t stop trembling, and I can’t suck in any air without a gut wrenching sob tearing from my lungs. I tilt my head back and let the scorching hot streams of water beat down like a thousand needles over my face and body, relishing the pain, a distracting respite from my hopelessness.

  My skin is bright red and too tender to even pat dry with the softest towel. I walk naked into my bedroom. Logan stands just inside the room, with his back to the door. His presence spikes a jump in my heart. I get a flash of hopeful tingles across my skin which cease the instant I register the only thing that’s changed is the location. I can see all too clearly I’m fighting a losing battle, and my desolation is momentarily eclipsed once more with blinding rage.

  “Come to check I’m still leaving?” I spew words with venom drenching the sarcasm.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, fuck you very much, Logan. I have to pack and get some clothes on.”

  “I’ve packed for you. Everything you own is in those cases downstairs.” I am speechless, my mouth hangs open like the fool I am. “Don’t look so surprised, T, you took a lot with you when you moved in with Atticus.”

  “What about all my art stuff here?”

  “I’ll send it on.”

  “On to where, Logan? I have nowhere else to go. This is my home, with you.” I hate the pathetic lilt to my voice, yet I can’t seem to stop. Please don’t do this.

  “This is my home.” His voice catches, and I cling with bleeding fingernails and a broken heart to that sliver of hesitation, like I would to a ledge.

  “What about us? You said you’d never leave me. You said you’d never hurt me. You fucking lied.”

  “If I let you stay Tia, you wouldn’t be hurt. You’d be dead. Please don’t make this any harder than it is.”

  “Really, how can I make this any harder?” I pull my sweatpants on over my bare legs. My socks stick to th
e damp skin, and I use my t-shirt to dry my sodden face before dragging it over my wet, limp hair.

  “You called me a coward.”

  “You are a coward. You don’t have to do this, and you can’t even look at me when you are breaking my fucking heart.” I breathe in stuttering breaths and soul sad sobs. Every fibre in my body is shattered.

  “It hurts too much. I don’t have a choice, Tia. I won’t lose you.” He drags his hands through his hair and looks up to the ceiling. There’s no heaven here, nothing left to pray for. He’s made his decision, and I can’t glean any comfort from the visual that I’m not the only one going straight to hell.

  “This is fucked up.” I wipe my nose with the back of my hand, resigned and worn though. “You won’t lose me so you’re kicking me out”

  “I have to sort this, then we can—” I blurt out a sharp, bitter laugh, which pulls him up short.

  “What? What can we be Logan? Be together? You think I’d take you back after you tore my fucking heart from my chest and stomped it in the ground with your stupid fucking size thirteens?”

  “Tia, please.”

  “Please what?”

  “Please, just leave.”

  “Oh, I’m gone. I’m so fucking gone.” He sighs and I grab my sweater from the end of my bed and my handbag. It would be childish to push past him with my shoulder but that’s not why I don’t. I can’t bear the thought of touching him, knowing it will be the last time.

  “Would you mind just stopping at the store. I need to get some supplies.” I tap on the window dividing the driver and me and all my worldly possessions. The black cab driver wasn’t thrilled with the long distance when I gave him my destination address but my teary eyes and fistful of notes persuaded him to accept.