If You Dare

by A. R. Torre

  Almost an hour later, the door swings open.

  The man is tall. Built but not muscular. He wears a cream sweater with the sleeves pushed up, exposing tan forearms and a thick watch. My eyes find his face, an aristocratic one, the kind that took lacrosse blows as a teen and sips wine as an adult, thick brows over intelligent eyes over cheekbones that perfectly coordinate with a full, unsmiling mouth. Dark hair that is perfectly styled, every bit in place. He stands in the open doorway, a hand still on the knob, the other by his side, like he hasn’t fully decided whether to come in or out. I sit in my chair, he stands in his doorway, and we say nothing.

  Finally, my eyes having made the long journey across his strong forehead and down the crooked slope of his nose (a skiing accident? Or maybe polo?), I meet his eyes. Light in color, they sigh at me in studied disappointment and I know, before he even opens his mouth, who he is.

  “Hi, Deanna.” He doesn’t smile, doesn’t step forward, doesn’t do anything but speak.

  I swallow. “Hi, Derek.”

  CHAPTER 66

  Present

  HE STEPS IN and shuts the door behind him. Click. Steps two more steps closer, his hands reaching forward and wrapping around the back of the chair, his fingers settling around the metal, a breath of a pause, then he lifts the metal and swings the chair up, off its feet and around, setting it back down next to me. I turn my head to the right, toward him. I can’t move more than that. My latest stunt has resulted in a new setup, my ankles shackled to the chair, my wrists now cuffed behind my back, the links also tied to the chair. If I go batshit crazy in this setup, the worst that can happen is that the whole chair, with me tied on, falls over. I know. I tested the limits during the hour-long wait. I flopped on the ground like a fish until someone was kind enough to come in and set me back up. Thank God Derek hadn’t come in then. That would have been a horrible first impression, my cheek stuck against the filthy floor, my knees on the ground, my feet in the air, hands stuck up like a broken marionette doll.

  He reaches forward, grabbing the leg of my chair and dragging me sideways, until my chair faces his. He leans forward, his forearms on his thighs, fingers tented as he stares at me. I sit stick-straight, my cuffs not giving me much choice in the matter.

  “What’s with the black eyes and the nose?” He moves his hands in a circular motion that brings in his entire face.

  I shrug. Try to remember the last time I took a shower. It’s been a while. I hate that this is our first meeting. Had I known, I’d have shaved. Perfumed. Worn makeup.

  “Did it happen here? Or before?”

  “Before.”

  His eyes narrow. I’ve imagined a hundred expressions on this man’s face, yet I was so wrong. He looks nothing like I’ve imagined, yet is beautiful in fifty new ways. “Give me more.”

  I shrug. He chuckles. I stare.

  “I was just thinking…” He rubs at his lips. “… of all of the times you are silent, on the phone. You’ve probably been shrugging.” He smiles and it is beautiful. Derek smiles. I would have told you it was impossible.

  “I do like to shrug.” I smile back at him and we smile at each other and this is the weirdest conversation we’ve ever had. I think, sitting here, three tiny feet between us, that we need the anonymity of a phone line between us. This is too vivid, too personal, too much. I want to dig my fingers in his shirt and press my face into his chest, inhale his scent. Run my fingers along his forearms, along his collarbone, up his neck, through his hair, and mess up the pattern. Bite his earlobe and memorize the sound of his inhale.

  “What happened to your face?”

  I look at the room’s window. “Is this conversation confidential?”

  “Yes.”

  I keep my head turned. “I think it was Jeremy.”

  “Look at me.”

  I don’t, strictly out of principle. When his hand reaches out for my chin, I flinch. Glare at him in offense. It’s bullshit but it works. His face shutters, hand retracts, eyes drop. “I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t have to look at you if I don’t want to.”

  “I know that. I’m sorry.”

  I’ve known this man for four years. Have had hundreds of sessions with him. I don’t think, in that course of time, that he has ever apologized to me. I look at him and repeat the answer. “I think it was Jeremy. I have a memory… of Jeremy hitting me.”

  “Why did he hit you?”

  I frown. “I can’t… I think I was out of control. I think he was trying to calm me. Or snap me out of it.”

  “Did it work?”

  I smile sadly. “I don’t know. The police showed up the next morning. They say he fell out of my window and was then stabbed six times.”

  He leans back in his chair and stares at the ceiling. Lifts his hands to his head and sets them carefully on top of his hair. I don’t like that. I want to be worth messing up hair for.

  “I thought…” His voice breaks. “I thought we had you under control. I thought you were manageable.”

  I close my eyes at the disappointment in his voice. Am just as quickly pissed. Pissed that I care that he is disappointed. Pissed that he is making me feel guilty for something I’m not entirely sure I have even done. Pissed that he is convinced of my guilt. Pissed that I am something to be managed. I can’t stop the words, they echo through my mind, a repeating record of what Not To Say, yet I open my mouth and say them anyway.

  “You have never managed me. And you have no idea the things I have done.”

  His hands drop, then his chin, his eyes slowing opening and finding mine.

  I sit before him, hog-tied to that damn chair, and beg him with my eyes for everything.

  He looks back, his eyes dead, and gives me nothing.

  I close my eyes and turn my head. “Please leave.”

  “I’m not leaving, we need to talk about this. What things have you done?”

  Things I Have Done… what I had wanted to say was People I Have Killed. “I’m a little vague on visitation rules, but I’m pretty sure you can’t force me to talk to you.”

  He sighs. “Deanna, I flew here to meet with you. Just talk to me. Please.” The beg in his voice I like.

  “Why did you come, Doc?” I turn my head back to him. He meets my gaze without flinching.

  “You told me you lived in Utah.”

  I shrug. He’s right, I do like to shrug. Goody for him. “I lied.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s a protection thing. It’s not safe to share everything.”

  “Protect yourself? Or insulate yourself?”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “I think you insulate yourself. Put lies between you and others. They can’t get too close if there are things about you that aren’t known.”

  I stare back at him and wish I had full use of my arms. I’d reach out and dig my nails into his scalp. Mess up that mane of hair in a way that could never be put back orderly. Pompous prick. Good looks can’t make up for being an ass. “I don’t lie to everyone.”

  “Really?” He raises his eyebrows like he doesn’t believe me. “Tell me one person who you are a hundred percent truthful with.”

  Mike. I think the name but I don’t say it. It is my personal victory, made stronger by the fact that I don’t have to share it, don’t have to boast it. Plus, an utterance of his name will only lead to more questions, and I’m pretty sick of Derek’s face right now. As a secondary concern, I’m not a hundred percent sold on Derek’s proclamation of our conversation being private. The laws surrounding doctor/patient confidentiality have more holes in them than Marilyn Manson’s body. The last thing I need to do is create a big red flag with Mike’s name on it.

  I look at his knees, clothed in dress pants. They look expensive. A random outfit to choose to visit a woman in jail. If I were Derek, I’d say he put on stiff business clothes to put a guard up between him and me, to hold me professionally at bay in avoidance of every moment we may have shared that wasn’t strict
ly professional. Not that there have been many. There’ve been few, actually.

  I stood at the window and looked out, my nail scratching absentmindedly on the paint of the frame. A sea of roofs before me, the moonlight reflecting off various metal tops. If I opened the sill, there’d be the faint scent of car exhaust, of city, of the musk of today’s rain, the mist still heavy in the air, dots of the rain on the glass. A pebbled view of the outside world. I live in ugliness, but from my prison, it looks like freedom, and there is nothing more beautiful. I listened to the ring, a soft buzz that went eight times, then ended, his voice clipping through, the message swift and professional. I ended the call and redialed. Listened to the buzz repeat. A light in a building went out. One more soul put to bed. I pressed my hand against the glass and heard the faint sound of a siren. His machine answered again and I hung up. Redialed. Waited.

  The third ring was answered, his voice gruff and scratchy, the confused hello and cough of a man roused from sleep. I bet he sleeps like a baby. No crimes to bemoan, no mistakes to lament, no demons to fight. He probably tosses a few times over a misplaced IKEA order, then sleeps the snooze of the perfect dead. I bet his life is boring.

  “What’s wrong?” He’s reached out and flicked on a light. Was sitting up in bed and rubbing at his eyes, his vision adjusting on the clock. I reached up and undid a button on my sleep shirt. Paul bought me these pajamas. Said all the ones I wear on camera look incredibly uncomfortable. So I was in flannel. Flannel with baby kittens on it, because he said they reminded him of me. Stupid, yet I was wearing them.

  “Nothing,” I said softly.

  “Deanna, it’s three in the morning.”

  “I know.” I undid another button.

  He sighed and I heard a soft thud. Imagined him collapsing back against pillows.

  “Are you alone?” I rested my forehead on the glass and looked down. The street was empty, the Quik Mart sign the only illumination on a road whose streetlight bulbs no one bothered changing.

  “Yes.”

  “No missus, Doc?”

  There is a long pause. “No missus, Doc,” he finally responded.

  “I’m lonely, Derek.” I closed my eyes and felt a tug in my throat, in my swallow that was thick and painful. I pressed my lips together and took a deep breath.

  “I know.” The words were so soft. I let out the breath and opened my eyes. Looked out the window and stopped looking through it, seeing the reflection of me in the glass. A faint girl, wavy. Barely there. That was me. Barely here. If I disappeared entirely, no one would know. No one would care.

  “I just want…”

  “Everything?”

  I laughed, the sound coming out as more of a sob. I sniffed in an inhale. “Yes.” And that was the problem. Ninety percent of what I wanted I would never again have. My family. My freedom. My normality. “Who do you have, Derek?”

  “For what?” I love his voice. Deep and safe.

  “For not feeling lonely.”

  There is a moment when he says nothing. Breathes nothing. “My situation is very different from yours, Deanna. I have friends, I go to the office. I pull comfort and connections in everyday activities.”

  I undid another button. “That doesn’t help at all.”

  He chuckled. “The truth rarely does.”

  “Then lie. Tell me what, right now, I need.” I shifted my gaze in the window and saw myself, saw the thumb of my fingers across the last button, my shirt falling open, a window of pale skin underneath. I pushed the material aside and stepped forward. Reached out a hand and drew along the glass, the cool apartment’s condensation providing an easy canvas beneath my index finger. I outlined the line of one breast as he sighed out a word. “Deanna…”

  “Tell me about yourself. What does my doctor wear to sleep?” I lifted my finger and moved it right, stepped closer until I could see the detail of a pink nipple. Outlined its reflection in the glass.

  He stayed silent, but I could hear his breath. Heavier. I smiled and lifted my finger off the damp glass. Brought it to my breast and dragged it across my chest, five fingers of contact smearing cool liquid, five tongues of Derek, across my skin, swirling down to one expectant breast, then the other.

  “Good night, Deanna.”

  I heard the click of his phone and sank forward against the window. Held the phone to my chest and felt the cool spread of empty throughout my limbs. I shouldn’t have pushed. But I needed, in that moment, more. I blinked hard and dug my nails into the unyielding cell.

  It was a moment we never spoke of. A night that had, in the years since, faded like the aftermath of an orgasm, into a dream. Now, in the stark fluorescent light of the room, it felt like the slight break had never happened. Not with this perfectly put-together, disapproving psychiatrist.

  “They may call me as a witness. In the trial.” He picks an invisible piece of something off his pants and drops it off to the side.

  “There won’t be a trial. I’m pleading guilty.”

  The statement earns me eye contact, his head lifting sharply. “That’s interesting. Have you spoken to an attorney?”

  “No.” I won’t be speaking to an attorney. Another individual’s involvement is the last thing I need.

  “The detectives told me that Jeremy is in an induced coma.”

  I break the eye contact and look down. “Yes.”

  “He might come out of it.”

  I want to know so much more than I do, yet I’m terrified by the possibility of that information. Can I handle details of what I’ve done? I say nothing.

  “I think you should talk to him. No matter what you did. You need that closure.”

  No matter what you did. “I’m not pleading guilty because I think I did it, Derek.”

  “But you do think you did it.”

  “I don’t think he threw himself out the window.” My Spyderco. Yellow handle. Bloody evidence bag. My guilt pushes down my throat. I wouldn’t have. Yet, all the pieces are there, the only shortfall is that when I’ve stabbed in the past, my dead made it all the way to the finish line.

  “I’m not understanding your logic.”

  “I’m pleading guilty because I believe, regardless of what did happen to Jeremy, that I may no longer be able to control myself.” It’s your fault. You brought up him leaving me. You put the crack in the stronghold that I had emotionally built. The words never leave my lips, I swallow them and they die.

  “So you think that jail can do it for you.”

  There is an itch on my collarbone that badly needs scratching. No wonder individuals in straitjackets are insane. “I’m willing to give it a few years to find out.” Six hours. It’s been six hours and I am practicing breathing. I search the room for a mental distraction but only find Derek. I wonder if he finds me attractive. I wonder if, in the last four years, he has imagined me as often as I have imagined him.

  “This is a drastic mode of self-policing, Deanna.” He leans forward, putting his forearms on his knees. If I could lean forward, I would. I try to pull my wrists apart and wince at the steel resistance. “I could have arranged a home, a facility that could have—”

  “Drugged me.” I’m sweating against this seat, my back damp underneath the two layers. I should have taken this fucking sweatshirt off.

  “Drugs have proven very effective with psychosis.”

  “I don’t want drugs, I want to be fixed.” An old, tired argument we have had a hundred times before. I barely have the energy to say the words. I see the sigh in his shoulders, and he lifts a hand to his forehead and rubs the area there. “We…” He stops and I wait. “We were only four hours apart. This whole time. Four hours.”

  “So?”

  “So I thought you were in Utah!” The statement is an explosion from his mouth and he jerks to his feet, my eyes lifting to follow him, decisive, angry steps taking him away, the room too small, his strides hitting a wall, and he paces, back and forth before me, his body a tight coil of tension.

  �
�It didn’t matter. Why would it matter if I was three hours away or thirty?” I wonder, as the words head in his direction, if he even hears them, his focus so absolute on the frustration he is experiencing. But I should know better. Derek is consistent in his unwavering love of listening, words his drug of choice. He stops and turns to me.

  “It would have made a difference, Deanna.”

  God, I wish I could stand. Wave my arms. Stomp my feet. Grab his shirt and assert force. “No,” I say strongly. “It wouldn’t have.” There is no us; don’t act like there was ever a chance of us. “Jeremy may die.” A reminder that shouldn’t be needed, and I suddenly hate him for it.

  A softening of his face, the fall of his brow, relax of his mouth, a hundred tiny motions that should have occurred but don’t, the tension still there, greedy and selfish as he grips the top of his chair and leans on it, his forearms flexing as he stares at me as if he can force action from me. “You shouldn’t be here. You don’t deserve this. You are good, Deanna.”

  I laugh, and the sound comes out cruel and mean. I yank at my cuffs and push with my feet. The laughter grows legs and runs a fucking marathon. My wrists complain and I fight harder. Tip hard right, then left, Derek’s face a blur as he reaches out but I buck away, my chair doing a mad dance of confusion as it skitters back before it tips too much and falls. He tries to catch me and gets there too late, my elbow catching the hard floor first, my laughter rolling out like an unending chorus that never ever stops.

  You are good, Deanna.

  I laugh harder and push the crazy out, to a place he can’t avoid seeing.

  I hear him fling the door open, hear him call out for help. I hope, through the next peal of laughter, that he never comes back.

  You are good, Deanna.

  He has no idea. All those smarts and still stupid.

  CHAPTER 67

  Present

  THE PACKAGE COMES through FedEx. All of Mike’s do. It’s a principle thing. Having UPS knock on his door, earn his money… it feels like the equivalent of Tom Brady wearing a Jets jersey. It is supporting the other side, Jeremy’s side, and that side doesn’t need any more of anything.