Black Box

by Cassia Leo

  ‘Everyone.’ I pull my feet up on the seat and bury my face in my knees so the driver can’t see me crying in the back of his cab. ‘My parents, my therapist, my fucking best friend. The only one who gives a damn about me is my sister, but I can’t stay here just for her.’

  Crush’s silence makes my whole body ache with shame. I want to be the type of person who makes plans for the future and finds beauty in a speck of floating dust, but that’s not me. That’s me only when I’m tripping on ecstasy or acid. Or when I switch to a new type of medication that really seems to work! Until it doesn’t work anymore, then I’m back to being me. And I’m just so tired of being me.

  ‘I’m exhausted,’ I say, laying my cheek on my knee so I can look at Crush.

  He reaches across and brushes his thumb across my cheek. ‘We’re almost there.’

  By the time we reach the hotel room, the tears have stopped, but I’m still so tired. All I want to do is collapse onto my bed and stay there for the next two days until our flight.

  Crush sets the black box on the kitchen counter and I stare at it for a moment, wondering if my curiosity will win over my demons today. I look at him and he’s looking in my direction, but not anywhere near my eyes. He’s already thinking he needs to distance himself from me.

  ‘I’m going to bed.’

  ‘Wait.’ He grabs my hand as I turn to leave. When I look at him, he pulls me toward him so he can cradle my face in his hands. ‘Don’t go,’ he pleads, laying a soft kiss on the corner of my mouth. ‘It’s only three o’clock. We don’t have to look inside the box. Just . . . stay with me. Please.’

  ‘Why?’

  He tilts my face up so he can look me in the eyes. ‘Because I want you with me. I . . . I think you’re supposed to stay with me.’

  ‘Supposed to stay with you? What does that mean?’

  ‘It means that I . . . Fuck. I think I’ve loved you for longer than I care to admit and I’m just starting to understand why. And I want you to stay.’

  He lays another soft kiss on my nose and I clutch his forearms to keep from collapsing.

  ‘You love me? But . . . you hardly know me.’

  He fixes me with a stern glare. ‘How many people know the things I know about you?’

  I shake my head. ‘Nobody.’

  ‘Don’t tell me I don’t know you when I’ve spent the last three years trying to forget you.’

  I grab the front of his jacket and pull it to me, burrowing my face in his chest so he can’t see me sob. He kisses the top of my head as he rubs my back. It takes a while before I finally catch my breath and slow the flow of tears enough to pull my head away from his chest. I immediately wipe my face, though I’m pretty sure all my tears are soaked into the front of his coat.

  I take a deep breath before I look up at him. ‘Okay. Let’s open the box.’

  *****

  We decide to go back to my bedroom and sit across from each other while we open the box, which rests on top of the unmade bed between us. My fingers tremble as I reach for the lid of the box.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want to be the one to open it?’

  ‘I’m positive,’ he replies quickly. ‘Go on.’

  I lift the lid slowly and my heart aches when I see there’s only one folded piece of paper in the box. It’s not bursting with letters from June to Herman; or, rather, from Jane to Hugh. It’s just a single sheet of white paper, folded in half and lying in the center of a black box lined in chestnut-brown velvet.

  ‘You want to read it?’ he asks and, though I really don’t want to read it, I know I have to.

  I lift the sheet of paper out of the box and a photograph falls out, landing back inside the box. Crush picks it up and holds it up so we can both see. It’s a handsome older gentleman who looks a lot like Crush, wearing a dress shirt and a fedora and a little girl with short blonde hair dancing next to a stage where a man is playing the saxophone. The stage looks very familiar.

  ‘Is this your grandpa?’

  ‘Yes, so that must be Jane.’

  ‘Was this taken at Wally’s?’

  He nods as he gently lays the photograph inside the box. ‘Read the note.’

  I unfold the paper and my stomach aches when I see the messy scrawl of a child.

  Daddy,

  I can’t remember the song you sang to me. I’m sorry, Daddy. They won’t stop hurting me and they won’t let me see Mommy. I don’t want to be sick. I miss you and Mommy. Please give Mommy my box so she can read this too.

  Love,

  Jane

  I drop the note and it lands on the bed next to the box as I try to imagine why Hugh would want his grandson to see this. Why would anyone? My thoughts are interrupted by a dreadful realization. I reach into my pocket for my phone, but it’s not there. Glancing to my left, I see it lying on the nightstand where I left it, dead. I have to call Rina and tell her to get the note out of the windowsill. I can’t let Meaghan see that.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I ask Mikki as she stretches across the bed to reach for her cell phone on the nightstand.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she replies, clutching the phone against her chest. ‘I think I made a big mistake.’

  ‘What kind of mistake?’

  ‘The kind that hurts people.’ She pulls the phone away from her chest and stares at the screen for a moment before she sets it down on the bed. Then she lets out a very unexpected chuckle. ‘My phone is dead.’

  This is such an inappropriate response to the letter she just read, it makes me uncomfortable. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘My phone is dead.’ She repeats this as if I should know why this is so significant. ‘I just got a strong urge to tell my friend Rina to get rid of the suicide note I left on my windowsill.’

  I quickly slip my phone out of my back pocket and hand it to her. ‘You can use my phone.’ She stares at the phone in my hand, but she doesn’t reach for it. And I’m beginning to understand why the people in her life are often frustrated by her behavior. ‘Make the call.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  I know why she can’t make the call. She doesn’t want to ruin her plans in L.A.

  ‘Fine. If you can’t call it off, then go to one more place with me tomorrow.’

  She sighs as she pushes my hand back. ‘Look. I know what you’re trying to do. You get me to go on this adventure to the most gorgeous library I’ve ever seen. Then you show me what’s inside the black box I’ve been obsessing over for three years. And now you’re probably going to try to take me somewhere to have a good time so I can see that I do have something to live for. While I appreciate the thought behind the gesture, I’d appreciate it more if you could let me do what I came here to do.’

  ‘You forgot to mention that I also told you I love you. You forgot to belittle that, as well.’ She appears stunned by this remark, so I continue. ‘You think I don’t understand how you feel? I do know how you feel. You’re afraid.’ I reach for her face and she turns her head. ‘You’re afraid of being vulnerable, physically and emotionally. You’re afraid of loving completely. Most of all, you’re afraid you’ll live your whole life without ever being truly happy because you don’t even know what it is that will make you happy. You’re afraid of not being passionate enough or brave enough to live. But you are. You are brave because not only did you go to the library with me today, you were the one who insisted we go.’

  ‘That was curiosity, not bravery.’

  ‘When you were drunk at Wally’s yesterday, you told me that, other than going to and from school, you haven’t left your house in four months. So I’d say what you did today was pretty brave.’ She shrugs, unimpressed with this explanation. ‘And looking inside this box . . . reading that note aloud . . . that took huge fucking balls.’

  This gets a tiny smile out of her. ‘How do you know so much? You sound like my shrink, minus the balls comment.’

  I swipe my hand down my face and take a deep breath as I prepare myself to confess. ‘I know what it�
��s like to feel so exhausted with your life that you feel as if you might be better off snipping all ties. Before I changed my name, there was a time when I thought suicide was the answer.’ Her smile disappears as she waits for me to continue. ‘That night in the parking lot . . . I was there to kill myself. That’s why I had my gun ready and I was able to save you . . . because when you stumbled into my life that night, you saved me too.’

  I hang my head, unable to meet her gaze. I know she probably won’t judge me for wanting to kill myself. But I’m afraid she’ll think I’m not strong enough to care for her.

  Her hands enter my field of vision as she pushes aside the black box and reaches for my face. Looking up, I find her wearing a soft smile as she looks into my eyes. She doesn’t speak as her fingertips roam over my face, caressing every curve and hard line.

  ‘I never saw your face that night.’ She swallows hard and my heart begins to race as she traces her thumb over the rim of my bottom lip. ‘But I never forgot your scent. Sometimes, I’d be sitting in class or walking through the corridors between classes, someone would walk by and the smell would hit me like a kick in the face. But I’d still close my eyes and breathe it in for as long as the scent lingered. You may have tried to forget me, but, as painful as it was for me, I didn’t want to forget you.’

  She wraps her arms around my shoulders and buries her face in my neck. I can hear her taking a long sniff as I wrap my arms tightly around her waist to hold her against me. She’s trembling a little and it kills me to know that she may have had trouble separating my scent from theirs in the early days after the attack.

  ‘I feel like I’ve known you all my life,’ I whisper in her ear. ‘I don’t want that feeling to go away. I want to know you all my life.’ She squeezes me tighter, but she doesn’t say anything. ‘Come with me to Wally’s tonight. I want you to hear the song I wrote for you.’

  ‘For me? You mean . . . the song you’re going to record in L.A., you wrote that for me?’

  ‘Yeah, take one guess at the title of the song.’

  She pulls her head back and looks me in the eyes. ‘Muffin stumps?’

  He laughs briefly then fixes me with an intense glare. ‘Come with me. I’ve been working on this song for three years and no one has ever heard me sing it. I want you to hear it first.’

  ‘Me and a roomful of strangers. Just play it for me here, pleeeeeease.’

  ‘It will sound so much better at Wally’s. Besides, I’m beginning to think I should probably perform it for a crowd at least once before I play it for Kane.’

  ‘You think so?’ she replies sarcastically. I lightly dig my fingers into her ribs to tickle her and she yelps. ‘Don’t tickle me!’

  ‘Why?’ I chuckle.

  Her body goes rigid and I can sense something has shifted. I quickly remove my hands from her sides and she scoots away from me. Her hands tremble as she crosses her arms over her chest.

  ‘I’m not going to tickle you,’ I assure her, but she’s not looking at me anymore. She’s somewhere else. ‘Mikki?’

  ‘I have to take a shower.’

  ‘Okay, do you want me to order you something to eat?’

  ‘No, just leave. I have to take a shower then I’m going to sleep.’

  I sigh as I rise from the bed. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Go, please.’

  I close her bedroom door softly and I listen for a bit before I make my way back to the kitchen to grab a beer out of the refrigerator. Taking a seat on one of the stools at the breakfast bar, I sip the beer slowly as I try not to think about what could have made Mikki react that way. She hasn’t told me everything those pieces of shit did to her that night, and I’m not sure I even want to know. Any more details might send me on a revenge rampage.

  I head back to her bedroom door to listen. The sound of the shower running puts me at ease, but it’s quickly followed by another sound. I can’t decide if it’s sobbing or whimpering; either way, I have to check on her or I’ll never forgive myself if I find out she’s hurt herself.

  When I open the bedroom door, the bathroom door is wide open and, along with her cries, thick clouds of steam are billowing out into the bedroom.

  I ball up my fists and try to grit my teeth against the pain, but I can’t suppress my cries. They come out like high-pitched gasps as the stinging hot water hits my chest, sanitizing me. Washing away the thoughts I just had.

  The shower curtain is yanked open and I scream as the water is suddenly ice cold. I turn to escape the shower and I land in Crush’s arms.

  ‘Don’t touch me!’

  ‘Fucking shit! Look at your chest. You have to get under the cold water, now!’ He forces me to turn around so my back is against his chest and the icy water blasts the front of my legs. ‘I won’t look at you, just please get under the cold water.’ He lets go of me and pulls the shower curtain closed. ‘Get under the water or I’m calling an ambulance.’

  I gasp as I step forward into the cold water. ‘Ow,’ I whimper, as the pressure and coolness of the water against my chest stings and soothes me at once. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, sinking down onto the floor of the bathtub.

  ‘Are you in pain?’ he calls from the other side of the shower curtain, his voice so close and comforting.

  ‘Yes.’

  *****

  After ten minutes under the cold water, Crush sticks his hand through a crack in the shower curtain to turn the water off and give me a towel. I yank the curtain open, holding my breath as he looks me in the eye. He quickly unfolds the towel and holds it up for me. I step out of the bath and he wraps the towel around my shoulders. I wrap my arms around his waist as I lay my cheek against his solid shoulder. He’s so warm.

  ‘Do you want to tell me what that was about?’ he asks, lifting my hair out from underneath the towel.

  ‘I don’t think you want to know.’

  It’s the only part of the attack that I didn’t write down the night before the detectives came to my house. It’s the only part of the attack I wish I could completely forget.

  ‘Anything you want to talk about, I want to know. Even if you don’t want to talk about it, I still want to know. I just want to know why you’re hurting. Even if I can’t make the hurting stop.’ He reaches for another towel and drapes it over my damp hair as he tilts my head back to look me in the eyes. ‘How’s your chest?’

  ‘Okay.’

  He pulls the towel tight around my shoulders to cover me up, then he kisses my cheek. ‘I’ll be right outside the door.’

  As much as I’d like to keep this part of the attack a secret for the rest of my life, I know there’s no way I’ll be able to do that if I want Crush to understand what just happened. Shame is the worst emotion we can carry inside of us; and I’ve been a nuclear reactor for shame for more than three years. Because it wasn’t enough for them to violate me. The one with the Red Sox cap wasn’t happy until I was completely humiliated.

  I come out of the bathroom wearing the bathrobe I’ve been ignoring up until today. True to his word, Crush is standing just outside the door. He steps aside so I can get past him. The black box is gone and the comforter is pulled nice and smooth, as if nothing happened.

  I sit on the edge of the bed, staring at my clasped hands in my lap. ‘They only took the pillowcase off my head once,’ I begin, as he sits next to me. ‘The one in the Red Sox cap wanted to see my face. But . . . that wasn’t enough. He wanted me to . . . to smile, like I was enjoying it.’

  ‘You don’t have to talk about it if it’s too much.’

  ‘No, I need you to hear this.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Digging my fingernails into the palm of my hand, I force myself to remember it. ‘He . . . kept asking me to smile, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t stop crying. So he started tickling me and I couldn’t help it, I laughed a little and that got him excited. He started kissing me on the mouth. I thought of trying to bite his tongue, but they had my hands tied. I couldn’t figh
t them off. Then he started moving down, kissing my neck and . . . and my chest, and . . . He wouldn’t stop. He refused to stop until I . . . I let go. So I did. I’m so disgusting.’

  I double over as my stomach cramps up, then I bury my face in my trembling hands as I weep for everything I lost that night. Everything they took. Everything I gave in exchange for my life. A life I don’t even want anymore.

  ‘I’ve never had . . . consensual sex,’ I say, my voice muffled by my hands. ‘I never did what they said I did when all those rumors spread in ninth grade. I never even got close to having sex after they . . . they raped me.’ I can hardly breathe now. I’ve never said those three words aloud. ‘I don’t know if I ever will because they ruined that. They ruined me.’

  ‘They didn’t ruin you.’ His voice is thick with emotion and it makes my stomach ache. ‘You’re beautiful, inside and out. And those . . . those fucking animals are the ones who are ruined. I wish I had killed them all.’

  ‘Don’t say that.’

  ‘It’s the way I feel.’

  I take a few deep breaths before I sit up and tuck my damp hair behind my ears. ‘I’ll understand if you don’t want to sing that song for me anymore.’

  ‘What? You think what you just told me changes the way I feel about you?’

  I shrug. ‘That’s the way it’s always been. No guy wants to be with a girl who doesn’t fuck.’

  He hangs his head and takes a beat before he looks up at me and responds. ‘Mikki, I fell in love with a girl I knew three years ago for all of twenty minutes. A girl who wasn’t even conscious. Either I’m one sick bastard or I don’t really care about whether or not you’re the kind of girl who doesn’t fuck.’ He reaches for my face so I’m looking at him. ‘Look at me. I knew when I saw that tattoo on your chest – the bunny – that you got that tattoo because I had saved your life the day we met on Twitter. And I hate that you had to go through what you went through for us to meet again in that parking lot, but I knew from the moment I carried your limp body into my car that that was it. I knew that fate would never stop bringing us together. No other girl could ever – will ever – compare to the only girl who’s meant for me. Do you understand that?’

  I nod, unable to speak, and he nods in return.

  ‘Good,’ he replies, brushing the tears from my cheeks. ‘Now, will you go to Wally’s with me so I can make an idiot out of myself in front of you?’

  I nod again. ‘As long as you don’t make fun of me when I cry. No one has ever written a song for me.’

  ‘Well, you’d better get used to it cause I just started writing another one called “Muffin Stumps” that’s sure to be a hit.’

  I smile at him, though the tears have started again. ‘Fuck muffin tops.’

  ‘You should get dressed,’ I say, planting one more kiss on her temple just to feel the softness of her skin. ‘I’m going to order some food and threaten the concierge with bodily harm if he can’t get Pretty in Pink on our TV.’

  ‘God, you’re so mean,’ she says with a smile as I rise from the bed.

  Once she’s dressed in her pajama bottoms and a T-shirt, she comes out of the bedroom holding a hairbrush. She’s got a sly grin on her face.

  ‘The movie is paused and ready to watch whenever you’re ready,’ I say as she holds the brush out to me. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Can you brush the back of my hair? My sister usually does it when it gets like this.’

  I chuckle as I take the brush from her hand and she sits on a stool at the breakfast bar. ‘Is it going to hurt?’

  ‘Probably, but it’s even worse when I try to do it myself. I get frustrated and make a mess out of it.’ She closes her eyes and draws in a deep breath, preparing herself. ‘I know it’s because my hair is so damaged from the dye, but I don’t care.’ I bring the brush to the crown of her head and she immediately protests. ‘No! Start from the bottom and work your way up . . . please.’

  ‘Whatever you say, your majesty.’

  I brush the bottom wisps of her damp, black hair, which are hardly tangled at all. But by the time I reach the middle, my heart is racing and I’m practically sweating just imagining how much pain I’m inflicting on her.

  ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ I ask for the twentieth time.

  ‘Yes! I’m fine.’

  When I’m done, my arm is aching and my stomach is in knots, but she just smiles and thanks me as she heads off to put the brush away. The food arrives shortly after that and Mikki and I sit on the sofa eating the pizza I ordered while watching Pretty in Pink.

  ‘Blane has crazy eyes,’ she mumbles through a mouthful of pizza. ‘I don’t believe a word he says. Andie should have ended up with Duckie. He really loved