The Dollhouse Asylum

by Mary Gray

  I tap Abe on the arm as he passes by Teo and me hovering by the front door. “Thanks for coming,” I tell Abe, then, remembering a comment he made after Eloise and I talked about loving to run, I add, “Have you tried running around the neighborhood? At least on the boys’ half?”

  Abe opens his large mouth to answer my question, but Eloise squealing loudly from the great room interrupts him—no doubt she’s found my painted wall.

  I usher in the other couples—trying not to stare too obviously at Marc’s arm around Cleo’s waist—before trailing after them to see Eloise, who’s oohing and ahhing over my work.

  “Well, what do we have here?” Abe asks from the center of the room, now standing by Eloise, who’s moved on to quietly clapping her hands. I should take this as a compliment, but I remember Eloise only attended Griffin because, as a foreign exchange student, that’s where Bee’s family sent them both.

  The other couples drift to their various parts of the room, and I realize they’re beginning a pattern: Ana and Sal drift over to the windows like where they stood at Juliet’s, and Marc and Cleo take over one of the benches instead of the chaise lounge. Luckily for Izzy, there’s another bench for her and Tristan, and the remaining three couples hover together by the food.

  The broad smile stretching over Gwen’s face looks like a carbon copy of Juliet’s, like she’s trying to prove to Teo that she loves his world through her grin alone. I picture holding that expression for longer than three seconds and imagine it hurting my face.

  Hovering by the staircase again, I feel Teo’s presence beside me—how his breathing is labored and has deepened, almost like the room’s suffocating him and he needs to sit down.

  I turn to see why. He’s studying my painting; my breaths quicken. There’s no way my painting can measure up. Artwork takes years to perfect; how could I think I could impress him with a few brushstrokes completed in a single morning?

  Tilting his head to the side, Teo studies my picture as if considering a piece of art in a museum. He can’t possibly like it. He probably thinks Hades is too much like him—or not enough.

  And my technique. He has to know about painting. I’ve never taken an art lesson in my life; how could I have had the audacity to paint his wall? Maybe I should run away while I can, into the still, hot Texan night. But I can’t; when Teo is near me I am cemented to the ground. I hate myself for the fear I feel, that despite all this, I still want to please him. Why isn’t he saying anything? He must hate what I’ve done.

  Teo leans in to whisper in my ear, his warm breath tickling my skin. “We shall talk about this tonight.” He spins, his suit tails slapping my hands, and strides out the front door.

  Everyone in the room falls silent.

  Tears sting my eyes; I won’t let them loose again. Blinking them away, I think of my mother—her strength, how she never cried when Mayor Tydal left, no matter how rejected she felt.

  “Thank you for coming, everyone,” I say, mimicking her happy voice, though everyone’s a washed-out blur around the room. “I made fondue,” I force myself to say. “Please, help yourselves in the kitchen. Otherwise, I will eat it all myself.”

  Someone chuckles. Abe, I think. What a pleasant boy. He knows how to diffuse tension in a group.

  Drifting over to my painting, I crouch down and start rearranging the candles to give my twitching fingers something to do. I try placing them two by two, but that doesn’t work. Two by three by two by three? A varying pattern might be what the room needs. Because the tears stinging in my eyes make me realize I’m not like my mom at all. I still care what Teo thinks.

  I glare at the chocolate-colored hardwood floor, forcing the water in my eyes back. I need to suck it up and act more like my mom. A pair of Doc Martens blocks my line of vision and I wish they’d move on, but when the person clears his throat, I look up and find Marcus smiling down on me. Funny, I didn’t know those are the shoes Marcus wears. For some reason I pictured sneakers. I love that he wears this kind.

  “Hey, Doodler,” he says with half a smile twitching his upper lip.

  I don’t know what it is, but there’s something light about his tone. A lilt, a caress, like he’s wiping the hair out of my eyes after a storm; it makes my face twitch. No. It’s so simple for him to call me that and act like we’re normal and safe. He’s so unchanging, confident in all this, and I don’t know what I’m doing. My face twitches again, and the rivers I’ve been holding back flood right over; I have to concentrate not to sob. The last thing I need is a scene.

  “Cheyenne?” Marcus’s concern washes over me as he crouches next to me on the floor. Discreetly, he touches my waist. “What’s wrong?” He lowers his voice. “I mean, is he worse than usual tonight?”

  I stare at the flickering candles and try to force my hands not to shake, my chest heaving in and out. I had better get a grip on myself before everyone sees. Marcus is right—Teo affects me like salt on ice. I shouldn’t let him bother me—I don’t know why I let him bother me—but he does and I can’t help it, and I want that stupid part of me to leave.

  I stammer over my words. “I…it’s stupid.” What can I say? There’s something about your brother? I can’t push him out?

  Marcus leans into my ear. “It’s perfect, Cheyenne,” and his voice is so soothing and warm. “You just took him by surprise. I don’t think he realized you could paint.”

  I’m desperate to believe him, but how does Marcus know that’s how Teo feels? He’s seen his brother’s erratic mood swings, where he can love something one moment then hate it the very next. There’s no telling if or when I will earn the vaccine. I may have sealed my death tonight.

  I start to speak again, but Cleo knows just when to step in. Her beads brush Marcus’s face as she worms her arm around his waist. I rub my palms into my eyes and heave in a breath. I don’t need her to see me like this.

  “Oh, Marc,” she says. She traces the line of his jaw with her manicured fingernail, and I wish she’d keep her grubby paws to herself, “it’s so nice of you to be there for Number Eight. She has such a vulnerable shell.” I blink back the tears, because no one actually says things like this in real life.

  I scramble for something brilliant to spit back in her face, but Marc’s eyes lash out like Teo’s do when he’s mad, only there’s this righteous indignation that flickers along his jaw. I could wrap my arms around Marcus right now.

  While this one look should be able to melt down ore, Cleo bats her mile-long eyelashes innocently as she turns toward me. “Need a tissue, honey?”

  There’s no way in hell Cleo and I might be friends, not unless I can pin those batty eyelashes of hers to her head.

  Unsteadily, I move past Marc and Cleo, flounder through the great room and out the front door. It’s raining—God’s crying for me tonight. It’s fitting, really, because both of us need our teardrops to fall. For Him, to save these coarse, dry trees. I need a certain person to stop affecting me.

  Staring across the subdivision as the porch lights flicker on each of the men’s homes, a wave of self-pity washes over me as I remember what Cleo said. She has such a vulnerable shell. I hate that there’s truth to what she says. Teo likes me because I’ve always had this vulnerability. I suppose he’s my Achilles’ heel. I used to pride myself on not letting others change me, but Teo knows how to burrow inside my heart and squeeze. Around him, I’m this pathetic, whimpering child. Fragile. Breakable. Like I’m obsessed with what he thinks. Not because our lives are on the line, but because seeking Teo’s approval has become this sick goal. And I’ve lived this way for so many months, it’s like I need to be rewired. The problem is that I don’t know if I can be. Teo was always there for me, even at the worst. Like when I was stuck riding the city bus to school.

  Oh, how I hated riding the city bus to school.

  Especially because I had to cover those last few blocks on foot, even when the sky opened up and tried to drown me. And the road, how it smelled—rubber, trash, mud. I used to clutch
my bag closed because the zipper had broken, and walk on the shoulder of the road since there were no sidewalks.

  One morning, there was this convertible, then a BMW; both swerved around me, spraying puddles on my shirt. I could have turned around to change at home, but that would’ve meant waiting around for the bus, and I couldn’t afford to be late to school again.

  Slogging on, I noted the tins of tobacco, condoms, and liquor bottles littering the shoulder of the road. The rain drizzled harder, and I remember wishing I had a friend to wave down, or at least an umbrella.

  My bag felt light. Checking inside, I found a gaping hole. While my textbooks clung to the sides, I was missing three of my favorite paperbacks—Dracula, an Edgar Allen Poe compilation, and Jane Eyre. Heart racing with the rain, I retraced my steps.

  By then, the rain wasn’t drizzling, but pelting my pounding head. My hair stuck to my face, my skirt was glued to my legs, and water pooled into my sneakers as I sloshed back to the stop. By the time I found my books strewn across the side of the road, they looked like they’d been dropped into a tub. Retrieving them, I tried wiping them on my skirt, which made Jane Eyre’s cover rip.

  Blearily, I made my way back to the school, pulled those heavy doors open, and slipped inside. It was clear class had long since begun; the entryway was clean, silent. I tried tiptoeing down the hall, my sneakers screech-scrunching against the checkered tile.

  I was veering around the corner, aiming for my biology class, when I nearly ran into the school secretary. She had a walking stick and gripped it like she was Moses or Gandalf, wielding the greatest power on Earth. She looked me up and down. “What are you doing out of class?” she asked.

  I was obviously soaked and hadn’t even been to class, but she didn’t look like she cared. Shifting my books in my hands, I tried stating that I needed to get to my class. But she held out her hands. “Give me this.”

  But I didn’t want to give them to her. They were my own copies, and they might tear again while wet.

  The secretary tapped her walking stick. “Why are you late?”

  I tried making the books disappear into the crook of my arm. “The bus was behind schedule,” I lied, glancing around her to biology, only a few paces past.

  “Sorry, but policy is policy,” she said.

  I paused, unsure what to do.

  “I’m afraid I’ll have to confiscate those until I know you can be on time.”

  “What?”

  “Your paperbacks.” She pointed. “It’s obvious you care about them, so I would like to hold onto them until you can prove to us that you can be punctual to school.”

  What sort of a school was this, where even the secretaries were allowed to confiscate items?

  I don’t think of myself as a trembly sort of person—my entire school experience prior to this had never given me a reason to shake—but it must have been the anger combined with the rain, because my hands started trembling. I didn’t want to hand them over, I couldn’t hand them over; those books were how I got through lunch, through free time at school.

  The secretary ambled closer, reaching out her ancient, chalky, veined hand, when a voice sang out like an instrument, “Why, Miss Laurent, you remembered my books!”

  Dazed, I turned. I knew it was my trig teacher’s voice, and when I saw his fluid walk, I knew I was right. The suit coat he normally wore was gone, and his cornflower blue tie flapped up while he walked. Opening up his palms, Teo smiled warmly at me, and thinking of the CD he had made for me, I flung the paperbacks into his hands.

  The secretary huffed. “You could have told me they were his books.” I wasn’t watching, but it was only a few seconds before her cane tap tapped away from us down the hall.

  Feeling like a vulnerable, wet dog, I scrounged around for a “thanks,” but found myself worrying whether or not mascara had run down my face.

  But Teo was studying the title of the ripped book. I expected him to frown at the condition of Jane Eyre, but instead he said, “I hear Mr. Rochester is more mouthwatering than words.”

  “Y-yes,” I laughed, appreciating that he didn’t chastise me for ripping it.

  Teo tapped his lean fingers thoughtfully on Mr. Rochester’s book. “I have an affinity for the classics. It pains me to see them wet. Would it be too much for me to ask to air them out?” He glanced down at Jane Eyre. “And get this one fixed?”

  It’s impossible to say what it was—the rain, the bus, or the secretary snatching at my books—but the way Teo pled, like I was the one helping him out, made the tears I was holding back tremor frantically inside my eyelids.

  Turning away before he could see, I mumbled a “thank you” before scurrying toward class.

  Teo called after me, “Anything to make you happy, Miss Laurent.”

  14

  With my hand on the doorknob, I move to step into Bee’s house when footsteps slap the wet pavement and a voice I always recognize calls out.

  “Miss Laurent—Persephone!” Teo’s double naming stills my hand. It’s so nice to hear my real name again, I have to turn.

  He’s running toward me, fresh rainwater running down his cheeks. The drizzle of God’s teardrops soaks his white shirt through, and I’m left staring at that lean body I’ve come to know so well—those square shoulders and powerfully built legs, like he’s actually a runner but takes too much pleasure in his reading to use them much.

  I shouldn’t look.

  But it’s impossible to turn away; he’s like a vision from God—tall and shining. Even his white shirt seems to glow beneath the raindrops, and his lips are turning up slightly, like the only thing that can make him this happy is seeing me.

  Moving across the porch in two powerful strides, he reaches out his dripping wet arms and wraps them around me. His warm wet shirt bleeds into my dry white dress, and it’s like he’s melting into me. Gently, he weaves his fingers up and down my back, runs his fingers down the side of my face, and even with all this touching, I can barely feel a thing.

  But then he’s holding me closer, pressing his leg into my own, and my thigh feels like it’s next to a torch. He’s brushing my hair away from my face, tendrils of fire groping for my eyes, my cheek. He’s whispering to me, “You are my everything.”

  My shoulders twitch, and my breath rushes from my chest. I’m tingling inside—I feel like someone’s sprinkled faerie dust inside me. These words—they’re just words. I can’t let them affect me.

  I don’t know how, I don’t know why, but I’m suddenly running my hand down the length of his face, trying to read those death-black eyes. Does he mean it? He’s further unveiling his feelings. My heart hiccups, my fingers twitch, and I flounder for some way to not care what he thinks.

  “You’re trembling!” Teo laughs and pulls me closer into his warm, wet chest; he’s right, because my hands, my lips, my legs—everything’s shaking.

  He rubs his hands up and down my arms, lighting little coals within me, and I hate how, in this instant, I too easily remember how I’ve always loved him, how he so frequently saved me from everything.

  No. I back away. No, no, no. This is wrong. I shouldn’t allow myself to be alone with him. He kills people. He is the enemy.

  But Teo follows me, backs me into the cool wood grain of the front door. Running those slender fingers over my arms, those coals I felt before burn, begin to glow. So I open my mouth, trying to think of a reason why we should go back inside, but he cups the side of my face, and he’s just looking at me.

  Eyes never more gentle, soft and round, he tells me, “You didn’t tell me you could paint. No one has ever done something like that for me.”

  His fingers trail down my jaw, and my stupid girl feelings are cheering. He likes it! He loves it! But I tell myself not to be happy. Because this is Teo. I shouldn’t care how he feels. I should be glad that I’ve passed the test, that I’ve earned the vaccine. But then he’s kissing me, and those soft lips are melting into my own, and I’m reminded of those times he looke
d at me in class, and, when no one was around, how he brushed the hair out of my face.

  His mouth is on top of mine, and it’s impossible not to shrink back because his kisses are gentle and slow, like he’s singing to me. His lips gently nudge my own, and when I nudge back, he opens his mouth so I follow him, unable to stop. Ripples of pleasure tear through me, and I may be cast out to the farthest reaches of hell for reveling in everything. I shouldn’t be kissing him; I don’t want to stop kissing him, so I touch his arm, and his strong hand grips me on the back.

  It’s like his hand lights me on fire. I’m glowing, breathing shallowly. I shouldn’t be out here with him; I don’t want to be out here with him, but my heart is exploding like it’s been dipped in gasoline. We’re so close; he pushes me against the front door, and I can’t stop feeling his mouth moving over my own. His lips move so tenderly, and then they’re skimming the length of my neck, and when he finds the base of my throat, a gasp rips through me.

  I pull away. He’s smiling, but my head is pitched at an odd angle against the front door. I shouldn’t be enjoying it. Not like this.

  I think how I can explain. How the way he’s kissing me is both everything I ever wanted and the most horrible thing I have ever experienced. How he’s both much too appealing and poison. That I’m supposed to pretend to love him, and learn not to love him. None of this is easy.

  I’ve never been very good at lying, so I let one word follow the other. Tell him truths without letting him know all the lies. “You’re fire,” I choke out, unable to deny the forest fire raging within me. “You are ice,” I say because I’m visibly shaking. “You’re smooth and dark and so much more than I can express. Teo,” my voice cracks, “you are destroying me.”

  Teo’s somber eyes watch my lips quake, and an emotion I’ve never seen in him before wakes; his eyes are still dark, but soft around the edges, sad but smiling. I know that expression—Teo Richardson is empathizing with me. Reaching for me, he again cups the side of my face. “Let’s get you inside,” he murmurs, smiling. “There’s something I need to tell you,” and I haven’t a clue what that means.