Take Me With You

by Nina G. Jones

  I just keep shaking my head through tears.

  “Vesp, don't fucking tell me—” he stops short, his lips pursed with rage. Even he can't bring himself to accept that this world, one that he has managed to shrink to just him and me, has instantly grown so much larger.

  “I—I don't know. I don't know. I think…maybe,” I sob.

  He lets go of his vice like grip on the chair's back and paces away.

  “No… no…” he grumbles. “Fuck!” he punches a wall. He spins back and points an accusatory finger at me. “You little lying cunt! Saying I poisoned you. For what, Vesp? You wanna get rid of it? Be my fucking guest. In fact, I'll make sure of it,” he snaps. “You don't get to make this kind of call without me. You're just fucking lucky we're on the same page.”

  He makes a beeline to the door but brakes suddenly. Without turning he speaks. “You think you're too good to have my kid? No, that's not what this is about. This is about me not being ready to share you. I've only just begun with what I'm gonna do to you.” And with that he slams the door behind him, leaving me to imagine horrifying visions of what's to come next.

  “You can't live out here!” dad says to mom. I should be in bed, but I saw the lights of his car shining from far away. I thought he might be angry that we left and I wanted to hear what he would say.

  “I won't let anything happen to Sam again. He's safer out here.”

  “What about school? Scoot? Us!”

  “You can come up on the weekends like we do anyway. Scoot will be fine. He's a strong boy. In the summer and during school breaks he can stay up here the whole time. We are still a family. I'm just doing what I have to do.”

  “He's my son. I get a say in where he lives.”

  “Oh come on, you've always treated him like a burden. I thought you'd be thrilled.”

  “That's NOT fair, Gloria. We have different ways of doing things. I'm just trying to make him stronger. He needs it.”

  “This is the way it's going to be.”

  “Listen, you need to rest. You're exhausted.”

  “Stop patronizing me. You all want to keep sending me to these places. I'm not crazy! I just know things, and they have you so brainwashed, you don't even see what's really happening.”

  “If you were so good at protecting him, why'd he get run over on your watch?”

  There is a pause. Even I feel a little sick. It's not her fault.

  “How dare you!” she shouts.

  “Gloria—wait—I didn't mean it.”

  “You probably wished he had died. Then you could send me away. Then our families could pretend that I don't exist, that he doesn't exist. Then we wouldn't tarnish those glorious legacies.”

  “Oh just stop it,” he sighs.

  “I'm the only one who understands him, who knows what it's like to be different.”

  “Okay, let’s say I go home now. I need you. I don't know how to get Scoot off to school in the morning, or make his dinner or… and what about Sam? He needs school.”

  “Oh you mean the place he runs away from every day? Do you even listen to him? Ever? Or do you just impose your will on him?”

  “Be reasonable.”

  “I can home school him. You might think I am only good for folding clothes and food, but I went to Bryn Mawr.”

  He sighs. “You know what? You want to live up here with him, fine. You think you can do a better job, fine. I'm sick of fighting you and him. I'm sick of your paranoia. I love you, but I can't keep doing this.”

  “I love you too. This has nothing to do with that. And I hope you'll see what you've been blind to.”

  “Yeah. You should call Scoot tomorrow, explain you won't be coming back.”

  “I'll talk to him. And I'll see him this weekend. We're still a family.”

  “Uh huh,” dad says.

  The screen door squeaks open and slams closed. I run to my window to watch the lights drive off into the dark farmland. When he's nothing but a speckle as tiny as a star, I creep back to my bedroom door. After a few minutes, the sewing machine starts churning. She just sews and sews and sews. I walk down the hall towards the room. The door is cracked open so I peek in. The room looks different than it used to, the walls and windows now covered with quilts she made. On one of them, there are a few newspaper clippings pinned up. I recognize they are about my accident.

  She catches me looking in.

  “How long have you been awake?” she asks.

  I shrug.

  “Well, your dad came and it's all working out. He'll come up with Scoot on the weekends. I think he's coming over to our side.”

  I push the door open and point to the wall of articles.

  “Oh. That's just a little project I'm working on. Trying to gather evidence about the accident, link the different people involved. But I don't want you to worry about that. That's for mama to take care of.”

  “The w-windows?”

  “Oh that's to make sure they can't see in here,” she answers matter-of-factly.

  I whip my mask off before storming into the house, sucking in air as I pace, balling up my fist and banging it against my forehead over and over. Think. Think. Think. But I don't think with her. I have stretches of what seems like control, but it's like holding onto a ledge for dear life. And then I can't hold it any longer and I slip. I show weakness. This—my impulsiveness in grabbing her on what was supposed to be a quick hit, in fucking her over and over without the thought of consequences—I didn't make a plan. I keep patching shit together. I can't let this complication grow. I can barely plan for Vesper, let alone a child.

  A child.

  I'm not like those families whose windows I peek into, like a moving portrait, framed by their windows. I am a reject, and I don't want to make another me. I'm too far gone to pull things back and make a life.

  I crouch down to the floor when the realization hits me. She was right, my mother. I could never be normal. They would all shun me. Hate me. Not because of the way I was born. Or my speech patterns. Or because the world was conspiring to kill me. No…I made it happen. I fulfilled her prophecy. I have become something so inhuman, that I can't ever have the thing I have been chasing. The very act of chasing it, of forcing it, has made it something I could never, ever grasp.

  This child has nothing to come home to. The visions I had of making Vesper mine, all those fantasies I had as I placed myself in Carter's shoes, they were only meant to live in my mind's eye.

  I'll always be the stuttering freak with the scars and the trail of screaming victims behind me. My most prized one, being the mother to this child.

  I bow my head and take one deep breath before standing up and making my way to the shed. I rummage through the instruments until I find a suction hose. I pull and straighten it out to inspect its length and when I am satisfied, I grab a shop vac, some tape, and head back to the main house. In a frenzy, I grab duct tape and seal the hose to the vac. I take a moment to sit back and look at my work. I've never done this before, I've only heard about what women have done.

  Before I can go any further, I realize I need assistance. So I barge into the kitchen and rummage through the cabinets. Usually a beer man, I look for the hidden bottle of whiskey and take a generous swallow, shaking my head at the burn.

  I need more. A back up plan. I run to a downstairs closet and fling off a jacket from a metal hanger. I uncoil it so it's long and sharp, but keep the hook intact. Gloves. Whiskey. The vac. The hanger. Fuel for the generator. Cords. Lube.

  This is a plan.

  I speed back to the cabin, sweaty and buzzed. I've gotta stop this spinning out of control. My freedom is the most important thing. And with a baby, I will lose that inevitably.

  I hear Night before he comes in. That's usually the case when he doesn't care if I know. He moves measuredly, exuding a false calmness. False, I know, because of the sweat dripping down his exposed clavicle down to his low slung jeans. His chest moving up and down tells me his heart is racing. The bottle of whiskey da
ngling from his hand tells me this man who has nothing to fear, who has never kissed me with the scent of alcohol on his breath, needs to calm his nerves. His mask—the dark face I have come to know as his—is saturated with sweat, but stubbornly, he won't remove it.

  Without an utterance, he puts the bottle on the floor and ties my hands behind my back. Oh god, this is it. What I feared would happen when he learned I was pregnant. I have become too great a liability. It's why I couldn't accept the changes my body was screaming for me to hear.

  “What are you doing?” I ask. “Please. No. I'll get rid of it. I'll find a way.”

  He goes back out and returns with a broomstick in hand. He grabs one of my feet and I pull it back, he grabs it again and forcefully yanks it towards the stick, tying an intricate knot to bind my foot to it. Then he does the other, so that my legs are forced open.

  “Please, tell me what's happening,” I sob, the heat of all my anxiety forcing sweat to bead all over my body and soak through my pale pink dress.

  “Please!” I scream. Begging, trying so desperately to reach something inside of him. There must have been a time when he was a child himself. Innocent. Unmarred by the world or even the terrifying changes that manhood can sometimes bring.

  “I'm so scared,” I cry, a confession to my god.

  He picks up the bottle of alcohol and presses it to my lips.

  “No!” I protest.

  He grabs my face and squeezes my cheeks, pouring it in. I gurgle as my mouth floods with the spicy liquid. Despite my best efforts, I manage to drink some. And it works, sending a warm shiver down my arms and spine, but only for a moment. The adrenaline roars through the dull warmth as he lifts my dress up, pouring some of the whiskey over my stomach and privates.

  “What—” I stop the questioning, suddenly understanding what is to come. Oh god, he's going to try to do this. “If you're going to do this, please, I'm a nurse—almost. How? Please just tell me!” I scream, but he's focused on his task and as far as he's concerned, serving me the alcohol has taken up all of his mercy.

  He leaves again. I've stopped screaming. Instead, I wait, my staccato sobs synchronizing with the erratic rhythm of my chest. When he returns with a shop vac, jerry-rigged to a suction hose, I begin to wretch in horror. I slide up as far against the wall as I can.

  “You're…gonna…kill…me,” I sob. “I'll bleed…to death,” I plead amidst the choking.

  He yanks the broomstick, pulling me to the edge of the bed.

  “I'll knock you out if I have to. Your choice,” he menaces.

  I obey, understanding that that's always the simpler route with him. I wanted this. I wanted this baby out of me. Maybe if I had begged to save it, the outcome would be different, but I didn't fight. I invited this death into the cabin.

  He steps outside for a moment, coming back in to switch on the shop vac. The deafening whirring punctuates the chaos in the room. To be heard, I have no choice but to scream.

  “Please, there has to be another way,” I wail as he pours whiskey over the hose and coats the end of it with lube. I fight back the vomit crawling up my throat, a smoky vignette clouds my vision as the terror threatens to knock me out.

  He pulls the chair to the foot of the bed. I make another attempt to distance myself, but he grips the broomstick to keep me close. The lamp that illuminates the room, goes in and out as the vac steals its energy.

  “Oh god,” I plead under my breath. I am seconds away from being siphoned clean of an embryo. I didn't fight for it. I gave up on all hope as soon as I realized I had it in me. And maybe that's where I went wrong. In thinking that my only option was to purge myself of this parasite. Maybe this isn't a curse. Or Night's poison. Maybe somehow it's the key to unlocking this puzzle in front of me.

  “Please!” I shout. “I want the baby. I want it,” I sob hysterically, sweat and saliva dribbling down my face. I am reduced. Stripped of pride and agency. This baby is all I have. It's my only tool. My only promise of hope. That in the midst of having everything taken, I have been given something.

  “I want to keep it. I want your baby,” I shout, louder, afraid he can't hear me over the blaring of the vac. “We can—” I stop myself. Never have I referred to us as a unit out loud. A team. We've never had a shared cause. We've had things we both wanted and bargained for. I could feel the betrayal he sensed when he realized I was aborting his child. I've gotten so good at reading his non-verbal cues. He dreamed of having me like I dreamed of him. He dreamed of a life with me. We saw the child as a hindrance to our individual goals. But what if this child can get us what we both want? “We can make a family,” I sob.

  He holds onto the tube, it's close, so dangerously close to my shivering thighs. I tense every muscle in my body that wants to flail and panic. But he's thinking and I can't set him off with rebellion.

  We are still like a picture for what feels like minutes. Night disappears into darkness and reappears each time the light fades and returns. Darkness. Light. Darkness. Light. Each time the light flickers the whir of the vacuum fades and strengthens, like a warped record.

  I await the verdict, shivering, until he stands up and flips the switch to the vac. The roaring goes silent. A silence that is deep and haunting compared to the insanity of the screaming and machinery that bounced off these walls just seconds ago. I fall back with relief as I sob with my entire body, crying so hard it hurts. I'm going to live, and I'm going to have this man's child. Any illusions I had of returning to my previous life have been incinerated. Of course, I never had a chance to go back to who I once was, but this is the moment she officially dies. And I mourn Vesper Rivers. As I cry, Night unties each limb gently. His shadow eclipses the light and I open my eyes to find him standing over me. Shirtless, glistening, his eyes are softer than I've ever seen them. He rubs the pad of his thumb against one of my tears and raises it to his lips, subtly running his teeth and tongue against the sadness. I calm down, studying the clear of his eyes, and the way he stands there, his posture relaxed, telling me he won't hurt me today. I don't take my eyes off of him, waiting with shaky breaths to see what he'll do next.

  I want him to crawl into the bed and hold me like he did that night he carried me to the shower. To make the pain he caused go away.

  I want him to tell me he wants me to have this child, and he will be good to us now.

  I want him to fill me with his poison again. He likes the taste of my sadness and I like when he injects me with his venom.

  He is my danger, my greatest threat. When he's on my side, I know that I am safe.

  So I wait, hoping he'll give me a greater sign that I am protected from him, by him.

  Will he pull my legs apart and taste me? Or pull out his cock and make me ease his tension?

  I wait.

  Finally, he moves. His eyes, the colors of the beach during high summer, staying honed on mine, as he reaches down, over his face, and pulls up his mask.

  I study Night’s face so hard, it's almost too much to take in at once. It's like getting too close to the television set, until the moving images are just tiny squares of reds, greens, and blues. His eyes are even brighter against his flushed skin and eyebrows. His lips, often only partially revealed through the mouth hole of his mask, are round and pouty. His jaw, angled, but not sharp—still youthful. Not a mark of stubble in sight. His hair, little wisps of gold mixed into brown, is tousled from the mask. As I put the pieces together, I can step back and imagine him freshly showered and hair combed. He would look like a harmless young man. A shockingly handsome, harmless young man. The proverbial boy next door. But as if his body is displaying a physical manifestation of his lacerated soul, his otherwise pristine face sports a glaring imperfection—there is a thick scar that runs along the right corner of his mouth, up his ear and then out to his temple. While it roams across his cheek like a fault line, it's faded and flat, telling me this is an old scar. His neck on that side, mostly hidden from me, is a collection of uneven skin and jagged scars.r />
  When I am finally able to draw back and look at the collection of his features and his faults—the reds, greens, and blues—what I see before me is a physically beautiful man. The scar does nothing to sway my opinion; instead, it adds a layer of texture and intrigue to someone with eyes like ice and skin as smooth as sand when the water washes away.

  I don't know what to do next. All this time I have held onto his anonymity as a sign that none of this is real. That he doesn't see me as worthy of knowing him in any way equal to the way he knows me. The mask told me he didn't trust me. The mask reminded me I was a prisoner. It reminded me I was just a guest here. But I see him now. He's unveiled himself to me, and I almost wish he hadn't. Because what I see is a face I could trust. A face that belies everything he's done. He is a person. He is someone. He is not a monster.

  And now that I see the whole picture of this young man, I want to know about his scars, all of them, inside and out.

  “W—why now?” I mutter.

  He stares at me blankly, as if he's not sure himself.

  I sit up, never letting my eyes leave his face. I don't know how long this will last. He might put the mask back on, and then I'll be the only person here again.

  “I'm done fighting,” I declare through my still-wavering voice. I am. I can't keep waging battles against both him and myself. A battle where winning is losing and losing is winning.

  Again, he just stares back, but his chest sinks with an measured exhale.

  “I don't know what to do. I just—I just want you to say something to me. Tell me how it's going to be. Tell me what's on your mind. Why did you stop? Why did you pull your mask off? Do you want this?”

  He won't speak. He's already shown too much. But I have to keep this dialogue open. I am more to him than he is willing to admit, and I have to remind him of that. And if I'm not, I have to convince myself of that to believe I can survive this.