Devil You Know

by Max Henry

  He tugs me to him, and I wince at the shock he sends through my ribs. Still, I’d happily walk over a bed of broken glass right now. I place my arms around his solid middle, and visualize what lies beneath the simple fabric of his T-shirt. My mind wanders back to this morning’s show in the kitchen as my lips find his and we try again . . . a little slower.

  He pulls free of our kiss, and smiles at me. It could be below freezing, and I’d still be melting. The thought that a guy is actually happy to touch me so intimately is foreign. It’s nice. The warmth that spreads through me is something I could totally get used to.

  I look over to Rocco, and giggle. The silly animal sits with a huge grin on his face, his tail wagging. Apparently, he approves.

  “He’s a good listener,” Malice states, looking at the grinning lump of fur.

  I smile at my true love, the constant in my life—Rocco. “Yeah, he is.” If only that dog could talk—the things he would have to say . . .

  “Sooo.” Malice grins devilishly at me. “Groceries?”

  “Yeah.” I laugh. “I guess we should think about doing that before they close.”

  “No hurry.” He starts for the house. “There’s a twenty-four-hour supermarket further up the road.”

  My walking ceases, and I stare absently at him while he carries on. He reaches the patio, and realizes I’m no longer with him.

  “What’s the matter?”

  I shake my head, and begin to walk again. “It just dawned on me that I’ve never been this far out before. It’s kind of sad, don’t you think? I mean, I’ve lived here—we’ve lived here—for over six years. How could I never leave town?”

  He pulls me to his side, and we head indoors together. “It’s not sad. Look at it this way—we’ll have lots of new experiences to keep you occupied for a while.”

  “I guess you’re right.”

  “Why do you still look stunned, then?” He leads me to the armchair, and I take a seat. Malice perches on the edge of the coffee table, and leans with his elbows on his knees, hands clasped.

  “Because, I realized something stranger last night—while you were gone.”

  He lifts his eyebrows.

  “I don’t want to explore. I finally have my freedom, but I want to stay here, within these walls.”

  “What on earth for?”

  “It’s safe, comfortable—familiar. I’m scared if I get too relaxed, and go out more than I should, he’ll find me. I can’t be found, Malice. I can’t go back.”

  He snatches up my shaking hands. “It’s natural to still fear the guy. You lived with him, with his behavior for so long. That kind of shit doesn’t vanish overnight.”

  “I know.” Letting go of my life, of my habits, and my reactions to ordinary things will take time—a lot of time. I know that, but I still harbor the fear that a part of it will never go away, and I’ll be looking over my shoulder until I’m old and gray.

  Malice cups my cheek. The gesture feels so normal. For those precious seconds I pretend this is how it’s always been. I pretend I’ve always been cared for.

  “Will you tell me what your dream was about?” He drops my hands and pulls back to sit on the table, allowing me my space. Allowing me room to decide if I will without pressure.

  Such a small gesture, but so perfect.

  I sigh, and look at Rocco. He lies across the room from us, staring at nothing in particular as his eyes droop. The best way to describe my dream to Malice would be to disengage myself from it, otherwise I’ll be in tears before he can count to three. I visualize what I need to say, and lock my emotions off as the words drop from my mouth on monotone notes.

  “I dreamt of the night you took Rocco. Only this time, Dylan killed him, and then he tortured me. There was blood everywhere: Rocco’s, and mine.”

  “Why the fuck were you embarrassed to tell me that?” His brow pulls tight between his eyebrows.

  “Because,” I whisper. “I was more relieved to find Rocco was okay when I woke up, than to find Dylan hadn’t hurt me.”

  “Shit,” he hisses. “Does the thought of dying not scare you?”

  “Of course it bloody scares me,” I snap. “But having nothing to live for scares me more.”

  He tips his head to the side, challenging me.

  “It’s true,” I urge. “My family doesn’t want me. Without Rocco in my life, there’s nobody who needs me. I can’t face that. I wouldn’t survive.”

  “Do you honestly believe Rocco is the only one who needs you?” His heel taps to an imaginary beat.

  I shake my head. “As much of an asshole as Dylan was . . . is, he needed me. Maybe it was to do the laundry, cook his meals and that kind of thing, but to somebody, I mattered. Yeah, his recognition, his thanks was kind of warped, and mostly oppressive—but it was still thanks. Somebody cared about what I was to them. Somebody needed me.”

  Malice’s fingers flex around the edge of the table, and his foot continues to tap overtime.

  “Before I had Rocco” –I continue— “he’d go out at night, and I’d be left alone. It happened a lot. And the more he was gone, the more it occurred to me that I couldn’t keep myself company. So I got my fur-buddy over there. I needed someone, or something to constantly need me—to give me a reason to be. My mother used to call. She’d ring every week, and every week the asshole would tell her some lie about why I couldn’t talk. He cut me off from visiting my parents. After a while, they stopped trying—they gave up on me. Rocco never gave up on me.”

  He leans back on the heels of his hands, and sighs heavily through his nose. “Your parents probably didn’t know how to handle the situation.”

  “And abandoning me was one of the top choices? I don’t think so.” My parents stopped loving me. That was the only explanation I could afford as to why they wouldn’t press the issue, look into what had changed to make their daughter ‘lose touch’ with them. What parents would walk away from their child like that? Surely they had a gut feeling that something was off? Aren’t parents supposed to do anything and everything to keep their children safe?

  “How do you know they’ve abandoned you?” He fishes in his pocket, and produces his phone. “Ring them.”

  I look at the offered item, and frown. What would I say? ‘Oh, hey. It’s your estranged daughter, fresh out of a pretty fucked up relationship, and now living with some guy she barely knows.’

  I don’t think so.

  “I don’t know what I’d say.”

  He slaps his hand to his face. “How about ‘hello, I’ve missed you guys’?”

  My eyes find the reflection on the screen of his phone: a handsome man stressed over a frumpy, worn-out woman. Everything about this moment is so wrong. Nothing fits. We don’t fit.

  “Thanks for the offer,” I say as I stand. “I’ll have to decline for now. I need to think this over.”

  “What’s there to think about?”

  “What I’d say. It’s not as simple as you make it out to be, you know.” I spin, and pin him with a glare, my hands stamped on my hips. “I can’t just drop that kind of heavy shit on them when they ask why I haven’t been in touch, why I’ve left Dylan. It’s not that easy to reconnect when you’ve been quiet for so long.”

  The flash in his eyes is brief, but enough that I can catch it. He knows . . .

  “Tell me about your family,” I challenge. “You seem concerned with how mine are faring. What about yours? Are they there for you every step of the way? Have they supported everything you’ve chosen to do in your life? You catch up with them every Sunday?”

  My short-lived bravado shrinks back with the storm in his expression. The face I’ve known as carefree or concerned now shows a side of a man I never want to come across again—raw anger.

  “That’d be right,” he snaps, standing abruptly. The table scoots across the floor. “One guy treats you like shit, and your parents go quiet for a while—so now you’re the one who’s got it the worst. You think you know suffering? You think you kno
w misery? Pull your head out of your ass and take a look around. There are people ten times worse off than you out there.” He jabs his hand angrily toward the front of the house. “Have enough guts to stick your head out the fucking door for a change, and sooner rather than later you’ll see there’s things worse than being thrown around by some testosterone-fuelled moron from time to time. You think a few bruises and broken bones are the end of the world? You think the fact your parents have pulled away from you is hitting rock bottom? Babe, you’ve got another thing coming. Grow a pair, and change your fucking circumstance. At least you still can.”

  My back finds a solid obstruction, and my escape is inhibited. He’s so incensed by the subject that he doesn’t have a grasp on his anger. I’ve been here enough times to know when a person has lost control, and he’s so far gone that he’s not anywhere near the driver’s seat anymore.

  “I’m sorry,” I appease, my hands raised.

  “Don’t,” he seethes. “Don’t say something you don’t mean.” Malice paces the room, searching for something he can’t locate.

  The tension in the air is so strong that it’s pressing me against the wall, holding me back. I want to run, I need to flee, but his rage has me rooted to the spot.

  The aggression hangs so thick that even Rocco has disappeared.

  “Where are my fucking keys?” he roars in frustration.

  I lift a shaky finger to point them out, yet no words form. In the end, it doesn’t matter. He growls—literally growls like a damn bear—and storms out the front door without so much as a glance my way.

  Adrenalin courses through my system from the basic instinct to survive. Without him to focus on, I’m left alone with an abundance of a drug I have no use for. My hands shake uncontrollably, my teeth chatter. Unable to keep my legs stable, I slide down the wall, and sit on the floor in shock.

  What have I done?

  I’ve left one abusive man for yet another who can’t keep his anger in check. I’ve left the dangers I knew for an unpredictable situation that I couldn’t gauge.

  Why did I leave? Why did I trade the monster I know for the animal I don’t?

  What was I thinking?

  WHAT HAVE I done? I haven’t lost my shit with a woman like that in fucking years.

  But she did it—she asked about my family. She sat there throwing a fucking pity-party for herself, and the thought that I might have been through the same or worse didn’t cross her mind. She assumed that she was the only one with issues, the only one who’d lost touch with their family.

  What family, jackass?

  I need to look at this rationally. I need to set out the facts. I haven’t told her a damn thing about me, so why would she know talking about my family is off-limits? As much as I know I need to apologize, the damn anger pulses through my limbs. Every beat of my heart has a tidal wave of blood surging through my veins. I’m too jacked to attempt to say sorry without risking losing it again.

  I could see the fear in her eyes. She thought I was like him. I’m not. Am I? I’m not. I have to believe I’m not, otherwise who will?

  The sun does nothing to cool my temper. Pacing on the front lawn does little to ease the urge to smash the next thing I lay my eyes on. A rustle to my left draws my attention, and I glance over to see Rocco belly-crawl out from under a bush.

  “Hey, buddy,” I coo. Damn it, I’ve gone so far as to scar the shit out of her dog. “I’m sorry, mate.”

  The Lab scoots closer, and lays his head at my feet. I kneel down, and rub him behind the ears. It sickens me to see this animal so petrified of me, yet still begging for acceptance, for love. Begging for recognition.

  The epiphany hits me upside the head like a solid right-hook. She’s like this. No matter what happens, I can see it in Jane’s eyes—she still needs to be accepted. One action from an animal, and I understand what she meant by needing to feel someone, or something depends on her.

  Rocco jumps back as I stand. I need to tell her how sorry I am, now. He trots behind me while I head indoors, seemingly as keen as I am to get to her. I find Jane where I left her, huddled against the wall.

  “I shouldn’t have said any of that. I was out of line.”

  She doesn’t look up, or acknowledge the fact I’ve spoken.

  “Jane?”

  It’s then I notice her hands. They shake at breakneck speed in her lap. Her eyes are glazed over, and although her body is here, her mind is clearly not. I crouch before her, still failing to flag her attention.

  “Jane?”

  Her gaze slides across to mine. I force down the urge to shiver at the vacancy behind those baby-blues. “Did you hear me?”

  She stares for the longest time before shaking her head slowly, from side to side.

  “I said, I spoke out of turn before. I shouldn’t have said that stuff. I shouldn’t have lost my temper with you.”

  “But you did.” Her words barely form a whisper.

  “What’s going on up there?” I ask, tapping her head.

  “Too much.”

  “Share some.”

  Her gaze slips slowly away, and her mind distances farther from the room her body physically inhabits. I’ve gone and broken a woman who was already ruined.

  “Jane, look at me.”

  She closes her eyes.

  “Please.” My heart hangs about in my throat, waiting to see if I can get her back from the personal hell she’s banishing herself to.

  “Take me home,” she murmurs.

  Three little words which make me want to lie at her feet in defeat.

  “You are home,” I say.

  “I can’t do this again with someone I don’t know yet. I can’t go through all the pain right from the start, go through all it takes to learn how to survive. I can’t.”

  “You wouldn’t be.”

  “How can I be sure? How can you promise me that, when I saw how quickly you lost control?”

  My head hurts from the pressure I put my brain under. I have to figure out what to say. Ask me where Jane and I stand, and I can’t tell you. But what I can say is no way in fucking hell is she going back to that asshole.

  No. Fucking. Way.

  “Jane, I don’t know what you need to hear. You’re right; we don’t know each other. All I can tell you is I’m committed to sharing all there is to know about me if you can tell me you’ll stay.” I play my best, and last card.

  “I don’t know.” She draws her knees to her chest, and hides behind the physical barrier.

  Rocco gets up from where he’s been watching beside the front door, and walks over to sit beside her. I watch as her fingers absently find his fur, and stroke an even rhythm.

  “Please. Stay.” I reach out and place my palm against her jaw. She recoils, and a heavy nausea settles in my gut.

  Jane screws her eyes tight as tears fall, one after the other, landing on her knees. I’m fixated on the spots of moisture on her jeans, the dark patches of fabric. They glare back, reminding me I did this. I upset her.

  “You need time to think about it.” I don’t want to offer her the space, but being like we are isn’t getting anywhere. She needs the time to think it through, and hopefully, come to the right conclusion. “I’ll go get the groceries on my own. You stay here and think it over. You can tell me what you decide when I get back. If you still want to go home, I’ll drive you. I won’t be happy to do it, but I’ll drive you.”

  She nods, still petting Rocco.

  There’s no more I can do. I’ve fucked this afternoon up good and proper. Nothing I can do is going to remotely erase the jackass I made of myself, and the damage I did to her in the process.

  As painful as it is, I stand and walk away. The feeling of loss has become so foreign until now, and I haven’t missed it at all. My doubts about living in my self-imposed exile from love and relationships are abolished. This, right here, right now, is the reason why I don’t get attached.

  This is the reason why I live alone.

  Why I
don’t get involved.

  Why I shouldn’t have jumped that fence.

  And why I definitely shouldn’t have kissed her.

  THE DOOR shuts behind him with a resounding thud. The echo in my head intensifies the longer I stay sitting with my arms banded around my legs. When it reaches a painful roar, like an angry ocean crashing inside my skull, I stand. To go where, to do what, I have no idea. I need to move—that’s all there is to it.

  Rocco watches me, panting with his pink tongue lolling out the side of his mouth. I smile down at the ever-loving ball of fur, and tap my thigh. He follows me through to the bedroom Malice placed my things in yesterday.

  I can’t complain about the décor. It’s plain, yet soothing: all pastels, and whites. Any given day I’d be dreaming of lying in the sun that streams over the bed, and reading until my eyes grow heavy. Today though, the soothing surrounding makes me more anxious.

  Nothing like feeling you don’t belong in a place to make your skin crawl.

  This is his house—even if it is a rental. It’s Malice’s. Nothing here is mine. I’m standing in the middle of a stranger’s house, without a singular thing to call my own other than the clothes on my back, and the dog at my feet. I couldn’t be more isolated if I tried. And the most disgusting thing is, I’ve felt this before; this loss of identity.

  Restless, yet undecided on what to do with my misplaced energy, I fall onto the mattress, and stare at the ceiling. Rocco nudges my knee with his muzzle, and I reach down to tickle his chin while I ponder the meaning of life.

  Is it worth the risk to stay? I’m not totally screwed in the head—I can see that Malice can’t be anywhere near as bad as Dylan. Yet the need to feel safe, secure, even if that’s in the confines of an oppressive routine, wins. Going back gives me the knowledge of how the day works. I know what to do when I get up, I know what’s expected of me, and I know how to keep my head down.

  I know how to avoid confrontation.

  Staying, on the other hand is unpredictable. And unpredictable equals unsafe. What if Malice turns on me, lashes out, and hits me? What then? Where do I run then? Could I run again? At this moment, I honestly don’t think I have it in me to fight. Shit, I only did it this time because of him. If he hadn’t intervened, given me an out, where would I be? At home, or in the hospital? Possibly the morgue?