by Adele Huxley
I climbed into the truck and slammed the heel of my hand against the steering wheel. For a moment, I considered driving to Powder Mountain to see how the dirt bike tracks were coming along, maybe meeting Bryan for a surprise lunch, but wrote it off. I’m not exactly the best company right now, I thought.
Instead, I went straight home and wallowed in my own self-pity for a few hours. By the time Bryan returned from work, I’d slipped all the way down a spiral of self-loathing and doubt. He opened the door to find me on the floor in the living room, sprawled out on my back, a half-eaten pint of fudge ripple swirl ice cream melting into a sad liquid mess beside me.
Without a word, he shut the door and sat on the coffee table beside me. For several minutes, we sat in silence until I finally rocked my head to the side to look at him.
Our eyes met, and he smiled warmly. “What’s going on?”
I hated feeling like I was this emotional wreck he needed to put back together all the time. I didn’t want him to find me like this, but the day has a strange way of slipping by when you’re staring at the ceiling. I searched for the right way to explain the mess of emotions choking my throat. All the doubt, worry, and fear was a black stain on every thought. What ended up coming out was nothing short of comical.
“Janet yelled at me,” I said flatly.
Bryan pressed his lips together, trying not to laugh. “Okay…”
I slammed my fist down on the floor, only adding to the toddler-like temper tantrum. “It’s not funny!” It felt impossible to adequately explain what her disapproval meant to me.
“Okay! Okay, it’s not funny. Why did she yell at you?”
Tears stung the corners of my eyes and I had to look away. “Because I suck. Because these past two years have been a supreme waste of time and energy and money, and I’m going to make a total ass out of myself. Because I’m a selfish bitch who put our wedding on hold to pursue some stupid idea I had no right going for.”
“She said all that?” I rolled my eyes, but didn’t respond. Bryan bent and wiped a loose tear from my temple with his thumb. “Then I guess we have only one choice.”
“What?” I sniffed.
“We’re gonna have to kill Janet. We’ll bury her out back, put a fire pit in on top, just like you’ve always wanted,” he chuckled.
I half snorted and sobbed. “Don’t make me laugh! I’m serious. This whole thing is ridiculous, and all the money we’re spending would be better spent on a down payment or a honeymoon!” I met his eye once more and whined. “If I don’t win, we don’t even get a honeymoon when we finally do get married.”
“I don’t care about that. You know I think every day with you is a honeymoon,” he smiled, dimples appearing.
I whacked him with the pillow I’d been resting on as I sat up. “Damn it, be serious.”
He took a deep breath. “You aren’t selfish, you don’t suck, and I would be happy living on the street if you were by my side.” He lifted my chin with a finger, his hazel eyes filled with love. “Would a selfish person spend their entire savings on buying their childhood home for their father?”
A lump grew in my throat at the memory. All that money, all that time and struggle… “At least I did one thing right,” I sniffed. “I really wish you could’ve seen Dad’s face. He hadn’t been that happy since before Mom died.”
“Exactly. You deserve to pursue your dreams, Liz. I love you, I’m proud of you, and I’ll support you no matter what you decide to do.”
“I love you, too,” I whispered. Even if I screw everything else up, I’m glad I have him. He’s the only thing that truly matters.
I stared at the letter in my hand, my brain struggling to comprehend what exactly I was looking at. It was a promo photo I’d done when the race had been announced at the beginning of the year. I stood in my downhill gear, holding my skis, and smiling at the camera. The photographer had insisted on putting me at the top of Powder Mountain, even though we’d had to shut down an entire run to do the shoot.
It took me a minute to process what was wrong with the photo, let alone why someone had mailed it to me. As I stared, I realized I could see the floor through a spot where my head was supposed to be. Someone had physically cut a circular hole, decapitating me.
“What the fuuu—” I whispered, sticking my finger through the gap with a wiggle. I reached inside the envelope, pulling out a plain piece of white copier paper. As I unfolded it, dozens of my cut-out heads fluttered to the floor like some morbid confetti. The writing on the letter was scrawled in gray pencil, harsh, violent lines.
#10
See you then!
The rest of the mail fell to the floor as my hands began to tremble. I flipped the photo back over. What the hell is this all about? I bent to pick up the rest of the letters that had fallen on the floor, rifling through them to find the envelope this had come in. It was addressed to me at Bryan’s house, stamped and everything, but didn’t have a return address.
I sat on the floor with a thud, suddenly feeling lightheaded. It’d been three years since everything had gone down with Rick and Kayla, but my anxiety was still on edge. Any little thing could throw me off balance, threaten to send me into a full blown panic attack. Closing my eyes, I dropped the paper and concentrated on my breathing. I imagined all the anxiety-laced air in my lungs as red. The air I slowly pulled in through my nose was blue. When the two mixed, it created purple… calm, beautiful purple. Concentrating on slowly exhaling, I focused on the blended purple air I was releasing. Sounds silly, I know, but it’s one of the only things I picked up in therapy that seemed to work.
“Liz, what are you doing?” Bryan asked as he came in from the bedroom.
I didn’t respond, clinging desperately to the small amount of balance I’d managed to find in the breathing exercise. I merely pointed to the pile of mail in front of my knees, my gaze unfocused. I teetered on the edge.
With a comforting hand on my shoulder, Bryan crouched down with a small grunt and picked up the photo. He studied it for a moment, and then his eyes fell to the scattered, decapitated heads on the floor around me.
After a moment, he threw it back down on the floor, turning his attention to me. “I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I,” I said.
“Someone sent this to you?” I nodded once. Even that admission was enough to make me feel woozy again. “It’s nothing. Don’t let it get to you,” he soothed, sitting on the floor beside me.
“That’s what I’m trying to do,” I said with a powerful exhale. I didn’t want to snap at him. He’d been an amazing support through all my recovery and therapy, holding me close for hours as I struggled with PTSD induced anxiety. It’s difficult to walk away from a triple homicide and attempted murder without some lasting damage.
He sat with me in silence, slowly rubbing my back. My pulse began to slow, no longer feeling like my heart was going to leap from my chest. I opened my eyes and focused on Bryan. Gorgeous, amazing, I-can’t-believe-I’m-his-fiancée Bryan.
“Do you think she did it?”
“Who? Nicole? No, come on. Even she wouldn’t stoop this low. It’s probably just some crazy…” he stopped suddenly.
“I’m not as fragile as you think I am,” I whispered, not even believing it myself. After a moment, I shook my head. “It’s probably nothing, but it’s still fucking creepy.”
“I’ll give you that much.” He continued rubbing my back until I took a deep breath and met his eye. “Are you packed?” he asked, trying to change the subject. But I wasn’t ready to let the the creepy photo and note drop entirely.
“What do you think it means?” I picked it up again, studying it while trying to remove myself from the situation. I attempted to pretend that it wasn’t my head that had been cut out, my grinning face sprinkled on the wooden floor. I repressed a shudder at what the message could possibly be.
“It’s nothing. Some fan’s idea of a funny joke. Seriously, you need to be packed by tonight. We have to leave
early tomorrow morning and—”
“It’s not funny though, is it? I’m not getting the joke, even if they meant it to be.” Anger began to well in my stomach, sour and bitter. I never asked for the fame that came with being The Blizzard’s girlfriend. All the media attention surrounding the murders, and then our relationship had brought out a few crazies, but nothing quite like this.
“You shouldn’t have to see this,” Bryan said, plucking the letter and envelope from my hands. “This is what we pay assistants for. The less direct contact you have with insane fans the better, right?”
I nodded slowly, the rage still simmering inside. It felt like an invasion, something being sent directly to our house, into my life, my hands. The bizarre and obtusely threatening letter made my skin crawl.
“All right,” he continued. “You need to get up, get in that room, and start putting things in bags. I don’t even care what things you put in there. Pack the TV remote, for all I care. I just need to see you packing and I’ll start to feel better.”
I let out a shaky breath and smiled at him. I kissed him briefly, my hand clinging to the back of his neck as I pulled away. “You’re so tough on me. I’m sure they have stores in New Zealand, right? If I forget to pack a shower curtain, for instance, you think I’ll be able to pick one up there?”
He pulled me close, burying his face deep in my hair, and gave my earlobe a little nip. “You little smart ass. It is half way around the world though. Make sure you bring anything you absolutely need.”
Bryan started to climb to his feet but I jumped up first, holding my hands out. Whereas he’d been supporting me emotionally, he still needed plenty of physical support. He pushed himself up on one knee with a grimace, glanced at my outstretched hands and shook his head.
“It’s okay. I can do this, you know?”
“I know you can,” I replied calmly. I kept my hands where they were, just in case.
With quite a bit of effort and grunting, Bryan was able to stand. I could tell by his contorted expression that he was in a lot of pain, not all of it physical. It’s not easy to go from an Olympic hopeful to someone who can barely get themselves off the ground unassisted. Placing a hand on my shoulder for balance, he wiggled out his leg, unlocking his knee.
“Next time you decide to freak out, can you do it on the couch?”
I gave him a playful slap on the arm and laughed. “Yeah, yeah. Go make some lunch, will you? I’m starving, and it’s a scientific fact hungry people can’t pack.”
When I entered the bedroom, I almost turned right around and walked back out. The entire space was a mess, hardly a clear surface in sight. My toiletries were spread out across the bed, clothes in various piles all over the floor. Packing for a nearly month long trip wasn’t easy, especially for me. When I’d moved to Tellure Hollow, I’d come out with only a couple bags, the barest of essentials. But building a life in the town meant I’d accumulated a lot of things, and I was struggling with deciding what to bring and leave.
I tried rolling my clothes for a little bit, something practical that would actually lead to progress, but allowed myself to get distracted. I want to bring a photo of Mom for good luck, I thought as I drifted towards the small closet.
After the whole ordeal with Kayla, Dad had managed to get leave from the Marines to come be with me. Having heard that my favorite photo of my mom had been destroyed, he’d brought out a whole shoe box filled with new ones. It was difficult to look through, but I wanted to have at least one picture of her with me.
As I dug through the closet looking for the box, shifting crap and old winter coats, I came across a stack of old magazines. Mixed between the National Geographic and Time magazines, I spotted a cover that sported a little more skin. I had to squint in the dim light, as only a single light bulb illuminated the small space.
“Playboy, huh?” I whispered with a mischievous grin. The house had been in Bryan’s family for a long time, so there was a good chance they weren’t his, but it was still a little thrill to find a secret porn stash. “This is too funny.”
Completely sidetracked now, I thumbed through a couple pages, wondering how much their Photoshop artists got paid to make those girls look so plastic and perfect. You’d be hard pressed to find a scar or blemish on them. Unlike me…
As I sat on the floor, half in the open doorway, I ran my thumb along the spines of the big stack, plucking a couple of the skin mags out at random. A few minutes later, I had the second shock of the day. At least this one didn’t involve my decapitated body.
On the cover of one Playboy stood a gorgeous blonde. Wearing only a silvery bikini and a winter jacket, she balanced herself on a fake snowy scene. She tugged at the fur-lined collar that hung off her shoulder, her long legs crossed at the knee. Rather than standing on sky high stilettos, she wore ski boots. With my heart in my throat for the second time that day, I read the cover out loud.
“‘Surviving The Blizzard: Angela Haynes opens up about life in the storm.’ Holy shit…” I’d managed to find the spread Bryan’s ex had done just after his accident. The fame hungry liar had practically abandoned him and then dragged his name through dirt, all for the attention.
Feeling like I’d uncovered something secret I shouldn’t be reading, I flicked through to her article, trying not to look too closely at her photo spread. The woman was drop-dead beautiful, everything I wasn’t. Tall, blonde, thin, a smile that could sell toothpaste. Just… no. My self-esteem couldn’t really take seeing Bryan’s ex fully naked. I’m a naturally jealous person and I’d end up thinking about all the ways she was better than me. Instead, in some ironic joke, I read the article.
Words and phrases popped out at me as I skimmed the piece. “I’m the only girl in my engineering program, which is kind of cool.” Engineering? Great, so she was Einstein as well as gorgeous? “The craziest place I’ve had sex? Probably in a gondola on the way up the mountain at a race. Bryan always…”
“Nope!” I said, turning the page. “I really don’t need to read that…”
Toward the end of the article, I read something else that piqued my interest, only because of the coincidence. “I always thought it’d be cool to get married on a bungee jump, like, in New Zealand. There’s this beautiful little lake just north of Queenstown. I swear, it’s heaven on Earth. When Bryan proposed…”
“It’s gotten awfully quiet in there,” Bryan yelled as he walked into the bedroom. “Where are, oh,” he laughed as he spotted me in the closet. “I thought I told you no more floors.”
I tried to shut the magazine casually, like I wasn’t looking at anything in particular but Bryan must’ve been very well acquainted with it. His face immediately dropped when he realized what I’d found.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to see it. I came in here looking for photos of Mom, and apparently I have adult ADD and can’t focus on anything.”
“I can’t believe they kept it,” he said, holding out his hand for the magazine. I tentatively gave it to him, and watched as he flipped through the pages. My chest tightened at the thought of him seeing her naked again, like that made sense. But really, how many women have to compete with a Playboy model for an ex? “It seems like another life,” he muttered.
As close as we’d become, there were still a few parts of his past Bryan was reticent about. I never heard much about the time immediately following his accident, which I understood. His dad had died, his career put on hold… not a place many people would want to revisit. I knew that Angela had been in his life for years before the wreck, but never once did he tell any stories that involved her. It was like the pain of her leaving at such a fragile time had caused him to tear her from every memory. All in all, I learned more about the first potential Mrs. Blizzard in that article than I had before.
Sensing a chance to talk about it, I started carefully. “You never told me Angie was studying engineering.”
“Huh?” he looked up from the magazine, his eyes dark with memories. “Oh, yeah
. I guess. She wanted to do something in the sciences.” He laughed sardonically. “Guess she got real far with that, huh? Lots of STEM majors make money showing their tits.” He waved the magazine around before tossing it down on the stack between us.
My inner feminist bucked against that last phrase. “Probably a lot more than you realize. Even smart women have tits,” I quipped without thinking. I knew this wasn’t the right time or place, but I sometimes had trouble keeping a lid on my temper. Another thing I’d learned about myself in therapy. Liz Croyden has anger issues. “You know what’s funny? She talked about wanting to get married in New Zealand. Isn’t that weird? You said you’d never been before,” I said, picking the magazine back up.
Bryan shook his head, and sat on the edge of the bed. “I haven’t. Her family used to go there every couple years. They’d rent a cabin or something on the South Island. I don’t really remember. What does it matter?”
I stood and joined him on the bed. “It doesn’t! It totally doesn’t. Just filling the awkward silence is all,” I said, bumping my shoulder against his.
“I know what you’re doing. Don’t think you’re all that clever.” He leveled a serious look at me, a firmness that made my insides instantly go all quivery. “This is all about the race, isn’t it?”
It was my turn to grow quiet. I rolled my eyes and looked away. It still made me uncomfortable how well he was able to read me. “I don’t know. I guess. There’s just so much riding on it, and I’m afraid I’m going to fuck it all up.”
“You just might.” My eyes snapped to his in shock, but he continued. “If you keep distracting yourself with all these pointless problems, you’re never going to get your head on straight enough for the race. Worrying about the wedding, weird fan mail, my bitch of an ex… you’re funneling all your anxiety about the race into other things.”
I sighed and fell back on the bed. He was half right, I had to give that much to him. Angie had done nothing but try to capitalize on her relationship with Bryan, so it was weird to have found the magazine when I did. Bryan didn’t realize how difficult it was trying to build my own persona while living in the shadow of The Blizzard. I wanted to be known for my own success, not just as his fiancée or wife. The media seemed to think that it was cute that I was pursuing my own ski career, and I wanted desperately to prove to everyone how capable I really was.
