Sin With Me (Bad Habit)

by J. T. Geissinger

  I’m at the smashed window, reaching through, grabbing her wrist. She moans again, and her eyes flutter. I scream some more.

  When her eyes open, it takes a lifetime for them to focus on my face.

  “Your belt buckle!” I pull on her arm, but she doesn’t budge. “Release your belt buckle!”

  There’s blood in my eyes, smoke in my nose, vomit in my throat, my hands and knees are cut and bleeding, but all I can think is please, please, please don’t die. Please do not die on me, girl, I need you to live I need you to live I NEED YOU TO LIVE!

  There’s another hideously loud pop from the engine compartment. Heat flashes over me, such scalding, ferocious heat I know we’re both going to die.

  With a sudden burst of strength, I force my shoulders through the window, jab at the belt buckle until it gives way, and then give her arm a final, brutal pull.

  I drag her through the smashed window and clear of the burning car just as the entire thing is swallowed in flames.

  I run like I’ve never run in my life, dragging the redheaded girl over the wet pavement by her slim, pale wrist, crying so hard I can’t see.

  Behind me, the car explodes with a noise like a rocket blasting into space.

  I fall again, this time on top of her, shielding her from the heat and debris raining down. I don’t know how we’re not both killed, but we survive. Somehow, we survive.

  And then my father drags me off her with his fists in the back of my sweatshirt and starts to drunkenly scream at me.

  “We have to leave, get in the car, get back into the car, can’t you hear the sirens!”

  “Are you crazy? We can’t leave, she needs help—”

  He backhands me across the face.

  My father is a big man, broad shouldered and barrel chested, a man who played rugby in his youth. Even in middle age he’s strong as a bull. Even drunk he’s still powerful.

  I’m not strong or powerful. I’m just a skinny kid who doesn’t have a lot of friends because he spends all his time playing guitar.

  His strike puts me on my knees again, stunned and seeing stars. Then he yanks me to my feet and pushes me toward our rental car, still idling on the opposite side of the road.

  He snarls, “Get in that fucking car and drive, boy, or I’ll tell them it was you who was driving. You think you’ll be going to music school then?”

  No! No! No! chants my brain, You can’t let this happen!

  But my father, mayor of Topeka, Kansas, embarking next month on his first-ever run for senate, which everyone says he will easily win, is not a man who understands the word “no.”

  He also isn’t a man who would hesitate to sacrifice anything, including his oldest son, for his political aspirations.

  Sobbing, wrecked, in a state of shock I’ll never completely recover from, I let my father push me down the road.

  I don’t remember the drive back to our hotel. I don’t remember anything about the rest of that night, or the next day, except that when we turned in the rental car my father explained the damage to the front end by saying his son just got his driver’s license and didn’t have experience on wet roads.

  Swerved to miss a squirrel and overcorrected, he said. Ran into a retaining wall.

  Then, smiling, he clapped me on the shoulder and told the young man behind the counter to have his old buddy Jim Rennett, the owner of the company, give him a call. He was going to be a senator soon, and with a growing business, Jim would need a voice in congress.

  When I checked the papers, sure it was only a matter of time before the police came knocking, I read that there were more than two hundred car crashes in L.A. that night, up significantly from the usual numbers due to the rain.

  Those sirens probably weren’t even for us.

  How it tortured me to think of that redheaded girl lying alone and helpless on that dark road. How it haunted me to wonder how long she remained there with the bodies of her parents being incinerated in their car, mere yards away. How it killed me to wonder if she’d been badly hurt, or even survived.

  How I hated my father.

  How much more I hated myself for being too much of a coward to stand up to him.

  And how grimly satisfied I was to discover the name of that family in the paper a few days later. Because I not only knew that the girl survived, but I had the means to more properly torture myself. Naming your victims makes them all the more real.

  Mr. and Mrs. Robert and Elizabeth Van der Pool.

  And their daughter, Diana.

  GRACE

  As Magda exclaims at the mess around Brody’s feet from the smashed glass of vodka, Brody stares at me, his eyes wild, his face white, his entire body shaking.

  He utters a single, choked word.

  “No.”

  Seated across from me, staring at me with the same expression of horror Brody’s wearing, Barney breathes, “Mother of God,” and makes the sign of the cross over his chest.

  I look back and forth between them, all the tiny hairs on my body standing on end.

  Brody whispers, “You said you grew up in San Francisco.”

  Adrenaline screams through my body. That rat inside my skull scratches furiously, clawing into my brain.

  Something is wrong.

  Something is very, very wrong.

  “I did.”

  “But the . . . the accident was in Brentwood.”

  Kat, Nico, Kenji, and Chloe are looking at the three of us like they can tell something really weird is up, while A.J. sits silently with his head cocked, as if listening to everyone’s thoughts.

  “My father had been offered a job at the Rand Institute in Santa Monica. He was a computer analyst. We drove down that weekend to look at neighborhoods . . .”

  I trail off into silence because I realize I’ve never told Brody where the accident occurred.

  And that he said “the accident,” not “your accident.”

  I once did something when I was very young, he’d told me. Something stupid.

  Oh my God.

  I stand so abruptly I knock my chair over. It hits the floor with a clatter as loud as a gunshot. My vision narrows, the room blackening to a tunnel, until all I can see is Brody’s white, wild-eyed face.

  I’m punched in the gut by a long-buried memory, a memory that only surfaces in the worst of my nightmares. A memory of a boy, screaming at me through a smashed car window, his face covered in blood.

  His terrified eyes exactly like Brody’s are now.

  Everything comes together with the swiftness of two fingers snapping. Goose bumps erupt all over my body. I feel the single, painful beat of my heat.

  I breathe, “You.”

  As if the word is a physical shove, Brody staggers backward. He collides with the kitchen counter and then stands there gripping its edge, his chest heaving, looking as if he’s about to pass out.

  A bewildered A.J. asks, “What’s happening?”

  Sitting beside him, Chloe stares at Brody like he’s a dangerous stranger. I wonder if she’s somehow put it together, too.

  Slowly, Barney rises from his chair, his hands held out toward me as if to try to stop me from bolting. “Grace,” he says, his voice low and soothing. “Take it easy. Just look at me. Grace. Look at me.”

  I can’t look at him. I can’t look away from Brody. Brody, the man I’ve given my body to. Brody, the man I’ve given my heart to. Brody, the sweet, thoughtful man who only today proposed.

  The man who murdered my parents and stole eighteen years of my life.

  His guilt is all right there in his face. It’s all over him, like a stain on the inside leaking out through his pores. Blinded by my feelings, I haven’t been able to see it until now.

  Rage blasts through me, dark and primal.

  Hands fisted at my sides, my feet planted on the floor, I open my mouth and scream.

  It’s a long, raw shriek of anguish, betrayal, and fury that makes everyone at the table jump. Brody’s hands fly up to cover his ears. His
face crumples. He starts to sob.

  “Grace!” Kat leaps to her feet. “What the fuck is going on?”

  From my peripheral vision I see Barney moving slowly toward me, but I still can’t look away from Brody.

  “You . . . you targeted me,” I accuse in a hoarse, furious whisper, the words as raw in my throat as broken glass. “All this time you knew and you lied to me—”

  “No!” he cries, his body racked with sobs. “Grace, no—”

  “What the fuck is going on!” shouts Kat.

  Now everyone except A.J. is on their feet, standing around the table in confusion, watching Brody and me, witnessing my worst nightmare come to life.

  No. Not even in my worst nightmare could I ever imagine that I’d fall in love with my parents’ killer.

  “Let’s just calm down and talk,” suggests Barney. He’s using the same rational, detached tone I use when I’m dealing with a patient who’s emotionally out of control. It snaps the very last thread of my sanity.

  I whirl on him. “You knew, too! Didn’t you? DIDN’T YOU!”

  “It’s not what you think,” he says, still with his hands out. His voice remains calm, but I see all kinds of things in his eyes. Dark, secret things that break my heart.

  “You make me sick. Both of you make me sick!” Shaking hard, I back up a step, fighting the urge to vomit.

  Nico, holding Kat by her arm to keep her from launching herself across the room toward me, growls, “Barney, what the fuck?”

  My voice shaking as badly as the rest of me, I say, “Tell him, Barney. Tell him how the two of you lied to me. Tell him how you took advantage of me. Tell him how you could have protected me from him, but didn’t.”

  The word “protected” makes him wince. His voice rises. “It’s not like that! Will you just listen to me—”

  “Fuck you.” The words are bitten out, as hard as a slap. Barney recoils as if I’ve struck him across the face. I turn my gaze back to Brody, as pale as stone, still frozen against the counter.

  “And fuck you, too,” I whisper, voice breaking. “You monster. You murderer!”

  Kat, Chloe, and Kenji gasp.

  Nico and A.J. exclaim in unison, “What?”

  Sobbing, Brody sinks to his knees.

  Across the room, Magda stands staring at me. Her gaze doesn’t flinch away from mine. He was a wild thing when he was a boy, she’d said. I worried he’d turn out bad.

  She knew, too. Everybody knew but me.

  Tears crest my lower lids and slide down my cheeks. I turn around and run.

  I’m driving too fast, but I don’t care. I have to get away from that house as fast as possible. I can’t stand to be anywhere near him. I need to be out of the city, the county, maybe even the state.

  “I could move to France,” I whisper, ignoring the tears streaming down my cheeks. Along with the rain, they’re making it hard to see the road through the windshield, but I don’t care about that, either. “I have enough money. I could get on a plane tonight and never come back. I could start over. Again.”

  I laugh. Even to my own ears it sounds insane.

  I’m cracking.

  As the car flies around a turn, I pound the steering wheel and shout at myself. “Get your shit together! You’re a lion! You’re a tiger!”

  You’re a fool who fell in love with the man who ruined your life.

  A sob escapes my lips. I shove a fist into my mouth to stifle it.

  Headlights appear behind me on the highway. Reflected in the rearview mirror, they momentarily blind me. I squint and hold up a hand to block the light. My car jolts over a rough patch in the road, and I jerk the wheel to correct the sudden, violent swerve.

  The headlights of the car behind me flash. The car zooms closer, and they flash again.

  It’s Brody’s Tesla.

  Heart pounding, I stomp on the gas. My Lexus leaps forward with a roar. The traffic is light on this stretch of PCH, where the houses are huge and far apart, but once I hit the main part of town it will be gridlock.

  I have to lose him before then. I never want to see that bastard’s face again.

  Then—out of nowhere—a dog is standing in the middle of the road. It’s big and white, unmoving, looking in my direction with startled eyes as I barrel straight toward it.

  Instinct takes over.

  I slam on the brakes. They lock. On the wet asphalt, the tires lose their grip. The car goes sideways. I yank the wheel hard in the opposite direction, desperate to regain control, but the car doesn’t respond. I slide down the dark, rainy highway with my hands gripped around the steering wheel, my heart pounding like mad, a scream of terror trapped in my throat.

  The dog sprints away and is gone.

  The edge of the highway looms through the windshield, flying closer. Beyond is nothing but blackness, the storm-tossed ocean, and the rain.

  A cliff.

  I sail straight over it and out into the night.

  My terrified scream breaks free and echoes all around me, a final requiem as I fall.

  “Higher, Daddy! Higher!”

  Standing to one side of the metal swing set on our patchy backyard grass, my father laughs. “You’ll go too high, Peanut! Pretty soon you’ll touch the sun!”

  But as the swing descends and then arcs up again, he puts both hands on my back and pushes me higher, as he always does when I ask him to. I scream in delight, my bare legs flung out in front of me, my long hair streaming away from my face.

  The sun shines so brightly. The sky is so blue. There’s nothing I love more than the feeling of flying, or the steadying strength of my father’s hands on my back.

  “Dinner’s ready!” my mother calls through the open kitchen window. Smiling widely, framed between yellow flowered curtains, she waves at us.

  Daddy says I get my beautiful smile from her. Same for my red hair.

  “Be right in, honey!” Daddy calls.

  As the swing descends again, I beg, “One more, Daddy! One more!”

  He laughs. “You heard your mother, Peanut.”

  But then his hands are on my back and I get another push that sends me flying high, so high I think I’ll touch the sun.

  Cold.

  Electronic beeping.

  The smell of antiseptic, stinging in my nose.

  God, I hate that smell.

  It’s not the cold or the beeping, but the smell that finally forces me to open my eyes, though all I’d like to do is lie here in this blank darkness forever. I have to find out what’s causing that acidic stench and make it stop.

  A room swims into view. Blank white walls and a white tiled floor, a pale blue curtain hung from the ceiling on a metal rod with rings. A flat-screen TV mounted on the wall opposite me, off kilter a few inches. My lids are heavy, so heavy it’s impossible to keep them open more than a second at a time, so I let gravity pull them shut.

  After a while, someone speaks.

  “Miss Stanton? Miss Stanton, can you hear me?”

  With a gargantuan effort of will, I drag my eyelids open again. An older woman leans over me, looking down at me with kind brown eyes. She’s heavyset, wearing pink scrubs, her salt-and-pepper hair pulled away from her face in an untidy bun. Glinting in the light, a gold cross hangs from a chain around her neck.

  I have the strangest sense of déjà vu, as if I’ve been here before, right here, lying on my back in an unfamiliar room with this same woman leaning over me, looking at me with those sympathetic eyes.

  “Miss Stanton, you’re in the hospital. You were in an accident. Can you hear me?”

  An accident. I was in an accident.

  The thought is vaguely alarming, but I don’t have the strength to work up a real fear yet. For now it’s enough that I’m not in pain. That must be good news, at least. I take comfort in the lack of sensation in my body.

  Now that I think of it, the only thing that hurts is my head.

  My mouth like cotton, I whisper, “Water.”

  The nurse nods, di
sappears from my view for a moment, and then reappears holding a small white cup with a bendy straw. She helps me sip from the straw, her hand cradled under my neck.

  “I’ll send the doctor in,” she says when I’m finished drinking. “He’ll be pleased you’re finally awake.”

  Finally? I think, drifting back down into my fuzzy awareness.

  I don’t want to know what she means.

  A minute or a week later, a man’s voice interrupts my drifting thoughts with a cheerful, “There she is! Welcome back to the land of the living!”

  He sounds like a salesman. Whoever this person is, I already know I can’t stand him.

  I crack one eye open. At the side of my bed is a doctor. Actually he looks like someone playing a doctor, because he’s much too good-looking to have wasted his time going to medical school when he could’ve been making millions selling toothpaste on TV. He’s tall and well built, with hair the color of good whiskey and one of those perfect smiles you just know cost thousands to create. His smile shines so big and bright I close my eye against its disturbing glare.

  “Don’t go back to sleep on me now, Grace, we’ve been waiting for this moment for three long days!”

  Don’t call me by my first name, Dr. Chompers, I think, irritated, but then get distracted by what he’s said. “Three days? We?” I repeat groggily, trying hard to correctly form the words.

  “You had swelling in your brain so it was necessary to induce a coma to get it under control.” He leans over me and switches off some machine that’s beeping next to my head. “You might be disoriented or nauseated, both of which are perfectly normal and shouldn’t last long—”

  “Three days?” I say again, more forcefully this time.

  Dr. Chompers gazes down at me, his smile firmly fixed in place. “Yes. Very Jesus-like of you, if I do say so myself.”

  When I stare at him in silence, he adds brightly, “You know, ‘And on the third day He rose again’?” His grin grows wider. “Except in your case, of course, it’s ‘She.’”

  I’m in hell. This is hell. I’m being punished for every bad deed I committed in my life by this fake doctor, who is really the devil posing as a bad television actor and his gaudy, gleaming teeth.