Love Is Strange (I Know... #2)

by Whitney Bianca

  “I turned on the gas in the kitchen,” he says, calmly, obviously nowhere near as affected as I am by the sight of the flames slowly consuming my house. “It'll blow eventually. We don't have to sit and watch.” I don't respond, just stare back at the house. The glass has blown out of the bedroom windows and flames lick at the roof. It's dark and the night is cloudy, but I can still see the thick gray smoke rising to the sky. I can't look away and I can't cry even though I want to. When the windows burst in the living room and the flames from the roof reach toward the sky, he leans over me and clicks my seatbelt. Then he turns back on the headlights and drives away, away from the approaching sirens and away from my old life.

  *****

  The bright sun is hot on my face. I feel it before I'm even fully conscious and that's the only way I know I'm alive. Slowly the light is breaching my brain, shining through the darkness in red and pinks and oranges through my eyelids. My brain is mushy but I'm not completely out of it. I can hear the hum of the road in my ears, so I know I'm in a car. I hurt all over. The pain isn't just physical, though. It's a light throbbing in my head that's slowly pounding harder and harder with each passing moment.

  The shock hasn't worn off.

  I have a feeling it isn't going to wear off anytime soon.

  I open my eyes a crack and it feels like a knife stabbing through my forehead. The sun is too bright and the car is moving too fast. The road is too bumpy. I feel like I'm going to die. In fact, I almost wish I was dead. Then maybe all the visions running through my mind – the blood, the fire, the body – would disappear. I don't want to think about them ever again. I want to forget. God, all I want is to forget.

  My hands are curled on my lap and they're the first things I see. They're clean. I remember the shower. I can smell my freshly shampooed hair that hangs in my face. But I didn't clean away all the remnants of the night before. There's blood under my fingernails. Dark brown crescent moons. Impossible to ignore. I hold them out in front of me before I can stop myself. I feel a scream welling up in my throat like vomit. Or maybe it is vomit. I can't really be sure. My stomach clenches when the car swerves off the road and comes to an abrupt stop. I grip the door handle so hard my nails dig into my palm. But I don't look at him. I can't. I stare straight ahead, finally looking at my surroundings. We're in the middle of an endless road, surrounded by flat fields. The long weeds sway in the breeze. The wildflowers catch the hazy light and it's almost beautiful. But the world is dark now, changed. Beauty shouldn't exist, and yet, it does.

  “Joanie,” he says and my whole body stiffens. Before last night, I hadn't heard his voice in so long. I thought I was never going to hear it again. Yet, here we are, in the middle of nowhere in our own bizarre purgatory. “Joanie,” he repeats, his voice lower this time. I don't answer; I don't even look at him. I can't. I stare out at the road, listening to the whine of the crickets outside and the low purr of the good German engine in my car.

  We have to ditch the car, I realize. We have to ditch the plates. There has to be a plan. I have to come up with a plan, or else we're fucked. He did all of this without a plan. He showed up in Seattle without a plan. He killed Mitch and burned down my house because he didn't have a plan. There's a woman in the trunk, bound up and gagged, for Chrissakes. He was always a bull in a China shop, banging around and destroying everything because he was angry or scared or horny and he didn't give a shit what happened to anyone else. He hasn't changed. I'm the one that changed, but he never did.

  I wonder how much I've really changed since he's been gone.

  “Joanie, say something,” he says, dropping one of his big hands on to my thigh. I can feel his heat seeping through the thin fabric of my leggings. I dart my eyes down to his hand because I can't help myself. It's almost too much to see his hand. It's so familiar but strange at the same time. His hands don't look anything like Mitch's. His skin is darker, rougher. He's had a hard life since he's been away. He's been working with his hands, laboring and sweating in the hot sun and in the blistering cold. His knuckles are scratched and calloused. There's blood under his fingernails, too.

  “I know you're pissed at me,” he says and I blink at his words. Pissed doesn't begin to cover it and he knows it. Actually, I don't know what the hell I feel. I haven't felt this strange in a long time. The last time was probably after I first met Elliot. When I was on the bus after I'd escaped. The feeling was similar, surely. After the rapes and brutality and abduction. I pushed it down so small in myself that I could barely remember it. It was like a broken bone. The pain is sharp and all-encompassing when the bone is first broken, but after it heals you almost can't remember how it felt. You can't remember what being in that much pain feels like. It feels like a bad dream. It feels like something that happened to someone else, like some quick blurb you read or some maudlin story on the evening news.

  That's what my whole past feels like. My whole life as Joan Martinez feels like a story written by someone else. We're sitting in the middle of an empty road. There's no one else around. No cars, no nothing. I don't even see a house on the horizon, but, then again, the sun is shining in my eyes. I can't make out any signs of other human life. I wonder if this is what death feels like. When I thought Elliot was dead, sometimes I would have dreams like this. I would dream of us being alone in the world, just the two of us. I would dream of his voice, and his touch, and his smell. And now he's here with me.

  It's so fucking bizarre.

  He flexes his fingers on my thigh, pressing hard into my flesh. I know he wants me to smile at him and tell him everything's okay, but I can't. I just can't. My mouth won't move. My body won't move. I can barely breathe the same air as him. He opens his car door suddenly, like he can read my mind. I watch as he removes his hand from my thigh. I listen as he gets gets out of the car. He slams the door shut behind him and the car rocks gently from the force of it. Now he's pissed, I suppose. I don't care. He lives in a constant state of madness. It's been two years, but he hasn't changed, not one bit.

  He's just as crazy as he always was, just as unstable. More, even.

  I notice he's left the keys in the ignition. I could slide over into the driver's seat and take off. I could drive away and leave him all alone in the middle of nowhere. The key fob swings lightly, like it's calling my name. I know what it's like to be left in the middle of nowhere, stranded without him. He left me and then he died and now he's come back to life. Now I'm dead. Or I might as well be. I hope he's feeling exactly what I felt right now. All of the shit that's happened is his fault. He knows this, deep down. He knows what he's done. He may not be sorry for it, but he knows. He knows he's a fiend and a coward. He's a murderer and a rapist. Nothing has changed.

  I don't know how long I sit there, listening to the engine and the crickets until I could move. There's no choice for me really. The air outside is a perfect temperature as I step out of the car, and smells like fresh hay and the car exhaust. The sun is low in the sky so I guess that it's early in the morning. We must have been driving all night. I don't know how I slept through it. It must've been the shock. I'm barefoot, I realize, as gravel and dirt from the road presses into the soles of my feet. My hair is a tangled mass around my face. I'm a mess, in every sense of the word. There's a light breeze and I lean against the car door and close my eyes because it feels good. The air in the car was stifling. As I take a deep breath, my hair sweeps into my face and I brush it away. I can feel his eyes on me. Sure enough, when I turn around, he's looking at me.

  He's standing by the trunk of the car, his hands jammed in his pants pockets. He's wearing black pants and a plain white T-shirt. They're tight on him and I know instantly he's wearing my dead husband's clothes. The shirt is stretched across his chest and it's stuck to him with sweat. His face is dotted with a dark shadow of stubble and his eyes are lit up with that familiar manic flicker. He presses the tip of his tongue to the corner of his mouth and for a minute, I can only stare at him. In the bright sunlight, he looks like a normal
person. It occurs to me how easily I could have never met him. If I'd stayed home from the bar that night eight years ago, the whole thing never would have happened. Eight years ago, if I'd swerved left instead of right, I never would've ended up here, in the middle of nowhere with him. The thought is as terrifying as it is maddening. After so many years of obsession and yearning and mourning, I can't imagine a life without him.

  I don't have a life without him.

  He's made sure of that. Every day since the very first time we met, I've woken up thinking about him. Every night, I've gone to sleep thinking of him. I'm stuck in a loop and it doesn't stop. I know now it'll never stop. I accept my fate. I might as well. I step gingerly around the car and he doesn't move. He stands stock-still, like he doesn't want to scare me off. Like any slight movement will send me running off down the road.

  “You don't have any fucking shoes on,” he says when I'm closer to him. He says it like it never dawned on him that he forgot something as basic as shoes when he carried me out of the house. Before I know it, his arms are around my waist, lifting me off the ground. He plops me on the trunk of the car and swipes his hand across the bottoms of my feet, brushing off the debris. My heart starts drumming in my chest when he's close to me. Flashes of the night before keep popping off in my brain. How we fought and fucked like animals. The tension was still there, thick between us. I could feel it and I knew he could, too.

  Then I notice it.

  His left hand.

  This is the first time I've seen it without the leather gloves. In the bright light it looks like he's missing part of his hand. His middle finger and part of his ring finger and pinky are gone. There's a mess of dark scars on his palm and the back of his hand. It's an ugly wound and I gasp because I can't help myself.

  “What happened to you?” I ask but he doesn't respond. He just shoves his hand back in the pocket of his pants and out of my sight. I crane my neck to look up at him. Up close, he's breathtaking. Shit, far away, he's breathtaking, too, but being so close to him is doing things to my heart. It's making me feel shaky and giddy. Maybe it's the hunger and the lingering effects of shock, I tell myself. “Let me see it,” I say, holding out my hand for his. To my surprise, he doesn't fight me. He steps closer and pulls it out of his pocket again and holds it out for me to see. I'm almost afraid to touch it at first, afraid of what it may feel like, but I'm too curious. I study it, take in all the grotesque details. It all makes sense now, what the detective told me so long ago. It makes sense why they would've thought he was dead. An injury like that could've been fatal without care.

  “Why didn't you wait for me?” he asks suddenly and it takes me off guard. I jerk my head up to look at him, to see if he's serious. He's staring down at me intensely, his green eyes darker than usual and I know he is. I can't believe he would ask me that, after everything I've been through. He doesn't know how long I waited for him. How many nights I wished for him and longed for him. How many times I went searching for any clues of him but got none. I open my mouth, ready to give him a piece of my mind when the whoop whoop of a police siren catches us both by surprise.

  I can see the violence flash behind his eyes and suddenly, he looks wild again. Backed into a corner like this and there's no way to know how he'll react. I wonder if he's got a weapon. I didn't see one in the car, but I wasn't really looking for one, either. I don't have my gun; it's surely been destroyed in the funeral pyre of a house that I left behind. I shake my head slightly, letting him know to keep calm. I know it's impossible, but I also know he trusts me. At least, I think he trusts me. I, however, don't trust him as far as I can throw him. He's burned me too many times.

  “Let me handle it,” I say, my voice steelier than I would've thought possible a minute before. The cop pulls over behind him, the gravel crunching under the front tires as the car rolls to a stop. It's a local cop, not a state trooper. I cock my head, trying to read the county name surely emblazoned on the side of the car. I have no idea where we are, I realize. I smooth my hair and catch his eyes again. He's staring at me, unblinking and unwavering, and I have a feeling I know what he's thinking. I don't like it, not one bit.

  “Hey folks,” the cop calls out, unfolding himself from his car. He's in a navy blue uniform, has a dark mustache stretched across his top lip, and wears aviator sunglasses. He looks like Joe Law's settled into married life and has had a couple kids. He's got a slight gut and his face is round and red, but he looks friendly enough. He smiles a bit, but I can tell he's observant. I can't see his eyes, but I know he's taking in the scene. Elliot is leaning over me and I don't have any shoes and I look like a mess. I'm sure he's wondering what our story is. So I quickly make one up.

  “Hi,” I say, making my voice shake. I sniffle and swipe my hand across my nose. I decide that false cheerfulness or showing my true anger might be a red flag. So I choose to go a riskier route.

  “You okay, ma'am?” he says, tilting his head back to get a good look. Elliot takes a step to the side, his eyes never leaving the cop.

  “No, not really Officer,” I say. The cop's eyes shoot to Elliot, who doesn't look away. I'm sure he's wondering what the hell I'm doing, but he doesn't show it. I drag my hand across my face and take a deep, jagged breath.

  “What exactly is the problem?” the cop stops a few feet from us, his hand resting on his belt, inches away from his gun. He's friendly, but not dumb.

  “Well we were heading home,” I say weakly, “and I get a call that my mother's in the hospital.” I sniffle again, trying to be subtle but convincing. I wish he would take off his sunglasses so I can read his face better, but he doesn't budge. “Heart attack,” I add, glancing off to the horizon.

  “I'm sorry to hear that,” the cop says, his voice still annoyingly neutral.

  “I just needed a minute to process it all,” I continue, turning my gaze to Elliot. “So we pulled over.” Elliot finally looks away from the cop and turns his head to me. He drops his hand to my knee and squeezes, lightly. I smile up at him, only slightly, like I'm shy.

  “She's real fucked up over it,” Elliot says, an unmistakeable edge to his voice.

  “What's y'all relationship, exactly?” the cop asks.

  “John's my boyfriend,” I say as soon as the words pop in my brain. Any hesitation would seem like I'm lying. I pat myself on the back for throwing out Elliot's middle name that quickly, but the smugness turns to dread a second later when I realize I made a tactical error, a mistake. I called him my boyfriend, but I'm still wearing my wedding ring. The cop has surely noticed it, because that's the kind of thing cops are paid to notice.

  “Mmhmm,” he murmurs and I can tell he's not convinced. “And what's your name, sweetie?”

  “Daisy,” I say.

  “Where did you say you two were headed?”

  “Home,” I respond, swiping my right hand across my nose again. I keep my left hand firmly planted beside my thigh on the trunk. That's when I feel it. A little thump from inside the trunk. I bite down hard on my lip, trying to keep myself calm. The woman is in the trunk and she's moving, I realize. I shift my hips, trying to cover the sound.

  “Twin Falls,” Elliot says. His good hand is still on my knee. I realize then that we must be in Idaho.

  “You still got quite a ways to go,” the cop says. “Where y'all coming from?” Elliot narrows his eyes a bit and my stomach clenches. I'm nervous, I realize.

  “Visiting some friends outside of Boise,” Elliot answers a second later, smoothly. Maybe I haven't given him much credit, I realize. He has been existing on his own as an escaped criminal all this time. Maybe he's learned how to plan better. He's always been a shit liar though. Well, I can always tell when he's lying at least. The cop eyes both of us, his hand still hanging on his belt. I'm sure the silence only lasts a second, but it feels like forever. I keep waiting for another noise from within the trunk, another sign that something's not normal with us. That would be all the cop would need to cause trouble. Just as I'm starting to w
onder what Elliot would do to the cop if he had to, a red truck whizzes by us on the highway, kicking gravel up against the car and blowing my hair around my face. The cop frowns as it roars down the otherwise deserted road.

  “You're not supposed to stop on the shoulder unless it's for emergencies,” he says. “It's dangerous.”

  “Oh,” I murmur, glancing at Elliot.

  Thump.

  “I apologize,” Elliot says and I can hear the flatness in his voice. He doesn't like to apologize for anything. “I didn't see any signs that said that.”

  Thump.

  The cop stares at me for a long moment. Then he looks at Elliot. “Ignorance of the law is no excuse, of course,” he finally says. “But since this appears to be an emergency, I suppose we can let it slide.” I don't say anything and Elliot doesn't either. I'm sure that he's heard the thumping, but he doesn't give any indication. After a moment, I nod slightly. “You go on, now. Wouldn't want to keep your mother waiting,” the cop says. Feeling his eyes on me, I know we have to make a show of doing what he wants.

  I slide down off the trunk, taking my time and hoping that there's no more noise from within. The gravel bites into my feet as Elliot walks around to the driver's side to appease the cop. My door is still standing open but I don't walk towards it. First I have to check something. I glance down at the license plate. My legs were covering it from view before and now, thankfully. If we're supposedly from Idaho, a Washington plate will be suspicious.

  An Idaho plate has taken the place of my old plate.