Colour My Ugly

by A. Giannoccaro

  I text Cal while I drive. I know it’s dangerous but getting in car here is dangerous so I don’t care. I don’t feel like an actual conversation where he can ask about Ellia. I cannot deal with his questions and judgement right now. I don’t have the faintest idea what I am doing with her.

  Done. Thanks for the holes.

  His reply is almost instant.

  Thanks bud, you’ve been paid. How about your other problem you fix it yet?

  Shit I knew he would ask. He thinks I am going crazy. I probably am.

  No. I have not. I can’t fix it; it doesn’t want to be fixed.

  That should confuse him enough to shut him up or send him running right to me either way I don’t care I just want to get home now. She doesn’t want to be fixed. She also said she would stay, she doesn’t want to leave.

  Fucking traffic is always a joke through the city and it is going to take forever to get home.

  ELLIA

  “Secrets never die. We bury them alive, and hope they don’t come back to haunt us”

  ~Mia Hollow

  I heard him drive out just before lunch time. He put instant noodles through my door before he left. I ate them I am too hungry to care about good food anymore. I know he is gone and I am all alone. I think about trying to escape almost all afternoon checking the windows and doors again like they may have magically opened. They didn’t. I eventually give up and take a bath. It’s like I am back in my old life I cannot escape, the only difference is Renzo isn’t here to inflict pain on me.

  I lie in the bath for ever, well until there is no hot water left in the tap. Fuck him if he wants a shower, I used it all. I am being like a child now and I know it. I should be used to being a prisoner by now I have been locked away enough times before in way worse places than this one. At least this is home. And there aren’t any monsters here. Well one, but he is not my monster and I don’t believe he would hurt me.

  My fingers trace some of the burn scars on my thighs as I lay in the nice warm bath water. Some are still raw and the latest burn is still a big nasty blister. Burning was Renzo’s favourite way to hurt me the scars were the worst but I would welcome the physical torture over the mental abuse and isolation any day of the week. There are other scars marring my body from the eight years that it belonged to Renzo. The one that I hate the most is on my left shoulder where he stabbed me with a pair of scissors and just left it to heal without having stitched. It is still purple and raised and ugly. Ugly like me.

  I think that once I am let out of Rowan jail and I am actually free really free of Renzo I want to get some of them covered in tattoos, they will certainly be prettier than the scars themselves are. Anything is prettier than the scars he has left on me and in me. A scar is something that can never be gone, only hidden away. I should know I hide mine all the time. They remind of what I am, weak, worthless and the whipping girl for my father’s wrong doings.

  I hear the car pulling in and check my watch it’s after six already. The days seem to take an eternity when you have nothing to but think. I look out the window in the dusky light of early evening and see him park his sleek black Range Rover that is covered in dust and mud. I wonder where he went. No I don’t. He went to work. He gets out wearing a black suit his tie has been loosened and he looks a bit rough around the edges. I see he is holding a take away bag, thank you God some food he didn’t cook. He looks dark and dangerous and yet that makes my heart beat a little faster than it was. I see the back of his broad shoulders disappear towards the front door. I wonder what those look like naked. Shit stupid brain. No I don’t. But I actually do. But I don’t want to.

  Please let that food be for me. I am so hungry for something with taste.

  It seems to take ages before I hear sounds coming from the rest of the house. Water first, shame he is shit out of luck if he thought he was getting a hot shower. I smile thinking of him having a nice icy shower next door. I have gathered he resides in the room next to mine, the old guest room. I hear the water switch off rather fast and actually laugh a little to myself.

  Minutes later my door opens, he doesn’t come in instead he just calls to me from the hall way. “You can come out and eat if you want too.” His voice is calm and flat gives no clue of what part of Rowan I will meet out there.

  Then he walks back down the hall towards the kitchen I can hear the muffled footsteps moving away. I am so stunned I don’t actually move for a minute of two at first but then walk rather briskly after him. He plops the take out bag on the counter and begins to unpack it. I notice his hair is wet and he is in sweat pants and a snug v neck T shirt that kisses his muscular chest in all the right places. His feet are bare and he seems more relaxed than he was outside my window, maybe he needed a cold shower after all. I smile again.

  “Something funny, Little One?” His words wipe the smile right off my face in seconds. Little One. The words turn my blood ice cold. Renzo called me that never my name just Little One. Now I feel sick and my appetite has gone. “Don’t ever call me that ever.” I seethe not even able to say the words myself. Those words cause only two reactions in me, neither of them good. They make me want to vomit or panic which I would rather not do in front of Rowan. He is reading my face and my vicious response.

  “Sorry I didn’t mean to wipe that beautiful smile off your face it just seemed that you found something amusing that’s all.” I immediately revert to what will happen now that I lashed out mode waiting for the pain that should follow. He looks confused by my violent reaction to his words.

  “It was funny, I am sorry. Renzo called me that and it was in no way a term of endearment. Please just don’t.” I say now a bit remorseful that I snapped at him he was trying to be nice. There was no punishment for my boldness and my conditioned brain is having a hard time with that.

  “Tell me what he did to you.” It’s not a question this time more of a demand. I won’t tell him I can’t tell him. I feel the bitterness burning again. I want to fight with Rowan, I have no idea why my, I know better than to fight. I cannot hold my words and my anger back as I answer him.

  “He broke me Rowan, I won’t tell you how or why or anything else I am broken. I will stay here forever but I won’t tell you anymore. In fact I like it here, it’s home. Just with locks on it this time.” I am pushing where I shouldn’t I know that. His expression changes almost immediately. He doesn’t like my answer. The anger I see boiling behind his cool blue eyes tells me I will be sorry for it too. I shouldn’t fight I know better than that. I see both Rowans there now the monster and the nice guy and they are fighting with each other. I irritate him on some level, he seems annoyed.

  He hands me a plate with some Chinese takeout on it and spits his words at me “Go eat in your room I just lost my appetite for your company Ellia.” There it is the punishment, lash out and you will be punished. I am somewhat shocked at his words and the anger with which he speaks them and to be honest I am scared of him in that moment I want to go back to my room and fast. God knows why but I fight back again. I have opened a tap that I cannot close. I am an idiot. “Make me go back to my room Rowan, go on, I am after all your prisoner. Your DEAD prisoner.” I sneer at him and before I have even taken my next breath he has hauled me over his shoulder with one arm and carries my dinner in the other hand. I have a fine view of his ass and can smell his shower gel or after shave or whatever it as he stomps me back to my room throwing me down on my bed. I don’t fight him, I won’t. I just go limp at the physical contact. He puts the food down on the small coffee table and turns to me now the anger radiating off him. Shit I am a fool. The years with Renzo taught me that it’s foolish to fight and you certainly don’t push or be petulant like I just was, you will just get hurt.

  “Don’t push me Ellia; it won’t end well for you. I am not the one you need to be angry at.” He scolds me like a naughty child. I feel the anger bubbling in me and I want to fight I want to push I almos
t need to do it. But I don’t.

  “Your door is open, when you are ready to tell me the truth you can come out, if you choose to act like a child I will lock you in here like a child Ellia, are we clear?” He speaks calmly to me though I can see the burn in his eyes too. He wants to lash out at me but he doesn’t want to hurt me. He knows it was his job to protect me so he can’t.

  I just glare at him like a scorned teenager; I can’t seem to control my reactions anymore being free has made me lose my mind. He leaves my room but doesn’t close the door this time. He has me acting like a child. My grown woman brain tells me otherwise but he just seems to bring it out of me.

  I get up and sit on the sofa that faces the window and stare into the blackness outside while I eat my lukewarm dinner. Even lukewarm its better than Rowan’s shit cooking. It has taste, seasoning and real ingredients not just instant noodles, it’s like heaven. I wonder if there is way out of here now that I am not locked in my room.

  I stay awake late waiting to hear him go to bed so I can see if there is a way out of here. I pace the room, watch telly and try keep my own eyes open. I need to get away I just traded one monster for another, that’s what my brain says anyway. My heart says this is home where will I go? I am dead I don’t even know where or how Rowan hid my money.

  I get up after I know he is closed in the room next door I hear his music filter through the walls. He doesn’t have awful taste in music I have actually grown quite used to his melancholy playlist. I walk straight towards the front door trying to walk quickly without making a noise I find it very much locked without even a key hole. I turn tail and go to the kitchen door that I know leads to the courtyard at the back of the house, my heart plummets in my chest as my hope dwindles it’s same door. I feel panic rising in my chest strangling me, yes panic that’s what it is as I walk even faster to glass patio doors off the dining room, locked, I even try break the small French cottage pained glass but that’s no use either I am too weak, my body is weak. So I sink to the floor in front of the doors and cry not even quietly. I full out sob my heart out right there on the floor of the dining room where my dad and I shared every dinner together till I was eighteen. It seems like an eternity ago and while I still love and miss my dad dearly I can’t help wonder if he knew that I would pay the price for his sins, for his dear fucking job. The tears fall hot down my cheeks and my breaths become short and strangled as I try to get this out, all this feeling inside I want to be numb again, or dead anything but trapped.

  I don’t even hear Rowan come in I am crying so hard. I am aware of him as he drops down next to me but I cannot escape the sobs coming from me I was not allowed to cry with Renzo, if I cried I was punished. I can smell Rowan and feel him but I don’t want to. I am crying for everything now, everything. He saved me from dying but I wish he had just killed me. God, when I asked to die I meant really die not be the prisoner of another monster. Rowan puts his arms around me and pulls me into his chest while I continue to cry. He doesn’t feel like a monster when he holds me, he doesn’t feel like a bad man but I know exactly what he is. I cry until I can’t possibly cry anymore. He holds me the whole time not letting go but not saying a word he stays silent until my crying stops. When my sobs eventually subside he whispers to me softly “Please let me fix it Ellia, tell me, I know it’s all my fault he hurt you baby girl.” He doesn’t let go just whispers in to my hair that it’s his fault over and over. The more he says it the more my sadness and pain change into anger it’s not his fault it’s my Father’s fault all of it is.

  When I can’t listen to his apologies any longer I shove myself off his chest and look him in the eyes, he needs to know that it’s not his fault it never was his fault. I am angry at him now I don’t even know why I am angry I just am. He is a monster too. Someone will pay for his sins too.

  “Stop Rowan, this, me, this mess is not your fault. It’s not your fault. This is all my father’s fault. He killed someone and I was the price to pay. I was penance for his sins; my scars are for his sins. I paid for his sins tenfold. The only thing you are guilty of Rowan is continuing in his fucking footsteps. Who will pay for your sins Rowan who? Why couldn’t you just kill me? It would have been better than living.”

  By the time I get it all out I am crying again and beating on his chest with my fists, Rowan looks at me like I just stole his puppy. I get up and retreat to my room, this time I close the door and lock him out. I am broken. I don’t remember what it feels like not to be broken anymore. But I know Rowan cannot fix me, he is like my father and I won’t pay for his sins too. I need to get away from him. But I can’t. I somehow know he won’t let me go, not ever, not even if he knows the truth. The monster in his eyes and heart will never let me go, I will never be truly free, because of what my father was there will always be a monster waiting for me.

  ROWAN

  “Your eyes cursed; a haunted recording of that day. White noise plays tribute to the promises you made”.

  ~Mia Hollow

  I saw her spirit breaking in front of me as I held onto her. What had he done to her? She says was revenge for Mick’s crimes and I have no doubt in my mind he hurt her in more ways than I can tell.

  Who is Lorenzo “Renzo” Baldini really? And what has he done to that beautiful woman. God did he kill Mick? I know in that moment without a doubt in my mind that he did. I swallow a hard lump in my throat at the thought of what she may have had to live through the last eight years.

  I am still sitting on the dining room floor I came in here when I heard her cries from the other side of the house I was terrified that something was wrong. That she was hurt. She cried in my arms and all I could do was hold her. I could smell her vanilla shampoo in her hair as her sobs racked her body in my arms, it felt so right to hold her like that I felt like I was finally doing my job. Protecting her like I should have done from the start. She had made me so angry earlier on by acting like a child I just wanted to smack her at dinner. I am not used to sharing my time, or space and even less used to people acting childish it irritated me and I lost control. Now a want to hold her again. Holding her stirred a feeling in me, I don’t feel and that scares the shit of me, that she made me feel in those moments with her sweet fragile body tucked against mine. I felt, I had feelings, guilt and sorrow and remorse and anger at the thought of her being as she so harshly put it broken. I didn’t want to let her go, I don’t want to let her go, ever, truth or no truth I feel like she belongs here, and she belongs to me. I can keep her safe here, fix what I messed up. She is dead to everyone except me. I am a bad man just for thinking it but I know that I will not let her walk out of here broken, even if I can’t fix her I want to keep her. She is mine, on some crazy level I believe she was always mine.

  “Snap out of it Rowan she is not a pet.” I yell at myself as get up off the cold slate floor and head towards my room. Her door is closed; she has closed herself in now. I put my hand on her door wanting to go in wanting to finish what we started earlier I want her to tell me her truth, her pain. I want to tell her mine just as much. That thought scares me right back into reality and I go back into my own room. I switch off my music and I can hear her crying next door and it makes me feel again so I turn the music back on to drown it out. I remember the last time I kept a girl for myself. I stare at the ceiling wishing these fucking feelings would go away I don’t want them.

  Past 1997, Glasnevin, Ireland

  Mick left two days ago with his baby girl. He told me that I have two weeks to get my shit together he was moving me to South Africa to work with him there he needed a man he could trust. He also enlightened me that my best friend Callum was being banished to Africa too, he had pissed his Pops off big time and was going to be sent to man his operations in Johannesburg as punishment. Well at least I won’t be all alone, Mick won’t have me in the Cape near him he is too worried about his daughter so I will be staying with Callum.

  I never wanted to leave Irelan
d, ever. My Ma kept me here, but when she passed last year I felt my last shred of humanity died with her, Mick is the only thing I have that is even close to family so I guess being closer to him makes sense. We have talked a little about the move and I did some digging on South Africa, it seems to be a bit of a criminal cess pool if you ask me so we should blend in just fine Callum and me. I also studied their crime stats. What a joke there are more unsolved murders in a month there than total murders in a year here. Mick says any criminal with a brain and a few cents to rub together could get away with anything there. I just need to get away with murder. I have become cold over the years I have worked with Mick. Nothing like watching a life fade away under your hand to make your heart shrink until you don’t have one anymore. Life loses its value and is simply a transaction for me now. People are a currency nothing more. I am twenty six this year I have been doing this for nine years now.

  I don’t plan to wait the two weeks I will be packed and ready to fly out tomorrow night. There is no reason to wait. I only have two things to do before I go. This first one is going to suck, not for me but for her. My girlfriend Cassie, yes girlfriend. We were sweethearts when I became a murderer just teenagers fooling around, Cassie believes she loves me and is about to find that I am leaving her behind. Worst of all after being sweethearts for ten years she will know that I never loved her. I cannot love her because I cannot feel anything and love is a feeling. I know I am going to break her heart into a million tiny shards. I never professed to love her, I never said the words. I knew I didn’t love her, but my cold heart doesn’t mean I don’t like a warm bed when I get home at night. After I break Cassie’s heart I need to go to my parents’ graves and say goodbye I may never come home. In fact I know in my soul that I never will. I will live and die in Africa.