Beautifully Ruined

by Nessa Morgan

  I try the knob but it doesn’t turn. I should have seen that one coming.

  “Hold on,” Harley mumbles, attacking the lock with the bobby pin, clicking it open in half the time it took for her to unlock the main door.

  I slide into the room, smelling the scent of stale paper and dust. My nose tickles with a sneeze and I fight to stop it, tilting my head back and pinching my nostrils close. It doesn’t seem to work. I try my hardest not to be loud but the sneeze erupts from my mouth before I can cover my lips with my hands.

  Harley slams the door shut as I dive behind a tall filing cabinet, my heart racing. Harley soon joins me, both of us listening for the slightest sound, the briefest movement. Her hand presses against her forehead. Slamming the door wasn’t her smoothest moment. There is someone in the building, we know that, I’m just not sure if they’re close enough to hear us or are even curious enough to seek out the sound. It was a loud slam—I bet Kennie heard it where she is. I’m hoping for Option C, they didn’t hear a thing.

  My phone vibrates and a dark feeling overwhelms me.

  Slowly, I pull the pink-cased smart phone from my pocket, holding my breath.

  Ksenia: Someone just left. I’m hiding behind the sign, Milo’s behind a bush, but it looks like there’s no one left in the building. I think you’re all clear.

  “Ksenia thinks we’re alone,” I tell Harley, sliding my phone back into my pocket, preparing myself to search.

  She nods her understanding and we start searching through the A files. I search for my file folder, Harley searches for my tapes on the other side of the room. She finds my tapes and shoves them into one of the drawstring bags we brought. They barely fit but she tugs it closed, slinging it onto her back just as I pull out my five-inch thick file. Not what I was expecting at all.

  The thing has weight to it.

  “Is that all?” Harley asks, astonished with the size of my file.

  I think for a moment, shushing her. This can’t be all that’s here. It doesn’t feel like this is all there is. I know it’s a stupid notion but I have a feeling there’s a little more, a hidden cookie crumb I’m meant to find.

  “Hold on a moment.”

  “Come on, Joey,” Harley begs, looking behind her toward the door. “I’ve got a weird feeling being in here.”

  I wave away this feeling she’s having and pull open the drawer labeled L and search for Josephine Lucas, my birth name. Near the back, I find it. It isn’t too large but it’s big enough to make me wonder what’s inside the manila folder. I tug it up and shove it, along with my other file, into the drawstring bag.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I say with satisfaction.

  We have no problem sneaking back out. I throw everything in the back of the car and Kennie drives everyone back to my house so they can get their cars and head to wherever they need to be. As I drop everything off onto my bed, after wishing everyone a safe travel back home and thanking them for helping me commit some crimes this evening—it’s the least I can do, right?—I shrug off my jacket and throw it behind me onto the chair by the window. I miss the chair and I hear the fabric meet the wall and slide down to the floor.

  I turn to correct the problem and see the blinds across the alley right themselves. He’s watching me. As creepy as that sounds, I’m intrigued. I stare at the neighboring house for a moment, waiting for some type of movement, anything, but nothing happens.

  I could just be the bigger person and text him first. I could apologize. I could beg for him to take me back. But I don’t do those things. I can’t do those things. I’ll hurt him—at some point in the future, our future, I’ll hurt him—I know to be true. So I close my window and lower my blinds. I’ll buy blackout curtains tomorrow. I’m officially shut into my room with my past and nightmares. It’s time to make a few discoveries.

  I tackle the folders first, reading through the first one, the one about Josephine Lucas, a girl I don’t even know.

  I flip it open and spot a picture of me in the first grade. My curly hair is wild about my head, my glasses are huge, and my two front teeth a missing. My nose is covered in a light smattering of freckles and I almost want to pinch the chubby cheeks of the little girl. She looks so happy, so excited for life and her smile is so genuine, it hurts to look at the picture. Her smile is so large that her eyes are tightly closed.

  But I can’t remember the little girl smiling up to me from the glossy photo.

  I start reading:

  Josephine Elizabeth Lucas

  Age 7

  Birthplace: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

  “Canada?” I ask myself aloud, shocked. “I was born in Canada?” I thought it was Texas.

  I continue to read:

  Youngest daughter of Keisha Miranda Archembault Lucas (Deceased) and Benjamin Ian Lucas (Incarcerated). Siblings are Ivy Nevaeh Lucas (Deceased) and Noah Jonathan Lucas (Deceased). Currently living with Hilary Marie Archembault, maternal aunt.

  None of this I didn’t already know. But I continue to read hoping that something new pops out at me, just like Canada.

  The file is repetitive and I get bored reading about my life in Texas so I grab the thick file from the end of my bed, flipping it open and sifting through the contents. In the beginning, there’s a copy of the police report. Why wasn’t this in the other file? It even has my birth name on it. I flip through it slowly, reading about the crime scene. Of course, there are no photos. It mostly describes my injuries.

  The twelve stab wounds to my body—around my torso. How they found me against a wall in my parents’ bedroom with my father sitting next to me. According to this, he was holding my hand and rocking back and forth, muttering to himself while the knife covered in blood sat in front of him, staining the white carpet.

  I don’t remember any of it.

  Of course, you don’t, stupid, you were a little busy trying not to die.

  I skip ahead, ignoring the police report, and start reading through Dr. Jett’s notes of our early sessions.

  Quiet. Need to think of a way to make her talk.

  She doesn’t like the name Josephine. Hates Josie. Refuses to respond to JoJo.

  Joey?

  She still won’t talk.

  There isn’t much here other than the obvious: I wouldn’t speak. Not to anyone. I remember glaring at anyone and everyone that tried to get me to speak. It’s not much but it’s a tiny memory rushing to the surface. There could be more in the tapes, though. I dig through my room, flipping over clothes, moving books, until I unearth my old cassette player. The thing is so old; I think the batteries melted inside. As long as I don’t touch that, I think I’m good.

  I plug it in, snaking my hand between my bed and the wall to find the nearest unused outlet, and set up the first tape.

  It clicks to life, crackling to let me know it’s alive. “Good afternoon, Josephine,” Dr. Jett says to me through the tape. “I hope you don’t mind that I record our sessions.” She sounds so hollow, so forced and fake, no wonder I didn’t want to talk to her. Even then, I wasn’t an idiot. She tried to be happy and supportive but failed every time.

  I can picture my younger self staring at the floor, following the carpet pattern with my eyes. My scars were still new and fresh, I remember, I could feel them whenever I moved, shifted my position, the fabric of my shirt rubbing against the flaws of newly mended flesh. I think I nodded, made some sort of movement to acknowledge I heard her but I bet that was so small, she wasn’t even sure.

  “Okay, so my name is Caroline,” she starts slowly, sweetly. I bet she leaned forward—if I remember correctly, she was tapping a pen on the arm of her chair. “Dr. Caroline Jett. And I am going to be meeting with you twice a week.” There’s more silence. “Josephine is a bit of a mouthful, do you have a nickname?” More silence. “Something that others called you?” Even more silence. “Do you want to create a nickname?”

  I close my eyes, trying to place myself in the room with the doctor, trying to find a way back into my
body, trying to be that little girl again. I can see Dr. Jett in comfortable work attire—what she used to wear in the beginning—and I can see the concern in her expression. That was the time she really cared without obligation.

  “We should give you a nickname.” She disrupts the silence. “Would you like that?” I never answered. “Let’s see, Josephine…” she ponders my name. “How about JoJo? Do you like JoJo?”

  “My mommy called me that,” a tiny voice squeaks onto the tape so quietly, I have to rewind the tape to make sure I heard it—it wasn’t my imagination. “Only my mommy,” the voice clarifies.

  “So, not JoJo,” Dr. Jett hastily states. “Um, how about Jo? Or Josie? Both are lovely choices?”

  “No.” The tiny voice barks out angrily. It’s almost as if it’s not even the same girl. As if something stronger and scarier took over.

  That’s what she wanted me to remember. From hearing my voice, I can feel the anger, I can feel the sadness, and it’s just seeping through the speakers and invading what little memories I recall. Dr. Jett wanted me to try and remember how I felt when she suggested Josie, how much I hated the name. And I can feel it, the hatred for Josie coursing through me.

  I’m not that little girl anymore.

  “Why not Josie?” the doctor on the tape asks. I try and picture the familiar tilt of her head when she asks me a probing question.

  The silence through the tape is the loudest thing I have ever heard. It’s the longest moment of soundless noise and I lift my hand to turn off the cassette player. I can’t remember if I responded. I don’t really even want to know what I said.

  But before my hand can hit the power button, the tiny voice says, “That’s what my daddy called me.”

  So simple but still filled with so much heartbreak and sadness that I yank the cord from the wall. I can’t listen to this anymore, not now. Maybe not ever.

    

  For the rest of the week, I pour over every bit of file and listen to every tape, skipping the remainder of the first one.

  In the last thick inch of my file is something I could’ve lived without seeing. A report from my doctor back in Texas. A report of my injuries, both past and present, from the night I nearly died.

  …once she woke up, she screamed whenever anyone touched her…

  …evidence of sexual trauma…

  ... abuse from father…

  So it’s true. That’s what I feel when I fall asleep, that’s what’s in my dreams, that’s what’s creeping beneath my bed and at the back of my closet. That’s the monster lurking within the shadows, waiting to grab me and take me down to its darkest depths.

  That’s what dwells within me.

  How can anyone do that to their child? How can they destroy what trust lies between them and their daughter?

  The tears fall from my eyes this early Sunday morning. My aunt and Patrick should be home before nine tonight so I’ll be able to fake everything, all correct emotions, by then but right now, I just need to cry. I need to mourn the loss of something I never had the chance to give away. I need to mourn the loss of my family. I need to mourn the loss of myself. I need to mourn the loss of a little girl who didn’t know what life had planned for her, what she would be like today, and what horrors were within her own home.

  I fall to the floor, taking my blankets and the files with me. I hear plastic crash against the wall and know the tapes have fallen from my bed. I look at the papers scattered and crumpled on the floor. Before I can stop myself, the sobs rack through my body and the tears gush from my eyes as I clutch my arms around my legs, thinking of every word written on those pages.

  It can’t be real. I don’t want any of it to be real. I just want a normal past. But I don’t have that luxury.

  The one thing I really want to do, the one person I really want to see, is Zephyr. I want to grab my phone and dial the number I stare at when I feel like I can ask him back into my life, when I fight myself to ignore the urge to ask him back into my life. I hold my phone tightly in my hand, rubbing the tips of my fingers along the thick plastic of the impact protection case. I want to will myself to dial the familiar number, the number I memorized so long ago. I need to will myself to bring up his name and hit the stupid green button to call him. I need to drag my ass to the window, fling back the stupid blackout curtains I bought three days ago, and yell for him. I need to do something to make this hurt, this pain that continues to thrive and grow, go away.

  But I can’t do any of those things. I need to overcome this on my own—without him, because he needs to move on with his own life, as do I. He needs to find someone better for him someone I’ll never be. Zephyr doesn’t need me fucking up his life.

  I throw my phone against the wall opposite me, watching it bounce against the spot where his portrait used to hang. Thankfully, it’s protected or I’d be looking for a new phone. Knowing it didn’t break, I fold unto a ball on my side, crying until I fall asleep.

  eight

  I have my meeting with Dr. Jett today. Two weeks have passed; my birthday is coming up, as is the interview with Ambrielle Knight. She called me last week to tell me that she was coming up to Washington to interview me the day before my birthday. So I have that to look forward to.

  “I can’t wait to see you, Joey,” she squealed into the phone. I held it away from my ear as I tapped my pen along my notes for my senior project. Since I received the files from my shrink’s office—or, excuse me, stole if you want me to be technical—I’ve been incorporating a lot of what I learned into my thesis. It might be a little too personal but it should win me some points of originality with the panel who’ll review my project. So I’m using sympathy—or pity—to pass, big freaking deal. People have pitied me my entire like, why not use it to my advantage?

  “I can’t wait to see you, too, Ambrielle,” I lie. Really, all I want to do is stay in bed and wallow in my lovely dose of self-pity. Maybe watch a stupid movie and forget about my life for a bit.

  We finalized the details before I faked some emergency—“Shit! I think my cat just ate a golf ball! Got to go, Ambrielle.”—and hung up.

  Now, I’m walking into my therapist’s office, carrying my backpack by the strap, and barge straight into Dr. Jett’s office. She’s sitting in front of her Mac laptop, typing away.

  She jumps, emitting a light yelp, until she recognizes me, her eyes widening as her breathing slows.

  “Joey, dear God, you scared me,” she closes the lid of her computer. “I was just—”

  “Save it, Doc,” I interrupt. I open my backpack and dump the contents onto the tiny table in the middle of the room. All the files, all the tapes, they scatter in a messy heap, some falling from the table to the floor. Now, I know this is a bad thing to admit, and I don’t know the law that well, but aside from the breaking and entering, I’m certain that I’m admitting to another crime—and normal criminals don’t do that. But I can’t keep this to myself. When I look at her, to the only thing I feel is the urge to punch her in the face for not telling me what was in my file. It could have helped me understand, it could have saved me the stress and nightmares.

  “Where did you get that?” I can hear the anger and accusation in her voice. I’ve betrayed her.

  “Don’t worry about that,” I snap, dropping my bag and crossing my arms across my chest. I’m not sure how scary I look but I must have some decent impact to make me seem more frightening than my five-foot frame would originally allow. “You were never going to tell me, were you?” I accuse.

  The only way I can treat this is to turn everything back on her.

  “Joey, you need to sit down so we can discuss this like adults.”

  Like adults?

  The option to treat me like an adult has been passed up since she used the term to describe me two years ago. As an adult, I could handle this. As an adult, I’d be ready to discuss this calmly. But right now, I’m pissed. I want to throw a tantrum.

  Dr. Jett sits in her chair motioning f
or me to take the seat across from her, like a normal session.

  “No,” I bark—aggressively shaking my head. “I have questions and I want answers!” I know everyone can hear me in the lobby, I know people can hear me in other offices, and good. Maybe some honesty will become contagious. How many other patients are denied the truth when they come in here?

  “How did you get this, Joey?” Dr. Jett asks calmly, looking up at me from her seat.

  “That doesn’t matter, Doctor,” I say loudly. “I am so fucking sick and tired. I’m tired from all these nightmares I keep having that I’m remembering. I’m sick with the knowledge of what my father used to do to me—”

  “What did your father used to do to you, Joey?” Dr. Jett interrupts me, but I don’t let her question take root. I’m too angry—I need to scream.

  “—I just want to be normal, I want to be normal, damn it!” I slump into the chair next to the table, feeling the tears well. “And fuck! I’m tired of crying so fucking much.”

  “Joey, you know how this works.” Dr. Jett takes her seat across from me. I see on the table that the recorder has been recording this entire time. Is that thing always on for spontaneous circumstances like this? “We talk through things, we figure out problems through discussion. It isn’t everyone’s protocol but it’s mine. That is how I do this, Joey.”

  “Well, maybe the way you do things is wrong,” I tell her.

  Dr. Jett looks at me, tilting her head slightly.

  “I broke up with my boyfriend,” I blubber out, unable to hold it in any longer. “I broke up with him in the middle of the school hallway while I was on the floor because we tried to have sex and I just…” I trail off, taking a deep breath. Dr. Jett doesn’t speak. She only looks at me with a mix of pity and sympathy but I don’t need her pity and I certainly don’t need her sympathy, I just need answers. “I remember hands on me and pain where there shouldn’t be pain. And I saw him, I felt him, and I just wanted so much not to be where I was. I wanted Zephyr to stop touching me and I shouldn’t want him not to touch me.” I release a breath. “I mean, what kind of girlfriend hates her boyfriend’s touch?”