Heroine Hearts

by Kirsty-Anne Still

  “I’ll stick with the standard dose,” she replies, starting to move. Her movements are weak, done so on shaky limbs, but she’s determined. “What did he bring?”

  I can’t help the laughter that comes before I speak. “They brought up a real feast. You’ve got egg and bacon on here so far.”

  “Bacon?” She asks, both eyebrows shooting up. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah, cariño,” I tell her, grinning at her sudden enthusiasm for food. I go to the tray, picking it up, only replying as I bring the food to her. “There’s bacon,” I set the tray down on her lap. The way her eyes light up tell me it’s been a long time since she had breakfast in bed. “Eat up.”

  I settle back onto the edge of the bed and watch her eat, not caring to get any myself. I’m just happy that food arrived during a good moment in this detox. She eats the food with abandon and I don’t stop her. I could fool myself to think we aren’t doing what we are.

  “You should slow down,” I instruct, worrying she’ll make herself sick from eating far too fast.

  Which she does immediately.

  “Sorry,” she apologizes with a mouth full of food. “It’s been a long time since I had decent food.”

  “You always cook it, don’t you get to eat it?”

  She shakes her head, pushing the tray away finally. At first, I think it’s because she’s embarrassed, but she rubs her stomach to show she is full. Clearly, years on a restricted diet has shrunk her stomach and it’ll take a lot to make her eat a feast that will put some meat on her bones.

  “Joaquín rations what we eat and watches what we take. At most, we’re lucky if we get fruit as an extra.”

  Again another piece of information for me to hate the man for.

  “You full?”

  “Yeah,” she says, the same apologetic tone to her voice. “I wish I could eat more, but I feel sick.”

  Understanding, I take the tray, placing it on the floor.

  “You up for talking?” I ask, facing her.

  I watch her move, nestling herself among the pillows and pulling the sheets around her. It’s stifling in this room, but she seems to not notice at all. Instead, she snuggles down as if it’s a blizzard outside and she hasn’t prepared for it.

  Here comes the onslaught of hot sweats and full body shivers.

  “What about?” she asks, finally getting comfortable.

  “Gabi...” I say, trailing off as I start the conversation.

  “What do you want to know?” She asks, immediately her teeth bite down around her bottom lip, a nervous trait I’ve noticed.

  “Do you remember talking to her? When you were on the floor that is... do you remember talking to her?”

  Slowly her eyes look at her lap, her teeth stop biting her lip, but only to allow her to start biting the inside of her cheek. Her silence is deafening and I can tell she can remember and is clearly embarrassed by this.

  “You don’t have to be ashamed, Isla.”

  With a heavy sigh, she begins to talk.

  “I could’ve sworn she was lying on the ground with me,” she starts, her eyes glistening with the sudden onslaught of unshed tears. “She was as vivid as you are now, Javier. I couldn’t look away and then she told me she was there for me and I thought maybe, just maybe that would be the best route. I thought I could be free.”

  I feel a pain lance through my chest and I’m not sure how to depict it. In some way, I’m envious that she got to see Gabi in front of her for whatever reason. In another, I hate the way she was so prepared to take the call of death.

  “But it was just like when I saw my dad, the moment I let myself believe they were there, he snatched them away from me. I didn’t want to come back to the reality I was in. When they were there everything seemed to be so much better even if it wasn’t.”

  A silence falls, suffocating us both. It’s palpable that we’re both affected by what happened and for the same reason. We’re both so wrapped up in my sister, both affected by her passing, even if it was at Isla’s will. She escaped both of our lives, we both lost the one person we drew strength from.

  “He’s right you know,” she continues, breaking out harsh silence.

  “Who is?” I ask, furrowing my brow.

  “Santiago,” she utters his name and a new ounce of sadness adds to what she already carries.

  “About what?”

  “My family,” she says, gulping hard. “They’ve probably given up on me.”

  I know from what I’ve learned that giving up any vice is hard work and any of a drug substance can cause all manner of side effects. I know Isla won’t be the worst case ever of going cold turkey, but for her – and for me – it’s the worst it could be.

  Paranoia and depression are integral in making a person weak enough to go and find the thing they’re trying to give up. She’s broken enough that she went to Santiago once, I don’t doubt she’ll try to do it again. So it’s left to me to play to her rationality, make it shine a little brighter to pull her from the addictive edge. It’s up to me to soften every edge there is to this and remind her that she isn’t alone in this. No matter how isolated or demeaned she’s made to feel, it’s time she realized there is more going on beneath the surface.

  I’ve learned more in the past two days than in my short few weeks here. I never had Hector down as a man as broken as he is and his guilt and shame from this place is a crippling truth of what becomes of a man once he enlists. The type of man I swear I’d never become – but I am showing shards of the brutal effect of this place.

  But if he can set his path right, then so can Isla.

  “If I continued searching for Gabi, I can promise they kept looking for you,” I say, believing every word. I know where I’m speaking from and I have no doubt she’s not a forgotten child. “They’ll be still having sleepless nights and tireless days wondering where you could be, using every possible route available to them.”

  “You think?” she asks as if I hold the Holy Grail.

  “I know so,” I say and I notice how quickly her energy has gone. “Do you want to get some more sleep? You look tired again.”

  “No,” she abruptly responds. “Can we just keep talking?” She asks, her eyes boring into mine with such a doleful expression. “Please... it’s helping me forget about the pains and the, erm, ache.”

  “Okay,” I relent easily. “What do you want to talk about?”

  “You...”

  “Me?”

  She nods, her eyes glisten with intrigue, the sadness saturated for now. She shifts a little, settling on her side to watch me at the bottom of the bed.

  “What do you want to know?” I ask her, knowing that she won’t let this go.

  “Was your plan always to swoop in and save Gabi?” she questions; while her voice is soft and honest, there’s a note of hesitation. “Was that why you joined?”

  “Basically,” I tell her, shrugging a little. What’s the harm in sharing my plan with her now? “I knew I couldn’t be truly reckless with finding her, but when I found a plausible lead for her whereabouts I set a plan in motion. I paid what little money I had to forge deportation paperwork, got a fake passport that said I was from La Ponderosa. I came here as the perfect discarded piece of Mexican scum.”

  “You thought it all out,” she muses, a smile grazes her lips.

  “For Gabi I would’ve done anything,” I admit, no shame in the fact. “She was my lifeline and after she had gone missing, everything seemed to just fall apart. Everything I fought for lessened in significance and I lost so much time trying to find her that nothing else mattered and I lost it all.”

  “What happened to you?”

  “No,” I reply, shaking my head. “Don’t ask me to share those details.”

  “Why?” She queries, sitting up while her brow furrows. “It can’t be that bad. From what I see, you’re superman. You came here, left a mark from the moment you got here and you haven’t quietened down. You came here to be the hero, what could damp
en that?”

  “Everything,” I state, my tone raw.

  She would never appreciate the man I became in the wake of my sister’s disappearance and she’ll hate the man I fear I’ll become, knowing I’ll never have another moment to spend with my sister. I fear the monster grief will make me.

  “Javier,” she whispers, shifting some. “You’ve seen me at my absolute worse. Now, let me see you at yours.”

  “Why?” I ask, my voice pushing the words harsher than I meant.

  “Because you’re still here,” she murmurs, the subtle undertones of sorrow are what break me most. “You’ve seen me abused, humiliated, mutilated. You’ve seen me at rock bottom, but you’re here,” she offers a small smile, a glimmer of hope meddling with the honesty. “Let me see the man at rock bottom so I can be here for him.”

  “You already know him,” I admit, closing my eyes as grief – a familiar friend – comes to play. “You met him the first moment you saw me.”

  “That’s a start,” she replies immediately, no judgment. She even gives me a gentle smile, reaching for my hand. “Why try and hide him if I know him already?”

  “Because I’m not exactly proud of who I’ve become,” I tell her and feel my chest tighten as one question beckons forward. “Why did you trust me?” I ask her, thankful to finally be having this conversation. “I knew you didn’t just take those drugs off me because they were drugs. I saw it in your eyes. Why did you trust me?”

  “I knew you’d never intentionally hurt me,” she tells me and I hate she’s paying me kindness.

  “But I did,” I argue back, the grit showing in my voice as my regret burns. “And I guess I’m trying every way possible to make up for it. I put you in that situation. I gave them all a reason to do that to you.”

  “You had a reason why, though,” she admonishes, not holding any grudge toward me. “I saw your face the moment you found out I killed Gabi. It was like you’d lost absolutely everything. I had intended to tell her family about what I did and why I had to do it, at least, one day anyway, but you were closer than ever. You were something more to me than her family because I didn’t know you like that.”

  “What did you know me as?”

  “My salvation,” she admits, her voice soft. “When I saw your face change, I knew I was a goner. I deserved that. I deserved to lose that.”

  “I don’t get how you could believe in me when I did that, though,” I fret, still feeling the tumultuous amount of guilt resting on my conscience, suffocating it.

  “It’s really simple,” she softly murmurs. “I knew you only had my best intentions at heart. If you hadn’t stepped in, maybe I wouldn’t have, but I knew you weren’t there with the same vicious intentions as Santiago. You were there to help me, just like you are now. As for turning me in, I found peace and you’re still here.”

  “I’m not going anywhere either,” I vow, pledging myself. “If there’s one thing I know, right now, Isla, it’s that I won’t let you down again.”

  “I know,” she replies, giving herself to me wholly.

  I wake with a jolt, not sure what’s stirred me. I push my tiresome body up the seat, feeling every muscle ache and cry with the after effects of the chair I’ve taken to since I began this. I rub my eyes, waking myself up so I can check on Isla, but when I look over my heart stops.

  I find the bed empty, sheets ruffled, the panic is like a tidal wave – sudden and catastrophic. I stand realizing there was no easy escape for her, but my train of thought becomes disturbed when I hear the sound of exhausted sobbing. I rush to the bathroom, following the sound as it becomes louder and louder.

  What I see on the floor is enough to stop any man’s heart – Isla crumpled on the tiled flooring, blood smothering her leg and the floor.

  “Isla, fuck,” I say, pushing away from the door, grabbing a towel as I fall before her. “Cariño, what did you do?”

  I push a towel to her back, directly on where Santiago burnt her. I see the bloodied nail scissors on the floor beside her limp hand and I don’t need her to tell me what she’s done, it’s abundantly clear. Her body reacts as I cause her more pain, but she doesn’t move completely away from me.

  “Isla,” I murmur, trying again for her attention.

  The girl that looks at me looks so incredibly lost that I find myself almost faltering, willing to throw my every nerve away. She seemed to be doing so much better when she fell asleep last night, falling into a quick slumber after a genuinely calm evening, but it seems it was all so short-lived.

  “I didn’t want him to have the power,” she tells among sobs. “This was all I knew to do.”

  “Why didn’t you wake me?” I ask her, a little more abrupt that I wanted. “I would’ve helped. I would’ve stopped you.”

  “I tried, but you wouldn’t wake up,” she says, her voice apologetic. “I woke up from a nightmare and I needed you, but you’re exhausted. I thought I could just wake up a little and deal with it, but I felt the pain on my leg and I couldn’t forget about that moment,” she closes her eyes in a fruitless attempt to quell her tears. “The dream was so real.”

  Her head sinks forward, her chin resting on her chest as she cries with the anguish she’s feeling. I can’t even imagine the nightmares she’s suffered since living here, but I can assume that in this moment of time, with the withdrawal wrecking her, the vividness and realism to her dreams is far worse and less easy to deal with.

  “Isla, you are safe now,” I tell her, hopeful my heartfelt words work.

  “Am I?” she asks, her head shooting up. “How can you say that? You don’t know anything about this place! Just because you’ve got some guilt complex right now, doesn’t mean you understand a damn thing that goes on in here. There is no rest for the wicked here. He’ll find a way to me.”

  Her erratic paranoia startles me for a second. She’s rambling and while her body rocks slightly, I wait for her to look at me. She doesn’t. Instead, she stares at the floor, quiet and subdued. Her lips part and I know she’s fighting herself to find the right words, so I don’t interrupt.

  “He told me once I would always be his,” her head lift and bright, sorrowful blue eyes fall on me. “Didn’t matter that his father named me Eighteen, he would always have me back. He made that a promise and when I was in isolation, I believed him. He had me back, Javier. I was his and I couldn’t stop him. I was his because he had the power,” her lip quivers but she doesn’t shed a tear, she holds steady. “I just wanted to take that power away from him.”

  I can’t even begin to question her sanity here. There’s nothing to question. I understand her method, even if I don’t approve of the madness. I know that she wouldn’t have done this if she weren’t dealing with what she is, but by cutting herself, she has destroyed a masterpiece that Santiago would gloat over.

  This is her way of winning some form of power.

  He can’t gloat over something she’s destroyed.

  “I wanted to have that strength back. I wanted to take it all away,” I didn’t think she’d speak more, but my silence apparently makes her comfortable and I won’t stop her talking to me. Talking to me prevents her thinking of anything else. “When I saw the scissors I just thought maybe it would take that away,” she looks over her shoulder and down at my hand pushing the towel into her now open wound. “I guess it worked.”

  “But look at the damage you’ve done in the process,” I argue, trying my hardest to not be mean toward her.

  “I know,” she whispers, tiresomely.

  Her complexion is ashen, far worse than it’s ever been. With the amount of the blood she’s spilled, I wonder how she’s still going. I’m hoping that by holding on the towel tightly to the wound, it’ll stem the bleeding enough without me having to involve anyone else. She doesn’t need anyone to see her like this. Santiago doesn’t deserve the satisfaction.

  I know she’s losing energy, so I decide to work quickly.

  “Hold that,” I order, taking her hand and p
lacing it on the towel.

  Allowing me, I get off the floor, crossing over to the cabinet below the sink and reach for the first-aid kit. I take the small green bag out and resume my place by her side. Unzipping it, I pull out the gauze, tape, and some antiseptic wash. I make a mental note to ask for more.

  “Take your hand away,” I tell her softly. “I need to get you cleaned up,” I say, trying to take command of the situation. I remove the towel, see her skin stained with the crimson of her own blood and really look at the cut. “Some of it doesn’t look too deep.”

  “I know that tone,” she says, a tiny laugh in her voice. “Some of it...”

  “Yeah, some of it’s real deep,” I say, keeping a light tone for her.

  I wash the wounds out, cleaning the blood from her skin and hide my wince at the real mess she’s left her skin in. I guess this will be easier to live with than what it was before, but she’ll always have a permanent reminder of what she was driven to do. She’ll have to contend with this scar. From the relief now in her eyes, I can tell she’d happily look at this one than the former.

  “You tired?” I ask her, watching as her energy wanes. Lack of sleep, withdrawal and now added blood loss will be exhausting, so I’m not surprised when she just nods her head, settling hooded eyes on me. “Cmon, cariño.”

  Carefully, I help her stand, pulling her to her feet. I don’t allow her to move much, I grab the waistband and push them free of her body. She can’t sleep in these now they’re smothered in her blood. I toss the blooded bottoms aside and tell her to stay while I rush to the chest of drawers in the bedroom, grabbing a fresh pair of sweat-pants and take them to her. I lean down, holding one leg so she can step one foot into them and do the same with the other foot. I draw the pants up her legs, careful of her wound and cover her completely.

  Taking her hand, I help her out of the room, being as gentle with her as I can be. She follows me without command, letting me know she’s ready to go to the bed. I heed and when we’re close enough, I twist her and help her sit as delicately as she can. With a ginger poise, she lowers herself to the mattress, hissing only slightly as the contact upsets her fresh cuts.