by June Hydra
“I’ve seen enough to recognize that panicking is the worst thing you can do. Ever. But you’re not. Not visibly anyway.”
“Just shaken up. More angry than anything.”
“Being angry makes sense. They betrayed you. Friends should never do that.”
“How did you get away?” **
“In college, they used to offer classes. Self-defense. I figured I would learn how eventually. My parents—” and a cloud of guilt rains on my soul, I blame for everything, is there no personality responsibility? “—they would do their disciplining at home. There wasn’t anything I could do. Scars and all. Nothing. I vowed in college that would change completely. No more helplessness at the hands of others. I took classes. Muay Thai. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I learned how to roll efficiently and how to throw kicks. I was badass, I won’t lie.” We roll to a stop sign. Bishop stares at the scar, tracing it over with his eyes. “They would beat me,” I say. “They did it often. And it hurt.”
“I’m sorry. I’ve said that before, but it must mean absolutely nothing to you. You’ve probably had thousands say that.”
“It’s okay. Nothing you can do now. But it hurt so much, they pretty much saved our lives today. Without them beating me, I wouldn’t have stricken it out for myself. I’m stronger because of it. I truly believe that I’ve survived a crucible and that I’m stronger for it.”
“You’re not fazed at all? They could’ve killed us. You were a natural though. Like you just knew what to do with that guy.”
Revealing that I slept with Spade for test bank answers also isn’t the most germane to post-traumatic discussions. I bandy around a couple of stories and settle on the cleanest version.
“I knew his weakness instantly. It was obvious. Just in the way he held his pistol; it was like he’d never held one before.”
“Have you?”
“I go to a shooting ring. Not often, but I know where not to put my thumbs on a Glock. I know the dangers. Yeah. I can fire.” I turn to Bishop, letting him see fully the ragged scar. He can’t though. We’ve passed the stop sign and continue along a boulevard. I’m most comfortable facing him with the darkness shrouding me, and his attention focused elsewhere. “I would have fired if it meant saving you. Is that bad of me?”
“No, Violet, no. God. You are so caught up in being a good girl, it’s amazing. Finding someone like that is so rare. You think about others. You feel for others. You’re incredible.”
“I’m just—I think a lot about these things.”
“You’re a good person. Stop thinking you’re bad. You don’t need anybody to validate you. You’re fucking amazing. I don’t even deserve you.”
“You do,” I say. “I’m happier with you. I was happy single, but with you, I’m happiest. There’s no man I’ve met that’s as devoted as you are. Who’s made steps to change his life around for the benefit of somebody else. Who’s stuck by and made big decisions for my benefit. You left the gambling ring for me, and for that, I’m grateful. It must’ve been huge.”
“Your empathy is incredible. I can’t believe it. You’d do well in every congregation, I swear. My parents would love a daughter like you. One who could see through others’ eyes.”
“Everyone has their storm. It’s not like I’m experiencing a hurricane and you just a sun shower. We’re equals. We’re humans. People. People who’ve experienced a lot. Gone through a lot.”
Bishop’s hands tighten around the wheel. Even in the night’s shroud, you can see the leather dimpling from the force of his grip. I stroke his nape. I stroke his legs. He remains on the fence, whether to have an outburst or calm himself.
“Where do we go from here?” he says.
“We get you to safety. You’re definitely out of that place. Tomorrow. I can get my friends to help out. They’re sweet. They’ll help.”
“Will you tell them anything?”
“Do you want me to? Is this something we should keep a secret from everybody? A support network would do us wonders.”
“They can’t tell.”
“I’ll get them to help us, that’s the most important part.”
Bishop swings into the shoulder lane. Honking cars blare louder now as he careens and comes to a full stop. I cling to his shoulder for stability and shake him awake. “What are you doing?”
“Violet. What the hell happened?”
“Don’t panic. Remember, you’re on the road. You’re in a car. These things kill. Stay here with me.”
“They could’ve hurt you so much.”
Bishop jerks towards me. He hugs. And I hug him back, take him in.
Whether he cries first or I do, I can’t tell. It’s the build-up, the aftershock hitting us like a tsunami, just shearing apart the shorelines of our souls.
We were assaulted. We could’ve been killed. And we’re stuck. Abandoned. Shipwrecked.
“You have to put in an anonymous tip,” Bishop says. “Those bastards can’t run far and do this again.”
“I’ll put one in.”
“We both have to. And then we move.”
“We move?”
“We move farther. They can’t hurt you again.”
“They didn’t. They didn’t.” I thrust him away and stare into those hazel eyes. The straight, straight nose that’s flaring at the rims. His hot cheeks. “They did not hurt me. Promise you believe me. This girl was not hurt. They don’t have any power over me or you.”
“You have to promise me that you’re not lying. You have to be safe. I can’t see this happening again.”
“I’m safe. We were just caught in a bad scenario.”
“You promise me.”
“I promise you a thousand times and more. I’m fine. It’s you we should be taking care of.”
“Fucking hate them.”
“They acted ultimately in their own self-interest. I guess we all do. Can you blame them in the end?”
“Don’t you expect better?”
“What do you expect from animals?” I tap the window. We’re now in some rundown street with ramshackle houses. Bulldozers pockmark the streets. Construction slows the traffic to a crawl, and horns blare. In the midst of the traffic run jaywalking kids, rollerblading teens. The streets teem with humanity, with all these different people living their own individual lives, and here we are, Bishop and I, talking about the nature of man after an assault. Everyone who peers into our car will never know the depth of our problems. And I will never know theirs. And yet, like ants, we probably all have the same depth. Similar problems, struggles, emotions, feelings. We’re all probably capable of the evils as well as the goods.
“That sounds like a cop out.”
“Man is an animal too. Just remember what we do,” I say. “Or did, rather. I used to sell test answers to help people to cheat. I did it because it made more money than working at the local McDonald’s full-time. I did it because I could control my hours. It was an easy job to do with friends. You took up gambling because of financial issues. We did what we did to escape our homes. If we didn’t try to lighten our loads, we could’ve lived much more stressful lives. Maybe for the two they were desperate.” I tap the glass. “Maybe they’re just assholes.”
“I prefer that.”
“They’re not here anymore. We need to focus on us not them. Our wellbeing.”
“What can we do? Can we even go back now? What if they’re staking the property out. They could come back—”
“We can retreat to my place then. We don’t have to go—”
Bishop seizes my wrists. His grip hurts. I have to shake him to loosen him up. “They could be watching us there. They could be stalking us now.” He twists around, then twists back, eyes ablaze with panic.
“Don’t,” I say. “Stay here. Stay put. We’re okay. They ran. They’re not here.”
“File the tips.”
“Okay, okay. Let’s file those tips.”
Just holding the phone calms him down. The idea of power, wrecking the two who did
us harm courses through him.
It could possibly backfire entirely on us both. The two gamblers could rat us out and end us. Moving definitely becomes a more and more pressing matter. We might even have to abandon everything he owns.
“Are you dialing?”
“I am. I’m dialing, just let me. Here, put your head on my shoulder.”
Bishop takes the wheel. He merges back on the boulevard and drives silently while listening to my hushed phone conversation.
Whenever I touch on sensitive details, I glance at him for approval. He either nods or shakes but I am the conduit through which our story is relayed, and I take liberties with those nods and shakes. Exact names and places blur. I’m good at this, the blurring part. Names, places, dates, faces. Things change rapidly if you’re not paying attention. You can manufacture any kind of reality you want if that’s your game.
I have to stop myself from revealing my knowledge of Spade. Explaining how I know him would be too inconvenient and worrying for Bishop.
“It’s done. I told. How angry will they be?”
“Very.” Bishop’s been running around the same four corners, four boulevards connected to one another by an intersection. He rounds the last of the four corners, then pulls into a new street, a nicer, upscale neighborhood with McMansions dotting the land. At the streets end is a gate, but a car passing through allows us entry by simply following from behind.
“I could’ve been safer.”
“If you keep blaming yourself then you’re no better than me. I question if I’m a good person and apparently you do too. You are. You’re not bad. You’re good, Bishop. You’re a good man who got trapped.”
“Do you forgive me?”
“As if there’s something to be forgiven for.”
“I feel like I need to atone.”
“If you atone you’d be doing it for nothing.”
Bishop swerves into a long driveway of white pavement. We stay idling in front of what must be five-thousand square feet of property. Beautiful spires top the peaks of the house. There must be a pool or Jacuzzi on back. The garden is trimmed and eaves wet.
“It’s a nice house,” I say. “Good property.”
“One day. Not that being rich is important. But I bet it’s safer here than anywhere else.”
“Can you imagine living here though? It seems so different. Like a different species lives here.”
“Does it intimidate you?”
“Not really. Nothing does anymore.”
“I forgot.” Bishop spins the wheel. We wheel out the driveway in a slow arc, crunching gravel under our weight. “Thanks,” he says. “I don’t think I’ve thanked you all night. It’s been all me.”
“You don’t have to thank me for anything.”
“I should for everything.”
“Don’t. Just drive home. To my place.”
Except for a soothing mumble or relaxing croon, we stay silent for the remainder of the drive, maintaining composure.
If not for supporting one another, we’d crack entirely. At my center grows an unfathomable pain, suppressed but growing. Explosive and numbing. Panic.
We reach the apartment complex. Bishop and I unbuckle ourselves with trepidation.
“Thank you.”
Bishop opens the diver’s door before I can reply. I sit, mulling over his appreciation.
I did save us. I guess.
Bishop opens my door and helps me step out. The humidity clings to our skins and saturates our clothes.
We tread upstairs to my place, wet, haggard, unhinged.
And in love. If they thought they could rend us apart—scare us into fighting one another—then they miscalculated.
I love Bishop. It might be a tenuous, small love, but the cultivation has begun, and my commitment to him grows.
CHAPTER 29
“Sleep,” I say.
“What about you? Take care of yourself.” Bishop waves for me to join him in bed, but I hover near the doorway, pushing my hand towards him.
“I’ll be there. Let me brush my teeth.”
Bishop flops backwards, fed up with my resistance. I shut off the lights and skip the bathroom, finding my friends in the living room. They flutter about me.
“Are you guys going to tell us now?” Caddy whispers. He raps on the table to gain Piranha’s attention. She perks up and dashes to the kitchen.
“Right,” she says, “I’ll make soup!”
“Girl, girl, come here.” Caddy bear hugs me and drags my wilting body to the couch. I convulse in his arms, unable to comprehend what had just happened. All the trauma, all the incident, our struggle, our fight—they warp my hard façade. I can play the tough girl but even the tough girl has to cry. I do.
“What happened? Come on, say something. Help us help you.”
“The gambling.”
“It’s gambling for Christ sakes, not child prostitution. Shades of gray?”
“No.” I push Caddy away, keeping my sobs to mere squeaks. “I almost died. It’s not shades of gray anymore, it’s more like shades of blood, see how much you can you paint the walls with.”
“You’re not making anything of anything. What’s going on?”
I stand and pace the length of the couch and turn to face Caddy. “What can I even do with this? He’s totally embroiled. We’re in trouble.”
“Sit down first, sit down.”
“I need to pace. I need to feel myself working.” My feet stamp the carpet with deep imprints. My fingers thrum the air as if grasping water. “I want to help him. He’s not a bad guy at all. We’re not bad people.”
“We’re not, no,” Caddy says, watching Piranha add spice to a pot. “But he’s running in with the wrong crowd, isn’t he?”
Caddy blocks my path. I thump against his scrawny chest.
“You’re stressed, I get it. But girl, info, info, info. America didn’t get strong by being quiet all the time. They made shit loud and happening.”
Tears work their way across my ducts. I avail myself the option of catharsis.
I cry.
And sob and weep, and you can use whatever term you want to call it, but I bawl. Warm hands touch the small of my back. Piranha’s working her way down to my waist, cooing with a bowl of soup sitting nearby. They sandwich me in their love. Younger self would’ve thought platonic love to be a silly trait, something only grade school girls did on the playground. But older me understands the essence of platonic love—camaraderie and an audience.
I stifle what sounds I can. Crying has always made me feel weak. Seeing the heroines on television always weeping over nothing gave me second hand embarrassment. What did they have to cry for? Why couldn’t they show strong girls on TV that didn’t need to cry?
Now the power of crying shows itself. The nasty hatred, the fear, the anxiety, the love, the fight in me. They make their exit through my eyes. They drop to the floor where I stamp them out.
“This isn’t what was dreamed of.”
“You wanted wedding bells, I know.”
“I feel like I’ve fulfilled all my parent’s expectations of me.”
Caddy blows a raspberry. “This? Is this what you’re crying about?”
“We were robbed. Assaulted. Attacked.”
“Who?” Piranha says.
“It’s not just that. Spade was there too.”
“Spade?” they say.
“The Spooky Spade. The inventor of Spadeness. Stalker Spade. The guy…the guy I’d slept with junior year. Remember chemistry? The forty percent DWF rate? Spade our Savior?”
“Girl, how’d he find you? You have a restraining order.”
“My history. It just repeats.”
I unlatch myself from Caddy and walk to the bed, myself, head aimed at the pillows. I bury myself in the soft couch fabrics, hoping for relief. In a small college town everybody knows who’s who along the grapevine, especially those who don’t leave.
Slut, slut, slut.
Mom’s voice rings out l
ike a harpy’s cry. Slut, slut, slut. I proved her right then—rebelling only served to spite the caricatures I’d built up. They probably don’t even care about me anymore, or if they do, they “care” in the way twisted, controlling parents care about their kids—when they don’t have control.
Caddy and Piranha flank me. An aura of comfort escapes from them. They surround and create a space of love to enjoy.
“We’re here,” Caddy says. “When you’re ready, you can say anything you want. Boss us around. Make us run. We need to get what’s going on though.”
I choke off the last of my sobs. And then I weave together our story—the dirty version. Everything.
CHAPTER 30
“Girl. You called the police, right? Right?”
“I did.”
“You damn well should’ve beaten them like the douches they were.”
“I wanted to.”
“They are definitely not American. I can think of many other countries that would make this behavior. It’s the culture.”
I have to giggle a little at Piranha’s xenophobia. Any other context would be grounds for calling her out, but I need the twisted humor to brighten my perspective.
“It’s not that. It’s just these events piling together and making me feel like complete crap.”
“You did what anybody would,” Caddy says. “Plus, that man over there owes his life to you. You’re the rocking type, not even robbers can take advantage of you. Feel good about that at least.”
“I do. I did beat them up.”
“You’re strong,” Piranha says.
“I am, I guess.”
“Don’t guess,” Caddy says. “You are and you need to internalize it. You are amazing.”
“Amazing grace! That’s you. You’re everybody’s grace. Caddy’s speaking the right stuff here.”
I sniffle. Snot drools out of my nose, and they both reach for napkins to help sop up the mess. Are they telling me truths though? Is my brain the liar? Or are the roles all reversed?
“Thank you, guys. You don’t have to be at my side anymore. You can go—”
“The fuck.” Caddy dabs the napkin gently at my nose and tilts my head up. Piranha swims at the edge of my peripheral vision, her hands like two pillars of steel, jutting forth and stabilizing me. I could collapse and fly simultaneously. I could melt and freeze, die and reborn. “You’re sleeping in my bed tonight,” he says.
