Unscathed

by Tim O'Rourke

  Feeling angry at myself for being such a naive fool again, I pushed open the car door and climbed out. With hands still clenched into fists, I marched across the road to where Jax sat in his truck. He didn't take his eyes off of me once. I banged my fist against the window of his car and he dropped it an inch.

  "What do you want, Mina?" he asked.

  "What are you doing here?" I demanded, feeling my cheeks flush red with anger.

  "I could ask the same of you," he said, taking a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lighting one. I didn't know Jax smoked, but why was I surprised by that? I really didn't know anything about him despite the hours I had spent watching, photographing, and filming him.

  "I've come to see my friend Heather," I said, not knowing if I should have confessed to knowing her. But I wasn't exactly thinking straight.

  "Me too," he smiled and I wondered if he said that just to hurt me.

  "So you know her well then?" I fished, placing my hands on my hips.

  "No, not really..." he started.

  "So you always turn up late at night to see girls you don't know that well?" I sneered at him through the window. He blew smoke from the corner of his mouth and it wafted through the gap. I swatted it out of my face.

  "If you must know, I hadn't met her until the other day when she showed up at work..." Jax began to explain.

  "So you only met her a couple of days ago, and here you are already!" I cried in disbelief. "Me and you were only having… we were only sharing my bed together a couple of hours ago, and all the while you were planning on coming over to see..."

  "Just shut up a minute, will ya?" Jax cut in. "I didn't come over here tonight to get laid. This friend of yours told me that a buddy of mine had recommend I do some work on her car, but he had never heard of her... so I got to wondering... something didn't fit quite right...." He broke off and stared at me.

  "What?" I said, feeling uncomfortable now and wishing that I hadn't come out to Heather’s after all.

  "I came here tonight, Mina, because I think in my heart I knew it was you who got Heather to pay me a visit at the auto shop,” he breathed, as if the final piece of a jigsaw had been slotted into place.

  "You don't know what you're talking about," I said and turned away from the truck.

  Before I'd even taken two steps, Jax had thrown open the truck door, leapt out, and grabbed me by the arm. He spun me around to face him.

  "My God, Mina, what is wrong with you?" he said, searching my eyes as if looking for the answer to his question.

  "I don't know what you're talking about," I lied.

  "You know exactly what I'm talking about," he growled, gripping my arm tighter.

  "Let go, you're hurting me," I said, trying to pull free of him, desperate to be back in my car. Not because I was scared of Jax, but because I knew he had figured out what I had done.

  "Heather was some kinda test you set for me," he said looking shocked and hurt. "It was a trap."

  "I just wanted to be sure that I could trust you," I said, knowing that whatever excuse I gave, it would sound pathetic.

  "Trust me?!" he said in disbelief. "It's you, Mina, who can't be trusted. It's you who has been sneaking around, lying and setting traps. You're the liar and the fake, not me."

  With the same look of hurt and mistrust I had seen in my mother’s eyes, Jax let go of my arm and headed back towards his truck.

  "You once said that you thought I had a secret and you found that exciting about me," I called after him. I didn't want him to leave, because if he did, he would never come back to me.

  "That's before I knew you were some kinda freak!" he shouted without looking back.

  To hear him call me that felt like a punch to my face. That's what I had always been called. I couldn’t hold back the tears which were now standing in my eyes. They spilled onto my cheeks. "Didn't tonight mean anything to you?" I said as he climbed behind the wheel of his truck.

  Jax slammed the door shut.

  "I didn't mean to hurt you, Jax," I said, choking back my tears. "I never meant to hurt anyone."

  "No wonder your mother couldn't wait to get rid of you," he said back, his voice sounding hard and unforgiving.

  His words were like a blow to my body and I flinched backwards.

  "And you're just like my mum," I said. "She never gave me a chance to explain. She didn't want to know the truth, because just like you, she wouldn't have been able to understand it."

  Jax fired up the engine of the truck. He didn't seem interested in anything I had to say. And I couldn't blame him for feeling like that. I went to the window one last time.

  "Come back to my place, Jax..." I blurted out.

  "What for? So you can make another one of your creepy movies?" he sniped. "No thanks."

  "Watch those films with me..." I started.

  "This just keeps getting weirder and weirder," he groaned, steering the car away from the kerb.

  I let go of the window. "If I meant anything to you, Jax, just come back to my place so I can explain... so I can show you..." I called out, watching his bright taillights head away up the street. With my heart sinking in my chest, I knew that it was over. Jax didn't want to know the truth, and he didn't want to know me. With my head down, I made my way back towards my car. As I yanked open the door, I heard the sound of an approaching engine. I looked up to see Jax's truck reversing back down the road towards me. Had he come back to call me a freak again?

  Jax drew level with me. "I'll give you five minutes," he said, eyes dark and face stern. "I'll follow you back to your place. But I promise you one thing, Mina, if I think for one minute that you are filming me, taking pictures, or anything else remotely stalker-ish, then I'm gone."

  "I promise," I said.

  "Five minutes," he warned me again.

  "Okay," I nodded, wondering what I had done to deserve this second chance. I climbed into my car and steered away from the kerb, Jax following close behind in his truck.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Jax

  I was gonna do it. I was gonna drive off and leave her ass standing there crying. I couldn’t believe after the stalking, the photos, and the videos – now I had to deal with her setting traps for me. I didn’t need that crap at all.

  It had hit me as I pulled up and saw her car. She knew Heather. How could it be? My brain had begun to buzz. There was only one explanation for it; she had sent Heather to the shop to test me. That’s what it was all about. The pieces came together like tumblers in a lock. Nobody is that stupid to not know that a squeaking sound when you step on the brake means you need new brakes. I mean, seriously, nobody’s that blonde. I should have told Barbie to F-off.

  I don’t know if it was curiosity or Austin’s words ringing in my ears that made me back up and decide to give her five minutes of my time – maybe it was both – but Mina mentioned her mother again. What had happened there? She had never told me. Yet another dark secret she was keeping. I just didn’t see how she was going to explain away the videos and pictures she’d been taking of me without my knowledge or consent. Who does that and has a sane, rational explanation for it? Perhaps she was insane and her explanation made perfect sense to her in her own mind.

  I flicked the cigarette, along with Heather’s card, out the window, letting the hot summer wind catch both. I’d smoked three in the last thirty minutes and decided I was pitching the rest of the pack in the trash. Damn addictive cancer sticks.

  I was overthinking this whole thing. I’ll go to her house, let her speak, then leave. Then I could tell Austin I had heard her out and be satisfied with myself that I let her explain, say her peace. Then I’d move on with my life and go back to being the terminal bachelor I’d been before Mina had crashed into my life and turned my once even, steady emotions upside down and inside out.

  I killed the engine to the truck and got out, walking to the front door. Her car was already in the drive, and the front door was open so I walked in without knocking.


  I saw her fiddling with the DVD player, hooking up a thick, gray cord from her laptop to the player and the TV. She grabbed a remote and flipped the TV on, where there was nothing but snow. She hit a few buttons on the laptop and the screen flicked to life.

  My stomach did a summersault when I saw myself sitting at the Denny’s restaurant from our first date. I guess it had been our first date, the night she’d most likely stalked me and followed me to Rowdy’s. She had the sound muted, which was good because I hated the sound of my own voice. The camera was a bit wobbly and it was making me dizzy to watch.

  I looked over at Mina, who still had not said one word to me, and was watching the screen with intensity.

  I sighed. “Mina, I really don’t understand…”

  “Shush!” she barked.

  I raised my eyebrows and shook my head, looking at my watch. She had four minutes left.

  “Look!” she yelled, pointing the remote at the screen.

  I jerked my head up from where I’d been staring at my watch and saw the same thing I’d been looking at before, me at the restaurant. I squinted at the screen. “What am I looking at, Mina?” Crazy, I wanted to call her.

  She walked to the large 50-inch flat screen and tapped it with the remote. She was trying to draw my attention to something behind my left shoulder on the screen. I walked closer and looked. I suppose I did see something, it looked like a dark hazy shadow behind me.

  “This is what I see, Jax. All the time. Not just with you, but with lots of people. This is why my mother sent me away. She thought I was crazy and insane, just like you do.” She fixed me with a hard stare, which was beginning to soften with tears.

  “So there’s a shadow behind me, maybe someone walked behind me…”

  She stomped her foot and huffed. I had to admit it was kind of cute and I had to purse my lips together to keep from laughing. “Someone did walk behind you, Jax! They are spirits, okay?”

  Now I couldn’t help but smile. “Spirits, Mina? Really?” I shook my head and fished my keys out of my pocket, turning toward the front door.

  She ran around the sofa and grabbed my arm. “No. Don’t leave, please, I need to explain more.”

  I looked down at her delicate, pale hand gripping my large tattooed bicep and then back into her glistening blue eyes. I raised an eyebrow. “Spirits and shadows. This is why you’ve been filming me?”

  She nodded, a pleading look in her eyes. “I have dozens more I can show you.”

  “I bet you do,” I snarled under my breath.

  “Please, Jax. Please sit. I can’t go through this again. This,” she pointed the remote at the TV, “has always made me different. I don’t want to see these things. I hate that I can see these things. You were right when you called me a freak earlier. I am a freak. Been hearing it my whole life. My mother, my friends. I just stopped telling people what I saw because it made me different. It made people distance themselves from me. I hate it. I hate it so much.” She dropped her head and I could tell she was fighting back a sob.

  As angry as I still was, I had to fight the urge to hug her, to comfort her. She seemed broken, but genuine somehow. Whether or not this story of hers was true, one thing was for sure; she certainly believed it. So I could no longer think that she was a liar or not trustworthy. Maybe she was just a little disturbed. Some small piece of sympathy worked its way up out of my hardened heart and settled into my head. With a sigh, I grabbed her hand and led her to the couch. I supposed I could appease her for a little longer before I walked out of her life for good.

  “Okay, show me more,” I said.

  Her face lit up. “Really?”

  I nodded.

  She fumbled with the laptop some more, seeming to be fiddling through more files on the hard drive, and pulled up one of me at Starbucks. I was sitting with my own laptop, playing computer games. It was the day I’d met her, I was sure of it.

  She stood by the TV and pointed to the empty chair next to me on the screen. “See that shadow? Someone or something is sitting there with you.”

  I sat forward, my arms on my knees, and stared at the TV. I had to admit, it sure looked like there was some sort of shadow sitting there in the chair. A shiver ran up my spine. It was pretty creepy. But then I started to wonder.

  “You added those shadows, didn’t you?” I asked, skepticism coloring my tone.

  She gasped. “I did not!”

  “How is this possible?” I asked, jabbing a finger at the screen. “I don’t believe in this shit. I mean, like, at all! Ghosts, spirits, et cetera. I believe when we die, we die. There is nothing else. This looks like someone’s idea of a joke.”

  She shook her head and sighed. “I can’t explain it, Jax, but it’s been happening my whole life.”

  I nodded. I wasn’t sure what to think now. She looked so sincere, so honest. Not crazy or stalker-ish. Just desperate and almost grief-stricken.

  “Is this what made your mom send you away?”

  “Yes,” Mina nodded.

  Chapter Thirty

  Mina

  I knew Jax wouldn't believe me unless I told him everything. To do that, I would have to go back to the very beginning. Jax sat on the sofa and looked at the TV. The image of him in Starbucks with the black shadow was frozen on the screen like they had both been caught in time. Jax looked at me and I could see the disbelief in his eyes. But there was something else, too. I could see pity. I didn't want his pity; I just wanted him to believe me.

  So, turning to look at him, I said, "When you were a kid, did you ever have one of those viewfinders?"

  "A viewfinder?" He sighed as if I really had lost the plot. "What's a viewfinder?"

  "One of those kids’ toys," I started to explain. "You know, they look like a chunky pair of glasses. You can put discs in the front which have different pictures on them. There is a small handle on the side that you press with your thumb, which makes the disc go around so you can see the pictures..."

  "Look, this all very interesting, Mina," Jax said, “but I didn't come back here to discuss your vintage toy collection.”

  "Let me finish, please, Jax," I said, hoping that I didn't sound as if I were pleading with him. Perhaps I was. "Well, we had one of those viewfinders. My dad got me one for Christmas when I was about six. It was a Barbie one. But I never saw Barbie through that viewfinder. I saw the dead. At first I thought they were shadows or that perhaps the toy was broken. I asked my mum to look through it and asked her what she could see. My mother tossed it to one side and said that all she saw was a plastic doll that looked borderline anorexic. So I asked my father. He took me onto his knee and asked what I’d seen, and I told him I saw dark shadows that looked like people. When I went to bed that night, I think he threw that viewfinder in the trash or hid it from me, because I never saw it again, and to be honest, I was glad about that.

  "On my tenth birthday, my parents bought me a camera. I think my father got it for me because he was bringing me out here to Florida and I could use it to take pictures with. My mother came over too, but she spent little time with us. She spent most of it here at my uncle’s house while she tanned herself by the pool. That was the last holiday we all spent together.

  “My father died of cancer soon after arriving back in the UK. It wasn't until after my father’s death that the film from my camera was developed. It was before digital cameras had come into fashion. When I went to collect the prints with my mother, I was excited and scared to see those photographs. I was excited about reliving those memories of that time I had spent with him, but I was also scared that those photographs would only add to my sense of loss that I felt since his death. I was not close to my mother and I missed my father with all my heart. Back at home and in my room, I pulled the photographs from their packet. In every photo of my father, there was a black smudge. At first I thought that the developer had left behind a dirty thumbprint, but in my heart I knew it wasn't so. I could remember the shadows I could see through my viewfinder as a small chil
d. But the smudges in the pictures of my father were different. They were clearer. And as I worked my way through the packet of photographs, I was convinced that I could clearly make out what looked like a shadowy looking man standing in each of the pictures behind him.

  "The following day I went to the local store and bought myself a magnifying glass. Back in the privacy of my own room, I restudied those pictures. My heart nearly stopped in my chest and I dropped the magnifying glass as if it had scalded my hand. The man standing behind my dad in the pictures was my grandfather. What scared and upset me so much, was that my grandfather had been dead for more than five years already. Clutching the pictures, I took them to show my mother. I spread them before her over the kitchen table. I asked her what she could see, and of course she said my father. But I pressed her and told her to take another look. Again, she said she could only see my father. With trembling fingers, I pointed out the dark smudges. And just like you, Jax, my mother said they were nothing more than shadows. When I produced the magnifying glass and pleaded with her to take another look, she snatched it from my hand, collected together the photographs of my father, and told me that I was grieving and should snap out of it or she would take me to see a child psychiatrist. Just like my viewfinder, I never saw those pictures or the magnifying glass again," I told Jax.

  "Let's pretend for one minute that I believe any of this," Jax said. "Why do you think your grandfather was in those pictures?"