I know if I stay any longer, I’ll kill him, and that is a mercy he does not deserve. I pick up the bloody bottle of vodka and run upstairs. I slam the door to Ty’s bedroom behind me, already quaffing as much raspberry-flavored vodka as I can.
I finish off the bottle and hurl it at a wall. It shatters and sets off a primal anger deep within me. I can’t kill Ty yet, so I go after everything he has, destroying without bias.
It’s inexplicable, but a switch has been flipped. I’m losing control. Knowing it doesn’t change anything. Standing on the edge of an abyss with a bottom I can’t see. I’m teetering, swaying back and forth over the unknown, and I don’t think I can stop the inevitable fall. Ty acts like he knows me. He made it sound like he knows what I did. But he can’t. It’s impossible.
I tip over his dresser and smile as the mirror atop it shatters into pieces. I pull the drawers out of his nightstand and send them into walls, scattering Ty’s personal items. The bottom drawer is filled with handcuffs, straps, and leather belts. It gives me pause. I upend the contents onto the bed. Did he use these things with Joy? On Joy?
In the momentary silence, a noise drifts up from downstairs. It’s not tapping or ticking, whirring or clicking. It’s laughter. Ty is laughing again, but loudly this time. Loud enough that I can clearly hear it through the closed door. No doubt he can hear what I’m doing. Does he think it’s funny? Does he think he’s won?
I rip open the door and vault down the stairs, forsaking a vast majority of the steps. I look for something to stuff in his mouth, but stop as I see what he’s laughing at. It’s me. Not the me that’s standing next to him, trembling with rage, but the me that’s on the TV screen in much the same manner.
I forgot. As I watch myself storm off the Hope Hour stage, I remember Joy mentioning it this morning. She wanted Paul and Ruthie to record it, since she’d be at work. She told me not to worry about how it came out. She said it was all about ratings and that they may try to twist things. Edit them. Make it look like something it’s not.
I’ve only caught the ending. My meltdown. My string of curses, censored for the viewing audience. God, I look like a maniac. Joy is trying to apologize for my behavior. Aza is laughing hysterically, looking more maniacal than me.
“The whole world knows you did it,” Ty says.
There’s a caption on the screen as the camera pans back to Grace McCall. Did a husband and father attempt to kill his own family?
I’m only catching bits of what Grace is saying. I can’t seem to focus fully on it. She thinks I did it.
I run at the TV, grab it, and with a tight spin, throw it at Ty. It lands just short and breaks into several pieces. I can’t slow my breathing. Every heartbeat strikes the back of my ribs with enough force to hurt.
Ty is smiling now, toothless, bloody, and defiant.
“You don’t win,” I say.
“Neither do you.”
“No one knows what I did. And no one will ever find out.”
“I know what you did. Joy told me.”
“Bullshit. It was you that pushed me to do it. I set that fire because of you. But, irony of ironies, it gave me my family back. It’s given me everything I ever wanted.”
“You think one fire can wash away all of your sins?”
It’s my turn to laugh. “My sins? It’s your sins that have brought you here.”
My phone rings.
Ty’s uses his eyes to gesture at my pocket. “Gonna answer that?”
I pull my phone out. It’s Joy calling. I move into the kitchen and cross into the laundry room. Far enough away she shouldn’t be able to hear Ty if he screams.
“Hey,” I say, trying to sound casual.
“They came to talk to me,” she says quickly.
“What? Who?”
“The police. Detectives. I don’t know. There was a bunch of ‘em. They came to my office. Asked me about you. Showed me pictures.”
My world spins to a halt and I fall to the ground at the sudden change of it. “What?”
“They have evidence. Proof. What did you do?”
“I—I didn’t… What did they say?”
“What did you do?!” she screams.
“Whatever they said—I can explain.” She can’t know. She can’t know.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
“What did you do?!”
“It’s not true,” I say, knowing I’m losing ground. In a matter of moments, the floor is going to swallow me whole.
Joy is sobbing now, gut-wrenching and violent. “I can’t believe you. I can’t. I’m such an idiot. Things were never going to change.”
“They have!” I yell. “Everything has changed. It’s better now. Everything.”
“No!” she bellows back. “I wanted to believe that. I wanted to think you were a hero. I needed to believe you were different. Had changed. Fuck! Do you know what I did for you? For us? I actually apologized to that bitch. I went to her and told her I forgave her for what you did to me. To us. Fuck.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t you dare play dumb with me now, you self-centered prick. Are you with her now? Mom and Dad said you never came back after dropping Aza off. Fuck. Aza was there, you monster. You tried to burn us alive. How could you?”
I’ve lost her, but my mind can’t get past something she said. “What the fuck are you talking about? You’re the one who betrayed me. I know all about Ty, you bitch.”
There’s a pause. I’ve backed her into a corner. Maybe she knows about the fire, maybe not, but I’m not going down alone.
“Are you fucking deaf?” she asks. “I just told you I was there the other day. Like an idiot, I thought you two were done. I stood in her fucking living room and forgave her for fucking you throughout the better part of our marriage because I thought the fire really had changed you. A fire you set!”
The floor falls out from under me. I drop the phone and fight for balance.
Click.
I’m hit in the face with a wave the size of a mountain. It bowls me over and leaves me gasping.
No. No fucking way.
Joy screams at me from the phone on the floor.
I fight and claw my way upright and stumble back into the living room. Either Joy is lying or I am. You can’t have it both ways, asshole.
“No!” I shout.
The room is a mess, furniture strewn about as if a storm had blown through. Glass and bottles coat the carpet, glittering like snow. And the blood. There’s a trail of it across the white carpet. Hundreds of footprints. Hand prints cover the walls. And it all leads back to the woman lashed with duct tape to the wooden banister at the bottom of the stairs.
I run to her, fighting to tear the tape. She’s not moving. Her platinum-blonde hair is matted with blood, her face unrecognizable. But I know what the violence hides. I know what I did.
The tape breaks and I yank her free, sending us both to the carpet. It’s damp with blood and spilled liquor. With a grunt, I roll her onto her back.
“This can’t be,” I blubber through tears.
But it is. It’s Ty. Not the Ty I thought I knew, but the Ty that’s real. I press fingers against her neck and feel nothing. I listen at her mouth and nose and hear nothing. She used to be so beautiful. The kind of beautiful I didn’t think I could ever forget.
“No!” I scream. “No, no, no, no! Fuck! No!” I pound her chest with each cry, trying to figure out how I got here. I’m missing so much fucking time.
Tick. Tick.
It’s all been a lie. My lie.
I scuttle away and press my back into the upturned couch. Ty’s lifeless eyes are fixed on me. I know her. I knew her. I’ve fucked her. God, how I’ve fucked her. But, more than that, I loved her.
I bury my head behind my knees and scream. My temples are on fire and the ticking in my ears echoes like thunder. I don’t know what’s real. I fear what I’ve done. I fear what I’ve forgotten.
I fight to look at her again. Her eyes are glassy, her skin
a sickly color.
It was all a fucking lie.
Nothing has changed.
III
“What you get by dishonesty you may enjoy like the finest food, but sooner or later it will be like a mouthful of sand.”
~ Proverbs 20:17
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Her full name is Tyler Mae Bridges. It’s the first thing I mentioned when I met her. Her having a typically male name. She had punched me for it, hard in the shoulder, but her smile told me I’d won her over at once. She’d had me, too, immediately enthralled. I was always good at reading people, and there was so much more to her than beauty. Something transcendent that I knew I had to have. I could tell she felt the same for me.
If destiny is real, it’s one hell of a sadistic bastard.
As I look down at her body, beaten and bloodied, it seems like a lifetime ago. It feels like someone else’s life. When did my mind decide it’d had enough? When did Tyler Mae just become Ty? When did I refuse to see her for what she was? And what she made me.
I pull off the duct tape and try to straighten out her clothing. But her limbs are stiff and it’s difficult to position her like I want. No one should be found taped to their own banister.
I push aside the upended sofa and drag Ty into the middle of the living room. Her arms are still pinned against and over her head. I should wash and redress her. It’d be the right thing to do.
“There’s no right thing anymore,” I say.
I half expect her corpse to answer, but it doesn’t. I know why I did it. Not the murder, but I know why I lied to myself. Guilt. But how am I supposed to feel now? There’s no going back from this. Sometimes, things seem so clear. Other times, it’s like I’m living with my head buried in the sand. But the worst part is, I can’t tell which is which.
My phone rings from the floor of the laundry room. I don’t dare think of who may be on the other end. I turn my attention back to Ty. God, she was so beautiful once. Not that it makes any of this all right. Because it’s not. And it never was. I know this on some level. Perhaps that’s where Ty’s male apparition came from. Either I’ve just woken from a dream or just fallen into one.
“I really fucked up, Ty,” I say. “About as badly as a man can, I fucked up.”
I want to apologize, but only because I know I should. Hollow words won’t bring her back. They won’t save my soul. I can’t even force myself to touch her one last time.
Her battered face looks at me. I know what she’d say, if she could.
I shift and catch the afternoon sun full in the face though the large picture window that faces the street. It freezes me in place. I’m not worried about anyone seeing in. But I’d forgotten the world beyond. For some reason, I thought it had ceased to exist. My world has. Crumbled down around me in a heartbeat. What right does anyone else have to carry on?
I stand and look around. I examine my own body. Ty’s blood covers me.
Tick.
“Fuck!” I fall to my knees and grab at my ears. Not now. Not fucking now.
Tick. Tick.
“Let me think!” I bellow.
But there’s no time for thinking. My hand has been forced.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
I have to run.
Holding on to a sliver of sanity, I bolt upstairs and take a scalding hot shower. I scrub every inch of myself as quickly as I can. Time is fracturing, breaking with each stroke of that unseen hand. But it tells me one thing. I’m not out of time. Not yet.
Out of the shower, I paw through the medicine cabinet. Now that I remember Ty as she truly was, I know she keeps a stash of heavy-duty—
“Jackpot!” I shout, feeling as if I’ve hit my first bit of good luck. A half-empty bottle of prescription pain pills. No, not half-empty. Half-full.
Bottle in hand, I scramble to find clothes to wear. I don’t have time to wash mine, and it’s clear now that Ty’s won’t fit me.
I race downstairs without a stitch of clothing on. It’s difficult to avoid the mess in the living room, but three quick leaps land me in the kitchen.
Bing.
My phone chirps at an incoming text message. I should leave it behind, but the urge to know is too great. I grab my phone and bolt out the back door.
Nude, with nothing but a phone and a pill bottle to cover me, I quickly skirt around Ty’s house.
Bing.
Stopping at the front corner, I crouch in the shade and check my phone.
It’s a text from Paul’s phone—though no doubt it’s Aza’s words printed on the screen.
Her first message. Run, bitch, run.
Followed by her second. It’s just a joke. Don’t give up.
My fingers move to type out a response, but I’m not sure I should. I have no idea if the texts are even from Aza. I can’t trust anyone or anything. Least of all my own perception. I don’t know if I’m getting closer to the truth or further from it.
I turn the phone off, but keep it. If it’s off, it can’t be tracked, right?
My car is parked two houses down, just out of sight from where I’m hiding. And it’s bright as hell out. Where did the rain and storms go?
I fumble with the pill bottle and flick the cap off. No time for subtlety. I dry swallow four, maybe five, and leap out from the house. I sprint for my car, holding my pills and phone to my chest and letting everything else hang out.
An older gentleman is standing on the street right next to my car as I hurtle toward it. He freezes, hand in a mailbox, and stares. I reach my car and throw open the driver’s door. My keys swing from the ignition. Another bit of good luck. I set the pill bottle in the center cup holder and toss my phone on the passenger’s seat. Then I pop the trunk and circle around to it. The old man is still staring.
“You all right, son? You ain’t got no clothes on.”
I swing the trunk lid wide and pull out my three-hundred-dollar interview suit. I only have the pants, shirt, and jacket, but it’s enough. I step into the pants before even looking at the man.
“Sir,” I say as calmly as possible. “In the trunk of my car is a tire iron. If you don’t go back into your house, I am going to take it out, and beat the ever-living shit out of you. Then, I will tie you to the back of my car with your own shoelaces and drive until there’s nothing left.” I add a smile as I zip my fly.
“I’m calling the police,” the man says, already in motion, hustling toward his home as quickly as his arthritic limbs can carry him.
“Fuck,” I say to myself as I start on the buttons of my shirt. I could carry through on my threat, but I’d have to do it naked or risk ruining my suit again. No doubt some other homebody has already seen me and is phoning the police.
Dressed, I scan the street, see no one else, and slide into the driver’s seat. I peel out, destined for the interstate.
I’m a couple hours away from Ty’s when she shows up in the passenger’s seat.
She tosses my phone back and forth between her hands. “You should at least tell Joy the truth,” she says.
Just hearing her voice is enough to make me jump, swerve, narrowly avoid another vehicle, and skid to a halt on the shoulder. I maintain my grip on the steering wheel and keep my eyes straight ahead. I see her in my periphery, but don’t dare look directly at her.
“Hey, dipshit, don’t ignore me. It’s fucking rude,” Ty says. She flings the phone at me.
I flinch and inadvertently look at her. She’s not what I expect. Fuck, I didn’t expect her at all, but if I had, I wouldn’t have expected…
“You look beautiful,” I say before I can stop myself. It’s so easy to fall into old habits. A plight of mankind, I suppose.
“Oh, fuck off,” she says. She flips down the mirror under her sun visor and studies her reflection.
“I meant it. I mean… Shit, no, I do mean it. That you’re beautiful, I mean. It’s just that you shouldn’t be here.”
Ty slaps the visor up and looks directly at me. Her platinum-blond hair is pin straig
ht and just long enough to grace her shoulders. Her eyes are bottomless. Her mouth hungry and inviting.
“Neither one of us should be here, but isn’t that half the thrill? I still think you should call her. Joy. You know, that bitch you’re married to? I’d want to know the truth if I were her.”
I shake my head. “No. I mean, maybe. I mean, shit. You’re dead, Ty. Aren’t you?”
“Aww shit,” she says, immediately grabbing for her purse. She produces an orange pill bottle and hands me two pills. “There. We’ve been driving for almost two hours. Time for a refill.”
I take the pills because I don’t know what else to do.
“Better?” she asks.
I have no idea.
“Good. Now get your dick out of your hand and drive. We can’t just sit here on the side of the highway. We get pulled over, I’m selling out on your ass first thing. Right down the river.”
I pull back onto the interstate and accelerate up to cruising speed. “You wouldn’t do that to me,” I say. “You wouldn’t betray me.”
I don’t get a response. Ty’s gone.
Ty shows up again at a rest stop an hour or so after scaring the shit out of me on the interstate. I hardly flinch as she sidles up next to me as I walk into the central plaza.
“You couldn’t have brought an extra pair of shoes?” she asks.
I look down at my bare feet. “Better this than not having pants.”
“Touché,” she says.
A young woman just in front of me turns around. Ty flips her off. Both hands. The woman hastily steps to the side and becomes preoccupied with her phone.
“You trying to get in a fight?” I ask.
“She gave you a funny look.”
I get in line for a fast food kiosk I’ve never heard of. But whatever they’re serving smells fantastic. I don’t think I’ve eaten yet today.
“My leftovers are still in your fridge,” I say.
Ty leans against a wall and faces me. Over a dozen people are in line ahead of us. Dinnertime rush, I guess.
“What a waste,” she says. “I still can’t believe she cooked for you.”
House of Sand: A Dark Psychological Thriller Page 15
