Messed Up

by Owens, Molly

  I found Bryce, Camille, and Levi in the hot tub, each with a glass of wine, laughing lightly. Camille was seated on Bryce’s lap, looking up at him with big interested eyes as he described his father’s impressive collection of race cars. It was like a promotional photo from a hotel brochure.

  “I’m going to take off,” I told Levi in a firm voice. It felt strange to speak to him with such conviction, “I’m really tired.”

  Levi looked at me skeptically for a moment, and then smiled gently, “Come in for a little while Punky, and then I’ll drive you home.”

  I inhaled, “No. I’m ready to go now. I can walk. It’s not far,” I glanced at Camille and Bryce. They’d stopped talking and were looking at Levi, anticipating his reaction. Everything seemed to freeze for a long and silent moment. Then Levi climbed out of the hot tub, I felt myself flinch at his sudden movement.

  “You really think I’d let you walk all by yourself?” he said in a kind voice, grabbing a towel, “Bryce, drive Camille back to Chelsea’s when you guys are done.”

  I followed Levi out of the house and to his car, neither of us speaking. I wasn’t sure what to expect. He didn’t seem mad, which was part of the problem with Levi. I never knew exactly when he was going to snap.

  We drove back to my house and went to my bedroom without incident. I’d gotten into my pajamas and found Levi in my bed, waiting for me. His face still looked calm, but there was something else there, in his expression, something I couldn’t quite read. Was it sadness?

  I climbed in next to him and leaned my head on his chest as I turned on the TV and began flipping through the channels. I could feel my eyes getting heavy as they focused blankly on the screen. I guess I really was tired. Sleep was just about to take me, when I heard something strange. At first I couldn’t place the sound, my mind was already halfway to a dream state, but then I heard it again, a sniffing sound. I looked up at Levi and realized that his cheeks were streaked with wet tears.

  I stared at him, baffled. What was going on here? Wasn’t he supposed to beat me up first and then feel remorse? I had to literally shake my head to get my brain to function properly, “Levi,” I said quietly, “What’s wrong?”

  He buried his face in one of his strong hands and shook his head, despondent. I repositioned myself next to him, pulling him into my chest. For the second time that day I felt like I was mothering my young, protecting a child from the cold and dangerous world. I could feel him release slightly at my embrace, his body beginning to convulse subtly with tiny sobs gently against me. I stroked his hair, and kissed the top of his head, smelling that distinct clean scent that had once seemed so impossibly perfect, and would forever bring memories of Levi flooding back to me whenever I smelled it later in life.

  I held him like that for a while, the tears eventually subsiding, but he didn’t move away. Finally I asked again, “What’s wrong Levi?”

  “Everything,” he said simply.

  I moved my body so I was sitting directly in front of him. I took his hands in mine and repeating the words my mother would say if she were his therapist, “Start from the beginning.”

  He took a breath and his eyes met mine. They looked so miserable, hopeless, “Remember how I told you about Charles Hawksley and his missing fortune?” I nodded my mind flashing back to the first time I had heard that name when Levi had taken me to The Valencia, “Well,” he continued, “It turns out that one of his assistants, a boy from St. Jacobs, had hidden a copy of the map at the school, just before Mr. Hawksley had him locked away in one of those cells, never to be seen again. No one knew for certain that the map existed, but it was legendary amongst the Delancey Boys. When my father went to St. Jacobs, he became obsessed with finding it. He spent his entire time in high school using his power and influence to search out the map. At the end of his senior year, just before graduation, he got a hunch that it was buried under the confessional in the cathedral. Apparently Charles Hawksley had paid for the cathedral to be built and it was my father’s hypothesis that the assistant had hidden the map in its cement foundation during construction. So, my father with the help of the Delancey Boys burned the cathedral to the ground.

  “He burned down a church based on a hunch?” I clarified. I found myself yet again taken aback by how evil Alistair Bennett truly was.

  “That’s right. The plan was to set the fire, let the building burn to the ground, then go back the next night to find the map. But, by the time the sun went down the following evening, my father knew something had gone wrong. His second in command, the person who had helped him devise the whole plot to begin with, had gone missing. His name was Raymond Higgins…”

  “Toby’s dad!” I interrupted with a gasp.

  Levi nodded somberly, “Toby’s dad,” he repeated, “My father went to the site; it was still smoldering from the fire, and found a hole in the cement foundation, just below where the confessional had once stood. Inside the hole was a steel box, but the box was empty. My father raced to Higgins’s house and found that his room had been torn apart; his clothes and suitcase were missing.”

  “Toby’s dad, Mr. Higgins, stole the map?”

  “Yes, right out from under my father’s nose. He was furious at the betrayal and vowed to make it his life’s work to find Higgins and the map. Over the next thirty years the map and its capture have never been far from my father’s mind. Of course he occupied his time with making money in other ways, but the map became his obsession. It seemed for a while that Higgins would never surface, until Mitch Fanning came along with a description of a kid who resembled Raymond Higgins.

  “How did Bryce’s father even know your dad?” I asked.

  “Mitch Fanning had been a Delancey Boy with my father and Raymond Higgins and knew about my father’s obsession with finding the map. He had even gone on a couple errands for my father in pursuit of the map. Nothing he’d done had come to fruition. Then one day he began coaching Bryce’s soccer team and he met Toby, who looked remarkably like his father. Mitch followed my father’s orders and began to become friendly with Marcy, in hopes of confirming their unlikely suspicion about Toby’s paternity.

  “The Peace Corps,” I interrupted, “Marcy met Toby’s dad when she was in Ecuador in the Peace Corps. She told me all about it that day at the concert,” the dots were beginning to connect in my confused brain.

  “Raymond Higgins was basically in hiding in Ecuador. He and Marcy had connected immediately as they were both from Santa Juanita and both homesick. This connection led to love, marriage and eventually Toby. Their marriage lasted less than a year, at which point Marcy took Toby back to the states to live with her family in Santa Juanita. That is the last contact she had with Raymond Higgins.”

  “So how did Mitch end up marrying Marcy?” I asked.

  “Mitch was happy that he had been able to help my father pick up Higgins’ trail in Ecuador, and he felt confident enough to start dating Marcy, who he had grown attracted to. They eventually fell in love and got married. My father made sure to keep a close eye on Mitch and Marcy. He instructed me to become Bryce and Toby’s friend, especially Toby. He suspected that if Higgins’ were ever to resurface he’d probably come looking for his son, and therefore I needed to be in position, as Toby’s best friend if he should ever be contacted by his father. Mitch and Marcy and their four kids were poised to live happily ever after, until my father’s private investigator tracked Raymond Higgins to an apartment in San Diego.

  “At that point my brother and I, along with a couple Delancey Boys were dispatched to San Diego. I’m not sure how he knew we were coming, maybe he’d seen the PI trailing him, but when we arrived at Higgins’ apartment we found that he’d beaten us to the punch. I walked into his bathroom and found his body hanging from the ceiling.” Levi took a couple long deep breaths, his eyes closed. After a couple long moments he continued, “We ransacked the place searching for the map, but it was nowhere to be found. We were just about to give up when James found something interesting o
n Higgins’ computer. There was a deleted file containing a letter to Marcy Fanning. The letter seemed to indicate that it had been sent with the map. His instructions were to find the gold bars and put the money into a trust for Toby, his only child. He made it clear that she was in grave danger if anyone learned that she had the map, namely Alistair Bennett.

  “My father could almost taste the money by that point, he was so close to the fortune that he’d been coveting all these years. The only person standing in his way was Marcy Fanning. Mitch Fanning promised to get the map for my father, begging him to leave Marcy out of it. At first my father figured he’d waited this long, what would be the harm in a couple more weeks? Unfortunately, Mitch couldn’t find the map and Marcy claimed to have no idea what he was talking about when he confronted her,” Levi paused and looked at me apologetically. I could feel what was coming next, “And that is where you came in,” he said slowly.

  “My father believed, and still does, that Mitch and Marcy were trying to keep the fortune for themselves. So as a gentle reminder of who is in charge, he decided that he’d kidnap Toby and use his life as incentive to hand over the map. It fell on me to design a plan that would get Toby alone so some Delancey Boys could take him.”

  “And I was the bait you needed,” I filled in slowly.

  Levi nodded, looking almost repentant, “I knew that you would be the perfect person to lure Toby to right where I needed him. He had talked about you incessantly for the past six months. He described how smart, witty, beautiful you were, I didn’t think he’d actually be right about that, until I met you myself. Bryce helped me to find your car, and then we followed you to the 7-Eleven that night. Bryce hid in the car while I browsed the isles watching you. I could tell by the way you spoke to that kid, with such confidence and certainty, that you would be difficult to persuade. And then when you ratted him out, I knew I’d need to set some groundwork.

  “I gave Toby the tickets to the concert and told him to invite you. Then when you guys got there I spent the day texting him, telling him he should ditch you and meet up with me. I called him a pussy when he wanted to bring you with him. I said that I didn’t want to spend the day with some uptight looking girl. I knew he’d pick me over you and he did, easily. I gambled that you would be infuriated by the end of the day, but just to add the icing to the cake, I texted him at the end of the concert and told him I’d seen you waiting out front of the stadium, by the parking lot. That is why he wasn’t there to meet you,” Levi paused again, and looked at me, as if trying to read my mind. I kept my face still and calm, but on the inside I felt myself growing sick with the realization that the last two months of my life had been built on a series of lies.

  “And then I saw you at the top of the hill. You looked so small and anxious, but incredible. I remember giving you my sweatshirt and pulling the hood up over your head. My thumb brushed the side of your cheek, and you almost shuttered. It was the cutest thing I’d ever seen. The whole ride, as I drove you home, I kept looking at you in the rearview mirror, thinking about how I wanted to touch your sweet face again.

  “I should have figured something else out at that point, another arrangement that wouldn’t have involved you. You weren’t supposed to remember what happened that night. The original plan was to put Roofies in your water as I drove you up to the benches. That way by the time Toby got there, you’d be so out of it that you wouldn’t remember anything the next day, and that would be the end of our contact. But I was utterly intrigued by you, I wanted to experience your reaction, and besides I knew I needed to see you again,” Levi put his face in his hands, “And now everything is spinning out of control. Mitch and Marcy still insist they have no idea where the map is and my father has lost his patience. He’s ordered the Delanceys to get Bryce next,” Levi’s voice broke as he said this.

  “Tell him you won’t do it!” I demanded.

  Levi looked at me, his face grave, “It’s not a choice Chelsea.”

  I wracked my mind for a suitable argument and then I remembered, “Levi, you told me once that you aren’t scared of anything. But that’s not true is it? You’re scared of your father, otherwise you would figure out a way to stop him.”

  Levi shook his head, “I didn’t used to be afraid of anything, but that was before I fell in love with you. It’s not about me anymore. He knows he can threaten you and I’ll do whatever he wants,” his face grimaced, “Chelsea, you don’t know what he is capable of. What he’s threatened to do to you.” A flash of horror ran across Levi’s face stopping our conversation in its tracks. The irony of the situation was beyond obvious. Mr. Bennett was using me in exactly the way his son had used Conner. Talk about karma. Unfortunately, I could take no satisfaction in Levi getting what he deserved, because that lesson would end in the unspeakable for me.

  “There’s one thing that I don’t understand Levi,” I said, “How did you get the message that I’d left Ray Higgins?”

  “We figured that the police might go looking for Toby at some point. We needed to cover our tracks. One obvious place they would look for his father’s contact information was in his school records. So I forged the emergency card and put it in his file. The San Diego number was rerouted to my cell phone. Your voice was the last one I’d expected to hear calling that number,” he sighed, “That’s when my father said I’d better rein you in or he’d have to deal with you personally. By the way, he doesn’t know that Conner had anything to do with that call to Raymond Higgins. I figured that was the least I could do.”

  “Thanks,” I muttered. My mind was overloaded with the information it had just received. It was like trying to run too many programs at once on a computer. I could feel my brain beginning to halt, the files sluggishly closing down one at a time, “What about the map? If your father found it would he leave Bryce alone?”

  Levi shrugged, “That’s the thing, I don’t think the Fanning’s have any idea where that fucking map is. But it doesn’t matter to my father. He’s going to make someone pay for his loss.”

  “What’s the plan? How are they going to take Bryce?” I asked quietly, I didn’t want to hear it, but I needed to know.

  Levi looked at me bleakly and shook his head, “Don’t know yet. Something involving Camille. My father is handling this one.” I could feel the conversation coming to a close. I was sure I had a laundry list of questions, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. I curled myself up into a ball in Levi’s arms. Levi had gone from being the antagonist to just a supporting player in this drama. And although I would never be able to trust him, I took some comfort in the fact that he wanted me alive. How pathetic is that?

  I closed my eyes, listening intently to Levi’s slow, even breath. He was calm again. I imagined he felt the relief that often precedes great confessions. The last thing I heard before my body relented to sleep’s nagging tug, were Levi’s apologies. A long string of: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

  35

  Thump, thump, thump, I could hear them, the pounding of angry footsteps coming closer and closer as I ran. Thump, thump, thump, my heart beating frantically in my chest, my legs heavy underneath me, as I commanded them to move. I was in a dark, narrow hallway. I could see light at the end. I moved as fast as I could, desperate to make it to the light, hoping, praying that what I saw was the sun. If I could just make it outdoors, I would be safe. I was suddenly there, at the end of the hall, but it wasn’t an exit. I found myself in the stark white room. The bed, the one single calla lily, the slamming of a heavy door, I’d seen this all before. I knew who would be standing behind me when I turned, so I refused to move. I planted my feet firmly in the ground, bracing myself. Kill me, I thought, just get it over with. The pain in my back began. This time it felt like my spine had been tied into a perfect Boy Scout square knot. I writhed in pain, but forced myself to stay rooted.

  Three days slowly passed. It was as if my life was on somebody’s TIVO. They’d left the room to get a snack and pressed the pause button;
only in the meantime they’d decided to go out to dinner and had forgotten all about the show waiting patiently to be restarted. Neither Levi nor Camille said a thing about Bryce after that night at his house. The monotony of my daily life was resumed, while in my mind I found myself completely fixated on Bryce’s whereabouts. Had he been abducted yet? Would they bother keeping him alive or would Mr. Bennett demand quicker action?

  During the day Levi was his old confident and authoritative self, but at night, when he climbed through my window and fell asleep in my bed, he was different. He’d fold me in his arms, tightly gripping me, in the way a child hangs onto his teddy bear, for dear life. Levi had always seemed so grown up to me, more like a man than a teenager. But just under his cast-iron, enameled exterior, was a fragile kid, scared and shivering against my body. One thing became abundantly clear, Levi could trust no one, except for, and this is the insane part, me.

  My parents, having considered their first experiment in leaving me alone to be a bang-up success, decided to go on another camping trip, this time for a few days in the Sierra foothills. So once again I was left to fend for myself. Approximately ten seconds after their car pulled out of the driveway my cell phone began to buzz.

  I answered it quickly expecting Levi or Camille, “Hello?”

  I could hear coughing and then, “Yo Chelsea, this is Kat from Yogurt Heaven,” she took another drag off her cigarette, “Marcy said you’d offered to help shut down the shop.”

  “Sure,” I said, “What do you need me to do?”