Cuffed

by K. Bromberg

  Was this his plan? Trap me here and force me to talk?

  “Do you remem—”

  “What are getting at, Grant? What’s the point to this conversation?”

  “I just—” He shakes his head and runs a hand through his hair. “There are so many things I want to ask you, so many things that I want to know—”

  “They’re none of your goddamn business!” I shout in an explosion of temper I’m not sure he was expecting.

  “No?” he shouts back, crossing the distance and getting in my face just as unexpectedly.

  “No.” I stand my ground.

  “Oh, so, what? You’ll open your legs for me but not yourself?” His eyes burn with anger as we wage a visual war of contempt.

  “Fuck. You.”

  “That’s the point,” he sneers. “That’s all you want to do.”

  “And?”

  “And what?

  “That was the deal, Malone. You agreed to the rules.”

  “The deal’s changed.”

  “Then the deal’s over.”

  “No. I call bullshit on you. Why can’t you let me in? Why can’t you just talk to me? I know you went through a shit ton of horror, but I was the one who was there. I was the one who cared about you. Who still cares. And maybe I need to talk about it to wrap my head around how you dealt with all of that and turned out so goddamn normal when it still fucks my head up some days . . . did you think of that?”

  I fist my hands and grit my teeth as I try to calm the riot of confusion laced anger swirling around inside me. “So you’d rather I be messed up too just so you can feel better? Well, I am,” I scream at him, hating to admit it but needing the catharsis of saying it. “Did that work? Do you feel better?” I sneer as every part of me vibrates with fury and shame.

  “No.” His voice is barely a whisper.

  “You don’t want inside my head, Grant. You don’t want to know what’s in the dark places there. It crippled me at one time. It sits there and waits for its moment to come forward and cripple me again. So, I shove it away. I don’t talk about it. I try not to think about it. Because if I do, then I can’t function. I can’t be the woman you see when I live in the shadow of what happened to the little girl I was. That past doesn’t exist to me. It can’t.”

  I walk away from him, needing to process my outburst, my confession, and how I can still seem strong to him when suddenly I feel so damn weak. Looking out at the city, Grant at my back, I cross my arms over my chest and dig my nails into my biceps. I welcome the bite of pain. I use it to calm myself and bring me back to the woman I pretend to be.

  “Emerson.” He says my name again. It’s a plea. A request. It’s pity. “I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t get it do you?” His apology only serves to aggravate me further. To remind me of all those shrinks and their sympathetic eyes and the pity in their tones. The one sound I never wanted to hear again. My temper rages quietly beneath the surface, and I’m not sure if I’m mad at him for pushing me or mad at myself for what I said.

  It takes all my effort to make my voice even and calm—unaffected—when I turn to look at him and speak, but there’s still a bite to my tone. “Look, I’m sorry you can’t talk about the little girl because it’s police procedure, but that doesn’t give you the right to start poking into my past. Into my life. I don’t need to be saved.”

  “I’m not talking about her because it’s police procedure, Emerson.” He throws his hands up and laughs but there is nothing amusing in its sound. “Don’t you get it? I’m not talking about her because I can’t. I’m not talking about her because I don’t want to upset you! A lot of fucking good that did me.”

  I startle at his words. “Excuse me?”

  “I don’t want to upset you,” he says softer this time, his voice vulnerable, his body defeated.

  “After everything I’ve been through, I assure you, you can’t upset me.” And I truly want to believe that, but I already know it’s an untruth. Grant Malone serves to be the one person capable of hurting me the most.

  “I can’t? How is that—”

  “Nope. Nothing does,” I lie, hoping he leaves it be and doesn’t call me on the fact that I just admitted differently moments ago.

  He angles his head to the side and stares at me. His silent scrutiny unnerving.

  “So, if I told you I think Keely’s dad is abusing her but I have no proof to go on, you’d be okay with that? What if I told you I used our rock secret? That I stop by there more often than I should to make sure there is no rock painted like a watermelon, which is her signal to tell me she needs help. You’re telling me none of that triggers anything for you?”

  I stare at him with my head shaking and my mind rejecting everything he just said, even the stuff I don’t understand. All I can think of is that beautiful little girl with the tear-stained face and the haunted eyes and wonder if that was what I looked like to everyone who saw me.

  “No.” I whisper the word, but my body burns with shame as I dig my nails deeper into my flesh.

  “No?” he shouts, finally losing his cool. “How, Em? How is that possible?”

  “Because it is, okay?” I yell back, itching for a fight to cover the emotions overwhelming me. “Screw it. Just take me home.”

  “No.” The muscle pulses in his clenched jaw as his body visibly vibrates with anger.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?” he demands.

  “Because you make me feel, damn it! You make me feel when I don’t want to feel, Grant. And being numb is how I deal, so please,” I say, my voice breaking and almost turning into a sob, “take me home.”

  I see the minute my desperation hits him. His anger dissipates. His shoulders sag. His eyes fall vulnerable. And then he walks to the driver’s side of the truck and climbs in, doing as I asked without saying another word.

  “Why are you out here?”

  I shrug as I look over to Grant on his BMX, gloves on his hands and motorcycle helmet on, and know he’s pretending he’s competing in the X-Games. “Just cuz,” I say, not wanting to tell him it’s because my mom just got called into work for a patient and I’d rather be outside.

  Outside is safe.

  Outside is where I can hide.

  “Whatcha doing?” He lays his bike down on the grass and begins to unbuckle his helmet as he walks over to me.

  I look at the rocks in front of me, and my cheeks burn because they didn’t turn out as pretty as I thought I could make them. The dog I painted on one looks like a big blob of brown. The smiley face I painted on the other is yellow, but the eyes are weird, and I couldn’t fix them. Embarrassed, I take what’s left on the paintbrush and just draw lines on the rock in front of me.

  “Nothing. Just being stupid.”

  “Oh, those are kinda cool.”

  “You don’t have to say that to be nice.”

  “No. Really.” He drops his helmet onto the sidewalk with a clunk, and I know Chief Malone would get that line in his forehead like he does if he saw Grant treat his things like that. But I don’t say a word because I’m too busy chewing the inside of my cheek and waiting for Grant to make fun of me.

  He picks up each rock and looks at it like he does his Matchbox cars, and I fidget, worried about what he thinks.

  “I think we should make a zombie one, too.” I roll my eyes and begin to argue. “No, seriously. We can add stitches to the forehead and . . .” He takes the paintbrush from me and starts adding things to my smiley face rock.

  I don’t know how long we do this, but by the time we’re done, my cheeks hurt from laughing so hard. We have about fifteen rocks in front of us that have all been boy-ified, and I’m okay with that.

  “So, why are you really out here, Em?” he asks as we lean against the side of the house where the shade has fallen.

  I shrug again but hate that my bottom lip quivers and tears well in my eyes. “I just don’t want to go inside.” My tummy hurts, and I keep thinking about when it gets dark and I
have to go to bed. Hopefully, my mom will be back before then . . . but most times she isn’t.

  “Is your dad in a bad mood? I always go outside when my dad’s in a bad mood about work. That way, when he gets mad, I’m not in the way.”

  “Your dad gets mad?” I can’t remember Chief Malone ever getting mad. Strict, yes. But not mad.

  “My mom says he gets stressed when he worries about a case.” He shrugs and picks up one of our rocks, stares at it, and then puts it back down. “He has lots of bad people he has to put away, and it’s his job, so when they don’t get put away, he gets stressed. What does your dad get stressed about?”

  When I wet the bed.

  When I cry.

  When I pretend to be asleep and curl really tight into a ball.

  When I don’t do what he says . . .

  I wake with a start, my own gasp still coming off my lips.

  The room.

  This is my room.

  Not my old room.

  In the dark.

  There’s the runway lights out the window.

  There’s the hum of the television I left on.

  But it’s the rocks that are front and center in my mind.

  The painted rocks.

  The ones Grant keeps talking about but for the life of me I couldn’t remember . . . until now.

  My hands begin to shake as memories I didn’t know I had come flashing back to me.

  Going outside to my spot on the side of my house to avoid my dad and finding a new painted rock there from Grant. Something silly that meant everything to me. Something to let me know he was there and checking on me.

  To let me know he cared.

  To make me smile.

  The goddamn rocks.

  Grant.

  Memories I now remember.

  So many more I don’t want to.

  Oh. Shit.

  It’s finally happening.

  I can’t let this happen.

  The night blankets me but doesn’t provide the reprieve that I came out here to find.

  There is no escape from my past.

  There is no distance from the memories.

  There is only the pain.

  Only the isolation.

  Only the need to make it go away.

  I look down to where the blade of the box cutter rests against my scarred flesh. Just the sight of it there allows me to breathe easier. Just the feel of it gives me a tiny sip of control.

  Shame has me squeezing my eyes shut. Fear has the tears leaking out. The incessant hurt has me pressing it against my skin.

  And cutting.

  The sharp sear of pain is instant and yet when I open my eyes and see the bright red blood highlighted by the moonlit sky, I feel like a weight has been lifted for the first time in forever.

  The tears fall fast and hot down my cheeks as I watch the red bead up. As I inflict the pain on myself instead of letting someone else do it for me.

  I stretch out my other arm, and my fingers itch to repeat the process.

  To feel relief.

  To gain control.

  To match my pain with new pain.

  Head up. Wings out.

  My mom’s voice rings in my ears and has me clenching the knife in my hand as hard as I can.

  Don’t do it.

  The need owns every muscle in my body.

  Don’t give in.

  The want has me vibrating with desire.

  My mom’s face flashes through my mind. The determination in her eyes. The encouraging murmur on her lips. The warmth of her touch as she’d hold my hand and wait with me for my urge to pass.

  The promises I’d made to her that I wouldn’t cut myself anymore are now broken. Shame blankets me. Smothers me. I wasn’t strong enough to keep them.

  My hands ache as I battle restraint. So does my heart.

  I’ve let her down.

  I promised her I would be strong. I swore to her I’d never cut myself again.

  Don’t do it, Emmy.

  With a wretched sob, I take the box cutter and chuck it as far as I can into the thick foliage at the base of the runway. It takes everything I have not to run in after it.

  But I don’t. I can’t.

  The shame is instant.

  The regret immediate.

  But the want still thrives despite knowing I broke my promise to her.

  And to myself.

  “I’m so sorry, Mom.”

  I double over and cry with every part of my body and repeat the words she used to whisper in my ear as she’d hold me after she’d find new cuts on my arms again.

  This hurt doesn’t take away my pain, only being strong will.

  I am in control of me.

  I will survive despite it.

  I am loved regardless of it.

  And at the end of the runway in the early morning, I rock myself back and forth, repeat my mother’s words, and hope I can find my strength once again.

  “I fucked up.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” Grady says as he pulls his attention away from the preseason football game just long enough to glance at me in the kitchen.

  “No. Seriously.” I look at my phone for what feels like the hundredth time and debate calling Emerson again. Her last text, the one from three days ago telling me she’s super busy with a week-long jump class, still doesn’t sit right with me. I didn’t ask her to do anything. I didn’t even text her. So her sending a random text to explain why she can’t see me for a few days feels hinky.

  Especially after how she asked to be taken home from the lookout and then jogged up the stairs, saying she had a stomachache. I was left to stare at the shut door to her apartment with my apology getting lost in the night around me.

  Something is definitely off. Maybe she just needs some space. Fuck if I know.

  “Hey, Romeo? You gonna finish your sentence or are you interrupting my date with the 49ers for a reason?”

  “Are you in my house drinking my beer, watching my television, and eating my pizza?” I ask, and he nods. “Then shut the fuck up because I seem to be the one footing the bill for your romantic evening.”

  “Well, then get to the point and stop standing there like someone pissed in your Wheaties. What gives?”

  “I don’t know.” I sip my beer as I cross the distance and take a seat across from him—my view of the backyard while his is of the game. “Watch those files, will you?” I say, pointing to the stack of cold case files I’m working on that are sitting on the opposite end of the couch as him.

  “How can I watch them when they’re freaking everywhere? On the couch. Falling off the couch. On the floor. On the coffee table. On the desk. I mean, Jesus, do you take them in the bathroom with you, too?”

  “You make fun, but when you’re sitting outside on my new patio with a built-in barbeque and flat screen television, you’ll be thanking me.”

  “Doesn’t seeing this shit every day ever get to you? Don’t you need a break from it?”

  “Sometimes.” I sigh. “Recently, a lot of the time.”

  For being such a little shit, he’s smart.

  “Something’s going on with her. She’s shutting me out.”

  “I’d shut your ugly ass out, too.” I kick my foot out to knock his feet off my table, more to antagonize him than for any other reason. “But considering you just switched topics and left me in the dark, should I assume we’re talking about Emerson, again?”

  “I’m serious.”

  “Apparently you are,” he says as he smirks.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “This thing with Emerson. You’re supposed to be fuck buddies, right? Well, that was the plan anyway. Either you’re getting too deep into it or she is because this is way more complicated than your normal run-of-the-mill one nighter . . . so what gives?”

  “It isn’t different.” But it is. “She’s not.” But she is. “We’re not.” But we are. “We’re just fucking.” But it feels like so much more tha
n that.

  “Yeah, you keep thinking that’s all there is, and I’ll start putting money down on the 49ers to win the Super Bowl with this shitty ass team they have this year.”

  The game drones on, Grady groaning with every turnover—and there are a lot—while I stare out the windows to the backyard and watch the sky change colors as the sun sets. I’m supposed to be relaxing and preparing for my upcoming interview, but all I can think about is Emerson. Did I push her too far and get too personal when she is so obviously used to running away?

  “Hey, Grant?”

  “Yup,” I say distractedly.

  “I think I’m gonna head out.”

  “What?” I look at him, confused as to why he’s leaving at halftime when I know the cable is jacked at his house. “What about the second half?”

  “I have shit to do.” I narrow my eyes at him at the same time he juts his chin toward the front door.

  I turn around and find Emerson standing on the other side of the screen. Her face is expressionless and her hair is pulled back, but it’s her eyes that are shadowed and sad.

  “Em? You okay?” I’m on my feet as Grady opens the screen and gives her a soft greeting before jogging down the path toward his car. “Emerson?”

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have . . . I just didn’t want to be alone.” Her voice is barely audible.

  “No. Please. Come in.” I have my arm around her shoulders and am guiding her into the house. She seems so frail when I’ve never thought her to be anything but the opposite. We move to the couch, and she sits beside me as if she’s on autopilot. Concern rifles through every part of me.

  Within seconds, I have the television off and the police scanner on the table beside me silenced. The overwhelming urge to hold her, touch her, soothe that look out of her eyes is too much, so I pull her into me—her head to my chest—and wrap my arms around her.

  “What’s going on, Em?”

  “My head’s messed up,” she says.

  “We all have messed-up heads,” I murmur, my lips against the top of her hair, my fingers rubbing up and down her arms. It’s only when she hisses that I realize my fingertips have run over the ridge of scars, causing me to jerk my hand back in guilt over hurting her.