Creeping Beautiful

by JA Huss

Hell, if you had asked me a month later or even a year later, I’d still have said yes.

  But four years?

  My convictions are wavering.

  It’s not even that I’m afraid I don’t know her anymore. It’s this sudden fear that I never did. That we got her all wrong.

  The best-case scenario being we simply misunderstood her. We missed something. Some critical hidden component that, once applied to her treatment, will patch things up well enough for her to keep going. For us to stand by her.

  But it’s the worst-case scenario that scares me.

  What if… what if this is just who she is?

  What if, no matter how well we nurture her, she is just bad?

  I’ve heard it go both ways.

  Evil people are born.

  Evil people are made.

  I need someone to offer up a definitive answer in this regard. I need some fucking assurance that what happened was a one-time thing.

  But not even James Fenici could give me that piece of mind. The last thing he said to me when we parted ways four years ago was… It’s a hard lesson to learn, but not everyone’s worth saving.

  I get that. Probably better than most. But how do you know? Where is that line? The one that tells you when it’s time to give up and move on?

  This is what I think about the whole drive up to Old Home. Because I have to know. I can’t give up on Indie unless I know for sure she’s gone and there’s no way to save her.

  I made a promise to myself that day back on the island. I promised to protect her. To never let that snake get that close again. And I’m not really talking about snakes. We lived in the middle of the fucking swamp with so many snakes all around us, we were practically trippin’ over them.

  None of this ever had anything to do with the snakes.

  It was about the garden.

  And the gate.

  And the ignorance we cultivated inside those walls.

  Her ignorance. Her secrets.

  And mine too.

  And finally, one day, it all caught up with us and we were squeezed, and crushed, and eaten when her veil of ignorance was lifted and her secret snakes finally came crawling out of the walls be built around her.

  But that’s just it. Her secrets. Her ignorance. Her snakes.

  I can’t let her go out there alone. I can’t let her face that evil by herself.

  What kind of man kicks a little girl out of the Garden of Eden?

  Am I that man?

  Obviously, I have decided I am not. But I pause at the gate of Old Home just the same. To think it through one last time. To thoroughly understand the consequences of this action. Because once I see her again… it’s over. I will stand by her side no matter what comes next.

  And that might be my downfall.

  That might be the end of all of us.

  I don’t know why I do it, because there’s no one but me on this dirt road tonight, but I signal before I turn into the driveway of Old Home.

  I guess I just want my decision to return to be definitive. Even if I’m the only one who ever knows it.

  McKay’s truck isn’t in the driveway and the house is mostly dark when I pull up in front. But there’s a light on somewhere. Upstairs. Maybe the hallway or Donovan’s room. And probably the kitchen too.

  I turn my truck off and get out, closing the door softly behind me like I don’t want to be heard.

  Then I take a deep breath and walk up the porch steps. Open the front door, close it. And look up the stairs.

  Donovan is standing there, like he was waiting for me.

  Then I see a shadow behind him. Creeping along the hallway.

  I want to reach for my gun, but I don’t have it.

  If I had it, I might use it. And no matter what, that would not be how this night ended. So I didn’t bring it.

  Donovan turns before I can say anything. Sees Indie walking up behind him.

  Her eyes search his for a moment. Then she looks down to find mine.

  There is an eternity of silence as I wait to see what she’ll do.

  Will she kill him with a candlestick? Will she shoot him? And me? Did she already kill McKay and that’s why he’s not here?

  How? How will she end this journey we’ve been on together for the last fourteen years?

  But she doesn’t strike Donovan. She doesn’t pull out a gun and shoot me in the chest.

  She starts to cry.

  She begins to sob.

  Donovan is reaching for her as I take the stairs three at a time. I crush against her, pushing her into the wall so I can wrap my arms around her, and press my body against her, and hold her captive.

  So she cannot escape.

  So no matter what, she will never get away from me again.

  I love this girl. I have loved her from the very first moment I saw her wrapped up in hungry snake. And that’s when I realize… that sick fuck Gerald was right. I didn’t see it that night on the island. I saw the sickness inside everyone but myself that night.

  She is special to me and it all started that night I freed her from that cage.

  I will die for this girl. Whatever it takes to save her, I will do it.

  Her knees buckle, but I hold her up. And Donovan backs off, hitting the wall and sliding down it like he can’t stay on his feet one more second.

  “Shhhh,” I tell Indie. “Shhhh. It’s OK now. I promise. You’ll be OK.”

  She’s shaking her head no. She might be small. She might be young. She might be missing huge chunks of her memory.

  But she is not stupid.

  There is no such thing as OK in her future.

  There is no way to take back what happened on her birthday.

  But I lie to her. I hold her and lie to her just the same. I don’t even care that I know it’s a lie. I will not give up hope.

  I have one little secret in my back pocket that could help her. It won’t take away all the pain, but it won’t sting as much afterward, either.

  I just need her to meet me half way. That’s all I need. That’s all I expect.

  I back off a little and take her face in my hands. Lift her chin up so she has to see me when I tell my lies. “Listen to me. OK? Just listen to me for a moment. We can fix this, Indie. We put those walls back up, lock that fuckin’ gate, and keep all the snakes out for good.”

  She’s still shaking her head no. “We can’t fix it. We can’t ever fix it.” Her eyes are filled with water, all glassy and red. I want to force her to stop talking. I want to force her to see it my way. But I can’t.

  Everything is out of my control now.

  “I made a deal with the snakes.” She sobs out the words. “But I never made a deal with the flowers, Adam. I forgot all about the fuckin’ flowers.”

  Relief floods through me. She remembers. I don’t know how much, but it’s enough to set things right for a moment. I hold her face firmly and say, “Darlin’. You didn’t have to. Because I made that deal myself.”

  Then I kiss her.

  I kiss her on the mouth the same way she kissed me that day, right downstairs in the foyer. I kiss her like she’s mine. Like she’s ours. Like she is the only thing in the world that matters.

  Donovan is on his feet, his arms around both of us. Then the front door slams and we all come apart like a fluff of dandelion seeds in a gusty wind.

  McKay is there at the bottom of the stairs, holding up some book, sopping wet and out of breath as he tries to get words out. “Ours. She’s still ours and this proves it.”

  He’s not wrong.

  But he’s not exactly right, either.

  I want him to be right. But this is all very complicated and messy. And what Indie needs right now is… simple. There is only one way to make it simple.

  So I say, “No, McKay.”

  “What do you mean?” He’s bounding up the stairs. “I’m telling you, she’s written it all down in here. It’s all fixable.”

  Donovan guffaws and McKay, Indie, and I look at him a
s he leans against the wall. “Are you fucking insane?” But he’s looking specifically at McKay. “We can’t fix this shit! People are dead, McKay! Dead!”

  “Who’s dead?”

  I turn to look at Indie, my heart sinking into my stomach. “I thought you remembered?”

  Donovan is shaking his head. “She doesn’t. And this is all so much fucking worse than you even know, Adam. Tell him, McKay. Tell him what she told us.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT - McKAY

  PRESENT DAY

  Tell him what she told us.

  Well… that’s easier said than done. I glance at Indie. I want nothing more in this fucking world than to take her into my room, put her in my bed, and keep her there forever.

  But I can’t. We are here to deal with the situation.

  “Indie. Can you please go to your room and let me talk with Donovan and Adam for a moment?”

  She presses her lips together, rolling them inward a little as she squints at me. “Who’s dead?”

  “We’re gonna go over all that,” I say. “But first, I need to talk to Adam and Donovan. I know you don’t have to follow my orders, but this isn’t an order. It’s just a request. Ten minutes, Indie. Can you just give us ten minutes? Please?”

  She looks at Donovan. Then Adam. Then back at me.

  “We gave you four years,” I add. “Four years, baby. You can find ten minutes for us. I know you can.”

  She looks at Donovan. “Where will you guys be?”

  “In here.” He points to his bedroom. “We’ll be right here. I promise.”

  “And then you’ll tell me what’s going on? You’ll fill in all the blanks I have?”

  We all trade uneasy glances.

  Indie points to her journal, the one I’m still holding in my hand. “Are the answers in there, McKay?”

  I shake my head. Not the ones she’s looking for. “We’re gonna tell you what we know. But I need to talk to them first. It’s very important that we do this right.”

  “Something bad happened, didn’t it?” Her eyes are very sad right now. And for a moment I think… she’s gonna remember all on her own and then we won’t have to tell her the truth. But that’s the easy way out. And nothing is easy when it comes to Indie Anna Accorsi. Because the sadness in her eyes fades as I watch. They just go… empty. The way they were last night in the bathtub. “OK. I guess I can give you ten minutes.”

  She turns away and walks to her door, looks back at us one last time, then opens it, and disappears inside.

  Donovan is pushing Adam and me into his bedroom. He looks down the hallway real fast, then closes the door. Not all the way. He leaves it open a crack. And then he begins to whisper. “OK, listen to me, Adam. And don’t interrupt. Someone got to her when she was fifteen—”

  “What?”

  “For fuck’s sake, Adam. You’re as bad as Indie. I said don’t interrupt me. It’s a long story and we have it all recorded so you can hear all the details, but someone got to her. Someone has been triggering her all these years. We think she might have been with him since she disappeared.”

  “That’s not true.” I have to interrupt. Because I read her journal and they didn’t. I hold it up. “I found this in her truck. It was parked near my shop. I read the whole fucking thing and she never once mentions being with someone else. It’s just all about us.”

  Donovan shoots me a look. “Well, where was she?”

  “It doesn’t really say that, either. But it’s all her memories, Donovan. Everything about us, and Nathan—”

  “Jesus. Fucking Christ.” Adam turns away and grabs his head. Then he spins back. “How many other fuckin’ people have read that?”

  “I don’t know. But that’s not the point. The point is… she’s still ours. Even if whoever has been triggering her is still inside her head, she wants to be with us. Listen to me.” I open up the journal to the page I dog-eared and read it out loud. “‘If I had to choose between them, I would die. There is just no way I could only choose one. I need them all. I don’t even care if that’s selfish. I want them all.’ She was talking about us and Nathan.”

  Donovan huffs. “Well, that doesn’t fucking help!”

  “Specifically us, Donovan. She understands she can’t have Nathan.”

  “Well, I really hope so. Because he’s…” Adam pauses to lower his voice. “He’s fucking dead.”

  “Right.” I sigh.

  Donovan snatches the journal out of my hand and turns to the beginning. Then he points to something at the top of the page and holds it up. “Did you see this? What does this mean?”

  I squint my eyes at his pointing finger and find the marks on the page.

  It says… 3/3.

  Adam looks at me. “Three out of three, McKay. Three fuckin’ journals. Did you find any more?”

  “No.” I shake my head and close my eyes. “No. Just this one.”

  “None of this matters, you guys. What matters is that she’s ready for the truth. The truth is the only thing that matters. What happens between us, you, her, whatever—that’s secondary. We need to spell this shit out for her right the hell now. We need to explain that someone has been triggering her and then I need to take her back to LA and put her under the care of—”

  “Fuck you!” Adam yells it. “Fuck you, Donovan! You are not—”

  “—a friend of mine who specializes in—”

  “—taking her back to LA with you! She belongs here!”

  “—mind-unfucking!”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I’m still fairly calm, but only because I don’t think Indie would go with him. “Mind-unfucking? Really, Donovan?”

  “It’s a thing in LA. Trust me. There’s so many fucked-up people in LA this is something they do.”

  “Well, I feel better now. How about you, McKay?”

  I point at Adam. “You disappeared. No one’s seen you in four years either. I’m not sure you get a say in this.”

  “So you think she should go to LA?”

  “I’m not saying that either. I’m saying if anyone knows what’s best for Indie, it’s me.”

  “You!” Donovan is incredulous. “You’re the one who’s been telling her everything’s fine all these years. You’re the one who’s been playing house with her.”

  “You’re the one who spent a night with her two years ago and didn’t bother to tell us about it.”

  “What?” Oh, Adam is more than incredulous.

  “Maybe if you had called us, we could’ve fixed this two years ago! But no. You wanted to fuck her first. And by the time you were done, she was gone.”

  “What the fuck is happening right now?”

  “He fucked her, Adam. That’s what’s happening. He fucked her downstairs in the kitchen earlier too.”

  “You fucked her last night, McKay!”

  “She’s mine.”

  “She’s not yours.” Adam is angry. “Everyone just shut the fuck up! I’m making this decision. She is mine! And I want her right here in Old Home. All of this can be fixed if—”

  “Dead people cannot be fixed, Adam!” Donovan is waving his arms in the air. “She needs professional help. We tried, OK? We tried and we failed. Why can’t you two just face that fact? We fucking failed!”

  And I have to be honest here. All that talk and all those thoughts about how she is ours? Yeah. No. It’s never going to work. Because suddenly we all have very different opinions about what’s best for her.

  Adam takes a deep breath and when he talks again, his words are low and soft. “We didn’t fail. We just didn’t have all the information, that’s all. I agree we should tell her the truth. Slowly. Carefully. And then…” Adam looks at me. “And then we let her choose. And if what it says in that book is true, that she loves us all the same, then… fine. We deal with it then. But if she wants to stay here with me, then that’s her decision. If she wants to be with you, McKay, that’s her decision.”

  “And if she wants to go to LA with me?”


  Adam looks at Donovan. “Fine. If that’s her choice, I’ll deal with it.”

  We’re all silent after that.

  But then we hear a noise. Someone is talking down the hallway. Donovan opens his bedroom door all the way and we listen.

  But it makes no sense.

  Because that voice… that voice is Donovan’s.

  And it’s coming from Indie’s bedroom.

  “Fuck,” Donovan says. And then he’s rushing down the hallway.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE - INDIE

  PRESENT DAY

  I feel like a little girl again.

  They make me feel like a little girl again.

  And maybe yesterday I would’ve put up more of a fight about being sent to my room, but today… I don’t know. Everything is fuzzy. And I feel like it’s been fuzzy for so long, I can’t remember not feeling this way.

  But that’s not true. In the early days everything was so clear.

  Nathan was my best friend. McKay was my teacher. Adam was my protector. And Donovan was my sanity.

  It was so easy back then. So simple.

  And now it’s all so complicated.

  All the ways they each completed me are now so mixed together, I can’t think straight anymore.

  I walk over to my window and look out. It’s dark, so I can’t see anything. But I still know—like I just feel—that something is missing out there.

  What is it?

  Why won’t they tell me?

  I walk back over to my bed and sit down, stare at the bathtub, then smile because that tub just… God. It just holds all my favorite memories of McKay. How he’d make a bubble bath for me at night and wash my hair and comb it out. How good that felt. And how easy it was to be with McKay.

  How simple.

  Donovan is messy. And so is Adam.

  Donovan is always trying to peek inside my head. He wants all my secrets. And Adam? Adam just… well, I don’t really know what Adam wants. Compliance, maybe? Submission? I’m not sure.

  But McKay. McKay just wants me. He’s not looking for what’s hidden beneath all my layers and he’s not trying to use me as a weapon. I think McKay just wants to take care of me. But not by force.