by A. J. Downey
“What’d you give her?” Linny asked, blinking up at him through the open window of the driver’s side door.
He braced his hands on the sill and said, “Ativan.” He patted the window sill and with a last worried, lingering look at me, trudged back to his truck.
“He gave you the good shit,” Linny mused as she adjusted my seat for her longer legs and fixed my mirrors for her taller frame.
I huddled in on myself and willed the drug to take effect. I stared into the side mirror outside my window at the beat-up old pickup behind us, Stoker indistinct through the sunset-laden sky reflected on his windshield.
“So, um, how was it?” Linny asked, turning on my headlights and hitting the signal to rejoin traffic.
I didn’t answer and she huffed out a sigh.
“Well, I like this one. He’s different and I like his friends. I hope they give that asshole on the beach a what-for.”
“I hope not,” I said.
“Why?”
“You know it won’t stop, Linny. It never stops. I need to stop fooling myself that it will. You also know, the more you fight back, the worse it gets…”
“We aren’t kids anymore, Ren.” Her voice held a steel edge of admonishment.
“You’re right. We’re not,” I answered, but I knew if she knew what I was thinking it wouldn’t go over well, so I didn’t voice it out loud. What I was thinking wasn’t anything good. Mostly it was how I needed to stop letting myself be fooled by the childish idea that just because there was the way the world was supposed to work, that didn’t mean that it would ever actually work that way.
I rested my head against the window glass and closed my eyes, huddled in on myself, and felt marginally calmer. An almost detached feeling coming over me.
The drugs were working.
“It’ll be okay, Ren. I have a good feeling about this one,” she said, and it was the last thing I remember.
12
Stoker…
“Captain,” I said by way of greeting, cradling my phone against my ear, trapping it with my shoulder as we barreled up the freeway. We didn’t have much farther to go. Maybe a half an hour or so.
“Yeah, it’s me.” He gave a gusty sigh and asked, “So you want the spoilers or not?” he asked.
“I want to hear it from her, but I need to know what the fuck is going on to be able to do anything at the same time.”
“Now you’re learning,” he said and grunted. “Your stray has more than a little bit of trauma in her past, I reckon.”
“How’s that?” I demanded.
“Well, according to the douchebag on the beach, once upon a time her boyfriend was that Kyle Ian Covington kid.”
“Why does that name sound familiar?” I frowned, scouring my memory for it.
“He’s the one that shot up that Lauderdale high school about nine years back.”
“Oh, shit…”
“Yeah.”
“And you’re trying to tell me Serenity was in on it?” I asked, skeptical as all hell.
“Now, I didn’t say that. You know how it is with these fuckin’ citizens – hell, with anybody. Guilt by association and all that. Radar’s already digging into the whole thing and says that the pigs investigated your girl, but that they let her go. Insufficient evidence to suggest she knew about her boyfriend’s plot.”
“Shit. Was she there?” I asked. “The day of the shooting?”
“Yeah, but that is her story to tell, we can’t know what went on… I just suggest you tread carefully, my friend.”
“What did that dude call her?” I asked. “I missed it.”
“Murder Whore.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah, these merry band of idiots sure know how to pick ‘em when it comes to taunts and the like.”
“Some pretty unoriginal shit,” I agreed.
“Well, listen, you drive careful and we’ll see you when we see you. You stay in touch.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
“Talk with you later.”
He ended the call and I let out a pent-up breath full of frustration at the sheer mountain of garbage in front of me.
Humans were the worst.
I parked on the street outside Serenity’s place, grabbed my duffle off the seat next to me, and locked up my truck. Linny was stretching outside Ren’s car, her hands pressed to her lower back to ease the stiffness.
“She alright?” I called softly.
“Out like a light.”
“Mind taking this and getting her place opened up?” I asked.
“Sure.” She took my bag and raised an eyebrow. “Plan on staying a while?”
“As long as it takes,” I assured her.
“Uh-huh…” She sounded skeptical.
“Shit, she knows how to pick ‘em, eh?” I ventured.
“Let’s just say, Ren has something like the absolute worst taste in men.”
“Good thing she didn’t really pick me, then, isn’t it?”
She raised an eyebrow as I reached for the passenger-side door handle of Serenity’s car.
“How does that work?” she asked.
I smiled and said, “I saw her first.”
She shut the driver’s side door and Serenity jumped slightly on the other side of the window glass. I opened up her door.
“Mm,” she muttered sleepily.
“Come on, baby. I’ve got you,” I murmured, plucking her beach bag off the passenger floorboard and slinging it over my shoulder. I leaned into the car and unbuckled her seatbelt as she frowned and looked around her surroundings in utter confusion.
Faith’s meds had hit her like an eighteen-wheeler and I was glad for it. She needed to sleep it off. I reached down and she leveraged herself to her feet, unsteady as all get-out. I held her to me and kissed her hair.
“Take your time.”
She pushed away from me and I let her go, swinging her car door shut when she was clear. She wrapped both of her slim arms around one of mine as we shuffled out of the detached garage she lived over and around the corner into the driveway.
“You good?” I asked quietly and got no verbal reply. Instead, she simply shook her head slowly back and forth.
Linny had the lights on and was standing at the door when we reached the top of the stairs.
“I’m going to grab my shit and make sure the garage is closed up,” she murmured and I tossed her a nod.
I sat Serenity on the edge of her neatly-made bed and slipped her thongs off her feet.
“How you doing, Orchid?” I asked her.
“I just want to lay down, sleep for like a thousand days.”
“Okay.” I nodded carefully and said, “Let’s get you tucked in. Where you keep your nightgowns?”
“I don’t.”
“Well, alright then. Let’s get you undressed and let you lie down.”
I helped her slowly out of her clothes for a second time and pulled back the blankets. She lay huddled on her side and I tucked her in, placing a kiss on her temple, even though I figured she was out and probably missed it. It was enough that I knew I’d done it.
Linny had returned up here and was eyeing me from the front door.
“You’re good with her,” she said, and I turned my head her direction.
“Thanks.”
“Come on outside and let’s talk.”
I chuckled and stood up from where I sat on the edge of the bed beside Serenity, trudging in my work boots across her hardwood floor. I’d thrown them on along with jeans and a tee the second I’d gotten home. Threw some other shit in my bag and had hustled out to my truck to find out what the fuck was going on.
I had an inside line with Linny here, and I wasn’t about to pass it up.
“Look, let me start off by saying that what you saw, the meltdown or whatever – that’s not usually Serenity. Ren doesn’t do that often, like at all. I haven’t seen her have a panic attack like that in –God… a while. Years at least.”
“What
happened to her?” I asked, feigning innocence.
Linny leaned her butt up against the railing wrapping the little landing outside Serenity’s front door and crossed her arms over her stomach.
“I met Ren our senior year of high school. She transferred in to my school after they told her she wasn’t welcome back at the one she’d come from. Believe me, it was total bullshit. Ren didn’t do anything wrong.” She put out her hand as though she was going to need to stop me from thinking the worst about her bestie, but there wasn’t any way.
For as much as I didn’t know the minute details, I knew Serenity, and she was a good girl.
“What’s with the dude at the beach?”
“One of our classmates, I think. He could have been a lower classman. At any rate, Serenity’s first real boyfriend was Kyle Ian Covington. He shot up their old school and killed all those kids – which, if they were anything like the one you saw on the beach? I can’t really say I blame him.” She put up her hands to ward me off when all I did was raise an eyebrow.
“I know, I know! You shouldn’t really wish death on anyone, but the absolute shit they put Ren through? I mean it was a constant barrage. ‘Murderer’s Whore’ eventually just got shortened down to ‘Murder Whore’ for expediency’s sake, but yeah. That was the name she came to my school with and it’s literally stuck to her like nobody’s business ever since.”
“Jesus,” I muttered, hanging my head and shaking it.
“She didn’t know what Kyle had planned. She didn’t even know he was the one shooting until she ran into him in the cafeteria while she was running for her own life.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“She was horrified, he shot himself, and she’s been dealing with the fallout one way or the other ever since.” She looked bleakly through the window and I followed her gaze. Trouble and worry clouded her light brown eyes as she stared at Ren’s sleeping form.
“How long has this been going on?” I asked.
“Nine years,” she said, letting out an explosive breath. “These little incidents have gotten fewer and further between, but they do still happen. I’m surprised it happened in your little podunk town.”
“Hey,” I fired off by way of a warning shot.
“Sorry,” she muttered. “It’s a nice town. It is, it just happens to have an asshole in it.”
“Today, yeah, but everybody knows everybody else in Ft. Royal. Dude was a local tourist type. He doesn’t live there.”
“Well, that’s good to know, I guess,” she muttered and heaved a giant sigh, scrubbing her face with her hands.
“You staying the night, then?” I asked when she had spent several minutes staring at her prone friend.
“Legit, I’m scared to leave,” she said finally. “I know she’s tough, but this has been her cross to bear for nine years and I know she’s sad. I know she’s lonely and depressed, and I’m scared. I’m scared one of these days one of these incidents, it’s going to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. That she’s going to give up, and that’ll be it. I’ll lose my best friend, just like that, because people can’t not be judgey pieces of shit over shit they don’t even know…”
Linny started to cry, her heart breaking for my little dark orchid in there and I didn’t quite know what to say. I took a shot in the dark with the truth.
“I’m not going to let that happen,” I said.
Linny gave me a withering look. “It’s not like you can control it. Not like you can control what people think of her, what they say to her, how they make her feel…”
“No, you’re right,” I agreed. “I don’t have control over any of those things, but might be I’m able to teach her the art of not giving a fuck.”
Linny flubbed a laugh and shook her head. “I’ve been trying that for years,” she said bleakly.
“You’re also close, you two. Maybe she just needs it from an outside source.”
“Maybe,” Linny murmured, and let out a shuddering sigh.
“You kill my best friend, I’m going to kill you, but not before I come up with some real creative ways to make it hurt like hell.” She gave me what I think was supposed to pass for a hard look but all it did was remind me of a tiny ferocious little kitten. Sure, the claws were needle-like, the fangs present, but they were far too dainty to make for any real damage.
Still, I tried not to laugh in Linny’s face or hurt her feelings.
“I’m sure you would. You women-folk are crafty like that.”
“Are you mocking me?” she asked, suspiciously.
Yes, maybe a little.
What came out of my mouth was my best southern boy, “No, ma’am.” Respect. Simply for the fact I was addressing a lady.
“Okay. I’ll call and check on her in the morning, then.”
“Yeah, you go on and get some good sleep of your own,” I said.
“Thanks for not bailing at the first sign of trouble,” she said. “She might not know it yet, but she’ll appreciate it too. Just be stubborn. She’s a good person. She would never give up on anyone, but they just keep giving up on her.”
“Buck stops here,” I told her. She nodded and descended the stairs. I wanted like hell to smoke a blunt, but if some shit went down at work and they had to piss test me? Yeah, I had to forgo it. I needed to remain gainfully employed.
I pulled in a deep breath and raked my fingers through my hair, locking them behind my head and letting that breath out in a rush.
“Ah!”
I’d never stayed with a high-maintenance chick for long, but of course this was different… While yeah, Ren was going to be some kind of high-maintenance, she was worth it. The fixer-upper part of her psyche wasn’t damaged overnight, it couldn’t be fixed with just a drywall patch and a slap of paint. This was deep. Structural. Dangerous territory for a noob like me to be poking around in.
I called Marlin.
“What’s up?” he asked on the second ring. I could hear laughter in the background and I was glad the party hadn’t stopped on our account.
“I may need a fuckin’ pep talk here,” I said.
“Damage pretty bad?” he asked.
“Yeah, not at all what I thought, but yeah.”
“Trauma is trauma,” he said. “Doesn’t matter what the trauma was initially, the fallout from it is all the same.”
“I don’t want to fuck this up, dude.”
“Tough shit. That’s part of life, Stoker. You go in, you fuck shit up – it’s what you do after that, that’s what counts.”
“Sure as fuck ain’t here to fuck shit up and leave,” I said.
“Attaboy, now you’re talkin’,” he said.
“Where do I start?” I asked.
“Well, you start by listening. Just remember, you can’t talk and listen at the same time. Just. Listen.”
“Okay, I can do that.”
“She sleepin’?” he asked.
“Yeah, that Ativan knocked her the fuck out.”
“Yeah, I gave you the horse tranquilizer dose.”
“Thanks, man. And thank Faith for me, too.”
“Anytime, brother, and Faith knows what it’s like. She’s been there. You ain’t gotta thank her for nothing. She’s pure goodness, my woman. If she can stop somebody else’s suffering – she will.”
“Yeah, I feel like Serenity is the same, you know? Just nobody’s given her a chance.”
“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” he said quietly.
“Good way of putting it. Still want to curb stomp the motherfucker for littering, though.”
“Ah, yup. I feel you there.”
“Thanks, Marlin.”
“No worries.”
“Night.”
“Night.”
We disconnected.
I sighed and went in to be with my girl.
13
Serenity…
I woke to the sounds of Stoker shuffling around my apartment in the dark, his footfalls thudding dully against th
e kitchen tile. He was trying to be quiet as he poured a travel mug of coffee at my kitchen counter, but there was only so much he could do with steel-toed boots against a hard floor in the quiet wee hours of the morning.
The sun was making an effort to rise, but it looked like it needed some coffee of its own. I blinked, willing my eyes to adjust in the diffuse light and sat up sharply.
“Hey,” he murmured, looking back at me over his shoulder.
I felt hungover without the pain. Whatever he’d given me to take had been a powerful drug.
“Hey,” I whispered back, putting a hand to my head. “What did you give me?”
It was hard to think, like my head was stuffed with clouds and my thoughts sluggish. I was as relaxed as could be, but it wasn’t a good feeling. It was like trying to think through thick molasses.
“Ativan, one of Faith’s. Marlin said it was an elephant tranquilizer dose and it looks like he wasn’t joking. You want some of this?” He lifted the coffee pot so I could see it and I nodded.
“’K, hang on. I’ll get you fixed up.”
He opened cabinets until he found the one he wanted and lifted down a coffee cup. He added creamer and poured the coffee, stirring it gently with a spoon, the sound the metal made against the inside of the ceramic cup sharp in the hushed quiet of my place.
“Here you go.” He came over and sat gently on the side of the bed and handed me the cup. I wrapped both hands around it and breathed in the steam rising from it, trapping the sheet to my body, raising my knees beneath it for modesty’s sake.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, and he put a hand on my knee, giving it a squeeze.
“I followed you,” he said. “Found you on the side of the road with Linny.”
I frowned. “I remember that, but what I meant was: why are you still here? Don’t you think I’m a crazy person?”
He sighed and shook his head. “No, I think you maybe been through some shit. Linny filled me in a little, about the shooting…” he trailed off. “I was hoping you might be willing to talk it out with me.”
“What is there to talk about?” I asked miserably. “You know now…”
