by Ella James
I was going to go—to get out of here before my trouble pins me down. Go back to California, where I can settle everything the way I want—out on the water. But I couldn’t bring myself to say goodbye to Cleo. Every day, I tell myself just one more day. Then Whitney and Pace showed up, with their pleas and their tears and their threats, and Cleo did it for me. She left me.
I tried to catch her as she got into her car, but...
But.
After she left, I sent Whit and Pace away. I stood by the door with Truman, slammed by the thought of never seeing Cleo again. God, it hurt. It hurt so much it made me shake. But... no choices.
Robert says he’ll be here tomorrow morning. If I book a flight out of Atlanta, he’ll know. He told me he’s been monitoring my cards. It’s how he knows what I have—or rather haven’t—been doing. I can’t book a plane ticket with cash, and I don’t know if I could make the long drive home.
This is how terrible choices are made. It all comes down to lack of options. I should know that, shouldn’t I? I should be an old pro at this. And yet... it doesn’t get easier. It never gets easier. In fact, if time is any indicator, decisions like mine only get harder.
Because of Cleo... this is so much harder than it might have been.
I lean against the railing of the balcony and try to think. If I hadn’t met her. If I only ever knew ‘Sloth.’ If I hadn’t fucked her tight cunt. If I hadn’t hidden my face in her soft hair. If I hadn’t watched her leave that tube of lipstick on her sister’s headstone. If I hadn’t felt the warmth of her chest against my back, the firm squeeze of her arms around me.
“You seem sad. I like hugging you... I’m a hugger.”
If I didn’t know that, maybe this would seem more like the right choice. It’s the only choice—but I don’t crave it like I used to. Back when my need for control of my own fate outweighed fear or regret.
Now it’s... different. Like I’m opening my mouth and swallowing water, when what I really need is air.
I walk downstairs. I get a postcard and my damaged fountain pen and press the card against my thigh. I close my eyes. Inhale. I open them and steady my hand.
September 18, 2014
Dear Sloth,
Long time, no write. I hope you’re well. I’m sorry for the radio silence. The last thing I intended was to trouble you.
I moved to Okinawa, Japan in May as part of an exchange program. The first day I was there, I met a girl. She’s Canadian, and…yes, she calls me Lord.
I’m home for a week or so to take care of some family business, and then I’m flying back over. I wish I had the time to meet you. Maybe next time I’m stateside?
I still think of you often.
All the best, always.
“R.”
I reach for the drawer where I keep my Post-It notes, then draw my hand back. I need to walk this to the mailbox myself; Manning might not send it, even if I leave it with a note. I get a stamp from one of the kitchen drawers, hold the front door open for Truman, and take my time trekking down my long, dirt drive.
I note the curve of the moon. I used to have a thing about the moon, when I was very young. I would ask Ly if it could see us. He would tell me “no” and I would argue for the moon’s sentience. When Mom died, we decided one night that that’s where she was. Up there, dancing in the glow.
I stop at the mailbox and look up and down the road in front of me. It should look different. More. The metal of the mailbox should feel colder on my hand. Truman flounces through the field in front of the house, chasing mice—like always.
My footsteps are the same as I turn back. My left knee still aches where I busted it up that first game of my junior year in high school. I feel the rise and fall of my chest. It’s nothing special. I’m endowed with nothing but the weight of my own ego. Pretty soon, that will be gone.
I go inside and I stop looking for some fucking sign. I drift around the rooms upstairs, trying to smell Cleo in the air. I go into my little room and take a second patch out of the cabinet. Put it in the old spot, on the back of my shoulder. Right beside the one I put on when I woke up by Cleo earlier.
Then I step out onto the balcony and smoke a bowl of Silent Stalker. I try to calm myself. To focus on the dark treeline; the stars. Their brightness hurts.
I go downstairs and get the Snow Queen out and chug. A few more pulls—until I’m warmer and the hard edges are fuzzed.
Truman sniffs around my legs like he can smell it on me—dark intent. I laugh. Somewhere in me, there is an inferno—but I can’t feel it anymore.
I tip my head back and drain the vodka bottle.
I blink a few times, slow and bleary, and there is Truman, sitting on the kitchen floor. So goddamned loyal.
I drape my hand over his head and step past him, into the pantry. “Here boy...” My voice sounds low, the rasped words barely there.
I shift my mind away from that and focus my clumsy hands and the peanut butter: twist the top off... set it on the floor. Truman’s long ears perk in question.
“All yours.” I blow my breath out. Wait—no. “Hell...” I scoop the peanut butter container up and get a spoon and dole some into his bowl. “The whole thing would make you sick,” I whisper.
I blink a few more times and lean my head back. There now. I can see straight.
“Ummh...” I lick my numb lips. “Eat that,” I murmur, setting Tru’s bowl down.
I get another bowl—a big glass mixing bowl—and hold it under the faucet for what feels like several weeks. The water sloshes as I set the bowl down. “Now gotta... wash these dishes.”
Truman doesn’t eat his peanut butter. He leans against my legs while I load the dishwasher. I can feel the Fentanyl seeping through my skin, into my veins... Lifting me above the floor.
You’d think that it would help me forget, but I want her no less; more. I turn off the sink. Look at my hands. I know them. They are mine. I use them to pull my phone out of my pocket.
I can’t call her.
“No you can’t,” I whisper.
I set my phone down on the counter. Through the haze of Fent, I feel a sharp ache in my chest.
I walk into the living room and look at the stairs. I’m not going back up. Don’t know if I could... walk up.
I strip off my shirt. Take my time pulling it over my head and sliding my arms out. It’s weird to not be able to feel my skin. It feels good. I rub my hair. My face. Something to remember me by. I laugh.
I drift over to the TV. The DVDs... I never finished. It’s okay. I feel like it’s okay now.
Truman bounds over, moving faster than my dizzy eyes can follow. Then he’s by me, warm and heavy. My throat is tight and sore as I rub his ears, then lean down and pull his body against mine.
“Thank you,” I whisper hoarsely.
I kiss his head, and then again. I scoop my keys up and walk slowly down the hall.
I can’t believe I’m really here now. Game over.
All I have left is my secret. And a flame of pride, because I never let her near it.
Cleo
I get into my car, and I start driving. I don’t think of what I’ll do or say. I don’t think of anything but him.
I need to see him. Need to hear it from his mouth.
I’m speeding down a rural highway, en route to his house, when I have to dim my brights for an SUV.
It looks like Kellan’s Escalade.
FOUR
Kellan
The need for Cleo is an agony. I’m so numb, the only place I really feel it is my chest. It’s like a fire in there. The deadened parts of me can sense the heat. My throat and face. My throat aches. My shoulders and my arms and everything feels... bad. My fingers rub the leather of the wheel. I have this urge to shift my legs, but I remember that I’m driving.
I fix my eyes on the dark road and I think desperately of where I’d find her. I want to see her one last time. I know I can’t... but it’s so fucking hard. Denying myself this.
As I drive, I think of what she’d say if she knew. What she might do.
I don’t know. I do know.
She would hold me. It would feel good.
Today was bad.
I can’t keep doing this.
My eyes blur.
Even through the haze drifting around me, I know what I have to do. Before he comes. Robert.
The car is bumping over the shoulder before I realize that my hands must have slipped. I hit the brakes. The Escalade fish-tails in the grass. Jolts to a stop.
I lean over the steering wheel.
Cleo. I can only whisper. I’m so tired.
I lift my head and try to will my brain to think. I can’t pass out here. Need... to keep driving. But—no wrecks. I don’t want a wreck that hurts someone.
I sift through the haze. Cleo. Not at the sorority house. My lips curve a little as I picture her sitting in her car atop the parking deck. She would wait for me there. It would be a fantasy.
The fire is back.
It wakes me up.
I look between the treetops and the moon.
Something... please.
I get out of the car. It’s like my body... thinking on its own. I stumble in the grass and tip my head back.
There. The sky.
I don’t want it. I would tell her I don’t want to. I want her. I can’t. I know. I have to hurry. Now I’m... just too tired.
I get into the car. I dream while I drive. Warm hands and her hugging arms. My mom’s got cookies. Lyon with the football. Cleo on the bed.
She says, “You can talk to me, you know.”
I start to whisper. I press a hand to my forehead... so I can think.
The bridge is near here... right? The rail is bent. The drop is steep.
I tell her all the things. The whole story. Flat green pastures gleam under the moon. I pass a cow beside his fence.
My speeding heart begins to slow, as if it knows the score. My mind clears like the sky as clouds shift, revealing a bright moon. Pale light winks over my hood.
Some ways ahead, the road bends left. I press the pedal: fifty-five... then sixty. I take the curve at seventy.
Cleo... Cleo.
The road runs straight. I can see the bright lines of the bridge’s metal rails.
Cleo
It’s definitely him. And I’m a stalker freak, because I’m tailing him. I wasn’t going to. It started with an innocent U-turn. Why go to his house if he’s not there? But then I saw his car pull over on the roadside. So I dimmed my lights and stopped a hundred yards or so behind him. When he got back in and turned onto another road, a more rural road, I just... kept following.
What do I want?
No idea.
Through the woods, I follow him. Along a winding road pinned in by fields. Beside the fence line, cows cluster. Moonlight stripes the long fields, casts crooked shadows through an orchard of pecan trees.
Pine-needles shimmer with moon dust. Kellan’s inky car glints as he swerves a little to the right.
I picture her head between his thighs and press the brakes a little, halfway hoping that he’ll see me in his rear-view mirror.
My eyes trace his silhouette. I can’t see hers...
I picture her pink lips around his dick. The way his legs flex, right foot heavy on the pedal. The Escalade surges forward as if my narrative is true. I see a creek off to my left, glinting in between the trees. The road squiggles, and Kellan’s Escalade dips into the left lane for half a heartbeat. I touch the brakes again, a mime of what I wish he’d do, but Kellan flies around the bend.
I punch the pedal. “Slow down, Kell...”
Next time I sight him, he is riding with the car’s right side on the shoulder.
My head feels hot. My pulse picks up. I reach for the phone in my lap, to call who? The road curves sharply right and Kellan runs again into the left lane.
Fuck.
I top out at 75 mph and press the brakes out of sheer fear. But Kellan doesn’t.
Kellan disappears around another wooded bend.
I come around it... see a bridge. The sheen of moonlight on its metal rails. The glow is blotted—for one second. The rails are blotted by his car. I hear the Escalade punch through the guardrail with an awful screech. I watch in horror as it tumbles toward the water.
FIVE
Cleo
I run down the shoulder, I slip, I tumble down the hill that skirts the murky swampland. I scramble up just feet from the dark water, which splays about as wide as a skating rink.
The Escalade is near the middle of the reed-laced marsh, nose-down in the water... pointed a little left, toward me. It’s still moving, sinking ever so slowly into the muck. The waterline spills over the windshield. As I gape at it, the right side of the Escalade sinks down a few feet.
“Oh Jesus, God, fuck fuck!”
I jerk my shoes off, yank my pants off, and splash into the chilly sludge. I’m screaming, waving my arms above my head. I flop forward, belly-first, and try to freestyle, but the weeds are too thick. My arched feet fumble for the muddy bottom. I kick hard, but my feet touch nothing, so I’m swimming, gasping.
I hear a low glug-glug and see the car tilt even further downward on the front end. Fear cuts like a knife. Adrenaline makes my arms and legs move faster. My thigh bumps something hard. I shriek—fuck just a log. I’m almost there. Oh fuck, Kellan—what if he went through the windshield?
Treading water, I try to look around. The night bears down around me, dark and textured. I kick my feet and surge forward.
“Buckle up for safety, Cleo...”
Please be in there!
Oh God, I can barely see the driver’s side door. The door behind it... I can open that. My throat constricts as I swim closer to the car: so large and dark. Over the stink of the water lapping at my nose, I smell burned rubber, maybe even smoke.
I shudder as I glide within reaching distance of the SUV. Focus, don’t be scared! I kick a few times, hard, and keep on kicking as I try the back door handle with my wet, trembling hand. The car gurgles, bubbles rising around me.
“Fuck!” I pull the handle up and, while I grasp at the door with my left hand, sinking slightly I press my foot against the SUV’s body. The Escalade lurches. I shriek. Fuck, it doesn’t open!
I moan and pull the handle again, and the door opens fractionally. Water rushes into the Escalade. The door pulls shut again.
“FUCK!”
I pull the fucking handle one more time, and when the door cracks open, causing water to cascade into the car, I pull harder.
There is no doubt—no doubt in my mind that I will get to Kellan—so I pull the door open with all my might and dive into the gap between the door and door frame.
My forehead smacks something. I let out a sob and then I’m in the car! Water! It’s up to my boobs, but in the front seat...
“Kellan,” I sob. Fuck, the front is underwater. Is his face submerged? I feel the car tilt and realize water’s pouring in through the cracked door. I yank the door shut. My breaths are shrieks, my limbs are clumsy as I splash between the front seats.
His face is not submerged, his head lolls leftward and there’s blood…
“Wake up!” I grab his face before I realize don’t do that; the neck, and “KELLAN.... please!” The car jolts leftward with my movements, water rising.
The seatbelt! Got to get the seatbelt! Don’t look at his face! I reach into the tarry water and I feel and... there! My fingers press against it... tiny, cool, metallic. The belt comes undone. I’m panting as I work it off of him.
I try. It’s hard. He’s big. He isn’t moving.
What if—
No.
I slap his cheek. His eyes open, blinking blood... His head is bleeding.
“Wake up! Damnit, fuckshit, wake the fuck up... Come on!” I grab his right arm, tugging violently. I jerk him toward the back of the car and realize when he doesn’t move at all that he will have to move himself.
“Come on,
you have to swim!” I shriek.
There’s water to our necks now; Kellan’s head is tilted back. “Kellan, please, please!” I sob.
He blinks twice, slow and dazed. His eyes roll... his eyes find mine.
“Come on, baby... Come on, we have to swim!”
I grab his arm, clawing his bicep as I tug him toward the back seat. “MOVE YOUR LEGS!”
He groans... His body twists. I hear a splash, and then he slams against me. We drift in a tangle to the back seat.
“Cleo...” He grabs me, looking confused. “What—”
“I’m opening the door now, kick against the seat and push yourself out of the car.” The Escalade lurches leftward again. I hear water rushing.
“Right now, Kell! I’m opening the door now, come on! Get in front of me...” I push his broad back, ushering him in front of me, so I can push him from the cark. I reach around him to shove the door open. I can’t push because he’s in my way—but Kellan pushes. He pushes the door, and I push him, and together we get the thing open.
Water pours in so quickly I almost don’t catch a last breath—but I do. I shove Kellan hard, and he disappears into the murk.
The second I swim out behind him is the longest of my life. When I break the surface I find him treading water, moaning with his head tipped back.
I nudge his shoulder. He fumbles and chokes. I push his chin up. “Swim!” Rich boy—can swim. “Toward the shore!” I hit him and he gasps.
“My shoulder...” He sounds hurt. Dark water laps around his head. His face is twisted. I grab a breath of air and sink and shove his lower back with both hands. Resurface.
“Fuck...” I give his back a shove, but I can’t move him. He’s too fucking heavy.
Fuck... That slimy—duh, the ground! That’s the ground under my feet! “Kellan...”
