by CD Reiss
Well, I’d been thrown off the path into the black hole I feared.
I weighed the keys in my palm. There were about thirty, and they all looked the same.
How far was I willing to go?
The sensible thing to do was drive away, leave California, try to get a license in another state. Not get attached. Not fall in love with a patient again. Not stick my head out from behind my defenses. Any normal person would lick their wounds and slink away.
Love wasn’t worth it. All the psy journals said so.
Well, the theological journals said love was always worth it. And my experience of listening to people talk about their relationships said otherwise.
He stole his brother’s girlfriend because he couldn’t live without her.
She betrayed her husband because she fell for another man.
They broke the law to defy parents who stood between them.
He stayed by her through her manic phase.
Poverty.
Pain.
Sickness.
Death.
I’d heard love transcend all of it and never believed it. Not until she came. Fiona put it all into place for me. She made all the stories make sense. All the reckless, senseless, bold, beautiful, risky, irresponsible, brutal, and selfless acts I’d heard about but never understood came into focus through the lens of love.
This was past wanting her. Past possessing her. Past fucking her or protecting her.
How far was I willing to go?
I was willing to be self-destructive, negligent, brave, audacious, and stronger than I ever believed possible.
But I wasn’t willing to be stupid. Intentional failure wasn’t acceptable, so there was a bigger question.
How far was I able to go?
I let the weight of the keys pull my hand down, and I closed my fingers around them.
Nothing to lose really. Except her crazy ass.
I slipped my phone from my pocket and found the numbers I needed, took a deep breath, and dialed the first.
57
FIONA
The quiet woke me. Isolation. I opened my eyes. It was neither dark nor light. Every corner and ridge was equally lit in a flat, colorless white. That meant it was nighttime. During the day, it was brighter so your circadian rhythms didn’t get cocked up.
They’d put me in a straitjacket even though I hadn’t been resisting.
“Fuckers,” I whispered but didn’t mean it. Not really.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. This was what they did. This was the good news. I didn’t know why I hadn’t thought of it sooner. Now they’d separate us like they meant it.
I just laid there looking at the little camera eye in the center of the ceiling.
No one came. I couldn’t have been in too long. My arms didn’t ache, and I wasn’t hungry. I didn’t have to pee or anything, but hours went by in my mind. I listened for Elliot’s voice in my cells, the smooth one he used for hypnosis. The one that suggested strongly. The exact opposite of Deacon’s Dominant voice, which commanded as if he had already been obeyed. Two sides of the same coin, those voices and the men who breathed them.
I closed my eyes and touched Elliot’s body, tracing every bone from toe to head with my fingertips. He had Deacon’s face, with its stark blue eyes and unforgiving jawline. And they melded together into one man I’d hurt irrevocably with my selfishness and immaturity.
“God,” I whispered, “I know you’re there. I don’t want to mess up anymore. I don’t want to be a fuckup. It’s hard. Too hard. And it hurts everyone. I can’t live like this. I’m tired of being alone. Alone and thinking no one understands. Elliot says you don’t make deals, so I’m not going to make a deal. I’m just going to say, I see you there, and when I’m about to fuck up, I’m going to think of you and do better.”
I said that prayer over and over, changing it slightly, repeating words until they flowed and it became my breath.
Change. My way of thinking, my way of speaking, walking, breathing. I was going to believe I could change until everyone else did. In my bones, I knew the higher power I was talking to existed, and it believed in me.
58
FIONA
They’d moved me to a proper isolation room with a bed and toilet. I was there for three days. Frances came to talk to me about Warren, and I told her clearly and intelligently why I’d hit him with a chair. She nodded and didn’t say much. A new therapist named Sol came in to say hello. I was back to private sessions when I got out, and not with Elliot.
Probably for the best.
I got the sense that things were happening outside the door, but I didn’t ask about them. I just asked myself what I was going to do with my life when I was out.
I was good at partying, being seen partying, and making other people want to be me. I didn’t know if that was something I should spend the rest of my life doing. Not with a baby coming. I’d never cared if I was terrible at everything I tried, but being bad at motherhood wasn’t an option. I couldn’t fail. That wasn’t allowed.
When they opened the door and walked me to Sol’s office, I’d come no closer to a solution to the problem.
Sol indicated the chair across from his desk, and I sat. He was almost completely bald, portly, with thick glasses. His wedding ring squeezed his finger, and I wondered if he could get it off if he tried.
“Miss Drazen,” he said with a slight New York accent, “nice to see you again.”
“Nice to be out.”
“I bet. Do you want to tell me how you’re feeling?”
“Sure. I’m, uh. I have this headache from being inside too much, and my joints feel kind of numb. I want to go for a run or something.”
“Do you want something for the headache?”
“No. I’m okay.”
He sat back and laced his fingers together over his belly. “I read your file. You’re a very interesting young lady.”
“Thanks. Not feeling real interesting right now.”
“You’re what I call a ‘truth teller.’ A fascinating personality type.”
“I’ve been lying to myself for a long time.”
He smirked and nodded then pointed his finger. “That’s the root of your suffering, I think. But first, I need to tell you what happened while you were in isolation.”
“Is my brother okay?”
The words came out before I even thought about it. He was the only thing I cared about in this mess, and I hadn’t even realized it until I asked about him first.
“He’s fine.” Sol smoothed his pants, brushed something off his knee. “There was an incident on the grounds here.”
“Who?” I wasted the question. I knew exactly who it was.
“Warren Chilton. He was found behind the garden where the creek is fenced off.”
I knew he was watching my reaction closely, so I tried not to cheer internally. “Found?”
“It’s a little gruesome.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“He was hanging from a tree. He’s paralyzed from the neck down.”
I blinked back my reaction and failed at hiding my shock. He was alive? Was I relieved or disappointed? Both? Some other third thing that had just released a twist in my gut I’d forgotten? “That’s too bad. I just wanted to hit him with a chair.”
“Really?”
“No. I wanted to break his head with a chair. Or whatever. I wasn’t too picky about what I broke. Wow,” I said, realizing he was alive and his dick wouldn’t work. I almost laughed and cried at the same time, but ended up doing neither.
He nodded. “Wow is right. I know you and he have a history. You’re going to hear a lot of rumors in the rec room. The police are taking this very seriously.”
“I’ll do a little truth telling.” I shrugged. “I’m glad I was in isolation, because I wanted to do much worse to him.”
“I’m glad you were in isolation too. This way, we can turn this lying to yourself around and get you out of here without interferenc
e. You ready for that?”
“Yes. Yes, I am.”
“Good. I’m approving you to be deposed by the LAPD, and we’ll get to work first thing tomorrow. You’ll still have group starting this afternoon.”
I stood, ready to take it all on.
59
FIONA
The cops asked me how much I hated Warren, and I didn’t hold back. They couldn’t put me away for hating the motherfucker, and apparently I wasn’t the only one. They asked about Deacon. I told them he was in Eretria as far as I knew. They asked about Elliot. I told them to ask Elliot about Elliot. I hadn’t spoken to him since I was back in Westonwood. They asked if Warren had been suicidal and if he’d been into breath play or asphyxiation with me, as if he and I were “into” anything together.
They let me go with a warning that they might ask more later. It was lunchtime, and all I wanted to do was run to Jonathan. When I saw him down the hall. I broke into a gallop and jumped into his arms.
“I heard,” I said into his shoulder.
“You don’t know half of it,” he said into my ear then dropped me. “It’s good to see you. Really good.” He shook his head.
“Are you all right?”
He put his arm around me and guided me through the food line then to a small table where Karen sat alone. I kissed her cheek and sat. She had a plate in front of her with slices of cantaloupe. Jonathan dropped into the chair across from me.
“Do you have to eat that here?” she asked Jonathan, pointing at his steaming plate of protein with her fork. “It smells disgusting.”
In answer, he speared a slab of meat and potato and shoved it into his mouth. Karen sighed and dropped her eyes to her plate. She cut the tiniest sliver of melon with a steak knife and put it in her mouth without letting the tines touch her lips.
“How is it?” I asked.
“Not bad.”
I looked at Jonathan then back at her.
“You’re eating,” I said.
“Don’t make a big deal about it, or she’ll stop,” Jonathan said around a mouthful of lunch.
“Okay.” I poked at my plate. “It’s good to see you guys. Good to be out.”
“Now that he’s gone,” Karen said softly, “it’s better in here. Like I can breathe and think at the same time.”
I nodded. We ate in silence, air heavy with all the things I wanted to know. I kept glancing at my brother and my friend.
“I noticed the cracks in the ceiling for the first time last night because I wasn’t sleeping in a ball.” Karen swallowed a paper-thin sliver of melon as if she were swallowing an entire beefsteak tomato. “I thought, wouldn’t it be cool to have a georgette scarf with those cracks in it? Such a nice print. And then last night, I thought about how Warren was hanging. All twisted and tangled up like he was fighting his way out. That’s what they said. It was so complex, and I thought… ropes. A print of ropes on a scarf that when you tied it, the print was straight, but when it was flat, it was like Warren. Twisted.”
“That’s a plan,” I said.
“He was hanging by the throat for three hours and didn’t die. Just a broken neck,” she said as if continuing the same conversation, glancing at me sidelong. “Because of the way he was snarled.”
I swallowed my food with effort. “What else?”
Karen and Jonathan glanced at each other. Jonathan smirked.
“The whole camera system was on the fritz,” Jonathan said. “They think Warren did it because he met me on the roof.”
“No.”
Two letters one syllable for, Tell me you didn’t do it. Tell me he didn’t do it to you. Tell me you weren’t involved.
“He was passed out up there,” Karen said, tilting her head toward Jonathan.
“Fuck you,” he replied then turned back to me. “We had a few drinks.”
“I told you not to,” I growled.
“I had my reasons.”
Three days had gone by, and in my brother’s green eyes were another few years of maturity. A few more decades of experience in seventy-two hours.
“What did you do?” I practically spit the question in half whisper, half growl.
“I’m just a stupid kid,” he said flatly. “He roofied me.” A little smirk touched his lips, and he didn’t break my gaze.
“And Nortyl’d himself pretty good,” Karen said. “Without that, I don’t think he would have tried to commit suicide. Westonwood’s in big trouble for leaving that stuff where a patient could get to it.”
My gaze didn’t leave Jonathan’s.
“He didn’t try to commit suicide,” I said.
“The Nortyl wiped his memory of everything that night but the need to die,” Jonathan whispered “die” with a pop, as if pulling the trigger on the word.
He’d fooled me, and maybe everyone. He’d never been Warren’s friend. Never believed him, at least not during my second turn in Westonwood. He’d known what Warren did to me—maybe from Margie, maybe from the rumor mill—and had kept it to himself until he could do something about it. The face I saw over the cafeteria table wasn’t sixteen years old. It was a hundred and sixteen.
“You’re scaring me,” I said.
“I was passed out.”
“Alibi notwithstanding, asshole.”
“You know what was weird?” Karen said, still intent on the cantaloupe pieces. She was really making a dent in them. “They fixed the holes in the fence after we left. And there were no new ones. The paramedics spent ten minutes looking for keys then just cut their own hole. No one can figure out how he got back there.” She scrunched her face up as if she was sick. “Oh. I have to lie down.”
“You’re not going to puke, are you?”
“No. It’ll pass. I just…” She didn’t finish but got up and went for the couches, leaving my brother and me alone.
I held up my hand. “Open pledge.”
He held up his hand. “Open for yes or no questions.”
“You don’t get to dictate what you answer.”
“I was passed out. I went up for a drink because I was mad at you and I didn’t believe you. He gave me mine. He drank his. We had a few laughs. I forget the rest. Cameras went back on an hour later, and I was still there. Passed. Out. Ask the cops. Pledge closed.”
“No! You’re leaving stuff out!”
He stood and scooped up his tray. “I love you, sister.”
The bell for afternoon sessions rang.
I grabbed his arm before he could walk away. “Jonathan. Who got to you?”
“You did, stupid.” He kissed my cheek and strode off.
I was supposed to be in group session in five minutes, but all I could do was put the Nortyl and the complex knots together with Jonathan getting Warren out of his room when the cameras were down. Pack that all in a bong and smoke it, and even with the hundred holes in the story, it added up to one thing.
I was loved by a team of smart, shrewd, criminally-inclined vigilantes.
But I was loved.
If I denied that any longer, I was calling them all liars. And if I denied I was worthy of it, I was convincing myself they were delusional and stupid.
I wasn’t lying to myself anymore. Not about that.
60
FIONA
Rumors about Warren were vicious and horrifying. I could tell the truth from the lies, because every detail traced back to someone who loved me.
LIE: Warren was practicing autoerotic asphyxiation.
TRUTH: The knots were so tight they broke skin.
LIE: Warren had been given Nortyl for bipolar disorder.
TRUTH: The rope he’d been tied with wasn’t from anywhere inside the institution.
Bottom line: Warren had been in a state of soul-ripping, mind-blunting pain when he broke his neck, and he woke up dickless. That was all I needed to know.
I didn’t try to get out. Didn’t strategize the right things to say or do. No tricks. No games. Without Warren around, a calm fell over crazytown. No one was
taking off-script drugs or paying for favors in blow jobs. Mark got let go a week after Warren was wheeled away, and couple of guys in security were let go quietly. A PA confessed to getting him pills but swore he never doled out Nortyl. No one believed him.
Sol stayed around. Deanna stayed. There was a rumor Frances had to fight for her job. Elliot was gone.
I knew he was waiting. I told Sol I had someone. He was from outside my world. He was loyal and decent. He set the right path by example, not force, and he loved me. Crazy as it was, he loved me. Of all the world’s gifts, that was the greatest, and I wasn’t going to decide I didn’t deserve it. Only he could decide that, and if he said I was good enough for him, I wouldn’t argue otherwise.
Except when I did. Old habits died hard, but they died.
“Your brother’s getting out in a week,” Sol said from behind his desk.
“I want to to wait for him.”
“That can be arranged. Why?”
“I want to walk him out. And this way we can share a ride.”
“I didn’t know carpooling was so important to you.”
“There are ten of us. Think about it. The Drazen Carpool can probably wean the US off foreign oil.”
He shifted forward. “Besides running the biggest carpooling organization in the country, what are your plans when you leave here?”
“Get lunch?”
He cleared his throat, which was code for, “I get the joke now answer the question.”
I looked out the window. The sky was a flat blue. A black speck of a bird shot across it and was gone. “I think I need help. Deanna talks about meetings. I know the ones in Hollywood. Big celebrities go, and they’re not treated any different. No one notices.” I brushed the velvet pile on the chair until it was all the lightest color. “I need new friends anyway. The ones I have are nuts.”
“You might need a job.”
I laughed. Right. I’d been cut out of Drazen money like an infection. “Yeah. I don’t know. I can sell the condo and a car and invest in something.”