by Ellery Fenn
“What now?” I asked.
“Well we can’t get it to the station on our own, so I’ll have Pat bring his car. You good without me for a minute?”
I didn’t mind being alone, I realized as she flew away. But I’d rather be alone with her.
I walked slowly back to the creek. I’d been in awe, watching from behind the boulder as Lisa took on Doug, venting everything she wanted to say to him, terrifying him. Her cold, emotionless affect was impressive. But I couldn’t unhear the tremble in her voice. He’d hurt her in the worst way anyone could.
I wanted him to hurt to the same degree.
The creek was slowing, preparing for fall. Few salmon traveled through today, only a couple late comers on their way to die.
I scooped up a fish, the midday sun glinting off the silver scales. I settled in to watch the water and eat.
It was thirty minutes or so before Pat and Lisa came into the clearing. He took the journal as Lisa lamented over Clarisse being grounded. He didn’t seem as scared of me as he had. The makeup must’ve been more effective than I thought. He promised to drop the book off at the station when he got out of school and left.
The afternoon passed quietly. I scavenged for fish as Lisa constructed boats of twigs and leaves. The breeze had a bite to it today, but neither of us were bothered by the cold.
“I wonder how long it’ll be before we hear anything,” Lisa mused.
She was anxious to spy at the station, but for some reason I couldn’t determine, she refrained. Whatever her motivation, I was glad to see her stay.
One of her twigs ripped through a leaf. “Damn it.” She threw her project in the creek. Her face was torn as she spoke. “I never really thought that it hurt you too.” I angled toward her. “I mean, I didn’t know who you were for ages, but even then. I just assumed your memories started after death. I’m sorry for being so unhelpful.”
Her sojourn and silence suddenly made sense. She was in pain.
“You beat yourself up.”
“Pretty pathetic, isn’t it?”
“No.”
“I’d be a mess without you, honestly.”
My heart softened as I watched her sit cross-legged in front of me. I didn’t understand how someone like her could rely on someone like me.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I wish I could just drop it, but I feel like we’ve opened the flood gates, you know?”
I felt like a stripped electrical wire, raw and dangerous, aching to be connected to the one who’d complete my circuit. I nodded.
She sighed. “I just want to say thank you. For the other day, helping me realize it wasn’t my fault. I blamed myself so much I wasn’t sure we were doing the right thing. If it was my fault, why should he got to jail? Why should I hurt him?” She tucked her milky hair behind her ear. “But you were right. He’s to blame. It’s not my fault I got ruined.”
I blinked in surprise. This whole time, she considered herself ruined, and I didn’t even notice. “Why- why you feel ruined?”
She looked as surprised as I felt. “’Cause I am.”
We still didn’t understand each other. “How?”
“By Doug! What he did, you know, defiled me.”
“How?” I couldn’t wrap my head around it.
She frowned. “What don’t you get?”
I shook my head. It hurt to know that she thought of herself that way. “Why his actions ruin you?” Phantom hands hit me.
She shrugged. “That’s just how it works. When someone’s touched like that, they’re not clean anymore. It’s a dirty thing and it makes them dirty. You wouldn’t want to eat a cupcake someone else licked.” She didn’t allow me a moment to question her nonsensical analogy. “They’re ruined.”
Ruined. Defiled. Soiled. Her words spun through my head. If she believed a body being touched in that way lowered the value of that body, then what must she think of me? I gazed at my legs. “I’m the one he touched.”
“What’re you getting at?”
“If what he touched is ruined, then I’m ruined, not you.”
Doug. It all came back to Doug, every time. The cause of all our pain. The orchestrator of our demise. Rage burned me. If she felt ruined, then I wanted Doug to feel the same. How dare he do this to her? To us?
She stared at me in shock. “What? No. You’re not- you’re not ruined. Of course not. You’re amazing.”
She hadn’t made the connection, hadn’t seen the double standard she employed to accuse herself. “How?”
She threw her hands in the air. “You are! Don’t deny it. You’re wise and strong and caring and ugh… you’re just amazing, okay?” Her cheeks sparkled with blush.
I was surprised for a moment that she thought of me that way. I ate rotten fish. “Not what I mean. If I’m the one touched, and I’m not ruined, why you ruined?”
A frown spread across her face. Ah. She’d seen the double standard, and she didn’t care. It was justification for her feelings.
“Why do you have to be so logical?” she grumbled.
A laugh bubbled from me. How could she consider a zombie logical?
She groaned. “It was easier just believing I was bad! I mean, I’ve hated myself my whole life, it’s just second nature by now. And here you come with a sledgehammer, knocking down my excuses and telling me I’m a good person. I mean, why do you care?”
My back stiffened. I was cornered, and couldn’t come up with anything in time. “I-I care about you.” I wished I could take back the words the second they left my mouth. Why couldn’t I keep my twisted feelings to myself?
She folded her arms with a blush. “Do you love yourself?”
I couldn’t see the connection, but hesitantly nodded.
“Well that’s easy for you, cause you’re amazing.”
“Not like you,” I murmured under my breath.
“What?”
I met her gaze like an animal in headlights. Words came without me approving them, spilling from my tongue despite the pain of speaking. “You’re amazing.”
She looked at the ground. “You’re just saying that.”
“How you not see?” I vainly wished to be mute, if only to keep the words inside me. “You’re light and beauty. Freedom. Feeling. Bright sun. Kind. Caring. Not love you? Imposs’ble. And-” My involuntary speech ignored the strain of my vocal cords. “If you love me and I love you and we’re one being, that being loves itself. All itself. No ‘xceptions.”
I forced in a deep breath. How little self-control I had, to blurt out my innermost feelings at the slightest provocation. I couldn’t look at her, couldn’t acknowledge the betrayal that must’ve shown on her face.
“Y-you love me?”
“Not the point,” I snapped.
She ignored my tone. “That was your point. Loving yourself is loving each other and loving each other is loving yourself, because we’re two halves of one whole. If part of the whole is amazing, you, and that amazing part loves the other part, then the other part has no excuses to not love herself.” She slowed to a quiet stop. “You love me.” I steeled myself for the accusation. “Why? Why? Why couldn’t we be different people and meet in college or something? Why couldn’t I… ugh, if you love me, there goes my last excuse.”
My head reeled. For some unknown reason, she didn’t hate me. She wasn’t revolted by my attraction. I shook my head, desperately attempting to order my thoughts, and addressed only the last statement. “What ‘xcuse?”
“I don’t know if you remember, but- but well, there’s certain people that other people don’t like. And I don’t know why. I mean, I thought it was ‘cause it’s bad, but if you…” She took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. Her face became still, soft and open like a flower. “I’m a lesbian.”
She stared out at the busy green forest, at the overlapping leaves and branches that obscured us from the world.
“And you can literally do no wrong, and you love me, and that means you like girls and you’re not bad for
it, then why would I be bad for it?” She paused. “Unless, unless. Unless you don’t love me in that way.”
There was fear in her voice. Fear that she said too much, fear that she assumed, even though she intuited the exact truth. And fear that I didn’t return her feelings.
The electric wire short circuited. She wasn’t revolted by my love. She wanted me. If I understood correctly, she loved me. The glorious, unending natural wonder of the world that she was, loved me.
My reservations and worries of the wrongness of such feelings faded away. How could they be wrong if we both felt them? Both of us couldn’t be perverted, could we? And if we both were, did it matter?
I hurried back to her words. There was a question in there, a worry.
“Oh!” I leaned forward. “In every way!”
She pulsed with light and collapsed into herself, hugging her arms around her body. She was happy, happier than I’d ever seen her, and somehow, I was the cause of that joy. “I never thought someone would really love me.”
I placed my palm against her cheek. She clutched at my hand and leaned into it with eyes closed. The touch was electric, our wires connecting in perfect harmony.
Chapter Thirty-two
Lisa
The setting sun danced in Corrie’s eyes like light glinting off obsidian. I’d always hated those eyes when I saw them in the mirror. How had I never realized how gorgeous they were?
She loved me. Corrie loved me. Me, of all people. Me, Lisa. And her, Corrie. How could she love me? She loved me!
I love you. The words swirled through my head, gaining speed with each pass, sending waves of happiness flooding through my body. I love you. Every last molecule of me, my fingers, and my hair, filled with it. I was happier than I’d ever been, ever thought possible.
A memory crossed my mind. I was a kid, sitting in church. The preacher was talking about the Rapture, about how wonderful it would be, how amazing and breathtaking and the best thing we’d ever experience. He was wrong. That wasn’t the best thing ever. This was. Forget Jesus. I just wanted Corrie.
Her eyes widened. I was spreading out again, coils of mist flowing from me. There was no way I could contain it all, no way to keep it to myself.
A blaze of light flashed from my chest. Corrie shielded her eyes and fell back against the dirt. I soared outward like a butterfly spreading its wings, like a star going nova. I reached out to Corrie, to my friends, to the sun, the moon, the stars.
I spread into the forest, past the forest and into the city. I filled the world. I could hear the trees and the deer and the salmon, feel them almost like they were part of me, like feeling my fingers or toes without seeing them. I didn’t only hear them or feel them, I knew them. I knew them as much as I knew myself. And wow, did I know myself.
I could see the entirety of mine and Corrie’s existence, going backward through the millennia. We’d been one being for so long, in a million different forms.
I felt nameless, eternal, and dying. The world was so full of love, more than anything, love. Or maybe I was feeling my love for Corrie.
I condensed until I was back where I started, floating above the clearing. Corrie stared up in wonder at me. My heart did a little flip when I saw her. I gently lowered down. She looked so small and strange, like I was seeing her with brand-new eyes. I was brand-new.
“Lisa?”
“And more.”
“How?”
My laughter echoed farther than should’ve been possible. “I don’t know.”
She played her fingers through my shapeless mist. The touch sparked inside me, reached through me to fill every molecule with pleasure. Corrie and I. Her and me. We were meant to be together. We’d always been together.
I shaped back into Lisa and sat in front of her, beaming from ear to ear. “Wow.”
She nodded, her mouth still hanging open. “What?”
“It was amazing. I remember. Not a lot, but I remember. It’s kind of fading now, but I knew everything. I felt everything. And I- we! We’ve been thousands of things before being Lisa. And there’s always been this disconnect between the physical and nonphysical. We never understood each other. That’s why we split.” I held her hand. “That’s why we’re together.”
Chapter Thirty-three
Corrie
Lisa’s mouth met mine.
She glowed with a brightness I’d never seen before, stronger and softer than the sun and the moon and the stars, radiating warmth until I felt something shift within me, awakening, beginning, like conception, like waking up to the sun, like oxygen touching fire. It was a heart struggling to beat, blood reluctant to flow, but finally, finally, like the start of the universe, the muscle pumped a ream of blood through every vein and capillary, bringing an unknown energy to the farthest reaches, flushing through every cell. But blood itself is nothing without air.
I broke free and inhaled.
Chapter Thirty-four
Lisa
I heard Corrie’s heart start. Her lungs filled with air like water rushing into the valley when the dam broke. Blood bloomed into her cheeks and across every inch of her skin. Warmth radiated from her.
Alive. She was alive! Flesh, nerves, sinews, everything tingling with electricity.
Her pupils expanded. “Lisa?” Her voice was smooth. She smiled at her body. “Lisa, I’m alive! I feel, I feel amazing!” She gasped for air. “Breathing feels so good, and my heart.” She placed a hand over her chest. “I’m alive. I can’t believe it. You brought me back to life!”
I wrapped my hand around her neck. She was warm, so warm it almost burned me. My stomach flipped, but I couldn’t tell if it was a good flip or a bad one. “I didn’t do anything.”
“But you did! You kissed me and my heart started beating. I know what you mean now, what you said, about us being one.” She grabbed my hands. “Feel my pulse? You did that!” She pressed a quick kiss to my lips before standing. She wobbled for a second before walking, then running, skipping, splashing through the creek.
“Be careful.”
“I feel you in my head. I feel you even though I’m not touching you.” She ran back to me and grabbed my hands, spinning me wildly around her. “Isn’t this great? No more dead fish or maggots. No more of that smell.”
“But I like the way you smell.”
She slowed. “Really?”
I nodded. “It smells nice to me, kind of sweet. I like it because it smells like you. And… I thought you liked being a zombie.”
She dropped my hands. “I thought you wanted this.”
“I want you. I can feel you in me, so close to being one, to joining together and moving on, but. But I felt, before when I was…” I waved my hand vaguely. “Big Lisa, I had this feeling that neither of us are supposed to be alive. That this is the end for us. That we die.”
I heard her heart stutter to a stop.
Chapter Thirty-five
Doug
Breakfast tasted like mud.
“Eat up honey, you need your strength.”
“Not hungry.” I pushed the plate away with my good arm.
Heath snatched it. “More for me.”
Dad’s office door opened. “Doug.”
“Yeah?”
“Come here.”
His office was thick with smoke. He paced by the bookshelves filled with untouched books.
“Have a seat,” he mumbled around a cigarette.
I lit one myself and took a long, deep drag, feeling my lungs fill with smoke. I held it for a moment before exhaling.
“Those things’ll kill you.”
I shrugged. “What did you want to see me about?”
He drummed his fingers on a stack of unopened National Geographic’s. “Someone dropped off your journal at the station yesterday.”
“What?” I was on my feet in a second. “What happened?” After all that, she still turned it in.
He shook his head. “Calm down. I just got off the phone with Adam.”
“What can he do about it?”
“Not do. Did. And he didn’t do shit.”
“I don’t get it.”
He blew consecutive smoke rings that dissipated over his head. “You know that store I was going to open in Oak Grove?”
“What about it?”
“It ain’t going to happen, cause of your stupidity.”
“Just talk straight.”
“Don’t talk back to me. I gave all that money to Detective Miller, as soon as I found out someone had your journal.”
The cigarette twitched on my lip. “And?”
He shrugged. “I gave it to him when he promised to not use your journal as evidence.”
“And he agreed?”
“Yep. Adam just double-checked.”
I dropped into the chair with a deep exhale. My arm hurt, but I was too relieved to care. “You’re a miracle, Dad.”
“No. I’m just an investor and I expect to be paid back with interest.”
“Absolutely. Just as soon as I’m playing big league.”
He nodded. “Yeah. You better.”
I couldn’t help the smile that spread across my face. “We’re in the final stretch now.”
“You better hit a home run.”
Chapter Thirty-six
Corrie
Lisa was absent for longer than usual in the morning. I couldn’t be sure if my sense of time was correct however, as even a second away from her felt like eternity.
I placed a hand over my silent chest. The memory of blood rushing through my veins and air rushing through my lungs and me rushing through the forest was vivid and insistent, and entirely unwanted. I wasn’t supposed to be alive now. That was over.
I’d found a dead opossum early that morning and was satiated. But I wasn’t satisfied. My body buzzed, anxious at being apart from Lisa, anxious for us to be joined as one, as we never had before. I pressed my hand against my shaking leg.