His visions replayed over and over again, and he wondered if he even had the energy to get out of this tiny little bed today. The journey back to Barrows Bay would seem long and troubled but he had nowhere else to go now.
How could this be? What sort of perverse reality was this, to give him the promise of such great happiness only to watch it crumble before him? He had done it again and he still couldn’t understand why.
His cell phone lit up and vibrated. He retrieved the phone from the nightstand.
It was Misti. Thoughts raced, and his fear grew but he answered quietly and tentatively. “Hello?”
“Adam, it’s me. I couldn’t sleep and I’m so ashamed about yesterday. I didn’t mean anything I said. I love you so much, please forgive me and come back here to your home right away. I’m so sorry. I just want you back home.”
“If I had only listened to you …”
“That was yesterday, Adam. And I was wrong. Wrong about so much. About you, about me. About everything. I know that now; it’s just that I was afraid, and I panicked. Afraid of what you might see or think. Afraid that you would see me like I really am and hate me for it. Hate what you saw. Afraid that you would never love me if you saw what I really am.”
“Misti, I …” Adam heard the words, but they didn’t register. “What are you talking about? You didn’t do anything yesterday. I almost killed that guy. And I might have if you hadn’t been around. Do you understand, Misti, I wanted to kill him, and I would have enjoyed it?”
“Listen to me, Adam. Please. I’m trying to tell you something. Something important and you’re not listening. You’re not hearing me.”
Adam stopped, confused and gently said, “Then tell me. Tell me what just happened. I don’t understand.”
“You know so little about me. So very little. There’s so much I need to say, to you, and I should have said something before now. But I wasn’t sure about you and me, and us, so I didn’t say anything. I’m so sorry now.”
“Baby? Adam said slowly, regaining his senses. “I’m still really confused; sweetie and you’re beginning to frighten me a little.”
Misti continued, “Crazy bitch that I am, no wonder. You’re better off with me out of your life. Maybe then …”
“Misti you’re not a bitch, you know that. And we don’t use that word anyway, right?”
“I remember.” Misti’s voice was low and sad. Sadder than Adam thought her capable.
She continued, “I just have to say it now before I lose my nerve. Now that I know and it’s all so clear. I know I don’t need to hide from you – or me, any more. To act like someone else, someone I’ve had to run away from all my life.”
“Baby, please just tell me. Tell me something. What have I done?”
“Nothing Adam, and everything. I thought you were something, maybe just not what I thought. Or hoped. Maybe different and better, not like me. I thought maybe if I loved you, loved you really hard and the best I could that I could be better too. That whatever made you be you, maybe I could be that way too. But I was wrong and that’s OK. It’s better because now I know exactly why I love you and have loved you all my life. Now I know why Papa and Edward kept us apart all those years and why we have to be together now. But there’s something I need to know. And my whole world depends on it.”
“What? Anything? Please just ask, what could it possibly be?”
Misti hesitated, then continued in a rush of confusion, heat and passion. “I just need to know that you still love me and that you’ll always love me no matter what. No matter what I tell you, whatever you learn. I need you to promise. Promise me that.”
“I promise. Of course, I promise. I will always love you, Misti Alarcon. I think I always have. I just didn’t see it. I’m not nearly as smart as you about … this.”
“Come home then. I need to feel your arms around me and to tell you everything. And if you still love me afterwards then we’ll know what we have to do.”
Chapter 52
Adam’s sudden reversal of fortune had his emotions swinging wildly. In his mind, he was hanging on for dear life to his relationship with Misti, not understanding what had just happened with her or why she would feel any shame at all. After all, it was he, Adam, who had gone to his dark place completely unable to restrain his personal Mr. Hyde.
What Adam had said was true; he had hurt Jacoby very badly and enjoyed it. He had ceased to be Adam St. James and suddenly become something else – something he knew he couldn’t, perhaps wouldn’t, ever be able to control. Misti had tried to restrain him but he would have none of it. In that moment and at that time, she simply didn’t exist except as a brief impediment to the fury that he felt raging within. He had wanted to kill Jacoby, to feel his life ooze out as Jacoby came to the final realization that he had fucked with the wrong Poindexter.
On some level, he understood in the moment that what he was doing, and what he was about to do, was wrong. But it hadn’t occurred to him that he should, or even could, stop. It was a mere interesting factoid, an observation of something that could be known and observable. It was data, nothing more.
And his knowledge and that realization didn’t affect his actions in the least.
Later, even when it was over, and he had seen the product of his handiwork, Adam still felt no guilt, no remorse. His only feeling was in response to the look he thought he saw on Misti’s face; alarm, revulsion and sadness. In that moment he felt terrible guilt, not for what he had done to Jacoby, but for how it may have affected Misti. Then a tsunami of terror swept over him as the realization of that consequence crept into his consciousness.
It would be cause and effect, pure and simple.
In his mind, in that great temple of rational thought, unburdened as it has always been with past emotional reflections, he contemplated the notion that what he had acted out might be a terrifying experience for the woman he loved. To be made to watch, to be forced to experience those acts constituting a microcosm of what is worst in humanity, Adam thought he might have to accept what had seemed inevitable; the loss of Misti’s love.
I’m a monster. Even her love cannot save me now. Nor do I wish her ever again to witness the depravity of which I am truly capable. If I really love her, I will move on and let her go so she can be happy. I need to put this part of me away, hidden from the world that cannot even to begin to process who or what I have become. I’m a monster.
He sat alone in his car, now regretting throwing his keys in Misti’s car last night. Would she let him in? Was this some sort of sick penance Misti would make him perform just before cutting him loose, permanently, painfully? Adam gathered his courage then began the short walk up the driveway to the sidewalk still puddled with hardened red black blood. He would have to walk past it to Misti’s front door, to a home he once thought was his own too. But Misti had been very clear yesterday. It wasn’t his home. Maybe it was once, briefly but now could not ever be again. Maybe it never was. Maybe it was just a dim glimmer of hope on a far horizon for a life he had deluded himself into thinking could be his own. Not just any life; no, a happy life.
As he approached, the door swung open and Misti suddenly stood before him. The creature before him looked like Misti anyway. But the creature he saw was unkempt, dishevelled and a hot mess. She moved back from the door, as if recoiling from his sight and daylight. Adam walked in slowly, cautiously, half expecting someone or something to leap out from some hidden vantage point and attack.
What he saw instead was his girlfriend, in obvious pain, crying and unable to stem the flow of sobs that cascaded from her stilting voice. Misti was trying to talk, to say something to Adam but her words could not form. She gasped for air, in and out, but in such huge stutters that coherence wasn’t possible.
Adam’s mind could grasp only one thought: what have I done?
Adam quickly realized that Misti hadn’t recoiled from him; she had just moved to the couch to steady herself. Seated, she could fa
ll no further. He moved to her side and put his arm around her letting her head and her tears lodge safely against his chest. He had no idea what he should do, so he just held her until the tears subsided and she was once again breathing evenly.
Adam smiled as best he could, the kindest he ever could. He held her shoulders squarely and firmly, her head bowed down and tried to make her smile.
“Hey, let me look at my girl,” Adam said tenderly. Misti wouldn’t let their eyes meet, choosing instead to bury her face in his chest. So, he pulled her closer and continued, “What have I done to my girl?”
Chapter 53
“Just hold me, Adam. Promise that you love me now and this horrible, horrible nightmare will just go away forever. Can we start over again before yesterday, like it never happened?”
“Querida, you didn’t do anything wrong yesterday. You tried to save me from myself. But I didn’t listen, and I’m so sorry I didn’t. Now everything has gone so wrong. I’m such an idiot,”
“It wasn’t you, Adam, it was me. I let you hurt that stupid sack of shit. I let you. I could have stopped it, but I didn’t want to. I wanted you to hurt him, to teach that bully a lesson. So, I watched you move around him, taunt him and then beat him. And, I enjoyed it. I could have stood and watched you kill him and I would have done nothing to stop you.”
Misti continued, “I knew what you were going to do as soon as you stepped in the house. Do you think I don’t know that look? Do you think I’ve never seen that look in this family? I’ve seen you, I’ve seen your Dad and I’ve seen Papa. And you all have the same look, that someone-is-going-to-die look. And it doesn’t frighten me. It drives me to places I don’t want to go, to experiences and feelings I know I shouldn’t have. They’re not normal.”
Misti continued, “But then, sometimes, I want to hurt someone too, anyone who crosses my path and tries to hurt the ones I love. I know it’s wrong, so terribly wrong that it doesn’t disturb me. I just know it, know it like an old friend. And I’m OK with that but I shouldn’t be. And I should hate you and me for being the way we are. But I don’t; I love you even more. Because I know that you can see me, see what I really am and still love me. Like this is all normal and OK. For us. It isn’t, is it? This can’t be right.”
Misti had stopped crying and now looked fierce, as fierce as she truly could be when exorcised and focused. It was a look that could be terrible and frightening. There was something in her aspect that Adam had never noticed before, a light behind the curtain of her eyes that he understood all too well.
Suddenly Adam knew what he had to do, he understood this thing that was going to be their life and he decided to act. His mind was somewhere between hoping and knowing he was right and believing that this moment could only come once and that if he missed it, he might lose his girl.
He stood up, turned his back to his woman, and began, “You once told me that I had to be careful, that you were a control freak and I had to watch you very carefully when that part of you surfaced. Was that true?”
Misti reflected for a moment, thinking about what she wanted to say. “I know you’ve had one healthy relationship with a woman who loved you. The others you had before didn’t matter. But that one did.”
“Answer the question,” was Adam’s curt reply.
Misti suddenly changed the tone of her voice and her face became something he didn’t recognize. She lay back on the couch in a pose that emanated power, confidence and disdain. Adam was just now seeing the woman he loved but not the one he thought he knew. That Misti was gone and likely gone for good.
“That is one more than me,” she continued. “Control is what I do. What I am. So yes, what I said was true.”
Adam waited for more. He knew her explanation was far from finished.
“If I want someone, then I do whatever I must to get his attention. Or hers. My little social experiments think they know who I am, a little eccentric and maybe seem a little controlling. But they know nothing. They only think they do.”
Misti’s voice was now chilling, even to Adam.
“And they’re confident that they exercise some control, when they are being controlled – by me. And in time they just let it happen. I don’t know why they do, but they just do. They surrender to me. Or, I suspect, to the promise of me. They always do, these predictable little test tubes so easily led until one day my little experiment with them is over. Then I have no further use for them. Then they’re weak and pitiable and they disgust me.”
Misti paused, thinking of something not then or there present.
She broke her silence and abruptly continued, “Mother saw it and it nearly destroyed her. She died broken hearted and blamed America for the creature I had become. Papa saw it too, so he had to leave. Ran away to Blaine. Far enough, yet close enough – just in case. He couldn’t be around the pain I so seemed to so frequently enjoy doling out.
“Papa. So big, so mean, yet so powerless to stop his little girl. He just couldn’t watch it anymore, so he turned me over to Edward, your papa, to fix.”
Her tone softened, if only slightly. “Which brings us to your Daddy. Curious how Edward has this uncanny ability to peer into the mind of lost souls and see what he needs to see, then carry on. No judgement, just observation. The hallmark of a true scientist applied to people. Great men can do that; lesser men wonder how.
“Then your daddy catalogs his snapshots, using one, then another, but always with the intention of employing some interesting little foible or skill later when that is what he needs. Do you understand?”
“I think I do,” Adam said honestly. “But Dad confuses me; his motives are so seldom clear to me. Or to our family.”
Misti continued, “Have you ever wondered why everyone is so afraid of your Dad? Well now you know. Your father is not a monster. Far from it, but he could be. And he has been but then you already know that, don’t you? You see it, you sense it and it repulses you. But it shouldn’t, Adam my love. It shouldn’t.
“Edward doesn’t frighten me. I love your father. He knows who and what I am, and loves me for it, not despite it. Not like Mother and Papa. Until you, your father was the only man I ever felt safe with. Truly and utterly safe. There were nights I cried wishing he had been my father, not yours.”
Misti began to tear up again, kept her composure and said, “He looked into my soul and to my great shock and surprise, he knew who and what I was right away. But he also saw something beautiful, something rare and someone who needed to be nurtured and loved. And then trained with rigorous and unflinching discipline. Harsh discipline if necessary. That was what your father did for me. I can never repay him.”
Misti stopped, reflecting on her thoughts and carefully choosing her words to convey the emotion and meaning she felt.
“Mother and Papa thought the world would be better off with me locked up. They wanted to fix me. There is no fixing me, Adam. This is what I am, a predator in a world filled with prey. Sometimes evil prey. A warrior for everything I can never be. An asset Edward hoped he would never have to use but would without hesitation, to do the things that he knows need to be done.”
Misti looked up at Adam, searching his face and his aspect for acceptance and understanding. Understanding deep inside where he, too, could now accept her as she truly was. Just like Edward, his father.
Seeing everything she needed to see, she said, “Your Dad never wasted his time on repairs. For God’s sake, why would he bother? That’s like asking a duck to be a cow. Edward wanted to mold me, channel me and create a useful human tool – a sociopath for God. So, when I was eight years old and you had just saved me from that bully on a warm spring day in a Seattle public park, he sat me down and told me what his plan for me was and what I would have to do. Then he told Papa and let him know that this was the only way, the only path for his little girl. Papa knew that Edward was right and for the next fifteen years your Daddy watched me, guided me, trained me and educated me.
“So, he demanded more of me than he ever did of you. He pushed me and then whispered in my ear that if I didn’t fail him, then at the end of an endless trail of discovery, I would find something important. It would be my path to self-actualization – the consciousness of my core being and my purpose in life. Then and only then, he would give me the only gift he knew that I truly treasured – you.
“And now he has summoned me, and you, and everyone else he has so assiduously collected over his long life for the tasks laid before us. And he kept his promise – to me and to you, though you never knew what he intended. For us.
“I was wrong yesterday to deny myself, and you, the knowledge of who we really are. I had a lapse, a momentary foolish thought that we could be something we aren’t and live some kind of normal family life apart from a world that was never meant for us. But this world, this life and our existence and the happiness we crave was never meant for us. Not like for the others.
“We are good people, Adam; but, as well, we are monsters. I only hope that we can become what Edward foresaw us to be, when we were children, not knowing then but praying in his own solitary way for an eventual union; the one that would give meaning to his life and achieve happiness for his children. All the children in his snapshots are now present and we are them.
“Edward feared he alone would be equal to the task of understanding and accepting the immense burden and responsibility of this new thing, this immeasurably consequential discovery. But together with his family, his “children” we could together fulfill a destiny he hoped would reveal itself one day on his long journey back to your mother, Anna.”
Misti’s sat back on the couch, looking at her Adam, eyes filled with a lightness of spirit, of love and that certain calmness that only comes from the release of a great and terrible burden.
Discovery Page 31