Girl On the Edge

by CD Reiss

  The sound of his screams wasn’t in my ears but my mind, splitting it apart with rage. I didn’t like hurting him, but I didn’t have a choice. He’d shred me from the inside if he detected a weakness.

  “Again.”

  “Caden.”

  I pressed her down so I could plant myself in the deepest part of her.

  But when she kissed me?

  He lost his mind in a whirlwind, and for the first time, I felt guilty.

  * * *

  In the morning, I told her I was going for a jog. She believed me, because why wouldn’t she?

  Between my time in the corners of Caden’s mind and the night I’d emerged, most of my memory was lost. I couldn’t remember any specific situations or words from when I lived in the darkness. I didn’t remember places or names. I remembered loving Greysen and the feeling of being in eternal torment.

  When Caden had first heard me in the corners of his mind, he didn’t know that I existed or what I was. He didn’t know the torture of the bag, the psychic silence that had its own physical form, the way I could almost touch certain frequencies and shades. He didn’t know what it felt like to get out long enough to be heard.

  But I didn’t know what I’d sounded like. I didn’t understand the feeling of living on one plane while being invaded by another. My reality was the exact opposite. But for all its lack of experience and sensory input, I’d known what the hell was going on.

  I put in earbuds and moved the pocket radio dial between stations, picking up the bell curve of signal, with a classical station on one end, a Spanish station on the other, and static for most of it.

  Going south along the park, I entered at the 79th Street transverse. I cut right after West Drive and entered the Ramble, a net of tight paths slicing through a dense urban forest. I was alone. In the earbuds, a few notes of piano turned into a few words in Spanish and back to nothing but white noise and the deep huffs of my own breathing.

  “I know you’re there,” I said.

  The static changed in pitch, then dropped back.

  “Listen. You can hear me. I know you can. I was you.”

  Whoosh. A steady buzz blew through the space between stations.

  “Right. Okay. Listen.” I stepped onto a narrow asphalt strip. “This doesn’t have to be bad. We can work through it.”

  The extra hiss was steady.

  “You’re stronger in the morning. Tomorrow, when the sun comes up, I want to talk. I want to broker a peace. A truce.”

  No change.

  A skinny kid in last night’s club kit walked by, smoking a cigarette. I jogged, slowing when I was alone again.

  “This is about Greysen. I get it.”

  The sun was up fully, but it was still too low to warm me.

  “I know it’s going to sound weird telling you this, but it’s your body too. You shouldn’t be mad. She loves you, but she loves me too.”

  A deafening screech stabbed my ears. I yanked out the earbuds.

  I stood in the dappled sunlight, holding the white buds by the cord.

  When I had been locked in the darkness, I couldn’t have done that.

  * * *

  Caden got quieter as the day went on, and when the sun set, he was gone completely. Greysen came up from the office as I was making dinner.

  “What’s that smell?”

  “Garlic and ginger.”

  She lifted the lid of the sauté pan and let the steam rise over her face. “Wow. That’s amazing.”

  I took the lid away and replaced it, kissing the condensation off her lips. “Can you get wine?”

  “Sure.” She went to the wine fridge and pulled out a bottle. “I’ve never seen you cook something so exotic.”

  “One of us has to start experimenting around here.”

  “I haven’t killed you yet, Captain.” She clicked around the drawer for the bottle opener. I reached in and pulled it out from under a whisk. “Thank you.”

  She held her face up for another kiss, and I obliged. When she placed her hand on the bottle neck, the stove lights glinted off her ring.

  She saw me looking at it as she cut the foil. “I’m still not used to it.”

  “It really suits you.”

  She drove the screw in, put the ledge against the rim, and pulled, but the cork didn’t cooperate.

  “Here,” I said, trying to take the bottle away.

  “Back up, soldier. I have it.”

  “Really, I—”

  She twisted her body around so I couldn’t reach, even with my arms all the way around her, while she giggled, sticking the bottle between her legs and pulling.

  “Let me help you.” I tickled her, but she wouldn’t give up.

  “Stand down!” she cried through hysterics. “Stand down!”

  Pop. The cork came out.

  She held her arms up, impaled cork in one hand, vanquished bottle in the other. “Victory is mine!”

  “Fine.” I put two glasses on the counter, feeling somehow like the cork. As if I’d put up a fight and lost. She poured while I tended to the simmering chicken.

  “You going to work tomorrow?” she asked, picking up her glass and handing me mine. We clinked.

  “I have to keep a roof over our heads.”

  What happened to her face could have been described as “falling” or “darkening,” but I didn’t know what I’d done wrong.

  “When was the last time you went to Blackthorne for treatments?” she asked into her glass.

  “I don’t remember.”

  “So, you were Caden… the other Caden?”

  “I assume.”

  She put her glass down with a deliberate silence. “You need to make your next appointment.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m going to wash up. I think the rice needs attention.”

  She pointed at the saucepot on the back burner. It was boiling over, frothing and hissing against the stove.

  * * *

  It was deep into midmorning when the beeper went off. Caden hadn’t pushed against me, so there had been no talk of a truce. With Greysen and I twisted together on the bed after falling in and out of slumber and each other’s bodies for hours, I no longer wanted to negotiate.

  She sat up. “Is that your beeper?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh my God, I’m wiped out.” She threw herself back on her pillow, and I looked at the number on the little black box.

  “I have to go in.” My muscles were heavy with sleep, and my eyelids wanted to close. I rubbed fog out of my eyes. “Jesus, that… you. Last night.”

  “Mm-hmm.” Her smile transformed her face.

  “I think I’m supposed to get a full four hours sleep before I go on call.”

  She pulled my pillow to her chest and hugged it. “Just tell them you can’t. They’ll find someone.”

  “I’ll go in and see what it is first.”

  * * *

  Unstable angina discovered during heart failure. Four solidly clogged arteries. Relatively young and fit otherwise. I could do this. Five and a half hours, then I could crash.

  Really, it wasn’t a big deal.

  The patient had been prepped and anesthetized with a curtain between my line of sight and his face because we liked to pretend we didn’t cut open real people.

  The nurses called out vitals, and the anesthesiologist called out his own stats. My assisting was an older doctor who smiled at me under his mask. I’d met him in the scrub room. He’d offered to assist because he’d heard about me and had to see my artistry for himself.

  “It’s a go,” I said, holding out my right hand. “Scalpel.”

  The tool was pressed into my hand.

  Careful.

  The voice was my own but not. It was his, and it came in the time between the beeps of the heart monitor. I glanced at the screen. It looked fine.

  I pressed the blade to the skin.

  It hurts.

  I stopped. This time, the voice came from the hiss of the anesth
esia tank.

  Not me.

  I handed the scalpel back. “Can I have a new one, please?”

  “Yes, doctor.”

  On the tail end of the last syllable of the nurse’s last word, his voice came again.

  When you open them, it hurts.

  A scalpel was placed in my hand, and without question, the voice was Caden.

  Except I was Caden.

  I smiled at my assisting and put the blade to skin again. I knew what to do, and I knew how to do it, but the gravity of cutting someone open froze me.

  It hurts you.

  I knew what he meant because he was inside me. Cutting people open hurt the soul. It broke a man into his component parts and spread them apart so they couldn’t hear each other scream.

  I cleared my throat. Stood straight. Placed the scalpel back on the tray. “I need a minute.”

  * * *

  “What the fuck was that?” Abramson blew into the lounge like a four-star general after a lost battle. I was just coming out of the toilet. It was seven in the morning, and he stank of aftershave.

  “That was me not puking on the patient.”

  Abramson sat on the bench, shaking his head.

  I stood at the end of the row of lockers. One was mine. How long would it be before I knew what was mine and what wasn’t? Just when I thought I had this under control, the simplest things caught me off guard.

  “What’s been with you lately?” he asked.

  I’m not myself.

  I don’t feel well.

  I’m still adjusting to being home.

  Any one of those would have been sufficient, but Caden would never admit to a feeling, much less a weakness.

  “Nothing,” I said, knowing he would have been cleverer in his denial. “You all right? How’s the family?”

  “Joy of my life.” His tone was flat, as if he was dismissing my question. With that, I stopped thinking about Caden’s locker and let his body find it. “How’s Greysen adjusting to civilian life?”

  “Good.”

  The combination was set to zeroes, of course. And, of course, the combination was one of the things I hadn’t retained.

  “They’re talking about making you head of thoracic.”

  I turned to him. Heads of departments didn’t have to see patients. Didn’t have to cut living people open. I could.

  But first, Abramson.

  What would Caden say? How would he react?

  He’d think he was entitled to the promotion.

  “Let me know when they stop thinking about it.” My fingers knew the combination, clicking it into place and snapping the padlock open.

  “When you stop bailing on quads, that’s when.”

  “I must be coming down with a stomach virus.”

  I opened the locker door and was knocked over by the smell of Greysen’s perfume. It was heaven on earth. A reminder of why I lived and breathed.

  “And looking behind you all the time,” Abramson continued. “Staring into corners. That sorta thing.”

  I took out the suit and considered what Abramson said. Caden must have been seeing and hearing me. I wanted to reassure my boss. That was my instinct, and again, it wouldn’t be Caden’s. “Am I being considered for head of thoracic or head of Not-Staring-Into-Corners?”

  “They’re worried you have PTSD.”

  I closed the locker. I didn’t know how Caden would answer that, and I didn’t care.

  “I’d like to see one of those suits do combat surgery in Fallujah and not have PTSD.” Fuck this. I didn’t want the damn suit. I grabbed my duffel instead and clicked the locker shut. “Eight days.” I slid the padlock back in and snapped it closed. “I stood over bodies shredded and burned, choosing between legs and arms for eight days.” I spun the combination, leaving a random row of numbers. “So, yeah. Maybe I have PTSD. I’m still the best.”

  That sounded exactly like him. Perfect.

  “No one said you’re crazy.”

  “I’ll say it then. I’m crazy. But if you need someone to lead the department, you’re not going to do better than me.” I slung the duffel over my shoulder. “And I’m taking a few days off to shit out this virus.”

  “Take the rest of the week.” He pressed his hands against his knees to stand. “Whatever you got in your gut, we don’t need it.”

  “I’d shake your hand, but…”

  “Go. Please.”

  We saluted each other, and I rushed out as if I had a virus to manage.

  On the way out, I reviewed how I’d done. I’d been arrogant and entitled. I’d said I was the best. Even when I was talking about Fallujah, I hadn’t admitted weakness.

  I liked being Caden.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  GREYSEN

  Leslie Yarrow was finally opening up, but not about the abuse she’d hinted at in our first session. She still pretended that had never happened.

  “It was like this part of me that I had to keep hidden had had enough.” She tapped her thumbs together, opting for the chair opposite my desk as opposed to the couch. Most of my military patients did. “You know, she was, like, ‘Get outta the way. I’m coming through.’”

  “And how did she manifest?”

  Yarrow was my first PTSD patient with a personality disassociation as distinct and high-functioning as my husband’s.

  “She started creeping up on me at night. Like she was a ghost or something. She’d get stronger and louder, then she’d go away.”

  “What made her go away?”

  Yarrow shrugged and looked at anything but me. My mind listed questions inappropriately leading to whether she hurt her wife to get rid of the “ghost.”

  “Beer.” She kept her face down. Drinking was as shameful to her as masochism was to me. “Lots of beer.”

  “And what about the beer made it stop?”

  “Well, she didn’t like it. It made her hide. Good Lord, I feel like I’m talking complete nonsense.”

  “You’re not,” I reassured her. “Trust me. You’re not the only one.”

  * * *

  There wasn’t much in the fridge for lunch. I could go to the Korean joint around the corner, order in, or make something from scratch, which wasn’t how I wanted to spend my free hour.

  The front door opened as I was on my way out. My husband came in from the rain. I was getting so used to his face as Damon that nothing about his posture or face seemed wrong or different.

  “Hey, what are you doing home?” I kissed the storm off his lips.

  “I took the week off.” He kissed the storm onto my neck and shrugged off his wet coat.

  “Why?”

  Arms around me, wet face buried in my neck, he said, “Let’s go on vacation.”

  I wedged my hands between us, laying them flat on his chest. “I have sessions.”

  “Cancel them.” He kissed my ear, down my neck, to the place where it met the edge of my sweater.

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “People depend on me to keep my appointments. Speaking of…” He pulled up my sweater, and I encouraged him by running my fingers through his hair. “The Blackthorne office called. You had an appointment yesterday. You missed it.”

  “Oh, really?” He pushed my bra up and sucked a hard nipple. This was going all the way. “I’ll reschedule.”

  “You should tell them what you’ve been experiencing.”

  “After I take you to bed.” He popped my buttons and slid his hand under my panties.

  “I have forty-five minutes.”

  * * *

  His toes leveraged against the mattress, holding my knees up over the bed, he went in slowly, as if savoring every inch, then he pushed deep,. That had been the pace since we got to the bedroom, and I loved it… at night.

  “Ten minutes,” I groaned, bemoaning the lack of shower time. I didn’t want to go into session smelling freshly fucked.

  He stood over me, grinding at the same tortuous pace. I jerked my hips
, thrusting faster.

  “Don’t rush.”

  Don’t rush? Annoyance pushed arousal to the side.

  “Rush or get off me.”

  He was shocked at first, stopping deep, then he pulled out and thrust forward hard, tightening his grip on my thighs enough to hurt, face clenching with effort.

  “Yes,” I groaned, touching his jaw. “Make it hurt.”

  Before I had a chance to register what was happening, he thrust again, leaning on my legs until they were bent against my chest, his fingers digging painfully into my skin.

  So good. It was so good.

  “Greysen,” he said through his teeth.

  “God, yes!”

  In that position, he fucked me hard and fast.

  On the tail end of it, with the pain of his fingers sweeping the orgasm away, his face held me still. He wasn’t Damon. He wasn’t Caden. He was both and neither. Red-skinned with effort, jaw tight, eyes open but looking inward with a desperate intensity. He let go of my legs and came inside me, tensing and relaxing.

  Blood draining from his face, he dropped his head. I couldn’t see him. I tried to make him look at me, putting my hands on his cheeks and forcing his face up. He resisted.

  “Look at me,” I demanded.

  He wouldn’t.

  Rotating my hips, I flipped him over until I was straddling him. He hadn’t expected it, so he didn’t resist. Once he was on his back, there was no point in pretending I couldn’t see his face.

  He was Damon. He’d asked me to call him Caden, but it was Damon.

  “What just happened?” I asked.

  “I hurt you.”

  “Did you?”

  “I’m not doing it again.” He pushed me off. “So, don’t ask.”

  I got on my feet and pulled my clothes on. The silence between us was pounded away by the rain tapping against the windows. He was on his back, feet dangling off the edge of the bed, hands over his eyes.

  “You have the right to say no,” I said, pulling on my shirt. “But something else happened.”

  “Yeah.”

  No elaboration followed.

  “You need to reschedule Blackthorne for this week.”