Elastic Heart

by Mary Catherine Gebhard

  “I don’t need help,” I said, averting my eyes. I struggled to pull free of him, ripping my shoulders from his grasp again. I looked through the window to see Morris and his family getting up from their brunch. Fuck! I kicked a loose piece of debris. I’d missed my opening.

  “What you don’t need is to go full kamikaze on this!” Law yelled. I glared at him. I’d had enough of him and his righteousness. He had no inkling of what I was going through. He didn’t understand the black quicksand pulling me under. Law saw me like others saw endangered tigers at a zoo. They watched through plexiglass, always safe from danger but close enough to feel like they were doing something.

  Grabbing my gun and shoving it into my bag, I attempted to brush past him when he said, “There are other ways to get revenge.”

  “True revenge consumes the spirit,” I whispered, eyes trained on the exit.

  Law pulled me to him and stroked my cheek. “I won’t let this consume you. Your heart is too beautiful.”

  “You know nothing of my heart!” I yelled, pushing off his chest. As I made my way out of the old building I added, “Or what’s left of it.”

  “Everything is left of it, it’s just a little shadowed right now.” At his words I gripped my hands into white fists, unsure of what I was going to do. The tug of war between Law and me had snapped. He acted all knowing, but he was veiled. I wasn’t shadowed; I was utterly consumed. The door to hell had opened and I’d fallen through head first. I was living among the fire and brimstone and he thought there was hope?

  “I think we have our wires crossed, Law,” I gritted, spinning around to glare at him. “I made a mistake with you, and that’s my fault, so let me clear it up. There is nothing between us. Just because I let myself give in to my self-loathing and misery for a few moments when you were around doesn’t mean I like you. In fact, I hate you. I hate all guys like you. Our kiss disgusted me and the sooner you get that through your skull, the sooner you can stop skulking around like some fucking lost dog, got it?” The words cut through me like a chainsaw on a mission. They had a mind of their own and were using my mouth like a puppet.

  I saw pain in Law’s eyes, sharp and clear like the sky after rain. When the pain disappeared, I swallowed the guilt.

  “You’re right Nami,” Law said. His voice was hoarse, like he’d been coughing. Only seconds ago it had been full and robust, like usual. Now he sounded sick. “We do have our wires crossed. You’ve misread pity for concern. I pity you, Nami. I don’t care for you.”

  And I thought my words had hurt. Law’s statement absolutely eviscerated me. I knew it wasn’t fair. What I had said to him was cheap and meant only to wound. I didn’t realize how accustomed I’d grown to his blanketing presence until he’d taken it away. Now I was bitter and cold and reality was once again shoved in my face.

  I licked my dry lips, trying to do something until words came to my head. I didn’t know how to respond to him. He’d hurt me, but I didn’t want him to know that. I didn’t want him to think he had any sway with me. I didn’t want to acknowledge that he had any sway with me.

  “Well,” I eventually said, voice cracking despite my best efforts. “So glad we got that cleared up.” I spun around and went out to the parking lot.

  I stomped through the empty storefront, rejoicing as my feet crunched over bits of broken glass. When I made it outside, it had just begun to snow. Thick, puffy snowflakes landed and for a moment I was reminded of Raskol. He loved the snow. I shook the thought loose and pulled out my keys, ready to go home and drink this shitty day into oblivion.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” I jumped at his voice, dropping my keys. Sighing, I got to my knees to search under my car. For someone who had been about to commit murder only moments before, I sure wasn’t very composed. With my hand aimlessly grappling under the car, I said to Law, “Why the fuck are you still here?”

  “I don’t like how we left things.” Law leaned lackadaisically against my car, like he’d done so many times before, watching me search for my keys with bored interest.

  “We didn’t leave things,” I corrected. “We ended things. Whatever this fucked up thing was is now over.” I growled in frustration. Where the fuck were my keys? I stuck my head closer to the gravel, trying to see under my car. Just as I was about to meld my head with gravel, I heard the sound of jangling keys. I shot up so fast I nearly banged my face against the side of my car. Law smirked at me, casually dangling my keys from his fingers.

  “How?” I asked, stunned.

  “Fast reflexes,” he responded, as if that explained everything. I glowered, reaching out to snatch them from his stupid fingers. In an instant, he pulled back. “No, I told you, I don’t like how we left things.”

  “And I told you, we didn’t leave things.” I reached for my keys again but he closed his fist tight around them. “We ended them.”

  “Get in the car Nami.” Law gestured to my beat up Honda.

  “Best idea you’ve had yet.”

  “And drive me to my hotel.”

  “Then you go and say that,” I said sarcastically. Law clicked the button to open my car. Reluctantly I slid into the driver’s seat. I watched with mute indignation as he walked around the front to the passenger seat. Even though he had my keys, I felt an urge to lock the door. I didn’t though, because I was simply a helpless observer in my own life.

  Law said jump, and I jumped. Morris said strip, and I stripped. When Law handed me the keys, I put them into the ignition and drove, trying not to think about the melting ice cube that had become my soul.

  I pulled up to Law’s hotel and said, “Your personal taxi has arrived at its destination.”

  “You’re coming up with me, Nami.” Law sighed, like I was the one putting him out.

  “Hmm,” I mused, turning the ignition off but keeping the car on. I put a finger to my lips, as if pretending to really consider what Law had said. “I think I’d rather drink battery acid.”

  “It’s time you learned about me, Nami.” Law’s usual smooth brogue adopted a sober, almost chilling intonation. “The real me.”

  “Said every serial killer ever.” I turned my ignition back on. “No thanks.”

  “I have information that can help you ruin Morris,” Law said, the way someone might say “I have candy” to a four-year-old. Glaring, I turned off the ignition once and for all.

  “Spill.”

  “Not until we’re upstairs,” Law stated bluntly. “I’m not about to give you this information and have you fuck off without a thank you.”

  I scoffed. “You don’t strike me as the guy who needs a thank you card.”

  Kicking his door open, Law smiled back at me. “Well I do.”

  I didn’t need to follow Law up to his room. I remembered it with perfect clarity. It was where we had kissed, where he had saved me. It was where he held pieces of me I hadn’t known still existed.

  It was a very eerie walk back there. I kept having déjà vu. When he waved his keycard over the lock, my eyes focused on the card and the hallway disappeared. It felt as if I were a high school student on prom night following her date into the motel.

  I was so unnerved that the minute Law unlocked the door I pushed past him and ran inside before he could. I needed to get a good vantage point. I chose the radiator, ignoring the hot metal scalding my skin.

  “Interesting spot,” Law remarked as he shut the door behind us.

  “Shut up. Why am I here?” The metal burned my flesh, but I refused to be weak. Even changing locations felt like I was giving something up to him. In lieu of responding to me, Law went to his mini fridge and pulled out two bottles of water. He took a sip of one and offered me the other. I glared at him.

  “Suit yourself.” Law put the bottle back inside the mini fridge and turned to me. “I have a journalist that can help you.” I was so bewildered I couldn’t even laugh. A journalist? Like a member of the media? Part of the lynch mob that had personally tied me up and thrown me over the
edge of a building marked “The Associated Press?”

  After a few moments of silence I eventually said, “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “Are you laughing?” Law asked. Thankfully the radiator had turned off. The metal was still hot, but I was no longer at risk of third-degree burns. I lifted one sweaty thigh over my other leg and leaned against the winter chilled window. Law watched me just as intensely as I him.

  With light brown hair cut short enough that it was out of his face, but long enough that I could still run my hands through it, he leaned forward so that it almost covered one eye. His head was cocked in a way that I’d grown accustomed to, a way that seemed to either be studying me or laughing at me. I could never decide. Law’s five o’clock shadow was eternal, and beneath the shadow always sat a smirk. Except for now. Now his mouth was set in a hard line.

  “What’s the name of this journalist?” I asked, relenting. “Who does he work for?” Law moved from his perch against the mini fridge toward me. Fascinated, I watched him. How could someone simultaneously be a mercenary, but also full of mirth?

  Law handed me a card. “He’s freelance.” I reached for the card, not taking my eyes off of Law. “Go to him. He’s good and can be trusted. At least look him up.”

  “How do you know him?” I looked at the paper skeptically. It read Matthew Jameson in italic silver letters.

  “I don’t. A few of my old colleagues were sources to him. He was good. Never ratted them out.”

  I looked from the card, to him, to the card. “Your colleagues? Like Morris?” I scoffed, shoving the card in my purse. “Why should I trust you?”

  “Don’t trust me, trust him,” Law shrugged. “He’s never betrayed a source and reports on serious shit.”

  Tired of pretending that Law didn’t work for people like Morris, I stood up from the radiator and headed toward the door. I took one last look at Law and said what had been weighing on me since the beginning, “I don’t get you, Law. You work for Morris. You’re a lobbyer. You aren’t a good guy, so why are you pretending to know them? Why are you pretending that you care? Like you said, you pity me.”

  I sighed, turning to exit, when I heard a loud noise. I spun around to see that Law had kicked over a chair. His hair was a mess, but nothing compared to the wildness in his eyes.

  “Fuck!” he said, running a hand through his crazed locks. “I’m not a lobbyist, Nami!”

  “Don’t fucking lie to me,” I countered, eyeing the chair. I didn’t think Law would hurt me, but displays of aggression didn’t sit well with me.

  Sighing, Law picked up the chair and put it back in its place. After a moment or two of arranging it so it was back in its place, Law sat down. I watched him with equal parts fascination and disdain. I didn’t trust Law at all. My trust for him went about as far as I trusted my cable company when they promised to keep my bill low. Still, watching him put that chair back in place was a bit…odd. I wasn’t sure what to make of it.

  Law rubbed his middle finger, head low. I watched the ritual, entranced. Minutes passed as Law continued to rub his finger, the only sound the loud blasting of the hotel radiator as it turned on again. I remained standing, damned if I’d let him lull me into comfort.

  “I worked for the FBI.” Law’s voice broke the monotony, but he still rubbed his middle finger.

  I laughed. Okay, he got me. I wasn’t expecting that. “Seriously? You think I’ll believe that? Were you also a spy?”

  “I worked in the human trafficking division. I quit about five years ago. I couldn’t…” Law paused and the rubbing ceased. Dead air, like the silence of a funeral procession, filled the room. Not even the sound of breathing could break it.

  All at once he continued, “I just couldn’t keep losing. The girls and little boys…they all disappear. No matter how many leads we track down, they’re just gone. Right in our own fucking backyard, but still gone.”

  I eyed him warily, head cocked slightly. Law wasn’t looking at me. Law wasn’t looking at anything. His eyes had glazed over and his brow furrowed, as if reliving some nightmare.

  “I—” I started to speak, to argue that he was a liar, but Law coughed, interrupting me. He placed his hands on his knees and looked directly at me, as if the past few minutes hadn’t happened. As if I’d seen something I wasn’t supposed to, and he was trying to wipe the memory away.

  “So, yeah. I can give you my old ID number and unit and you can look me up. It’s been five years but there are still plenty of people there that will remember me. And anyway, you can’t erase bureaucracy.” No, I thought bitterly, but bureaucracy can erase you.

  “So why lobbying?” I countered. I wasn’t about to let Law’s confession—if that’s what it turned out to be—lull me into trusting him.

  Shrugging, Law replied, “It was about as far away from my old life as I could get.”

  “And why me?” I pressed.

  Law stuttered. “What?”

  “Why? Me?” I bit out the words. “Why are you fucking with my life?”

  “I—”

  I cut him off before he could respond. “What am I? Just some sick pet project to make you feel better about the fact that you couldn’t handle your job and now work for the devil?”

  “No, Nami…” Law reached for me but I shoved him off.

  “I’m sorry you had to see the horrors of the world firsthand, but I am not yours to fix. I’m not some missing girl you finally found. I’m not an…an archetype to help you find closure. I’m Nami fucking DeGrace and I’m a real fucking person.”

  “I know that Nami.” Law stood up out of his chair and I noticed how intimidating he was. Not by stature or looks, but by presence. He was the type of man who filled a room, the type of man that made you back down. “How dare you accuse me of being anything but genuine toward you?”

  “Are you?” I accused. “Are you really? Because what do you know about me other than that I was raped and taken advantage of by a senator? What’s my favorite color? What’s my favorite food? What’s my favorite TV show? Who were my parents?”

  Law looked stunned. I scoffed and waved him off, turning around to leave. “You’re just like the rest of them.”

  As I was storming out, Law yelled at my back: “Do you even know all of that any more, Nami?”

  I reached for my phone for the one hundredth time that night and for the one hundredth time that night, I dialed the number Huck had given me. Then, for the one hundredth time that night, I hung up on the first ring. Throwing my phone at the coffee table, I sighed, giving up.

  It was reckless of me to call Huck, but I felt so lonely. In the past six months I’d lost everyone and everything I’d believed defined me. Then, as if life wasn’t cruel enough, I’d lost the one thing that was helping build me back up. I’d lost Raskol.

  Huck made me feel like a person again. He made me feel like I wasn’t simply a thing to be defined by labels. I was actually a person with thoughts and feelings and dreams when I talked with him. After these past weeks, though, I didn’t want to risk him. What if he became different outside the safety of my screen? Or worse, what if I ruined him the way I’d ruined Raskolnikov?

  It wasn’t lost on me that the common denominator in all of the horrible things happening was me. As compelled as I was to call Huck and hear the voice I’d imagined over and over, I couldn’t bring myself to follow through. The risk was too great.

  I watched in fascination and horror as my phone began to buzz. The vibration was so adamant, my phone moved. It buzzed and vibrated like it had its own agenda. As my phone neared the edge of the coffee table, I grabbed it. I looked at the number calling and recognized it immediately as Huck’s number. As the phone vibrated for what was probably the last time, I pressed answer.

  “Hello?” I cradled the phone to my face, not sure if the emotion tugging at my gut was fear or excitement.

  “You’ve been calling over and over again.” The voice on the other line sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it
. Sure the number calling was the one Huck had given me, but I wasn’t so quick to say Huck was on the other line. I didn’t know what Huck sounded like. I didn’t know who Huck was.

  Except…I felt like I knew everything about Huck, despite not knowing anything at all.

  “Sorry, I had the wrong number,” I lied. Of course Huck had my number and knew it was me, Dandelion, calling. I wasn’t ready for what was happening, though, so I prepared to hang up before he could call me on my lie.

  “You had the wrong number fifty times?” I breathed into the phone, feeling like a total creep. I didn’t know what to say but now I didn’t want to hang up. I wanted to keep listening. The voice sounded so familiar. The more he spoke, the more I thought I knew him. I did know him though, didn’t I?

  Huck was the only one who’d made me feel like me. If it was Huck on the other line, then I should speak up. At the same time, I was worried that outside Secrets our relationship wouldn’t last. That the magic of text would be broken by our voices.

  So I breathed into the phone like I was auditioning for the role of Ghostface in Scream.

  “Dandelion?” the voice asked. I hiccuped at his words. “Dandelion, I’m glad you called.”

  A million emotions and thoughts ran through me at once. I felt thrilled. I felt excited. I felt terror. I also felt that little niggling thought that I knew the person already…but I couldn’t know his voice, right? I only knew Huck through the computer and other than him the only men in my life now were Morris and—

  My grip slipped from the phone, but I caught it just before it fell.

  “Law,” I said into the phone, my voice cold. Had he been playing me this entire time? Was it not enough to almost fuck me, he had to fuck with me too?

  “Nami?” Law asked, sounding surprised.

  “Oh don’t start with me Huck,” I fumed. “Game’s over now. You got inside my head, congratulations. Now go back to Morris and tell him what a good boy you’ve been.”

  “Dammit, Nami!” Huck—I mean Law, yelled. “What do I have to do to prove to you that I’m not working for Morris? I’m just as fucking surprised as you are that you’re Dandelion.”