Elastic Heart

by Mary Catherine Gebhard

  “Becca Riley was raped by Mitch Morris,” Law said, keeping his stare on me. I blinked a few times and shifted my position on the chair I’d been sitting on for fifteen minutes. After coming inside his room, Law had offered me a drink. I’d declined. Since then we’d sat quietly, neither daring to break the calm. Everything was the same about the room. The same plush wingback chairs. The same pale yellow glow from the lamps. The same charming paintings stuck to the wall. Everything was the same, until he said that.

  How was I supposed to respond? Part of me wanted to deny it, to say that he was lying and making it up. I nearly did, too. I nearly called him out and said he was making it up and Becca Riley wasn’t raped. I had my mouth open, ready to call her a liar and a—

  A what?

  A whore?

  What everyone else had called me?

  “What does that have to do with me?” I finally asked. Let’s say I could believe Morris had raped her; well, that still left me with a crapload of other questions. Like, why me? Why didn’t she help me? Why did she fucking murder Raskol?

  “I think Becca can answer that question best.” Law looked away.

  “What do you—” I stopped dead as Becca emerged from the adjoining room. I’d never paid the door any mind, because it was always locked and I’d assumed the other room was locked as well. Mistake. Apparently the room next to his was filled with vipers of the Riley species.

  “What the fuck is this?” I exclaimed, standing up and out of my chair.

  “Nami, please let me explain,” Riley said, reaching a hand out to me as she stepped farther into the room.

  “Don’t you fucking talk to me!” I looked from Riley to Law and back to Riley, disbelief racking my body. “What the hell is this?”

  “Law has been helping me for a few years, ever since he got assigned to Morris,” Riley explained.

  “What?” I sputtered, looking at them both again. “Is this why you had me come? So you could both attack me?”

  “No.” Law’s voice was smooth as velvet, but I wouldn’t be soothed. “I needed you to understand, and this was the only way.”

  “Why did you kill Raskolnikov?” Ignoring Law, I shot at Riley. She looked at Law, confusion marring her features.

  “Her dog,” Law explained.

  “My dog?” I wanted to scream. He wasn’t just a dog. He was my best friend, and she had brutally thrown him over the side of a mountain. I was supposed to play nice with her now because Morris had raped her as well? Morris had raped me and I didn’t go throwing dogs over the sides of mountains.

  “My dog, Law?” I twisted around, furiously looking for something to either throw or grab on to. “My fucking dog, Law? You knew my ‘dog’ and that’s all you have to say? My ‘dog’?”

  Law reached for my arms, trying to bring me close, but I pulled away so frantically I hit him in the lip. The bit of blood that started to fall didn’t feel like enough. It wasn’t enough of a sacrifice for Raskol.

  Law wiped his lip and addressed me calmly. “Of course it wasn’t just your dog, Nami. But…” Law trailed off as Riley started to cry, tears falling from her lids in big splotches. Her face grew red and the composed monster that had haunted my dreams evaporated before my eyes.

  “Morris was watching me that day, Nami!” Riley was full on crying and I didn’t know what to believe. “I had no choice! I didn’t want to do it! He was in the car below. He told me to kill your dog or…”

  “Or what, Becca?” I spat out the words because they tasted bitter, like cocoa without the added sugar.

  “Or he would finish it himself!” Becca threw her hands out as if she were offering something. I didn’t want anything she had to give.

  “So why didn’t you let him?” I demanded. “Why did you murder my dog? I would have rather you let him do whatever he had planned for me!”

  “You don’t know what that entails,” Riley screamed, throwing herself to the ground. She started punching herself in the head, her tiny fists making big sounds against her skull. I watched, horrified, as the woman I’d come to know as a super villain in pantsuits ripped at her hair and repeatedly hit herself in the face. Law bent to the ground and tried to restrain Becca. “He makes me watch. He makes me watch as he does it to other girls. I couldn’t watch any more!”

  “You should have gone to the police,” I said without thinking. Law shot me a knowing glare. Of course she couldn’t go to the police. It would have ended the way it had with me. How many women had Morris reduced to rubble like Becca?

  “What do you think we’ve been working on these past years, Nami?” Law asked, irritation lacing his words. Becca calmed in his arms, her rapid breathing stilled, and she looked at me with red, glassy eyes.

  “I wish I could take it back. There’s so much I wish I could take back, Nami,” Becca said. “I don’t know who I am any more. Once upon a time I was an anthropologist. Now all I think about is Morris. He consumes me.” Becca crumbled into herself. The only evidence of her sobs the shaking of her body.

  “I’m so sick of deceit, Law.” I rubbed a hand to my forehead. “I’m sick of all of this. Why?”

  “It started out…” Law faltered as Becca heaved in his arms. Carefully he picked her up and brought her to his bed. When she was safely under his covers, he turned his attention back to me. “When we started out, you didn’t trust me.” I glared past him to Becca in his bed. It wasn’t jealousy I felt, but disconcertion. Was that how he saw me?

  “So you lied?” I scoffed, trying to change the subject in my mind. “Surefire way to gain my trust. Is anything you’ve told me true? Is your name even Nick Law?”

  “I didn’t think you would listen to me if you knew how close I was to Becca.” Law glanced back at her, sleeping fitfully under his covers. “All I’ve ever wanted to do was help you, Nami. From the minute I met you. But you’re like a feral cat. If I show too much love, you run away.” Before I could blink Law was near me, only inches away. I could almost feel the smooth fabric of his sweater; I could definitely smell his heady aroma. If I didn’t act quickly I would get lost in him. Again.

  “You want to help me?” I yelled, inflamed. “Then stop lying to me! I don’t know up from down any more. Who even are you?” I spun around so I didn’t have to see his penetrating amber gaze. I forced my focus on the small knick in the Anaglypta wallpaper.

  “You know me, Nami!” Law grabbed me by the forearms and forced me against his chest. “I’m Huck. I’m Law. You know me.” Didn’t he see the irony in his statement? He was two people, but I knew him as one? I shook my head, but still let myself be warmed by his embrace. I let myself fall comfort to his breathing against my back. His arms encircled me and I was safe again.

  “We can leave,” Law murmured against my neck, his lips light shadows against the skin. “I have enough money to live for ten centuries.” All at once I felt dead inside, like rotten seaweed drying on the beach. I pulled away slowly, losing his warmth like daylight is lost to the night.

  “I don’t want him to win,” I uttered robotically.

  “The only way he wins is if you let him win,” Law pleaded to my back. “Forget about him, live your life happily.”

  “It’s not that easy.” I yanked away completely. “I’m nothing now. I’m lower than dirt because he made me that way. It wasn’t enough to use me; he had to tarnish me. I used to think I wanted him dead or in pain. Now I don’t know what I want any more.” Dead. Pain. It all felt so futile, so meaningless. I wanted something meaningful for Morris. Something like what I’d had to deal with. Death was too finite. Pain was too unpredictable. I wanted his brain utterly ravaged.

  I placed my head in my hands. What had I become?

  Night had fallen and I was still at the hotel with Law. Becca had long since fallen asleep, her sobs lulling her into a fretful slumber. I watched her, her troubled sleeping apparent even from underneath Law’s bed sheets. Law sat on the hotel desk and I leaned against the wall, the space between us feeling much bigge
r than a few feet of carpet.

  “Are you and Becca sleeping together?” I asked, watching Becca’s uneven breaths move the covers up and down.

  “No.”

  “Did you ever?” I turned my attention from Becca to Law.

  “No.”

  I folded my arms. “How did you two come to know each other?”

  “I was assigned to Morris two years ago. It was around the time Becca Riley was hired as an assistant. Part of my job is to watch Morris. One night I saw Becca leaving the campaign offices looking shaken. Her clothes were a mess, her face was distraught, and she had bruises. I didn’t need to see much more to know what had happened.”

  “Because of your job at the FBI,” I mumbled.

  “Because of my job at the FBI.”

  “That doesn’t explain how you started working together.” Running a hand through my hair, I looked back at Riley. What a mess. Somewhere in the back of my mind, a sick thought popped into my head: It was easier when I thought they’d betrayed me.

  “I knew Morris was a slime ball when he agreed to take the bribe GEM offered, but I didn’t know how far it went,” Law explained. “Becca went to the police that night and they ignored her just as they did you. Except instead of fighting back with the media like you did, Becca went back to work. I approached her a week later.”

  “Just like that?” I turned back to Law.

  “No,” Law said. “After he raped her again, I offered to help bring him down.” I sighed, hating that I felt sorry for Becca. It had been so much simpler when she was the terrible villain in my story. What Morris had done didn’t change her actions. She’d destroyed my reputation and she’d murdered Raskol. Still, her life hadn’t been easy, and the more I learned about her, the more I pitied her. The more I pitied her, the harder it was to hate her.

  “So what am I?” I asked quietly.

  “You were a complication in the beginning.” Law stood up off the desk and moved toward me. “Riley and I have been compiling a case to bring to the FBI to prove Morris is a serial rapist, has committed fraud, and has used public funds to hide his crimes, among other things. If the local authorities wouldn’t take it seriously, then we were going to make the federal authorities believe her. I started following you to keep you from getting too close. Then I got too close.” Law kneeled before me, trying to catch my eye, but I looked away.

  “I can’t believe this.” I looked over Law’s head and at Becca, who was now tossing and turning. “Riley ruined my life. She killed my dog. She isn’t a good person.”

  “Becca is a product of her environment. In order to get the information we needed, she had to go deep. She had to disappear. The Becca I met two years ago is dead.”

  “So I should feel sorry for her?” I snapped, feeling angry.

  “She did unspeakable things to you,” Law replied. “Maybe you don’t feel sorry for her. Maybe you just understand the way she is.”

  “Well did you guys get what you needed? Is Morris going to jail?” I finally looked at Law. His cognac eyes were muddied and tired. His five o’clock shadow had grown past the hour hand and was full on scruff. I couldn’t think about his pain, though, because mine was blinding. I needed him to say yes, Morris was going to jail. All of it had to be for a reason. Riley had to have self-destructed, destroying me in her wake, for a reason.

  Instead, Law shook his head slowly. I laughed, feeling broken. “Why am I not surprised?” I stood up off the wall. Even though I stood slowly, I felt lightheaded. Maybe it was the blood rushing from my head, or maybe it was having my world rocked to its core yet again.

  Law gently grabbed my wrist. “Please, just stay the night.”

  “How can I stay the night with Becca asleep on the bed?”

  “She isn’t staying,” Law said, tightening his hold on my wrist. “She’ll go home, otherwise Morris will get suspicious.”

  “I believe you,” I said. My eyes dropped to his hold on my wrist. I did believe him, I did. I believed everything about him and Becca and Morris. It was horrible and ugly, so of course it was true. “I believe you, Law, but that doesn’t make it hurt less.”

  I gently peeled his hand from my wrist and turned to go. When I left, I didn’t look back; I couldn’t. His amber eyes would melt my resolve, and right then I needed to be strong. I’d said I wanted the truth, but I hadn’t known it would hurt more than the lies.

  In my mind I saw an intricate web. In the beginning it was only three fibers: me, Morris, and my mission to destroy him. Enter Law: enigmatic, mysterious, and a bit of a dick. What I thought to be a just a single strand turned out to be the spider. Law wove the reality around me.

  I tried to disentangle the web, but it was too vast and convoluted. Where one strand ended, four others began. I huffed, turning on my side, and pulled the blanket tight around my shoulders. It was three in the morning, hours after I’d left Law at his hotel, but my mind was reeling. Once again I was thinking back to the beginning. This time I wasn’t thinking about Morris, though. I was thinking about Law.

  He’d never been anything but kind to me. Even when I was an utter shit to him, he’d treated me gently. He’d listened to me. He’d seemed to know what was wrong even before I did. He’d saved my life. Even when I was at my most vulnerable, he’d never taken advantage of me. Law was perfect, except for, you know, one tiny problem: Law lied. About everything.

  Law lied about his job. Law lied about the company he kept. Law lied and lied and lied until he was wrapped so comfortably in his lies that they became his reality. His lies even shaped the reality of those around him. Unfortunately, I was around him. I pulled the blanket tighter, tossing around on the couch until my gaze stared straight at the ceiling.

  Knock knock.

  My head shot to the side at the sound of rapping at my door. Nice people didn’t knock on doors at three in the morning. I should have been wary, but then again, I didn’t have any nice people in my life. Sluggishly I rose from the couch, keeping the blanket wrapped around me. I still couldn’t afford heat and my place was much colder at night. I could see my breath in the air, like wispy tendrils of smoke.

  I opened the door without checking who it was. At that point in my life I didn’t care if someone was there to kill me. Every part of my being was utterly obliterated. My heart had been put through a meat grinder. My mind had been fucked, defaced, and effaced. There was nothing left save a body, so why try and save the body?

  I’ll admit I wasn’t expecting what stood on the other side of the door. I thought maybe it was one of Morris’s henchmen finally coming to finish the job. I figured it could be some paparazzi who’d discovered where I lived. Never in a hundred nightmares did I imagine what it really was: Law covered in blood.

  Speechless, I took him in. Blood covered the hands that had always been so gentle with me. Red stained his t-shirt. Eyes widened, I swallowed the sight of him. Bloody, disheveled, but not hurt, it appeared. Before I could ask what the hell happened, he spoke.

  “I snapped.”

  “Can I come in?” he asked. Stupefied, I stepped aside to allow him entry. Law walked past me and I watched his movements as if in a dream. He wasn’t the brutally stoic man I’d come to know these past months. He was undone, eyes wild, hair a mess, muscles twitching. Rubbing his thumbs together, he paced around my apartment as if I wasn’t even there.

  “You what?” I finally asked when the air filled with too many unasked questions. I stared at the blood on his shirt; it was soaked into the fabric, hard and stained. His gray jeans even had splotches of blood on them.

  “I snapped,” Law repeated. He rubbed his forehead with his palm and I noticed his bruised and bloody knuckles. I realized the lights were still off and bent over to turn the table lamp on. Pale yellow light engulfed us, making the shadows we cast bolder.

  “What does that mean?” I asked. Law walked back and forth across my living room, his strides practically wearing the floor thin. While he searched for his words, I went to the kitchen
to get something to clean him up. I grabbed a kitchen towel and ran it under some warm water, then grabbed some ice from the freezer and threw it in a sandwich bag. Exiting the kitchen, I thrust the contents at him. He thanked me gruffly but I was already heading to the bathroom to grab some antiseptic. When I returned I made him sit on the couch.

  I took the towel back from Law, who was gripping it so tight I swore I saw bones beneath his skin, and started to dab at the blood on his knuckles. Law hissed but didn’t say anything. Silence once again surrounded us as I did my work. I cleared away the crusty blood from his knuckles and fresh blood started to flow. I stood up to get a towel or a bandaid but Law grabbed my arm.

  “Stay.” I looked at the hand on my arm and shrugged, sitting back down with Law. Finished with cleaning him, I sat unmoving, unsure of what to say. That is, until he spoke. “I beat the shit out of Mitch Morris.”

  “What?” I exclaimed, turning to see his face. His expression was unreadable. “Is he alive?”

  “Of course he’s alive.” Law waved my question off and stood up. He started pacing again but I wouldn’t have it.

  “What happened?” I marched up to Law and stood in front of him, blocking his circular route. “You can’t just come in here covered in blood and not explain to me what happened.”

  Law sighed, placing a bloodied hand over his face. “I had my monthly meeting with Morris and I just…” Removing his hand, Law pierced me with his eyes. “I snapped, Nami. I thought of all the pain he’s brought to you and to Becca…to others. I should have kept my cool. He obviously knows now that I know. Maybe he always did, but now he knows I’m not okay with it.”

  “I don’t…” I struggled with what to say. “What does this mean?”

  Law shrugged. “Well, GEM fired me.”

  I rolled my eyes, like that mattered, and pushed for more answers. “Is Morris going to press charges?”

  “I don’t think so.” Law leaned against the wall and exhaled a long, hard breath. “It was really fucking stupid of me to do. I was building a case against Morris. I don’t know what this means. My contacts at the bureau haven’t gotten back to me yet.”