Secret Girl

by Terri Elliot

  “You know what you’re doing,” I say.

  “You’re not bad at this, yourself,” he counters.

  Our eyes hold on one another for a prolonged moment. There’s something between us, dangling in this car that doesn’t have words, but hooks into the both of us. It’s the same that linked Henry and Casey together during their spree. A criminal bond. It hushes as he turns back to the road, though it remains in the backdrop of this moment, informing it, buzzing just beneath the surface where I suppose it always lived.

  19.

  We’re coming down the five and I feel the weight of my own exhaustion pour into my muscles and joints to make them ache. My thoughts ache. I push most of them away, disinterested in the fallout. A great deal of processing knocks at the backdoor of my mind, but I refuse it. I look out the window at the western sky. Orange rises from the far end of the valley like flame. I sigh into the window, expanding an uneven circle of breath across its surface. I don’t know how long I can keep the thoughts at bay. I think about returning home, about crossing the threshold back into that existence. Henry won’t be there, it would be just me. Somehow, that’s even worse. If Henry were there, at least I could distract myself, the way he seems so attuned with distraction. We could play pretend together for the night, push away the memories of the things we’ve done, maybe have sex, maybe order in, watch a movie.

  I’m beginning to sound like her godawful entries.

  I turn to Geoffrey. “I can’t go home tonight.”

  He looks back at me. Exhaustion seems to be at bay as I examine his face. I see his blue eyes find the weary fatigue in mine. “Alright,” he says with quick acceptance.

  It’s five miles further down the road, Geoffrey takes an exit and quickly finds a motel in the northern San Fernando Valley.

  I’m sitting in the car while he goes in to get the key. He comes back to tap the hood and signal me to exit. I drag my body from the seat and step down onto the concrete to follow him to the door. It’s one of those nondescript, rattrap motels where the doors face the road and only another three cars sit in the lot. Geoffrey sticks the key in and turns, opening the door to unveil our modest accommodations for the night. And night’s coming on strong, the sky has darkened to expose the first stars over the eastern mountains. I catch sight of them for a moment before stepping into the dimly lit room.

  I stand before the bed, a stained, musty, monstrous brick of a mattress laid over a basic frame. The miraculous color TV hovers mounted overhead behind me, a bedside table with accompanying lamp sits beside the bed nearest the window, a worn and hideous chair rests in the corner alongside the door to the bathroom, and besides these items, the room is empty. It’s perfect, I think, letting my body fall onto the rock hard bed. I roll from head to toe and back as an effect of the tight springs, but then I settle and my eyes give out. Before I see Geoffrey close the door, I don’t see anything at all.

  I blink and the middle of the night fills the room with blue light and the faint sound of crickets somewhere beyond the window. I look up towards it, the drawn curtains, and I marvel at the strength of the moon’s glow. That might not be the moon. I might be staring into the light above the parking lot. Why would they keep it so bright right beside the rooms?

  I panic a moment thinking I’ve been left here, twisting on the bed until I catch sight of Geoffrey’s broad form curled up into a smaller size in the chair near the bathroom. With his arms crossed and his chin against his chest, he’s fallen asleep there. I roll along the mattress towards his side of the room and plant my feet down to stand. I stammer over to his chair and gently place my hand over his wrist. His eyes open instantly. He untucks his fists from his armpits and I take hold of his hand and lead him back towards the bed.

  I leave him a moment to pull back the sheets, then I slide beneath them and hold them up for his entry. I see him calculating.

  “Come on,” I whisper. “You can’t sleep in a shitty motel chair.”

  He obliges, lowering his body to the mattress and shimmying under the blankets with me. We lie here in silence a moment, listening to the hum of the light outside rival the crickets’ tune. Then I inch towards him, just for warmth, to feed off his male heat and chase away this cold that woke me.

  He responds in kind, moving his body just a little closer to me. I move again, until I feel the touch of his hand against a bit of exposed flesh between my shirt and jeans. I push my way beneath it and he acquiesces to my nonverbal request, wrapping his thick arm at my waist and pulling me in. A bit of human contact makes this uncomfortable motel room almost tolerable. I feel the air from his exhales caress the back of my neck. Its rhythm sets the slow beat I fall asleep to once again, focused on it and nothing else, for now anyway, until the sun interrupts this respite.

  20.

  Geoffrey’s truck slows around the bend just before my house comes back into view, I think to shut my eyes and stop it from returning to existence. But inevitably, it does, back from the edge dividing one life from another, one comprised of blissful ignorance, another shameful reality, conjoined by their host, a disrupted Emily Garner-Broadhurst.

  His hand pulls the shifter into park. We sit in the driveway a moment, looking up at the house. It’s beautiful, I don’t think I’ve appreciated that, or in this way, since we first moved in. Since I first moved in. We now feels inappropriate. But that house is full of we, an inescapable matter of fact. My marriage has engulfed me, as most marriages do. Though this one, now I understand, is infused with an element once wholly foreign to me, now gaining recognition. How could I have known? I should have seen signs in Henry, little tells that would have given away the fact he’d been a criminal, a robber, a violent murderer. I can think these things, but it still all feels distant, perhaps untrue, in spite of the misadventure I return from. The surreal nature of everything clouds my ability to feel it. I don’t know what any of this feels like, really. I’m a woman afloat in a sea of fog, obfuscating the world surrounding me. I’m reaching out, but fail to ascertain its shape, size. Intent. Christ, I’m tired. That motel was useless. The company, however--

  “What are you going to do now?”

  I breathe in, then slowly release. My head feels heavy. My thumb unconsciously rubs the surface of the new journal I’ve procured. “I’m going to read this, I guess,” I tell him.

  He nods, his hands still on the wheel. He turns to face me, though my eyes remain in a distant gaze, staring through my front door, a fuzzy, white, meaningless rectangle. “I’m still in this,” he tells me. “Let me know what you want to do next, if there’s some lead to follow in that.” He nods at the journal. I still only feel it, don’t look at it.

  “I will,” I tell him. I pop open the door and slide out, dragging my way up the driveway to the door, entering focus. I lay my hand on the knob and a little beep pulls my attention back to Geoffrey’s truck. He’s tapped the horn to get my attention. Through his open window, he lifts a hand. I wave back and offer a meager smile. He smiles back, then winks, and reverses back into the road.

  Inside, I stand before the door, the house quiet and still before me. I don’t feel like interacting with it. It’s not that I don’t want to be here, I just…

  I slip my feet out of my shoes and nearly float towards the back of the house where I open the sliding glass door and step out onto the deck. A breeze rustles through my hair, shakes the leaves in the trees, but not their branches. Just light enough, just heavy enough. I feel a tension between two poles. On the one end, it calls for panic, breakdown, tears, screaming. On the other, action, acceptance, a dismissal of previous held assumptions. Like a happy marriage, or transparency, or peace, tranquility. Justice.

  I shut my eyes and take a breath. I’m thinking too much. In the darkness behind my eyelids, I manifest a vision of an Emily to wield control over her life. A strong, commanding woman without deference, without weakness. In her hand, she holds a pistol.

  My eyes open, I open my mouth to catch my breath. In my hand I hol
d the journal, though instead of its leather binding, I feel steel. I squeeze it, thumb the pages, but still I feel the cold, the rattle, and the scent of gunpowder’s next.

  I turn and return inside, shaking my head. I retreat to the nook at the front of the house, curl up with my feet beneath me, tossing the journal onto the table.

  My eyes fixate on its cover. She’s not written anything on it. Just a blank surface. Barely worn. I think I saw blank pages when I flipped through. She’s barely used it. Though, still, I saw an entry. Information awaits. But everytime I think to reach for it, I feel the same thing. The remnant shaking in the bones of my forearms, the breathlessness in the wake of violence. Do you feel this? Whether by gun or by drugs or some other instrument, is there residue of the act in your body?

  The book doesn’t reply. It’s only an echo, a statement several times removed from its author, now several steps ahead, and moving, while I sit in this nook struggling to open the book.

  This standoff drags out through the day, interrupted periodically by pacing, by nibbling on fruit slices, trips to the deck, up the stairs, back down. Night descends.

  I haven’t changed. The shirt, still filthy from the trip rests on my body like a soiled rag. I stare at the journal, unmoved in its position. It appears as a brick now, heavy and formidable. It’s only a book, Emily. I reach out and slap my hand on the face of the journal, seizing an impulse and acting on it with a speed prohibiting doubt. My fingers land on the leather straight and spread, but I feel them curled around the handle, and a rush of something races up from my wrist into my body to radiate throughout. Breathlessness descends again, but I don’t lift the hand. I think of Geoffrey, his blue eyes pleading.

  Air rushes into my lungs. I dive my hand into my pocket to retrieve my cell phone and dial the most recent texted number.

  I hear the other end connect. I don’t give him a chance to speak. “I need you.”

  Without a moment of air, he replies, “I’m on my way.”

  “Not here,” I interject. “The motel.”

  “Done.”

  I snatch the keys from off the kitchen counter and head for the door, the world around me closing into a tunnel aimed directly at Geoffrey.

  21.

  I see his truck parked before the same room as last night. I pull in beside him, park, exit, and head towards the door in a motion that feels uninhibited. The door swings back by his hand and he stands before me, powerful and vulnerable, a paradox made somehow logical by his blue eyes that cut through the night to burrow into me. I feed myself into them.

  Our bodies entwine, he twists me and slams the door closed in the same motion and we fall onto the bed. His body eclipses the light from the window to produce a masculine silhouette. His arms and legs prop him up above me like a protective covering. For a moment, as my eyes adjust, he could be any man, or, any man of his size and brawn. Though the muscles running along his arms are distinct, his facial features fall into a shadow that masks him. My breath catches at the thought, a stranger imprisoning me on a motel bed by his imposing body.

  Light makes its way to my eyes, his face comes into view, and the first sight I have of him again are his radiant blue eyes that wash away the brief fear, pushing it back, somewhere into my bones.

  I latch onto him. My shirt comes up. My pants slide off. My arms’ frantic motions reciprocate and his lips are against mine, hard pressed against my mouth, his taste washing over my tongue.

  We’re naked, my hands grip his buttocks and pull him into me. I feel his erection teasing. His kiss is ferocious, his abs rub against my stomach, his body is hard. I slide my palms along his back while his hands surround my breasts. He presses into me like he’s going to smother me. Instinct invites it rather than squirms. I’ve never felt this given over.

  His mouth is on my tit, pulling my nipple past his teeth, nibbling. I feel it grow hard between his lips. I reach up with my mouth and my teeth grapple onto his bottom lip, tugging it down. I feel like eating him. I feel like being eaten.

  He enters me and an airy moan bursts from my lips, teeth releasing his. One hand slides down my side to grip my ass, the other cradles my face, and we kiss while he fucks me, tender and rough, some of each in his eyes, in his body.

  Attached, we ride a wave between the two of us. He holds me afloat, safe from drowning. The waters of this passion roll beneath us, hopeless to their conduct, in its control. To fight it would damage us. Oh god, I feel myself tensen.

  The release opens a floodgate through which everything inside me rushes out into his capture. In return, I receive his release, the two of us bound by it, tied together by forces running through us, uncontrolled. There’s a voice now, quiet yet sharp, whispering rebuke, but it’s so naive, so small, insignificant in the face of something so much more expansive.

  Geoffrey rolls to the side and I turn to watch his chest rise and fall with heavy breaths. My own fill to the base of my lungs, spreading out a tingling sensation throughout my naked body. Sweat glistens off the both of us, aglow with our own efforts.

  I think of Casey, her nineteen year old form, naked, beautiful, glistening, laid out beside my husband. It doesn’t anger me, instead it appears like a mirror image alongside this motel room, as though she’s spread out beside me, opposite Geoffrey, the tips of her fingers extended towards mine.

  Geoffrey quickly falls asleep. I reach for the new diary.

  22.

  November 13, 2018

  I can’t stop. I’ve been stuck in this current for a long time, and I can’t swim out to reach the shore. It’s out of sight. If I fight it, I drown. Drugs keep me afloat, rushing further downstream, into the rocks. Even now, I’m sweating, shaking, I need a hit. Sobriety exists in small windows in which I can barely hold onto it. The world around me vibrates until it slips out of my grasp.

  I’m surrounded by filth. Everything around me exists in a state of decay. One thing I’ve learned is that the point of death is far down the line. I’m confronted with new levels of decay every day, the extent to which something is capable of falling apart is almost endless. When you think a thing is almost done, it survives, loses a little more spirit, a little more resolve, becomes closer to a rock, but it survives. I’ve discovered there’s actually not much you need to keep going. You can lose everything and still live on in a hollow existence. The world is like that. Fucking thing is on fire, has been for fifty years, keeps heating up, but it’s still going. Loses some coastline to floods, forests to fires, crops to heat, but it drags on. I don’t see the apocalypse coming to drag away those responsible, nor the rest of us, choking though we may be - suffocation stays at arm’s length.

  These people around me are proof. Complete scum. Sooner murder their own grandmother for a score than go clean for a day. I’ve seen it happen. Their excuses ring false, the abuses, the violence visited upon them become lullabies they sing to themselves at night, or at dawn, or whenever they shut their eyes in the loving embrace of their drug-induced dream.

  I see it. I see the stains on their souls, and mine. Trouble is they’re blind to it. Willfully. I hold onto a morsel of my humanity. I have to. Or I’ll never save Lilly from the same fate. She doesn’t know what this world will bring to her. By now, she’s nine, which doesn’t leave me much time to save her. I’m tainted, I’m unworthy. The things I’ve done, enumerated in countless lost volumes of bullshit journaling, unravel a list of sins emblazoned on me. At least I feel their weight. I look at the world around me, nobody admits to their sins. Everyone walks around like they’re clean. The destitute I now surround myself with are dirty, but the filth of unscrupulous deeds coats the rich as much as the poor. Perpetuating a system of sin, a society of opportunism, they institutionalize our worst impulses. Carrots for acts of cunning, sticks for sympathy.

  Sarah Smith is the worst among them. She hides behind a veil of altruism. Christianity is nothing but a cloak. I can’t stand Christians. Her fucking organization is nothing but a front for the most egregious sin. Th
at cunt stole my baby and sold it to the highest bidder. When I find her, I will rip her apart into little shreds of flesh to expose the hideous monster she is beneath. She’ll scream for what she never offered anyone - she’ll beg for mercy. She’ll ask me to understand. She’ll hide behind her reasons, behind the false belief she was saving those children, my child. My Lilly. She’ll cough up where she is. I’ll save my baby. My Lilly. I love you, girl.

  Maybe I’ll burn this place to escape it. Feed this scum the full dose of its desire, let them eat their own destruction. I have to. To escape. To save her. To save her from this world, and its lost morality. Sarah Smith is a Christian? I’ll baptize Lilly in her blood.

  23.

  The sun strikes me through the blinds and I awake with the journal resting on my bare chest, its pages sticking to the flesh of my breasts, slick with a night sweat.

  What time is it?

  I twist my head around the room until my vision finds the red digits of the clock on the bedside table. 1:17.

  Shit.

  Henry will be home soon. How did I sleep this late? Geoffrey rests easy beside me, the hairs of his chest swaying in the breeze of the room’s fan overhead. But now he senses my movements, he rouses. His eyes find mine. “What’s wrong?” he asks intuitively.

  “I have to go,” I tell him.

  He looks to the clock. “Husband,” he mutters to himself.

  I scurry out of the bed and throw on my clothes, tracing a haphazard pattern around the corner of the bed back towards the front door. Nothing is comfortable laid over the sweat. I catch sight of my reflection in the television, haggard looking woman. A woman too old for a walk of shame appearance.

  “Call me,” he says with my hand on the door. For a moment, I think how inappropriate a thing that was to say. Then he tosses me the journal, which I fumble in my hands. Clues. Right. I nod back to him and exit.