And as Lauren stares back at me, I wonder how she sees me, too. At first, I thought I was the nightmare in her eyes. The very thing that haunted her parents when she was young. The worst of what she was warned about. It is no longer a matter of who I am. Instead, the question should be, What am I?
In truth, though, she sees me like Drew does, pathetic and weak. I want to cry. I feel the years shedding from me like snake skin. I want to sink down to the ground, cover my face, and let out the pain and the fear. I dream of hands, sharp but perfectly manicured, touching my face, running through my hair. I need more than anything to hear her voice in my ear, whispering, telling me that it will all be okay.
I walk back to Lauren, grabbing the water bottle off the ground from where I left it. I bring it to her, kneeling and extending it to her as slowly as I can. It takes me a second to remember that she can’t grab it because I’ve taped her wrists.
“Drink some,” I say, moving it toward her mouth.
She hesitates but then nods. Tilting her head back slightly, she parts her lips. Carefully, I let a thin stream of water into her open mouth. When she looks done, I move the water away and turn the cap back into place.
A text hits my phone. I pull it out and see it’s from Drew. From his burner, not his real number.
I should have known you’d fuck it up
I stare at the words, wearing their intent like a familiar yet filthy shirt. Lauren, the look on her face vacillating between fear and bravado, nods at my phone.
“Who’s that from?” she asks.
“Who do you think?” I say.
She nods. “He must be pissed at you.”
I turn to her and she’s smiling.
“Shut up,” I say, but I know how right she is.
2
Liam!”
My father’s scream churned up the stairs as suddenly as the bile in my throat when I heard it. I felt my mother’s body against me, thin muscles tightening over sharp bone. She pulled away from me. When I looked up at her, her head turned.
I expected to hear footsteps storming up after my name. Or a sharp order to come down to face what I had done. I could picture the remains of his beloved model scattered across the blood-red floor. I could see his face, eyes burning with rage, spittle flying from his cracked lips as he screamed. I waited for what had to come but my fear was only met by silence.
My mother moved away from me, toward the stairs. I could hear her soft steps upward as I listened. My father didn’t make another sound. I remained alone in the foyer. For a second, I looked to the front door. I thought about making a run for it, maybe never coming home again. But where could I go? What did I know? I was too stupid to run off, to survive on my own. I told myself that over and over again as the urge grew inside me.
My mother disappeared into her room. I had no idea where my brother was. My father had called my name. I couldn’t ignore that. The silence that followed simply added to my anxiety. Against my own will, I moved toward the basement. Silently, I made my way down the stairs.
It was as if someone else drove my nervous system, telling my muscles to contract and expand as I drew nearer to my father. When I reached the bottom step, my eyes so wide, I looked around the main room. I couldn’t find a single piece of the model, anywhere. I held my breath as my bare feet touched the cool cement floor. Turning, I realized that the pocket door to my father’s workshop had been pulled closed.
As quietly as I could, I crossed to his door. I stood outside, the skin at the tips of my ears burning as I listened for any sound, any sign of my father’s wrath. Instead, the utter silence chilled me far worse than any word of anger could have.
I don’t know how long I stood there outside my father’s workshop. The air felt chilled as it touched my damp skin. Something, probably fear, tickled the back of my throat. I tried not to cough. With my knees locked, I felt light-headed. A part of me actually wanted the door to suddenly rip open and my father to lunge at me, even hit me, just to get the torturous anticipation to stop.
That never happened. Eventually, my hand lifted up. My fingers balled into a loose, weak fist. I tapped on the door, lightly. After, my arm fell limp to my side. Then I stared at the floor, waiting again.
Nothing. I didn’t hear even the stir of movement from the other side of the closed pocket door. I made a fist again. I even lifted my hand up to knock again, but froze there. Slowly, I backed away from the door, across the basement, and to the stairs. I glided up, gripping the railing as tightly as I could. Once on the main floor, I moved quickly, not caring about noise anymore. I ran up to my room and shut the door behind me.
I sat alone, afraid that even the slightest movement might draw my father’s attention. When I heard him coming upstairs, I thought I might faint. I literally shook as the floorboards creaked under his weight, the sound growing closer and closer. I knew I was in trouble. And I knew it was going to be bad, so bad that I almost threw up.
As I cowered on my floor, though, the sound passed my door. My father, instead, went to my brother’s room. I heard the soft knock. The door opened and closed. I crawled toward the wall we shared. I was so confused, so surprised by it, that I dared to put my ear against the sheetrock. I heard whispers, not much more than murmurs, really. They went on for a time and then my father left. He walked back down the stairs and probably back to his workshop.
I stayed in my room, still afraid to make too much of a sound. But nothing made sense. I couldn’t understand how my father hadn’t killed me for what I had done to his model. I couldn’t take the waiting anymore. So I slipped out of my room and to my brother’s. I knocked on his door like our father had before.
“Come in,” Drew said.
I opened the door. Drew sat on his floor. He watched for a moment. His mouth even opened, like he had something to say. But then a change flashed across his face. Like a curtain closing behind his eyes. He leaned back on his elbows.
“What?”
I looked back down the hallway and toward my mother’s closed door. Then I whispered.
“What did he say?”
“Who?”
“Dad,” I said, a little annoyed.
I was young, but I got the sense even then that he was toying with me. When he smiled, it was like a cat’s claw.
“Nothing,” Drew said. As he spoke, he stretched his legs out. One foot touched the open door. Through white socks, his toes gripped the edge and jimmied it back and forth. “Much.”
I felt my cheeks get red. I wanted to jump on him. Stomp on his stupid smile. But I didn’t.
“Jesus,” I said instead.
“Watch it,” he said back, still smiling.
“Did he say anything about the model?”
Drew arched an eyebrow. At the same time he swung the door half closed in my face. Then he slowly reopened it, still using just his toes.
“What model?” He laughed. “Did you do something stupid again?”
“Shut up,” I said.
Drew pushed off the floor with his elbows, like he might get up and hit me. I flinched and he laughed again.
“Ass,” I hissed, mostly to myself.
I turned to go back to my room. Before I could leave, though, he called me back.
“Liam?”
I turned. “Yeah.”
“Do you know why I told you Mom was dead?”
I swear I saw red when he said that. With what I’d done to the model, I almost forgot. That it was him who had lied to me. Someone might think that the only reason I didn’t try to hit him is that he would have beaten me pretty good if I had. The truth is, at least I think it is, that I just felt so confused. So off-balance. I had gone from seeing my mother bloody on the floor, to being told she was dead, to seeing her alive. Then I had destroyed the one thing my father loved the most. I felt like my head was going to suddenly crack in two from the p
ressure inside.
So instead of hitting him, or kicking him, or anything, I just stood there, not saying anything. He stared back at me, his eyes as dark as I’d seen them.
“Because.” He enunciated the word like some know-it-all professor on the television. “You’re killing her. You know that, right? You’re such a fuckup that Mom’s drinking herself to death.”
My nostrils flared and my throat locked up. I barely forced a single word out, and when I did, it just tasted like poison in my dry mouth.
“What?”
In response, his smile simply broadened. Then, using that goddamn foot of his, he slammed his bedroom door in my face.
3
I knew it wouldn’t be easy. I knew what I was getting into when I stalked her. When I pushed her into that spacious trunk of her car. I tried to prepare. To expect every contingency. But I didn’t see this coming. It’s as simple as that.
Lauren agreed to this. She agreed to let this happen to her. It is the sad truth. I don’t understand it. Or maybe I do. Maybe we all do. But what I don’t know is how far down the rabbit hole I’ve fallen.
“What do you know?”
“Jesus, Liam. I know everything. What are you talking about?”
She’s so sure of herself. I can tell Lauren is used to being in charge. Particularly when it comes to men. She thinks she’s calling the shots. That my brother delegated this to her.
“What, exactly?” I ask.
She pauses before answering. I stand a good ten feet away from her, unmoving, like she has suddenly come down with some awful and contagious disease. At the same time, she watches me like a rabbit might watch a dog. She knows she’s faster, smarter, but she can’t ignore the inherent risk of being this close to me.
“Call your brother if you need to,” she says. “I don’t care. Just let me out of this tape. It hurts.”
“No,” I say without thinking. Of course I am not going to let her out of the tape. Not yet.
She looks around the cabin again. The motion transforms her, sheds years from her age. Like she is looking for someone. Like her parent might suddenly appear to hold her hand and tell her what to do. As I think this, I feel a new sensation. Empathy, I think. Then she looks at the tarp again and I remember just how serious this all is.
“It’s a stunt,” she says, the pitch of her voice rising. “We’re just supposed to lay low for a couple of days. Then he’ll find me. He’ll be the hero. I get not going to the trailer. That makes sense. It does.”
A stunt? Is that what he told her? It is certainly not what he told me. Far from it.
“He didn’t tell me that you’d know,” I say.
“He didn’t?” she asks. I can see her brain spinning around, faster and faster. “That makes sense, too. We talked about it. It has to look real. If it goes wrong, everything goes to shit. For everyone.”
“Yeah,” I say.
I move closer to her. I can sense her questions coming, ones I won’t be able to answer.
“So you and Drew have talked about it?”
She snorts. “Of course. Come on, take the tape off. I’m obviously not going anywhere.”
“And you were okay with this?” I ask.
Her head tilts. The aura of superiority returns.
“Really.” She laughs. “I always thought of you as the tough guy. But you’re nervous, aren’t you?”
All I can do is stare back at her. She has no idea what she’s gotten herself into.
“You need to drink,” I say.
I grab the water off the floor and twist the cap. Moving closer, I reach out with it.
“If you take the fucking tape off, I can do that myself,” she says.
Her use of the F word bugs me. I’m not sure why. But I have so much I need to do. So many steps before it’s all done. I check my watch. The event starts in less than an hour. I’m not changing the plan. That’s not going to happen. I won’t let it. We need to go.
“Listen to me,” I say firmly. She flinches and my voice softens despite myself. “We’re leaving. You need to stay calm and quiet. Do you understand?”
“What? Where? To the trailer?”
“Not yet,” I say.
“But . . . Liam, we can’t get caught. Not now. You understand that, right?” she asks, as if speaking to a three-year-old.
I shake my head, annoyed. “We won’t. Everything is under control.”
She looks around the cabin, her eyes lingering on the tarp. “I doubt that.”
I could hit her. I could slam my fist into her perfect face and watch her glasses break into jagged little pieces. But I won’t. She underestimates me. And until I fully understand this new wrinkle in the plan, maybe that’s a good thing.
I’m not sure what I’m doing when I reach around behind my back. I slip my fingers around the grip of the pistol and ease it out from under my waistband. When I bring it around, when she sees it, everything changes. I see the fear again, and uncertainty. For the first time, she looks as if she might try to escape. So I turn the barrel in her direction.
“Maybe you think you know me. Maybe you have some ideas. But the truth is, it doesn’t matter. I don’t care. About you. About anything. So, before you think of doing anything cute, remember this. I’ll put a bullet in myself as quickly as I’ll put a bullet in you.”
My words are like something physical. They change her, syphoning the glimmer of arrogance from her eyes, draining the blood from her face. But she nods.
“Good,” I say.
I slip the gun back into my pants and help Lauren to her feet. We move to the door. Once on the decking, I glance one last time at the mound in the corner, then lock the door behind me, checking it twice to make sure it is secure.
4
It happened by accident. Believe me, I never saw school as an escape. I hated it almost as much as I hated being home. Then, in ninth grade, I ended up in an art class. I hadn’t signed up for it. My parents never went to freshman-year orientation and I don’t even think I knew I was supposed to fill out a course selection form. Instead, some guidance counselor I had never met put together my schedule. I certainly would not have picked art over one of the shop classes. Not back then.
On the first day of class, I sat in the back at a small round table, all by myself. Mr. Steinmetz, this heavyset guy with a dirty-looking goatee and wispy long hair pulled back in a ratty ponytail, was the only teacher who would let you wear a hood in his class. So mine was up. He noticed, I’m sure of it, but never seemed to care.
I pretty much crapped the class on purpose. I’d never done anything even close to art before, and I had no intention of starting. But something changed over the weeks. At home, things got worse. Mom’s health, the way Drew treated me after the model incident, and, most of all, how my father used my brother against me. Or, worse, how they had become some kind of horrible team. The physical side of the abuse had waned. Instead, their true art took center stage. Both would ignore me for weeks. Then, when I craved any attention at all, my brother’s whispers would start.
You did this.
You’re killing her.
That stuff haunted my mind while I sat back there, hiding in my own hood but watching Steinmetz as he demonstrated brushstrokes on a huge canvas.
“Depending on the size of the brush, its bristles, and the amount of pressure you apply, you can create different effects with the same color.”
It was this deep blue, the color on his brush, almost black. As he moved, his hand so confident, his movement compact and thoughtful, something new and amazing seemed to escape onto that field of white. I saw dark, cutting texture. Fading brightness. I felt sad and exposed. I leaned forward and slipped my hood down. I think the teacher saw that.
In the days following, he seemed to be speaking to me as he demonstrated technique and color mixtures. When he handed out su
pplies, he moved an easel up to my table.
“You have room back here. You might like using this instead of the tabletop.”
He set up a still life in the front of the class, a strange pile of fruit and books and earthen jugs. For the first time, I tried. I mixed colors; I moved my brush. Quickly, though, I grew frustrated. What I did looked nothing like what sat in front of me. When I looked at other students’ paintings, that feeling grew. I withdrew and put my hood back up.
Then, he was there. Steinmetz looked at me and looked at my palette.
“Forget that,” he said, pointing at the fruit. He tapped his chest. “Paint whatever’s in here.”
* * *
—
THAT DAY, I came home to a mostly empty house. I had no idea where my father was. Nor did I give a shit. Drew was at lacrosse practice. I was thankful for that. Ever since the day I destroyed my father’s model, Drew had gotten worse and worse. Some days I thought his vacillation between cruelty and utter disregard came from my father. On some occasions, I’d see him watching how Drew treated me with that goddamn smile on his face. Other days, though, when I didn’t think I had crossed my father, Drew still wouldn’t look at me. Even acknowledge my existence. Or worse, he would come to my door and talk at me, into me, telling me how useless I was. How embarrassing. Those times I wondered if it just came from Drew. If he just hated me that much. So, whenever either of them wasn’t home, I felt lighter.
At that point, I’d taken to checking on my mom every day when I came home. So I crept up the stairs and eased her bedroom door open. That smell escaped, fruity and sour, but so familiar by then that I barely noticed. My stomach rumbled from hunger as I peered around the door. I expected Mom to be asleep, like she usually was, and I was shocked to see her sitting up in bed.
“Liam, baby,” she said in a gentle slur.
My stomach rolled again, but that time I wasn’t sure it was hunger. And it wasn’t just her voice. Even from that distance, I could see how yellow the whites of her eyes had become. They almost glowed in the perpetual gloom of her bedroom. When she lifted her hand from the duvet, beckoning me into the room, her long fingers were no thicker than pencils. Worse, flecks of deep red paint dangled from her nails, exposing the jaundice underneath.
The Perfect Plan Page 9