The Contradiction of Solitude

by A. Meredith Walters

  “I checked the status of your background check before I called, and it seems it has already gone through. Which is pretty darn quick for government.” He chuckled. I didn’t.

  He cleared his throat and continued, “I’ve put you on Mr. Langley’s approved visitor’s list. Visiting hours are on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from eight until three. Visits can last up to three hours. It’s important that you familiarize yourself with visitor regulations before you come.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you.”

  “Depending on the number of visitors there may be a delay or a limited amount of time given for the visit.”

  “Okay,” I said softly.

  Buzz…

  “Do you have any other questions, Miss Whitaker?”

  “No, I think that’s it. I appreciate you calling me back.”

  “Not a problem. Goodbye.”

  “Bye.”

  I hung up the phone. I picked up the picture and stared down at the tiny smile and dusting of freckles. Eyes that saw nothing.

  Not anymore.

  “You’re better than a star, Lay. You’re like me. You make the stories. Those stars will one day belong to you.”

  I wanted my own stories.

  Not these.

  Not the ones he gave me.

  The frame slipped out of my hands and fell to the floor. The glass shattered and scattered. Pieces sliced my naked feet.

  Pain.

  Pain.

  Was I ready?

  I was ready.

  “Where did all the pictures go?” Elian asked, walking into the living room. He looked bad. The worst I had seen him. I had been sleeping over at his house. He seemed to rest better there than here. He was impatient in my apartment.

  He paced a lot. Never still. Jittery and on edge.

  It irritated me.

  “I packed them away,” I replied, taking note of the pronounced shadows beneath his eyes and the way the green had stopped dancing a long time ago.

  It made me sad.

  Sad.

  Sad.

  Empty and confused.

  Dark and shrouded.

  Where had Elian Beyer gone?

  “I think I got fired today,” he announced. His voice tired. Unemotional.

  Not caring.

  “You got fired?” I asked, not surprised. He hadn’t been going to work. He hadn’t been doing much except for loving me.

  He loved me with a dying heart.

  “George asked me to leave. Told me to go home.” His laugh was joyless. Void. There was no happiness there.

  Elian turned in a circle in my living room. Turning. Turning. Never stopping. Dizzy. Falling over. Collapsing on my couch.

  “Should I go home, Layna? Where would I go? To you?” he barked. His laugh taunting. Cruel.

  He was angry.

  At me.

  “You came here, Elian. You tell me,” I threw back at him. I had to be careful. I should be patient. He was unraveling. Quickly. I didn’t have much time. To stop him. To stop myself.

  Frozen thudding in my chest.

  “What’s wrong with me?” he agonized. Miserable.

  “Nothing,” I swore, sitting down beside him. Pulling him in. Holding him close. Mine. Always mine.

  Elian laid his head on my chest. His ear over my heart. “I had been holding on for so long. I had a life. Friends. A job. People liked me. Now what am I? What have you made me become?”

  He blamed me. He should. I’ve ruined him. I hated it. But I meant to. It’s what I had to do.

  “Let me tell you a story, Elian,” I whispered into his ear. His lips pressed firm on the column of my throat. Tongue wet. Tasting and devouring.

  “Tell me,” he begged.

  “About a girl named Layna. She wanted to be a star. But her father said she never would be…”

  “Would you come with me on a trip?” I asked sometime later. Elian had drifted off to sleep for a few minutes. Not long enough for him to feel rested but now he was much more calm.

  More rational.

  Maybe my story helped him.

  The way they had always helped me.

  “Where do you want to go?” he asked, his voice soft. Aching.

  I sighed. How would I tell him? What would he do? How would he react?

  I had a feeling he would need this as much as I did.

  “To see my father.” Elian stilled in my arms but he didn’t pull away.

  “Where’s my phone? I can hear it ringing,” he said excitedly. Patting his pockets.

  I framed his face with my hands. “Listen, Elian. I want to see my father. And I think you should come with me.”

  He shook his head. His too-long hair falling in his eyes that no longer danced.

  “I don’t. I won’t.” He began to shake, and I dug my fingers into his cheeks. Holding him still.

  “Come with me.” I breathed him in.

  Tears hot and fierce fell from his eyes. Splashing on my hands. Staining the skin with their exhausted anguish.

  “We both need to confront the man that made us.”

  “I won’t, Layna,” he warned. His eyes flashing for the first time in weeks.

  “I won’t see him.” He pulled away, my fingers grasping, not finding purchase.

  “Elian—”

  “But I’ll come with you. I’ll be there when you go in and I’ll wait for you to come out. And I’ll help you rid yourself of the monster and the hold you seem to think he has on you.”

  The monster’s hold. It wasn’t in my head. It was in my soul.

  Elian had no idea…

  “Thank you,” I smiled. Elian reached for me just as I reached for him. And we lost ourselves in each other.

  On this cusp of the end.

  “Diana, do you have a few minutes?” I knocked on my boss’s office door at the back of the bookstore later that day.

  Elian had gone home and I had continued packing.

  I was going to see my father.

  I was going to talk to the man that had ruined my life.

  I hated him.

  I loved him.

  Twisted. Confused. But I knew this was important.

  It was time.

  “Sure, Layna. Come on in.” Diana looked up from her computer screen, her lips pursed.

  “What can I do for you?” she asked, popping a piece of gum in her mouth and chewing noisily.

  This was going to be oh so sweet. I had endured her barely concealed abhorrence for long enough.

  “I want to give you my notice.”

  Diana looked surprised. She clicked the pen in her hand over and over again.

  I could grab the pen before she realized what I was doing. I could jam the pointed tip in the tender flesh just beneath her jaw. It would be so easy. So, so easy.

  And I wouldn’t feel anything as she bled out onto the floor.

  The skin beneath my tattoo on my hip throbbed.

  I tried to rid myself of the ugly, wanted thoughts.

  “Did you find a new job?” she asked, so nosy. Always wanting information I didn’t want to give her.

  “No,” I answered her truthfully.

  Click. Click.

  “Are you moving?”

  I took a deep breath. Calm. Steady.

  Ever steady.

  Click. Click.

  “My last day will be Friday.”

  Diana’s eyes darkened. “That’s only four days notice, Layna. That’s not very professional. If you want any sort of good reference from me—”

  “I’m sorry, Diana, but that’s all the notice I can give you.”

  No explanations.

  That was all she deserved.

  “I don’t understand.” She was pushing, pushing. Wanting more.

  I wouldn’t give it to her.

  “I’m sorry if this puts you in a bind, Diana. But there’s nothing I can do. It’s how things are. Thank you for the job. I’ve appreciated the opportunity to work here.”

  Lies. All lies.

>   But given with honey-tongued believability.

  Diana looked flustered and I knew she was cursing me seven ways to Sunday in her mind.

  “You’re leaving me in a bit of a lurch, Layna. I had you scheduled up through the end of next week—”

  “There’s nothing I can do about it,” I cut in. Not giving her a chance to argue.

  I was cutting ties.

  Severing them completely.

  “Well, fine. I better make some phone calls to fill your shifts next week then,” she spat out angrily. She wouldn’t look at me. Which was fine.

  She wouldn’t like what she saw anyway.

  A smile as high as the sun.

  “This weekend? That’s when you want to go?” I could feel his words vibrating through my chest. I lay with my head on his chest. My ear listening to the not so steady thump, thump of his heart.

  “Yes. This weekend.”

  Plans were made.

  “Why so soon? It’s not like he’s going anywhere.” It was a bad joke. Neither of us laughed. We were beyond laughing.

  I had waited as long as I was able to. I was too cold. I couldn’t stand it any longer.

  I was impatient. I didn’t like being alone without Daddy.

  He didn’t say how long he’d be. I really wanted my ice cream.

  He promised.

  Cold. So cold as I walked towards the house.

  It looked familiar.

  Had I been here before?

  My feet crunched and cracked through the frost. It started to sleet. Ice cutting into my face.

  I held my breath as I moved closer.

  Closer.

  Where was Daddy?

  I climbed the steps and stood in front of the door.

  The sounds were everywhere.

  What were they?

  They weren’t like anything I had ever heard before.

  Scratching. Crying.

  Moaning low and quiet. But loud enough to be heard…

  Everywhere.

  I turned the doorknob. I went inside.

  It was dark. No lights. I could see best in the shadows.

  Scratching. Groaning. Achy, breathy silence. A low, rumbling voice I recognized. It was loved. By me.

  Down the hallway. Light spilling out from underneath a closed door.

  I heard her crying.

  I felt excited. Strange. Anticipation sweet in my mouth.

  Daddy had come to get me a star…

  I pushed open the door, lungs tight, heart full.

  My daddy promised…

  “I have memories. Lots of them. And they’re all messed up, Elian. As I get older, they become more and more convoluted. It’s easy for you to hate him. But it’s not so easy for me,” I explained.

  Elian ran his fingers through my hair and I shivered.

  “My perfect, little Layna.” Fingers through hair. Kisses and hugs that he gave to no one else. No one. But me.

  “It must have been hard to hear about who he really was. The things he did. I can’t imagine what that would feel like. To know that everything I had ever known was a lie.”

  Straight to the gut. His words hurt. They hurt because they were true.

  “He used to tell me stories…” I drifted off, not sure why I had mentioned it. That wasn’t something I had ever told anyone.

  The stories were special. For me from my dad.

  Even if they disguised a more horrific reality.

  “Stories?” Elian prompted, and I wished I had never said anything. Why had I brought it up?

  Because with Elian, it was harder to keep the secrets.

  “He was everything a good dad should be. He loved me sweetly and simply. When I was with him, I orbited around him. When he was arrested and I learned who he really was, I crash landed. I exploded. I was finished.”

  Elian ran his hand down my back methodically. Tenderly.

  “What about your mom?” he asked and I laughed. A giggle really.

  “My mom was an ostrich.”

  “An ostrich?”

  “Head in the sand,” I explained. His fingers continued rubbing. Continued in their attempts to soothe.

  It wouldn’t work. I didn’t calm to touch or kisses.

  It would require…other things.

  “My brother Matt and I had to deal with everything on our own. And we never saw our father again.”

  “You have a brother,” Elian stated, surprised.

  “Yes, I have a brother.”

  “Where is he?”

  I shrugged, wishing I could pull away from him but I didn’t. We were suddenly too close. Too intimate. I didn’t like these confidences.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is he still…?” he trailed off.

  “Alive? Yes. I just haven’t seen him in seven years. Not since my mother killed herself, and he was taken into state custody. We talk sometimes…”It was my turn to let my words linger and carry off into the silence.

  “A father. A mother. A brother. You had a normal life didn’t you?”

  I flinched at his use of the word “normal.”

  Was it normal?

  “Lay with me, little Layna. Let’s look at the stars…”

  “Is anything normal? What does that even mean?” I asked defensively. My customary neutrality dissolving into distress.

  Elian’s arms tightened around me. “I didn’t mean anything. I just meant that even with everything your father did, he gave you a childhood. A life. You were happy, right?”

  Was I happy?

  I nodded. Mute. Incapable of speech.

  I didn’t want him to say anything else. I didn’t want his amateur analysis about my childhood. I didn’t want to explain all the ways that my father had, in fact, been wonderful.

  So I crawled my way up his body until we were lying nose to nose. Dead Green eyes fixed on Coal, Black holes. I forgot agitation as I looked for the man I had met all those months ago. The man with the fake smile and dishonest life. He had fascinated me. Intrigued me. I hadn’t been able to stay away. I had been confident in my choice.

  But now?

  Where had his life gone? I was suddenly angry with myself. Enraged. I hadn’t seen the extent of his brokenness. I hadn’t anticipated how deep his trauma went.

  I kissed his mouth. Hating him for being so weak. Adoring him for being exactly as he was. As I needed him to be.

  In this room.

  In Elian’s dry tears.

  In my twisted desire.

  His fingers were clutching and deprived. In another life I would have taken care of him. I would have held him and cooed meaningless words.

  But in this one—the one we were given—I opened my legs and gave him nothing. I lay on my back and watched the sky. My arms held only air.

  “All I have is you, Layna.” His raspy, troubled voice grasped and restrained. Trying to hold on to the woman he wanted me to be. The woman I would have died to give him.

  “You’re all I have,” Elian whispered. Sweat drying. Blood thumping. His lips searching.

  Finding.

  But not taking.

  Never conquering.

  “I’m all you have,” I whispered back, thankful that he so easily forgot about the stories. About the demons that sat on my shoulders.

  He let himself be led into fickle desire and untrustworthy love.

  He was everything I had ever wanted.

  The thought made me cold inside.

  I felt weighed down by the dark. The impending crash raced toward me and I could do nothing to stop it.

  I was going to see my father.

  After all these years I was allowing myself to see the one person I was terrified could devastate what was left of me.

  But it was necessary. As all painful things truly are.

  And I was dragging Elian behind me into the pits of my own personal hell.

  Guilt.

  I felt it sharply, between my ribs. I gasped. The pain intense.

  “I want to spend the day
with you,” I murmured against his closed eyelids. Naked and curled onto his side. Trying to shield himself from things he couldn’t see.

  He drifted in and out of consciousness as though being awake were too much for him to handle.

  Seeing him—depleted—left me feeling…lonely.

  I had time for plans and futures later.

  Today I could give him something better.

  Something good.

  “Elian,” I called his name, lips pressed to skin.

  He rolled onto his back and opened his eyes. Looking at the ceiling his face didn’t register anything I said.

  “Elian,” I said again. Reaching for him. Grabbing on. Not letting go.

  “I’m with you,” he finally said, and there was just a hint of a smile. A ghost I hadn’t seen in a while.

  I took it as a positive sign and unwrapped myself from his blankets. I could pretend just as well as he ever could.

  And today, I would pretend for him.

  “Swim with me.”

  I would beg. I would plead. I would drag him out to the quarry if I had to.

  Just to give him this one day…

  “It’s dangerous. People have died in there.” He was monotone. Unfeeling. But the smile was still there. Tickling his lips.

  “Then stay close to me so I don’t drown,” I coaxed. I flirted. I gave him the smile that he always loved to see.

  The tease he found irresistible.

  I kissed his chest. I kissed his throbbing, throbbing neck. My tongue touching, just quite, each of his perfect, perfect scars.

  “Okay,” he gasped as I pushed my body against his.

  Inevitable.

  Elian grabbed two towels and we walked, without any clothes on, out to the lonesome beach. The sky was clear. The sun was bright. The water was so, so still.

  It was silent.

  The solitude pressed in around us.

  Peaceful.

  Terrifying.

  “I don’t know about this, Layna.” Elian seemed worried.

  I kissed his frowning mouth and felt incredibly light. Relaxed. Floating high, I’d touch the clouds.

  “I know,” I told him. “Come on.”

  I held his hand as we walked to the edge of the water. My toes submerged first and it was cold. Freezing.

  My heart rejoiced as my skin recoiled.

  Too cold.

  Just right.

  “No way!” Elian yelled as the water ran over his feet. He hopped up and down and I laughed.

  I laughed and laughed.