The Contradiction of Solitude

by A. Meredith Walters

  “Who do you want her to be?” Daddy asked. His grin stretching high. So high. I couldn’t help but smile back.

  “I don’t have any stories,” I denied. I refused to give him what he was looking for. I should leave. I should go back to Elian. I should forget about this man and his demons once and for all.

  But I couldn’t.

  When it came to my father, I was always helpless.

  “Please, Lay. Tell me. Yours were always better than mine.”

  I snorted. Then I laughed.

  It was so easy to smile with my daddy. My mouth relaxed and I handed him something real. Something I gave to no one else.

  “Tell me about your stars,” he urged eagerly, his eyes—black, flashing eyes—burrowed in. Burrowed deep.

  I took a deep breath. I thought about Elian.

  No.

  I wouldn’t give him that one.

  Elian was mine.

  So I gave him another story. The first story. One that didn’t matter.

  Not like Elian.

  He was different.

  So carefully planned.

  Because of who he was.

  But I could give him others. The ones that didn’t mean anything.

  “There was a man named Christopher with sparkling blue eyes. He was smart. He was lonely. He saw a pretty girl with long, dark hair and loved her instantly. As they all do…” My voice carried off. Carried on. And on.

  My dad chuckled and clasped his hands together. “Oh, I like this one. Tell me what happened to smart and lonely Christopher.”

  I shook my head. My hair fell in front of my face, shielding me. From my father. From the person he made me become.

  “I can’t tell you,” I moaned. Tired. So tired. I wanted to close my eyes. I wanted to fly away.

  My father always made me feel like I was flying.

  “Layna, are you in here?” My daddy poked his head into my room where I was in the corner. Mom had put me there and I was told not to move.

  Not until Daddy came home to ‘deal with me.’

  I had smirked when she told me that. She was so clueless.

  My father would never scold me. He would never yell.

  Mom had no idea.

  “So what did you do this time?” he laughed, coming all the way in. He shut the door behind him. Privacy. Our talks required that.

  I kicked the box full of dolls toward him.

  He picked up one and held it up, grinning like crazy.

  Like crazy.

  “Why did you take the heads off?” he asked, bemused. Never angry. Mommy would never know.

  “They look better that way.”

  Daddy nodded. “They sure do.” He crooked his finger and beckoned me closer.

  I slowly walked towards him. When I was standing right in front of him, he leaned down and whispered. Close to my ear.

  “Sometimes people look better that way too.”

  Then he was laughing.

  And I was laughing.

  Because Daddy was right.

  Some people would look better that way.

  “I wished you had come to see me sooner, Layna,” Daddy scolded. Treating me like a child.

  His child.

  “I couldn’t,” I admitted.

  Daddy nodded. He understood. He always understood.

  “You weren’t ready.”

  “No, I wasn’t.”

  “But you are now.”

  Was I?

  My father tapped his bottom lip with his finger. Thinking. Thinking. “Do you remember the house? Outside of town. Off the highway and down the gravel path just past Sparrow Lane?”

  The house.

  As if I could ever forget the house.

  The house sat off in the distance. A tomb…waiting.

  I nodded.

  Down the gravel road. Dark on both sides. Waylon Jennings singing softly as we drove into the night.

  “Gonna get my girl a star…” Daddy crooned and I laughed.

  “Do you know?” he asked, and I stared at him.

  Did I know?

  I knew so many things.

  “It’s yours,” he whispered, covering the end of his phone with his hand.

  “What?” I frowned.

  “The house. It’s yours.”

  “Why?”

  My father grinned and wagged his finger. “You know why. Don’t ask questions when you already have the answers. Hold onto your words until you need them, Layna.”

  “It’s mine.”

  Daddy grinned brighter. Wider.

  “I gave it to you a long time ago.”

  “Cain, your time’s up,” the guard barked.

  And then I saw it. The regret. My father’s face fell and he became the soft, tender man of my childhood.

  The one with whom I shared all my secrets.

  Secrets that he kept.

  Just as I had always kept his.

  “Will you come back to see me?” he asked before hanging up.

  I didn’t respond.

  The guard took the phone from his hand and slammed it down.

  I would never have answered him anyway.

  He already knew.

  “Are we going home?” Elian asked after I came out of the prison.

  The guard had taken Daddy away. He had looked back just before the door closed and he grinned. His mouth moving over silent words.

  Words I could feel everywhere.

  I love you, Lay.

  “Layna? Did you hear me?” I had been sitting in Elian’s car, staring straight ahead of me.

  Not really here.

  I was still there.

  “It’s yours.”

  “What?”

  “The house. It’s yours.”

  He had given me the house.

  The house.

  Where it all began.

  For me.

  It was the start of it all.

  “Are you ready to go back to Brecken Forest?” Elian asked.

  Back.

  Back.

  No.

  “Can we go somewhere else first?”

  I could barely hear my voice. I couldn’t stomach the words falling. Falling. Falling from my lips.

  Was I going to take Elian there?

  To the place where our worlds would collide?

  Completely.

  Totally.

  Finished.

  Elian was touching me. Hands in my hair. Fingers digging into my neck. Pulling me. Yanking me. Wanting me closer. I didn’t want him to touch me.

  Not right now.

  I pushed him away. Away.

  Not right now.

  “What did he say to you?” Elian asked. Scared. Worried.

  “He left me the house,” I whispered. Falling. Falling. From my lips.

  “The house?” Elian was confused. I wasn’t looking at him. He wanted my eyes. He wanted to see for himself that I was okay.

  Was I okay?

  “The house,” I repeated. “Can we go there?”

  There was silence. Impenetrable silence. Nothing. No sound.

  “Tell me about your stars.”

  And I had. I had told him about one.

  One star.

  One that didn’t mean anything.

  I looked at Elian. At the man who mattered.

  He reached out again, and this time I let him make contact. I let him touch me. My face. My lips. Always touching.

  I wouldn’t give him Elian.

  Never Elian.

  He was mine.

  From that moment in the house, all those years ago.

  I just didn’t know exactly what to do with him.

  I had to know.

  I had to know.

  Elian had to know.

  “Can we go? To Norton Hill?” It was asking a lot. I knew Elian wanted to go home. To Brecken Forest.

  But my home was waiting for me.

  Elian frowned. “You want to go to Norton Hill,” he said.

  I nodded. I leaned in. Elian lean
ed in. Irresistible. Unable to help himself.

  Our mouths met. Tongues tangled. Teeth bit down. Piercing. Moans. Sighs. From Elian.

  Not from me.

  We parted. “Take me, Elian. Please.”

  He closed his eyes. My forehead against his forehead. Noses brushing. Breath mingling.

  He was mine.

  And I knew he would take me where I needed to go.

  “Okay. How far is it?”

  I pulled away. But he still held my hand. He couldn’t let go. But he would have to eventually. It was the only way forward.

  Moving on…

  “Seven hours,” I told him, looking at the directions on my phone.

  Seven hours.

  Seven hours to home.

  Elian put the car into drive and pulled out of the parking lot. I didn’t look behind me as we drove away.

  But I wanted to.

  It was two in the afternoon by the time we got on the interstate. I hadn’t been at the prison very long. A little over an hour. But it felt like a lifetime.

  A lifetime spent in that gray, plastic chair, talking to the man who had twisted me.

  “Do you want to spend the night somewhere? Get some sleep and then head out in the morning?” Elian suggested after an hour on the road.

  An hour of silence come and gone.

  “No,” I responded.

  “Are you sure? You look really tired. Did you sleep it all last night?”

  I closed my eyes and laid my head back against the seat. The buzzing filled my head. It invaded my ears. It rendered me deaf to all things.

  Bits and pieces.

  That’s all I was given.

  That’s all my mind would let me have.

  Rolling images. Colorless. Except for the red.

  Everywhere I saw red.

  “Who is she, Daddy?” I covered my mouth with my hand. My stomach rolled and heaved. My eyes burned and flooded.

  What was my daddy doing?

  Daddy closed his eyes and then opened them. He looked at me with…anticipation.

  “You should have stayed in the car, Lay. I told you to.”

  I shook my head, my eyes on the girl.

  Because that’s all she was.

  A girl.

  She looked like the girls I would see outside of the high school near our house. She was pretty. With dark hair.

  And her eyes.

  They were wide.

  Panicked.

  Tired.

  Desperate.

  And they were a pretty, pretty green.

  “I just want to get there if that’s okay. I want to go home.”

  “Home? That’s not your home, Layna. Not anymore.” Elian sounded so angry. Hurt.

  He thought my home was in Brecken Forest. With him.

  He wrapped himself in fanciful delusions. They clouded his mind. They polluted his vision.

  They made things safe.

  And comfortable.

  It’s where he disappeared to when no one could find him.

  When he told his friends that he was seeing his fake family, he was somewhere else.

  And when he didn’t go to work he was playing make believe with ghosts.

  The pills told the truth. The truth he didn’t expect anyone to see.

  His mind was splintered.

  Cut into shards.

  Nothing was holding them together anymore.

  He didn’t yet see how far he had fallen. But he would. Soon.

  I would be there to push him off the cliff.

  I would be there to watch him crash to the ground.

  It’s the least I could do for everything that he was to me.

  Everything he had yet to be.

  “Just take me to the house, Elian.”

  I was tired but I couldn’t sleep.

  “Do you want to say something, Amelia?” Daddy asked the girl tied to the chair.

  I stood with my back pressed against the wall.

  I should have stayed in the car.

  Daddy looked at the girl like he loved her. He looked at her the way he always looked at me.

  Like she was special.

  I hated her.

  I wanted to hurt her.

  I didn’t want my daddy to look at her like that.

  It wasn’t fair.

  Daddy pulled the rag from the girl’s mouth, his fingers lingering on her cheek. She flinched away.

  Then her pretty, pretty green eyes sought out mine. Wet with tears. Falling on the floor. Mixing with the blood.

  “Help me,” she whispered.

  I looked at Daddy, but he only smiled at Amelia. At her pretty, pretty face with her pretty, pretty green eyes.

  “Help me,” she said again, a little louder.

  Was I supposed to help her? Is that why Daddy came here? To set her free?

  “Is she okay?” I asked. My voice so young. So small. Swallowed up by the large room and the shadows in the corners.

  “Are you okay, Amelia?” Daddy asked, still looking at the girl with her red, red skin. She cried and cried.

  I didn’t like her crying like that.

  “Help me!” she screamed, and I covered my ears.

  I wished she’d shut up!

  “What did you talk to your dad about?” Elian asked some time later.

  “The stars,” I responded, my forehead against the window. The air conditioner was on full blast. I was cold.

  Freezing.

  From the inside out.

  “Why? What’s so important about the stars?” Elian wondered aloud. I laughed. I couldn’t stop. I laughed and laughed and laughed.

  Elian chuckled along nervously.

  “I spent my entire life wondering the same thing. Why they were more important than I was. And then I realized that it didn’t really matter. Because they were mine too.”

  I made no sense. Elian was confused. He was justifiably concerned.

  And he was falling.

  Falling.

  Falling…

  “Do you feel better? Now that you’ve seen him?” Elian asked, breaking through my constant, uncontrollable laughter.

  I stopped laughing.

  I was silent.

  Did I feel better?

  I ran my forehead along the smooth window. I thought about smashing my head through the glass. Just to feel the pain.

  Just to feel something.

  Anything but the numbness.

  The nothingness.

  “Yes,” I lied. Giving him the word he wanted.

  What made him feel better.

  “Yes,” I said again.

  Liar.

  Deceiver.

  Fraud.

  Elian let out a long, pent up breath. “I’m so glad to hear that.” He was glad.

  I let him have his moment of gladness.

  Before I took it all away.

  “So this is Norton Hill,” Elian said, as we entered the town of my sad, lonely childhood.

  “This is Norton Hill,” I replied. I didn’t look around. I didn’t care about the town. Or how much it may or may not have changed.

  That’s not why I was here.

  Those memories weren’t why I had come.

  “Do you want to see your old house?” Elian asked, following the GPS directions towards the only place I wanted to go.

  “No. I don’t want to go there,” I told him.

  “Why won’t she stop screaming?” I asked Daddy, my ears still covered with my hands. Ice cream was forgotten.

  Daddy put the rag back in Amelia’s mouth and ran his hand over the top of her head. Gently. So loving. Like he was tucking her into bed. Would he tell her stories too?

  “Is that better?” Daddy asked. I nodded and moved away from the wall and into the room. Just a little bit.

  It was dark in here. Even with the light on. It was dirty too. Like it hadn’t been cleaned in a long time. Mommy would hate it here. She would complain about the dust and gross stuff on the floor. It was dark and sticky looking.
>
  Some of it was dripping from Amelia’s arms. Blood. Lots of it.

  “What’s she doing here, Daddy? Are you here to let her go?” I asked. Amelia was crying. A lot. I didn’t want to look at her but I couldn’t help it.

  I felt something strange in my stomach.

  So, so strange.

  “That’s exactly why I’m here. And now you’re here too. I hadn’t wanted you to see this. Not yet. But maybe it’s best you found her.” Was he talking to me? Because he wasn’t looking at me.

  He was looking at Amelia again. He seemed to like looking at her.

  I really, really hated her.

  “Well, untie her then!” I said loudly. Mad that I had lost my father’s attention. Upset because there was a girl in the chair and she looked hurt.

  But most of all bothered because I wasn’t scared anymore.

  “Shh, Layna. You don’t need to yell,” my father scolded and I felt silly. I crossed my arms over my chest and stuck out my bottom lip.

  I felt like crying. I hated it when Daddy chided me.

  Daddy saw my expression and came over to where I was standing. He bent down in on his haunches in front of me and looked into my eyes. Coal black. Just like his.

  “I’m sorry. I know you’re confused, Lay. It’ll be all right.” He hugged me, and I buried my face into his shirt that smelled like tobacco and spearmint. I could hear Amelia trying to scream. It was muffled and I wished she would stop.

  My daddy kissed the top of my head. “Would you like to see how it’s done?” he asked. He sounded excited.

  “How what’ s done?” I was feeling a little better now that I knew he wasn’t mad at me.

  “How I’m going to send Amelia up to the stars.”

  “How far out of town is it?” Elian asked after we had been driving for what felt like hours but was in reality only minutes.

  “Not much farther,” I told him. Remembering. Flashes. Recollections. It was all coming back.

  That night.

  That night that changed everything.

  “Right there. Pull in and park,” I told him, pointing to a turn-off hidden from view from the road. No one ever knew the house was back there. It was hidden away. For years it was our secret.

  Until now.

  Now I was sharing it with Elian.

  Because he belonged to this place too.

  “How do you do it?” I whispered, wiping my nose on my sleeve.

  Daddy took my hand and led me to Amelia.

  Pretty, pretty Amelia with the sad, sad green eyes.

  Daddy turned his head up to the ceiling. As though looking at the sky. “Only in memories will she live forever. Only in the sky will she be home,” he murmured. To himself. Not to me.