Bait

by Jade West

  They’re willing to negotiate.

  It’s such a shame I’m not.

  I only allow myself five minutes in the shower. I towel off in a rush as I pull a fresh shirt from the closet.

  Cameron’s footsteps are on the landing before I’ve fastened my tie. He’s in spaceman PJs this morning – his favourites.

  His sleepy eyes meet mine as he shunts my bedroom door open. My boy’s hair is a dark tangle straight from bed. He looks so much like his mother it takes my breath. Every morning the same.

  “Hey, little guy,” I greet, hoisting him onto my hip as I grab my jacket from the hanger. I check he’s not wet himself before we head downstairs. “Cornflakes?”

  He shakes his head as we reach the kitchen.

  “Krispies?”

  Another head shake.

  “Shooting Stars?”

  He has Mariana’s dimples when he smiles.

  “Alright then, Stars it is.”

  He still has his special high chair, even though he’ll be four this coming summer. He still has his favourite blue bowl and spoon, even though he’s big enough for big boy cutlery now.

  The speech therapist says he’ll speak in his own time. The psychologist says he’ll stop wetting the bed in his own time too.

  Everything in its own time. Always in its own time. Time is the great healer and all that crap.

  Time changes nothing, not for me and not for him either seemingly.

  I’d give anything to change things for him. I’ll never stop trying, but for now it’s always tiny steps. Such tiny steps.

  Every tiny step is enough to keep me going. A smile. A laugh. A new expression.

  “Shooting Stars for little Cammy!”

  Cam turns his head to smile at my sister as she props herself in the kitchen doorway. I feel her eyes on me as I grab myself a coffee.

  “Well?” she asks.

  “The answer’s still no, Serena. No.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “You’re really going to turn them down? Jeez…”

  I hear the hiss of her breath as her words trail off into nothing. I know she’s fighting back expletives to spare Cameron’s ears.

  “This isn’t healthy,” she tells me, and the cutting edge of her voice bristles above her self-restraint. “Not for any of us. You have to move on, Leo. We all have to move on.”

  All. I know exactly who she’s referring to, but my considerations are in this room only. Me and Cam. Fuck everyone else.

  Fuck him.

  My voice is low and calm, at odds with the twist in my gut. “Their offer was an insult.”

  “They said they’d negotiate…”

  “And I said no,” I tell her again, even though I haven’t. Not yet.

  “You have to speak to Jake, Leo. He’s got to have a say in this too.”

  “My name is Phoenix,” I tell her for the thousandth time. “And he lost his say a long time ago.”

  I flick on the worktop TV and turn the channel to Cameron’s favourite as he digs into his breakfast. If he’s bothered by our exchange he doesn’t show it. I almost wish he would.

  Serena joins me at the counter, and when she speaks again her mouth is close enough to my ear that the little guy won’t hear her.

  “Jake is still my brother. Yours too. He’s still blood. And you’re still Leo, Leo.”

  My eyes burn hers, so close. So similar. All three of us, so fucking similar.

  “He’s no brother of mine, and I’m not still Leo,” I hiss. “He’s not Jake anymore either, he makes that clear enough.”

  She shrugs. “I give up. You’re both as bad as each other.”

  I wish she really would give it up, but Hell will freeze over first. Another family resemblance.

  I down my coffee, then plant a kiss on my boy’s head before I grab my wallet and keys. I ruffle his messy hair on my way out, even though he barely looks away from the cartoons.

  “I’ll be back later, champ. Be good for Serena.”

  She pulls her dressing gown tight as she watches me up the path to the truck. I see her shake her head before I pull away. Her brows are heavy, like mine, her dark hair piled up in a messy bun so stark against her pale skin. She’s still fighting the obvious, still holding on to hope that Jake and I have long given up on.

  She should really just give up too. Let go of the notion that one day we’ll all be bright and breezy again. That one day we’ll play happily families like our whole life didn’t burn down and Mariana didn’t burn with it. That maybe one day I’ll be able to look my brother in the eye and see anything other than hate staring back at me.

  His hate is redundant. I despise myself easily enough for the both of us.

  The early shift workers are piling into the warehouse as I pull into my parking space. Jake’s space is empty beside mine, just as it’s been every day for the past six months we’ve been trading from this location.

  Scott Brothers Logistics the sign on the frontage reads, but now it’s just a name. I watch my tattoos flex as my fingers grip the steering wheel.

  The office lights are still off, waiting for me to jolt the place to life for another day of the same old shit.

  Goods to pack and dispatch, customers to invoice, money to be made. Fifty percent still goes to big-brother-Scott, even though he hasn’t stepped foot inside this business since the day my Mariana passed away. My Mariana. Fuck what he has to say about it.

  I pull out my phone and bring up the text message.

  They’re willing to negotiate.

  My fingers are shaking as I key in my reply.

  It’s not for sale. Not now, not ever.

  A tick flashes up on my handset as the message disappears. Job done.

  I have plans of my own for that place. I don’t know what they are yet, but I’ll be damned if they involve selling off our old premises to the cloud of vultures circling overhead.

  They’d pick at my bones if I let them. Hers too.

  The scars on my back itch. Flames prickling across my skin. Under my skin.

  I climb out of the truck and slam the door behind me.

  And then I run, again. Only this time I’m walking.

  This time it’s all in my head.

  Abigail

  “Abigail Summers! What the hell happened to you?”

  I register the question with bated breath.

  My skeleton melts and sags. My secrets ready to tumble from my unhinged jaw in a river of pure relief.

  It’s the question I’ve been waiting for. The question I figured inevitable from the moment I stepped foot in this building on my first day here.

  Lauren Billings is staring right at me when my mouth drops open. It’s only ten minutes past nine when I’m finally ready to blurt my sorry life story to the virtual stranger in front of me. But then she speaks again.

  “Last night, I mean. I thought you were heading to Divas with Jack. We were all out. We could’ve hit the dance floor.”

  My jaw clamps shut, my skeleton toughening to marble as I shove my heart back in its cage. It pains in protest.

  “Last night?” I bluster. “Oh, I was tired. Long week, my dancing shoes weren’t up to much.”

  “And I thought you’d be part of the cool gang.” She laughs as she rolls her eyes at me. “Jack thinks you blew him out. You didn’t, right? I mean, you’re still interested?”

  It’s sad that she thinks I ever was. I feel like a leaf blowing on the wind, curling at the edges.

  “I told Jack we’d do it another time,” I tell her, and she smiles as she takes her papers from the photocopier.

  “I should think so. He’s a great catch.” She tips her head. “I think you’d make a good couple. You’d look good together. Well suited.”

  I look down at myself. My boring blouse, my knee-length pencil skirt. My semblance of normality.

  Well suited.

  “He’s really not a dick, you know,” she continues. “He wants to get serious. I mean, he g
oofs around, but he’s not a jerk. He’d take care of you.”

  The bile rises in a heartbeat. Take care of me. The world swims around me as I try to focus on her voice.

  “I know some guys around here act like they’re so cool, but he’s not one of them. He really likes you.”

  My hands are shaky as I shove my purchase order into the copier. I wish I could turn to jelly in front of her and sob my heart out onto the dull beige antistatic carpet.

  But I don’t.

  It seems paper walls are tougher than I thought. They get tougher every day.

  And still every night they burn.

  I hold my breath until my copy comes out the other side, and then I wave it in her general direction, armed with generic excuses about work piling up on my desk. It’s a lie, of course. I have nothing piled up on my desk. I had to dumb down my resume to get this position, downplaying everything I’d been doing for the past six years previous.

  Just your average girl called Abigail. Nothing special. Nothing to note.

  A nobody.

  I retreat to the safety of my desk among the other desks, scrolling through my purchase software as though I’m pondering something important. There’s nothing important. Nothing I have responsibility for. I key in and send out, nothing more. A constant blur of the same old product codes I’d learned by heart by the end of week one. A blur of days and faces and coffee breaks and pay checks.

  It’s not enough.

  My fingernails pinch my thighs under my scratchy skirt. I’m itchy, like a flurry of tiny beetles are scurrying across my skin. Under my skin.

  So I run, even though I’m only walking. My expression is empty as I pace through the sea of desks, back past the copier in the hallway, and past the kitchen and the stationery cupboard to the bathroom out the back.

  I sit. Tug my starchy skirt up and scratch my naked skin until it turns pink.

  I think of denim guy, and the darkness of the car park last night, and how much I wanted to feel alive.

  Needed to feel alive.

  I think of the relief in the middle of the night, when I dream of the man chasing me and not of the man who cast me aside like I meant nothing to him. Like our baby meant nothing to him.

  And then I make a choice, right here and now. I make a choice between breakdown and breakthrough, even though I’m not sure where the two meet anymore.

  If I’m going to stay standing I need to keep running.

  I need something real. Something more than the unrealised fantasy I’ve been clinging on to through long nights these past few months.

  I need to meet the monster.

  And this time, for once, maybe even finally, he needs to catch me.

  Three

  It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all.

  William James

  Abigail

  Part of me regrets turning down the girls from work when they asked me out with them this evening. Part of me wishes I could find solace in the drink and chatter of a regular Friday night out with colleagues.

  Once upon a time I loved weekend drinks with people from work. With him.

  I stare at the words on my laptop screen, my heart pounding with a strange mix of horror and excitement.

  I shouldn’t click the OK button. There’s no way I should post this online, and definitely not with one of those arty obscured pictures of myself with the contrast raised up high and my hair covering half of my face.

  I’m standing on the edge of a precipice, staring into the unknown, and it’s so stupid to flirt with disaster by inching that bit closer to the darkness, but behind me is just more of the same. More days at my desk, more evenings trying to convince myself life is good here. More fake smiles and self-help books as I try to get through everything that went so horribly wrong back home.

  I used to browse profiles on this website when I was younger, plucking up the courage to explore some of my darker fantasies. I never did. I was never brave-slash-reckless enough to risk it, not back then when life felt right.

  But now it feels like a different story.

  I send a text off to my parents with the usual things are good message I’ve been sending them every week since I arrived here. I reply to the photo message I got from my old friends with their miss you note scrawled underneath.

  I miss them too. So much.

  But neither of those things pull me back from the ledge.

  No.

  I need to do this.

  I need to feel something. Something other than… this.

  My finger hits enter, and I hold my breath as the screen changes to a tick with profile uploaded written underneath.

  Fuck.

  I’ve really done it.

  I click on the link to my new sex hookup profile and take a breath as I see my picture staring back at me. It’s really there. Live. The green circle at the side of the image tells the world I’m online right now.

  The words look even worse somehow now they’re out there to be seen.

  I’m seeking my monster in the darkness.

  I’ll run but you’ll run faster.

  We’ll play cat and mouse until you catch me.

  I won’t know you, and I’ll pretend I don’t want to.

  You’ll pretend you don’t care.

  I’ll tell you I don’t want it.

  You’ll tell me you’ll take it anyway, and then you will.

  And it’ll be rough.

  One wild night where anything goes, and then we’ll never see each other again.

  I feel like such a crazy as I read it back. My message sounds… off. Too confident maybe? Too callous? Reckless?

  I click to edit, and when I feel the lump in my throat I know I really am on the edge. I’m tired. Tired of trying, tired of playing normal. The urge to bare my soul is too strong to ignore this evening, to be authentically vulnerable just once, even if only a handful of strangers use it as masturbation fodder.

  My fingers are jittery when I type.

  Please… I might sound crazy, but I need this. I’ve always needed this.

  Please help me feel alive again.

  I’m not seeking a psycho, just someone who can help me feel alive again.

  I can’t face looking at my updated profile with its little green online icon, so I close the laptop as soon as I’m done. I sit on my bed in the tiny apartment I hoped would feel like home by now, my knees pulled up to my chest as I stare at the patterns the streetlights make on the wall.

  And then my phone pings.

  Once, twice, and then again.

  My email is on fire. My nerves are burning as I scroll through the early responses. But they’re shit.

  Hey babe. Ur hot.

  Wot you up to sexy?

  Love your pic. Gonna fuck you up good.

  No.

  No, no and definitely no.

  How big are your tits?

  You wanna get fucked real good?

  Wanna cam?

  And on and on they keep coming. A sea of idiots who haven’t even bothered to read my profile.

  My outpouring feels pointless, my confession nothing but a potential in for jerks looking to get their dicks wet.

  I flop back onto my bed with a sigh, and then I laugh. It’s one of those self-deprecating laughs that almost makes me reach for the how to heal your broken heart books on my nightstand.

  What the fuck is happening to me? Really?

  My dick is ten inches. Wanna see?

  You like girl on girl?

  And then I get my first dick pic. It’s blurry and from a crappy angle that make his balls look too big. Show me your pussy.

  One day, when life is good again, I’m going to confess this stupid evening to whoever my new best friend here happens to be, and they’ll laugh and I’ll laugh and I’ll show them these messages and all the crappy requests I got. They’ll call me crazy and I’ll smile and say I was, and this will all be a distant memory.

  He’ll be a distant memory
too.

  But not today. Today these messages are all for me.

  Maybe these messages are the universe’s way of answering my deepest fantasies. At least the universe has the sense of humour I’ve been lacking lately.

  Ur one hot dirty bitch.

  Do you take it up the ass?

  Maybe a Friday night wasn’t the best time to post a new online advert.

  I head through to my tiny kitchenette in my PJs and flick on the kettle to make myself a tea. I should’ve gone out with the girls from work, maybe I’d have found a real friend here. Hell knows I need a real friend here.

  I’m about to put my phone on silent to stop the endless pings when it pings again.

  I’m figuring it’s another cheap one-liner, maybe even another dick pic, but the message surprises me.

  Phoenix Burning the username reads. What happened to you?

  My heart skips at the question.

  I’ve been waiting for it to come for so long. My tongue is parched, desperate to speak the truth. My soul screams for someone to hear me.

  His picture is in darkness. There’s only a hint of his face. He looks stern. Serious. Brooding.

  Maybe I’m seeing what I want to see.

  I take my tea back through to the bedroom and fire my laptop back up. I read it again on screen, those four little words. I stare at his picture like it could be my salvation, weighing things up. Weighing up how much I really want this.

  And then I type…

  Phoenix

  I’ve been on this site sporadically for the past three months. I’ve never messaged anyone. Never even found anything that offers a passing interest.

  The profiles are a blur to me – pictures all blending into one.

  None of them ever make me pause.

  Until now.

  I guess the weekends are the hardest. The nights when I’ve finally got Cameron settled to sleep after a long week, when I’ve said goodnight and prayed this is the night he’ll say it back. When Serena has gone to bed and I’m still wide awake, alone with my own company.