The Lonely

by Brown, Tara

  My eyes are closed. I see it all. I see it the way she says it. I can't make Emalyn grateful though. I think they're right. I did what I could. It was the wrong thing, but it was what I could do. I tried. I failed but I tried. I need to let myself see that.

  Eli's words come back to haunt me. He said that if he had raped me that the one act wouldn’t ruin who I was. I was stronger than that. In my heart of hearts I believe that. Pulling the trigger and freeing her cannot ruin me forever. I need to get past it or at the very least accept it.

  "Be grateful for the things that you can control. They are there for you to control. You choose the ways you live and love. You control that. Letting go of the other things, the things you can't control, is easy when you feel like you control the life and the love."

  I nod. I believe her. One day I will control the way I live and love.

  "You are grateful for Mr. Adams and the way he takes care of you and loves you. He is your family and you are grateful he chose you. Family is rarely a choice and he chose you. As an orphan that is a great feeling."

  I take the breaths as they come, slow and steady. She lies there next to me and doesn’t speak. It’s the quiet reflection time.

  I take a mental inventory. I am grateful for Eli. He is my family. I'm not ready to meet the Mastermen family who I was taken from. I'm not ready for all of that. I am grateful he and Dr. Bradley have agreed to let me take some time before I see them. I can't bear the thought they will see me as the broken girl I am. I want to be perfect when I see them. I just want to be normal.

  I open my eyes, but they flutter in the light. I'm not scared anymore of what will be there when I open them. I'm not scared. Eli took my fear from me.

  He gave me hope in return.

  He took the lonely too.

  Instead, I have a broken heart and a sickening case of something I refuse to name. But the memory of his lips on my thigh brings it back.

  My stomach convulses. I sit up.

  "Done already?"

  My face is flushed. I nod, "I need to go." I walk away and press the elevator button like a madwoman, like always.

  I ride down alone. I'm so lost in thought, I don’t notice the man standing in the doorway when it opens. I step out into him. I jump back, "Oh sorry." I say, until I see it's Eli.

  He steps back and lets me out. I glance up at him. "What are you doing here?"

  He points, "I wanted to see her." His eyes are different now. They avoid me.

  "Did you know I was here?"

  I can see the answer in his face. "No. I expected you to still be in session. I was going to wait in the other offices." I feel my face pinch, thinking about the other offices. The ones with the cells and the kitchen sink. The intense role-playing therapy offices. He sees my reaction and fakes a warm smile, "How have you been?"

  I look up at him, even though he avoids my eyes. "Since you messaged me this morning and told me to stop being a pain in the ass? Good."

  He laughs and runs his hands through his dark hair. I want to touch it. I want to touch him. My insides are burning with conflict.

  The doors have closed, so he leans past me and pushes the button. The proximity and the warmth of him heat my face up. "I need you." I whisper into his arm, I don’t even know why.

  He steps back. I see his answer. Anxiety builds inside of me. I brush past him and walk out into the frosty January air. I grip my coat and walk to the car. Stuart waves at me.

  I take a relaxing inhale and let go of the rejection. Eli is a head case too. He's the male version of me.

  Stuart opens the door and I catch a glint of something in his eye. "Wipe the smug look off that face." I say as I climb in.

  He chuckles and climbs in. The car is started and warm. "I still cannot believe that shit worked. Look at you, touching doors and shit. You were the toughest nut to crack girl."

  I snort. I look out the window.

  "You know you're a different girl right? Sarah, you look different, you talk different, you walk different. No more orphan Annie." I meet his dark eyes in the rearview. I see myself differently in his eyes. He nods, "It was worth it. It might not feel like it today or next month, but it was."

  I pull out my cell phone and notice the messages I've missed. I still have to have it on at all times. I still have to answer his messages. His rules are still in place but I obey them now for a different reason.

  'I need to see you this evening. I need to talk to you.' I shudder. The last time he sent a message like that, I ended up in a cell. I don’t get how he can talk to me on text but not to my face. I wonder if it's the same as me and Sebastian separated by the bathroom door.

  I think about myself fantasizing about him the way I do Sebastian and shake my head. I should have called the cops. Shell was right. I should have called them.

  The realization brings back a thought. I glance up and look at Stuart in the mirror, "She comes back today. You excited?" I ask.

  "No. I know she is gonna kick my ass for taking part in it all."

  I laugh in agreement, "Yeah. She is. She still thinks I should call the cops. She's pissed and I haven’t even told her anything yet."

  His eyes flinch, "I know."

  I smile, "I believed you were hurt. She is going to hate that fact. That you tricked me."

  "I know."

  I shake my head, "I still can't believe you tricked me."

  He puffs up his chest and misses the heartache in my eyes and the point I am making. "Three years of theatre." He looks proud of himself.

  I shake my head, "Are you even from Wichita?"

  He shakes his head, "Nope. Detroit. Dr. Bradley said I should be from a southern state because studies show women feel safer with men with southern accents. They're more calming." He drops the Kansas accent.

  I feel sick. "Is your name even Stuart?"

  He laughs, "Yeah."

  "How did you get into this?"

  His eyes narrow. He watches me for a second and then looks back at the road, "Dr. Bradley, she's my doctor too. I've helped on a couple now. All the people there were either doctors or patients who have survived and come back around. No one else would get it. It's extreme and harsh but it's the only way sometimes."

  I doubt the authenticity of the story for a second, but the look in his eyes isn’t something anyone can fake. It's the look a person gets when they remember something they'd rather forget.

  "Do you ever just wish it had been you that didn’t make it?" I ask and stare out the window.

  "Everyday." His words are hollow like mine.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The door bursts open. She leaps at me. She hugs and examines every inch. Tears have claimed her face and mine. She wraps around me and pulls me into her. I can't hear anything she says over the shriek in her voice. I feel like I'm in a melodrama.

  She stands up and kicks the door closed, wiping her face. She's huffing and puffing. It takes her a minute before she speaks.

  "Did they hurt you badly?"

  I lick my lips and nod. I don’t have the ability to lie to her.

  "Sexually?"

  I grimace and shake my head.

  "Beatings?"

  I avert my eyes.

  She breathes through her flared nostrils, "I'll kill him. I'll friggen kill him."

  "Just sit."

  She paces and rants, "I will peel his god damned skin from his body. How are you so calm? God damned. I was so worried." She sighs and sits beside me. She drops her dark head into her hands and shakes it back and forth, "You scared me."

  "Scared me too."

  She turns her head and frowns, "You seem different."

  I laugh bitterly, "That was the point."

  "Just start at the beginning and tell me every detail."

  I sit back on the bed and let it flow out of my mouth. I watch her expressions as the words roll of my tongue. She cries and shudders. It no longer feels real to me. I've been combing through it in my therapy detox for weeks. I'm exhausted thinking ab
out it. But for her it's new and real and painful. She looks horrified and when I finish she doesn’t speak. She curls into a ball and cries. I pat her hair and rub her back. I comfort her.

  "I don’t mean to be selfish. I-I-'m so sorry." She heaves. She lies there for a long time. The sun starts to go down.

  "Are you scared you'll never get past this?" She whispers into the muted dusk light.

  "Yes and no. Sometimes I think it will never go away. I still have moments where I can't feel anything or I feel too much and get overload. Doctor Bradley has been helping me. I started heavy sessions with her. Eight hours a day of intensive therapy. I am so talked out. It's not even funny."

  "I hate that they did that to you and you're so calm."

  I laugh. "I wasn't calm. I cried for long time. I couldn’t talk. They made me look at hundreds of photos of her. They made me see her the other way and write her letters. I begged to go back to the cell for days." I hold out my arm, where a bandage covers the scab, "I smashed a window and cut myself on the glass."

  She turns and looks at me, "You?"

  "Yeah. It just doesn't feel real. It's like a movie I don’t want to watch because it makes my tummy hurt."

  She frowns, "It makes my tummy hurt too. I can see you, all little and scared in the hole."

  I frown at her, "Don’t try to see it. It already ruined the person I would have been. Don't let it in."

  A single tear makes its way down her cheek, "It's hard. When I think about it I want to go on a rampage." Her lip trembles.

  I laugh, "New Leaf?"

  She laughs, "We need to burn the old friggen tree down and plant a new one. In a different country. Not just a New Leaf but a new everything." I laugh with her. It feels nice to laugh. For real. She plays with my hair, "How is he so rich and hot and normal?"

  I shake my head, "He's rich and hot, but he's not normal. I see a sickness in his eyes. They're broken like mine. Like a mirror with cracks in it but none of the glass has fallen out of the frame."

  "Spooky."

  I stare out the darkening window, "Yeah."

  "I feel so bad for him. I mean I feel bad for you too, but he knew his life before. You know?"

  I nod, "I hate that his life is this. That I was part of the reason it became what it is."

  "Em, you know you didn’t do it."

  I smirk. She grimaces, "Sarah. Sorry."

  I laugh, "I can't get past it either. I've been Em for so long. Em the orphan."

  She sits up, "Why did you lie about it? Why did you make your name Em?"

  I shrug, "I just remember loving her name when I met her. She was so pretty and clean. I named my Barbie Emalyn the day they got there. When the police found me and asked me my name, it just burst out. I didn’t want to be Sarah. Sarah was the name of the girl who killed Emalyn. She didn’t deserve to live on."

  She grabs my arms, "You didn’t kill her. The circumstances did. No six-year old who lived the way you did can be blamed for that."

  "I know. It's just hard. I can feel the gun in my hands. The facts are the facts. My statement is being given to the police. Eli's parents will see it. They'll know it wasn’t him, for sure." That gives me a sense of peace.

  She snuggles into me again, "You didn’t do it. Killing someone is taking the gun and shooting them. Not missing him and hitting her. It was an accident."

  "It hurts the same either way."

  She squeezes my arm, "I love you homie. Sarah or Em or whatever. I love you. You're the same to me no matter what. I know your heart. I know you couldn’t hurt a fly."

  I feel a sickening amount of relief. Tears slip from my eyes. I was so worried she would hate me. I was terrified she wouldn't understand. Like she would see the gun in my hands, the way I do.

  She looks around the room. "It is different in here. It's dirty and there isn’t a variety of hand sani on every counter or shelf." She looks at me, she has avoided my eye contact for a few minutes, "What do you remember?"

  I twitch my foot. I don’t want to answer. "All of it."

  "You remember the shootings and the Spicers?" Her voice is soft, scared. "You remember him hurting you and the other kids? It's not just a story that Eli convinced you to believe?"

  "I remember every second."

  She looks down, "I feel so bad for you both. They made him go in the hole? He was a little boy? I don’t even know what to say, Em…S-Sarah."

  I laugh, "Me either. It's cool if you call me, Em. I'm still that girl in some ways."

  She smiles. It doesn’t look real. It's broken and devastated. "All the good ways. But I think you should be Sarah now. Let Em rest." Her green eyes shine.

  I feel my own eyes shining, "Yup."

  She pretty much tackles me to the bed and wraps around me and pets my head. "We can get a second opinion if you want. Like if you don’t want to see him anymore."

  I clear my throat, "I don’t…mind…seeing him."

  "Well, if you need anything I know Mom and Dad will help. We talked about it at Christmas and they're not comfy with him paying for our shit anymore. And that doctor is a quack."

  She is getting snot and tears on my shirt. I laugh, "Dude, it worked. I drank sink water and ate from a dog dish and was beaten and violated and humbled and humiliated and everything was taken away. But all the crazy went with it. All the fears and despair and pathetic Emalyn Spicer. I feel new. I feel brave and fearless in so many ways. Dr. Bradley is a quack, no doubt. But she is a genius quack." I glance over at her and blink, "I haven’t made you wash your hands or asked you to pick up your bags or made you take your shoes off."

  She laughs a wet giggle and sniffles, "You still noticed it?"

  "Yeah. Old dog new tricks. But I have never been this free. I'm free. I'm able to feel guilty and horrid and sad, but at the same time I feel excited and I have lustful thoughts. I smelled a guy yesterday with cologne and I just enjoyed it. He smelled nice. And that was it. I wasn’t scared of him. He didn’t even glance at me."

  She nods, accepting it all, "Okay. I agree. If you smelled cologne and my shoes are on your bed, she might be on to something. But, I still question those methods. Harshly."

  "Yup. She's freaking nuts."

  We both laugh.

  I sigh, "Tell me about Christmas. Is Joey still hot?"

  She nudges me, "He's a player piece of shit. Never date Italian men…dude…ever."

  I laugh. "I'll never date anyway." I stop laughing and turn and face her, "That’s not true. I want to date. I don’t want to let any of that define me anymore. That was old me talking out of habit."

  A slow and steady smile creeps across her lips. She nods, "You are better."

  I smile back, "I'm on my way." And I've made my peace with some things. Things I never want to lose.

  Her eyes sparkle, "You should call Sebastian. He messaged me when your…er…Eli messaged him. He was so mad. He's good for you. He's so normal and nice and vanilla."

  I bite my lip and wonder if I can. I want to. That is the difference in me. I want to try to move past it. Not give up and die in the hole I'm not really trapped in. If I'm totally honest I want to forget again. But that’s not likely.

  My phone vibrates.

  'Stuart will be there in fifteen.'

  I glance at it and feel the excitement building inside of me. I want to see him too and it's a horrid feeling. I didn’t see how messed up he was at first, but I see it now. And some sick twisted part of me wants him still. He's stringing me along and what's worse is I see it. He wants to play victims together and get some kind of gratification for his own injuries and sadness. He talked about me getting better, but I'm concerned he hasn’t been able to get better, in fourteen years. It makes me sad. I want him to be whole too. Not just save me. Save himself.

  I get up and pull my shirt off. "I have to go meet him."

  "Eli? Well, I'm coming." She is defiant. I knew she would be. If it were her, I would be too. I look back, "Okay."

  "Why are you changing?" She sits
up.

  Blush creeps across my cheeks, "Oh, uhm I did therapy in that shirt. I get sweaty."

  Her jaw drops, "Shut the front door. You like him? That’s why you don’t mind seeing him. Hot, rich, nasty. Oh my god." She is disgusted.

  Trying to look horrified or guilty of her accusation, I sneer, "No. I just don’t want to be sweaty."

  She crosses her arms and tilts her head, "Is this that Stockholm syndrome where he holds you captive and beats you and you feel like you deserve it, so you love him?"

  I shake my head. She doesn’t move. I sigh, and lower my gaze, "Maybe. I do like him. But he doesn’t see me beyond the science experiment of our therapy. I have a horrid feeling it's just leftover from before. Like he has to keep saving me to save himself." Her face is growing in horror and fear.

  "You want that?"

  I shake my head, "I just want him to see me. To stop seeing the little girl. And I want some of the damned control back. He has me spinning. He has all the control."

  She stands up and grins, "Well, this is my chance to have a shot at him, for a change. Let me make you up and we can torture him back a little."

  I back up, slightly shocked. "Whoa. Easy. I don’t want to be part of some game play. I just like him…like a friend…who I maybe want to kiss."

  She rolls her eyes, "He kissed you. He likes you back. You're both just damaged and screwed-up and shit. So you all don’t know how to be a boy and girl."

  I gasp.

  She closes her mouth and blushes, "You know what I mean."

  My hands are covering my mouth. I start to giggle. She looks sickened, "I'm sorry."

  "No. It's true. We met at the screwed up kidnap victims' concentration camp. But in truth, I always saw him as my hero. When I was a kid, when I found out I had a benefactor, and even when he kidnapped me. I have had disturbing thoughts about him. I can't even kid myself about them. Even if I wanted to."

  She laughs, "This is so weird. Girl, I have read romance novels like this my entire life. You gotta trust me on this shit. We gotta make you hot. Let me mess with him a little bit? Then you can have the control again."

  I nod. I want him to see me whole. Maybe it will inspire him to be whole too.