Everyone's Favorite Girl

Everyone's Favorite Girl Page 2

by Steph Sweeney

  She winced at my tone—a little snappy, I admit.

  “I’m gonna go sleep on the couch,” she said. “It’s four in the morning. They always come get you late at night—to scare you, I think. So you’ll lose sleep the rest of the week. It’s working, too. On both of us.”

  She did look exhausted, standing there barefoot in her wrinkled nightgown, her hair frizzy and misshapen. Even in my state it was hard not to be impressed by her resourcefulness. She was, after all, only eighteen years old.

  My eyelids had grown heavy, and just as I was about to lash out at Flora for leaving me to lie here by myself—still operating out of jealousy from having hallucinated Kate and her hitting it off so well, I think—I succumbed to the sudden urge to yawn.

  “I meant the other question,” I said, still frustrated but lazily so. “What else did they take from the room?”

  “A lot of stuff,” she said. “The weed, the steak knives, cleaning chemicals—James gave us a list of things we’re not allowed to have. I guess they’re afraid you’ll build a bomb or something.”

  “What about the Libido Drug?”

  She shook her head. “That was the first thing Sean asked for.”

  “And you gave it to him?”

  “No, you did,” she said calmly.

  “No I didn’t!”

  When you suffer amnesia, you don’t just forget things. You forget that you forgot. This is never portrayed accurately in movies. Someone brings up something you did, particularly something bad, and your immediate response is denial—not acceptance. It’s like the morning after a night getting black-out drunk, being told by your best friend that you made out with a stranger.

  Flora stood there shivering and I felt another sharp twinge of guilt. She didn’t look wounded so much as lonely. All things considered, I was lucky she had the heart to not hold my behavior against me.

  At the same time, she was completely alone with it.

  So why did she want to sleep alone?

  I asked her as much.

  “You’re about to have really bad nightmares,” she said. “You punched me in the nose the first time.”

  “Did you bleed?”

  She nodded, balking not from the question but from the tone with which I delivered it.

  One thing was certain: I did need sleep. I couldn’t stand the feeling of constant irritation, emotions dancing on the brim.

  And Flora didn’t deserve this.

  “Go to sleep,” I said, dropping my head on the pillow and staring up at the recessed light fixtures, all glowing a dull orange.

  “Goodnight, Melissa,” Flora said.

  I remember opening my mouth to say goodnight, but I’m not sure it ever came out. I was instantly asleep and, as Flora predicted, trudging through some of the worst nightmares of my life, mostly involving Patton and Kate in various sexual positions, sometimes laughing at me as I sat unable to move at Patton’s dining table, watching them fuck like porn stars.

  When I woke up, it felt like the entire morning had passed in a single blink, only now the soreness had intensified all over my body. Despite my lack of sleep, the pain had me fully awake in just a few seconds.

  Flora was already up. I could hear her opening the refrigerator door.

  It took a lot of effort to sit up. When I finally made it, Flora appeared beside me with a food tray. On it was a single waffle, three strips of bacon, a handful of strawberries, a glass of orange juice, and a glass of water.

  Strangely enough, it was exactly what I wanted.

  I dove in without even thanking her, first chewing down a strip of bacon and then tearing into the waffle, over which she’d lightly drizzled syrup.

  “The first two times, you asked for waffles and bacon,” Flora said. I looked up at her and saw she was very pleased with my ferocity. “And last time you wished you’d asked for strawberries to go with it.”

  “Weird.”

  The food was gone in no time and I had Flora fetch me another glass of water. On top of everything else, these rounds of experiments left me dehydrated, probably from all the sweating.

  I downed the water, handed her the glass, and fell back onto my pillow.

  “Nuh-uh,” Flora said, a sheepish yet authoritative tone in her voice. “We have to get you to the Jacuzzi. You’ll be stiff as a board otherwise.”

  “I don’t want to get up.”

  “You have to.”

  “I don’t have to do shit, Flora. I tell you what to do, remember?”

  Jesus. I sound like Kate.

  The thought was alarming—not so much the similarity in behavior, though normally that would be enough to make me want to slit my wrists, but the idea that maybe Mr. Shriver was trying to turn me into Kate.

  Trying to turn me into a loyal Your Favorite Girl employee.

  “You can be mean to me if you feel you have to,” Flora said, “but I’ll drag you in there if that’s what it takes. Come on.”

  She grabbed me by the wrist and pulled. My first instinct was to jerk my arm away, but I managed to stop myself. In true Kate fashion, I was trying my best to be Little Miss Contrary, but I knew I didn’t want to wind up bed-ridden. Flora said Sean came to collect me once a week. If I had any chance of putting a stop to these experiments, I needed all the time I could get.

  Truthfully, though, I wasn’t thinking about that. The aching in my muscles demanded all my attention, and if relief waited in the steamy water of the Jacuzzi, that’s where I wanted to be.

  “Easy,” Flora said, putting my arm over her shoulders and helping me stand up off the bed.

  My knees wobbled and my legs felt like they’d been doused with flaming gasoline. With each slow, cumbersome step, a jolt of pain shot up from my ankle to my hip, an agonizing sensation somewhere between a Charlie horse and a limb falling asleep.

  “Goddamn it, this fucking hurts!” I shouted just as we entered the corridor, my voice amplified and sharpened to the point that even I found it abrasive.

  “You’re doing great,” Flora said.

  “Yeah, look at me.” I grunted. “Ready for the fucking Olympics over here.”

  Flora giggled.

  “What’s so fucking funny?”

  “You say that every time.”

  “Do you laugh at me every time, too?”

  A quiet moment passed. Then she said, “I’m just trying to cheer you up.”

  “Well you’re doing a piss-poor job.”

  “I don’t think there’s anything I can say.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You’re always irritable and I‘m pretty sure you can‘t control it until you’ve spent some time recuperating.”

  “Irritable? Just go ahead and say it. I’m being a bitch.”

  “Basically,” Flora said, and I laughed—the way you laugh at someone you’re about to fight.

  We entered the shower room.

  “So now I’m a bitch, huh?”

  “They’re trying to turn you into one. Here, sit down on the ledge.”

  I obeyed but toyed with the idea of pushing Flora fully dressed into the water. Where were these thoughts coming from? It was as though my mind had split in two, like cellular meiosis, one side relishing the torture of Flora, the other revolted by it, and neither side fully conscious.

  “Raise your arms.”

  A wave of nausea rushed through me as I lifted my shaky arms over my head. Flora pulled my tank top off and goose bumps forming instantly on my chest.

  She had to help with my pajama pants, too, and as I spun around to face the Jacuzzi, she guided one leg over the ledge and into the water, then the other.

  I managed to lower myself into the pool on my own. Then my body seemed to me
lt. I closed my eyes, taking in the heat and the overwhelming relief it provided, and breathed with my mouth open as the pain slowly dissolved.

  “Fuck yes, this feels awesome.”

  For a moment the room went silent. I was so entranced by the remedial water I forgot Flora was there.

  Then I heard a plopping sound and opened my eyes to find her undressed and stepping into the pool next to me. She sat quickly and scooted around to face me. What she did next, I mistook for a sexual advance.

  Scooting as close as she could get, she crossed her right leg over my left leg, then dug her foot under my knee and scooted her left leg under my right leg.

  “What the hell are you doing? Trying to—”

  “Scissor you?” she interjected, smiling. “Just relax.”

  I felt her thumbs pressing into the muscles on my right thigh, and then it made sense. She was giving me a massage.

  I closed my eyes again, resting my head on the hard granite ledge behind me.

  “This … this is worth a million a day.”

  I realized how bad that sounded, but I didn’t care—even though I knew Mr. Shriver was doing this to me, making me callous. He was winning at a game in which I’d lost interest.

  My most hedonistic moment, legs interlocked with a naked virgin, scoffing her as she worked the pain out of my muscles, the ends of her hair dipping into the water when she leaned forward, clinging to her shoulders and breasts when she straightened her back.

  She wasn’t safe around me anymore.

  My intentions for her were evolving.

  “Let me ask you something.”

  She looked up at me and shook her head. “You ask every time.”

  “Well?”

  “No, you haven’t … you know.”

  “Fucked you.”

  She nodded. “You try though.”

  “When?”

  “At night. The first night after they take you away.”

  “So tonight then. That’s when I’ll try it.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Have we had this conversation before?”

  “Yes.”

  “And I still tried it.”

  “Yes.”

  “You wouldn’t let me, I guess?”

  She bent my leg up so she could work on my calf muscle. “I didn’t refuse you,” she said, staring down at my knee. “I know I belong to you. I know I have to do what you say.”

  “So what happened?”

  “I’d rather talk about something else.” Her tone had changed, now more dismal than ever.

  Even in my state, I felt I’d hit a nerve and willingly allowed the conversation to shift focus.

  “Where’s Kate?”

  “Probably still with the others. You said it’s always Mr. Shriver, Sean, Patton—”

  “I mean where is she living, Flora? Jesus.”

  “She’s staying with Sean.”

  Flora’s grip loosened a little on my calf. Her one and only expression of discontent. This was as vengeful as her golden little heart could get.

  “In the dream—or whatever it was—Kate was moving in with Patton.”

  “And taking me with her,” Flora said.

  “So it’s the same thing every time.”

  “Basically. It changes a little here and there. Almost like they’re tweaking the story, trying to perfect it.”

  “And then what?”

  I didn’t expect her to answer. She knew as little as I did. We were both blind to Mr. Shriver’s ultimate purpose. Was he trying to convince me of this dream reality permanently? Why? Certainly not to curtail my time with Flora—if he wanted that, he could just kill me.

  “Tomorrow will be better,” Flora said.

  “For you, maybe.”

  “Your head will clear up. You’ll cool off. The … irritability remains. It tapers off. A little less each week, though.” She shook her head. “But tomorrow will be better.”

  “Sorry I’m such an inconvenience.”

  This time she looked up at me, lower lip quivering.

  “Melissa, I’m losing you.”

  “Now you know how it feels. I’ve been losing you since the day I bought you. It could be over tomorrow for all I know.”

  Flora burst into to tears and climbed out of the pool. I turned around too fast and gritted my teeth against the pain, watching Flora skitter naked and dripping wet into the corridor, covering her face with her hands.

  “Does this happen every time, too?” I called after her.

  I dozed off in the Jacuzzi, and when I awoke I felt somewhat refreshed.

  Standing up proved somewhat difficult, but I managed—luckily, since Flora had left me to my own devices. As I stepped out of the water, the cold air resurrected the soreness in my legs and back. I dried quickly but stiffly, threw on a robe, and made my way back to the room, where I found Flora lying face-down on the bed, pouting like a little kid.

  “Flora, get up. We can’t waste any time. I only have a week before they take me again.”

  She jumped up immediately and, neglecting to offer me a little help, plodded over to the couch. I had to start holding onto things halfway across the room. My legs felt shaky and hot, while the rest of me was freezing.

  It occurred to me that my current condition was similar to Kate’s condition in the dream. The only difference, of course, being that Flora had helped Kate.

  I’m resenting the real Flora for the actions of the fictional one.

  Even still, merely recognizing the fallacy in my line of thinking didn’t abate the feeling that came with it.

  Flora was sitting on the far end of the couch. I took the opposite end, noticing the stereo system had been smashed to pieces. Someone—Flora, I assumed—had cleaned up the debris and placed all the speakers back on the shelves, but the cloth facings were ripped out of each one. The stereo itself had a crack going down the middle and the digital screen was busted.

  “Who did that?”

  “You.”

  “Why?”

  “I tried to play Beethoven.”

  “I like Beethoven.”

  “That’s why I played it. I made you breakfast and put on Fur Elise to wake you up to.”

  The song she had played at the party the night Mr. Shriver captured all those businessmen and politicians.

  Flies on a sticky strip.

  For some reason that did irritate me, though right now I was more worried about the stereo. With no alcohol, no weed, and no Libido Drug, our modes of entertainment were dwindling fast. This really was starting to feel like prison now.

  I studied what I could see of the room for any other changes—or anything else I’d destroyed. A small table near the stereo system was missing its glass top, but otherwise things appeared to be normal.

  “Tell me everything I don’t know,” I said, killing the silence.

  Flora shifted around to face me, drawing her feet up on the couch and hugging her legs. Her nightgown was bunched up between her hips and her stomach, draping wide-open. Between her ankles I could see her underwear.

  Distracting even for a part-time lesbo like me.

  “You want details or just the important things?”

  “The important stuff.”

  “Okay, first off, there’s no more crawling through the air ducts. Sean sent a couple of guys in here and they bolted a big heavy grate over the vent.”

  Not a surprise. I’d known I was surrendering my privileges to Clifton’s labyrinth the moment I gave up Judy.

  Judy who was now participating in my brainwashing—and maybe even orchestrating it.

  Flora continued: “The phone only dials out to the service desk, so the only person we have any contact with is James.”

  Now that was a surprise. Not the phone restrictions but that James was still serving us. After discovering him to be Sean’s puppet and spy, I figured they would have replaced him with someone else.

  “I’m hungry. Let’s order food.”

 
“I’m still full from breakfast,” Flora said.

  “Does that mean I have to get up and hobble my ass across the room to get the phone?”

  “You do need the exercise,” she said, getting up and crossing the room.

  She brought me the phone and I dialed the service desk. I tried to order sushi, forgetting the menu cutbacks, and James laughed at me.

  “Cafeteria food only,” he said, chuckling.

  “A fucking roast beef sandwich then,” I said, “and some fruit.”

  I wasn’t really hungry anyway. I just wanted to see him. I wanted to argue, and Flora was too sensitive to scrap with me.

  “They cut off the cable,” she said as we waited for the food.

  “So no TV.”

  “Nope.”

  “What the hell have we been doing the past three weeks?”

  “Talking.”

  “About what?”

  Strangely enough, Flora’s mood seemed to improve for a moment.

  “Lots of things,” she said. “Trying to come up with a plan, mostly, but we’ve really gotten to know each other. Well … I’ve gotten to know you, at least. Your memory keeps getting erased, so I have to tell you about myself all over again.”

  “What’s the point then?”

  She shrugged. “There’s nothing else to do.”

  “What did I tell you about myself?”

  “Just little things. Stories from your childhood. Things that happened in high school. I like hearing about it. I’ve never seen the outside world before.”

  Now that she mentioned the outside world, I took a moment to ponder the current state of Indianapolis, three weeks removed from the tainting of the water supply. Was the city falling apart around Your Favorite Girl, Inc., or had order been restored?

  Maybe James would give something up.

  “I told you a lot about myself, too,” Flora said. “I’d be happy to tell you again.”

  “Not right now,” I said coldly. She’d grown numb to my rudeness, and finally I was experiencing the slightest hint of shame again. “Tonight, before bed. How about that?”

  “Sure,” she said noncommittally, as though she didn’t believe me.

  A knock on the door.

  Flora jumped up to answer it, eager to get away from me and my callous new attitude. She tried to open the door, but of course it was locked.

 

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