by Nina Laurin
There are rocks. A small pile of rocks and crumbled pieces of brick arranged in a square shape, and in the middle I see something rusted and metallic, bright-blue paint still clinging amidst dark spots of corrosion.
With the toe of my boot, I turn it over and stumble away until my back hits the wall. The phone slips from my hand this time and clatters to the floor in a halo of diffused light. I press my back into the chipping paint, unable to peel my gaze away from the object.
It’s a doll, a child’s doll on a toy bed. Its glass eyes glint dimly in the weak light.
I don’t know how long it takes me to come out of my stupor. I slide to the floor, crawl toward my phone, and pick it up. My hands are shaking so much that frightening shadows dance on the walls, shadows that look alive.
Holding my breath, I examine the shrine—that’s what it is, no other word for it. A bed, a doll, four walls. There are even stumps of candles. The doll looks like something you’d find in the bins at Goodwill, but when I lean closer, I realize the doll’s peeling limbs have been painted brown over generic beige white. The hair has been slathered in something black and flaking. And her eyes are the wrong color, light gray, startling and bright against the dark paint.
The skin is too dark to be Olivia, but the eyes—the eyes aren’t mine. A shiver runs down my spine like needles under my skin. I can’t bring myself to touch the thing.
There’s one of those plastic toy plates with dark flecks in the center, its contents spilled next to it: three cigarette butts. I grasp one between forefinger and thumb and hold it up, illuminating it with my phone.
It’s fresh. Marked by humidity, already cold for some time, but the filter is still bright orange, unfaded. The end is crushed with a faint indent of teeth. I look at it and look at it, and things refuse to add up in my head until I see the thin stripe lining the filter. My brand.
I drop it like it suddenly burst into flame and wipe my hand on my jeans. My head spins when I scramble to my feet.
I should call Sean. The thought surfaces in my mind like an old habit, and I feel a cowardly rush at the idea that I have something for him, something real, finally. I scroll through my contacts, dial the number, and press my phone to my ear. Without the light of the screen, the darkness is near total, and I blink into it while the line takes forever to connect.
Then it goes straight to voice mail.
I curse and end the call, realizing too late that I really, really should have left a message. I try to take a photo, but the screen informs me smugly that I don’t have enough battery left to use the camera function. No choice but to call him again. I mash the pad of my thumb into the Call button and wait, but the call drops without ever connecting.
There’s a sound at the edge of my hearing, a sound I wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t been holding my breath. A soft scrape that cuts short almost as soon as I become aware of it. I freeze and hold up my phone, directing the light at the empty door frame.
The house responds with silence.
A part of me wants to think it’s just the house in its normal process of falling apart, boards creaking as they rot, beams groaning as they get closer and closer to collapse. Crumbling plaster and bloated plywood falling away in pieces. Maybe it’s nothing more than my nerves, and who could blame them? But that’s the same part of me who, for all I know, followed a complete stranger without putting up a fight. The new me, the person who came out on the other side of hell ten years ago, knows better.
As I inch toward the door, I’m aware of the creak of floorboards under every step, and I’m not kidding myself. The other person is aware of it too. My breathing is like a gale in the silence, and all my attempts to control it fail miserably.
I advance into empty, pitch-black space. The hole in the ceiling no longer sheds any light—it’s dark outside, and there have never been lights on this street. Without my phone, the darkness farther than a few inches from my face is so impenetrable it might as well be a solid entity.
An irresistible urge to yell scratches in the back of my throat. To shriek, to shatter the silence and hear the echo of my voice bounce off the walls and ceiling—to prove, to myself and whoever else is in here, that I exist, that I’m real. At the same time, the little-girl me silently begs to awaken from this like from a bad dream. Back at my apartment, or at the hotel, or anywhere.
I turn on my phone again, but the screen dims, the red empty battery icon flashes, steady like a heartbeat, and suddenly I know what to do. Please, only let the battery last just a moment longer. I desperately paw at the screen until I get to my contacts and thumb the number I copied from Sean’s phone.
The screen goes dark, and my heart nearly stops, but then it brightens again. Dialing.
A moment later—a moment that fits the whole of eternity—a sharp, metallic ring erupts from the darkness, only a few feet away.
I hear the hiss of an inhale as the shadows move. The call cuts off to nothing, the phone flashes one last time, and the screen powers down.
I’m in the dark.
All my instincts scream at me to run. Out of sheer despair, or maybe because I know I’m shit out of options, I obey. After all these years, I still know the house pretty much by heart, and it kicks in like a reflex. I dart across the room to the doorway leading to the kitchen, to the back door, to salvation.
Just as I pass through the doorway, something brushes against me, something soft, fabric swiping across my face, my shoulder, my arm. A shriek escapes from my tightly clenched jaws as I stumble back, then trip over my own feet and go sprawling. The rustle is so close that I expect it to sweep over me any moment like a big predatory bird. I roll over and kick out at the darkness with both feet, as hard as I can.
My soles connect with something. There’s a hiss of a breath being drawn through clenched teeth, a soft thud as whoever it is hits the wall. I strain my eyes but all I see are shadows stirring. Without waiting for my assailant to recover, I scramble to get up and make for the door.
It swings open without resistance. As I scamper out over the one remaining board, I half expect someone to grab my legs from behind, to pull me, kicking and screaming, back into the dank darkness of the house.
But there’s no one. When I glance over my shoulder, all I see is a half-open door into nothingness. My animal instinct, honed for many days and weeks and months, takes over. I turn around and, like the scared rabbit that I am, I run.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I run until my legs and my lungs are on fire, not caring that I’m headed in the wrong direction, away from my car. A new emotion rises from the pit of my stomach, choking the breath out of me, and even when I stop and double over, hands on the tops of my thighs, I can’t recover. Instead, my ears ring at a tinny high pitch, the world begins to spin, and my thoughts refuse to fall into order.
I examine my dead phone like it holds all the answers, but there isn’t even enough battery power to call 911. As soon as my breathing is somewhat near normal, I turn around.
The sight of my car, sitting at the curb where I left it, is enough to make me cry with relief. Once I’m in the driver’s seat, I crack the window open, drum my fingers on the steering wheel, and tear open the brand-new pack of cigarettes in my pocket, grateful now for having bought it. I light one and take a drag, but it only makes me shake more, so I throw it out onto the damp pavement and roll the window back up. For the first time, I realize I have nowhere to go and no one to ask for help. It occurs to me to go to the Shaws’, but after last time, they’ll slam the door in my face and they’ll be right. I’d sooner sleep on a bench than go to Natalia’s, not after that travesty of an interview. And I realize I can’t go back to the hotel anymore. Not to stay anyway. It’s no longer safe.
It hadn’t been safe from the start. Sean betrayed me—I know this for sure now.
I really thought I’d be angrier. Or maybe devastated. Or something. I thought I’d want to scream and throw things or drug myself into oblivion. But sometime in the last f
ifteen minutes, a part of me accepted this as normal, a confirmation of what I’ve already known for a long time. I’m all alone. No human being can be trusted. Along with a new realization: if there’s anything that can still be done for Olivia, I’ll have to do it myself.
The first thing I do is pull over at a gas station and fill up the tank, silently praying my credit card can take it. When approved flashes on the screen, I exhale with relief.
Inside the station, it’s bright and empty. My gaze wanders the display of chips and candy, the fridge filled with energy drinks.
“Ma’am, is everything okay?” I look up, only now noticing there’s an actual human being behind the counter. His skinny neck sticks out of his bright-blue uniform polo, and his forehead is peppered with small red blemishes. He can’t be out of high school yet.
“Yeah, everything is fine,” I mutter. Here it comes—he’s going to either hit on me or worse. Nervously, I check the exit routes. There are cameras overlooking every inch of the place, blinking in corners.
“Are you sure you’re okay to drive?”
What the hell does he want from me? “I’m fine,” I snap, and then look up and glimpse myself in the mirrored one-way window near the counter. My hair is a mess, strands like antennae escaping from my messy ponytail, and there’s a smudge of dirt on my forehead. When I look down, twigs and cobwebs cling to my shirt and jacket, and there’s a rip in the shoulder. I don’t even remember it ripping. Did I snag it in the house somewhere?
“Do you want me to call…somebody?”
At last I clue in that he doesn’t mean ill. I release a deep breath. “Actually, if I could buy a charger”—I hold up my phone—“for one of these.”
He looks uncertain but turns around and examines the impulse items displayed over the counter: single-pack condoms, aspirin, batteries, headphones. “Here,” he says and slides a generic-brand charger across the counter. He waits while I eye it with wariness. “It’s on the house,” he says with a shaky laugh. “I mean, it’s on me.”
I don’t remember thanking him, but I hope I did.
My next stop is a fast-food restaurant tacked on at the end of a strip mall. All the other windows are either dark or covered with metal shutters and padlocked, or just boarded up. The fast-food place is the only beacon of life. Through the windows, I see that a few tables are busy, even though my car is one of only three in the parking lot. I go in and get a Diet Coke I won’t drink, because it’s the cheapest item on the menu and I don’t want the staff harassing me. Then I find a table near a power outlet where I plug the charger. As soon as my phone is working again, I ignore the missed calls, the texts, the messages, and open the browser. I can’t deal with Sean right now. I can’t listen to him lying to me again, pretending that he cares, that all of this is about something else.
Even though the free Wi-Fi is barely alive, within minutes I’m on a page that will trace any phone number, be it cell or residential, and deliver an address within twenty-four hours—for the small and manageable fee of $19.99. I can’t help but wonder if, despite all logic, my prepaid phone is also in some database somewhere, my information available to anyone with intent and a working credit card. A couple more impatient taps at the screen, and it’s done. All I can do is wait.
I know people describe a craving as your veins itching, but I don’t think I’ve ever truly felt it until now. My head is humming, the usual symptoms of anxiety spilling over to the realm of the physical. First my hands go clammy. Then I start to shiver despite the fact that I’m sweating. When I take off my jacket, my T-shirt has crescents of damp under my arms, and dizziness settles in the space right behind my forehead. Usually, nausea comes next, no matter that I can’t remember the last time I ate. In my jacket pockets, I still have a few pills stashed away under the lining, but I’m not going to take anything. I want to be awake for this. I have to be.
After two hours, the number search still hasn’t returned anything—if there’s anything to return, I remind myself as I refresh my e-mail for the millionth time. The place empties out. The girls behind the counter start to give me those looks.
I end up sleeping in my car, parked at the end of the empty lot. There’s no way to get comfortable in a reclining car seat that hasn’t reclined in about a decade, and suddenly, my legs and elbows and hip bones are everywhere, all angles and no flesh, and no matter how I twist myself, an arm or a foot keeps falling asleep before I have a chance to. Gnashing my teeth, I take my last anxiety pill, trying not to think of the rest of my stash in the hotel room, not to imagine a cleaning woman finding it and pocketing it. Or worse, Sean discovering it when he inevitably comes over with his key and turns the place upside down looking for me.
But tomorrow it will no longer matter, I tell myself. Maybe I should stay up, watch the sunrise that could very well be my last, but I barely have time to finish the thought when exhaustion and the chemical buzz of my meds pull me under.
Tomorrow, I’m going to find him. I’m going to find Olivia and set us both free, if it kills me, at last.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The morning is dizzying and gray, my mouth tastes like ashes, and my head pounds with a dull pain. I only turn on my phone long enough to check my e-mail. The address associated with the cell phone number came in, and I groan inwardly when I see where it is: a small town about a hundred miles from Seattle. Right here, so close. Close enough to drive a skinny thirteen-year-old girl in the trunk of a car, leave her on the side of the road, and make it back before dinner. And then resume your life like nothing happened.
Well, that’s not going to work this time.
The chirping of my phone, once, twice, three times as more missed calls and message alerts come in, pulls me out of my thoughts. Sean’s name and number, over and over again, and all I have to do is tap my fingertip to hear his voice again.
He will probably yell at me or, worse yet, do that false-kindness thing. I picture that empathy filling his deep-brown eyes, as if to say, Look at me, I really get you, I know what you’re going through, now do exactly as I say. I can’t and I won’t. I’m done stumbling blindly along with what everyone tells me. It never got me anywhere, and now it won’t help Olivia.
Before I set out on the two-hour drive, I go back inside the fast-food place and make myself eat something, unable to shake the eerie feeling of it all. My last meal could very well be a squished, greasy breakfast sandwich and hash browns. So that’s that.
I get a giant coffee, too hot to drink right now, and put it in the cup holder, wishing I had something more effective to keep me focused. My hands slip all over the steering wheel as I pull out of the parking lot.
Maybe I should call someone, just to let them know where I’m going, but who am I going to call? Sugar, maybe? Yeah, I’m sure he’ll shed a few tears at the loss of his best customer. The thought makes me chuckle grimly as I take a sip of scalding coffee, taking a certain enjoyment in the way it burns the roof of my mouth. I can’t stop poking and prodding it with my tongue until the skin peels, and then it’s like I have a mouthful of needles.
However, as I leave the city limits, a kind of calm comes over me. My breathing steadies, the tremor leaves my muscles, and my last shreds of hesitation give way to steely resolve. That’s how I felt the second time I was trying to kill myself, the time I was sure I’d succeed, with no one to interrupt me, my method as sure as anything I could afford. The first time I OD’d, but my Craigslist roommate came back from her shift at the grocery store early and called an ambulance. Two weeks later, when I returned from my obligatory stint in the psych ward, I found the locks changed. The second time I was on my own, but I tied my belt to a ceiling lamp that fell out, leaving me there, wheezing and clawing at the painful welt on my throat amidst crumbs of plaster and paint dust with a busted, bloody knee and twisted ankle, humiliated and helpless. To make matters worse, it cost me my security deposit on the crappy apartment. But at least no one found out, because I never told anyone.
Oh right. I told Sean. Well, fuck. Soon enough it’s not going to matter anyway.
I still have more than half a tank of gas, but I stop at a gas station right outside Huntington, Washington, my destination. Just so I can buy an energy drink and throw a glance at the security camera above the counter. There. One last proof of where I was if—when—things go wrong.
The town of Huntington—yup, like the disease—is one of those little places lost in the middle of the map, no charm, no attractions, not even of the kooky variety. No biggest plastic ice cream cone in North America, nothing like that. It’s pancake flat, ringed by factories and car dealerships and sparse woodlands that look yellow, unhealthy like collapsing lungs choked in Japanese knotweed.
Only when I’m circling the narrow, convoluted streets of the town core do I wonder just what I’m going to do. I don’t have a weapon, nothing to defend myself—or attack. But if I’m not going to confront him, then what?
For now, I just focus on finding the address. My only GPS is in my phone, and I don’t want to turn it on just yet. Not until I absolutely have to. But as I drive down a street that runs parallel to the shabby-looking main street, tragically misnamed “boulevard,” something catches my eye. First, it’s in the corner of my vision, like a glitch, but when I glance a second time, the information travels through my nerves and jolts my muscles, making me slam down on the brakes. The car behind me honks furiously, and in the rearview mirror, I see the driver flip me off. I don’t bother to return the favor, swerving sharply to stop at the curb.
It’s the name on a storefront in bold burgundy and yellow letters: Lyons Car Parts and Repair. The logo is a rudimentary rendition of a roaring lion’s head in the same colors. It looks like something someone hastily put together in Photoshop, but it’s flashy enough to work for this place.
I double-check the address I scribbled on my fast-food receipt. P. Lyons, 334 Woodland Drive, Huntington, WA.