Dirt

by Cassia Leo

  I sighed. “I love you more than you can imagine.”

  After a long, worrying pause, he replied, “I can’t imagine loving anyone more.”

  As I hung up, I felt a lot less hopeful than I had before I called. I felt like it was my first night at summer camp and I was achingly homesick. I thought of Jack alone for hours on a flight to Japan. Alone in a taxi on the way to his hotel. I didn’t like to think of Jack alone. It hurt me more than my own loneliness.

  But I couldn’t go on pretending as if everything was okay. No matter how much I wanted to run back to him, I had to resist falling into old habits.

  Thinking of the lush garden in Isaac’s backyard, and my mother’s philosophy about creating life, I realized I had a fortuitous opportunity to practice patience. And possibly, I could create something beautiful from the tatters of my tragic life. I would not squander this gift.

  * * *

  Driving the pallet truck around the back of the garden store, with the green sod and potted trees glistening with dew, felt a bit whimsical. Like riding the bumper cars or go-carts as a child. It made me wonder if this was how Jack felt when he went golfing with his buddies.

  God, I missed him.

  On the drive home from work, I allowed myself to imagine, just for a brief moment, that Jack would be there when I came through the door. He would be sitting at his desk, telecommuting, with Junior asleep in his arms. I would tell him about my productive day at the tech startup I created without Jack’s help. Then, we’d put Junior to bed and make love for hours, worshipping each other until we were raw with exhaustion.

  I shook my head as I turned into my mother’s driveway, noticing that Isaac’s truck was parked closer to the front of the house, right on the other side of the cedar fence separating our properties. As I stepped out of the Tesla, I heard 90s grunge music flowing toward me from farther up Isaac’s driveway, closer to the garage he’d been doing construction on.

  Climbing the stairs up to the porch, I was steps from the front door when I heard a noise that shattered the thin web of sanity holding my fragile psyche together.

  The noise came from the direction of Isaac’s garage.

  Gunshots.

  Pop. Pop.

  My body and my mind were no longer mine to control. A piercing scream escaped my mouth, and my vision began to darken around the edges. As if I were drunk, I stumbled forward, fumbling for the house key on my key ring. The tunnel vision was worsening as each breath came more shallow than the last.

  Somehow, I managed to get the key in the lock. I staggered over the threshold and slammed the door behind me, my back sliding down the door as I sunk to the floor and hugged my knees to my chest.

  Oh, God. Please don’t let this be happening. Please let this be some kind of auditory hallucination. Please. I don’t want to die.

  The doorknob rattled violently, sending my adrenaline skyrocketing. My insides were covered in steel wool, grating against the inner surface of every inch of my body. I wanted to scream, but my voice had left me.

  “Hey, are you okay in there?”

  It sounded like Isaac’s voice, but I couldn’t be sure. All sounds were muffled by the savage pounding of my heart. A violent thud on the door broke through the thrum in my ears.

  The force of the banging got worse. I opened my mouth and tried to scream, but I didn’t know whether any sound had actually come out. The pounding finally stopped right before I passed out.

  16

  Isaac

  “Fuck!” I cursed aloud as I looked through her living room window and saw the back of Laurel’s head.

  Judging by the sudden end to her screams, and the way she appeared to be lying on the floor, she was probably passed out.

  Fucking hell. What if Laurel had a heart problem or something? I needed to get in there, but I couldn’t break down the door and risk injuring her.

  “Boomer, stop!” I shouted, as he kept jumping on me, trying to get me to pay attention to him. He was trained to sense my anxiety, to smell my fear. And right now I was out of my mind with worry.

  I glanced over my shoulder, to make sure none of the other neighbors had heard my Mustang backfiring or Laurel screaming. Not seeing anything but Boomer, I turned back to the window. Without a second thought, I cocked my arm back and sent a solid jab that shattered the first pane. Shit! She had dual-pane windows.

  “Fucking mother fuck.” I spat one curse after another as I punched out the rest of the glass, telling myself it was too late to go through the whole charade of taking off my shirt and wrapping my hand. Though I felt no pain, I saw the bright-red blood on my hand as I reached in to flip the latch on the window.

  Sliding it open, I hopped through the window, ignoring the crunch of glass beneath my work boots. My heart raced when I saw Laurel lying listless by the door. With Boomer barking up a storm at the broken window, I unlocked the deadbolt and tried to block out thoughts of all the things I’d seen. The things I’d done. The things I could no longer do.

  Taking a deep breath, I tried to focus on the present moment. I was in Laurel’s house, not in some dusty village in the middle of hostile territory.

  I’m here. I’m not there. I’m not there.

  More deep breaths.

  The five senses.

  What do I see? I shook my head furiously as the living room scene blinked in and out of focus.

  What do I hear? Boomer. Yapping his ass off. I had to hurry up.

  Sliding my hand under Laurel’s body, I wrapped one arm around her waist and the other behind her knees.

  What do I feel? Laurel. Even as dead weight, she was so fucking light.

  I panicked as I realized I didn’t remember standing up. How long had I been standing here? I shook my head as I tried to remember what I was doing.

  The five senses. I could see the living room, though my vision was hazy. I could barely hear Boomer over the pounding of my heart.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, willing myself to feel Laurel in my arms, instead of the blinding pain in my belly.

  What do you feel? Laurel. Her skin is cold. My biceps and shoulders burn from the effort of carrying her. How long had I been standing here?

  What do I taste? Salty sweat spilling in runnels over my lips as I worried that I’d probably lost time again.

  What do I smell? Laurel. It wasn’t strong enough to be perfume, but she definitely smelled like sweet melon and fresh rain.

  I let out a deep sigh as my heart rate slowed just enough for my vision to clear.

  Okay. I was back.

  Holy shit, that could have gone so bad.

  I didn’t have time to worry about whether or not I should be in the presence of other humans. That was a debate that raged inside my mind on a constant loop, day in and day out. Right now, I had to get Laurel to a hospital.

  If she was having a panic attack or — God forbid — a heart attack, I could only do so much with my training. At least I could see from the shallow rise and fall of her chest that she was still breathing. But experience told me we were too close to the hospital to justify waiting for an ambulance.

  I carried her outside, my lips pressed in a hard line from the effort. I’d carried men at least fifty pounds heavier farther distances. It was thirty or forty yards to my truck, which would have been a cakewalk if Boomer wasn’t trying to get in my way.

  He sensed my distress and he was trained to try to stop me from moving in occasions like this. One second he would jump on me, the next he would try to cut me off and herd me in the other direction.

  Boomer was my lifeline and the only thing I loved in this whole fucking world. But in this moment, I wished I could tell him that I wasn’t anxious for me. I was scared for her.

  I finally reached the truck and carefully slid Laurel’s limp body into the cab. I made sure to lay her down on her side, facing forward, so I could look back periodically to make sure she wasn’t turning blue.

  Boomer tried to hop in the driver’s seat to stop me from driving,
but I managed to get him into the truck bed. Now, I just had to call the hospital to let them know I was bringing in a possible heart attack or severe panic attack. But when I reached into my jeans pocket to get my phone, I flinched at the pain in my hand. I patted the pocket instead, my heart racing as I realized it wasn’t there.

  Fuck! It probably fell out of my back pocket when I climbed in through the window.

  Double fuck! I just got blood all over my favorite jeans.

  Glancing at my bloody hand, I pulled off my T-shirt and wrapped it around the throbbing slash on my palm. I was glad we were on our way to the hospital.

  I had only been to Providence Hospital in Portland one time. Despite my efforts to forget that day, I now thanked God I hadn’t. I didn’t have time to go back and get my phone or attempt to search for an address in the shit-tacular GPS in my truck.

  Today, I would have to rely on raw memory. If I didn’t know better, I’d think I was being tested. And I hoped like hell I wasn’t about to fail.

  17

  Laurel

  My eyes opened slowly, and the first thing I felt was a pounding in the left side of my head. It took me a moment to realize I was bouncing around in the backseat of a vehicle.

  Oh, no. Was I being abducted? Was that why I heard gunshots?

  I had been so stupefied by the thought of being killed, I hadn’t stopped to consider the only fate worse than death: a slow death.

  I squinted my eyes against the pain in my head as I pushed myself up to get a better look at my captor. Blinking a few times, I wondered if I was hallucinating. It looked like Isaac was behind the wheel, but he wasn’t wearing a shirt.

  “Where are you taking me?” I demanded, though my voice wasn’t strong enough to project.

  He glanced back at me with an unreadable expression. Was it fear or relief? “Oh, Jesus Christ. You scared the shit out of me.”

  “What are you doing? Why am I in this truck?”

  I looked around for a door handle, but it was one of those doors that swung in the opposite direction. The front door had to be open to reveal the handle for the back door.

  “Whoa! Hey, don’t do that!” he said as I tried to reach through the gap between the passenger seat and the door. “What are you doing?”

  “Let me out of here! I don’t know what you think you’re going to do to me, but you’re wrong. I will fight you tooth and fucking nail. Do you understand me?”

  The force of my anger sent a sharp pain slicing through the left side of my head. I pressed my fingers to my scalp and flinched when I found a large, walnut-sized lump.

  “Hey, I don’t know what you think just happened, but one minute I was working on my Mustang and it backfired a couple of times. The next thing I know, you’re screaming your ass off inside your house. You passed out in there and I thought you had a damn heart attack. I’m just trying to get you to the hospital.”

  My heart thudded against my chest as I remembered the gunshots clearly in my mind. Pop! Pop! “Your car backfired?” I said, my body slumping against the seat, though I didn’t know if I was more relieved or embarrassed.

  He glanced back at me. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” I mumbled. “I mean, I think so. But… so… it wasn’t gunshots?”

  He chuckled at this, then his face got serious. “Oh, fuck. I didn’t even consider that you might… Shit. I’m sorry. Now I feel like an idiot for not being more considerate.”

  “Considerate of what?” I replied, immediately regretting this question, as it might serve as an opener to a conversation I desperately didn’t want to have.

  “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t know that would set you off. I won’t… I won’t work on the car anymore unless you’re at work.”

  “You don’t have to do that for me,” I said, carefully running my fingers over the tender bump on my head. “Can you just take me home? I really don’t want to go to the hospital right now. They’ll make me get a psych eval.”

  As soon as I spoke the words aloud, I regretted them. It seemed I couldn’t keep myself from oversharing with Isaac. Must be the head injury.

  The silence that followed the words “psych eval” lasted ages. I hated being in the backseat. It made me feel powerless.

  “I’m coming up there,” I said, as I climbed over the console between the driver’s seat and the passenger seat. I gasped when I noticed his hand was wrapped in what looked like a gray T-shirt, which probably explained why he was shirtless. “Did you injure your hand?” I asked, trying not to stare at his smooth, tattooed chest.

  He glanced at his hand, then turned his attention back to the road. “It’s not too bad. I mean… it will need stitches. We can go home if you know how to stitch up a cut.” He peeked at me to see my wide-eyed response, then he let out a chuckle. “I guess that’s a no. I would do it myself, but I’m right-handed.”

  I wanted to ask him to drop me off at the house. I didn’t want to be anywhere near a hospital. But I couldn’t ask him to go back when he was injured, especially when I was the cause.

  “I’m so sorry,” I whispered, turning away to look out the window so he wouldn’t see me getting emotional.

  “Why?” he asked. “You have nothing to be sorry about. It’s not like you freaked out on purpose. Trust me. I know… I know how out of control stuff like that gets.”

  I didn’t want to reply, but I needed to address the elephant in the truck. “Look, I really appreciate what you did for me back there. And I appreciate you sharing with me how much you understand. I… I can’t imagine the horrors you’ve seen. But…” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath as images of the horrors I’d seen flashed in my mind. “I don’t want to talk about what happened that night. It’s just not something I want to dwell on. I’m sorry.”

  “No need to apologize. I’m all too pleased to keep the unpleasant stuff to myself,” he said with a chuckle.

  The corners of his eyes crinkled as he flashed me a charming grin. It dawned on me that this might be the first real smile I’d seen on his face. And it was beautiful.

  I turned away quickly, staring out the window until he pulled into the hospital parking lot and squeezed his truck into a space labeled “COMPACT” near the emergency entrance. There would barely be enough space to open the doors and slither out. As he shifted the truck into PARK, he forgot himself for a moment and used his right hand, flinching at the resulting pain.

  “Dammit!” he whispered, shaking his hand. “You’re welcome to stay in here while I get stitched up, if you want.”

  I stared at the shimmering blotches of dark-red blood on the gear shift knob, the center console, and the driver’s seat. “I’ll go in with you,” I said, tearing my gaze away as I began to feel queasy. “But you have to promise not to tell anyone what happened back there.”

  He glanced at the side of my head. “I saw you touching your head earlier. You sure you don’t want to get that checked out?”

  “I’m positive.”

  He nodded. “My lips are sealed.”

  Even though it was only about 74 degrees outside — according to the digital display on his rearview mirror — Isaac took Boomer out of the truck bed and put him in the cab with the two front windows cracked several inches. As we crossed the parking lot toward the emergency entrance, I couldn’t help but notice that the hair tie holding together the man-bun on the crown of his head was about to slip out.

  “Your hair band is about to fall out,” I said.

  He automatically reached up with his right hand, but I caught his forearm to stop him.

  “Don’t do that,” I said, probably a bit too urgently. “You’ll get blood everywhere. Here, I’ll get it.”

  We stopped on the sidewalk in front of the sliding doors and I reached up to pull out the brown hair elastic, but it was tangled around a small cluster of hair. As I stood behind him, attempting to extricate it from his golden hair, which felt a lot softer than I thought it would, his breathing hastened. The rise and fall of his shoul
ders quickening with each passing moment. I would have to yank it out.

  “Sorry,” I said, both of us wincing as I ripped out what looked like at least five or six hairs.

  He chuckled as he took the hair tie from me with his left hand and stuffed it into his jeans pocket. “No worries. I’m into the hair pulling,” he said with a wink.

  I looked away as my heart raced.

  Had I said or done something while I was passed out that Isaac may have misconstrued?

  No, I was passed out.

  Did I pass out or did I black out?

  “Hey, I was just joking. Not trying to hit on you or anything,” Isaac said.

  I lowered my hand as I suddenly realized I was clutching my chest. “Okay, let’s get this over with,” I said heading toward the sliding doors.

  As Isaac checked himself in, the lady behind the counter glanced at me, then down at my shirt. “Are you hurt, too?”

  I looked down and my body tensed as I finally noticed the dark splotches of blood. They had soaked through the right side of my forest-green T-shirt with the yellow Sunny’s Garden Depot logo. There was blood all over my ribs and breast.

  I grabbed the counter for support as I looked at the nurse and tried to think of a response that didn’t include me having a nervous breakdown and having my limp body carried into a truck.

  “That’s not hers. It’s mine,” Isaac said, answering for me. “I wiped it on her.”

  The nurse seemed very obviously perplexed, but she let it go.

  In the waiting room, we sat among a quiet group of people who looked like they wanted to be there as much as we did, which was not at all. One woman with a small girl sitting next to her had a bad case of bedhead and dark rings around her eyes. Every time the little girl coughed, a dry, raspy whooping cough, the woman would hug her and rub her chest.

  I couldn’t tear my eyes away from them.

  “You okay?” Isaac asked.

  I nodded. “Yeah, you? Does it still hurt?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve had worse.”

  I inhaled a long breath and let it out slowly. “You probably already know what happened that night. How… How we found them,” I said.