Submit

by Leona Keyoko Pink

  “Yeah,” I said. “But Julia doesn’t think purple is my color,”

  “What does Julia know?” said my mom, “If you like something you should get it,”

  “Maybe,” I said, “She was just here,”

  “Really?” said my mom looking around.

  “Yeah,” I said, “We sort of made up. I’m gonna sleep over at her house tonight,”

  I could tell my mom wasn’t exactly fond of the idea but she pushed past it, “Oh, well, if you’re up to it. Your father and I were beginning to worry you might become a couch potato. Hmm… speaking of potatoes, we need to swing by the chip and dip aisle for your father’s game tonight.”

  She began to walk off and I left the purple dress on the rack. I liked it but it was still a bit pricey. I turned to follow her and thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye. A shiver went up my spine. I looked all around but didn’t see anyone.

  “Becca,” my mother called as she was nearly out of the clothing section.

  “Coming,” I said as I hurried to catch up with her.

  Chapter Ten

  I left the house a little after seven-thirty. My dad offered to walk me but I could tell he wanted to stay and watch the game. He had a few of his friends over and mom had laid the food out. I ate a few chips and took a hot dog but told him I’d be fine. After all, Julia’s house was only three blocks away. Even so, he made me promise to call when I got there.

  Tam and Chip were watching the game as well but I could see they just weren’t into it. Tam was already starting to fall asleep. It was almost funny watching him struggle to keep himself awake. I said goodnight to both of them but neither responded.

  My mom gave me a bag of cookies and brownies she’d saved from the party and walked with me to the front door. She told me to have fun but said I could come home whenever I wanted if things didn’t work out. I hoped they would.

  She stood on the porch and watched me for nearly a block before she went back inside. When I got to Julia’s house I rang the doorbell. Her mother answered but was on the phone. She just opened the door and walked away without even looking at me.

  I shut the door behind me and went up the stairs to Julia’s room. Her door was shut and I thought I heard her talking to someone. I knocked, “Julia, I’m here,”

  “Becca, one second,” I heard some rustling and then she opened the door, “You’re early,”

  “Yeah, my dad’s having a party with some of his friends tonight. They’re watching the game and I thought I’d bow out early,” I walked into her room and it smelled like had been bathed in perfume. She’d changed a few things around but it still looked the same. I set my stuff down on the floor at the end of her bed and pulled out the bag my mom had given me. “My mom saved us some cookies and brownies for later,”

  “Great,” she said taking them. She set them on a shelf, off to the side.

  Then we were just standing there, the two of us. Nearly a minute of awkward silence passed before I clapped my hands, “So...what do you want to do?”

  She sighed, looking around the room before she asked, “You have dinner yet?”

  “I had a hot dog and some chips before I left, but I could eat,”

  “Great, let’s order pizza, or pasta,”

  “Sure,” I said. “Oh wait. I gotta call my dad,”

  “Why?” she asked surprised.

  “I promised I’d call him when I got here,”

  “Overprotective much?” she said rolling her eyes. “My house is like a block away,”

  “I know but my parents have been worried about me, with everything that’s been going on,”

  “What’s been going on?” she asked crossing her arms.

  “I’ll tell you after I call,”

  I called the home phone and Chip answered. He sounded bored. I told him to tell dad I had arrived safely at Julia’s. I heard some cheers in the background, before he said he would and then hung up. When I put my phone away Julia was sitting on her bed. She was looking at her closet. The door was slightly ajar but everything looked like it always did.

  When she saw that I was looking, she quickly stood up, “I was thinking of getting a new poster for my closet. What do you think?”

  “It might be nice,” I said. She’d had the same poster of the band Metromic hanging on the back of her closet door since the tenth grade.

  She grabbed her phone and then got back on her bed. She patted it, motioning for me to come and sit with her. I sat down as she began to dial, “I’m gonna order and then I want to know everything you’ve been up to,”

  “Okay,” I said. Again, this was odd for her. Usually she didn’t care what I was up to. Usually we talked about her. Maybe she’d really missed me.

  She ordered the same thing we usually got and then we went over nearly everything. I repeated some of the things I had already texted her about but wanted to make sure it was clear. I hadn’t liked him from the beginning and he made me feel strange. In my gut I knew he was dangerous.

  I told her how I’d tried to avoid him and then tried to be reasonable. I talked about that day and how I didn’t kiss him. He kissed me out of the blue and I was so shocked that...I missed him doing the other thing. I told her how he wanted me to submit. She seemed skeptical but didn’t say anything.

  I told her about how he’d been waiting outside my house, all the freaky shit he said, including how he was going to dump her. He’d tried to kiss me again but I’d refused him and barely escaped. My mom accidentally invited him to dinner but I told her I wanted nothing to do with him.

  He showed up the next day and my dad let him in, having no idea. When my mom told him what was going on. My parents asked Lynn to leave but he wouldn’t. Then there was the threat. Julia shook her head when I told her about it and all the strange things after. My laundry going missing, my bike locks, our dog, all the trouble with my work and getting fired.

  I wanted to stop there but she had a way of getting things out of me. I admitted I’d confronted him. I told her what had happened, much to my embarrassment, and then I was done.

  We sat for a couple of seconds as I caught my breath. My throat felt dry and I asked, “Do you have anything to drink?”

  “Some juice I think. I’ll get you some when the food gets here. What have you been doing since you confronted him?” she asked. She’d never paid so much attention to me in the entire time I’d known her. I know I should have been elated but I couldn’t shake this nagging feeling that something was off.

  “Not much,” I said. “Just hanging around the house.”

  “Yeah...” she said, “But what did you do?”

  “Mostly thought and watched TV,”

  “Hmm,” she said. It felt like she was digging for something. We sat through another moment of silence as she thought. She got up from the bed and crossed her arms again.“I wonder if he is behind everything. He is such a slimy bastard,”

  She had no idea how happy it made me to hear her say that. Part of me worried she still might doubt me or side with him, even though they were broken up. “Yeah,” I agreed with her, “But we don’t have any proof he did anything so there isn’t much we can do,”

  She came back to the bed and sat down. I wanted to know what she’d been up to. How did she feel about all of this? “So what about you? How do you feel about everything and what have you been up to?”

  She looked hesitant to respond to my questions but eventually spoke, “Well, I was really mad at you and then he dumped me. I blamed you at first and then I saw him with Corsy Williams,”

  “Yeah,” I said. I’d seen them too.

  She rolled her eyes, “And here I thought he had taste. I guess you just never really know someone,” She looked at me strangely then.

  A moment later the doorbell rang. She got up and went downstairs to answer it. I sighed and lay back on her bed. It was stressful talking about everything again, but I was glad it was over with. Now maybe we could move on.

  The closet do
or creaked and I sat up on my elbows looking at it. It was opened wider now. I sat up all the way, wondering if Julia’s cat was inside. Julia was lucky and had a walk-in closet. Her cat, Payt, was always trying to make a bed inside. Julia often shooed him out but a few times he’d managed to hide.

  I hadn’t seen him in a while and realized I’d missed him too. I slid off the bed and crawled over to the closet, calling out to him, “Here, Payt. Here kitty, kitty,”

  Julia came bursting back into the room just before I got to the closet. I turned and she looked at me strangely. “What are you doing?”

  “I thought I heard Payt. I wanted to play with him,”

  “Leave him alone,” said Julia. She set the food down on her floor.

  I went over to get the small pizza she’d ordered me and again my throat felt dry, “Did you remember the juice?”

  She paused as she was taking the lid off her pasta. She looked at the closet and then said, “You’ve been here a million times. You can get it yourself.”

  “Alright,” I said getting up. I left her room and went downstairs. Her mom was still on the phone. She was watching TV. I had to run past her to get to the kitchen. When I got there, they were out of juice. I grabbed a glass and got some water instead. I drank an entire glass before I filled it up again. I carefully walked pasted Julia’s mom again and she looked annoyed. I apologized and rushed upstairs.

  When I got back to Julia’s room, the food was all laid out, along with the cookies and brownies my mom had given us. We sat down and just pigged out for a while. Then we decided to watch a few movies. We didn’t talk much. I figured we’d done most of the talking earlier. It was nice to just sit and relax with my best friend again.

  Around one Julia started to yawn. We decided to call it a night. We changed into our pajamas and crawled into her bed. I watched Julia as she positioned her pillows and blankets and told her, “I really did miss you,”

  “I know,” she said with a smirk. Then she turned her back to me, lying down, “I missed you too,”

  She clicked off the light switch near her bed and we laid in silence for several minutes. I nearly drifted off to sleep when Julia spoke again, “I thought...we would always be friends, you know. I figured you were the last person that would ever hurt me. I thought I knew you,”

  “You do know me,” I said, “We’re always gonna be friends. Honestly I never meant to hurt you. I swear,”

  She turned to face me. It was dark. I couldn’t see her expression but I had a feeling she wanted to say something. The closet door creaked again. I turned slightly looking in its direction but I couldn’t see anything in the dark, “Is Payt in there,”

  “Yeah,” she said quietly, “I saw him messing around in there when you were getting juice,”

  She rolled over again and sighed, “Let’s just go to bed. I’m tired."

  “Okay,” I said but things felt unsettled. It felt like she hadn’t forgiven me. I laid there with my eyes open, the nagging feeling in my head growing stronger. If she hadn’t forgiven me, why did she invite me over? Maybe she had but then our conversation upset her once more.

  The closet door creaked again and it sounded eerie. The hair on my arms stood up as I felt on edge. I nearly had a heart attack when something suddenly hit the bed. I flinched but quickly settled down when my hands came into contact, with soft, fluffy fur. It was Payt. He must have finally decided to join us. He let out a quiet mew and purred before he snuggled up next to me.

  I let out a heavy sigh and rolled, facing Julia’s back. My eyes started to get heavy and I was feeling tired once again. Soon enough I drifted off to sleep.

  **********

  Something tickled my face. I reached out and batted it away. A few seconds later it happened again. It felt like fingers dancing across my skin. I opened my eyes and laid there for a second, letting them adjust. A dark figure was looming over me. It was brushing my cheek with the back of its fingers.

  I didn’t scream. I didn’t move, thinking I was having a nightmare. I closed my eyes a second later, falling back to sleep. I felt lips press against my own. They were moist and soft. A tongue slipped into my mouth and my eyes shot open. Someone was kissing me. I struggled, flinging my arms out to push them away. They pulled back and I tumbled off the bed, falling in the dark.

  I hit the ground and realized I was still in Julia’s room. I heard Payt jump down from the bed and scamper off. I looked up, the dark figure stood over me. Shocked and disoriented I couldn’t believe it, didn’t want to believe it. This wasn’t possible. I had to be having a nightmare.

  I slapped myself trying to prove this wasn’t real. This wasn’t happening. I knew firsthand that it was a lie you couldn’t feel pain in your dreams. I’d felt it more than once. However I knew that the pain in reality was sharper then in dreams.

  Whenever I got hurt in my dreams it was dulled and felt distorted in some way. As my face stung with the pain of my sharp slap, I knew I wasn’t dreaming. The figure let out a chuckle and I heard Lynn’s voice, “What are you doing?”

  I didn’t think. I just screamed. He rushed me and tried to cover my mouth with his hands. I squirmed away from him and tried to crawl to the door. He tackled me, pulling down my pajama bottoms as I struggled to get away.

  The light suddenly came on as my screaming continued. I must have woken Julia. Without thinking I turned to look back at her. He got me, pressing me into the carpet as he covered my mouth. I continued to scream but it was muffled.

  Julia cried out, “Would you shut her up already?! She’s gonna wake my parents!”

  My eyes widened as her words sunk in. She...she was in on this. I struggled even harder. Lynn kept his hand over my mouth and pinned me down with the weight of his body. He reached for something in his pocket.

  He pulled out a cloth and pressed it under my nose. In my panic I breathed in. I could smell something sweet, chemical, it reminded me of science clas-

  Chapter Eleven

  I drifted somewhere I’d known before. Somewhere the stars knew my name. There was a peace there, a calm. I found myself standing in a large field at night. The brush came up to my waist. I could see a night full of stars and colors...such shapes. In the distance waves crashed upon a sandy beach.

  I stood in the field just taking it all in when I saw him not far off looking at the stars. I watched him for a moment, content to just be near him. The wind picked up, blowing through the brush. When it reached him he turned in my direction and froze.

  He looked surprised to see me and then he didn’t look happy. He turned and started to walk away. I followed him but suddenly he reached out and opened an invisible door in the middle of the field. He stepped into the doorway and I could only see his silhouette as the light of day poured through this magical door.

  I called out to him. My voice was soft and carried almost like wind chimes, “Wait, I’m scared.”

  He stood in the doorway for a moment longer and then went through. The door shut behind him and I was alone...I looked out at the stars and felt like I was crying. I reached for my face but couldn’t move my hands. They were tightly bound. The field and stars faded and I found myself falling in darkness…Somewhere I heard muffled voices. The longer I fell the clearer they got.

  “What are you gonna do again?”

  “Come now, I don’t want to deprive you of the surprise. I’ll tell you the details when I get back,”

  “Alright,” the voice sounded detailed.

  The male sighed, “I’m gonna teach her a lesson. Make her pay for trying to break us up and spreading all those lies about us,”

  “Make sure she suffers,” said Julia...it was Julia speaking. “After everything she did to us...She’s a backstabber and I want to make sure she never does this to anyone again,”

  “Oh, she won’t,” said Lynn...the male voice it was Lynn.

  I opened my eyes seeing fuzzy, undefined shapes someone, Lynn, lowered me into some place...There was blankets….soft.

&nbs
p; They stood over me...something was lowering. “You remember what to say?” asked Lynn.

  “I do,” said Julia. She wrapped her arms around him as my vision became clearer. I still just lay there, “I love you,”

  “I love you too,” said Lynn and they kissed.

  I closed my eyes. “I’ll wait for you,” said Julia. They must have pulled apart.

  I opened my eyes, “You should get some rest. I won’t be back until late tomorrow. Then we’ll celebrate,”

  I moaned weakly, “She’s waking,”

  “Don’t worry,” he said, taking something out, “I got something stronger,”

  I felt a sharp prick somewhere and then...everything went black again.

  **********

  I woke to the hum of the car on the highway. My head was slumped to the side. My neck hurt. I opened my eyes and saw I was in a car. I must have fallen asleep at a weird angle. I could see a dashboard and a road ahead of me. The sunlight felt hot on my face. I opened and closed my eyes, wondering if I was going somewhere. Had I fallen asleep? I always used to fall asleep in the car when my parent took my brothers and me on long trips. Were we on one now...? No...no. I closed my eyes.

  I woke again. It was getting dark. I was in a car. Was I dreaming? Light classical music was playing. It was nice. I rolled a bit shutting my eyes, wanting to go back to sleep… sleep. I’d been sleeping at Julia’s…wait…the closet.

  He’d been hiding in the closet. My heart raced as my eyes shot open. I tried to focus but felt groggy, and bogged down. I struggled, fighting against it. I didn’t want to pass out again. As I woke more I became away my mouth was taped shut. I felt and saw my hands were bound together tightly at the wrists. I was wearing a seat belt.

  I struggled to move, to turn myself. My body was sore but I needed to see who was driving. I managed to turn my head enough to see him. Lynn was driving. He had sunglasses on and was eating a handful of something. He had a huge smile on his face.

  My eyes rolled back towards the window. It was nearly night, but hadn’t it been day before...and night….it was night when I was at Julia’s. How long...how long had I been like this? How far were we from my home?