True Story

by Kate Reed Petty

  Opened my eyes. A golden fall sunrise through the bay window, over the park. Headache still bad, nausea gone. Sat up. You know, I feel a little better, I said. It was the clearest morning I’d had in months. No sleep crusted in my eyelashes. Opening my eyes did not feel like swimming up out of the deep. Felt grateful to Q for watching over me all night, but also something was wrong, something I still couldn’t quite remember.

  I asked Q to take me to the library. I want to email Haley, I said. (Haley, yes, at that moment you were the person I wanted to talk to.) He nodded, said, Sure thing. Let me get you your morning tea first, he said. He took away the untouched tea from the night before, walked to the kitchen. I looked at the place where the tea had been. You know what? I called. What? Q stepped back out of the kitchen. I said, I want a cappuccino. He stood in the doorway, stared at me. But dairy, he said. Please, I said, I want to try a cappuccino.

  Don’t know why he gave in. Maybe he knew that I was about to understand and needed to back off. Maybe he didn’t have the heart to say no. Maybe he really did love me. Whatever it was, he sat down by the front door and tied his shoes and left.

  That was when I realized he had thrown away all of my clothes. There was nothing in the drawers. Nothing in the closet. It was like I had accidentally walked into a bachelor’s room, Q’s clothes lined up in neat rows, taking up all of the space. In the last bottom drawer there was a stack of my T-shirts and pajama pants. Stripes and cotton. Couldn’t even find a bra. How long had it been since I had worn a bra? I understood, then, the deal that I had made with Q, what it took for him to take care of me.

  I hunted for shoes for what felt like hours. Finally settled for thick socks and Q’s plastic slip-on sandals. Wore flannel pants and one of Q’s button-up shirts. Pulled my hair back. In New York, you can wear anything, I told myself.

  In the elevator I held on to the wall to stay upright. There was a mirror on the back wall; I saw a skeleton with hair dyed a deep burnished red, eyes puffy and squinting, skin very pale. When the elevator dinged, the skeleton in the mirror jumped at the same time I did. I turned away, trying to remember when my hair had been dyed and when Q had taken the mirror out of the bathroom. Stumbled out onto the street, overwhelmed and disoriented. Lights too bright, people everywhere. Kept my eyes on the sidewalk and forced my stiff legs to move.

  Got lucky, walked in the right direction. Did not pass Q on the sidewalk, wherever he had gone for a cappuccino. I asked a man on a stoop where the nearest subway was. Went there and waited for someone to come out through the emergency exit and slipped through behind them. Realized people were looking at me but avoiding eye contact; I looked awful. I made my way to your place on York Street.

  Stumbling up the subway stairs, I thought about the last time we had lost touch, and when you came to find me—summer after high school. Reading Misery on my parents’ back deck. This is apropos of nothing, I said, and held up the book. You didn’t laugh. We hadn’t really spoken in years. But you knew what had happened to me. You handed me a box of Oreos—remember?—then stood with your hands in the pockets of your jeans. I wanted to come sooner, but I didn’t know if you wanted to talk to me, you said. I’m so sorry, you said, and then you started crying. What they did to you, you said, and then stopped. Have a cookie, I said. I was glad you were there, but I didn’t want to talk about the past. Struggled to open the pack of Oreos. Was crying, too. The package didn’t open, didn’t open, and then it burst, scattering cookies all over the deck. We laughed. We ate four each. After that we were best friends again, like magic.

  I hoped this reunion would be just as easy, but I was afraid. I was sure you hated me for my long silence. I was sure you hated me for staying with Q for so long. But I needed your help piecing things together. I didn’t know what I was going to do. You had always seen the truth.

  You had moved. Lady, this is private property, the doorman said, as I pushed the locked elevator button in frustration. You can’t stand around in here.

  Woke up in a cab. The doorman had shuffled me out the door and into the back seat as I started to faint, caught myself, fainted again. Didn’t want to deal with me. Leaned against the cab window and watched the doorman talking to a cop. Both men in uniforms shaking their heads. Then the cabdriver was yelling at me to get out of his cab if I didn’t know where I wanted to go. The headache was back and the prospect of getting onto the sidewalk and deciding what to do next was too much. Gave him Q’s address. It shut the driver up although he kept the windows rolled down. Got there and rang the buzzer. Asked Q, holding down the speaker button, Can you come pay for this cab? The driver yelling out his window, the meter running. Q rushed out. Threw a wad of bills through the cab’s window and put an arm around me and walked me upstairs. Didn’t have to say anything. Didn’t even have to come up with an excuse. He would take care of that for me. You were lost, he said, I was so worried, you did the right thing taking a cab, I’m sorry I was gone, I won’t ever leave you alone again. Thank you, I said, watching him.

  We tried to go back to the way it had been. I wanted to be taken care of again. Spent the week asleep but it was no use. Suddenly so obvious that he was putting something in my tea. I was overwhelmed by nausea and exhaustion before I ever finished a cup. Q brought me more every three hours, a dutiful nurse. But I didn’t want to be asleep anymore. Didn’t want to feel sick. Wanted Q to take care of me the way he used to, when I was still working, not the way he was now. I wanted pizza and beer, not toast and tea. But Q had changed. His breath smelled metallic. His eyes were always wide open, staring, haunted. Finally, after six days, I refused even a drop. You have to drink it, he said. I just want water, I said. He left and came back with a cup of light-yellow liquid. That’s not water, I said. It’s water with your medicine, he said. Looked at him. Didn’t budge. Fine, he said, if you’re not thirsty. Heard him pour the glass down the sink. That night he screwed a padlock into the kitchen door. There’s chemicals in the kitchen, he said. I don’t want you to get hurt.

  I held out only a day. Wasn’t used to refusing food. Broke down. A slight bitterness to the soup, but ate as much of it as I could before I passed out. Woke up briefly, as if from a dream. Passed out again into the dark.

  It is amazing what can begin to seem normal just because it happens all the time. I noticed, for example, how Q had grown. Loomed on the end of the couch, rubbing my feet, his head touching the ceiling. My feet like pebbles between his hands. His breath always smelled like blood, his arms never had any hair. Eyes wide and desperate.

  Neither of us knew where we were headed. A new impasse. It almost makes me laugh, now, to write it, because it sounds like just one of those things that happens in relationships. We never talk anymore. We want different things, aren’t sure how to communicate. Also one of us is poisoning me. All I could do was refuse food. Drank tap water from the bathroom, scooping it up in my hands, when I could get Q to leave me alone in there. Looked for my reflection in the backs of soupspoons, checking to see if my roots had grown in brown yet. Waited days between meals, as long as I could, feeling myself grow sharper. Enjoyed the feeling of alertness. Enjoyed having thoughts again. Must confess that I missed the old Q. The easy companionship we used to share.

  I learned more about how Q lived. He had groceries and books delivered, never left the apartment. He wrote, maybe still working on his thesis, maybe just typing like Jack Torrance. Realized that he was constantly asking for my reassurance. Reading me sentences from his thesis. Asking whether or not I loved him. I learned that he was not a strong man. When I couldn’t stand the hunger, I finally let him feed me, packed in as many calories as I could, and then slept for what felt like a week. Woke up to a freshly dyed head of red hair and a headache like an interminable houseguest. But at least I had the food in my system to last a few more days. Went back to the work of growing out roots.

  For my part, I was making Q crazy. He wrote less. Spent more time watching me. Then o
ne afternoon, all of a sudden, he left. I’ll be back soon, he said. Didn’t say where he was going. Didn’t ask. Got up and walked out the door. I hadn’t eaten anything in two days, hadn’t had anything to drink. Felt sharp and nervous. Ran and pulled on the kitchen lock, nothing. So hungry I could have cried. Then stopped. Realized: I could leave. Walked back into the living room, stood looking at the door. It was my first big failure. Didn’t want to go. Didn’t know where I would go. I sat back on the couch. Hunger got the best of me. When Q came back, I let him feed me. Fell asleep halfway through the omelet. Slept for hours. No dreams.

  I had so much more time to think than I’d ever had before. Even before I was sick, I never just sat and thought. Discovered new depths of contemplation, a pleasant buzz of energy in my chest when I sat still for hours. Sat in the window watching the winter outside. The jogging mother had wrapped her stroller in the same white cloud. It snowed early one day. The snow angels lying on their backs looked up at me. Thought about people I knew when I was younger. Missed Khloé. She would have loved sitting in this window with me. When she was alive, I was too busy. Now I had nothing but time.

  By then I knew, of course, that Q had killed her. Understood why. She was competition. Of course he had killed her. The thing I couldn’t understand was why he had let me see her. There were a hundred ways to make her disappear. He had wanted me to see her dead. I contemplated this fact like a chess move. A puzzle to worry over. I was realizing that I was in danger, but not yet feeling that I was in danger. Watched him with new eyes, wondering.

  Q started leaving every day, at different times. Never said where he was going. Sometimes came back in ten minutes, sometimes was gone until night. No idea if he locked the door because I never tried it. It was a test, and every day I passed, or failed, depending on how you looked at it.

  Awake more, talked to him more. Wanted to break through. He’d withdrawn from me. Our old magic was gone. But I realized that he still viewed what we had as a relationship. I had to convince him that I saw it that way, too. We never really talk anymore, I tried. Sitting on the couch with a book taking notes, my feet in his lap, thumb unconsciously rubbing my big toe. You’ve been sick, he said, and this thesis is killing me. Yeah? I said, tell me what you’re thinking about. Sat up and put my arm around his shoulder. Looked at me sideways. Well, he said.

  He’d gotten to the point in his thesis, he said, of needing to define his core concepts: Ideas, Words, Good, and Bad. Words that are the building blocks of definitions and thus nearly impossible to define. But he thought that he could do it. Rambled to me about it. Was making no sense. Sat up straighter, waving his hands. Said he hadn’t talked to anyone about this in six months. I hadn’t paid attention, had been asleep. Now I stared at him, increasingly worried. Q had lost it.

  But could you, I said, trying to bring him back to solid ground, could you just skip the definitions and write around them? Looked at me like I’d suggested he write in Esperanto. Or you could define them by example, I said, use the idea that is at the center of your research. That our ideas change what we believe, and not the other way around. That in a way his thesis was about his beliefs, and not ideas. Just say that, I said. I’m alone in this, Q wailed, I’ll never finish. I’m here with you, I said. He said, Can I trust you? Can I really trust you? He looked at me with big eyes filled with despair. I’m worried you want to leave me, he said. I can’t leave, I said, you took my shoes. As soon as I said it I realized it was a mistake. He leaned his head back. I’m so sorry, I said. I didn’t mean that. He got up and stood a few feet in front of me with both of his fists pressed into his eyes. You won’t leave me, will you? he said. I won’t leave you, I said. Promise? he said. I saw that he was honestly terrified that I would go, but that fear made it no less a threat.

  It unraveled before my eyes that afternoon, as I watched tiny joggers under the first tree bursts of early spring. Why he’d let me see Khloé. It was the same reason he put drugs in my tea. My mother once told me that if a man is at his best when he’s apologizing to you, he’ll waste your life creating reasons to apologize. Sat up in the middle of the night. Looked at Q. Was not stuck to him. Enormous in the bed next to me, snoring softly. Feet hung off the end of the bed and rested firmly on the floor. Head twice as big as the pillow. Finally heard what the train conductor had been announcing: If a man is at his best when he’s taking care of you, he’ll waste your life creating reasons for you to need his care.

  I left the next day. Hadn’t eaten in eight days, a new record. Felt sharp and clear. Q had walked out without fanfare in the late morning, on his mysterious daily errand. I pulled on the same pair of his socks and Adidas sandals. I put on the same flannel pants and button-up shirt. Searched everywhere for some cash, or a credit card, or anything, but the apartment was filled with only books and the stupid wool blanket. Stood in the middle of the room, frozen for a moment. A plan occurred, maybe foolhardy, but enough to get me out the door. Would go to a bar, try to pick up a man with a story about getting locked out of my apartment on laundry day. An Andy; someone gentle. Would spend a night on this man’s couch, get my thoughts together, and borrow his phone to call Haley. Or my parents. The first thing was just to find someone at a bar. Was already practicing my smile, trying to arrange my face into a charming come-hither shape, as I opened the door.

  Q was standing in the hallway, waiting. He was both surprised and completely unsurprised to see me. Had been waiting for me to break his heart like this. He closed his eyes tightly. Clenched his fists. Stood still for a second. My face frozen in the same come-hither look I had been practicing for another man. Oh, I said, are you waiting for me? He lunged forward suddenly and grabbed me by both shoulders, pushed me back into the apartment, slammed the door behind him, slammed me back against the wall, hard, twice.

  I’d never been thrown like that before. Held my elbows tucked in and my eyes closed and felt the wall on my back. It was not a feeling I knew existed. I thought Khloé’s death had showed me the fragility of life. That was nothing compared to being slammed against a wall. The look in Q’s eyes, not willing to believe he would kill me but afraid of it, a black pit opening rapidly under my feet. What it is to be helpless.

  He realized what he had done and stepped back. Looked at me, angry. You need to go to the hospital, he said. I stood, staring at him, paralyzed. He was panicked, mumbling to himself. Fumbled his keys out of his pocket. Dropped his phone, kicked it in frustration. Dropped his keys. Picked them up, fumbled for the kitchen key. Lurched toward the door like a man possessed. I had a moment of déjà vu watching him fumble with the padlock. You need to go to the hospital, he was saying. Finally he ripped the door open. Disappeared into the kitchen. I was shaking all over, like a wet dog. I grabbed his phone from the floor and his keys from the padlock hanging on the kitchen door. Ran out of the apartment and down the hall.

  Made it to the elevator and stood shaking. Got in. The doors closing sluggishly. I watched, frozen. Q came out the apartment door. Gigantic. Barely fit in the hallway. Ducked his head so it wouldn’t touch the ceiling. Trying to run, his broad shoulders squeezing against the sides of the hallway. The butcher knife in his hand looked the size of a spoon. You need to go to the hospital, he was roaring, swiping the knife in the air as the doors closed between us, you need to go to the hospital.

  Panicked in the parking garage, running between the cars, looking for his. Listening for the next elevator coming down. Or the door to the stairwell slamming open. Pushed the button on the key fob frantically. Finally his car went beep, beep. I got in and started the engine. Pulled out of the tight parking spot and turned the corner, gunning for the ramp to the street. Saw him in the rearview. A dark figure framed in the doorway of the stairwell, the knife glinting in his hand. I slammed on the gas, got away.

  The shakes started near the south end of New Jersey. I had to pull over and let my body go loose. Got out of the car and jumped up and down a couple of times. S
hook all over. Ran in circles around the car until some concerned passerby pulled over. A man in a baseball cap. I nearly screamed. Was back in the car and speeding away before he had shifted into park.

  I had no money. Wearing a pair of shower sandals, stolen from Q and therefore much too big, over the socks I’d been wearing for three days. Stopped at a big-box store, tried on a pair of light tennis shoes, left Q’s sandals in their place in the shoebox. And walked right out. Have you ever shoplifted before? I never had, not even a stick of gum when I was five. It feels fucking fantastic. Stole, begged, and borrowed several more things on my way here to Bethany Beach. All good stories I’ll tell you later: The woman with a van full of kids who bought me a tank of gas. The electronic toll lanes that I breezed right through—this fantastic alarm goes off with an indignant buzzing roar, sounds just like I feel. Q will get the bills in the mail in thirty days or so. The last time he’ll ever hear from me.

  And now I’m here. At your mother’s condo in South Bethany, writing emails on a phone on airplane mode. Emails that I’ll never send you.

  Because I know what you would say: Alice, why do you always hide behind genre stuff? Why make Q a literal monster, when what he did was so monstrous already? When will you just tell the truth?

  Sitting here on this balcony, at sunrise, I’m feeling surprisingly optimistic. And how appropriate that I wrote this on a phone! It’s how my love for Q started. He was a text message before he was much of anything else. Now he’s just a string of missed calls, and our story is a string of emails, hidden away forever in my drafts folder.