Broken Lullabies

by Nicole Simone

  “You’re so tight,” he groaned. “And so wet.”

  Another hurricane of an orgasm built inside me, I held on to the very edge, not wanting to fall until Matthew fell first. I watched his grey eyes turn into a liquid pool of heat as he thrust with a rhythm only a musician could maintain. I bit the inside of my cheek, not sure if I could wait any longer.

  “Cum for me, baby,” Matthew purred.

  Reaching down, he massaged my throbbing clit with his free hand. That was all it took. Matthew and I reached the highest peak together, forever marking me as his.

  The murmur of Camille’s voice woke me from a deep slumber. As I peeled my eyelids open, she was perched on the side of the bed. The dim morning light flooded the room and I glanced toward the window. Through a crack in the curtains, clouds of white streaked the sky. If I had to guess, it was close to nine a.m. Too early to be up, considering Camille and I didn’t go to sleep until three. We had a lot of pent up lust to work out, which we had, in the shower, on the bed, against the window; basically we corrupted the hotel room. It was glorious, but even so, I could go for another round. I inched toward Camille and placed a kiss on her naked lower back. Glancing over her shoulder at me, she looked as if she had seen a ghost. My stomach flipped.

  “Okay, thanks. I’ll see you then,” she muttered into the phone. “Bye.”

  Tossing the phone onto the duvet cover, Camille’s head bent forward into her open palms. I lay there and waited for her to speak. After a few tense beats passed, she did.

  “I have hinted at the nightmare in my past but I’ve never told you what happened.” She choked back a torrent of tears. “Four years ago I was physically assaulted but the evidence the police collected was conveniently lost until yesterday when my assailant beat the shit out of another woman. The remnants of his skin cells found under her fingernails linked our cases together. She’s in the hospital in a coma.” Her hand flew to her mouth and she crumpled forward as the reality of the situation hit full force. “That could’ve been me.”

  I hauled her against my chest and we curled into a ball on the bed. For weeks after the event, I checked online to see if Jared’s name had been mentioned, or any of our names for that matter. I’d never understood how we had gotten away with what we’d done, but now it made sense. Jared’s father had used his connections to pay off the police officers.

  That night, I should have forced Jared to the station myself, instead of being a selfish college student afraid of the repercussions it would have on my future. A future, might I add, that was woven with guilt and shame. With that one simple action, I could have brought a sense of closure for Camille and prevented Jared from laying his filthy hands on anybody else. Regret burned a gaping hole in my chest. While we hadn’t spoken since, if I ever did see him again, I would follow through on my threat and chop off his dick.

  Camille made a wounded animal noise as she sobbed uncontrollably. I threaded her fingers into mine and rocked us back and forth. “Shhh, it’s okay,” I soothed. “You’re strong. You can handle this. You can handle anything, Camille.” Repeating that mantra, her cries quieted to a whimper until her body stopped shaking like a leaf and she calmed.

  “I have to fly to Florida to identify him,” she whispered as if the world had played a cruel joke. “I can’t believe it.”

  “When?”

  “As soon as possible,” Camille said with unease.

  If I could erase the memories from that night from her mind in exchange for my soul, I would. She deserved to move on, graduate with her PhD, and do whatever the fuck she pleased.

  She nibbled her bottom lip. “I can’t fly to Florida. I haven’t gone back to that pit of hell since I dropped out of Rolling Bay and moved home. What if I have a panic attack?” Camille’s eyes widened while her breathing grew shallow. “Or what if it’s too much to handle and I can’t properly identify him?”

  “You have to do it,” I said.

  “But…”

  “There are no buts, Camille. You have to do it because if you don’t, another woman is at risk.”

  “Is it weird I didn’t think it was possible for him to do that much damage?” Camille glanced out the window. “He held a knife to my throat, yet somehow, I knew he wouldn’t kill me. He smelled and acted like a typical frat boy, putting on a show for his friends. Them cheering him on as if I was nothing but a slab of meat.” Her hollow laugh sounded forced. “That’s what saved me actually. One of them calling me an ugly bitch and convincing my attacker I wasn’t worth it.”

  Hearing her say I saved her did nothing to ease the crushing remorse that buried me under its weight. This was where I confessed my lie. Before she heard it from a lawyer, or God forbid, the media. As my mouth opened to do so, Camille’s evergreen eyes shifted back to me.

  She tilted her head to the side thoughtfully. “Weird. I’d never referred to that man as the one who saved me. I only referred to him as the monster.”

  A knife slid into my belly and ripped open my guts. I half expected to see my organs lying on the bed. “Why the monster?”

  “Because he said things -- horrific things only a weak-minded asshole could come up with.”

  “But like you said, he saved you,” I said.

  “Yea, but he also could have called the cops or even intervened.”

  Although I had come to the same conclusion, hearing it from her lips magnified my contrition. The walls in the room felt as if they were closing in on me. Rolling off the bed, I tugged on my pants. I needed to go on a walk, clear my head, and resist the urge to meet an early demise.

  “Where are you going?” Camille asked.

  “I’m starving. I’m going to grab us breakfast.”

  “Can you grab me a latte as well? The sleep I got was nonexistent and I need caffeine to stay upright.” As if to prove her point, she stifled a yawn.

  “Sure,” I said, already halfway out the door.

  Clear sunny skies greeted me when I stepped outside into the biting morning air. Taking a shortcut across the grass, ice crunched underneath my shoes. In my haste, I forgot a jacket, which was a sure-fire way to contract hypothermia, but thankfully, I saw a coffee shop in the distance. Crossing my arms across my chest, I hunched my shoulders and quickened my steps.

  A while later, I exited the Dancing Bean with a bag of pastries and a latte like Camille had requested. It would be a lie if I said I didn’t entertain the idea of leaving, but as my hand clasped around the car keys, an emotion far greater than guilt stabbed me in the sternum. Anguish. I couldn’t abandon Camille. Our situation was complicated, but my feelings for her weren’t. She thawed my frozen heart and made me believe love wasn’t a bullshit fairytale. That it was as real as the sky above our heads. As long as we were together, I would prove to her that the man she saw in the alleyway wasn’t the man she had given her trust to. And I would also prove it to myself. For the past four years, I had been convinced a demon lay chained inside me, waiting to be unleashed. However, Camille had opened my eyes and made me view my warped soul in a new light. That maybe it wasn’t as twisted as I’d thought it was. Maybe, just maybe, someday the goodness would overtake the wickedness and banish it forever. With Camille by my side that seemed within the realms of possibility.

  Opening the door to the hotel room, Camille was sprawled on the bed with her eyes fixed on the ceiling. Her hand rested on her lower belly. Much to my disappointment, she had changed into her dress and was no longer half-naked.

  I set the coffee onto the small dining table. “What are you doing?”

  “It’s a trick my therapist taught me to manage my anxiety. You are supposed to close your eyes and breathe, but whenever I do, I keeping seeing that poor girl in the hospital room with her bloodied face and…” She sucked in a breath, unable to proceed.

  “You are doing the right thing by flying to Florida.”

  “Who said I was?”

  “I know you are because you are a good person and that’s what good people do.”
r />   “I’m terrified -- like pee-in-your-pants terrified.”

  I grinned at her description and perched myself on the edge of the mattress. “If you don’t identify him, who else will?”

  Her head lolled to the side. Looking at me, her eyes shone with dread. “It won’t stop there though. Identifying him is the first step. If the case goes to trial, I’m going to have to testify and recount what happened to me in a courtroom while my attacker watches.”

  “I’m sure there were other witnesses to the crime that can testify if you don’t want to.”

  “There weren’t any other witnesses. This latest victim was found outside her doorstep like a discarded doll. The neighbor saw her the next morning as she was leaving for work and called the police.”

  Jesus, I really should have done more than rough Jared up. I’d known he had a few screws loose, but he’d also been raging drunk that night. I’d blamed his brutality on his inebriated mind, but in actuality, when it came to violence, there was no room for excuses.

  Camille scrambled to her knees and scooted across the bed toward me. She steepled her hands in a praying position. Without opening her mouth, I knew what she was going to say.

  “Can you please go with me to Florida today?”

  Yup, exactly what I suspected.

  “I don’t know…”

  She scooted closer and resorted to pleading. “Please, I know it’s last minute, but I need you there with me. Please, Matthew.”

  “Cindy’s going away party is tomorrow.”

  While that was half the truth behind why I was reluctant to go, the other half was because I didn’t know if I could go the police station without turning myself in as a witness to Camille’s crime and potentially be charged as an accessory. It would wreck my career, but it would also lift the heavy burden I’d been carrying around on my shoulders.

  “We would fly there and back early the next morning before the party started,” she said.

  Part of showing Camille I wasn’t the monster she saw in the alleyway was putting my selfishness aside and being there for her.

  “Okay, I’ll go with you.”

  Squealing, she threw her arms around my neck in a side embrace. I encircled my arms around her petite waist and hugged her fiercely, mindful the odds of us walking away together from this was slim to none. I had been preparing myself to lose her from the beginning. Yet as I breathed in her spicy elixir that was uniquely Camille, it hit me that all the preparedness in the world wouldn’t soothe the harsh reality of a life without her.

  My fingers dug into the armrest as the plane landed with a skull-numbing jolt on the tarmac. Looking over at Matthew, he was as cool as a cucumber, reading his magazine. He should bottle his laidback juju and sell it to me. I was desperately in need of it. Or Valium. My stomach tied itself in knots as we glided to the gate. I was one step closer to the police station and seeing my attacker’s face again.

  “Do you want a drink?” Matthew pulled out a travel-sized bottle of vodka. “It might calm your nerves.”

  “Unlike you, I don’t use alcohol to solve my problems.”

  At my biting tone, he tucked it back in his jacket pocket.

  “Shit, I’m sorry,” I pinched the bridge of my nose as remorse rose up inside me. “I’m nervous. More than nervous. Petrified. And I’m taking it out on you. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s fine. You’re welcome to use me as your punching bag. I don’t mind. Just don’t actually hit me in the face again.”

  “Ha ha. You’re hilarious. But seriously, I don’t know if I can do this.”

  “It will be over before you know it, promise.”

  Inhaling a deep breath, I intangled my fingers with Matthew’s and pressed my lips to the back of his hand. “Thank you for being here. If you weren’t, I would be curled into a ball on the floor.”

  “You have survived the past four years without my help, Camille, and if I hadn’t appeared in your life, you would’ve continued to be the survivor you are. You don’t need me.”

  “No, I don’t need you, but you have also aided the journey to finding my old self again.”

  “I’m honored you think I played a part in that journey when actually it was all you.”

  Matthew was a stubborn coot when it came to accepting credit where credit was due. Sighing, I left it alone and looked out the window where the perpetual blue skies mocked me. When I went to college in Naples, I’d soaked in the sun as if it would disappear. My milky white skin turned a shade close to my hair color and I preferred bikinis to pants. In my element -- that’s what my mom had said when she’d visited me my freshmen year. And I was in my element so much so that the idea of leaving Rolling Bay caused anxiety pangs. I had plans to stay and get a job at the small independent newspaper that had hired me as an intern. Everything was working out to a T, but then the attack happened and my meticulous plan went up in smoke. I had to start anew, move home, and fight tooth and nail to regain my footing.

  Naples stood for the future that was snatched from me without cause. The love I had for this city had converted to bitter hate.

  “Your nails are biting into my palm, Camille, and they’re sharp.”

  I lessened my grasp and smiled at him, sheepishly. “Oops.”

  “From my limited experience of run-ins with the cops, the key is to be calm and answer whatever they ask without hesitation. Otherwise, they think you are hiding something.”

  “I’m not under suspicion of a crime. I’m there to help them send a scumbag to jail, but thanks, you’re really settling my nerves,” I said dryly.

  Matthew laid a kiss to the side of my head, because let’s be real, I didn’t need guidance. I needed this plane to turn around and head home, to Seattle.

  The police station looked like a ghost town as Matthew and I entered the stately brick building. I approached the reception desk that was secured behind a bulletproof partition, which caused another wave of panic. My footsteps hesitated, but Matthew gently shoved me forward. The female cop smiled kindly at me and held up her finger while she multitasked between talking on the phone and tapping on the keyboard.

  “Maybe we should just leave. She’s obviously busy,” I whispered to Matthew.

  He gave me a look clouded with sympathy. “It’s going to be okay.”

  I had heard that same one-liner from him so many times since this morning that annoyance rippled through my veins. How did he know it would be okay? It could be downright awful. Expecting the worst was better than being disillusioned the outcome would turn out exactly how you hoped, because news flash, it never did.

  “Sorry about the wait,” the woman cop said. “How can I help you?”

  “I got a call this morning about identifying a suspect. My name is Camille Barker.”

  The smile that pulled her lips into a passable measure of friendliness slipped. “Yes, of course. We have been expecting you. Please, take a seat. The chief will be with you shortly.”

  As we walked to the hard plastic chairs she’d gestured to, her pity closed around me like a wool blanket. Between Matthew and the lady cop, my lungs were on the verge of suffocating. I folded my hands in my lap and had the intention to wait patiently, but my jangling knee and restless spirit had other ideas. In the hour we were held up, I paced the shitty linoleum while Matthew played solitaire on his cell. Finally, the chief showed his tanned, leather face.

  “Ms. Barker?” His booming voice echoed off the stucco walls. “Is there a Ms. Barker here?”

  I came to a halting stop and looked around the room that was vacant except for Matthew and I. Raising my hand, the chief grunted and signaled for me to follow him.

  As I passed, Matthew grabbed my wrist and flipped it over. Laying his lips on my pulse point, he injected his strength into my veins. “I’ll be right here when you’re done. Good luck.”

  Unable to speak without begging him to come with, I settled for a watery nod. The chief led me through a maze of hallways with various marked doors until I was so
turned around, finding my way back to the reception area would be like trying to find Narnia. The chief opened the door to a windowless room and stepped aside. Based upon my marathon sessions of Law and Order, I recognized it as an interrogation room.

  “I thought I was going to identify the suspect,” I said.

  “You are, but since your case is getting re-opened…”

  Blood rushed to my ears as my hand reached out and gripped the doorframe to steady myself. “It is?”

  His caterpillar eyebrows bunched together. “You didn’t know?”

  “I kind of figured it might, but whoever I spoke to didn’t mention that detail over the phone.”

  “Oh, well, yes, we are re-opening your case. With the DNA evidence we have gathered, no amount of money or lawyers can save your attacker now.”

  The ground swelled up while my peripheral vision blurred. Although the justice I had been praying for was coming to fruition, it still came as a blow. A hand clasped around my upper arm and led me to a hard metal seat. I plopped down, dazed.

  “I’ll grab you a glass of water,” the chief said. “Unless you prefer coffee?”

  I felt my lips move but whether any sound came out was a mystery. I’m guessing it did though because the chief left and then reappeared with a steaming mug. He allowed me three minutes to digest the bomb he’d dropped before he dove in. I recounted what happened, detail by excruciating detail while the chief scribbled notes on a yellow legal pad. Although it was emotionally taxing, I persevered and moved on to the next task.

  A long one-sided mirror spanned the darkened room. Two police officers were standing in the corner, chatting about their day and drinking canned soda from the vending machine. In that moment, I wished I could’ve been them.

  “Garcia and Banks!” the chief barked. “Scram.”