Shattered Stars

by Shari Ryan

  Layne pulls away, smiling, and brushes his thumb against my cheek. “Amazing,” he says then continues singing.

  My lips curl into a smile on their own. My body is at ease, and my mind is in the clouds.

  Take my hand, hold it tight

  Together, we’ll climb to the top

  We can be set free tonight

  Away from fearing the epic drop

  I’m speechless, winded, full, but empty, craving more, needing Layne for longer. I made it through my fear, masking it with desire.

  “I want to go again,” I tell him.

  Eighteen

  Current Day

  Layne and I have been sitting on the couch, staring at daytime TV reruns while we wait for one of our phones to ring. The number of thoughts that have run through my head since yesterday has my head spinning. It was tempting to start my online searches again, seeking answers I may or might not get today, but I’m so confused by what Dr. Mallard said yesterday, I wouldn’t even know where to start my search.

  I’ve been fidgeting with our bright yellow throw pillow for the last two hours, and I see that there are now a few pulls in the fabric. I didn’t know I was tugging so hard until my phone rang a minute ago.

  Layne stood up and took the call in the kitchen as if it’s private and has nothing to do with me or the outcome of my illness. It’s better off that way, though. I’m not sure I want to hear one side of a conversation and speculate inaccurate information.

  My knees are bouncing, and I’m trying to pat down the loose threads on the pillow as Layne returns, staring at his phone for a long second.

  “Well?” I ask.

  “Dr. Mallard wants to schedule you for a neurological evaluation. He thinks he can get you in this week, which is unheard of I guess. He’s going to let us know when we can come back.”

  “What? Why do I need another neurological evaluation?” I’ve had at least two this year alone. Both were testing for different reasons, but still, how much more information can they strip from my brain just to help figure out what the hell is wrong with me?

  “The one you had a few months ago had inconclusive sections, and he thinks there may be more underlying information to those parts of the test.”

  “So, what? If they get their matching answers today, they’ll approve me for the trial?” Layne knew I didn’t want to talk to Dr. Mallard when he called, so he took my phone from the coffee table when it rang. We both know I don’t ask enough questions, and I never have the answers Layne is looking for after an appointment or phone call. Therefore, I’ve given every doctor permission to discuss my results with Layne.

  “Not quite,” Layne says, taking my hand and pulling me off the couch. “He’s not sure your diagnosis is correct.”

  “What does that mean?” It could mean anything, worse or better, just as I’ve been assuming since yesterday. My mind seems to be leaning in the category of worse though.

  “Dr. Mallard couldn’t say.” Dr. Mallard doesn’t want to give us false hope. “He said a lot of your symptoms are pointing in additional directions that need further examination.”

  “Great,” I exclaim. “Just what I wanted.”

  Layne can’t possibly have anything promising to say in response to any of this, which is why he’s wrapping his arms around me, curling me into his chest. “Everything will be—”

  “Nothing is okay, Layne. It’s not.”

  “I know, baby. I know.” This is the first time he hasn’t disagreed with my negativity. This is the first time I think he’s considering the poor outcome I’ve been expecting.

  “We were supposed to have our forever, and this isn’t fair.”

  “This isn’t fair,” he says.

  “It’s his fault, Layne. It’s all his fault …”

  I haven’t said this. I have refused to say this. It’s giving him what he wants.

  He will get it … one way or another.

  I can’t give it to him.

  He will take it. Just like he took the rest of you.

  No. No. No.

  “Who?” Layne asks with hesitation.

  “Bale Herman,” I utter through a hoarse rasp. It’s the first time I’ve spoken his name out loud.

  “Dani,” Layne breathes, barely forcing sound into the consonants of my name.

  “It is,” I tell him.

  “He can’t hurt you again.” This is what Layne tells me to ease my pain for what Bale Herman did.

  “Yes, he can,” I admit.

  “He’s in prison,” Layne reminds me of my own words from years ago.

  “He’s no longer in prison, Layne.”

  By Layne’s sharp movements, he’s enraged. He releases his arms from around my body and storms toward the front door. Strands of his hair fall into his eyes as his head whips around like he’s looking for something to grab or hold. “What are you talking about, Dani?”

  The guilt for keeping this information to myself for the past year is hitting me all at once, and I might erupt into a fit of tears if I can’t regain control of my emotions. I swallow the growing pain in my throat and close my eyes to continue explaining. “He showed up at our door last year, looking to apologize. I didn’t know who he was at first, but the longer he stood in front of me, memories percolated, and that’s when I recalled the mole above his top lip. I told him to get off our property, and if he were to come back, I would have the police waiting for him.”

  Layne is pacing, pulling at the roots of his hair. “Our daughter lives here, Dani,” he shouts. “Does he know about her?”

  “No, I didn’t tell him,” I snap. “I was scared you’d—”

  “Dani, shit! There’s a goddamn rapist on the loose, and you didn’t think to tell me? How the hell am I supposed to protect you and Aly?”

  “All you have ever done is protected me—us, Layne. I didn’t want to burden you any more than I have.”

  “Burden?” he growls. “The two of you are my life, Dani. You aren’t a burden. You’re my life, and I would do anything to protect you two. Anything. Do you not understand that? I would give you everything in the entire goddamn world if it meant you’d be safe. I love you so much that I fall asleep with tears in my damn eyes every night thinking I’ve failed you as a husband because I haven’t been able to protect you from this illness. Yet, for a year now, there has been a rapist walking around who knows where you live—where we live, with our teenage daughter.”

  “Layne, I remember the pain now. The stabbing sensations I endured before I became unconscious the night he raped me. I recall the look on his face when he stole my innocence. I could only focus on his mole at that moment. It was dark enough that I wished it was a black hole where I could lose my mind and set my thoughts free. I stared at it until it became blurry—until I lost my senses … until I went numb.”

  The whole town knew what happened. There were prayer groups outside of the hospital, singing and praying for me to get better. The entire town knew how I had been savaged and beaten. The entire town found out a monster impregnated me. Then, not everyone agreed with me keeping Aly. Some believed she might have been carrying the gene of a monster just like the thoughts that once drifted through my fragile mind. There was so much controversy about my life and the decisions I made.

  After all that, the monster, himself, came one day to announce his silent departure from prison. It didn’t take much to reignite the past fears I had been trying to escape.

  “I want to kill him, Dani. I want him dead,” Layne seethes.

  “Which is why I didn’t tell you,” I explain, trying to remain calm.

  “We tell each other everything,” he mutters. “Everything. We always have. Right?”

  “I know.”

  “We have to do something,” he growls.

  “No,” I argue.

  “It’s been a year. He hasn’t been back. Please. I don’t want to do anything.”

  My words didn’t mean much to Layne as he spent the afternoon on the phone with severa
l security companies, searching for which one could offer us an alarm system with the most features to install in our house.

  I’ve spent years debating how to ignore the public’s opinions of my life, and I spent those same years learning how to walk around without living in fear of being touched or crowded. It has taken me all this time to feel somewhat normal again, and now I have this illness destroying what’s left of my mind. I feel like a prisoner, and there is no way to escape any of this.

  While Layne is completing the order with whichever security company he chose, I close myself into my studio office, grabbing paints from various shelves, preparing to massacre another canvas with the demons threatening to pour out of my fingertips.

  I rummage through my stack of canvases, in search of a particular kind. I must have at least a hundred sorted into a dozen boxes. I don’t like to hang up my artwork because I don’t think most people would see my paintings the way I do. Layne has never asked many questions, but he’s also an artist, so obscurity doesn’t puzzle him. Aly thinks I’m crazy, but all daughters think their mothers are crazy at some point, so that doesn’t bother me much.

  One of the canvases I pass by speak to me, so I pull it out and lay it down on the ground, staring through the black hole I painted across the white space. I search around the studio for a moment, spotting my canister of thin paint brushes and grab one. I flip the brush up and drag the pointed end across the black hole, revealing an array of colors beneath the opaqueness. All black holes are made from a mixture of beautiful colors. Like my life … all the good covers the bad.

  “Dani?” Layne’s hands gently fall to my shoulders, and I jump up to my feet.

  “Stop!”

  “Dani, it’s me.”

  “I know,” I tell him.

  “You were rocking back and forth when I walked by, and I—” I thought I closed the door.

  “I’m okay.”

  “What is this?” He’s asking about the obscure painting.

  I lean forward and gouge out speckles of black paint. “My visual representation of your song, Shattered Stars.”

  I have several canvases with buried color behind the black holes. It has been a therapy for me when I feel like I’m suffocating.

  “It’s beautiful,” he says, flatly. If the circumstances were different, he might have responded more positively, but when Layne becomes fixated on something, it consumes his focus. He’s assuming the worst. My reason for keeping information from him is to keep him level-headed. I’ve already come to terms with the life of living among monsters, but for those who haven’t had to face the horror, they should be able to keep that innocence. At the time when the man showed up at our front door, my life was good, and my health was normal. I felt it was best to keep out the bad where it belongs. Maybe I was wrong, but I don’t want Bale Herman to have any further effect on my life or my family’s life, and the best way to do that is to forget about him.

  “Why did you keep this from me? This is the part I can’t wrap my head around, Dani. I don’t understand.”

  “If I said his name or mentioned his existence, he would have become real. More real than he already was. It would have changed us.”

  “What if he had come after you? I wouldn’t have known a thing,” Layne argues.

  That thought crossed my mind too. “I don’t know.”

  “What did he look like?”

  One Year Ago - I WAS 28 YEARS OLD

  I had been a freelance artist for a few years at that point, which meant working solely from home except for some days in the summer when I go down to the beach for inspiration. At times, working from home had been challenging, finding a routine, and sticking to it with little self-structure, but I had gotten better at doing the same thing at the same time each day to ensure I got done what needed to get done. No matter what, I showered, got dressed, dried my hair, and put on a layer of mascara. I’d do a load of dishes and a load of laundry, dust the bottom or top floor, then retreat to my studio until Aly would come home from school.

  My Tuesday in the middle of last September was moving along until the doorbell rang while I was in the middle of tossing a clean load of washed laundry into the dryer. I figured it was a delivery or someone trying to discuss their religious values, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.

  A tall man, covered with muscles and tattoos, a scraggly black beard, bushy eyebrows and burn marks along the side of his right cheek, stood in front of me, in my doorway. He didn’t look like anyone who would have a reason to be at my door. I’m thankful I locked the storm door. “Can I help you?” I had my hand on the front door, ready to close it at a second’s notice.

  The man stared at me for another long second, and I noticed some emotion swimming through his dark-brown eyes. “I’m looking for Danielle,” he said, his voice sounded hoarse and rusty as if he had spent years screaming.

  “What for?” I asked.

  “I owe her an apology.”

  Those words were all it took to make my stomach convulse and tighten like a contraction. My mind froze, and I had forgotten how to breathe.

  I stared at him.

  My focus drifted to his upper lip, noticing the peppering of ashy black facial hair, and then I saw a dark shadow of a mole, camouflaged. A pain ran through my head—a phantom pain that reminded me of where I had been.

  I needed strength.

  “You owe Danielle an apology?" I repeated.

  “Yes, Ma’am.” Who would have thought they teach manners in prison?

  “Ma’am,” I say, snickering. I told myself not to piss him off in any way. “You should go kill yourself. I’d try that before an apology. It would get you further. If it doesn’t, find another way to earn peace, but never step foot back on my property again.” I slammed the door in his face and fell to the ground, collapsing into a ball, shaking, and convulsing.

  I told myself not to cry. I told myself not to give him another tear.

  It took a good thirty seconds before I could pull myself up to my feet and run to each door of the house, making sure all the locks were in place. Then, I checked all the windows. I was locked in, but I didn’t feel safe.

  Mindlessly, I called the police to report a rapist on the loose, but when I went to say his name, I told them I had made a mistake.

  I couldn’t say his name.

  I was notified by letter that he was released after I thought they gave him a life sentence. I tried to forget. I tore up the letter and buried the contents in the trash, wishing the paper had gotten lost in the mail.

  Flashes of memories from the day popped into my head. I was pulled away from the street fair trickled into my fragile mind, causing pains in my chest, a tightness in my throat, and numbness behind my knees. They should kill men like him.

  I picked up my phone, staring at it, debating who to call, but the assumed repercussions entered my mind one by one, and I thought about how destructive this news would be to my family.

  I knew Layne would want to go after him. Mom would want to lock me inside for the rest of my life. Lexi would tag along with Layne, and Aly, she would have to live in fear, the way I had for so long.

  I thought maybe it wasn’t him—the man who defiled me at sixteen.

  I could believe it wasn’t him.

  I thought maybe I had convinced him to end his life, and there wouldn’t be any more reasons to worry.

  Whatever the case was, I had to forget. I had to let him go again.

  CURRENT DAY - 29 YEARS OLD

  “I don’t expect you to understand,” I tell Layne. “I wasn’t hiding anything from you for the sake of hiding. I was trying to protect our family.”

  Layne crouches down behind me and places his hands on my shoulders before pulling me back into his chest. He inhales through his nose, then exhales slowly through his lips. “I have spent half of my life trying to take care of you, wanting nothing in return, and I shouldn’t have assumed you wanted anything less for me. I know you want to protect me too, Dani, and tha
t makes you incredible.”

  He buries his forehead against my neck, and the closeness makes me yearn for a connection I feel like we’ve lost sight of this past year. Between the diagnosis and nightmares, there has been little space for anything else in our lives. “I miss you,” I tell him.

  “I’m right here,” he utters.

  “No, Layne, I miss you.” I twist around, bringing my face parallel to his. “More than anything, I miss you.”

  He understands the deeper meaning of my statement and cups his hands around my cheeks, bringing my lips to his. Life has come and gone, difficulties have molded us, and age has taken us for a ride, but one thing that has never changed is the way he kisses me. It’s still like I’m the only one in the world who understands him, who sees him, who lives by his words, even if he doesn’t believe them anymore.

  I press my hands into his shoulders, pushing him down to the canvas drop cloth I have covering the hardwood floors. He complies, easing beneath my touch. His hands never release from my face, and his eyes don’t falter from gazing into mine. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asks me.

  “Layne, I’m okay when I’m with you. Please, I need us like this.”

  My words seem to be all Layne needs to ignite his matching desire. With seamless movements, I’m cradled beneath his hold, watching the loose strands of his hair fall into his eyes as he makes love to me. The beauty of being with the same man for twelve years is never having to spell out what makes me tick. Layne knows every move I crave, each touch I silently plead for. He knows my body better than I do.