What Did I Do?

by Jessica Jarlvi

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I saved you.’

  I looked at him dubiously. Stanley had saved me? He’d just punched me…

  He snickered. ‘You have no idea what the other guys were going to do to you. I brought you here. To safety.’

  ‘Who’s the girl?’ I asked.

  ‘She’s new,’ he said and pulled me up into a sitting position, my head throbbing at the sudden movement. He provided me with a glass of water and a tablet. ‘For your headache.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  I studied the tablet before I put it in my mouth, making sure it was indeed what he said it was. It was impossible to tell but my headache was too severe and I swallowed it anyway.

  ‘We have two options now,’ Stanley explained. ‘You either have to start moving around like the girls upstairs or we have to deal with the guy head-on.’ He opened his jacket to flash a hidden gun at me. ‘Do you understand?’

  I stared at him. They were going to kill my ex-boyfriend?

  ‘We can’t afford the trouble,’ Stanley continued. ‘The order comes from the top.’

  ‘Who’s that, then?’ I asked, doing my best to sound casual.

  ‘Come on, don’t,’ he said. ‘You know better than to ask questions.’ He held my hands in his, stroking them with his thumbs. ‘Let’s give it a few days to allow the swelling to go down. Then we set up a meeting with your boyfriend. You will tell him you’re here by choice, that you’re happy. If he walks away, we leave him be. If not, then it’s out of my hands.’

  Tears burnt my eyes. I was here by choice? I was happy? How could I have screwed up this badly? One minute I was planning a life with my boyfriend and the next I ended up here? I had spent much time blaming my mother but that wasn’t even fair. I had made the decisions that led me here.

  *

  ‘Don’t forget to smile.’

  I’d only been back at the house for less than five minutes when they ushered me into the room. My former boyfriend was already there, looking innocent in his jeans and cashmere jumper, and, at the sight of him, all I wanted was to hug him and beg him to please help me. But I knew that would end it for both of us. I had been fed enough threats only a few moments ago.

  ‘The guys will be watching you,’ had been Stanley’s final words.

  I tried hard to smile, my body aching from a party that had gone on till the early hours.

  ‘Hello,’ I said gently.

  ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ the security guy in the room said, and left.

  My eyes automatically went to the camera in the top right-hand corner. These surveillance appliances had become part of my life in the house and for the most part I managed to ignore them. Now, I was acutely aware of their presence. How could I slip him a message without being caught?

  ‘How are you?’ he said.

  ‘I’m… good,’ I said, working up the strength to say I was ‘happy’. ‘How did you find me?’

  ‘You disappeared,’ he said, looking dejected. ‘At first I accepted that you must have stopped loving me, but then I went to the restaurant where you worked and they said you were no longer waitressing there, that you had hooked up with this… this guy.’ The pained expression on his face said it all. He assumed I had left him for someone else. ‘I needed to see it with my own eyes, so I… it’s a long story, but I eventually found him and he said you two weren’t an item, and I thought, well, why did she leave, then?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. The nerves were catching up with me. How much time did we have? ‘My mum left and I…’

  I couldn’t do it, couldn’t tell him the whole long sad story of how one bad decision after another had led me to this point. Not only was I ashamed but bullets would pierce through our skulls in no time.

  Stanley had given me one piece of advice earlier: ‘If you struggle, act like Desire.’ And that’s what I did. I turned to her for help once more, becoming the carefree and confident Desire who toys with men and gets them to beg for more.

  ‘I needed a change of scenery,’ I said, crossing my legs and batting my eyelids. ‘Sharing a house with all these girls is a lot of fun and, well, I’m having the time of my life.’

  ‘And the guys?’ he asked, looking doubtful.

  ‘Oh, they’re some of my friends’ boyfriends.’

  ‘What about your studies?’

  ‘I can always go back to school later. You only live once, right, and I’m going to have fun while I can.’

  He looked unconvinced. I needed to play my part better.

  ‘You’re real sweet to come looking for me,’ I said, touching his knee with my painted nails. ‘I’m fine though. I wish you all the best, but my life is here now.’

  I fought the tears. Desire didn’t cry. She was strong.

  ‘Anyway, I better get back,’ I said. ‘The girls and I are going out later.’

  I stood up and, although I badly wanted him to stay, I ushered him out to avoid a breakdown.

  ‘Amanda,’ he said. ‘If you ever need anything...’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, my red lips breaking into a crooked grin.

  *

  ‘You did really good,’ Stanley said.

  ‘So you’ll leave him alone?’

  ‘Yeah, for sure. And I have a treat for you. No party tonight.’

  He escorted me out of the house and into the car. The way the other security grinned at me as I left made me cautious.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m taking you out. We just need to run an errand first.’

  Stanley insisted I sit in the back, leaving the front seat empty for someone else. We drove in silence, only stopping once we had reached a condominium complex on the outskirts of the city. He made a quick phone call and a couple of minutes later, the dark-haired girl from the office appeared. She shot me a quick glance but didn’t speak to me.

  ‘You look nice,’ Stanley told her.

  She didn’t respond. Overall, the journey was excruciating, the silence uncomfortable. Who was she? I felt there was something familiar about her. Had we met at a party? Was she one of X’s girls? She showed no signs of recognising me... perhaps I was mistaken? ‘She’s new,’ Stanley had said, but why didn’t she live with the rest of us? Was she the one who now lived with X? She hadn’t been picked up from his place but maybe he had moved? I wanted to ask but I didn’t know whether I was allowed to speak to her so I didn’t, and she didn’t initiate any conversations.

  We stopped at a warehouse-style building across town, which looked like the one where I had recovered from my beating. The girl made to leave the car, when Stanley grabbed hold of her arm.

  ‘I’ll pick you up later,’ he said.

  She turned to him, her face distorted into a disgusted grimace, and said, ‘Leave me alone.’

  ‘Sofia! Come on.’

  I watched the exchange with great interest. She dared to stand up to Stanley, something that I hadn’t. She tore out of the car, but Stanley stayed put until she had entered the building.

  He was fuming, slapping the steering wheel and cursing. I badly wanted to ask him about her, but he was clearly not in the mood to chat. His anger worried me. Where was he taking me?

  Chapter 34

  Kristin

  The voice on the intercom doesn’t belong here. How does he know where she is? What gave her away? She’s completely useless; she can’t even run away properly. What’s worse is that Niklas is on his way downstairs even though she asked him not to go.

  ‘Who delivers a parcel this late at night?’ she asked, holding onto his arm, pulling him into the apartment. Stay.

  ‘It must be important,’ he said and slipped out of her grip and out of the door.

  There was nothing she could do to stop him without seeming insane. So here she is, standing in the hallway, unable to move. Fight or flight?

  Time passes and in the distance she hears the front door open.

  ‘Kristin?’

  Niklas is back. Without a parcel. She walks aw
ay, into the kitchen where she brings out the antibacterial spray, ready to attack. Remove, remove, remove.

  ‘Kristin?’

  Niklas appears in the doorway, trying to catch her attention. She would prefer to erase him from her vision. Pretend that he doesn’t exist, at least for a short while.

  ‘Kristin, you were right,’ he says. ‘There was no parcel. A man was at the door and he showed me a photo.’

  She nods. Of course he did.

  ‘Should I cook something?’ he asks, sounding uncertain.

  ‘I don’t know, Niklas,’ she says, turning to him. ‘Can you cook something?’

  His eyes widen and she disappears out of the kitchen. That wasn’t how she was supposed to behave, but she can’t apologise. Instead, she goes into the bedroom where she sprays and wipes everything down. It must all shine. In the kitchen, she can hear pots slamming, but she focuses on the blind she’s wiping down: all thirty-two wooden slats have to be dusted. At some point her body starts to get tired though. Her brain pings like a timer and she wakes from her trance: how could she be rude to Niklas at a time like this?

  In the kitchen, he’s hovering over the hob, a towel flung over his shoulder, stirring. She clears her throat and takes a step towards him.

  ‘Niklas,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry.’

  He doesn’t look at her. ‘I think it’s ready now,’ he says.

  Concern grows in her like sprouting seeds. Can she fix this?

  ‘What are you cooking?’ she asks mildly.

  ‘Spaghetti.’

  She lays the table in silence and when Niklas puts the pot on the table, they sit down to eat.

  ‘Tell me about your life in the US,’ Niklas says.

  ‘Why?’ But of course she knows why.

  ‘I’m curious. You haven’t told me much.’

  He twirls the undercooked spaghetti around his fork. In Kristin’s mouth, the first bite grows into a ball. It tastes like soggy sawdust.

  ‘My upbringing was… unusual, I think,’ she says, swallowing. ‘My parents were different from other parents.’

  ‘Why don’t you tell me about your husband?’ he says. ‘I mean ex-husband or former husband or whatever you call a dead spouse.’

  She briefly looks up at the enamel ceiling light, reminding herself of Brandon’s last hours.

  Right. ‘Okay.’ Where should she start? ‘We lived in a trailer in Chicago. A double wide, actually. It was bigger, you know? Brandon wanted to have a family.’

  She might as well tell him the full story, anything to avoid discussing the person Niklas must have met downstairs.

  ‘I fell pregnant but at eight weeks, I started to bleed. He rushed me to the hospital, panicked, but I was surprisingly calm. Even though the blood obviously freaked me out, it was like having a period for me. Nothing else.’

  For a moment, she gets lost in the memory. Brandon yelling, the nurses comforting him. She was merely the carrier of the baby. Insignificant.

  ‘What happened?’ Niklas asks.

  ‘There was nothing they could do. I lost it. And I was…’ She looks at him. ‘Relieved.’

  The overbearing feeling of a child being dependent on her had been dissolved, like a tablet in water. She was floating, the weightlessness giving her new energy. Everything would go back to normal.

  ‘You don’t want children,’ she says. ‘You should understand. I knew I would be a terrible mother.’

  Niklas puts his hand on the table, resting it on top of hers. His face is open and non-judgmental. He forgives her. Hopefully that means she won’t have to tell him how the miscarriage affected her marriage.

  ‘The nurses kept telling us that we were young,’ she continues. ‘We should try again, they said, but I didn’t want to. As a woman I should want children, but I didn’t and I still don’t. I can’t explain it, but the feeling of a foetus taking over my body scared me, so I started to take the pill behind his back.’

  They both pick at their food, neither one of them eating anymore. Does he think she’s a wicked creature?

  ‘Kristin,’ he says. ‘Why did that man have a photo of you with dark hair?’

  ‘It’s a photo of Sofia Anderson,’ she clarifies.

  She studies her arms, withdraws her hand from the warmth of Niklas’s palm and picks at a hair sac.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ he says.

  ‘That’s my name,’ she says quietly. ‘Sofia.’

  Out of the corner of her eye, she watches Niklas get out of his seat. Is he going to leave? He lifts up his chair and she automatically braces herself. Is he going to hit her with it? But then he moves it around the table and places it next to her. Sitting down, he takes hold of her hands.

  ‘Please don’t pick,’ he says gently. ‘Kristin, that man downstairs. He said that you have done some bad stuff. Is that true?’

  ‘Maybe,’ she says.

  ‘He says you killed your younger brother and pushed your mother down the stairs. She’s in a wheelchair now. Those are serious allegations.’

  ‘Yes,’ she says, her head bowed.

  ‘I thought you were close with your younger brother. What was his name? Anders?’

  ‘I was.’ She starts to cry. ‘We had this stupid argument. I wanted him to leave home, but he refused. He said he had a pretty cushy life. Our parents moved to a huge house and he loved it. “Why spend money on a shitty little apartment when I can live here for free?” he said. Except it wasn’t free, Niklas. Everything always came with a price. I wanted him to stay with me but that wasn’t possible with… Brandon…’ She briefly looks up at him and she can tell he’s really listening. ‘Our parents didn’t want him to join the business, of course, with his tattoos and piercings. My mother didn’t really know what to do with him, but my father liked having him close by. If it had been up to him, we all would have stayed at home forever.’

  ‘Kristin…’ Niklas starts, raising a bushy eyebrow. ‘I mean… should I call you Sofia now?’

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘Please call me Kristin. Sofia is dead to me.’

  ‘All families are complex.’

  ‘Not yours.’

  ‘Well, maybe it wasn’t completely crazy, but I used to be scared of my dad. He was quite rough with my brother and I when we grew up. My mother’s love couldn’t always protect us.’

  She wants to explain that it’s not the same.

  ‘Anyway,’ he continues. ‘What happened after your argument with your brother?’

  ‘I went home.’ She stops and thinks. ‘Well, I always thought I did.’

  ‘And your mother?’

  She did visit her mother to talk about Anders but, however much she tries, she can’t remember everything. Afterwards, when she attempted to replay their conversation in her mind, she lost track of what was real. Her mother held her responsible for Anders’s death. That she remembers and she was angry. Did her emotions get out of control?

  She was closer to her mother than her father realised. They did talk.

  ‘I didn’t push her,’ Kristin says, but she wishes her voice were more confident. ‘It must have been someone else.’

  Niklas nods as if he understands. ‘Okay, I believe you.’

  New hope fills her and her chest expands. ‘You do?’

  She leans forward and their foreheads touch. Closing her eyes, she imagines she’s in heaven, that they’re surrounded by weightless clouds that lift them up and up… until there’s no more pain.

  ‘Kristin, he also mentioned that your husband has vanished. Is he really dead?’

  ‘Yes, I wanted him dead,’ she confesses.

  ‘Okay…’ Niklas seems to digest this. She glances at him: is this going too far? ‘I guess he must have been really bad to deserve that.’

  What did he say? He understands?

  ‘That man,’ Niklas says. ‘He said he’s with the police, but I’m not sure. He looked a bit too smart. Do you know him? I couldn’t help but pick up a slight accent.’

  ‘He’s no
one important,’ she says.

  What kind of person doesn’t want to talk to her own father? Their relationship always felt forced, with him constantly reminding her that her habits were unnatural. He should have defended her at school, but he didn’t. They always moved anyway, to a bigger and better house. Nothing was ever good enough. Including their daughter.

  ‘I didn’t think you knew anyone here apart from Ebba,’ Niklas says after a while. ‘Wait a minute… that wasn’t Olof, was it?’

  ‘Oh no! That definitely wasn’t Olof and you’re right, I don’t know anyone else.’

  Even Mohamed has stopped sending her messages about Swedish lessons. What she thought was perhaps the beginning of a friendship, wasn’t.

  *

  Later they’re lying in bed together, holding hands. She feels safe. It’s easier to talk with the lights out, only the moon casting its glow on the white ceiling.

  ‘Niklas,’ she says. ‘Would you live anywhere else?’

  She has to at least ask in case her father doesn’t go away any time soon. He must be serious if he’s not only looked for her but has flown all this way to confront her. But he will need to go back at some point. Her mother is in a wheelchair and needs him. Hopefully, she can simply wait him out.

  ‘Maybe Stockholm?’ she adds.

  Niklas chuckles. ‘Can you really see me in the capital? It’s way too big!’

  ‘What about Denmark? We would still be close to your parents that way, and Danish is similar to Swedish. Even I understand it.’

  He turns to her then; she can feel his eyes like lasers through the dark.

  ‘Kristin,’ he says, and his voice is serious. ‘Why do we need to move?’

  She thinks long and hard before answering.

  ‘We don’t have to… but I might.’

  Niklas doesn’t say anything but she’s suddenly aware of his body moving, his scent inching closer as he invites himself under her duvet, pressing himself against her. She tenses, but he simply holds her close.

  ‘I’m not leaving you,’ he says and, for the first time, hearing those words doesn’t feel like a threat.

  Niklas’s arms relax and he starts to snore. For a while, she watches the moon. Is it possible to be given a new chance, to click ‘erase’ on parts of your life?