by K Larsen
I stand. Holden winces at the murderous glare I give him, as I go to Lotte. Protecting Lotte feels natural. She is family. She is only a child. I scoop her up as best I can in my arms and bring her to her room. A child, I think. My child. A baby cannot live here with him nor a child. This is no place for kids.
“You’re bleeding,” she says, through tears. I blink. I feel outside myself somehow. She touches her fingers to my forehead, I flinch as her fingers come back red.
“Never mind me. Lotte, I will save you.” I say it more harshly than I intend. Her eyes grow wide, giving away her fear, but she nods. “Stay bundled up tonight in your clothes.”
I kiss her forehead, pull the blanket up to her chin and leave. It physically hurts to leave her. There is a cut on her head that still bleeds and she bit her lip hard enough to split it. My beautiful girl has been hurt. In the main room, Holden waits for me. He opens his mouth to speak, but I hold up a hand.
“I need a washcloth and some band aids first.”
He hesitates, but nods and retrieves both, while I go into our room. I pull on thick socks while I sit on the edge of the bed. Holden looks sheepish, as he hands me what I asked for. He is in control but he does not like it when I am angry with him. He does not like to disappoint me and that gives me power.
He reaches out a hand toward the bruise already forming on the side of my face. I pull away from him. “No,” I say. His faces morphs to anger. “Just,” I start, “just give me a couple minutes alone. Please,” I say. I watch his internal struggle as he considers my request.
“Ten minutes,” he says and I breathe a silent sigh of relief. My brain spins in too many directions. The winter wind is cold and howling through the open door. I rush to it and push the wooden door against the wind until it latches shut.
He’s gone to bring in more wood. I rip open a band aid and race to the bedroom door. I place it over the latch as quickly as I can. Returning to the bed, I wipe the blood from my head. When my skin is dry, I cover the split in my skin with another band aid.
Holden appears in the doorway. Rage has built up in his features.
“Nora, now.” He points to the floor. No, I have a choice. I should have a choice.
I do nothing. Holden’s eyes narrow. A vein pops in his forehead as he grinds his jaw. He stomps to me and pulls me to my feet. When the first slap lands, I take it. I do not fall down. Not until the third. The third is too much. The room unexpectedly tilts sharply to the left. Pain radiates from my chest and head. “Why do you do this to yourself?” he asks. “Tell me, Nora,” he snaps. I remain silent. “Dammit, everything was going so well.” Holden grabs my wrist and tugs hard. I stumble forward until we’re chest to chest. I’m shaking, but I will get what I want from this. He stares into my eyes as he strips me bare. He raises my arms, pulls my dress off, as I lower my arms, I snag his key ring from his belt loop and toss it onto the puddle of fabric at his feet. At the same time, I tell him what he wants to hear, muffling any sound that might be heard.
“I belong to you. Only ever you.” His hands wrap around me and clutch my buttocks. He lifts me roughly. I wrap my legs around his waist, arms around his neck. His lips find my collarbone. I bite my lip, willing my body to respond one more time. Let me have one more time.
“Tell me again,” he whispers onto the skin of my chest. I swallow the lump in my throat.
“Only ever you.”
He tosses me to his bed. Around and around and around we go. But this time, I will escape.
“No one will love you like I do. No one.”
“No,” I breathe. He is right, in his own way, no one will ever love me like he does. He grabs the lit candle from his nightstand and blows it out. Hot wax hits my skin and solidifies. The gas lamp casts a dim glow around us from the dresser. In the darkness, I let my mind drift and my body enjoy because this is the last time. He flips me to my belly. These cuts won’t be tended to come morning. The pleasure he doles out, I will allow myself to enjoy.
It will be our goodbye.
I stare intently at his bearded, gaping mouth. He snores a bit, steady and slow. My heart breaks a little for him. For us. He moves. I wait. When I am sure he is soundly asleep, I begin to move. Painfully slow. He moves . . . his arm. I watch him, staring at his face, his closed eyes. His arm dangles from his side of the mattress. My fingers grasp the doorknob when he snores again. The latch does not sound and I breathe a sigh of relief that the band aid worked.
I turn from the threshold of the bedroom for one last glance. He is staring at me. I freeze, scan both his eyes. I exhale my relief silently. His eyes are not open. It’s just shadows. I can hear my own labored breathing. On the tips of my toes, I grab the kitchen scissors and hold my braid out away from my head. I am Nora. I am not a doll. I cut my braid mere inches from the nape of my neck. Rebellion feels good.
I quickly sneak into Lotte’s room and wake her. Tears fall from her eyes as she realizes what’s happening, but she makes no audible noise. We pass through the living room and stop and listen. There is no movement from the bedroom. Floorboards creak under our weight. Holding my breath, I take a final step toward the front door with Lotte’s hand clutched too tight in mine. I shouldn’t do this. I have to. This is dangerous. Adrenaline courses through me.
The winter air whips around us. I hold up the truck keys. The air goes thin around me.
“Run!” I hiss. Every muscle tenses in my body as we sprint for the truck. My socks are wet with snow. Lotte slips and slides but we make it to the truck. Jumping inside the cab, she cries out as she slams her door shut. The sound seems impossibly loud and I am paralyzed with fear.
“Nora, go!” she screeches. Her terror is palpable and snaps me from my own terror. I jam the keys into the ignition, it takes three turns but finally the engine turns over. I turn the truck around before turning the headlights on. As we speed away, I see the front door open in the rearview mirror and Holden’s large form shadowed by the light inside. There is no going back now. In the breaking dawn light, I realize I have broken his heart and severed mine. There will be no reconciliation from this.
Freezing rain pelts the windshield and it’s been too long since I have driven. I am clumsy and we stall out twice after the bridge. Lotte and I do not speak but her hand clutches my thigh. We have many near accidents before we reach the first gate but when I see it, I do not stop.
“Hold on tight,” I bark. Lotte whines and I squeeze my eyes shut as I plow through the gate. The impact hurts my arms, but it is nothing compared to the exhilaration I feel.
It is not long to the next gate, and I ram us through it as well. The truck skids and slips and I am worried I will lose control. The lonely access road is not far ahead. It is hard to see where to turn on to it. The road to the cabin is not plowed and the snow and sleet coat everything that surrounds us.
“I love you,” I breathe. Lotte cries, but squeezes my thigh in lieu of words. We drive for too long. It feels too long. Everything is white. The road appears suddenly, plowed but not recently. I curse. I yank the wheel to the right to turn onto it. We slide and fishtail. Lotte screams. I yank the wheel back the other way, but it is too late. The truck hurdles toward the treeline as I stomp repeatedly on the brakes.
“Hang on!” I scream. I don’t want to become dust here. I want to live.
I want . . .
Him
I walk to the drugstore to pick up some treats for Charlotte. The people standing in line for the pharmacist look ill. They should. They poison themselves with inorganic foods and manmade medicines. If they lived off the land, if they took only what it gives, they’d look better. I wrinkle my nose as I pass them. Ma would laugh and say they are lemmings. But Ma wasn’t always right.
“Eight sixty.” I snap my gaze to the clerk. She appears bored and stares at me expectantly. I hand her a ten dollar bill. From the window behind the clerk, I see a trail of red dash by. I grab my change and treats and bolt from the store. Not Nora. A portly, short, redhead hur
ries toward a bus stop. My chest deflates. Come back to me. I think those words three, five, nine times a day. Why’d you let me go? I shake the insidious thought from my head. Foolishness. It is my job to save her, not the other way around.
Dusk is rolling in. Nora has let me down. She, of all people, should know something lurks in the shadows. But it appears she doesn’t. The back door is wide open. She should covet the little control she has over her life right now but it is as if she is opening herself up to me. Like she wants it; needs it, craves it—like I do.
Footsteps echo from the street. I glance at the car. There is no movement. Lotte is a good girl. I go on standing in the shadows until nightfall. Tonight is the night.
Nora
“It sounds like you finally understood—to some degree—that the romance wasn’t all it was cracked up to be,” Dr. Richardson muses. I wonder if observations like that are what earned her a degree.
“I am not retracting anything I’ve said before. I loved him. I do love him and if there were a way, I would be with him still.”
“Even though he hurt you?”
I pause for a moment. “The good always comes with some bad. So, yes. I think I would. Do I wish things were different? Yes. Do I wish he was a better man? Yes. But that does not change the love my heart feels.”
“Doesn’t it though?”
“I mean, sure a little. I am mad that some things he said were not true. It wasn’t only ever me. I didn’t do anything to deserve the initial pain. He broke me, mentally. But imagine if Charlotte wasn’t there? I would have had no one to break through that insanity. I care about children and their wellbeing and Lotte became my family. I would have done anything for her.”
“But you haven’t.” Dr. Richardson’s pen hovers over her notebook.
“But I have—don’t you understand? I know we don’t have to find him.”
“But Nora, if he comes for you and takes you, where does that leave Lotte and Eve and Agent Brown and Salve who have devoted so much time to solving this?”
“It would leave you with Charlotte. I would trade myself for her, if I had to.”
“Not if he takes you.”
“Holden would listen to me. He wouldn’t be able to give me up. He would do it.”
“That’s wishful thinking, Nora. He isn’t a sane man. What makes you think he would have a sane reaction?”
I slump in my chair. I don’t know what. I can’t put my finger on it. I can’t force anyone to believe what I know—what I feel—that Holden would do anything for me. That to him, whether obsession or love, he would. I just know it and maybe I shouldn’t trust my gut but I do.
“I don’t know. But I wish one of you would trust me.”
Dr. Richardson’s cell phone rings. She glances at the caller ID. “Nora, it’s Agent Brown,” she says. I nod.
Dr. Richardson leaves the room, leaving me to ponder why I trust in Holden so greatly, when rationally, I know he has done terrible things to women and to me. In a rush, the door blows open. Dr. Richardson sits next to me on the couch.
“I have to tell you something unpleasant.”
I look at her and wait.
“Anton’s body was found this morning in the basement of the Clarks’ house.”
“No. No. Is Ang and Aimee and . . .”
“Everyone is fine. Well, not everyone. Anton is dead.”
“What happened?”
“They don’t know yet. There is an investigation, of course, but right now, they don’t know. But, Nora,”
“Yes,” I say.
“The word rapist was written on the wall in Anton’s blood.”
“I only told a handful of people. Who else would know that?”
“Perhaps Angela had told a friend or possibly Aubry. We just don’t know.”
It strikes me that Angela’s house held Anton all this time. The police would have never searched it. It is old and crumbling and unsafe down there. The stairs leading to the basement detached from the house years ago. Angela once told me she had never been down there because the previous owners had sealed off the bulkhead and shortly after purchasing the house, the interior stairs had fallen away. Aubry used to tease Aimee and tell her she would make her use a rope to get down there, if she tattled on her.
When I am home, I feel restless. I go to my room, grab my journal and head out back. I pull a spade from the shed and make myself comfortable in the back corner. I feel like a fool as I bury the letters I wrote to Holden in my backyard, in hopes that it will exorcise him from my heart, from my brain once and for all. This is not a book. It is not fiction. It is my life and my heart needs to make a choice.
Aubry
It is a Wednesday when we bury my brother. I have mixed emotions and I don’t want to be here alone but I’d be a real asshole to ask my best friend to come, considering the circumstances.
There is no pastor. My mother wouldn’t have it. She said it wasn’t right in God’s eyes to have someone pray over him. Speaking of, I clutch her hand with my left and my little sister’s with my right. My mom’s hand shakes. She is torn in two. Her son, the rapist. It doesn’t sit well with anyone. I can’t sleep at night and Mom and I have been sitting at the kitchen table, drinking tea and crying together in the wee hours of the morning. Her black dress hangs on her. I need to get her to eat more. We watch the casket as it’s lowered into the ground. A few of Anton’s friends stand across from us but once word got out about what he did to Nora, other girls came forward to say he’d touched them or advanced inappropriately, too. My stomach turns and I wretch right here at his gravesite. I pull it together but it doesn’t go unnoticed by anyone.
Aimee wipes her tears with her sleeve and I release my mom’s hand. “I need a minute,” I tell her. She nods and pulls Aimee close to her. I wander away. Just away. From the site, from my family, from people. If my disgust is anything near what Nora felt, I don’t know how she got through any of it.
I touch each gravestone as I pass them. John Henry. Died 1914. Madeline Cross. Died 2002. I whisper each name and death date. It comforts me a little.
“Aubry.” The voice is hesitant and quiet. My head snaps up and Nora is two rows away from me.
“What are you doing here?” I ask. My eyes well with tears.
“I’m your best friend. It’s a BFF duty to support the other at these events.”
She slowly makes her way to me. “But . . .”
“I know but it’s okay, Aub. He did something horrible but he was your brother before all that. And I kept quiet for so long because I couldn’t bear to hurt your family, or you.”
I wrap my arms around her. She holds me for a long time, quietly.
“I don’t think I could do it.”
“Do what?” she asks.
“Do what you’re doing, if the roles were reversed.”
Nora kisses my hair. “Of course, you would.”
“I love you,” I tell her.
“I love you, too.”
“Please come back to me. All the way back.”
She pulls back and looks me directly in the eyes. “I’m trying.”
I smile as the corners of her mouth pull up. “I know.” She pulls me to her chest again and we stay like that until I hear cars starting and tires on the gravel roads between headstones. The service has ended. Mom spots us and gives a half wave. I pull away from Nora and grab her hand. “I’m in dire need of popcorn salad and nineties movies.”
“I’m fairly confident I can help with that.”
We walk hand in hand back to my car. The overcast sky darkens and rain begins to fall. Nora and I duck into our seats and slam the doors closed, just before the skies open up and dump on us.
“Nora.”
“Yeah?”
“I think I relate to how you feel just a little.”
“How so?” she asks.
“I hate my brother, but I loved him, too, and he’s dead and that makes me happy and sad at the same time.”
“Love and hat
e. Happiness and sorrow. They’re like peanut butter and jelly. I think it’s normal to be able to feel conflicting things about a single person.”
“Oh, shit,” I blurt. “I hope I’m not going crazy like you.”
Nora’s head whips in my direction. But her face cracks into a grin, when she sees my expression.
“You’re bad,” she says.
“The politically correct term is sarcastic or snarky or I will even take sassy.”
“I don’t think any of those terms are politically correct, but you are definitely all of them. Now if you don’t mind, would you start the damn car and blast the heat? It’s freakin’ cold in here,” Nora says. And that is what I’ve missed. That is my best friend, knowing when to ease up on the seriousness. Knowing my emotional limits and not pressing—just accepting. That’s my Nora.
I start the car and put the heat on full blast for her.
Lotte
It is pitch black. I wiggle and worm the blindfold from my eyes. It is not an easy task. I am on the floor of the backseat. Holden didn’t take me with him to Nora’s. He said he would bring her to me. I am full of anxiety. This wasn’t what I pictured. He has been gone for hours I think. The blindfold slips off my head and I wriggle myself into a sitting position. I untie my feet. I peek out the back car window. Everything is still and calm. One street light. Through a row of bushes, there is a light on in a house. It must be Nora’s house.
I bite the knot loose on my wrists until I can work the rest of it out with my fingers. It feels like time does not move. I am sure Holden will return any moment and be angry. I try the back doors but they are locked. I push the unlock button and push the door open. The alarm goes off. I panic. My blood rushes through my body. I am in the street. I am out in the open, but I can’t make myself scream. The car alarm is loud and bright. Move, I think. My legs finally cooperate and I sprint for the bushes near Nora’s backyard. The branches scratch my face as I push into them. I drop to my knees and crawl by the roots until I pop out on the other side. I stand and see Nora through the living room window. She’s sitting, talking to someone, but not facing me. I open my mouth to scream and a hand clamps over my mouth so hard, that my lips are crushed into my teeth and I taste blood.