by Jasmine Walt
I’d been gone for little more than a day, but it felt like weeks. Time wasn’t settling right with me, just like the pristine state of my apartment.
Needing a distraction, I dropped my keys in an engraved metal bowl on the kitchen table and called out, “Thora? Where are you, little girl?” What if she got out while the door was broken? My breaths started coming faster as I imagined her wandering around outside, scared and alone. Oh God . . . she has to be here!
My small entourage milled around in the kitchen and living room while I frantically searched the apartment, calling out Thora’s name. I retrieved a crinkly bag of cat treats and shook it, hoping the sound would draw her out. Finally, after minutes of searching, I heard a faint squeak come from under the bed. Kneeling on the floor, I lifted the bed skirt and peered into the darkness. Two glowing, green orbs floated just out of arm’s reach. Letting out a sigh, I righted myself and quieted my frantic thoughts. It’s okay . . . Thora’s okay . . . everything’s okay.
When I emerged from my bedroom, I felt as though I was standing before a firing squad. Five pairs of eyes were lined up, each watching me attentively.
“I’m fine,” I reassured them, my voice a little too high, and their expressions intensified. “Cara, Annie, Rick—thank you so much for everything you did at the hospital. I really, really mean it.” I bit my lip, feeling bad for completely hijacking the past twenty-six hours with the insanity that had become my life. “You guys must be exhausted. Why don’t you go home and get some rest?”
Annie took a step forward, opened her mouth, and closed it again without saying anything. She studied me closely before nodding. “Okay, Lex. If you need us, just call. Any time, okay?” Her eyes seemed to add, but this isn’t over.
I watched my three friends leave before turning my attention to my parents.
My mom cut me off before I had the chance to open my mouth. “Don’t even think about it, Lex.”
“But—”
“No buts. I’m staying here until the quarter starts,” she said, steamrolling my unsaid protests.
“But—”
She interrupted me again, somehow responding to my unspoken thoughts. “Dad can’t stay, so you don’t need to worry about where we’ll sleep. It’s just me, and I’ll make myself at home on the couch. He’ll pick me up when he’s here on business next week.”
Though I’d planned to convince them to leave, a huge weight lifted from me at knowing my mom wouldn’t be budged. I really didn’t want to be alone. Even if having her stay with me postponed my intentions to question Dr. Isa further, I wanted my mom around, at least for a little while.
I sighed. “Okay.”
With two big steps, my dad wrapped me in a comforting bear hug. “Thank you, Lelee,” he whispered. “It’s as much for her as it is for you.”
I squeezed him in response, then pulled away. With a yawn, I said, “I think I’m going to take a nap.”
My parents both nodded encouragingly. It seemed that after attempted sexual assault and hospitalization, naps were a parent-approved coping mechanism. Marching out of the hospital, on the other hand, was not.
Feeling far too exhausted for someone who’d spent most of the past day asleep, I smiled at my parents and trudged into my bedroom. After I shut the door, I collapsed onto the bed. I only had a few seconds to wonder about the man who’d crashed through my apartment door to save me before sleep whisked me away to the land of dreams.
8
Recollection & Recuperation
My apartment door opened, admitting a familiar couple, stumbling and laughing.
I was standing in the middle of the cramped living room, watching, helpless to stop what I knew would happen. Panic made my heart race and my breathing quicken. I closed my eyes, incapable of watching—experiencing—the horrible incident again. But I could still hear Mike whispering to me . . . the other me. Desperately, I wished for it to be over. I heard the other me scream, closely followed by the crack of her head striking the steamer trunk and the thud of her body hitting the floor.
There was a crash, an explosive splintering and cracking of wood, and my eyes sprang open. A figure stood in the doorway, silhouetted into obscurity by the light from the hallway. The man who saved me, I realized. As he stepped out of the light and into my apartment, I noticed that the darkness surrounding him hadn’t only been due to backlighting. Shadows darker than the night cloaked him, seeming to emanate from him. To my eyes, he was a man composed of nothing but those impenetrable, pitch-black shadows. What the hell?
The shadowed man paused after a few long strides, looking at the other, unconscious version of me before turning toward the shocked man cowering before him. At least, I thought he looked at the other me; I couldn’t actually see his face through the shadows he seemed to be wearing like a disguise.
“You!” Mike howled in terror. Shocked, I realized that Mike knew my rescuer. “No, no, no—” Mike dropped to his knees, groveling. “She fell, I swear. I didn’t do anything.”
Confusion and frustration displaced my earlier panic. Who is he? Why can’t I see him? It was pretty obvious that he didn’t walk around like that—all shadows and menace—outside of the dream, or memory, or whatever it was. Mike had seen him, as had the hospital staff. So why can’t I?
The shadowed man’s steps devoured the distance to Mike in two long strides. His midnight-coated arm backhanded Mike, and the smaller man fell to the floor in a limp heap. Swiftly, the stranger moved to the sprawled form of the other me, hovering over her. His hands flew over her body.
“Hey!” I shouted, forgetting that I was only watching something that had already happened . . . forgetting that I couldn’t change it. “Keep your hands off her!”
His hands gently pulled up her underwear, and from the way the shadows cloaking his face shifted, I thought he must have looked away as he did it. He arranged her black silk dress so she was decently covered before gently rolling her onto her back and touching her wrists. Abruptly, he leaned over her face like he was listening for something. When he sat back on his heels, he brushed a lock of hair out of her face and simply watched her.
I moved closer, circling around the man. I searched for a crack in the dense blackness surrounding him but could find none.
From the kitchen floor, Mike groaned, and the shadowed man glanced at him. Gracefully, my rescuer rose. He lurked toward my fallen attacker, spitting vicious, incomprehensible syllables along the way. But . . . something about the words, the language, sounded familiar.
I hovered over the other, unconscious me while the shadowed man attended to Mike with sharp jabs and swift kicks. I despised Mike—thought I’d lost the capacity to feel pity for him completely—but seeing him being beaten so brutally awoke a sliver of sympathy in me. Did he really drug me? Part of me couldn’t accept Dr. Isa’s claim, and I was pretty sure it was the same part of me that felt bad for Mike as I watched.
Eventually the shadowed man’s need for violence was expended. He sat Mike, head lolling forward, with his back against the wood post and quickly arranged him so his arms extended behind him. I moved closer. At some point, the shadowed man had produced a zip tie and secured it around Mike’s wrists, effectively binding him to the post. Both Dr. Isa and the police had mentioned that Mike had been tied up and in pretty bad shape when he’d been found, alone, in my apartment. In fact, I was pretty sure the police wanted to find my rescuer . . . to arrest him for what he’d done to Mike. The severity of his actions hadn’t really sunk in until now. He saved me—but he’s definitely dangerous.
I returned my attention to the shadowed man, watching as he again approached the wounded version of me. Why had he been so enraged? Why had he beaten Mike into unconsciousness? His reaction seemed personal, like he knew me—cared for me—and couldn’t let Mike go unpunished for what he’d done . . . and for what he’d intended to do. But if that were true, why was he hiding from me? Why hadn’t he stayed at the hospital, or at least left contact information so I could
thank him for rescuing me?
While I wondered about him, the shadowed man picked the other me up easily, like she weighed no more than a child, and carried her through the broken apartment door.
Rooted in place, I watched Mike’s limp form until the police arrived. According to the wall clock, it took only a matter of minutes.
In bed, I felt awareness tug on my consciousness, but I wasn’t ready to wake up. I had other plans. A new need was growing—a need to never fall victim to someone like Mike again, a need to never again be drugged into oblivion. I focused on that need as I slid back into the dream.
I was standing in the middle of a wide-open, tech-friendly office space filled with cubicles and decorated in blues and grays. I was at the New Year’s Eve party. A few feet to my right, the other version of me was locked in an embarrassingly brazen kiss with Mike. Ugh.
Watching them, I grew so disgusted that I wanted to slap the other me. I felt the urge to tear her away from Mike and shake her and scream, “Open your eyes, you idiot! He’s going to hurt you! Run away!” But I couldn’t do any of that, and it wasn’t for lack of trying. I attempted to pull her away, just as I’d attempted to push Mike off her the first time I’d dreamed of the incident in my apartment, but she was separated by the same impenetrable barrier I’d encountered before. I couldn’t touch her . . . I couldn’t touch him . . . I couldn’t touch anything but that damn barrier.
I slapped my palm against the barrier separating me from Mike’s shoulder. “I hate you!” I hissed. For some reason, seeing him before the night devolved into violence was more frustrating than anything I’d seen in the other dream.
“Happy New Year!” Mike’s colleagues hollered from all around me while they kissed and pawed at each other.
Mike was leading the other me away. At most, she was tipsy. While he waited for her to retrieve her coat, Mike took out his phone and tapped his thumbs against the screen.
I hurried over to him, nearly gagging at his overly-cologned stench. I couldn’t understand how I’d ever been attracted to him. Pushing past the nauseating reaction, I peered over his shoulder at the screen.
He was reading a text message from someone named Seth.
Use the lip balm to make her compliant, then complete the mission.
Suddenly awake, I lurched upright in bed, panting. Thora glanced up at me from her cozy position near my hip and meowed quietly. I stroked her soft fur absentmindedly, thinking about the last dream. Memories of what had happened between leaving the party and stumbling through my apartment door flashed through my mind.
Mike kissing my wrist . . . pulling over to kiss me before resuming the drive . . . slobbering all over my neck as I tried to open the door to my apartment . . . obsessively putting on lip balm every few minutes.
Use the lip balm to make her compliant, then complete the mission. Based on the text, I realized that Mike’s lip balm must have been the source of the substance Dr. Isa had told me about. She’d said it only affected a few, unique people. Why am I one of those people?
Use the lip balm to make her compliant . . .
How had the sender of the text, Seth, known the substance would work on me? And why had he wanted Mike to use it in the first place? My stomach tied into knots as questions swam around my mind. Had some person I didn’t know—someone named Seth—instructed Mike to drug me and do whatever “completing the mission” entailed? Had Mike been instructed to drug me into unconsciousness and rape me? It was too horrible to consider. It was also too preposterous.
“I’m losing it,” I muttered.
Laughing at myself for my wild, slightly twisted imagination, I rose from the bed, shuffled to the adjoining bathroom, and examined my reflection in the mirror. “Holy crap,” I breathed, barely recognizing myself. My brown eyes looked different, like they’d gained a reddish tinge, and my face was washed-out and gaunt. Simply based on my appearance, I looked like I was suffering from some ghastly illness, like I was two steps away from death’s door and already had my hand raised to knock. But I felt fine, if a little weak . . . and hungry.
I squeezed my eyes shut. “It’s fine. It’s just all the stress,” I told myself, thinking not only about Mike and my physical injury, but also about the identity crisis and the strange dreams I’d been dealing with over the past few weeks. “Everything is just fine.” The words were confident, but my voice was breathy.
Turning on the faucet and rinsing my face with cool water, I felt some steadiness return. Eyes still closed, I focused on the delicious smells invading from the kitchen and just breathed. I opened my eyes and stared at my hands. My fingers clutched either side of the rim of the pedestal sink, the tendons standing out sharply on the backs of my hands. I took a deep breath. Again. Finally, I turned and left the bathroom, avoiding looking at the stranger in the mirror.
I traded the worn sneakers I’d been too tired to remove for fuzzy, purple slippers. I added a gray University of Washington sweatshirt to my scrubby ensemble and opened the bedroom door.
My mom stood in front of the stove, humming and swaying from side to side. The little kitchen radio played a generic soft rock song. It was the perfect background music to the pops and sizzles coming from the pans on the stove. A junkie of mothering people, my mom was more in her element than I’d seen her in years. She almost glowed with purpose.
Quietly, I slipped out of the bedroom and crossed the living room to the small, rectangular kitchen table. I pulled out my usual chair—the one nearest the bedroom—and sank onto its flattened cushion.
“Smells yummy, Mom. I’m starving,” I said enthusiastically.
Startled, my mom spun with her spatula hand extended in front of her. “Lex! You scared me! I didn’t know you were up. How are you feeling?” An odd combination of accusation, concern, and contentment filled her face.
“Better, I think,” I said, scanning the living room and kitchen. “Where’s Dad?”
She sighed. “He left about an hour ago. He’ll call when he gets home.”
“Oh,” I said, disappointment radiating from the single word. Knowing he wasn’t my biological father made me second-guess all of my dad’s actions. Did he really care as much as I thought he did? Did he really love me?
“Stop that, Lex,” my mom chided.
I looked up at her, wondering for the thousandth time if she could read my mind.
“He thought you’d feel more comfortable with just me for the time being, considering . . . you know . . .”
I nodded as her words trailed off. Drumming my fingertips on the table, I wondered how much my parents actually knew about the incident with Mike. I had yet to explain to them what happened, so they’d gathered whatever information they had from my friends, the hospital staff, and the police. I took a huge, steadying breath and asked, “Aren’t you, um, curious? About what happened, I mean.”
My mom studied me closely before turning back to her stovetop ministrations. “Sweetie, you take your time. Wait until you’re ready, and not a minute sooner.” She resumed her faint humming.
Sighing, I felt both relief and stress. The story had to come out of me eventually, and I dreaded telling it. The longer I waited, the larger the heaping, stinking pile of dread would grow.
“Is there coffee?” I asked as I watched my mom’s movements. Judging by her arm motions, there were pancakes in one of the skillets on the stove. If there was one thing I truly loved, it was my mom’s pancakes . . . with syrup . . . and butter . . . and bacon.
“I made tea,” she said over her shoulder. “I thought it’d be better for you. More relaxing.” Carefully, she removed crispy strips of bacon and perfectly browned sausage links from two pans, leaving only popping grease behind, and set them on a stack of paper towels on the counter.
My stomach growled audibly. I didn’t think I’d ever been so hungry.
“Almost ready, sweetie,” my mom said as she transferred the mouthwatering meats to a plate. She brought it to the table, along with another plate piled hig
h with golden-brown pancakes, and went back to the kitchen for round two. When she returned, she carried two more dishes, one loaded with a mountain of scrambled eggs with onions, peppers, and cheese, and the other with oven-fried potatoes. After one final trip, she settled in the chair perpendicular to mine and placed a steaming mug of tea at both of our place settings.
“What are you waiting for, Lex?” She gestured to the feast before us. “Dig in.”
I ogled the mounds of deliciousness. “Um, Mom . . . there’s absolutely no way that you and I are going to be able to eat all of this.”
After scooping some of the scramble onto her plate, my mom looked me square in the eye and said, “Have you seen yourself? You’re skin and bones. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you’ve lost at least twenty pounds since I saw you four days ago. And your face—it’s nearly colorless.” She shook her head. “Now eat.”
And eat I did. By the time I sat back in my chair, my stomach was painfully full, and my mom wore a smug expression. All of the eggs were gone, as were the sausage links and strips of bacon. Several pancakes remained, and the potato dish was barely half-full. Without realizing it, I’d eaten enough for several burly lumberjacks after a hard day’s work.
My mom smiled, looking as content as a sunbathing kitten. “See, Lex? Your coloring looks better already. A good, home-cooked meal can fix almost anything.” She gave me a pointed look. “A little sun wouldn’t hurt you either.”