Take Me With You

by Nina G. Jones

  “No. No…” I insist, running over to him and grabbing his hands. “I didn't mean it. I was just feeling attacked and I said it to attack you. It was disgusting. Like I said, I am not the one who did this. Neither are you.”

  Carter bows his head and sighs. “You're right. I still think you should see someone and I collected some good names, but I didn't mean to pressure you. It's just that, I've been waiting so long to have you back and it's like you're right here in front of me, but I can't reach you. I've thought about how amazing things would be when you came back, and I didn't realize how painful this would be. For you. It's selfish of me to expect you to come back and pretend that past year didn't happen. I’m reliving it, too. The cops came to my job to talk to me, looking for new information, anything I could have remembered since the many times they questioned me right after you were taken. I didn’t mention it because I hate bringing that night up. But it made me relive it, and it’s fresh again and I feel like he’s right around the corner to snatch you. I want to help, but I have nothing and I feel so fucking ineffective. That fucking bastard—”

  I shake my head, regret pinching my chest. “No. No. Carter. He let me go. He’s not coming back for me. I understand this is hard on you. And you are being amazing. Maybe too amazing. I want us to enjoy each other. You calling every few hours, constantly worrying. That's not healthy for you. I didn't expect any of this. To be honest, I had assumed you moved on long ago. I thought I was forgotten.”

  “I'm not your mother, Vesp.”

  “I know,” I mutter under my breath. I think about the map sitting in my purse, how despite this understanding, loving man in front of me, all I can think about is finding that location. He may not understand it, but going there is something I have to do. I have to leave that place on my own terms.

  “What do you say we just eat something, and enjoy the weekend? Let's just enjoy each other in the present. It's been a long week for both of us I think.”

  “I think that's a great idea. In fact, why don't we go out to eat for a change?” I suggest.

  At first I'm not sure if I have the right place as I drive along the dirt driveway. But as it curves and I see a peek of the barn from behind the trees, I know my theory was right.

  I waited two weeks to come here. Two long weeks. I always hated that saying: long weeks, days, minutes. A minute is a minute. An hour is an hour. But now I understand that's not true. Not when you've been lying naked in a cold basement, starving, thirsty and seconds seem to freeze endlessly. Not when you're in the arms of the cruelest man you've ever known and he feeds you pleasure, direct, like a shot of heroin, and those minutes count down, accelerating in speed like a free fall, so that you hit the ground with a painful explosion when it's over all too quickly.

  I had to start focusing on my time with Carter. Rebuilding things. Letting him in again. I had to get him to trust me. That way he wouldn't call home every hour, so he wouldn't notice a long day trip like this.

  I should be scared. What if he's still here? But I'm not scared anymore. I am many things, but I am not fearful. I grip the steering wheel tightly. I had been so focused on finding this place, I didn't even think about what I'd do if I was right. I think at least some part of what Sam told me was true—his brother wanted him gone. The man had to feel like he did at least one thing right, and getting his brother out of town was some sort of action.

  I park on the vast green between the barn and the main house. I step out, my shoes crunching against the dry grass that's already several inches taller than when I was last here. The barn catches my attention. I creep towards it with the possibility someone could be on the property. If Sheriff Ridgefield ran into me here, he’d have a fit. When I open the door, the sound of buzzing becomes apparent; I follow it to the dried pool of Sam’s blood and a horde of flies circling it.

  The barn door softly creaks behind me and I startle. I hide inside a stall, listening for sounds, my heart beat pulses in my skull as seconds pass without a sound until a horse nickers. I step out, cautiously making my way to the entrance to find Beverly with her head peeking past the threshold of the barn.

  “Heeeey girl,” I coo. She huffs as I come close and rub the side of her golden muscular neck. “You look good. Freedom suits you.” The goats are nowhere in eyeshot, so I continue my mission, walking past Beverly towards the house. She follows me, like I’m some warped version of a Disney princess, stopping at the porch steps. The front door is unlocked; the screen door wails in protest as I pull it open, powerless to protect its owner's secrets.

  It's exactly as we left it. Almost like we never did. I wonder if he intends to return someday. I walk up the creaky steps to the room, the one that held his psyche, just like a dark corner of his mind. The colorful tapestries and articles still line the walls. There wasn't enough time before to read them all. To digest.

  I pull the articles one by one. I observe the pictures of him as a child and his family. He looks different now, but it hurts to see his face. To see a boy who was forgotten up here, alone with a madwoman. I hate that I feel for him, but I can't control it any more than I can control the need to breathe.

  There's a black and white picture of him. He's so tiny in it. It's from before the accident. He's on a quaint tree-lined street. The kind kids could play on without worry, where mom could easily step out the front door and call you in for dinner. I didn't really have that. I didn't grow up like most kids. Only the occasional visit to my grandmother allowed me a glimpse of that life. She lived on a street like that. In a house like the one to the left of Sam in the photo. I look closer. 98. I can barely make it out, but because it's stamped in my mind, I know it when I see it.

  I shake my head in disbelief. I don't remember him. But then again, I didn't know many of the kids there. Did he remember me? I want to ask him. I want to talk to him. I want answers. But I will get nothing. The realization makes me uneasy. Like this was all destined. Like I have been meant to be here in this spot since I was born. I set the picture down and yank on one of the tapestries, exposing a portion of a clean wall made of dozens of white washed wooden planks. Then another, and another, trying to tear away at the insanity until paper and piles of colorful fabric are crowded around my feet.

  I look around the room, once the symbol of a dark and crowded mind, now bright and open. Except for one imperfection. One of the planks looks irregular—shorter and not lined up like the others. I walk up to it and press against it. It wobbles, but it's rather firmly set in. I run to the craft table and grab a pair of scissors, jamming one side into the space between planks and prying it away from the wall. Once I jimmy it, it falls out with ease. In the wall rests a box. It looks old but pretty, like most of the things in this house, made from a tan wood with carvings along the top. I pull it out and rest it on the craft table, opening it up. It's lined with a hunter green felt and inside are dozens of random objects. Jewelry and photos and odds and ends I can't quite place. Then it hits me: It's his trophy box.

  I step away from it like it's infected. Suddenly I don't feel so special. I am forced to confront that I am just another victim in a long line of victims of this predator. He collected pieces of us. And I have no doubt that if he could have placed them proudly up on his walls, he would have. Smiles radiating from these pictures, stolen. Lives interrupted.

  I raise a shaky hand over my mouth as tears flow down my cheeks. It hurts in a way that I didn't expect. Like when you find a love letter from your beloved to someone else. A betrayal. A deceit. He never told me he wasn't that man, but he showed me something different. And I believed him. I did. I couldn't believe in the handsome guy who wears his pain on his skin and that person behind the mask. They couldn't both exist in him. One had to die. Just like the old me dried up and withered to make room for the person here now.

  I pull something out of my bag and place it where the box was. A message of sorts to Sam. Then I slam the lid down on the box, unable to stomach it for another second, latching it closed. I need to
keep this, as insurance, as a reminder.

  She took the fucking box. It shouldn't make sense. There's no way she could have known where the house was without doing some serious legwork. And yet, she found it. She's thinking about me as much as I think about her.

  I left that house in a hurry. My thoughts twisted about what to do with Vesp. I was going to kill her. I was. I would dispose of her and come back to the house to clean up after myself.

  She always fucks up my plans. And the next thing I know, I am dropping her off a mile away from the park ranger's station and I'm running. Because she could turn me in. She could tell them what I look like, my fucking family history, the make and model of my truck. At that point, physical evidence would just be icing on the cake. I had to give myself a head start. I did what most fugitives do, drove south, stopping at a diner around LA, hoping to catch some news on the small fuzzy television screen behind the counter.

  “Coffee?” a waitress asked, chewing her gum like a horse as she slid over the apple pie I pointed out on the menu earlier.

  I nodded.

  It's weird. I think I could have talked to her. I might have had a little hang up here or there, but I finally don't fucking care. I don't care what anyone thinks of the way I sound. And I don't have that invisible hand of the secret clenching my throat the way it once did. I was running, but I had also come to terms with it being the end. With this bitter diner coffee and apple pie being my last meal. With the world knowing who I really am. There's a peace in that. I hear that's what it's like when you know you are going to die. A calmness takes over.

  I could have talked, but I didn't want to. I'd save my breath for Vesp if I ever saw her again.

  Finally, the evening news started and the top story was no surprise to me.

  Missing Sacramento area woman Vesper Rivers has been found in Sequoia National Park today. Authorities need help locating this man.

  I took a sip from my mug, waiting for the perfect rendering, or even better, a photo of my face to appear on the screen. For the waitress to freeze and slowly look over towards me and look for an excuse to make a phone call.

  A rendering popped up, a different version of the same shit.

  I lowered my coffee down to the counter, and sliced my fork into the pie.

  A face shrouded in a mask. Just eyes peering out.

  A bulleted description: Male, 5'10”, Brown Eyes

  I snickered to myself and it caught the waitress' attention, but I didn't give a shit. She could look me right in these eyes and see I'm not that man.

  Vesper fucking did it. She protected me. There's no way my brother could have covered this without her cooperation. I stood up, buzzing with energy and slapped a five on the counter, shaking my head to myself. Mister Ed eyed me as I walked out.

  I'm free. I'm fucking free. But as soon as I stepped out into the dusty air, hunger stole my relief. I was prepared to die. To stop existing. But now that my plan had truly worked, and I had made her into someone who would do this for me, I couldn't have her. What the fuck was I supposed to do now?

  I made my way to the pay phone outside of the diner and pulled out a few yellow sheets from my pocket. I ripped them from a phone book before I left town.

  Peters, Dr. Richard

  I slipped a dime into the phone and pounded out the numbers. I just needed to hear her voice. I didn't have to say anything. I just needed to know she was there. She had to know that I didn't stop craving her. That she did good. This was her reward.

  The phone rang about five times. I slammed it and the change jingled down. I collected it and inserted it back in the slot. This time I looked at the other page. The one that made my hand tremble with rage and disgust. Mr. Perfect. That's the only other place she would be.

  No answer. She's probably still at the station. I headed to my car and back onto the road. My truck lights illuminated a sign half-covered with shrubs that said: L.A.15 miles.

  And that's how I ended up in L.A. I laid low for a couple of weeks, just to make sure this wasn't all some elaborate ruse. But I couldn't resist hearing her voice. Her practically begging me to save her from the mundanity of her ordinary new life. She understands now, she wasn't a prisoner with me, she's a prisoner out there, shackled by the expectations and relationships she thought she needed. I can't go back and take her again. That's not how this works. I'm not a knight in shining armor. I am Hades. I split the earth open and suck her under. I give her my seed, which she accepts despite her protests. Now I am her home. She has been released back into the world, but she will realize she inevitably must return to me. She can only survive this by inhabiting two worlds.

  After a few weeks I head back north (fuck Scoot) to clean out the fucking farm of anything untoward before hiring a crew to empty it out, and I come back to my mother's room, looking like a fucking tornado ran through. Where that box once was, the copy of Green Eggs and Ham I gave Vesper.

  She has the box. It's full of objects, but that thing lives and breathes and I'm not sure she can handle having something that powerful in her possession. She'll find many things in there, but there's one thing she won't find- any trace of her. As I stare at the empty hole, I reach into my pocket and pull out the folded photo. It's worn in that spot, the fold line splitting her right down the middle. I run my hands along the groove, down to her smile, and her neck. The image of her necklace is nearly eaten up by the crease. Sometimes I wished I had kept it, so I would still have a piece of her, something other than memories that fade over time like this beat up image.

  “So I'm thinking we should go someplace. Take a long weekend,” Carter suggests as he passes me a wet dish to dry.

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah. Maybe we go…” His eyes widen up. “Why don't we go to Tahoe? You've always loved it there.”

  I did. But now, the trees, the water, memories of losing my necklace, it'll all bring me back to him. I would have loved this idea before Sam.

  “Sure.” I try to paint over the hesitation with a broken smile. But Carter senses it.

  “We don't have to go there. We could go anywhere.”

  “No. No. That's a good idea.” I don't want to complicate things. I've changed so much and I don't want to add to the list. I don't want to have to explain why suddenly my favorite place doesn't make me squeal with enthusiasm.

  I can sense Carter doesn't believe me.

  “Actually, I'm really excited,” I say, doing a better job with the fake smile. “I think the fresh air and openness will be perfect. Do you want me to make the plans?”

  Carter's eyes brighten. “Sure. Yeah, it's all yours. I'd love that.”

  I'm trying. I'm trying so hard. To accept that this is the life I am supposed to want. Carter is the man I am supposed to desire. I'm trying to rewire myself. But it's hard when a box full of victims sits at the bottom of your underwear drawer.

  I don't know what to do with it. Right now, I use it to remind myself that this is where I am supposed to be. That for all of the gentle moments Sam shared with me, that box is who he really is.

  But like Sam, the weight of the box sits on my soul, and always in the back of my mind, knowing it's there. It steals the moments I have in the present. I have to do something about it. Maybe this whole thing was a mistake, covering for him. I don't think I can live a normal life unless I let him go completely. I can't keep him and this life. I can only have one. Maybe it's time to let the cops have him.

  Carter decides to step out for some errands, leaving me alone in the house for a while. Like I always do, I go to the drawer and open the box, going through its contents. There are so many pieces in here. So many lives.

  I think I have to do it. I have to call the sheriff and tell him we can't go on like this. I don't want to blindside him. I glance at the clock. He should be in this early on a Friday. I stuff the box into my bag and leave Carter a note.

  Sheriff Ridgefield wanted me to come in for some questioning AGAIN. I'll be back ASAP.

  The station is
only a few minutes away. He's standing right by the front desk, intently talking to a man in a brown suit, who I know is from the DA's office.

  I stand barely in his field of vision, not wanting to intrude, but wanting to be noticed. It only takes a few seconds before he spots me. He places his hand on the man's shoulder, gives him a nod in my direction. They shake and he makes his way toward me.

  He's handsome, but it's a different type of handsome. He's more clean-cut and fatherly in his demeanor. He carries a lot more weight in his step. He's not that much older than Sam, but he looks far more mature. Sam looks like he'll look young forever, even with the rough scars and the stubble. Maybe it's the job. Maybe it's having a conscience.

  “Vesper, why don't you come into my office?”

  I hold the strap of my bag a little tighter to my side and follow him. I feel like they all know. They can all feel the evil permeating from the bag.

  We've seen each other a few times since the first time, mostly so I can “help” by answering more questions. It’s weird walking through the station, sitting there, answering questions, knowing that the man in charge already has the answers and this is all for show.

  “Coffee, water?”

  “No thanks,” I say.

  “Have a seat,” he gestures to the chair opposite his side of the desk.

  I sit. It's always like this. Formal, procedural, the secret unspoken since we've made the agreement. But I'm here to break that wall.

  “My secretary said you weren't home when she called. She left the message with your boyfriend. He said you were already on your way. That you had spoken to me, but I know that's not true.”

  “She just spoke to Carter?” I ask, trying to make sense of the miscommunication.

  “Yes.”

  “Why did you call?” I ask.

  “Why were you already on your way?” he retorts, leaning his elbows onto his desk.

  I hug the bag closer to me. I don't think I should share what I have until I know what he wanted.