by Noir, Stella
“Yeah, well, I might not get the chance to see now.”
“Oh, come on”, Ethan says, more animated than I’ve seen him.
“Plus, you know”, I add, “I’m not sure I’m ready to be intimate, not after what happened. Fuck, I feel so broken sometimes, so useless.”
“Just give it time”, Ethan says. “The things you want now are not going to be the things you want in the future. Our needs, requirements, tastes, desires, wishes, it all changes from time to time. We change too. You know, every single cell in your body gets replaced every seven years. That means every seven years we are completely different people.”
I look at him quizzically, but he knows I’m putting it on. “I have to wait seven years to get laid?”
Ethan laughs at that. “Come on”, he says, touching my arm. “Let’s take a walk. This park is beautiful and we’ve hardly seen any of it.”
The last time I got laid was when I got raped. It’s a thought that sticks with me for the rest of the day.
Ethan
16 December 2015. Ninety four days after.
Jo and I stroll around to the duck pond, stop for a coffee at the bandstand, watch a young boy hit a baseball with his dad and sit down again on a bench near the entrance to the park.
I’ve been thinking about it since she called me, but the right moment hasn’t yet arrived. I want to tell her I can take her fear away. That I can end the problem for her, even though I’m not entirely sure I’m capable yet of doing that yet myself. I project Alice’s image on to her, and I imagine myself with her briefly, pushing the thought away for fear of letting it consume me. ‘This is not Alice and she cannot replace her’, I find myself thinking more than once.
“It’ll be ok”, I tell her. “Just try not to think about it too much. Concentrate on other things, he doesn’t deserve your energy.”
“I wish I had your strength”, Jo says. “You know, everything that you’ve gone through. My problems seem so slight in comparison. I feel like, you know, they’re not even worthy of bringing up.”
“Don’t say that, Jo. Don’t undervalue yourself. What you’ve been through, I can’t even imagine. There is no scale of how you are allowed to feel based on what’s happened to you. You’ve just got to do what you can. I’m here to help, you just-. Pick up the phone.”
“Thank you, Ethan.”
“No problem”, I say.
“I’ve had a really nice day.”
“Yeah, me too.”
It’s true. I haven’t had a day like this for a long time. I feel positive about something positive.
“See you in class?” she asks. “You know it’s the last one before the break.”
“Yeah, you know, if I don’t smash myself up again.”
Jo gives me a look of genuine concern. “Just don’t go so fast”, she says, already stepping away to bring distance between us, to make the goodbye less awkward. “The world moves at the same speed no matter how fast you go. You can’t speed up time.”
“Alright”, I say, calling after her. “Enjoy the weekend. Call me if you get lonely.”
“Likewise”, Jo says, her hand up in the air to wave goodbye. She’s several feet away from me now, walking backwards towards the exit of the park, smiling. I don’t say anything else. I just wave and watch her go, the sky already inking towards the night, until she’s disappeared completely.
Chapter Twenty Five
Ethan
17 December 2015. Ninety five days after.
I wake from a feverish dream, my body covered in sweat. At the sink I gulp down an entire glass of water, taking a good minute or two before my breath returns to normal. I stood by her side and watched, unable to do anything at all, while she was raped and murdered in front of my eyes. It’s a dream I’ve had before, a number of times, only this time, my wife wasn’t Alice, it was Jo.
I can’t get back to sleep so I decide to go for my run earlier than normal. The sun still isn’t up, so I take a high visibility bike jacket and dress against the cold. It’s freezing outside and until I’m up to pace I consider giving up and waiting until later.
My thoughts are jumbled. Running usually helps me clear my mind, but even after two or three miles, there is still no sign of that happening. I find myself thinking about Jo, and the man who raped her. I’m angry about what happened to her. Angry in a way I wasn’t before and a way that is similar to the feelings I have for the man that attacked Alice. I have a new lead and a new name. This time I have a good feeling that it could be the man responsible. That excites me and scares me in equal measure. It’s something I am building myself up to dealing with. It’s something I hope I’m prepared for.
I can’t take my mind off Jo. I try to, but I can’t. I imagine what her life must be like on a day to day basis. I find myself intrigued by her, wanting to know more. I picture her at home, at work, smiling. I picture us together too, having dinner, sat on the park bench again, killing the man that attacked her.
Jo says that justice isn’t the most important thing for her, and although I find that difficult to understand, I respect her view. It’s what scares her about the way her father has reacted to her attack. “Men just want revenge”, she said yesterday. “Mom doesn’t want that and nor do I. I wish Dad could respect that. Is that what you want for what happened to Alice?” she asked.
“Yes”, I said. “I want the person to be punished for what he did to Alice and what he took away from us. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to move on. For me, it forms a part of the process of moving on.”
“But nothing will change”, Jo said, “That’s what I don’t get. You can’t change anything that’s already happened.”
She doesn’t get the fact that it’s not about changing something that’s already happened, it’s about changing something that hasn’t yet happened. Jo may not understand until she’s stood there in court facing the man who violated her, but even that wouldn’t be enough for me.
I left it at that yesterday. I didn’t want to push it, especially as the whole thing terrifies her. It’s the fear, more than anything, that is controlling the way she sees it. Naturally we want to right wrongs and re-level the playing field and equally we fear that in doing so, something will come back to bite us.
I think about that too. I think about the repercussions of what it is that I’m planning to do, and not just from the police, or the family, or the attacker. I think about what Jo or anybody else might think of me, of how I choose to re-address the balance. I think about that more too, the more that I get to know her.
Alice isn’t coming back, I know that. I remind myself of that every day to motivate myself to continue doing what I’m doing. Alice is dead. Someone killed her. That person does not deserve to be alive any more. I’m not the one who tipped the scales in the first place, I’m only the one who has been put in charge of rebalancing them. It’s not like I asked for the job, and I’m not sure I can turn around and refuse it. Am I capable of killing a man? Am I capable of living with the knowledge that I have?
At the moment, the answer to those two questions is yes. I worry, however, that if I don’t find him soon, it may not continue to be so.
At about eight miles I burn out. My legs are sore from the bike ride yesterday and the cold has seeped into them much more than I realised. I should have stretched more before beginning, and as I jog into a walking pace I can feel sharp pain gnaw into my groin. I’ve been running for just over an hour and the sun still isn’t up. I’ve gone too hard.
This is the dead of the night, the witching hour, when I’m usually out stalking prey getting answers. Hurting people who have hurt others. Rebalancing the scale.
I’ve seen no-one but the odd solo walker on the way back to the house. Passing them I wonder if they are either coming back from a late night out, on their way to begin an early shift or just like me or the men I hunt. Rapists or vigilantes? Justice seekers or scale tippers? Killers of my wife or wandering souls waiting to be killed themselves?
Ethan
19 December 2015. Ninety seven days after.
I stand there staring at nothing for a long time, the phone hanging off the wall at the end of a tightened cord, no longer swaying. They’ve found him. I repeat the words to myself slowly. Taste them. Try and understand what they mean. After almost a hundred days, they’ve finally arrested someone who has confessed to Alice’s rape and murder.
My shouts alarm the neighbours. When they find me, I’m on my knees pounding the floor - the same floor where my wife was found, and if you look at closely enough still bears the trace of her blood letting - and I know this only because they tell me afterwards. I don’t know how long I’m gone for, how long I’m not me.
They know, obviously, who I am. They know what happened here to the woman who used to smile at them sweetly every day she came back from work. The woman who took them recently baked cupcakes when they moved in. The woman who is long since dead.
I can’t stop crying. I cry so much I don’t know what it is i’m even crying about anymore. Eventually Martin comes to provide relief, and the neighbours return to the comfort of their own house, the normality of their own lives.
Martin helps me to the bedroom, and there, I curl up into a ball of broken emotion. If they have him, I no longer have a purpose, I no longer have the chance to exact justice.
Chapter Twenty Seven
Jo
21 December 2015. Eighty five days after.
Today is the 21st of December, the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. It’s supposed to be the first day of winter too, but to be honest, it feels like winter has already been here for months. Or more specifically, Eighty five days.
I have two more days of work, half days really because I still haven’t gone back to a full time schedule, and one more after that before I have to drive to Cincinnati and spend what is going to be an agonising few days pretending to play happy families.
It’s our last group session. I had the last session with my personal therapist last Friday and we spent most of the allotted hour talking about Ethan. I needed him to be here today. I needed to see him before the Christmas break. He promised me he would be here, and he’s not. I’ve been looking forward to this all weekend and now I feel like he’s let me down, but I know that’s not fair of me. We hardly know each other and he’s got his own life too. I know he’d be here if he could be, which makes me wonder what it is that might have stopped him coming. I think about skipping the session to call him, but I’m already here, the session is about to begin and there’s every chance he’ll breeze in half way through, apologizing profusely for being late.
Katy has worn Christmas earrings, Paul a Christmas jumper. There is tinsel scattered around the radiators and a partially decorated Christmas tree in the corner of the room. Looking at these things makes me inexplicably sad. There is nothing worse than a half-assed attempt at decorating. It looks like the Christmas that should have been but never was, like it never reached it’s full potential, but the reminder of what it could have been is there, like a stillborn baby.
Ethan’s absence has affected me more than I thought possible. The other members of the group take turns to ask me if I’m alright. They can clearly see I’m not my usual self. I lie that I’m worried about both the drive to Cincinnati and the time I’m going to have to spend with my family. I tell them that my friends still don’t know about what happened to me and I’m not looking forward to the inevitable push to spend a night out drinking with them.
“Don’t forget the play”, Paul says, when the conversation has moved on enough for it to seem appropriate. “I’m expecting to see you all in the front row.”
The 23 of December. It’s my excuse to get out of works drinks. It will also be my first night out on my own since it happened. Fuck, I’m terrified. I need to find out where Ethan is, because I know that if he doesn’t go, I know I won’t be able to either.
After the session is over, I’ve wished everyone a merry Christmas and strategically avoided being hugged by those people I know I won’t see at Paul’s play - contact is still quite difficult for me at the moment - I call Ethan. It rings, but goes straight to answerphone.
Chapter Twenty Eight
Ethan
22 December 2015. A hundred days after.
I can’t even bring myself to go to the arraignment hearing. I can barely get out of bed. If you asked me what day it was, I wouldn’t know. Martin comes and goes like a ghost, in and out of the bedroom to check on me or leave food that I never get round to eating. I’m awake so long I don’t know whether I’ve slept at all, and when I sleep, I dream so vividly I feel like I’m awake. Alice visits me, Jo too, and I see him, a thousand different ways, never for long enough to remember his face. I know it’s him though, bearing down over me, choking me, forcing the life out of me repeatedly, until i’m up at the window staring at nothing, or leaning over the toilet bowl and being sick, or just lying there covered in sweat, dreading the future and not being able to do anything about it.
Before I realise it, the gun is in my hand. I can taste the metal like a sharp tang that promises to clear the clouds and make everything right again. I can feel her close. Alice. My love. I want to be with her more than anything in this world. I want to be with her so much it hurts.
Chapter Twenty Nine
Jo
23 December 2015. Eighty seven days after.
My last official day at work before the end of the year. I say official because none of us have done anything but mess around on the internet and chat incessantly about what we’re going to do over the Christmas break. None of us have done any real work since the end of a large project the week before, and Alex, who is meant to be setting an example, is the biggest culprit of all. He comes in just before we are meant to finish, and that’s only to bring us champagne and lead us all to a pub to continue the celebrations.
He’s a good boss. I’ve hardly been here the last three months and he’s still given me a bonus that would normally reflect a full year’s work.
I’m reluctant to join them, but Alex bends my arm. I feel like I owe him that at the very least for what he’s done for me. It’s still relatively early, and I’ll be fine as long as I get back home before dark. Ethan still hasn’t called. I’ve been thinking about him constantly, perhaps even more now that I can’t seem to get hold of him.
Paul’s play is tonight, and I don’t want to disappoint him after saying I’ll go. If I’m not there, he’ll be really upset, but it would mean leaving the house and returning later on in the evening on my own, and I just don’t know if I’m up to doing it. I feel edgy at the best of times alone during the day.
If Ethan was with me, or if I had Carmen and Patricia’s numbers just to make sure they were definitely going, it might be different. I could even get a taxi, but you hear so many horror stories about taxi drivers, especially at this time of the year. I hate that I can’t live a normal life anymore, because before all this happened, I wouldn’t even think twice about it, but now, now I feel myself panicking just thinking about it.
“Earth to Jo”, Fraser says. He’s snapping his fingers in front of my face and I pretend that I’ve been listening to him all along. “If I was a betting man, I’d say you’re hung up.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Fraser”, I say, shaking his absurd comment off.
“I can see it in your eyes. You’re all starry eyed with your head in the clouds.”
“I was thinking about tonight actually”, I say.
“Why, have you got a hot date?”
I jab my fingers under his ribs and it makes him spill his beer on his T-shirt. “I’m meant to be going to a Christmas panto”, I say. “I promised someone I’d go and watch them perform.”
“But you’ve changed your mind?” Fraser guesses.
I can’t even ask him to come along with me. If Patricia and Carmen do go, my carefully kept secret will be out of the bag.
“It�
�s not that, or just that”, I say.
“Call them, make up some wild excuse about going on a hot date with a Scotsman.” Fraser jiggles his eyebrows up and down and it makes me laugh.
“I don’t have their number”, I say. “I feel bad about not going, but I can’t you know.”
“Well if you can’t, what are you worrying about? I’m sure they’ll understand.”
“Maybe”, I say, completely unconvinced that they will.
“‘Course they will”, Fraser says. “There will be tonnes of people there to support them. Can I get you another drink?”
I remember last years Christmas party and how different I was then. I feel like I’ve grown up, aged by my experience. If experience is really a word I can use. I feel like I’m no longer carefree, like the whole weight of the world is on my shoulders and I never asked for any of it.
***
After another hour or so of setting up my exit, just as the party is getting going and people are talking about food, I find Alex, say goodbye to him and slip out before anyone else notices. I check my phone at regular intervals throughout the day, but I know already that Ethan is not going to call. I wonder if I’ve seen the last of him, that perhaps, the day we met in the park was the day he somehow got cured. I feel bad for Paul, but in the end I don’t go. I can’t. I literally can’t leave the house on my own and risk getting attacked again, no matter how unlikely it is that it will happen.
Eventually I fall into a broken sleep, my mind on the immediacy of surviving another family Christmas.
Chapter Thirty
Jo
25 December 2015. Eighty nine days after.