“Hey!” I call out, knocking on the door. I hear something clatter into the sink and frown, what the hell? I go to open the door, but it’s locked. “Open up the door!” I shout at the wood standing between me and my tormentor.
“Give me a minute!” I hear her shout, and then I hear the sink running. “Shit,” I hear someone mumble and cross my arms over my chest. I wish she’d open up the door, is she doing drugs in there? I’m going to get kicked out of this apartment, and the cops called on me by the landlords if they find out that she’s doing drugs.
“Come on, the burgers are getting cold!” I try to entice her with food, and apparently it works. I hear her curse and the sound of the water turning off. Then when she opens up the door, I get an eyeful.
There’s a girl standing in my bathroom with my shirt on. I’ve never let any of the girls I brought home wear my clothes, it was too personal. She’s wearing nothing underneath. I can tell because all of her underthings are lying on the floor with the skirt. I want to tell her to take off the shirt, but that would give her the wrong idea.
I take a close look at her and see that there’s a feint bruise on her neck, fingerprints. She has a bite mark right under her ear that looks like it hurt when it happened. The girl must have the wrong idea when I’m looking at her and starts to inch up the shirt. I grab her wrists and get in her face, a snarl coming out of my mouth.
“I said no.” I tell her, letting her wrists go and turning away from her. To distract myself, I peel open the bag and pull out my fries and double cheeseburger. I turn on the television and avoid the news stations. I don’t want to see anymore crashes. I settle for reruns of Star Trek and ignore the girl as she sits down next to me.
The way she eats her fries, it’s like she’s making love to them. She makes moaning sounds as she shoves them in and acts like she hasn’t eaten fast food in years. Maybe it has been years.
“What’s your name?” She asks when she’s done her fries. I don’t know if I want to be on a name basis with her, maybe I could just call her Girl or Woman?
“Caleb,” I finally relent, realizing that would be pretty juvenile. I sip on my soda and see her smile out of the corner of my eye. “What’s so funny?” I ask as I finish off my own fries. She bites down on her cheeseburger and doesn’t answer. So I clean up my meal and glance at the time on the cable box. It’s past eight, and I’m exhausted.
“There’s a blanket in the closet you got the sheet from, but I guess you know that.” I pull off my shirt as I walk into my bedroom and close the door against the noise of the television. As I pull off my pants and slide into bed, I hear the noise in the living room cease and the door to the closet creak. Then I hear the deadbolt on the door being checked twice and roll over to put a pillow over my head at that moment.
When the sun’s morning rays come up and hit me in the face, I realize I never asked her name. I’m sprawled across the bed with my head under two pillows and my feet hanging off the end. I shimmy to the edge and manage to sit up without falling off. I grab my pants from the floor and pull them on. It’s Monday now, so I don’t have to work today.
I stretch and pull open my bedroom door. She’s lying just like she was the day before. Her ankles are crossed with her legs up on the couch, her head on the arm. She has one arm dangling off and her other strewn across her stomach. The shirt is dangerously high and shows a little of her ass. I narrow my eyes and grab the blanket off the floor. I’ll have to turn down the thermostat so she covers up.
When I get closer, I see the bruises on her inner thigh and stare at them. They’re purple and ugly, painful looking. The skirt covered them, barely, but my shirt doesn’t. I swallow roughly and look at her peaceful face, the one without a mark on it. Why would someone stay with an abuser? I don’t get it. I fling the blanket over her and silently promise myself I won’t push her or grab her again, it’s too much like what she’s used to.
As soon as the fabric touches her legs she pulls them down and curls up under it, tucking it under her chin in her sleep. I don’t bother walking softly as I go out to the kitchen. There’s barely any cereal left, and the only thing I can find in my fridge that remotely looks edible are the eggs. So I pull those out, whip them up with a little milk, and pour it all into a pan. I sprinkle some salt and pepper over them, like my mother used to make.
By the time I have the first batch on a plate, I hear her footsteps across the gray, carpeted living room. She has the blanket wrapped around her, her hair sticking up at odd angles and framing her face. The way she’s standing there reminds me again of my sister and I feel something soften inside of me. I quickly firm it up and square my shoulders. She can stay for a few days. That’s it.
“It’s Daisy,” she whispers, her voice groggy from just waking up. I hold out the plate to her without a word and clank a fork onto it. She takes the plate from my hand and sits down at the tiny table. I watch her eat the eggs as I make my own, leaning against the counter periodically.
“You need clothes, Daisy.” I try out her name and find that it fits, no matter how redneck it sounds. She shrugs one shoulder absentmindedly as if having clothes isn’t a prerogative. Does she think she’s going to continue walking around in my shirts?
“Don’t have money,” she tells me matter of fact. I pull my wallet out of my jeans, the ones I had on yesterday, and pull out a few twenties. I toss them on the table in front of her and eat my eggs out of the pan with a fork. Definitely caveman style, but I’m not going to let having a girl like her change my ways.
“Don’t have transportation,” she says it in the same tone that she used before, and I put the pan in the sink. I run some water to fill it and soak it before I put it in the dishwasher.
“I’ll shower,” I mumble, stomping out of the kitchen. Why did I bring her home? I ask myself that over and over again until I’m showered, sitting on my bike, with her arms wrapped around my middle. Her fingers bunch in my shirt as I roar the bike to life and I feel the helmet rest against my back. I may not wear one, but I have no idea how old she is, and she reminds me of my sister.
I don’t want her death on my hands, too.
The nearest mall is about a half an hour away. I weave in and out of traffic safely, not like I used to. When we come up to a red light my world freezes. Behind me, I hear the Jake brake of a truck go off, and the hairs on the back of my neck rise up. I steer the bike to the right and ride up onto the sidewalk, my heart pounding in my chest. I watch the truck pull up to the red light where I was just at, the driver staring at me.
It’s the first time I’ve seen a truck since the accident, and the sound alone makes my heart climb into my throat, my palms becoming sweaty. I feel Daisy sit up, and she follows my gaze to the truck. She looks confused, and I feel the same. I lean over the handlebars of my bike and try to breathe, my forehead hitting the cold metal.
A small hand snakes up onto my shoulder and I don’t realize it’s Daisy’s until I finally open my eyes to look over at the delicate fingers. My bike has stalled, and the light has changed from red to green. The truck is long gone, so the sound I’m hearing must be coming from my mind. I start my bike and try to stop my hands from trembling, but just before I put my hand down on the handlebar I see it shaking.
Daisy stares at my hand, and then she wraps her arms around my middle and fists her hands into my shirt again. We make it to the mall without seeing another truck. She doesn’t ask me when I turn off the bike in the mall parking lot what happened at the red light. Just calmly clambers off the back and puts the helmet on the seat. She shakes out her hair and runs her hand through it a few times to straighten it. She smells like my shampoo and body wash.
I’ll have to change that.
She’s wearing the jean skirt, flip flops, and the sequin top again. But it’s been washed. It smells fresh. It’s a Monday just after noon, so there’s barely anyone at the mall. A few elderly people are walking around the mall with their friends, hanging onto walkers and dragging along oxyg
en tanks. Their canes clank against the tile floor.
“Where do you shop?” I ask Daisy, trying to turn her attention away from the old men staring at her. She looks up at me in shock as if she forgot I was here, and I see her visibly relax.
I didn’t realize she was tense.
“I don’t know, never been here before. Is there a Victoria’s Secret?” She sounds like a kid asking if there’s a candy store. I steer her in the direction of the Victoria’s Secret and grimace when we walk past a few more old men sitting outside on benches. She marches right past them and as soon as she’s inside I see her shrink into herself. It’s as if all this time her attitude has been a front.
The woman greets her and tells her the discounts, then raises her nose in the air and glares at me. I know what this looks like, and I don’t appreciate the look.
Chapter Four
“Too expensive,” I hear Daisy mutter when she picks up a bra. It’s a lacy thing with a tag that says pushup, and I want to point out to her that she doesn’t need one like that anyway. But she looks forlorn when she puts it down, and suddenly I feel a little sorry for her. I may not understand why, but she had it rough.
I’ve been saving my credit card for emergencies. It has over ten thousand dollars free on it, and the bra is only forty five dollars. I pick it up between two fingers and hand it back to her without a word. I follow her around the store like that the entire time, picking up what she looks at lovingly and puts back down. It ends up being over four hundred dollars’ worth of underwear. It’s about what I make in two days.
The next store is something that I would have never stepped foot in without a girl at my side. It’s worse than Victoria’s Secret, at least there’s the excuse of lingerie for a girlfriend there. This is nothing but tiny skirts and even smaller tops. Knowing what underwear she has on, I don’t know if I could abstain if she were wearing some of these clothes. I end up steering her right back out the door and down to a more reputable store.
The clothes she picks out are still feminine, but much less ‘I’m a hooker for hire!’ I end up spending over what I spent at Victoria’s Secret here, and I think I know what’s going on here. It’s a conspiracy, selling clothes for insane prices and making them cheap so that women come back more often. I remember my sister saying something about jeans lasting less than a year.
My wallet feels lighter, even though I know I didn’t spend any actual cash, just put it all on my credit card. Yet I feel like I’m missing something. But my arms are pretty heavy as I lug bags out to my motorcycle. Shopping on a motorcycle is not a bright idea. I should have thought about that before bringing a woman to the mall. One bag I could handle, six? No way in hell.
“Listen, I’m going to call a cab and follow you back, alright?” She looks at the bags, and at the vehicle we arrived on, and nods. I have a feeling the clothes weigh more than her, it would be too dangerous. I pull my cellphone out of my pocket and search on Google for cab services. Then I call one and wait.
It takes about twenty minutes, but the cab finally pulls up, and I see Daisy inside. I see the smile she flashes the cab driver and something inside me twists. She’s back to her usual self when I close the door, all flirtation. I hop on my bike and follow the cab back to my apartment, pay the driver, and help Daisy lug her bags back into my apartment.
It’s late in the afternoon by the time I’m walking through my door, and I turn around to see a few of the retired folks sitting outside in their lawn chairs. Mr. Ishkner waves at me and I raise a hand in greeting. The man has never waved at me in my life.
I close the door to the outside world and drop the bags on the floor right by the door. I don’t want her getting too comfortable here. She’s going to have to figure out somewhere else to stay soon. But for tonight I suppose I could order dinner. It’s not until I’m on the phone with the pizza shop down the street that I realize the bathroom door is open, and my bedroom door is closed. I calmly order a cheese pizza, some chili fries, and a few mushroom poppers.
When I hang up my cellphone, I narrow my eyes and stalk up to my bedroom door. I don’t bother knocking, just fling open the door. For my rude entrance, I get a shirt thrown in my face and an ear splitting scream. For a girl who's tried to show me her hooch, I would have thought she wouldn’t mind being walked in on as she was getting dressed. I pull the sequin top off my face and catch sight of her pulling on a pair of jeans to cover up her bottom half.
“Pizza’s on the way, I thought I told you not to go in my room.” I say it deadly calm, but inside my mind I’m bouncing all over the place. I’m thinking about pizza, the fact that she’s in my room, and I can’t stop staring at her C cups in that red, lace push up bra I bought her. They’re certainly doing something there, holding those babies up high.
I clear my throat and close the door as she’s pulling a shirt over her head. I didn’t miss the yellow bruise on her hip, another hand mark. She doesn’t open the door until I have the television on and a slice of pizza in my hand. She screws up her face when I offer her a breaded mushroom. Instead, she devours the chili fries like they’re from the Gods above.
The rest of the evening I don’t bother trying to make conversation. We watch some movies, ones I don’t remember as I’m trying to fall asleep in bed. Mostly I don’t remember them because they were boring, but I was also trying not to think about the red bra. I could take her up on the offer, but that would make me as bad as the guys who put the marks on her hip and inner thighs.
It still takes me a long time to drift off to sleep.
***
I’m on my motorcycle, the wind pushing me back, so I lean over the handle bars and look over at the rider next to me. He’s smiling on his bike like he feels free, his blonde hair flying behind him. Just as we’re coming around the corner on the highway, I hit the accelerator on the bike and project myself forward. It’s like I’m flying, almost literally, across the road. And then I hear the god awful sound of a Jake brake on the other side of the highway.
“Caleb!” Someone’s shaking me, gripping my shoulders painfully. I ball my hands up in fists and put them against my face, inhaling deeply and exhaling slowly through my nose. “Caleb?” The fingers retract and I reach out a hand to grab a thin, small wrist.
“Caleb, you’re hurting me!” I open one eye to look at the intruder, the person who interrupted my nightmare. The gray of dawn is filtering through my window; the rays of sunshine will be peeking through soon. I don’t have to be at work for another two hours.
“I thought I told you to stay out of my room.” Her face is inches from mine as I growl at her, pulling her down towards me. I’m shocked; instead of the usual sultry look on her face she actually looks afraid.
“You’re hurting me,” she whispers, her eyes wide and doe like. The words finally sink in, and I look down at my hand wrapped tight around her wrist. I immediately peel each finger back methodically and let her go, but she doesn’t move back. “You were screaming, I thought –” I stop her with a look and point at the door. She’s wearing nothing but one of my shirts again. Her creamy thighs are almost glowing in the first rays of the sun.
Her eyes narrow and she stands up straight, her hair falling down across her front in the thin shirt. Without another word, she turns on her heel and stomps out of my room. I watch her as she leaves my eyes unable to move away from the swing of her hips. I fall back onto the bed when my door gently closes and breathe slowly. If it had been earlier, if she weren’t so frightened, I would have pulled her down on top of me and taken the comfort I need. But it’s not earlier, and she was scared.
Frustrated and aching in my chest with something I don’t want to admit to the world yet, I sit up in bed and fling the covers off me. There’s not much to fling off, I flung most of them off during the night. I lean over with my head in my hands and run them over my hair a few times to get it together. If I weren’t afraid of her hearing, I might go into the bathroom and vomit. But I still have some pride.
&
nbsp; I grab my pants off the floor, pull on a shirt, and decide that I might as well face her angry stare. I deserve it, telling her to get out like that without even a ‘thanks’.
When I open the door to the living room, I find it empty. I sniff at the smoke coming from the kitchen and my eyes pop open wide. Is my apartment on fire?! I scramble through the small living space and grip both sides of the kitchen entrance to stop myself from stumbling into flames.
The smoke alarm starts to ding as I stare at the mess in my kitchen. It takes me a second, but the racket anger me and I grab the alarm off the ceiling. I can’t get it apart without a screw driver so I throw it on the floor, slip on one of my sneakers, and proceed to stomp on the son of a bitch. It finally stops beeping, and I hear a sniffle within the haze of smoke.
“Can’t even make fucking eggs,” she’s mumbling, shoving a red hot pan in the sink and turning on the water. More steam billows up and she squeals as it hits her hand. “Fuck!” I hear, and sigh. I pull off my sneaker, toss it to the side, and wave the smoke and steam out of my face. My neighbors are going to love this.
When I finally get to her through the haze, I see that her hair is hanging in damp strands around her face, and she’s holding her hand. She’s biting her lip to hold back tears. It’s not working very well, and mascara is running down her face. I turn off the water to stop the steam and open up the tiny window at the back of the kitchen.
Without a word, I put a hand on her back and push her out of the kitchen, gently. She walks with me to the bathroom, and I grab her hand to check it out. Just a little red, nothing serious. I turn on the cool water and shove her hand underneath, she jumps, and goose bumps rise on her arms.
“That’s cold!” She shouts at me, trying to pull her hand back.
“Of course it’s cold; you tried to steam your hand like a lobster.” I tell her calmly, turning off the water and wrapping a towel around the affected hand to pat it dry.
Trouble Page 3