by Mann, Cat
It was the day before Thanksgiving. I had had nightmares all night the night before. Taunting, terrorizing nightmares. Ari woke up with me each time I screamed and yelled out in fear or pain. By the time his early morning alarm went off, we were both exhausted and spent.
Ari climbed out of bed and headed to the shower. I could hear his morning music playing through the speaker system, a Jack White album.
I blinked my eyes when the bathroom door opened, Ari emerged with a towel wrapped around his waist. He still had beads of water running slowly down his chest and his hair was wet.
He grabbed his cell phone.
“Who are you calling so early?” I croaked.
“My mom; I was going to tell her you can’t help out today; I think you should rest.”
I sat up quickly. As scary as my nightmares were, I did not want to spend one moment alone on this day.
“No, no. I will be there. Don’t bother to call her. I am planning on heading next door as soon as you leave for work.”
Ari shot me a questioning gaze.
“I haven’t got anything to do around the house. The weather is calling for rain so I can’t even sit at the pool and I can’t call on my contacts for House to Home until after the holiday.” I explained.
“Are you sure?”
“I am sure.”
“Alright,” Ari smiled sleepily at me and set his cell phone back down. He walked off in the direction of the closet and as he dressed, I showered and got myself ready for a day of helping Aggie. I met Ari out in the kitchen; he was just finishing an orange.
“You look lovely this morning.” He smiled up at me. I looked down at my clothes. My jeans were sagging on my frame a bit and my shirt was a too baggy. My hair was toppled up on top of my head in a too messy bun. I didn’t respond to Ari’s comment.
“I’ll just brush my teeth,” he said, “and then I will walk you next door.”
“Oh. Don’t you think you will be late if you walk with me?”
“Why break the habit of being late now, Ava?”
“K. I’ll just find some shoes…”
Ari held my hand and walked me next door to his parent’s home. Aggie had a pretty, paisley apron tied around her slender frame. Her hair was tied neatly back. She wore yellow cleaning gloves and was standing at a sink full of soapy water.
“Morning!” She beamed and sloshed water on to the counter. Ari picked up a hand towel hanging from the oven and soaked up her mess. He kissed his mom on the cheek and looked down at his watch.
“Morning, I was just dropping Ava by; I gotta run.”
“Oh, ok then, have a nice day!” She smiled at him.
Ari kissed my cheek and recited his morning coda, “I love you, Ava. I love you, ok? Call me, call my cell, call my work, call my assistant.”
“I will, Ari, stop worrying. And… I love you, too, more than anything.” He kissed me gently, chastely and then left out the door for work.
“How are you at cleaning ovens, Ava?”
And so, I cleaned Aggie’s oven until it shined. I cleaned out the refrigerator and re-organized her vast pantry.
“What about chicken salad sandwiches for lunch?” Aggie asked me as I emerged from the pantry.
“I’m not at all hungry, Aggie. Eat without me, maybe I’ll get something later. What else do you want me to do today?”
Aggie pulled out two croissants and made me a sandwich anyway. She added to my plate, celery and pretzels and sat down at the table. She waited for me to join her.
“I am not a child, Aggie.”
“I never said you were.”
“Please don’t treat me this way.”
“Someone needs to take care of you. Clearly you can’t handle the task.” She snapped at me. “When is the last time you’ve really eaten?”
“What else do you want me to do today?”
Aggie stared at me for a moment and finally relented. “Luke, Lauren’s boyfriend is joining us for the long weekend. He is going to be staying in Ari’s old room. Could you please grab clean sheets from the closet and change the linens? Could you also dust and tidy up in there?”
“Sure.”
I left my plate, untouched, at the table and made my way down the hall to the linen closet. I grabbed what I needed and headed to Ari’s old room. It still smelled like him - so sweet and clean. Pictures of him surfing were still hung neatly on the walls. I slipped my shoes off and ran my toes through his thick, soft, white rug. I thought back to the late nights I spent cuddled up with Ari in this bed, talking, laughing and kissing. Our kisses were deep back then and full of passion. Not at all like the small chaste kisses that the last few weeks had brought. I was damaging my marriage with my lack of honesty. Ari deserved so much better than what I had given him. I crawled in to his old bed, wrapped myself up in his old blankets and cried to myself. My sobbing brought on fierce shakes, which eventually wore my body down and ushered me to sleep.
I woke up in his old bedroom disoriented. Dusk was coming and the sky was a brilliant pinky orange. I crawled out of his old bed and padded my way down the hall. I was light headed, woozy, and needed help from the wall to walk straight. I paused in the edge of the doorway to the kitchen. I saw Ari come in through the glass door looking scruffy and tired.
“Is Ava still here?” he asked Aggie as he loosened his shirt collar.
“Yeah, she is.” Aggie answered with a frown. “She’s asleep in your old room. She has been in there all afternoon.”
Ari nodded his head and took a step.
“Wait a minute, Ari,” Aggie said sternly, stopping him.
“We have got to do something about her. Ava is a mess. She never eats and she has lost too much weight. She screams in her sleep nonstop. It scares me. She hardly speaks unless someone asks her a direct question and even then, it’s like pulling teeth to get her to focus long enough to answer. I can see what she is doing to you, Ari. I will not sit here any longer and watch you fall apart because of her. I have seen you lose her too many times. I watched you pump the life back into her unconscious body nearly a year ago on my deck. I watched her lie to you and then leave with no word, no phone call, for six long months. I saw what happened to you when she went missing. I saw the son I love turn into a shell of a person before my eyes.
“I watched you cry on that damn beach for her, Ari. And if you think for one moment that I didn’t know what you thought you were going to do to yourself when they said she was dead, you are wrong. If you thought for even one minute that I would let you take your own life, then you have seriously underestimated me. I love Ava. You know I love her, Ari, and it pains me to see her like this, but you are my son, damn it. And seeing you this way, Ari, kills me inside. You need to tell me what the hell is going on with her right now!”
I had never seen Aggie so angry before. I shrank my body back into the darkness of the unlit hallway.
“I don’t know, Ma,” he said, slowly shaking his head. “She won’t tell me. I’ve tried to get her to open up but she won’t talk about any of the things that have happened. I don’t know what’s going on with her right now, and I am afraid if I keep pushing her to tell me I will only push her further away. I don’t know what more I can do. I don’t know how to help her.” A tear slid down his cheek and Aggie scooped him up in a hug, as if he were a small child again. They stayed that way for a while, both crying, both worried, all because of me.
The air left my lungs. My eyes stung with hot tears and my heart crumbled to a dusty pile at my feet.
I had spent so much time trying to save and protect my family and the end result was that I had pushed them away from me. I had caused everyone I love so much pain and heartache. Misha was right I was incredibly selfish. I made my way, unnoticed, to the bathroom and washed my face and ran a comb through my hair. I pinched my checks until they turned pink and I did my best to look like Ava again and less like the zombie I had become. When I walked back to the kitchen, I saw Ari and Aggie sitting at the table. They we
re still talking, still worried. I cleared my throat and Ari looked up and saw me. His face lit up as it always does and his smile caused my dormant butterflies to stretch their wings.
“Hi, Baby,” he said quietly.
I walked over to him with a small smile.
“Aggie, do you think I could have Ari’s time for a second?”
“He is yours, Ava; you don’t have to ask.” She smiled a sad smile at me.
Ari stood up, looking unsure, then took my hand and we walked outside. The sun had already set and the deck was softly lit with the twinkling lights. I took a seat on the steps that run down to the beach and Ari sat next to me and placed his arm around my waist. We stared out at angry waves as they crashed to shore, pummeling the sand over and over again. Dark clouds were rolling in towards land.
“I owe you an apology,” I started to say.
“Ava, no…”
“Stop, Ari. Let me just say this, please,” I said, but not unkindly. Having made the decision to tell Ari everything, I needed to get all of my secrets off my chest as soon as possible. He fell silent and pulled me even closer to him.
My hands were shaking and my voice caught in my throat as I pointed to the first two tally marks on my wrist. Ari sucked in a quick breath when he realized what I was about to do.
I began my story with the details of the night that the murders started, the night Lauren was taken. All of the gore and horror came out. I was careful not to hide even the tiniest of details. I told Ari about the vision of myself in my own hospital bed and my dad helping me pull my thread. I told him about my garbage bag casket and the way I felt when I pulled the trigger of the gun and watched someone’s head turn to mush. I told him how I held that damn rope in my hands as my shoulder seared with pain until I felt No. 2’s struggles turn into nothingness. I told him how I ran on that beach through the cold rain, and how the last conscious image I had was of my own bloody handprint on his glass door.
I told Ari how Margaux had made me leave him, Dana Point and everyone I loved, and had forbidden me to return. I described how I turned my emotions off and how I lied to him after he begged me to tell the truth. I talked about the hate and anger that consumed my heart and my soul. How the only thing that made me feel alive was physical pain. I explained how I pulled my hair and screamed into my pillow and told him that the pain of getting tattoos had been therapeutic – a pain that was real, a pain I could treat; on the outside rather than on the inside, tangible and controllable.
I moved on to Kakos No. 3 and described for Ari how I had sliced the man’s throat open with my apple knife and dragged his dead, heavy body to a dumpster in Camden Town.
“I burned all my sheets and blankets and slept on a bare mattress for months afterwards. The only thing that gave me any kind of solace and comfort was the fact that you were here, safe, and away from me. I scream at night in my dreams because I cannot wash No. 3’s warm, red blood from my hands. I can feel it, whenever I close my eyes I feel his blood teasing my skin as it rolls down my fingers.”
My shaky finger pointed to tally No. 4, I told Ari about the poisoning and about all the pain taking a life away caused me. How each time I killed, I felt a piece of my soul detach, a part of my heart turn cold. I told him what murdering someone felt like and how very much I hate that I have had to kill. I needed a deep breath to speak of No. 5, how I watched the flesh bubble and peel from his face. Then I told him how I had come crawling back, like a coward, to California.
I finally came to the sixth mark, not a black tally but a jagged fleshy scar. I shook as I opened my mouth. I told him every single moment of that week I spent locked away in No. 6’s basement. Tears streamed down our faces as I told Ari about the bargain No. 6 offered each time he came to torture me – my freedom for Ari’s. I told him what it was like when the barrel of the gun was pressed firmly against my temple and the relief I felt when the chamber was empty.
Ari put his face in his hands and I watched a tear roll down his cheek, but he never asked me to stop. I told him how I can still feel the blood that trickled down my stomach after hours of standing on a stool with a noose around my neck. And I told him that what had kept me from kicking that stool over were my thoughts of him. I told him how I had been kicked and beaten. Sliced open and stitched back up. Deprived of food and water and how, when water was offered, there was a fifty/fifty chance that it was poisoned. I opened my palm and looked down at my scarred flesh. I talked about losing hope time and time again. About the joy I felt when I heard the police sirens and helicopters and then the way my heart swelled with love when I saw Ari in a sea of people, coming to rescue me.
“It’s not over, Ari,” I said, closing my eyes. “There is still someone out there, someone I did not know about until I was kidnapped.”
I told him about the one-sided phone conversations I heard and about the feeling I had had that someone else had been in the basement after I passed out from blood loss. I told him about the wet shoe print and the fading scent and how I was fairly positive the perfume was from the person who stitched up my arm. I knew No. 6 would have been happy to leave me to bleed to death if he had his way.
I told Ari about the night I went in my dream to cut No. 6’s thread and saw the shoes and felt the fading presence of someone who had been with him in the room.
I took a deep breath and went on to tell him what I had learned that night from Maya, in Athens.
“I have been researching No. 7 and the Kakos’ cohorts for months. I have become completely obsessed with finding a clue, but I have nothing really; just a few bits and pieces to go on. I don’t know who it is or how to find him. All I can do is sit here and wait for the day to come when No. 7 decides he wants to kill me.”
I looked Ari in the eye.
“So there it is, all of it. I’m sorry, Ari. I should have told you sooner. I thought I was protecting you, keeping you safe. Turns out, I was only hurting you; I can see that now. I promise I won’t ever keep things from you again. I am sorry for the way I have been acting. You don’t deserve that kind of behavior. I don’t deserve you, but I will spend the rest of my life trying to, if you will still have me.”
Ari turned to me. He had not spoken a word since I started my story. He brushed a stray hair from my face and tucked it behind my ear, and then he kissed me. His touch was electric and my lips began to tingle. He held me tight to him for a while then he put my face in his hands. His eyes were red and swollen.
“Christ, Ava, that is so much worse than I ever imagined.”
“I’m fine now, Ari. As long as I have you I am fine.”
“We are going to do this together.”
“We are,” I said nodding my head.
Chapter 16
Inconsolable
When I opened my eyes on Thanksgiving morning, Ari was already awake. He was holding me tight, running his fingers softly down my arm.
“Hey,” he whispered, “Good morning, Baby. How did you sleep?”
I blinked my eyes open.
“Morning. Do you want the truth?”
“Always.”
“I slept really great. I am so sorry that I kept so much from you. I am glad that I was finally able tell you everything that has happened.”
“I’m glad, too.”
“What time do we need to be at your parent’s house today?” I stretched.
“An hour ago,” he said, smiling.
“Oh, my! What time is it?”
“Ten thirty.”
“I’m so sorry! You could have gotten me up.”
“It’s fine, Ava, relax. I texted my mom this morning to let her know we would come over later today.”
“What did she say?”
Ari leaned over the side of the bed, picked his glasses and cell off the bedside table and read the text.
“Thank you for letting me know. Have a nice morning with your beautiful girl. I love you both so much. We will see you this afternoon!”
“Wow, that’s…so nice.”
“Of course it was nice, Ava. She’s my mom; what did you expect?”
“I saw you two talking last night, Ari. I heard what she said. She looked so angry with me… She should be angry with me, you all should be.”
Ari ran his fingers softly down my face.
“She is not angry with you, Baby. None of us are. We are worried about you.”
“Mmm…” I wrapped my body tighter around Ari. I felt so safe there in his arms.
****
We arrived at Andy and Aggie’s in the early afternoon. The house was already packed with family and close friends busily decorating for the holidays and getting ready for the evening’s Thanksgiving feast. Ari and I walked in through the back door, hand in hand, and when he wrapped his free arm around his mother and wished her a happy Thanksgiving, she smiled and kissed his cheeks. He let her go and I stepped in to take his place.
“Aggie, I am so sorry for everything I have put you through. Ari and I talked last night and….”
Aggie patted my cheek.
“I am just happy to see you smile, Ava. You don’t need to explain anything to me.”
Ari gave my hand a gentle squeeze.
Ari and I cuddled on the couch for the rest of the afternoon and laughed with friends and family. The dinner table was even more crowded than usual. The Alexanders had gained a few more celebrants over the past year. Lauren’s boyfriend, Luke, lived in Washington, so he accepted Aggie’s invitation to join them over break, and August and Collin joined us, too.
They were officially an item and Collin had even moved into our pool house to be with August. Ari and I didn’t mind. I was super happy to see August happy. He and Collin were such an odd couple that I loved to watch them interact with each other. August was sweet to Collin, getting up to refill Collin’s drink or nudging him on the shoulder, and they laughed together at little inside jokes like an old married couple. Collin never spoke with me, and at first I thought he was just shy, he would warm up to me and everything would be great. But the more I was around him, the less he even looked at me. He and Ari, and the rest of the family got along just great. With Collin around, I was reminded of who I am and how uncomfortable I make some people.