by West, Sinden
“Is that right?” I asked quietly.
“Yeah. Weird they left when you turned up though.”
“Yeah. Weird…”
He left to go to work, probably still drunk. There was an air of sadness about him that made me twitch slightly with sympathy, but then I hardened my heart. He hadn’t yet seen the worst of what my mother had to offer. I needed to keep all my sympathy for myself. On the kitchen counter, buried under a pile of unpaid bills, I found the memory card that I had mailed to my mother. It had never been opened so she must have left long before I sent it. My mouth twisted a little at the realization that she would probably never know how I felt
I still had my old clothes in my room. I changed into a pair of shorts, t-shirt and some old sneakers. I didn’t need anything else. I didn’t bother to leave a note for Todd.
It was only a short walk to the bottom of the mountain. The day was warm and the sun felt nice on my skin. My legs felt strong as I started up the path. Many times I had walked up here, carrying alcohol for the party. It would always take us forever to get there as we laughed and giggled, drinking as we went.
When I broke out of the covered track, it didn’t surprise me to see that our old partying spot still looked the same. Beer cans littered the scenic area and there was broken glass scattered about. Down below the sea crashed and its sound brought a smile to my lips.
A chain link fence had been erected to protect drunken teenagers from falling over the edge, but someone had cut through a corner of it to create a hole. I squeezed my way through and carefully sat on the edge of the cliff. There was something empowering about dangling my feet over the side like this. The merest slip and I would fall down to meet my friends. My blood would be washed clean as the waves swallowed up my broken bones.
I thought about it. I seemed to have come full circle, and to go over the edge would be the right way to go. It would be better to die by my own hand than by that of the men that I tried to manipulate and steal from. I didn’t want to become someone like Ann, whose specialness had long been hidden by her sadness and lifestyle.
But then I closed my eyes, and remembered all the good times I had here and how friendship had rebuilt me so that I was no longer just a pawn for my mother. I had turned into a surly, bitchy teenager when I moved here, and I still liked that long lost girl. Eventually, I got to my feet and returned down the mountain.
This became my ritual. Sometimes, I could sit there for hours. Especially when the sun was warm on my face and the smell of salt drifted up to meet me. I would conjure up imaginary conversations with Mara and Torrance. They were so vivid in my mind that on occasion I would laugh out loud and doubt my own sanity.
As dusk fell, I would return to that neglected house with a drunken and heartbroken Todd. He was a tortured soul who would drink to the point of throwing up and then cry himself to sleep. Once, he brought a woman home from a bar. She was a tarty looking brunette who may have been a prostitute. He had sex with her in the kitchen and cried out my mother’s name when he came. When we woke up in the morning, she had stolen the TV.
“Another bitch,” he muttered. “I always get the bitches. Your mother, you, and…” he waved his cigarette holding hand around “and whatever her name was.” With the TV gone, there was nothing left to distract him. He drank even more and I contemplated hitting the road again. None of my living friends were here anymore. They had all left to try for something better and, to be honest, I was so detached from them that the idea that I could ever sit down and have a normal conversation with them was surreal.
Chapter Nineteen
One afternoon, when Todd was passed out on the couch in the living room, I went into the room that he had shared with my mother. Her dressing table was untouched. Her silver plated hairbrush still out and her cosmetics spread across it as if she couldn’t decide which lipstick to wear that last morning. The fact that she had left all these things behind meant she knew that she was going somewhere where money would be in abundance and her lover would never deny her anything.
I picked up one of the bright colors and twisted the tube so the red was revealed. I carefully circled my mouth with it so I was left with a sexy pout. It was amazing how much it changed my appearance. Now I looked like a sex siren. For a few moments, I made up a crazy story in my head about a haunted lipstick that made its wearer into a cruel femme fatale who whored out her daughter and drove men to their deaths.
Next, I took hold of the heavy bottle of perfume that was her signature scent, spraying it onto my neck and wrists. As the scent rose up around me, I closed my eyes and remembered things from my childhood. They were pleasant memories of her reading me stories at bedtime and lying with me for hours and stroking my hair when I was sick.
When I opened my eyes, Todd’s reflection stared back at me. I jumped in fright and turned to face him.
“Those are her things.”
“Were.” I got to my feet. “They were her things. She’s not coming back, you idiot. Get used to it.”
“You look like her,” he breathed, and I hoped that he wasn’t going to cry again.
I lifted my chin. “I know. Trust me, I’ve used it to my advantage over the years.” I went to move past him but he shifted so he stood in front of me.
“I love that lipstick. Could you…could you just do me a favor?” He had a begging tone to his voice that made my heart nearly soften toward his wretchedness.
“What?” I asked impatiently.
His hands shook as they went to his belt buckle. “Could you just put my penis in your mouth? Please? Just once? She used to always put her lipstick on before she’d go down on me and, well—”
I took a step closer to him as I swallowed down my revulsion and met his eyes. “Let’s get this one thing straight. My mother is a whore. I, on the other hand, am not a whore. I am not a fucking whore, I never have been. I was a victim, but I’m not now. Get it?”
He stepped back, nodding wordlessly, his eyes wide.
Did I look scary? I certainly sounded terrifying. “Good.” I moved past him, leaving him to the relics on the dressing table that he would no doubt leave in place until his infatuation subsided, or he died of liver disease, whichever would come first.
I had to get away from his hero worship of her. It was sickening, and worse, it reminded me of what I had once been like. Once I was out the front door, I took off in a sprint, heading for the lookout. My daily walks had given my thin legs strength and I ran up the hill with ease. I pumped my arms and sucked in the fresh air, aching for the smell of the sea to clear my head, and the edge of the cliff to give me options.
I wasn’t surprised to see the dark car parked there. Nor was I surprised to see the man dressed in black sitting on the other side of the barrier, near the edge and facing the sea. It was like I knew that he would come eventually. I cautiously walked toward him, approaching him like the predator that he was. He didn’t move at all. Not even as I squeezed through the barrier and sat beside him.
Neither of us said anything at first. We just sat and watched a cruel sea batter the sharp rocks as if trying to whittle them away to nothing.
“You stalking me? Living up to your creepiness?”
He shrugged. “Well, you did leave me for dead. It’s only fair. By the way, thanks for the films. They really became the highlight of my week. They were sick, but educational.” I looked hard at him. It was hard to tell if he were joking or not.
“What do you want, Aaron?” I asked finally. It was strange to be sitting so close to him and not touching him; it was strange that touching him was all that I wanted to do, in spite of everything.
“You know what I want,” he said quietly, never moving his eyes from the ocean.
“No I don’t. Not really. All I know is that I’m your obsession, and obsessions are things that people normally get over eventually.”
“They normally get over hatred as well. Have you had any luck with that lately?”
I pressed my lips hard t
ogether before asking, “Why did you kill them? Was it your plan to torment me in every single facet of my life? To torment me when I didn’t even know that you existed?”
He shook his head. “I told you that I didn’t kill them. If Ryan told you that, then he was just fucking with you and trying to turn you against me. When have I ever lied to you?”
I didn’t answer that because I couldn’t. “You slaughtered his family.”
“I had my reasons. I didn’t do it for fun and didn’t enjoy it. It’s played over in my mind continually over the years and I always come back to the conclusion that I couldn’t have done anything different. Regardless, it’s nothing to do with us. I’m sorry that you got caught up in it and got hurt because of me, but you don’t need to think about those people or concern yourself with them.” He grasped onto my hand, it felt secure and warm.
“I could jump right now and take you with me,” I told him as I tightened my own grip.
“You could,” he agreed. “But that would be a waste. We’re young. We’re strong. We can move on. We could have a life together.”
“What we have isn’t life, Aaron. This is just a constant purgatory, paying for our sins over and over again. We punish each other.”
“I don’t see it that way. You said once that I reminded you of Janus. I looked him up, you know, he’s the god of doorways and transition. Shouldn’t that give you hope?” My face was still stone and he ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “Look, you know what I am. I don’t need to lie to you about anything, and, yeah, the things I’ve done to you are…unforgivable. But Rachel, you left me for dead. Doesn’t that even the score?”
I looked away, down to the waves crashing below us. “Were you in a great deal of pain?”
“My leg’s fucked up, and it took hours for Antony to find me. I lay there for a long time thinking about everything that I’ve done in my life, but mostly, I just thought about you. Every time I got an envelope from you I’d travel to the town it was post marked to, trying to find you. I think that I knew that you’d wind up back here eventually. You have no idea how crazy you make me.”
I let out a small laugh, one that was genuine and free of mocking or sarcasm. “You were crazy a long time before I came along. You can’t blame me for that.”
His lips curved up slightly. “I told you before. I’m ruthless, even obsessive, but I’m not insane.” He cupped my cheek gently. “What do you want me to do? What do I have to do to make you come home?”
“Did you kill them?” I bit out. “Did you kill my friends right here?”
He shook his head. “No, and I’m not lying. I promise you that.”
I reached up to cup my hand over his. “Good.” I let a few moment pass before I managed to get out the words that had been roaming through my head. I swallowed. “In that case, if you find and kill my mother then I’ll come home with you.”
He held my gaze and I had no idea what he was thinking, until he opened his mouth succinctly and said, “No.”
“Why not? That’s what you do isn’t it?”
“Yes.” His hand dropped away from my cheek and I missed it. “But I won’t do it for you because you’d regret it later, and then you’d hate me even more.”
I nodded. “You’re right, but I don’t know what else to do.” I put my hands on my stomach. “It hurts. Every day it hurts to know that she doesn’t care about what she’s done to me. I worshipped her for so long…” Sharp tears pricked at my eyes.
He reached over and gripped at my hands. “Then we’ll get her back another way, but we won’t kill her.”
I fought back the tears. “Aaron? Did you kill your father?”
He seemed to freeze under my touch for a moment then took a breath. “Yeah, I did.”
“Because he beat you?” I asked softly.
He shook his head. “No, well, maybe partly because of that. I’m not sure why really. I found him crouched over my mother’s body, shaking and crying like the pathetic pussy he always accused me of being. He should have been out there avenging her death instead of hiding away and throwing a pity party. He was the worst kind of man, only able to pick on and harass those who he thought were lambs instead of going after the wolves. So I shot him with his own gun before getting my crossbow and going hunting.” His lips were thin at the memory and his eyes determined.
“What did Ryan’s family do to yours?”
I sucked in a breath and waited.
“His father was this spoilt rich kid who became a survivalist and was convinced that there was a government conspiracy to end his lifestyle. He started up a type of commune for anti-establishment weirdos and they all worshipped him like he was some kind of god. My family may have been religious nut jobs but they were never as ruthless as him. The bank was about to foreclose on our land and he offered my mother a deal. He’d pay off the overdue debt as long as she slept with him.” Aaron let out a bitter laugh. “And my Dad knew, he just didn’t care as long as all of his problems were taken care of. She got depressed and eventually killed herself. She was religious, she’d probably never slept with anyone else besides my father her whole life because she knew it would be a sin.” His lips twisted for a second before returning to normal. “Anyway, I went blind with rage and went to kill that weirdo freak. I tied him up and bashed his head against a wall until he died. They came after me, and I found a hiding spot and picked them off one by one.”
“And then what happened?”
“I called my uncle before I left to go on my killing spree, he tried to talk me out of it but I didn’t listen. When he finally arrived, everyone was dead who needed to be. He helped cover for me and that was that. The police were all too happy to believe that it was my Dad who did it. No one really cared that they were dead. They were just a bunch of nut jobs with weapons and everyone in the community were wary of them.”
“Do you regret killing your father?”
He shrugged. “Sometimes, but I guess that I’ll see him when I go to hell.” Then he frowned, sadness on his face. “You would’ve liked me, that kid, before…everything.”
I concentrated on breathing, on planning what I would say next. “Sometimes there are parts of you that I like.”
I saw something in his eyes then — hope. “Then come home, Rachel. There’s nothing here for you. You belong with me. If, in the future, you decide that you need to act on your mother to find peace, then I’ll help you. But right now, just come back. I need my life to get back to normal, and to do that, I need you with me.”
I watched as he stood, clearly favoring one leg, and he held out a hand to me. Slowly, I reached out and took it. It would have been easy to pull him down at that moment while he balanced precariously on his good leg. I could have sent him spiraling down onto sharp rocks, but he would have taken me with him. We would have died together and nothing would be achieved.
So instead, I let him pull me to my feet with his secure grip so he didn’t let go of my hand, and I wasn’t sure that I wanted him too. “I want you, Rachel.” He brushed hair away from my face and bent down to kiss me. His lips were seductive as always, and I felt the familiar moistening between my legs.
When our lips broke apart, I looked him in the eye. “Part of me wants to fuck you right here, while the other part wants to push you over the edge.”
“Change takes time, Rachel. If you get in that car with me right now, I’ll give you everything that you’ve ever wanted,” he murmured. “If you don’t, well, I won’t come after you. Not if you don’t want me to. I’ll leave you alone. But just remember that I came for you. I’ll always come for you when you need me.”
He let my hand fall as he looked down at me, waiting. My mind raced and a lump in my throat formed. After a few moments of silence and inaction, he gave a resigned sigh and stepped back. “Goodbye, Rachel.” His lips quirked slightly. “Paige. I guess you’re Paige now.”
He turned and bent as he went through the hole in the fence. I watched him limping away, back to the ca
r. There was something broken about him now, although there always was. Only now, with that limp, it was visible on the outside. No longer was he a less than human machine; now he was fallible and breakable. There was a mortality to him that had always been close to imperceptible before. The damage to his physical strength and perfection gave him an almost frailty, removing the formidability and replacing it with something that could be conquered.
A wounded demon…
I tensed my own strong and useful legs, digging in my fingers and feeling the toned muscle that wrapped my bones, protecting and empowering me.
“Wait,” I whispered. Then I found my voice and started forward, through the fence. “Wait. Wait!”
He paused with his hand on the door of the car. I did not break into a run. I would not give him the satisfaction of seeing me sprint toward him. Instead, I walked slowly and gracefully over the terrain like a Queen for whom everyone else should be waiting on.
I stood on the other side of the car from him, just out of reach if he chose to touch me. “Tell me again,” I told him. “Tell me what you want.”
He met my eyes with his dark ones, his face still guarded. “I want you to come with me. This will be a new beginning, a new story, if you like.”
I took a breath and opened the car door. “I’m coming. Let’s go home.”
His eyes searched me like he expected something more, but I would not give him that. We both got in the car, doors slamming in unison and we were encased in dark leather and shiny metal as the sun was blocked from our skins by the tinted windows. This car could be a cage, a home for the soulless. I reached across and wrapped my palm around his wrist as far as it would go. He looked down at me.
“You made the right decision,” he told me.
I smiled at him — it was the smile of seduction and scheming; the smile of Rachels and Hannahs; and of a mended broken doll.
And then I turned that smile into something more genuine. I could have played games, I could have done my best to play him and manipulate him, trying to control him. But that would be pointless. That would lead only to emptiness, and I wanted something that was real.