Don't Make Me Beautiful

by Elle Casey

  Brian can be as nice as an angel and smell like one too, but that’s not going to change the simple facts; she can’t stay here forever, and the longer she stays, the harder it will be to leave. John could easily find her here. Besides, Brian would only ever see her as a welfare case. To dream of anything else would be a waste of time and a recipe for disaster. Her heart is the only thing she has left. She cannot risk getting that shattered too.

  She splashes some water on her face and pats it dry with a hand towel, careful especially around the still bruised and cut areas. Staring at herself in the mirror, for the first time in years she’s thinking she can get away and hide forever. But it won’t be possible being only one street over from John. A plan begins to form in her mind. All she needs to do is earn some money somehow and then she can move to the other side of the country, to a place where he’d never think to look for her.

  She ignores the pangs of sadness at the idea of never seeing Brian again. He’s been so good to her. Not only has he given her a temporary safe haven, he’s also given her hope. It’s been so very long since she’s felt like she has another option besides waiting for a young death.

  She looks at her fingers, cringing at how crooked they are from being broken and the bones left to set themselves. Maybe she could do something online where she wouldn’t have to see people at all. Her fingers still work enough to type. She could have food and things delivered to her house and maybe even own a dog. A big one with giant teeth. She smiles at the vision of this beast as he appears in her mind. No one would be ever able to sneak up on her and catch her without a gun in her hand with him around.

  Leaving the bathroom, she takes one last look at her demolished face before turning out the light. She decides then and there that she’ll no longer be avoiding the mirror and hiding from the truth. The sooner she faces facts and gets everything out in the open with herself, the sooner she can move on and heal. The universe has given her another chance at life, and no way is she going to screw this one up too.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  BRIAN’S WAITING ON THE LIVING room couch when Nicole reappears. She’s been crying. Her eyes are red-rimmed and her face even puffier than it was before, but she’s wearing a tentative smile and she seems a lot more relaxed than she was when she left the card game.

  “Everything okay?” he asks, standing as she moves into the room.

  “Don’t get up,” she says, taking a seat on the other end of the couch. “I’m fine. I just had a minor meltdown, but I’m over it now.”

  “Playing cards with me can do that to a person.” He smiles awkwardly at his lame attempt at humor.

  “You are pretty good, I’ll give you that. But I wasn’t really trying to win, sooo…”

  He nods in appreciation. “Nice. Sounds like a definite re-match challenge. Maybe tomorrow you’ll be up to it.”

  “Maybe,” Nicole says. “But maybe you’d prefer to go out on a date or something.”

  “Sure,” he says without missing a beat, “where’d you like to go?” He’s thrilled she wants to go out somewhere. He had no idea her progress could come so swiftly and boldly like that.

  Her face flames red and she nervously wipes some sweat off her upper lip. “I didn’t mean with me.” All of a sudden it’s like she can’t look him in the eye anymore, so she stares at the coffee table, poking it with her toe a little.

  He laughs softly, even though the twinge of disappointment in his heart is uncomfortable. For the briefest moment he pictured sitting with her in a cafe having lunch. It surprises him how much he wants that to be real, for it to actually happen.

  “Well, who’d you mean, then if not you?” He knew it was too good to be true. She’d never want to go out in public, and definitely not with him. She probably looks at him and sees John in a way. They’re both big guys, they live right down the street from each other, and they both wear baseball hats. Brian wonders if he should quit doing that. Helen would throw a party.

  “You know, you could go with your girlfriend or whatever.”

  “I don’t have a girlfriend. I told you that already.” Is she fishing for information? Why? This feels distinctly like a woman feeling him out, and he’s intrigued that she’d do that. Maybe the idea of him and her in a cafe isn’t an impossibility. He refuses to analyze why he’s thinking these things. Surely there will be plenty of time to be sleepless over it later.

  “You did?” she says.

  “Maybe I did. I thought I did. Maybe I just imagined it. Or it could have been one of those times I was talking to your IV bag.”

  She throws a small pillow at him with her good arm and hits him in the face with it.

  As it falls into his lap, he just blinks a few times, no expression on his face. He loves that she feels playful around him. Besides, she could toss the coffee table onto his head and he wouldn’t do a damn thing about it. As long as he’s alive, no man will ever raise a hand to her again.

  “I heard everything you said in that room,” Nicole says, her face still on fire. She casts a few glances at him, her hands trembling just the slightest bit.

  “Oh, I don’t know about that…” He trails off, wondering if she heard him telling her over and over that he was going to take care of her, protect her, and make sure she never gets hurt again. It might be kind of embarrassing if she knew how crazy worried he was about her, how much of himself he’d dedicated to taking care of her.

  She doesn’t say anything, so he pushes the conversation forward. He doesn’t want it to stop here. “So, we could go out, you know. On a date. Or a non-date if you prefer.”

  “A non-date?”

  “Yeah. Like, as friends. Or we could make it an official date.”

  She loses her happy expression. “Stop. Now you’re just being mean.” She attempts to stand, but the couch has her sunk too far in, and her one arm being in a cast makes it difficult to get up.

  Brian leans over and takes her free hand. “Don’t go. Please? Let’s talk.” He tugs on her gently and she sits back into the cushions, glancing at him with a distrustful expression.

  He sighs heavily. “You just have to accept the fact that I’m going to say all kinds of awkward, goofy things. I’m sorry if I offended you. Please forgive me.”

  “You didn’t say anything that offended me,” she says, sighing herself. She’s staring at the wall opposite the couch. “I just know that you’re joking, and it hurts to know that I’m never going to have that life for myself. I lost out.” She shrugs and then looks at him. “It’s pitiful, right? How some girls feel like they need that?”

  “No.” He shakes his head emphatically. “It’s not just girls, it’s guys too. Everyone wants to feel loved, attractive, desired. That’s just part of being human.”

  “But monsters don’t have the luxury of enjoying human things.”

  He throws the pillow back at her, hitting her in the shoulder with it. “Stop. Now you’re just feeling sorry for yourself.”

  Her jaw drops open. “What?”

  “You heard me.” This refusal to participate in the pity-party feels like the right thing to do, so he runs with it, hoping all the while it doesn’t backfire on him. “You’re not going to mope around here all day and night feeling sorry for yourself. This house is a pity-party-free zone.”

  She sputters out a response. “But … that’s just … that’s just rude.” She doesn’t get up, she stares at him, visibly angry now.

  Brian prefers angry to sad any day, so he shrugs nonchalantly, like he could care less that she doesn’t like it. “I’m a realist. You had a problem, now you have to move on from it. Now you have options. You need to pick an option, make your plan, and then live that plan. It’s that simple.”

  “Oh, it’s that simple, is it?” She’s fuming.

  “Yeah. Step one, step two, step three, etcetera. Just follow the program.”

  “Except you need a program to start with,” she says, her words clipped. “That’s just a major detail and something I
don’t have.”

  “Yeah? So, make one.”

  She throws up her one good arm, now sounding more frustrated than angry. “And how am I going to do that? I have no job, no money, no ID … nothing!”

  Brian stands up and goes over to the small desk in the corner that serves as his office. Grabbing a legal pad and pen off the surface of it, he turns to face her. “What you need is a plan and it just so happens that I have paper and pen handy. Plan-making materials.”

  “Oh, well … all my problems are solved.”

  Brian comes back to the couch, sitting slightly closer to Nicole. He’s secretly thrilled when she doesn’t move away. “Okay, step one … you need identification. Where’s your driver’s license?”

  “I don’t know. John has it somewhere.”

  “Fine. We’ll go online and order a new one and have it mailed here. I did it just three months ago, it’s easy as pie.” He writes that on the first line of the paper. “That takes care of the identification issue. Next?”

  “Job? Money? Transportation? A dog?”

  He looks at her. “A dog?”

  She shrugs, suddenly looking shy. “Yeah. I was thinking it could protect me.”

  Brian growls low in his throat, pointing the pen towards his face. “Grrrrrr. What do you think?”

  She picks up the pillow and pops him gently in the face with it. “No. I want a real dog, not you.”

  He play-frowns, looking at her with the most pitiful expression he can make.

  She smiles and shoves him. “Quit that.”

  The giggle that escapes her lips makes Brian grin, knowing he’s gotten her out of her funk, at least partway. He goes back to his list. “Okay, fine. Dog. Check. Next on the list … job.” He looks over at his desk. “I need someone to do my books.” Looking at her, he shifts into begging mode. “Please, rescue me from my nightmare.”

  “No you don’t, stop playing around.”

  “No, I’m serious.” Brian puts the pad down on the coffee table and jumps up from the couch, striding over to his desk. He opens a drawer and pulls out a stack of papers, holding them up for her. “Do you see these? Receipts. Bills. Invoices. You name it, I need help with it.”

  “What have you been doing all this time without help?” she asks, sounding suspicious.

  “Winging it. Paying part time help. Getting gray hair.” He points to his head. “This used to be blond. Now look at me.”

  “You have like two gray hairs.”

  “See! It’s a nightmare.”

  She looks like she’s trying not to smile. “I can’t work for you.”

  He puts down the papers and walks back to the couch, dropping into the seat even closer to Nicole than before. “It pays thirty thousand a year plus housing and food.”

  She swallows loudly. “I can’t.”

  He leans in and uses his cajoling tone. “Three weeks’ vacation…”

  “That’s pretty generous for a new employee.”

  “I’m easily swayed by a cute personality.”

  Her face goes a pretty pink. “You think I have a cute personality?”

  “I know you do.”

  “You don’t know me as well as you think you do,” she says quietly.

  “So work for me. Work with me. Be my bookkeeper, coffee maker, slave-driver, bossy girl. I’ll get to know you really well.”

  She shifts in her seat to look at him. “I get to be a bossy girl, too?”

  “Yes. I like being bossed around. Just ask my ex.”

  Nicole laughs and pushes on Brian’s shoulder. “I’m not the bossy type. I’m more used to being bossed around.”

  He shifts sideways to see her better, facing her and just a foot apart. “Oh, I don’t know about that.” He acts like he’s searching her eyes more deeply. “I’m pretty sure I see a bossy girl in there somewhere.”

  She’s smiling in response for a few seconds, but then her face falls.

  “What? What’d I say this time?” he asks.

  “Nothing.” Her lips tremble and she drops her gaze to her lap. “I’m sorry. I’m just a mess of emotions right now. It’s like I’m on a seesaw or a roller coaster. Up, down, up, down … happy, sad, happy, sad.”

  “Come here.” Brian puts his arms across her shoulders and pulls her in to his side as he leans back in the cushions. “I’m sure that’s completely normal. After all you’ve been through, you can’t be expected to even know how to feel yet. Your world’s been warped for too long.”

  “I thought we weren’t allowed to have pity parties in your house.”

  “We aren’t. This isn’t a pity party, this is just us discussing the facts. Facts are that you had a few years of your life taken away from you. Now we’re going to get them back. Forward movement from here on out. Pity parties are backward steps, but we’re not going to take any of those, right?”

  “Right,” she says, not sounding very convinced.

  He squeezes her several times, rocking her body. “Come oooon … say it like you mean it.”

  “Forward movement, never back,” she mumbles petulantly.

  “That’s it. Listen, you’re going to stumble, but that’s what I’m here for. Lean on me. I’ll keep you from falling.”

  “I think I am.” She looks up at him and then glances at his shoulder she’s leaning into.

  “Yeah, but I mean figuratively.”

  “I’m pretty sure I’m doing that too.”

  “Okay, good. Keep doing it and we’ll be fine.”

  “What do you get out of all this?” she asks. “The benefits for me are clear, but what about you?”

  Brian turns to look at her, his face just inches from hers. “I get you, of course.” Leaning forward he kisses her on the forehead.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  NICOLE LAYS IN BED THAT night, thinking back on her first evening spent with Brian outside the hospital. He’s charming, kind, funny, intelligent, handsome as any man she’s ever known, and … he kissed her. It was only on the forehead, but it was a kiss.

  Her face goes warm with the memory, and her body responds to the fantasy that starts building in her mind about him. Maybe one day he’ll kiss her for real and not just on the forehead. He said something about going out on a date with her.

  But then she immediately erases those ideas from her mind, getting angry with herself over being so stupid. She’s never going out on a date, let alone with a man like Brian. He’s too good for her. He needs to be with a beautiful woman who won’t make his son run away in fear. Someone who’s confident and happy and brilliant.

  Just the idea of that never being her reality makes her exhausted with sadness. She falls asleep, her last depressing thought being that she just described the woman she used to be, before she met John. If only she had met Brian first, how different her life would have turned out…

  The darkness of sleep rolls in and with it comes a nightmare. She’s in pain. There’s a burning between her legs and cramps in her lower abdomen. A stickiness down there tells her there’s blood. A lot of blood. She’s hiding in the garage. He never comes in the garage. She thought that of all the places she could go to ride this out, this would be the place he’d never look. He knows she’s terrified of mice and roaches and all manner of things that make their home out here. Blankets on the ground and a throw-pillow from the couch make up her bed. A wall of boxes and cast-off junk shields the view of her sleeping area from the door leading into the house.

  She pants in quick bursts to be as quiet as possible. He’s sleeping. If she can just keep it silent in here, he won’t wake up, he won’t come to investigate, and he won’t do anything bad. She can hide everything until she’s well enough to leave. Now she has a reason to leave for good, and nothing is going to stop her.

  She cries out with the pain, clamping a hand quickly over her own mouth to cut off the sound. Grabbing the pillow from under her head, she buries her face in it and screams.

  “Nicole! Nicole!” Someone is shaking her shoulder, mak
ing the pain worse. Oh no! He’s found me!

  “No, no, no, no, no!” she screams, biting the pillow hard, trying to keep the screams inside so he won’t hear. Maybe he’s not really here. Maybe it’s just her imagination.

  “Nicole, it’s me. It’s Brian. You’re having a bad dream.”

  The dark vision of the garage begins to fade and a sense of confusion takes over. The hard concrete floor isn’t a hard concrete floor; it feels more like … a mattress.

  “Brian?” she asks, turning her face out of the pillow a little, making it easier to breathe. The lamp on her bedside table goes on.

  “Yes, it’s me, see? Are you okay? I heard you screaming. You sounded like you were being murdered in your sleep.”

  “No,” she says, breathing out loudly as reality comes in fully to burn off the fog in her brain. “Not me,” she says, flopping over onto her back. “Thanks for waking me up. That was awful.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Her face crumples as she realizes how badly she wants to talk about it but can’t.

  “Here.” Brian pushes on her side with his butt. “Move over so I can lay next to you.”

  She doesn’t argue, because the idea of his big, bulky body being next to hers is too enticing to refuse. Maybe if he’s there being her guard dog while she sleeps, it’ll scare the nightmares away. Shifting awkwardly with the pain of her ribs and broken arm, she makes room for him.

  He reclines on the bed, staying outside the covers while she stays inside them. He props his arms up behind his head and she scoots down to give his elbows some room.

  “I knew I should have gotten a double bed for this room,” Brian says, sighing.

  They lay in silence for a long time before Brian speaks again. “So, tell me about the dream.”

  “It wasn’t a dream, really. It was more a memory of something that happened.”

  “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “Why no?”

  “Because it’s too awful. I just want to try and forget it.” She doesn’t tell him the whole truth. What she’s most worried about is being judged. She’s already done enough of that to herself, but to have someone as good as Brian judge her would be way worse. But not telling him feels like deceiving him in a way. It makes her feel really sad, and along with the memory of that night in the garage and the days that followed, it’s enough to make her cry again.