Kiss Me, I'm Undead

by Tasha L Driver

  #BFFGoals

  I woke up feeling rested at around ten in the morning. At first, I felt amazingly unstressed. It took a full five minutes for the events of the night to rush back to me. I don’t even know how I was able to get any sleep in the first place. Perhaps I had been in shock and by the time I got home it had worn off and been replaced by exhaustion. I was, after all, feeling physically horrible right before everything happened.

  I got out of bed and wondered how I’d even gotten there in the first place. The last thing I remember was Jill dropping me off. I think I went to check on Freddie, too, and make sure he’d gotten out of the bar and home safely. He had. Oh well. At least I was clean and in my favorite pajamas.

  I went to the bathroom, then made myself breakfast before calling Jill. And by breakfast, I mean a rare steak. And by rare steak, I mean I tossed some salt on it and threw it in a hot pan for thirty seconds on each side before pulling it out with my bare hand and biting into it. I wasn’t kidding myself anymore.

  After washing blood off my hands—again—I grabbed my cell phone and called Jill. She picked up on the very first ring. “Hey, girl! You get any rest?”

  There was that concern again. I started biting my nails. “Umm... yeah, I did. I was really out of it.” Not a lie. I was getting good at letting people in. “Have you heard from Frank?”

  “Yeah. Gina made it out of surgery. She’s not really awake yet, but we’re allowed to go visit.”

  That was a relief. “What time did you want to go to the hospital?”

  “I’m ready whenever you are. I only slept a couple of hours and have been up for a while.”

  “Oh! I’m sorry...Well, uh, I just need to put on clothes. I can be ready in twenty.” Ready was relative. I don’t think I was really ready to go to the hospital, but I needed to. I needed to see how much damage I’d caused.

  “On my way. See you in a minute.” She hung up, and I dropped the phone on the couch and got my ass in gear. I threw on a pair of yoga pants and a tank. Took three minutes to find a stupid hair-tie, but I did and pulled my hair into a messy bun. I guess the look I was going for was “basic.”

  I put on minimal make-up. Mostly concealer to cover up the dark spots, powder and bronzer to add color to my still-pallid skin, and a rosy pink lipstick.

  By the time I’d finished and checked out my front bay window, Jill was pulling up to the curb. She honked politely. I grabbed a cherry-print cardigan sweater and my purse. After slipping my feet into an old pair of black and white Chuck’s, I was out the door.

  I got into Jillesa’s car and said hello. Her eyes we’re as wide as a creepy-ass owl as she took me in. “What?” I asked. Oh, fuck me. Is my make up enough, or do I look as ragged as I feel?

  “Who. The hell. Are you?”

  Was she serious? I’d had too much of a fucked-up week to tell what was real anymore. “I’m... me?”

  “Oh, uh-un. I don’t know this girl. This person that just got in my car is some suburban soccer mom on her way to the mall to pick up a new pair of leggings and some Uggs.” She gave me a slight grin and a wink. “That bad, huh? The bags under your eyes would get an extra fifty bucks tacked on by United. You didn’t have to lie when you said you’d slept.”

  “I didn’t. I slept. I’m just still feeling like death and last night didn’t help.” I looked down at myself. She was right about the soccer mom look. “I didn’t feel like putting myself together the way I normally would.”

  Jill put the car in gear and pulled off. “That’s okay. Believe it or not, I like seeing you this way. You’re...you for a change.”

  Huh? I didn’t understand what she meant and didn’t want to find out so I focused on something else entirely. She had music playing on the radio so I turned it up. To my surprise, it was Gospel. I didn’t take her for the type to listen to it. Not with the spandex and pleather apparel she wore to work. I took a moment to check out her outfit as well. Then I had a good laugh. She was wearing black yoga pants identical to mine and a long tunic top. I leaned over toward her to look at her shoes and bust out laughing even more. They were Uggs. She knew exactly what I was laughing at and joined in.

  “I guess we’re two peas in a suburban soccer mom pod.”

  “Sometimes the occasion calls on me being ‘me’ for a change too.” She stopped laughing then and kept looking forward as she drove. “They took her to Trinity Hospital, thank God. Can you imagine if they’d chanced it at South Shore? She’d be dead by now.”

  No, I couldn’t imagine that. “I’m so happy she made it through.” I have no idea what brought on the sudden urge to open up. Maybe the last twenty-four hours had been too rough. Maybe it was the fear of losing Gina. Could have also been that the Jill I was seeing now was so laid back and...trustworthy. I just really needed to work out my feelings to someone other than the damn walls of my apartment and it somehow felt right to talk about a part of my past with Jill. “My mom sucked.”

  Jill raised her eyebrows, but didn’t comment. After a long silence, I realized that she knew exactly what I needed.

  “My real dad died when I was six. He had a stroke at thirty-eight. My mom waited literally six goddamned months before shacking up with her boss. One morning she woke me up and told me to put on a dress. He drove the three of us downtown. When we got there, he paid two guys on the street to come in this building with us. It was the courthouse. They were married by a judge with random strangers as witnesses.” I took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “After that, he kept coming home with new stuff. An entertainment center. An expensive watch. Even a brand-new car. It was years later when I realized that my mom had given him control, as her husband, of my dad’s insurance money. Meanwhile, I wore clothes from the thrift store and ate mayo sandwiches for lunch.”

  “Oh shit! I’m so sorry, Kayla. How did he get away with that?”

  I shrugged. “My mom let him. Hell, she ate steak and lobster right along with him. They went out every night, and I was always alone, fending for myself.”

  “Wasn’t there other family that could see what was going on, though?”

  “Not really. My mom had sisters, but they didn’t talk at all.”

  “Damn.” She looked so pitying, but she hadn’t even heard the worst of it.

  I figured I’d told her this much, I might as well tell her the whole wretched-ass story. “My stepfather was really controlling. Nothing was right unless it’d met some fucked up standard he had in his head. When my mother or I would figure out his standard, he would change it to something completely different. And if I messed up, he’d hit my mom. He’d tell her it was her fault that I was a fuck up. That he never should have married her without testing her spawn to make sure it wasn’t malfunctioned.”

  Jill made a gagging noise in her throat. “Malfunctioned? He called you that?”

  “Yeah...I guess he figured since I wasn’t carrying his genes, I was somehow just wrong.”

  “No, girl. He was wrong. You know that, right?” I did now, so I nodded.

  “Anyway. My mom just let him hit her and apologized for not making sure I pleased him. She would actually say that too, can you believe it? I was supposed to please him.”

  “Dammit, Kayla. That’s so fucked up. At least he didn’t mess with you though.” I stared out the passenger window at Saturday morning Chicago traffic. “No, Kayla. No! Jesus Christ.”

  For a mile or two, I just kept staring out the window, breathing in deep and letting my breaths fog up the glass on each exhale. In. Out. In. Out. “He would say that it was all because I kept flaunting myself at him. That I’d developed too early and wore my clothes too tight. But they were small because he never allowed my mom to use the bank account to buy me new clothes. I was twelve when it started. I don’t know how I could have flaunted myself, but that’s how he saw it.”

  “Girl, he didn’t see it that way. That’s a lie sickos tell you.”

  “No...he did. He really believed it. Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
I read about it in a book once. It fit him to a tee. People with the disorder change the world to fit whatever they want to believe, putting everyone else in the position of wrong and the narcissist is always a victim of others acting against them.”

  “Did you ever tell your mom?”

  “She caught him on top of me when I was sixteen.” Jillesa gulped in a sharp intake of air to my right. She didn’t say anything right away, and I really needed a minute before I finished this story. It felt good to get it out after so many years, but it still weighed heavily on me.

  Her voice sounded so small when she finally asked another question. “She...she left him though, right?”

  I wish. “He beat the shit out of her for hours. I heard him say the most awful things to her. He told her he knew she’d ‘trained’ me to take her place all so that she could sleep with other men. He said she had pawned me off on him so he took what she gave him.” I wiped away a single tear that had fallen. One that I had promised myself a long time ago would never be shed. “She apologized to him for conspiring with me.”

  “Oh, please tell me those were not the words she used.” I cut my eyes toward her. I wished I was making it sound worse than it was. But, honestly, I don’t know if that was possible.

  “She came into my room after he’d gone to sleep. Her eye was black, her lip was busted, and she had a blood-stained bandage wrapped around her forearm. She told me...she said she wished I was old enough to leave. She said I’d caused trouble in her marriage long enough, and she couldn’t wait ‘til I turned eighteen so she could kick me out. I saved her the trouble. After she drank herself to sleep, I packed what I could in my backpack and left.”

  Jill turned her head toward me, her lips in the shape of a gaping “O.” “You ran away at sixteen? I didn’t know that. Where did you go?”

  I chuckled humorlessly. “Now, that I can’t tell you.”

  “You just told me all of that, but you won’t say where you went when you left?”

  I’d said “can’t” not “won’t,” but I wasn’t getting into that with her. “Yeah... story time’s over, bitch.” I smiled slyly at her. “Explains a lot now doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah. It explains why you don’t let anyone in. Ever. I appreciate you doing so with me right now, though.” She got quiet and kept her eyes on the road. “Is Gina the first person to, like, really be a mom to you?”

  “Yep.”

  She sighed. “Me too.” I jerked my head toward her. I didn’t know that. “My mom has been working three jobs for as long as I can remember to take care of my brothers and me. She cares, we just never got the chance to bond. Gina is tough, but she a mother to every single person that works for her. Half the neighborhood, too. We’re like her little misfit toys. Hell, I can almost believe she only hires people that she feels need someone like her in their life. Charli’s mom drinks. Robert’s is locked up for killing a man that tried to rape her back in the eighties. She got life without parole for defending herself.” She looked like she wanted to say more but didn’t. I could guess.

  “He was White wasn’t he.” She nodded. There was really nothing more to say. “Thanks for listening to me. And for letting me know that about Gina. I kind of feel wanted for the first time in my life.”

  Jill reached over and squeezed my hand. “We should be closer friends than we are, I think. You’re cuter than me, and I let my inner bitch get the best of me.” I laughed, and she chuckled along with me. “Besties?”

  Even though I had no clue how long I’d be around, I loved the thought of having a best friend so I agreed. “Yeah...besties.”

  We didn’t talk for the rest of the drive to the hospital, but she never let go of my hand. It wasn’t as weird as anyone might think it would be. In that moment, we were just there. Together. On our way to see the mother-figure who’d saved my life. I still didn’t tell Jillesa that part, and I probably never would. Some things, no friendship can survive.

  I Caused This...

  We arrived and checked in at the information desk. The woman there gave us directions to a waiting room just outside the intensive care unit. Jill called Frank when we got up there, and he came out to meet us.

  “How is she?” Jill asked, the concern seeping from her voice. I held back, about five feet away from the two of them, wringing my hands. I wasn’t just worried about the state Gina may or may not be in. I was also feeling out of sorts. All the different smells in the hospital were making me feel ill.

  “Okay.” Frank answered.

  “Everything is, you know...fixed?”

  “Yeah.”

  I could see Jill becoming agitated. “Well, what’s the, what do they call it, prognosis or whatever?”

  Frank shrugged and closed his glassy, red eyes for a moment. The dark circles under them stood out more under the fluorescent lights. He was either too tired or too ready to lose his shit and break down right there. “I don’t know.”

  He sunk down in a chair, and then the tears fell. Jill sat down next to him, and I sat next to her. She rubbed her hand back and forth across his shoulder, but for the most part we just sat in silence. All we could do was wait to be told she’d woken up.

  An hour passed before a nurse came out to tell us Gina’s situation. She was awake, and it was okay for Jill and I to visit as long as we didn’t stay too long. Frank, of course, was welcome to remain by her side. She had broken ribs and damage to both her spleen and one kidney from the bullet that entered her gut. Luckily, it missed her lung and was no where near her heart. It would take a lot of recovery time, but she’d be okay. I was relieved, but still uneasy.

  Frank went in first to see her, then he came out and motioned for me to follow him. He led me to a small room that was surprisingly very, very loud. There were machines everywhere. Some had bright green numbers on the front of them and beeped steadily every few seconds. One was on a pole that held three bags, each leading to a tube that hung out of two IV sites on her arm. One bag was completely clear. One had a slight yellow-brown color. The third was clearly blood being pumped into her to replace what she’d lost. Another machine held a little glass vial inside it and a cord leading to a trigger that Gina held in a hand that appeared too small.

  She was suffering, and I wanted to run away and scream. I’d been here before,. Watching someone else who’d been put in a hospital bed because of me. Except he didn’t wake up.

  Frank leaned down and placed a gentle hand on Gina’s shoulder. “Mama? Kayla’s here,” he whispered to her in a soft voice I didn’t even know he had. To me, he said, “She asked for you the minute I came in here. You want me to go?”

  I shook my head. Though her asking for me had me worried, I couldn’t bring myself to tell him yes and tear him from his mother just then. I would have to deal with the fallout of what he heard. He backed away to allow me to take his place next to her, and sat in green reclining chair in the corner. I had a feeling he’d be spending a lot of hours in that chair over the next couple of days.

  “Gina?” I croaked, willing her eyes to look up at me without hate or blame. They fluttered open slowly, and what I saw in them was neither of the things I’d expected. I think my heart may have stopped as her glassy, yet lucid and warm, gaze took me in and relief flashed through them.

  “Baby girl, you’re okay,” she said in a hoarse whisper.

  “Y-yeah. I’m...” Why was she worried about me? “I’m so sorry, Gina. I didn’t know that man.” I turned to glance at Frank, and he looked back at me with a quizzical expression.

  Gina grabbed my hand and my attention. “...watching...you.”

  “What?” Frank and I asked at the same time.

  She cleared her throat. I wanted to get her water, but had no clue if she was allowed any yet. “The man...he watched you for...long time...all night.” She paused, took a gasping breath, and pushed the button on the little trigger in her hand. When whatever drug was in that vial took effect, she sighed out the breath she still held. “He wasn’t...right. W
hen he went to you, I saw...bulge. I know that bulge.”

  How I wish the bulge she referred to was the type a perverted stalker might be sporting, but Gina was too smart for that. And I knew her late-husband’s history with the mafia. Which meant she went after him knowing he had a gun.

  God, Gina, why? Not for me. Never for me.

  I didn’t have any idea how to begin to make it up to her, so I went with the next best thing: Closure. “He’s dead, Gina. Did they tell you? Someone got him outside. It’s over.”

  She started to shake her head, but the move appeared to make her dizzy, and she stopped after barely a sideways twitch. “No. Not done. You’re still in...danger.” I didn’t know whether to keep denying it or press for details I was certain I didn’t want to know.

  “Why, Mama? Why is Kayla in danger?” Frank had stood up without me hearing him and was only a foot behind me.

  “All the same...the men...the strangers.”

  She couldn’t mean all the recent murder victims. Sure, I’d briefly thought they may have been related, but...

  “How?” Frank asked all the questions I couldn’t bring myself to voice.

  Gina reached over with one hand and pointed to the IV’s running into her forearm. “The same...here...they’re all the same...”

  Huh?

  “The same what, Mama? Mama?” Frank tried to nudge her awake, but her eyes had already slipped closed, leaving a confused me with an agitated Frank. Not a good thing considering he’d suddenly moved past one-word sentences. “What’s she talking about, Kayla? What did you do to my mama?”

  “I...I’m sorry.” I began backing out of the room, suddenly very afraid. Not of Frank. Despite his last question, there was pain in his expression, not anger. Though anger in this case would be justified. No, I wasn’t afraid of Frank. I was afraid of Jorge. “I didn’t know he’d found me. I’m so sorry.”

  I turned and ran. I never seemed to be able to run far enough though.