Painted Walls

by Megan Mitcham

  Her hands bracketed her face and hovered there for a minute or more. Her breaths heated her palms, lifted and sank her shoulders. The tips of her fingers quivered. A handful of minutes later she worked up enough courage to trace the bridge of her nose, the sunken hollows of her eyes, the line of her cheeks, the curve of her jaw.

  Before she’d enrolled in college she’d convinced her mom to take her to a specialist. The doctor had asked why she’d want to change such a perfectly symmetrical face.

  People pay me to give them this gentle slope.

  He’d touched the tip of her nose.

  “I don’t want perfection. I want different.” She breathed her answer to herself. Too bad a different nose hadn’t made her see her father in her reflection any less.

  The door to the apartment opened, and then closed.

  Her fingers traveled down her neck to the hem of her shirt and camisole. Ava pulled it over her head and tossed it onto the floor, three feet from her dirty clothes basket. She stared at the small breasts most girls would’ve gone ahead and plus sized while they were at it. The clasp of her bra popped easily under her hand. It fell into the growing pile.

  When her gaze hit the button on her shorts panic compressed her throat. Tears slid down her cheek. They dripped onto her breasts and rolled down her belly. Shame was harder to face than the past, but she refused to let her mistakes rule her any longer.

  Ava’s grip slipped on the wet button. Once. Twice. Three times. She set her quaking jaw and ripped the thing open with a grunt. The tears continued, soaking the edge of her waistband, turning the fabric to a deep khaki. The cloth shorts crumpled in her fists.

  The burn of emotion and alarm stung her lungs. She sucked one more breath, held it, and yanked the shorts off her hips. A bubbled tip of scar tissue peeked from the lace of her panties. Her hands and jaw clamped shut. Her soul, if she—the devil’s spawn—had one, shrieked.

  She toed off her sandals and kicked them and her shorts to the side. Changing her face hadn’t worked.

  Cutting herself had ebbed the pain. Traded it really. Emotional pain for physical. Who wouldn’t exchange the two? She didn’t know many who wouldn’t. Neither did her shrink. If only Ava had sought help before, before she’d changed her face, before she’d scarred her body, before she’d pushed Keen away.

  Ava pulled the triangle of lace and silk down her legs. She stepped out of them ritually, one foot at a time, and then threw them to the side. When she stood her gaze found the ceiling. If Annie knew why she found it so hard to look at herself in the mirror, she’d flip her shit—or she would have—before.

  That fucking word pushed her over the edge. How much longer would she let a man she hadn’t seen in almost thirty goddamned years rule her life?

  Her eye found the series of puckered scars that fit neatly inside her bikini line. If they’d just fit as neatly into the ordered life she’d created for herself after ten years of therapy.

  She hadn’t lied to Annelise when she’d said she masturbated, but Annie probably would have said in bed under the covers with clothes on and the lights off didn’t count. And maybe it didn’t. Ava had yet to be intimate with a man. First and second bases didn’t count to junior high-schoolers these days.

  After her first cut she’d opted to have her pubic hair lasered off, so it wouldn’t interrupt the healing process. Now she had to look at the marks of her instability every day or ignore them. The ugly lines drew attention from her bare pink lips like a flashing neon light that read, ‘I’m fucked up.’ She put on a good show, but that’s all it was.

  “I’m so fucked up,” the maimed girl in the mirror told her.

  Ava’s grip slipped off the edge of composure. She released the lie of fortitude and her fingers clamped around the ballerina figurine her mother had given her their first Christmas with Preston Shepherd. Ava launched it at her reflection. She launched it at her past. She launched it at her cursed future.

  The mirror shattered and rained onto the floor.

  She shoved the jewelry box and picture frames off the top of her shelves. Next she yanked at the prim outfits lining her closet. They fell off the hangers with little fight. Her foot reared and sank into the side of her wicker clothes basket. Breaths heaved in and out of her lips.

  An arm clamped around her waist. She kicked and swung with no discipline. Rage fueled her fit. Rage fueled her life.

  “Stop before you slice your foot open.” Keen shook her with one jarring whip of his body.

  In the panic there was no room for modesty. No room to worry about the flimsy lock on her closet door. No room for lust or need. No room for the past or the future. There was only the fall. Wide and deep. Dark and consuming.

  Muscles she didn’t realize she had knotted in her legs and middle. She hunched in defeat as her mind swam through the pools of hell. The closet changed to her bathroom. His arms guided her to the cool tile floor. Her body convulsed and crumpled into a pitiful heap.

  She was vaguely aware of his presence. A penlight in the blackness. He didn’t scoop her to his chest, didn’t hold her hand or caress her back in comfort. He draped a towel over her bare skin, cocooning her in misery, and sat next to her on the floor, his presence a quiet, solid comfort.

  When her sobs dissolved into the air his presence did as well. For that she was grateful. She lacked the energy for explanations. With physical strain she heaved herself off the floor and trudged to the shower with one goal. Wash away the filth.

  She turned the water to scalding and stepped under the spray. Frantically, she lathered and scrubbed. Fresh tears sprang forth. With gritted teeth she muffled the sobs that accompanied her anguish. She scrubbed until her skin was red and burning. Her hands fell to her sides as she stood under the sterilizing water and tried to wash away the hurt, the anger, the fear.

  10

  Imagine slowly starving to death.

  Imagine the pain an unfed hunger brings. The thirst so fierce it constricts a throat and drives a man insane. The want for moisture so strong a man would drink his own piss just to wet his cracked lips and parched tongue. The need for nourishment so great a man would begin eating his own flesh to stave the emptiness.

  Now, imagine a deterioration that never ended. A starvation that wouldn’t bring death, only a life filled with pain and want. James Red Hardy lived thirst and hunger every day for the last twenty-nine years of his life. While others at Angola found Jesus, Hardy wouldn’t repent something that once fed him like no meal he consumed ever could or ever would. God could feed some, but only the kill, only the blood could feed him.

  “Hardy.”

  The guard’s bark demanded he stop whatever it was he was doing. He’d been daydreaming, his body spread out on the small cot which served as his bed. Hardy stood and slowly approached the door of meshed metal and brick. Four walls of it snuggled him in its embrace. When the guard stopped in front of the door Hardy met him there and poked his hands through the opening in the middle.

  Gone were the days of provoking the guards. Taunting them had served to entertain him for a time. In those long-forgotten days he could taunt a guard into a good fight, which typically left him broken and bleeding. A hell of a bit of entertainment in a place where the nothingness bore holes into a man’s brain. Now, taunting them only served to get him thrown in the hole. While it hosted a change of scenery, the view hardly entertained.

  The only guard from the old days Hardy never taunted, Henry, retired nearly a year ago. Too bad he couldn’t have gone with him. He always liked Henry because, forgoing protocol, he constantly blabbed about this and that. It should’ve been annoying, but to a man in solitary, it was music. It made the time go by just a little faster. This guard, a serious down-to-business type with hulking arms and a mean disposition, refused to fraternize.

  Henry, despite his blabbing, had been serious. Hardy found out when he tried to escape ten years into his sentence. Everyone wore false fronts. James Hardy’s had been a dashing rescuer to women in nee
d.

  Let me hold that door for you, miss. Is this your puppy I found wandering in the road? My that looks heavy! I don’t mind lending a hand.

  Henry’s false front had been the hillbilly-slow, good ole’ boy cadence of his stories.

  Hardy had silently planned his escape for three years. His plan included a nurse he had wooed to do his bidding, a guard’s uniform, and an unconscious or perhaps dead Henry and his set of keys. Only Henry refused to die. The slow good ole’ boy was a damn ninja wonder who evaded injury and subdued Hardy before his plan got good and started.

  Damn the olden days.

  At sixty-six Hardy still exercised regularly and longed for the day he could take another life. As he walked back and forth over the length of the exercise yard, a place he only saw three times a week, he smiled. The bodies and the blood made him smile. Finally he killed again. Through the years of sitting inside a solitary cell on death row he’d played the many killings over and again in his mind. Now he had a new death on his mind. He walked with his face turned toward the sun. He swung his arms as the humidity moistened his skin, bringing forth beads of sweat. He smiled and thought about the fresh blood.

  11

  A va opened her eyes with as much caution as she would the door to a crack-house. He hadn’t crawled into her bed during the too-short night. Bottom lip between teeth and a crease in her brow, she inched the covers back without a sound. When enough room allowed it, she eased her head from the pillow and peered into the living room. The room was vacant save for her small collection of antique furniture and a decidedly uncomfortable modern couch. She eased to the edge of the bed and reached one foot onto the floor. Her tired muscles strained, but she leaned out, scanning the open closet and bathroom doors. Empty.

  When she’d finally left the bathroom only a handful of hours ago the mess from her tantrum had been cleaned. Keen hadn’t been in the apartment. She’d taken the opportunity to hide under the covers, and amazingly it hadn’t taken long for the day to catch up to her.

  Once both feet were on the floor, she leaned forward to peek inside her closet. The ballerina rose on point minus one arm and a foot, which lay beside her base. A warm, gooey emotion threatened to transform her into a weepy heap. She turned away.

  Just when she’d begun to breathe steadily in her home again, thankful that Keen had taken the hint and vacated the night before, she saw his broad back. He stood in front of her dining room window. He didn’t have much of a view, she knew. The stone buildings across the road. Traffic on the street, auto and pedestrian alike. A few scattered trees and birds, and a hint of the blue sky on the breaking day.

  She, however, had a devastating view. The edges of his blond hair darkened with moisture. The grey shirt he wore clung to his wet body in a provocative V, showing the contours of his muscled back. His arms jutted out from short sleeves in corded lines. Sweatpants never looked so good as they did molded to his firm tush.

  Ava hated herself for staring, but she figured it would only hurt her since he was oblivious to her presence. He’d obviously been for a run or morning workout already. She swallowed hard and struggled to look away.

  Movement stopped her. His hand extended a steaming mug toward her. Damn. How long had he known she was there? His body functioned like a fine-tuned radar to his surroundings. He’d probably heard her eyelashes flutter open.

  She shuffled into the kitchen, took the cup from him without a word, and sat at the small table. He stayed at the window, looking out while she slowly drank. It soothed her raw throat and bolstered her shaky nerves. When she swallowed the last of it Keen moved through the kitchen. He refilled her cup with the remainder of golden-black liquid in her French press. Next he pulled a muffin from a white bag that read The Bakery, set it on a plate, and slid it in front of her.

  Their gazes connected. Her heartbeat skipped. Ava schooled her expression. She looked away first, using the pastry as her excuse. The sugared top and golden crust flipped her stomach.

  She grimaced and offered Keen an expression that said, ‘Thanks, but I don’t feel like eating.’

  He nodded toward the muffin. His stern jaw said, ‘Eat the damn muffin.’

  Ava slowly picked off pieces and shoved them into her mouth. Keen leaned back on the counter and watched her. She tried to ignore his study. But her mind ran a checklist anyway. Her hair hung loose, parts framing her face and others falling long down her back. It curled in some spots and flattened in others from sleep. Her face probably sported two dark circles under red puffy eyes.

  She’d donned a worn T-shirt and a pair of cotton shorts. The smile that normally graced her face was so absent it may have never existed—like a unicorn or something—and wasn’t that a shame. Her entire frame caved a little from the impact of yesterday’s accusation. Zero for five on appeal. Add that to the list of shitty.

  After she finished her muffin she dared a look at him. His arms crossed over his chest in a relaxed stance that told her he’d stay there forever if he had to. He cocked his head to the side in gesture and she knew exactly what he wanted. Her vacant dejection slowly turned to anger. Her jaw grew taut and she stared at him with new life.

  He waited. No words. No gestures. He simply waited for the inevitable. How she hated that he knew her so well. Unable to take his scrutiny any longer she exploded with words.

  “All my life I’ve been running from him. In my dreams at night and in the reality of the day. I’ve tried everything to distance myself...” She broke off as his gaze narrowed on her. Yes, she had done many things to distance herself. None of which needed ruminating. Determined, she started again, “...to protect myself from him and the horrors of what he did. And every time he hurts me! In my life and in my nightmares. Just when I think, now, I’ve run far enough, pushed hard enough, sacrificed enough.”

  She stopped, lost in her words, lost in the nightmare for a moment. “Yet, every time I relax for a mere moment, he’s back.”

  Finally she continued, “Twelve years. For twelve years I’ve waged war with him hanging over me in the Bureau, working harder and longer than anyone just to make it, to be recognized as something other than the single scion of Satan.”

  Ava wrapped her arms around herself. “I have scars inside and out and the fight has cost me more than I can bear.” The words nearly caught in her throat. But she shoved them out. The truth. Ava looked at Keen for a long, silent moment, wondering what he would say or do, wondering if he understood their meaning.

  He didn’t move. He didn’t rush to her to give comfort. His head simply shook. “You won’t give up now and have those scars mean nothing.”

  She didn’t recoil from his harsh tone, only straightened in her chair and listened. He continued in a voice slightly gentler, but no less earnest.

  “You know, I’ve kept up with you in the Bureau. Shouldn’t, but I have,” he added with a wistful laugh. “And I always hear the same things. Shepherd’s a bulldog trapped in the body of an angel. Hardest worker and brightest mind in the bunch. Woman’s got a mind like a steel trap.”

  His knuckles whitened. “And yeah, everyone knows your father is Bloody Red Hardy and they think it’s fucking amazing you succeeded when normal people fail. In spite of who your father is, and maybe because of who your father is, you succeeded.”

  He moved forward, hooked his foot on the leg of her chair, and turned her to face him. Bending over her, until they were eye to eye, his large frame dwarfed her. Frustration radiated from him and seeped into his words.

  “See Ava, as horrible as it may seem, you are who you are, a doggedly focused crime fighting machine, because of him.”

  He straightened and nodded toward her bedroom. “So, collect all that fierce determination of yours and an overnight bag because we have places to go.”

  She stared at him. Her head moving back and forth in confusion.

  With another nod toward her room he added, “And hurry, it’s going to take a while to get there.”

  Ava stood and fo
lded her arms across her chest, as much in defiance as modesty for her braless chest. “Where am I going that’s going to take a long time to get there? I can’t leave town.”

  “Says who?’

  “Abbott? Gray? My lawyer? The Bureau?”

  “Do you always follow the rules?”

  “Yes.” She nearly yelled the answer.

  “I know.” His smile broke wide. “But I don’t.”

  Keen rinsed their dishes, set them in the dishwasher, and then headed toward the living area. He continued into the bathroom and closed the door behind him.

  Ava sat, arms and legs crossed, brooding at the edge of her bed. She listened to the shower come to life and its curtain sliding opened and closed. She let out a huff and stared at the bathroom door. As much as she hated herself for doing it, she pictured water sluicing off the contours of his chest, the carved muscle of his abdomen, the bulk of his legs, the length of his… Her cheeks warmed immediately, flushing her cheeks as red as her hair.

  What a pain in the ass. He had always been strong-willed, but now he proved to be downright hard-headed. Why, of all the people to come to her aid, did it have to be him? He didn’t fix anything, only added complications. When the shower quieted she rolled her eyes for her own benefit. At least now he was showered and he could go, without her. It didn’t matter where he went, as long as it was away.

  She ran through her argument for his leaving again in her head. It was short, but concise, and the best she could do under such constraints. The man showered and dressed in six minutes flat. She straightened her posture to rigid in preparation for the confrontation ahead.

  He opened the door and tossed his bag on the ground next to him. It landed with a thunk. She inhaled a deep breath to begin, but he stopped her with a raised hand. Her eyes narrowed and she ground her teeth. He raised the other hand, palms out, in a gesture of peace.

  “Ava, I’m not going to fight with you.”

  “Well, that’s good to hear, and not at all what I expected.” She sighed and loosened her arms to her lap.