Shape of My Life

by DC Renee

It was a gut-wrenching scream, lost among the crashing of the waves. My body told me to run, but I was paralyzed, my feet froze in place, afraid of what I’d find. And then I heard it again, and my feet knew what to do before my body told them.

  I was running, my feet sinking into the sand, pulling me back, pulling me away from her, but I wasn’t going to let anything stop me.

  And then I was upon her. I was towering over her as she huddled against the rocks, her feet pulled up and her hands gripping her face. Her fingers were digging into her skin, her eyes were shut tight, just visible through the cracks between her fingers, her palms pressed tightly against her skin. The tears flowed like a dam had broken free. She was rocking back and forth as if that would stop the shaking of her body, the wracking of her sobs.

  She screamed, and I didn’t hesitate a second longer. “Oh God, it hurts. Oh God, make it stop. Please, please stop. It hurts. It hurts. Oh God, it hurts,” she repeated as I scooped her up and into my arms. She didn’t even realize I was there, even with her head buried in my chest, the tears drenching my shirt, her body trembling with such force I feared for her, and her screams in my ear interchanged with pleas to make it stop.

  “Shh,” I said as I held her tight. “I got you. I got you,” I told her continuously as I folded her to me and enveloped her in my arms. “Don’t worry, Brooklyn, you’re safe.”

  Brooklyn

  I was always one of those people who loved living. Not in the adrenaline rush, skydiving, live every day like it’s my last type of living. It was more that I appreciated the beauty of life itself. I appreciated every step I took, every talent I was gifted, every breath that left my lungs. I loved watching trees change shape, and the leaves turn colors. I loved watching flowers bloom, butterflies emerge, and the tides change. So much power existed in life. I was always in awe.

  I never thought about death. I mean I did, but it was more in the obscure sense than death related to me. There was just too much to life to think about death.

  Yet I wished for death too many times to count in what must have been the last day of my torture, although I had lost all concept of time. I prayed for it, welcomed it, needed it.

  Being alive had become torture. Have you ever broken a bone? I had. It was painful, unbearable at times, but you survived. Have you ever had a migraine so bad it made you see stars and run to the restroom to vomit? I had. It was horrendous, but you pulled through. Have you ever cut yourself so deeply that you needed stitches? I had. It stung like a thousand bees were attacking you in one spot, but you ground your teeth and closed your eyes tight and muddled through it. Imagine all those scenarios; imagine the worst pain you can physically endure and times it by a hundred, and you still won’t understand what I felt.

  One minute, I had been walking to my hotel room, and the next, a stinging pain was waking me up. I was still fuzzy from the obvious drugs I had been injected with, but I vaguely registered being hit with a belt. It wasn’t the kinky pleasure with pain type of belt. It was the I had been kidnapped and was scared shitless type of pain.

  I think I would have survived the physical pain; I think I might have not wished for death if it hadn’t been coupled with the absolute horror, the unyielding fear I was spending my last moments of life with a monster, a man who wanted to literally torture me to death. I would have found a way to live through the bite of the belt, the small paper cuts made just for pure enjoyment, the sharp scrape of broken metal, the rope cutting into my arms and legs. I would have figured out how to get past the way my kidnapper sneered at me, turned his nose up at me as he ran his hands over my body, the way he taunted me with rape, with mutilation, the way he told me this was all my fault. I would have maybe been able to eventually smile. I had managed to live after he told me that since he couldn’t have me, no one else would, but that I would pay for teasing him first.

  I didn’t know this man. I didn’t know who he was, what he did, why he had chosen me, or anything else that went through his mind.

  All I knew was that I was in a damp, dark place. I was hungry, cold, beyond vulnerable, in pain as I’d never felt, and unnervingly frightened. And I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he had only just begun.

  Death would have been a luxury, a savior, a long-lost benefactor. I needed death. I needed it swift and quick.

  Death didn’t come. But an agony I wouldn’t wish on my own enemy did.

  I had lost the will to care at some point. I had even kept my eyes closed, not shutting them to keep from seeing what happened but because I simply didn’t have the energy to keep watching.

  And then it happened. One drop … one torturous drop at a time. Have you ever felt like your skin was literally coming off your body? Like it was shriveling up and burning off at the same time? Like someone was peeling it off slowly, like ripping off a Band-Aid but not being quick about it? That was what acid felt like. It happened so quickly, I know this, but when it was happening to you, it felt like it was taking hours, excruciating hours.

  “Too beautiful,” he whispered as he poured another drop on my face. “You’d temp God himself,” he spoke as I tried desperately to raise my hands to my face.

  I had lost my voice some time ago, yet somehow, I found it at this moment. Hoarse and dry, no longer sounding like myself, I screamed. I thrashed. I begged.

  “Please, please stop. Oh God.” Everything he had done to me before suddenly felt like child’s play.

  Another drop. “Even the devil won’t want you when you’re finally in hell.”

  “Oh God, it hurts.” Hurt hadn’t even been the right word. Hurt hadn’t even come close. Death. Death had finally come, and death was a cruel master. If I had ever wondered if death was painful, I got my answer. I didn’t care if the devil wanted me or not, but I knew I was already in hell.

  And then I heard his voice. Like a lullaby for a sleeping child, like the Messiah come to save his people. “Shh,” his voice calmed. “I’ve got you,” I heard from afar, beckoning me like a mirage in a desert. He was the opposite of pain. If I wanted peace in death, I needed to reach for his voice.

  “Don’t worry, Brooklyn, you’re safe.” My eyes popped open.

  The pain was gone, but it wasn’t. There in the back of my mind, spread across my tingling body, was a dull ache that would never leave. But I was safe. I was safe in Grennan’s arms.

  “You’re okay,” he told me, but I wasn’t.

  I didn’t say anything, but I looked around. It was so dark, almost pitch black, just the moon dimly highlighting the area. I knew this place. I had known this place. In another life. It was my safe place.

  Have you ever driven home and not remembered how you actually got there? This was the same for me. I remembered hearing Jourdan’s words. And then … they were my words. I remembered.

  “I remember,” I spoke softly still in Grennan’s arms. “I remember everything.”

  Brooklyn

  It had been her words. My words that had broken through the fog had made something inside me just click. She … I had talked about the shape of my life, the way I didn’t want it to be defined. That had been such an important aspect of my life. It had practically been my very own slogan.

  It had meant so much to me that I had it tattooed on my arm, one final reminder of the life I was leaving behind.

  “But you said you wouldn’t ever get a tattoo,” Cassidy said, stunned at my request.

  “No, I said I wouldn’t get a tattoo just to get one. This is meaningful.”

  “A couple of crappy cards?” she asked, the shock apparent in her voice.

  “They represent all I’ve been through.”

  “How? How is that even possible, Jour?”

  “Stop calling me that!” I yelled.

  “Okay, okay, calm down,” she tried to soothe. “Just explain this to me.”

  “What’s one of my favorite songs?” I asked her.

  “‘Shape of My Heart’ by Sting,” she said without missing a beat.

  “Why?�
�

  “Because it’s pretty? Sad? How the hell should I know?”

  “Because it’s about a man not letting the life he has affect who he is.”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s not what the lyrics mean.”

  I wanted to sing the words, but I couldn’t. I was afraid to. I had lost so much that day, my music being one of them. So instead, I spoke the lines of the song I knew by heart.

  I know that the spades are the swords of a soldierI know that the clubs are weapons of warI know that diamonds mean money for this artBut that’s not the shape of my heart

  “I’ve been cut by a different sword, lived through my own personal war, and I’ve even had all the diamonds and money and talent needed to do what I love. What I used to love,” I corrected. “But I’m not going to let it shape my heart. It’s not going to define my life.”

  “But you are letting it!” she screamed, and I actually flinched. Cassidy raised her voice sometimes, but even then, it was never truly yelling.

  I had been so strong, didn’t cry too often, at least not when anyone was around. But at that moment, I felt the tears slide down my cheeks. “I’m barely hanging on,” I whispered, my head down, admitting to Cassidy what she already knew. “I’m making a new life with no shapes, no molds, a new life of my own. A safe life. If I stay in this one, I’ll break, Cass. If I’m not already broken.”

  I put my head in my hands and sobbed silently as Cassidy pulled me into a hug.

  “I know, Jour. I know. And I’ll be by your side every step of the way.” We stayed like that for a few minutes until I calmed down. “Now, tell me why those cards?” She tried to sound cheerful, but I could hear the heartbreak in her voice.

  “They’re in the lyrics,” I said and then spoke another verse.

  He may play the jack of diamondsHe may lay the queen of spadesHe may conceal a king in his handWhile the memory of it fades

  “He doesn’t mention the heart, but it must be the ace of hearts, so that makes it the king of clubs.”

  Cassidy nodded as she stroked my hair. “And the story behind it?”

  “Drunken mistake. Vegas birthday.”

  “You really have this all figured out, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, Cass, I do.”

  “All right, Jour. Then we’ll find you someone to draw your tattoo.”

  My parents and Cassidy had found someone to come to the hospital, paid him enough to be more than discreet, and when it was all said and done, I smiled as I looked down at the only visible tattoo on my skin. The only one I put there by choice. My skin was no longer marked; many scars had faded from the numerous surgeries I underwent, others just went away with time. But they were still there, just lurking on my skin, tingling every time I closed my eyes. Soon, I told myself. Soon.

  “I’m … I’m not who you think I am. Who I thought I was,” I told Grennan. “I’m …” I couldn’t finish the words. I was Jourdan. But I wasn’t.

  I looked into Grennan’s eyes and saw him staring at me. His worry and concern were overriding every other emotion, but I also saw the lack of shock.

  “You already know,” I whispered, trying to dry my tears with my palms.

  “But I don’t know how,” he responded. “I don’t understand it. It makes sense, but I don’t understand any of it.”

  “Then I’ll tell you.”

  “Not now. Let’s get you out of here. We’ll get you some place warm. After you’ve rested, if you still want to explain it to me, I’ll be there to listen.”

  “Don’t leave me,” I begged.

  “Never,” he whispered against my forehead as he placed a light kiss against my skin. And then he carried me away, away from my safe place. A place I had no recollection of getting to. I had been in a trance, but my body knew where to go. It knew I would feel secure there as I relived everything. Yet as Grennan carried me in his arms like a child, cradling me against his chest, away from the place my subconscious had taken me to, I had never felt safer.

  Brooklyn

  The rest of the evening was a blur. After I had directed Grennan to my hotel room, he helped me settle. I heard him talking to my parents and Cassidy; I knew he was updating them, reassuring them, but I couldn’t quite catch the details.

  He handled me with kid gloves, and I didn’t mind. I felt as if I might shatter into pieces if he didn’t act as if I was made of porcelain.

  I wasn’t sure when it happened, but I know he climbed in behind me on the bed and tucked me to him. I knew this happened because my body and mind instantly felt better.

  He had this calming effect on me, and I needed it so badly. I had spent the better part of a day with memories crashing down on me with such a force I actually felt the physical weight of them. I understood everything, and at the same time, I didn’t. Everything I had believed over the past few years had been a lie. It all felt so real but now that I knew who I was, I could see so many holes in my own stories, so many missing pieces in my memories. Things that were a blur before now made sense.

  It was too overwhelming to process.

  I wasn’t sure if I slept that night, and I was even less sure that Grennan had. It was early morning when I finally spoke, my voice sounding as if I had just woken up when I knew I hadn’t. “How did you find me?”

  “I just thought about where Jourdan would go.”

  I nodded in response. “How … how did you know?”

  “I pieced together some things, and Cassidy confirmed when you went missing.”

  “Are they ... does Cassidy, do my parents … They know I’m okay?” I didn’t even know how to put full sentences together.

  “Yeah, I called them when we got back to the room.” I knew that, but I needed to make sure. I hadn’t looked at him yet, my back pressed against his chest, his arms surrounding me.

  “You deserve to know,” I told him.

  “I want to know, yes, but I’ll wait. Whenever you’re ready. If it’s too much now, we can just spend the day doing whatever you want or need to do.”

  “Now or later, it doesn’t change the past. It won’t feel less weird or make me any more sane. I’ll tell you now.” He turned so I could flip over, and we could face each other. “No,” I told him, and he froze. “No,” I said it softer. “It’s just that I think it might be easier for me to tell you this way.”

  I felt him nod, and he squeezed his arms around me tighter.

  “You know I was kidnapped?”

  “Yes,” he responded.

  “He was a fan, I guess, a stalker, really.” I could hear my voice hitch as the tears flowed. “He caught me on the way to my hotel. Lack of security, good connections, I don’t really know how, but he took me and kept me hidden for two days.” I paused, trying to even out my breaths. It was harder to relive it out loud than I had anticipated.

  “You don’t have to tell me,” Grennan told me.

  “I do. I need to get this out.” I sighed and wiped a couple of tears from my face even though I knew it was pointless. “He did … he hurt me.” I couldn’t get any more out before I sobbed. Grennan just held me and told me over and over it would be all right.

  “When the police found us, I was barely conscious, but I know they shot him dead in the process, and I … Apparently, I was barely recognizable. Between the bruises, the cuts, and my face … My face was the worst. I was in and out of surgery for months. The bruises and cuts faded, some scars were surgically removed, and they tried to reconstruct my face. They did, but this is what I looked like. I didn’t look like myself.” I just registered that I had been whispering softly, almost as if I was afraid to say it all out loud for fear it would make it real. It had been real, though. It had been real, and it had already happened. I wasn’t even sure if Grennan could hear everything I was saying between my choked voice, the tears breaking through, my body visibly trembling, and my voice so low.

  I only knew he heard me because he’d release the breath he was holding every time I paused. I was sure he’d keep holding it
in had his body allowed him.

  “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say, but I’m so sorry,” he told me. I heard the pain in his voice, the agony and pity for me, and I didn’t want that.

  “Shh,” I comforted him. “It’s okay now.”

  “It’s not okay. It’s not okay what he did, what happened to you.” And he turned me around, spun me so quickly I didn’t even know how he did it. My legs tangled around his, and his lips pressed against mine. It wasn’t the kind of kiss you get when you’re feeling passionate or the kind when you’re seeking comfort. It was the kind that spoke of regret and relief. Regret for me and what I’d been through, and relief I was still alive. I knew he was telling me with that kiss what he couldn’t say with words. And I knew he needed to feel me, feel my body pressed against him to make sure this wasn’t all a dream.

  I let him take from me what he needed and give me all the emotions he had to spare. I didn’t realize how much I needed this.

  He broke away and cradled my face in his hands. “God, Brook, I love you. I love you so much.”

  And that was when I froze. Brook. Not Brooklyn. Brook. And suddenly, more memories were back.

  I knew the minute Grennan realized something was wrong. His own arms stiffened around me, and his lips tightened.

  He opened his mouth to say something, but I spoke first. Except I didn’t have the right words. “You … she … you and her … ‘Brook.’”

  I tried to pull away, I tried to move away from him, but his arms caged me in. I couldn’t take anymore. I couldn’t take any more crap piled on top of me.

  “It’s not what you think,” he pleaded with me, but I wasn’t sure if he was pleading for me to stay, to listen to him, or to believe him.

  “I saw you. I saw you with my own two eyes.” I continued to struggle in his arms. I was still crying, my cheeks wet with salty tears, but I noticed as I thrashed in his embrace that his cheeks weren’t dry either.

  “Brooklyn, please, stop, just listen to me,” he asked; his voice cracking as he held me tighter, and that hitch in his voice had me momentarily freezing my movements. I looked at him, and I had been right; his eyes glazed with unshed tears and his cheeks were damp from the ones that had already fallen.