“Sit.”
I went to my couch and sat, completely dumbfounded.
“Now pay attention for the last time,” he continued, “he already got to her house. You can't stop that. Haven't I already explained that you were in a memory? You can change and damage your memory of what happened, which you've done a damn good job of, but you can't change what actually happened.”
“So what did he do to her?”
“You know what he did.” His voice was completely flat as he said it, “And you know what he's going to do to you.”
“But why?”
My head was racing with questions.
“Because of you.”
“Stop being vague goddammit!”
“What was the first thing I asked you to do when we got here? I asked you to remember what you were doing before all of this didn't I? And what did you decide to do instead? You went to play around in a memory of a dream of a whatever the fuck you’ve been doing. What were you doing before all of this?”
“I don't know,” I let my head fall into my hands, “I don't know.”
The Voice In My Head threw his hands up in the air in exasperation.
“You were meeting up with her! You were meeting up with her! How dense are you?”
The closer I got to the door, the stronger the smell got. The smell of sweat. And sex. And something else... I couldn't quite place it.
“I mean come on, it's a well known fact that someone who suffers a traumatic experience will often times put themselves into a fantasy world in their mind where the event never happened...”
Blood painted the walls, no corner of the room was spared at least one drop. Streaks of it crawled up from the head board of her bed. The sheets were saturated to the point where the blood appeared black.
“...and the only time someone in that state can come out of it...”
What the hell was he doing here?!
“...is if they can unlock the buried memory...”
...a baseball bat over his shoulders in one hand, his other hand held several feet of chain.
“...of the traumatic event...”
“Call me Charles.”
“You wouldn't be sitting here if you didn't. So if you were me, what would you do?”
When he shifted I could see a wide slit on her neck, opening and closing every time he thrust in and out of her.
“...and confront the source...”
“Laaa la. La le la, laaa... Laaa la. La le la laaa...” She sang, spiraling and turning.
The last thing I felt was her fingers running through my hair.
“...in order to bring closure...”
They had never gotten along well.
Charles clearly wasn't impressed with me.
“...and to finally break the cycle that the mind has created...”
Remember your last meeting with him?
“Ah, I see a light bulb has clicked. I think you've got it now. You asked me why I had you remember your last meeting with him, but I don’t think you remembered right.”
I felt sick. I squeezed my head trying to make the thoughts stop but they were rushing and flooding my skull like a tsunami.
“Let me help you remember a little better.”
As he said it, the thought of when I first thought the Voice In My Head into existence popped into mind.
At first glance he appeared to have the same tired look in his blue eyes that I did, only they were much sharper. A kindness that glossed over intent and a slight malevolence I couldn't quite place.
Chapter 21
“Please babe, I don't want to talk about it. Just leave it be.”
I squeezed her hand from across the table. Her dining room seemed a little chillier than normal. We had been sitting here like this for at least fifteen minutes and our plates of food had long since gone cold.
“I just don't understand why you won’t tell me. You and your dad have never gotten along, ever. And now he's moving in with you?”
She let go of my hand and put hers in her lap.
“Hun,” her voice had an edge to it, “he just is. And besides, there will be someone here to house sit if we ever go away for a while.”
She smiled but I could tell it was fake. She had never really told me a whole lot about her father. It didn't make sense why she was all of a sudden letting him move in.
“You know, I've never even met your father. And you don't ever really talk about him.”
“Well, I was thinking about having him over for dinner next week or something.”
Not what I was going for by making that comment.
“Yeah sure. You sure he's going to like me?”
“He'll love you babe, just be yourself!”
Just be yourself. What did that even mean?
I faked a laugh for her and returned her gaze. Her eyes, to someone who didn't know her, would appear to be bright and happy. But they weren't. She wasn't telling me something.
“Why don't you ever talk about him?”
“Why do you have to keep pushing when I say I don't want to talk about something?”
Her voice was bitter now.
“Because I want to know! Geez, what's so wrong about wanting to know what your dad is like? Shit, I've only been dating you for a couple of years now and you've only mentioned him a handful of times. I just want to know.”
There it was, her eyes revealed themselves now. There was pain in them and I knew she was fighting back tears. She was good at that.
“My mother died when I was nine years old,” she began, “and he was devastated. He never used to have an anger problem, but he started drinking a lot after she died. And sometimes,” she choked up, paused and sniffled a little before continuing, “sometimes he would get mad at me. The more the years went on, the more he would drink and the angrier he would get, and the more he would hit me.”
The tears were streaming by now. I could do nothing but listen in shock as she told her story. I had never talked to anyone with a past like that. At least not that I knew of. I had no idea what that was like.
She continued, “The hitting wasn't the worst. There were other things too...” She trailed off and looked away from me. The pain radiated off of her and seemed to flood the entire room, making the air thick and difficult to breathe.
“What other things?” I asked.
“Don't, please don't. I don't even want to remember. I do everything I can to not think about it. Saying this much is hard enough please don—”
She broke off, her entire body convulsing with sobs.
I got up from my seat and knelt by her side and gripped her hand. It was silent for some time, she sniffed and wiped her eyes, still looking at the floor. I wasn't sure what to say, so I said:
“I'm sorry.”
I’m a fucking virtuoso when it comes to conversation.
I should have just not said anything after that, but I had to ask.
“Then why, after what he's done to you, are you letting him come here?”
She jerked her hand out of mine with a look of pure malice in her eyes.
“What the fuck is your problem? Why does it matter to you? You have no idea what its been like living with something like that and you have no right to keep prying,” she said it calmly and dangerously, “you should leave.”
She glared at me and a single tear drop fell from her eye and landed on her hand.
If you were to ask me now why I said it, I wouldn't be able to give you an answer.
“Do you know how much of a pain in the ass it is trying to deal with a selfish, secretive bitch all the time?”
Her nostrils flared and her eyes flashed with rage. She picked up her plate and hurled at it me. Luckily it missed and it crashed into the wall behind me, spraying me with bits of food and porcelain.
“Are you fucking crazy?!” I screamed at her.
“Get OUT!”
“You've got some serious mental issues bitch,” I pointed at her and backed away keeping my eye on he
r hands. There was still another plate on the table, “get some fucking help from a fucking professional cuz' apparently my help isn't good enough.”
“Just GO!”
She was trying to stay tough and not start crying again but it wasn't going to last much longer. And I knew what to say to make her call me later and apologize.
I was almost at the door but I stopped.
“When you're up in your room alone and crying your eyes out, just remember who it was who started throwing shit. And remember who it was who just wanted to help and get to know their girlfriend a little better.”
As I shut the door I glanced back to see if my words had hit home. They had.
The diner was unusually crowded. People were chatting and the waiters and waitresses were bustling about, attending to their tables. It was kind of a far drive to go to such a mediocre place, but this is where he wanted to take me so I agreed.
Charles Green sat across from me, nonchalantly chewing on a piece of chicken-fried steak. I didn’t know how he could eat it. Grease pooled underneath the meat on his plate and oozed out of it as he cut into it with his knife.
I looked at my plate, a half eaten cheeseburger and some stale fries sat there, slowly getting colder. I didn't have much of an appetite. I took another sip of my water—probably tap water—and looked back at Charles. While he was clearly savoring his meal, he didn't seem to have the same affection towards me.
“All I want you to do is to talk to her—”
“Listen up you little shit, let me get one thing clear to you. I. Don't. Give. A. Fuck. About you. Not one bit. I had to listen to my daughter crying to me over the phone about the arguments you guys got into, the names you called her. And now you honestly expect me to help you try and win her heart back or whatever it is you want to do? You're out of your fucking mind.”
His glasses had slipped down his nose and he pushed them back up with his finger. His face was flushed and his eyes were heated with anger. I sat in my chair, ashamed, and knowing full well what he meant.
I wasn't perfect. But what he was describing wasn't a regular occurrence. We definitely had our arguments though.
“I'm sorry I lost my temper babe.”
She sounded sincere but I couldn't quite tell since it was over the phone.
“It's OK hun.”
I was still a little annoyed.
“I'll tell you what's going on with my dad if you still want to hear?”
“OK, I’ll listen.”
“After I moved out, me and my dad didn't talk for almost six years. One day he shows up at my house, I never even gave him my address. He must have looked me up or something. Well, he shows up and literally breaks down and starts crying, apologizing and talking about how much he hates himself for what he did and that he’s been getting help. Last week he called me and told me he was diagnosed with cancer and wanted to be with me while he was being treated because he had no where else to go. So I agreed. And that's why he's moving in.”
It was silent for a moment. I had had no experience with something like this. I wanted to kill the guy for what he did, but I wanted to be understanding and take her side.
“How am I supposed to be in the same room as this guy after knowing all of this?”
Charles was still mad dogging me from across the table. He had stopped eating his chicken-fried steak some time ago.
“Well? Are we done here?”
“Honestly, how do you expect me to sit and have dinner with this guy after knowing this?”
Wrong thing to ask.
“How do even you even think you have a right to ask something like that?” She spat back at me, “I was the one who had to grow up with him, I am the one who's had to live with what he did, I am the one who's had to come to terms with him and you think you have the right to ask that question?”
Second time tonight that this guy has been the source of an argument.
His words seemed far away as he spoke. We always made up the same night, or at most the next day. A constant, never-ending cycle of torment. Neither one of us wanted to let go though because neither of us knew anything else but each other. She knew all my imperfections and I knew hers. The only problem was instead of accepting those imperfections, we just grew accustomed to them and threw them in each others faces when we eventually got tired of them. We would apologize later and then start the cycle again. But that was what we knew.
I couldn't help wanting to get to know her more and more whereas she seemed only comfortable with the half truths and limited bits of information she would share. The more I asked and pried the angrier she would get.
“Hello? I said, are we done here yet?”
“I heard what you said Charles.”
I could either apologize and back off, or keep going. Unfortunately I wasn't very good at backing off.
“As a matter of fact, yes I do. It's not like you tell me anything on your own accord. It feels like you're on another planet half the time. I have to pry it out of you just to find out how your day was. You don't tell me a fucking thing so yes, I do have the right to ask any goddamn question I feel like.”
Charles got up without saying a word and left the diner. I was left alone, stewing in guilt, shame, and anger. I had bared everything to him and all I wanted was the smallest bit of understanding.
And he gave none.
He gave none, and to complement the guilt trip, he also left me with the bill.
Prick.
Chapter 22
Something happened inside of me. Something I hadn't felt in a long time.
Anger.
And it felt good. Pure, unadulterated anger. Raw, unrefined, pure.
Not about the check that he left me with.
Not about the things I had seen Charles do throughout my little trip down memory lane.
Not towards her.
Not about being trapped inside of a room with the Voice In My Head.
None of that.
But towards myself.
I realized in that moment that I had spent far too long trying to “keep the peace” at the expense of myself. Refusing to say what I needed to say. The fact that I felt like I needed to go through Charles in order to see her again made me feel pathetic. Settling for an unsatisfying bullshit job simply because that's what I could do. And who steals a fucking copy machine? Being stuck inside of my own fragile beliefs that The Voice has showed to me to be all wrong, made me feel lost and insignificant and belligerently unknowing. The claustrophobic feeling I had from being trapped in this room was making my skin itch and crawl and I needed to get out.
And the fucking bastard Voice in My Head kept staring at me from across the room with his goddamn smirk. I wanted to rip it off his face.
And somehow, the knowledge of my own worthlessness seemed to enlighten me and it created this feeling of anger.
And I liked it.
I could feel my blood pumping, the veins in my arms swelled, my head pulsed and I just wanted OUT. I saw what The Voice had been trying to do all along, he was giving me a scapegoat. Someone to direct my anger at, an outlet for me. He had been trying to help me this whole time and I just wouldn't accept it.
I felt weak and powerless at my new insight but also invigorated. Excited even.
The room around me pulsed on beat with my heart. Racing and pulsing so fast it made me dizzy. Even the furniture seemed to throb with the room. The chair The Voice In My Head was perched upon seemed to sway and rock but he was apparently oblivious to it. He just sat there watching me, eyes gleaming. He obviously knew what I was thinking and he was delighted with it. After all this time I finally understood him.
I felt a new found strength. I pushed myself up from the floor and the room became still. The pulsing had stopped. I couldn't even remember what I was so worried about a couple hours ago. Or was it days? How long had I been in this room?
It didn't matter now, I was back in my own house. The Voice In My Head was nowhere to be seen. Everything looked... No
rmal.
But things weren’t normal, there was no way I could believe that. The Voice was leading me to a solution this whole time.
Charles…
A fresh wave of anger surged through me just thinking of his name.
Charles…
Charles needed to die.
Book 3: Depths
Chapter 1
A plate whizzed past my head and shattered into the living room wall behind me. There was already a vase in her hand ready to throw, water splashed everywhere as she drew her arm back and took aim with one arm, while trying to get her pants back up with the other.
I got my arms up just in time to prevent a dead-on shot to the face. The vase crashed into my forearms and shards of blue ceramic glanced off my cheek, while the rest of the water left in the vase showered me.
“Jesus fucking Christ! What the fuck is the matter with you?!”
The physical pain hurt, but the way she was treating me was worse.
“Get out get out!” She screamed. Tears of rage streamed down her face as she looked wildly about for more objects to throw. I could already feel the bruises on my arms.
“I am not leaving. We are going to talk.”
I ducked just in time to dodge the picture frame with her and Charles at an amusement park. I darted up to her before she had the chance to hurl anything else towards me and grabbed her by the wrists—tightly.
“Will you stop throwing shit at me and sit down and talk to me?”
I threw her onto her sofa and straddled her, pinning her down on her back. She struggled and thrashed, and tried to scream but I covered her mouth with my hand.
“Look, listen to me OK? Listen and calm down and I'll let you go. You know I'd never hurt you, even if you are throwing plates at me.”
Her eyes widened and she stopped flailing around. Her body loosened up and relaxed.
“Alright, I'm going to let you go OK?”
Depths Page 13