by Lila Felix
A week—it had only been a week since that faithful phone call. The phone call that told me the truth about the girl who I loved. I knew I loved her now. I wouldn’t allow myself to say that before—when I thought she was Havok, a shell of a person I only knew by sight, not by heart. But that phone call had changed everything.
Havok was Jocelyn and Jocelyn was Havok.
But I was a bastard for not telling her.
But if I told her—there’s just no telling what her reaction would be.
What did I know? I knew for sure that it was ripping me apart, day after day to know who she was without her knowing that I knew. Or knowing who I really was. She’d gotten a full-time job at Mrs. Swan’s bakery which scared me for her to be so close to home. If it were up to me, she’d be on the other side of the country from that horrible woman and whoever had tried to kidnap her and God knows what else.
I often wondered if the two were connected.
If her mom was in on it, the kidnapping. I wouldn’t put it past her.
I’d moved to a day shift, they’d given me the same show, but it aired from ten to two during the day. I thought maybe the calls would get simpler since now it was mostly adults calling. But it was the same scenarios, different voices, different people.
And Beth—I hadn’t said anything to Havok, knowing she didn’t need one more thing to worry about. But Beth was everywhere now. Jett said that she’d stopped calling him but he’d seen her around more than usual. I’d found an app installed on my phone—one of those tracker apps. I guessed it was Beef Jerky herself who’d installed it. I didn’t know how to get rid of her. I just wasn’t that cool.
“This is Fade on The Edge, what’s your name, caller?”
“Hi, I’m Lana. I think my fiancé is a habitual liar. I catch him in lies all the time, but he uses more lies to excuse himself for being deceitful. I’ve even caught him lying about what he had for lunch, for no reason at all. I’ve asked him to get help and he told me he would go.”
I was smiling into the mic, but couldn’t let it come through in my voice, “Let me guess, he was lying about that too.”
She laughed over the line, “Exactly. I’d become so paranoid that I followed him one day. He went to a bar. So, I told him I couldn’t marry someone I couldn’t trust…”
“And he accused you of being the liar.”
“How did you know?”
“A long time of answering calls. It sounds like you did the right thing, what’s the problem.”
“I miss him. I still love him. Even when I called in I referred to him as my fiancé, though I ended it weeks ago. How can I miss someone who I didn’t trust in the first place?”
“I don’t know, Lana. But I can tell you this, no good foundation was ever built on falsities. Lies crumble, but truth stays firm.”
She thanked me and I felt sick. The worms of dishonesty wriggled in my stomach, a constant wiggling, a weaving reminder of the things I hid inside. It kept my guts at a constant state of disarray. I couldn’t eat. I could barely sleep. I just thought the droops underneath my eyes were telltale, but the ones I had now had them beat to a pulp.
And the worst part, it was becoming harder and harder to look Havok in the face. She was enjoying the normalcy of it all. She hadn’t given me much in terms of glimpses into her life, into Jocelyn’s life. And I’d stopped trying to plant hints about who I was as well. We were both living in a state of denial, and the capitol city was fear.
But as I picked up my backpack and headed out for the day, I battled with myself. On one hand I knew I would feel better if I told her. But on the other hand, being around Havok was like walking on glass. You could take three steps without incidents, but one misstep could be fatal. One cut, would slit you open all the way to your carotid artery before you even felt the first nip of pain. And once you did, you were wading in a puddle of platelets.
I had to tell her. I couldn’t take it anymore. There was just no way around it.
I got home first. I changed and showered, trying and failing to wash the look of guilt from my face. When I got out, I could hear the iPod speakers blasting Fade Into You, which killed me since I played it the night I first talked to Jocelyn.
She talked almost non-stop about her work. Mrs. Swan was teaching her everything. And she was excited to one day cook a meal for the two of us by herself.
“Why aren’t you talking?” She said before dunking her bread into the potato soup and stuffing it in her mouth.
“Just tired.” Liar, liar, whole freakin’ body on fire.
“Well, why don’t you go to bed early?”
Just do it. Band-aid it.
“Actually when we’re done eating, I need to talk to you about something.”
“Oooookaaaay,” she dragged the word out.
A few minutes later she was done and I led her by the hand to the living room. She sat down and I paced. Then I realized the pacing would make her nervous.
Sitting down beside her, suddenly I couldn’t find the words.
“Cal, just talk to me,” she said with a worried look on her face. That would have to be my starting point.
“What’s your full name, Havok,” I asked her, looking down at our now intertwined hands.
“Havok Daniels, you know that.”
“Havok what Daniels?”
Her eyebrows pulsed in confusion, “Havok Jocelyn Daniels.”
I blew out a whoosh of breath, a small part of me wanted her to counter my thought process. Part of me still wished it wasn’t true. I hated for Havok to have the kind of life Jocelyn once did.
“Ask me what my name is.”
“I know what your…”
“Ask me, Havok. Please, just ask me.”
“Ok, ok, what’s your full name?”
I trapped one of her knees in between mine and buckled down on our hands, preparing for her to flee.
“My name is Fade Calhoun Nichols.”
Silence is a real bitch when all you want is a word of help. She sat in front of me—I could see the natural blush in the apples of her cheeks trickle away to white. She spoke no words, her eyes darted around the room.
“Havok, I swear I didn’t know until the other night when you called the station from the cell phone that I bought you. I swear I didn’t. And since then I’ve been driving myself crazy trying to find a way to tell you. I didn’t want to lie to you anymore. It was killing me.”
“Everything I told Fade,” she whispered.
“Everything you told me. I have to admit, I was jealous. I thought we were friends. I thought we had more than just some fleeting relationship. But you never told me anything under the surface. But Fade, my voice over the radio. You completely let him in. Why?”
“Because he was just a voice. I never thought I’d see him in real life or ever have to face him. It was easy to tell someone I’d never really know. How did you sound so different?”
I cleared my throat and manifested the voice of Fade, lower and a little scratchier than my own, “Because it’s just a radio voice.”
She gasped and lurched her hands from the holds of mine.
“It’s ok Havok. It’s better this way. Now you know who I am and there’s no secrets between us. Don’t you see?” I could hear the desperation for understanding in my own voice.
Her chest rose and fell in shallow leaps. This was it. I’d lost her.
“I just need a minute,” she backed away from me, palms out. She got up and my heart fell to the floor. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go down.
She tromped down the hall to the bathroom and I heard the sploosh of the water as it poured into the sink. Was she washing her face or covering up crying? No, I had to deny her wish.
“Havok, let me in,” I knocked on the door.
Seconds of silence ticked by before the handle turned and she let me in.
She came out with a fake bravado and a phony smile, “I’m fine. I just needed a minute.”
“I see you, Havok. Y
ou can’t lie to me. I know when something’s wrong.”
“I’m just shocked. I’m going to bed. I need time to process.”
She turned towards her room and opened the door. I was panicking inside.
“Don’t do this,” I breathed, pleading with her.
She shut the door in my face and a sense of knowing waved its finger in front of me, ‘tsk, tsk’
Complete humiliation—that’s what I felt. I was finally getting used to the idea of Cal. Letting him in a little, a sprinkle at a time, but now my whole life hissed and raged at me like a raccoon caught in a corner. I was trapped. Weeks and weeks of being relatively free with Cal had all come down in one big nightmare. I felt exposed. But this was nothing compared to Mrs. Alder’s counseling sessions. This was raw, unadulterated—so much so, I could almost feel the air waft against what felt like a skinless body—a soul no longer safe in hiding.
And I loved him. I loved Cal even before he told me he was Fade. And I loved him more because of it.
That’s why I had to leave.
Because now he knew who I was.
And he deserved better than someone who’s grown up like me. Someone who didn’t know how to be normal with him. Someone who didn’t even know anything about normal relationships between men and women. The only kind of male/female relationship I knew was a simple transaction, money for sex. I’ve never seen my mother hug a man or have a man around for more than an hour or two. Hell, I didn’t even know how to kiss him.
I couldn’t begin to know how to be what he needed or even wanted.
But she needed me.
She’d always needed me.
No matter how much I hated the possession she held on me.
No matter how much I hated myself for craving someone who needed me.
No matter how much I loved that she needed me.
I was the textbook definition of narcissist.
So I waited him out. Listened intently to the sounds in the apartment. Froze when he passed my door and hesitated outside it. Breathed a sigh of great relief as she shut his own bedroom door. Cried as I no longer heard his music playing, replaced by a solemn snore.
I packed up my meager belongings and tested the waters, opening the door to see if he heard me. But the boy slept like the dead. And I was about to take advantage of it. I placed a palm on his door and said goodbye to the one person in the world who treated me like a person of interest instead of a commodity.
I tried to push all my love through that door, hoping that somehow he would feel it in his sleep. But this was no fantasy world—and I certainly was no fantasy girl.
By the time I reached my mom’s apartment, it was almost one in the morning. She would be off soon. My backpack dropped into the closet, I fell back into that perverse, unhealthy pattern, cleaning and changing her sheets. It didn’t look like she’d done it in weeks. They were filthy and reeked of cigarette smoke and other things. I bundled up all of her laundry and trudged down to the nearest twenty four hour Laundromat, different from the one that Cal had seen me at. Even this soon, I didn’t want to risk him looking for me there. I had a feeling he wasn’t gonna let me go so easily.
I got to the apartment at a quarter before three but she still wasn’t home. Wasting time, I re-cleaned the bathroom, folded all the sheets and stacked the stilettos in order of color and height. I vacuumed and re-vacuumed, waiting for my charge, my master to come in.
But she never did.
By the time morning broke, I was getting really worried.
I walked out of the apartment, down the stairs and started towards the club. But as my foot touched down on the concrete, something sharp smacked against the back of my head. I saw the stairs, the building, the dark.
*****
Dripping, dripping, dripping. There was nothing that dripped in my closet. Water, it sounded like dripping water. Mom must’ve left the shower on. My eyes still shut, I let my fingers wander the ground, the floor, whatever was beneath me. My right hand was asleep, but the left felt cold, solid hardness on my fingertips. I must’ve slept on the right one. It tingled. My eyelids are stuck. No, not stuck, I just didn’t have the strength to lift them. I flickered them to life but little light flooded through. I’m so sleepy. What is that nipping sound? Gray, something gray and hairy rippling next to me. Oh, it’s a rat. But I couldn’t scream. I had no screams. We need to call pest control. Sleep.
“Drink, I’m not gonna be blamed if you look like shit.”
“Jesus, she’s already so skinny, get her something to eat. This was not part of the plan.”
“It’s not my fault she fought back so hard. What was I supposed to do, let her take a chunk out of your leg again? Or did you want round two of ‘Vomit on My White Pants’?”
My right hand was still on the ground as someone, he smelled like skunk cologne, lifted me using my shoulders. Something plastic, wet, bumped against my chin.
White pants, try to remember, Havok, white pants again
White what?
“Drink something.”
Hearing him say drink again awakened a dry feeling in my throat but I couldn’t make my mouth open. I didn’t remember how to swallow.
“She’s freezing.”
“Hey, I was following orders.”
“She can’t even drink anything. How much did you give her?”
“Enough.”
I had no legs. Who took my damned legs? I tried with a grunt to move them. My toes cooperated even if the rest of the muscles didn’t. Legs, check.
Iron tasting fingers opened my mouth and salty lemon liquid poured down my throat. It was forced to remember its function when my nose was plugged by Skunky and I could almost feel the liquid pool in my empty…
Legs—there they are. How did I get on my back? Twitching needles, my legs were convulsing of their own accord. I reached out to itch them but that damned right hand wasn’t listening again. Who glued my effing hand to the floor or the wall? Where’s Cal? Where’s Fade? I didn’t even know what to call him. I wonder if he cared if I called him Monkey Brains? My closet feels really big tonight. Steps, I hear steps. And the rat. Where’s that rat?
My nose feels funny.
My lips are dry.
“She’s coming out of it.”
“It’s fine. They’ll be here tomorrow. She’ll be awake just enough for the auction.”
My lips were numb, “Who are you?”
Lips working, eyes still on vacation.
“You don’t need to know who we are, honey. You just need to shut up and wait for tomorrow.”
“What—tomorrow?”
“You’re gonna have a new owner.”
Owner, owner, was I a dog?
Dogs are nice.
I never had a dog.
Prostitutes don’t have dogs, it’s against the law.
I want Cal.
They left me there and I could see a window, a small rectangular one. The sun was blaring through it. Where’s Fade?
Metal on metal cranked my engine. My right hand still didn’t work all the way, but I could feel the blood pumping into it, relieving it of the needling. Arms, sheathed in what felt like burlap wrapped around my waist, dragging me from the floor and up, up, up until I was leaned against a cold cinder block wall. Toes, feet, ankles, knees, I took inventory.
“Come on. They need you cleaned up.”
“You’ve got to wake up.”
Cold, cold water. It was over me, around, me, pouring down on me. Hands in my hair, on my shoulders, everywhere and it was the first time I registered fear as my whole body, everything was being washed. Hands, I reached up, and slowly felt my torso, my waist, my hips and nothing in between. I was naked. It was enough of a jolt to throw my eyes into gear. Suddenly I was face to face with a man, a beast, sandy hair, bushy eyebrows, hairy arms, a pre-molar missing from the bottom of his mouth.
“Who are you?”
It was the only question I could think of, my mind was racing and snail paced at the same t
ime.
“Nobody. Just stay still.”
Stay still, stay…still…naked…hands…
A rage built in my limbs, now suddenly awake and I began to claw at his face.
“Shit! Get another shot ready.”
“No—no more!” I screamed, realizing the reason for my haze.
“Then be still and we won’t give you more. Be a good girl and you’ll have a nice new place to live soon, all the food and clothes you want.”
“Why,” I begged my chin not to quiver.
“Because Dean says so.”
Dean—Dean—I knew the name but couldn’t quite put one of my shaky fingers on who he was.
Quaking inside, I stood still, letting reason convince me that this was better than dying. That standing here and allowing him to violate me was better than death. Reason was winning, but only by a fraction.
A mildew smelling towel was wrapped around me and I was escorted back down, down, down to that place. The one that smelled like mold, sounded like a slow cascading waterfall, felt like a cavern on a path to hell, and trapped me in myself and wherever I was.
Fade.
Fade.
Fade.
He ordered me to sit next to a pipe, the water sound, and he handcuffed me again to it, as if we were friends who refused to get along.
“I’m gonna come back with some clothes and some food. Just stay here.”
Where in the hell was I gonna go?
I smacked my head against the blocked wall, trying to force a fuzzy mind to make a plan.
But instead I fell asleep again.
“Wake up,” He said with a kick to my instep.
I tried to sit up the best I could, keeping my wrist still.
“Here,” he handed me a plate filled with cookies and a pre-packaged roast beef sandwich. The cookies were dusted with powdered sugar and my mind flickered to Flowers In The Attic where the powdered sugar was arsenic. God, please let it be arsenic. I changed my mind. Death is better than this.
‘No,” Fade shouted in my mind, ‘You fight. Stay Alive.’
Either way, I ate. He watched me, sat cross-legged in front of me, looking like he was taking enjoyment in my bites. He shoved a bottle of water in my direction and I demolished it all in one pull.