Tinder Ella: A Modern Day Single Dad Fairy-Tale

by Eddie Cleveland

  “I don’t think so man, I’m gonna pass,” I ignore his peacocking and throw my gear into my old locker, fastening it shut with a padlock.

  “What? Come on, it’ll be good times. What are you gonna do instead? Go home and jerk off? Come out, it’ll be a blast,” he stares at me hard.

  I don’t blink, he’s not going to wear me down with his high-pressure sales tactics, “Don’t need to jerk off, gotta hot girl waiting for me.”

  “You?” Black looks at me sideways, “you got a girlfriend?”

  I shrug, “Yep.”

  “Man, you have changed,” my old party friend eyes me suspiciously.

  “Hey! Armstrong! Black! Get your asses up to the Captain’s cabin! There’s a debrief going down in less than five minutes and you better be there!” Chief Jackson barks at us from the door, interrupting an already dead conversation.

  “Will do!” I yell back, taking my cue to leave. I don’t wait for anymore of Black’s deep insights, instead I head out to the flats and up the ladder to the deck above. I wheel around the corner into the room just as the PowerPoint presentation hits the screen.

  I join my guys along the back wall, behind all the officers crowding the couches and seats in the front.

  “All right! Listen up! We’ve got intel on the situation in Syria and you’re going to want to listen. It looks like we’re going to be putting boots on the ground in just over a month, so pay attention. This debrief could save all of your lives,” Second Lieutenant James walks slowly in front of the small crowd. “Lieutenant Huang, you’re up,” he directs the intelligence officer to take his place.

  An absurdly young looking officer with black hair and black eyes wastes no time hustling to the front of the cabin. He pushes a tiny remote in his hand and pulls up the first slide, a page of facts and figures about the Syrian government’s atrocities.

  “As you well know, the Bassah regime has been overthrown by the rebels and these figures here, well, they seem downright soft and cuddly compared to the shit going down over there now.” Huang clicks his tiny remote and the picture changes to a city in ruins. Buildings blown into dust and rubble, indistinguishable from one another, collapsed into the sand.

  I blink hard, trying to stay focused. I don’t want to feel the heat of the boiling Middle Eastern sun burning my skin. I don’t want to see the permanent sunspots in my eyes. I push them away. Focus. Breathe and focus.

  Huang’s voice cuts back in as my vision clears, “…unprecedented attacks on civilians, with no regard for casualties, including women and children,” he clicks his button and a decimated elementary school appears on the screen. I breathe in sharply as the young bodies of dead children are strewn over the whiteboard.

  My hands tremble and my breathing quickens as goosebumps break out over my arms. I see the boy, he has a gun. He points it at me, I don’t think, just react. Two shots and he drops. It’s only once I see him on the floor that I realize just how small he is. What grade would he be in? Two? The blood pours from his corpse as his mother shrieks a deep, animal-like howl at the pain of losing a child. He had a gun. I had to shoot. He had it pointed at me. It was me or him. I had to take away his future to preserve my present.

  Sweat breaks out across my brow and the trembling in my hand quivers through my legs. I feel sick.

  “Hey man, you good?” Black suddenly appears in my vision. I look around and the room is clearing out. I missed the brief. How did that happen?

  “Yeah, for sure,” I lie, looking at the ground.

  “Big day for you, huh? First day back and you find out we’re back to it next month. Time to go be a fucking hero!” Black claps his hand on my back and my mind flashes to my medal ceremony.

  “For bravery and valor,” the Captain pinned it to my chest as I winced at the words. “You’re a hero, Son.”

  A hero.

  “Yeah, big day,” my words are flat. I follow Black out of the cabin dizzily.

  “All right, bro. It’s almost quitting time. You sure you don’t wanna come out after work? It would be good to have a couple of drinks with you again. I’ve missed you, man.” Black pushes me.

  “You know what,” I pause as the images flash back in my mind. I push them away, “That sounds good. Just a couple of drinks and then I’m out.”

  “I knew you wouldn’t change!” Black smiles broadly and heads down the ladder with me on his heels. “Fuck all that rehab shit, right? You do what you gotta to stay in the SEALs, but fuck it,” he exclaims.

  “Just a couple though. No other shit. No shots. Ok?” I answer.

  “Yeah, yeah. A couple of drinks. For sure. Glad to see you’re back, man!” He smirks like he’s accomplished something.

  “Yeah,” I push the last of my nerves and memories down into the pit of my gut, “great to be back,” my words taste as gritty as the desert sand on my tongue. “Great to be back.”

  28|Holly

  I smear the peanut butter on my toast, making sure I push it over to each edge. It feels weird to eat alone after living with Knox, who never let me out of his sight for five years, and then going to Edgewood, where I was surrounded by hundreds of fellow addicts for every meal. I lift the toast to my lips and the crunch is deafening. I need some background noise. Listening to myself chew is depressing.

  I grab the remote and flick on the large, flat television suspended on the wall. A crowded table of aging ladies fills the screen as The View comes on. I watch for a second, as they talk over each other, all trying to make their point loudly and at the same time. It sounds like the chaos of the rehab cafeteria. The noise settles my nerves and I grab my food, not really focusing on what they’re saying, just enjoying that they’re saying it.

  Plopping down on the couch, I smile stupidly at the toast on my plate. It probably makes me weird, but getting groceries with Jake a couple of days ago, was a real highlight of the week for me. I’m sure for most people it’s a chore, just another thing to check off their weekly to-do list, but I loved the simple luxury of choosing food with my man. Being out, on his arm, doing something as meaningless as picking out apples with him was a real treat.

  I never realized how pent up Knox kept me for over five years of my life. We rarely ever left his place, between his job and his cocaine-induced paranoia, he didn’t like leaving his apartment much. I was never allowed to go anywhere on my own, and I let that become a normal part of my existence. How? I shake my head. He treated me more like an animal than a person, telling me when I could eat, when I could speak. For years, we lived almost exclusively on food he ordered in. It’s amazing I still have my health at all. Not that my cocaine addiction left me much of an appetite anyway.

  My body was as hollow and vacant on the outside as my soul was on the inside. So, yeah, maybe I’m a huge dork for loving trips to the grocery store, but it’s the little things.

  I drop the crusts down onto my plate and brush the crumbs from my top. My thoughts trail off to my parents. I wish they could see how happy I am now. They were so upset about me coming to live here, I hope they take Jake up on his offer to come visit us. I know after only a few hours, they’re minds would be put to rest if they saw how peaceful and happy my life is now.

  I should give them a call. The idea of listening to my mother’s frosty tone squeezes my heart too hard to bring myself to do it. Maybe an e-mail would be better. Before he left Edgewood, my father wrote down all his contact information and stuffed it in my hand. None of it had changed from when I was a kid, the phone number, his ‘PapaBear’ email address. Hell, he even wrote down their house address, like I hadn’t just taken a taxi there a couple of months ago. I guess after I disappeared from their lives, he didn’t want to take any chances that I would lose touch with them again.

  I walk over to Jake’s computer, which he gave me the password to earlier. “Mi casa es su casa,” he smiled. “This is your place, eat what you want, do what you want, ok?” He kissed my forehead and I closed my eyes with a smile.

  I open my
e-mail and can’t get in. What the hell? Oh, I forgot that I changed the password before I headed off to rehab so Knox wouldn’t be able to access my account anymore. My email was just one more thing that he controlled when I lived with him. I never gave him a reason not to trust me, I was stupidly loyal to that asshole, but he still insisted on checking my messages whenever he was feeling jealous.

  I log in properly with the new password and gasp. My inbox is filled with message after message from Knox. I scroll the screen, he sent the first one a couple of days after I left. There must be hundreds of them here! I click them, scanning the messages and my heart sinks. Most of the messages are short and read pretty much the same way, he’s going to find me. I can’t escape.

  I scroll up through the madness and see his tone started to change when he found out I was at Edgewood. That’s when he started the death threats. I guess he figured out I wasn’t reading his messages and that’s why he sent me that letter.

  Flicking past a bunch of unopened e-mails I look at the last one he sent me. It’s dated from a week ago. Clicking the message, I see it’s more of the same. Another death threat. It seems like he’s losing steam though. The messages are spaced further and further apart. That must be a good sign.

  I hover my mouse over the little x in the corner, I don’t have the heart to get a hold of my parents right now. I think I need to take a long bath and soak of the black stain that Knox has left on me.

  Da-ding!

  I jump in the leather chair and my eyes grow wide as a new e-mail pops into my inbox. It’s from him. My arms feel like a thousand tiny acupuncture needles are prickling my skin as a shiver violently runs down my spine.

  Does he know I’ve been checking my e-mails? Paranoia washes over me, I look around Jake’s house, like I expect Knox to walk out from behind the living room curtain or something.

  I’m being irrational. It’s a coincidence. Nothing more. I take a deep breath, but the icy feeling in my gut doesn’t melt away. My hand trembles as I let my curiosity battle with my fear. Finally, I click the message open and jolt upright in the chair, clasping both of my hands over my mouth to contain a scream that rattles in my throat.

  I leap to my feet, my heart thrashing in my chest and look at the screen in horror. There, glowing from Jake’s computer is a picture of us, standing with a half-filled grocery cart and wide smiles frozen on our faces. We’re completely oblivious to our picture being taken, our eyes locked on one another in what would be a sweet picture if it was taken under any other circumstance.

  Under the picture, his message is simple. Tears spring to my eyes and I struggle to breathe. This time, there’s no death threat. No detailed plans to shoot my legs or explicit messages about how he plans to fuck me. Instead, only two words are under the photo: Found you.

  Fuck. Shit. Fuck!

  There’s no way Knox was at the grocery store, was there? Is there any possible chance he could’ve been standing close enough to us to take our photograph, but I didn’t see him? No. It’s impossible.

  The thought brings me no comfort. That means he’s got someone else following me. He knows where we are. It’s only a matter of time until he comes to collect.

  I rush over to the kitchen drawer and pull out the biggest knife I can find, racing down the hall, I lock myself in Jake’s room. He could come for me in a week, or a month, or fucking today. The only thing I know for sure is that he will stop at nothing to take me back. To teach me his lessons. To kill me.

  I slide under the comforter, shivering like a little girl afraid of the monsters in her closet. It’s funny how, when we’re kids, we’re so afraid of scary creatures lurking under our beds. Crazy concoctions our imaginations come up with that have no basis in reality. No one tells us that the real monsters live among us. That we work with them, we date them, we see them every day.

  As long as my monster is out there, lurking in the shadows, I’ll never be safe.

  He’ll never stop, until he destroys me.

  29|Jake

  “So, we’re standing there, trying not to sway all over the place,” Black is leaning into the crowd, loving that they’re hanging off his every word. “And were trying to not even breathe too heavily, cause we absolutely reek of liquor,” Black’s eyes twinkle as he captivates the table full of sailors.

  I can’t help but smile at how he paints a picture. Black can be a dick, but him and I have history. We ripped it up in every port together. Most of the time, the party didn’t stop when we hit home soil either. I can’t count the number of drunken, coked out nights we’ve had. Mostly because I can’t remember them.

  “And he says to us,” he continues, “‘I’m only going to ask you one more time, how the fuck did this monkey get on board?’” He drops his voice as he imitates our old Captain. “And this one,” he starts to laugh, jutting his thumb at me, “says ‘I don’t know, sir. Maybe he enlisted.’” The table erupts with laughter as Black doubles over. I can’t help but chuckle too, even if I’d rather forget what a shit show I used to be.

  “That’s fucking epic!” A young recruit with no more than three haircuts in the navy beams at us. He looks at us the way I remember looking at the older guys when I first joined. Like they were rock stars and royalty rolled into one. In my world, there was nothing cooler than the grizzled SEALs who had a bunch of deployments under their belt.

  “What happened to the monkey?” Some other guy I only met today asks.

  “The Captain tossed him off the ship,” Black smirks.

  “Really?” His deep brown eyes squint.

  “No, he’s shitting you. The Singapore government sent some animal control people to take him back before we left port,” I explain.

  “You always gotta ruin my fun.” Black pretends to pout for a second, but he can’t keep the wide smile from his face. “Man, we had some wild days, didn’t we?”

  “We did,” I agree. To hear him tell it, you’d think it had just been a non-stop party. Of course, telling stories about late night cocaine confessions and hugging toilet bowls probably wouldn’t get the same idolization. Even if we did spend just as much time doing those things as we did messing around and being crazy. Maybe even more.

  Dan blazes into another story and I pat my hands over my jacket pockets. Where’s my phone? I slide my palms over my pants, but it’s not there either. Shit. I must’ve left it in the car.

  I peer around the bar, but there’s no clock on any of the walls. Glancing out the window, the sky is already turning a murky cocktail of deep blues. Is it night already? How long have we been here?

  “Hey man, sorry to interrupt,” I cut off Black, “what time is it?”

  “Uh, I dunno,” he shrugs and pulls out his cell. “Almost eight, why?”

  What? How is that possible? We came in here for a couple of drinks almost four hours ago. How did the day slide into night without me noticing?

  “I’ve gotta get moving,” I start to stand up but Black grabs my arm.

  “What? No way! It’s still early, bro. I haven’t seen you in forever, you can’t take off yet,” he demands.

  “No, I’ve got my girl waiting for me at home. I’m going to head out,” I pull my arm back and stand up.

  “Oh, come on, she’s a big girl. She can look after herself for a few hours while you catch up with old friends, right? Besides,” he drops his voice, but everyone at the table can still hear him, “after this I was gonna have you come over. You know, and give our buddy Paul a call.” He throws the name of my old dealer out casually.

  “No, I’m not interested,” I clamp my jaw and look him in the eyes.

  “For fuck’s sake!” He throws his hands up in the air. “I knew they got to you,” he eyes me up with disgust. “You going to be one of those holier-than-thou guys now who tells everyone they party too much? You can’t even go out and have a good time anymore? What did they do to you in that place? Shove a stick up your ass?” Black slurs at me.

  “Things change, man. People do too.”
I blow him off and start to leave.

  “Ok, ok. Listen, I’m sorry man. That wasn’t cool of me. Hey, lemme buy you a shot, ok? I wanna make it up to you.” Black grasps my coat sleeve and I look down into his hopeful face.

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “No, I want to. You know what?” He stands up and waves his hand at the perky bartender across the room, “Hey, sweetheart! How about you grab us a round of Irish Car Bombs. One for everyone, ok?” He circles his finger around the table. “It’s on me,” he smirks at his happy group of friends.

  I look over at the young lady putting together Black’s order and then back to the man. “Ok, one shot,” I shrug. “Just one and then I’ve gotta peel out of here, ok?”

  “All right! That’s the guy I know!” Black claps my shoulders enthusiastically and pulls my chair out for me to sit back down. I plop into it, sinking into the wooden chair and watch as he sits tall next to me, puffing out his chest proudly.

  Just one shot, then I’m out. That’s it. No wild night with Black, no trolling for cocaine, none of that. Just one shot.

  Just one.

  30|Holly

  I peer over at the alarm clock on Jake’s night table. It’s almost eleven. It’s pitch black outside and every set of car headlights that passes by the bedroom window, casting ominous light across the walls, grips my gut with fear. Is it Jake?

  Or is it Knox?

  I know the house is in a gated community, but I also know it won’t stop Knox. He’s already tracked me down to this city, it’s only a matter of time until he zeros in on this house.

  Where is Jake? My eyes squeeze shut and I silently pray, again, for him to come home safe. Did Knox follow him? Did he kill him? Did he take him? He was supposed to be home over six hours ago, I’ve called his phone a hundred times, and have only managed to fill up his voicemail with frantic messages.