Heat

by Lis Lucassen

  “Look, I went to see Lynn and I fell asleep. Nothing’s wrong.” He pushed himself away from the wall he’d leaned against up till now and sat down next to Jason on the bed. “I mean it. There’s…”

  “I can’t take this anymore.” His mother looked at him and he saw the sadness in her eyes. The anxiety. “I just can’t.”

  “I don’t need to be put in some psych ward. I’m – doing better, actually.”

  His father finally deigned to look at him, his eyebrows raised and a mocking expression on his face. “Oh, you’re doing better? Really, Daniel?” He pointed to the long sleeves covering up his arms and Dan felt shame filling him once more. “How can you possibly be doing better when you still refuse to accept what you did?”

  “What – I did?” Dan scoffed.

  His father narrowed his eyes. He crossed his arms in front of his chest and suddenly seemed to tower over him. “Yes, Dan. What you did. How else would you describe it? Whose stupid idea was it to…”

  “So you’re saying it’s my own fault?”

  “Yes, I am!” The affirmative words shook up his father just as much as they did him. Dan saw it in the way his dad’s face changed. It hardened. It turned into a closed-off mask, a wall of pragmatism leaving no room for interpretation or feelings of guilt.

  Silence filled the room like a balloon swelling up until it threatened to crush him and hurt him physically. He didn’t want to cry, refused to cry, and yet he couldn’t stop the tears. They had to fight their way out.

  “Dan…” His mother joined him on the bed, putting her hand on his knee to squeeze it. “It’s – we – this is all really hard on us, too.”

  He jerked away and jumped up. “What’s so hard? Being stuck with a disfigured son? Or being saddled with a son who just won’t get his act together, even after his own actions caused him to get disfigured in the first place?” He took a few backward steps toward the door, his eyes still on his parents. “But hey, thanks so much for this wonderful pep talk. I’m feeling so much better now.”

  His hands fumbled for the doorknob.

  “Dan… please, surely we can…”

  “No, Julia! We’ve been talking about it for over a year now,” Stan Mertens fumed. “Your behavior is grossly out of proportion, Daniel. Even before the accident you were always clowning around getting yourself into one irresponsible situation after the next. It has to stop. You know, I was hoping that it would change you – that you’d realize just how precious and fragile life really is. But what do I get instead? A son who tries to off himself. You’re selfish and you won’t listen to anyone. And I refuse to play along anymore, you hear me? I refuse to take part in your little self-created drama. Grow up, Daniel. Confront your problems, learn from them, and move on. You’re nineteen years old. You’ve got a good head on your shoulders. You’ve got so much potential. You haven’t lost all that after the accident. The only thing you seemed to have lost is compassion for anyone but yourself.”

  The door had opened behind him and he fled through it, into the hallway. His father’s words chased him like a pack of rabid dogs until he reached his own room, where he slammed the door shut behind him and sat down on the bed, his knees pulled up.

  But even there, the words found him, sinking their sharp teeth into his body and tearing him apart.

  Exhausted, he eventually fell asleep.

  30

  Lynn

  In the middle of the day, Lynn had woken up from the nightmare revisiting the things that had happened to her in the hours before. She remembered the words – the gruesome story she’d entrusted Dan with. The truth she’d carried inside for so long suddenly wasn’t owned by just her and that other person, but also by Dan. A part of her hoped he would forget. But that look in his eyes, and his reaction to her words… no, Dan wouldn’t gloss over it, that much was sure.

  And then there’d been that confrontation between him and his father. It felt like an intimate moment that she’d unwillingly been privy to. It felt like another terrible truth had been exposed, but this one belonged to Dan.

  Lynn sighed, rubbing her eyes for the umpteenth time that day. Her throat felt swollen and her eyes were still half-shut. Steve had been hovering around her all afternoon, but thankfully there were too many kids around that needed to be entertained for him to ask what she knew he was bound to ask at some point. And what was she supposed to tell him? A lie – or the truth? Which was worse?

  A ball rolled against her feet. She picked it up and looked left and right. One of the German teens waved at her, his hands held up. With all the strength she could muster, she tossed him the ball, but her sorry excuse for a throwback made it bounce into the swimming pool a few yards away.

  “Sorry…” was all she could say.

  The German boy waved her excuse away, ran toward the pool, and made a cannonball. Or actually, it was more like a full-sized torpedo. Water splashed over the edge and she stepped away just too late. Now her entire polo shirt was drenched.

  “Great. Just great!” Lynn gave him a mock thumbs-up as her attacker snatched up the ball and pulled himself up on the edge before shrugging at her and running back to his friends, who were laughing just as loudly as their dive-bomb friend.

  Steve emerged from the group of toddlers he was playing skittles with and sauntered over to her. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. It’s just water.” She inadvertently wrapped her arms around her chest to cover up her breasts. They were clearly visible in her wet T-shirt. “I’m just going to run upstairs to grab some dry clothes.”

  “Lynn.” Steve caught her gaze and his eyes bored into hers. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing with that guy, but I don’t trust him. At all.”

  “You don’t even know him.” Her heart cringed at the memory of the discussion between Dan and his father. At the memory of the look in his eyes as she’d touched him, back on the beach.

  “I know his kind.” Steve shrugged. Even though he meant to make it look casual, it wasn’t half as nonchalant as he wanted to make it seem. “He’s using you.”

  “Oh, and you’re not?” she blurted out before she knew it. “Steve – what do you want from me, exactly?”

  Steve grabbed her arm. His fingers on her skin were painful, but Lynn refused to pull away and give him the satisfaction. “I…” It was the first time she saw Steve speechless. “You don’t even know the guy…”

  He let go of her so suddenly that Lynn struggled to stay upright. She straightened her back, trying to regain her dignity despite the wet shirt and the awkward feeling invading her body like an intruder. “I don’t want to discuss it. Not now. Not ever.”

  Steve reached for her but Lynn dodged his hand and stomped off. Around the pool, across the lobby, and toward her room. It was only when she was safe and dry behind her locked door that she realized something. Steve had crossed a boundary back there. He was no longer just flirting with her – he actually had feelings for her. Feelings she didn’t reciprocate. A familiar sense of loneliness touched her heart like an unbidden shadow. She’d often felt like this after Esmee’s death. Everything turned to black and the darkness devoured her.

  The only person here that she considered a friend would be lost to her forever if she didn’t bend to his will. If she didn’t live up to his expectations of her. But she didn’t want to submit to anyone anymore, not if she had a choice. Not now.

  Not ever.

  The empty bottles were still strewn around the foot section of the bed. She’d already put the full ones back in the fridge after Dan had left. After picking up the tangible reminders of why she’d made her painful confession to him, she walked over to the trashcan in the bathroom and got rid of them. The mirror above the sink showed her a familiar stranger. Brown hair in a braid falling over her left shoulder, gray-blue eyes, and a scattering of freckles on the bridge of her straight nose. Her lips, the bottom one a bit fuller than the other.

  “Who are you?” the mirror image seemed to ask her.


  Dan’s hands on her body, his mouth.

  “Who are you?”

  Esmee. The baggage rack of her bicycle like a mangled puzzle with missing pieces. The streetlight casting a yellowish light on the growing stain of red seeming to pour from her neck and hair.

  “Who am I?”

  The empty seat next to her, on the plane. The empty second bed in her apartment in town. The empty space within her.

  Lynn turned away from the mirror and left the bathroom. She passed her bed, opened the door and stepped outside, clicking it shut behind her. When she got to reception and walked up to the desk, Marina looked up from the gossip magazine she was reading.

  “The Mertens family. Which rooms are they in?”

  “Well, hello to you too. Hold on.” Marina typed something on the old keyboard in front of her with her noticeably much too long, much too red fingernails. “This is taking a while.” She wrinkled her nose while checking out one of her nails, flicking away an imaginary speck of dust. “So. You left us hanging yesterday. Steve said you told him you wanted to join us.”

  “Oh. Yeah.” Marina was right – she’d told Steve that before Dan had barged into her room. “I fell asleep.” It was the truth.

  Marina shrugged. “Well, me and Steve had a blast. You should really come next time. Oh. They’re in 505 and 506.”

  Lynn thanked Marina, who was already waving her away to keep reading her tabloid.

  Dan’s room was on the fifth floor of the hotel – the top floor. The view from the balconies was magnificent, Lynn knew that from experience. From the south side you could see the ocean. She rode the elevator up and only realized as she walked down the corridor toward the two rooms at the end that she still didn’t know which of the two rooms was his. Or if he was even there right now.

  Just as she decided to turn around and go downstairs, one of the doors opened. Jason stepped outside, dressed in his swimming trunks and wearing a towel around his shoulders. He spotted her and stopped.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Hi.” Jason grabbed the edges of the towel. “You’re looking for Dan.”

  Even though it wasn’t a question, she nodded.

  “He’s in a dark mood.”

  “Oh.”

  Her reaction must have been different from what Jason expected, because he shrugged and pointed to the room to his right. “Your funeral.” Still gripping the edges of the towel in his hands, he passed her. He looked over his shoulder one more time before going down the stairs. Lynn heard the thuds of his footsteps as he rushed down. She waited until the sound had faded away, then walked over to the door and knocked.

  After a few minutes of waiting, she knocked once more.

  And waited again.

  Just as she was about to leave, someone opened the door. Dan stared at her. It was obvious he hadn’t been expecting her. The red mark on his cheek had thankfully faded away somewhat, but now the skin of his neck looked red and irritated, and his eyes were puffy. Had he been crying?

  She swallowed. “I just wanted to know how you were doing?”

  He didn’t make any move to let her in. “I’m fine.” Which was clearly a lie.

  “Good.” Why was it suddenly so hard to say what she wanted? “Are you sure?”

  His face contorted with anger and his mouth turned into a straight line. Lynn recognized the expression – the mask that distorted his face. “Look, are you deaf? I told you I’m fine, didn’t I?” He was about to swing the door shut in her face, but she spoke up.

  “I need to talk to you. About what I… about last night.” The sentence tumbled over her lips and seemed to have the desired effect. He left the door ajar, peeking through the crack.

  “Not now.” Dan sighed. “Tonight.”

  Before she could ask where they should meet and at what time, he closed the door. She stood there, doubtfully eyeing the door and waiting, but he didn’t open up anymore. Not even when she knocked again.

  31

  Lynn

  That night, she ate alone. When she returned from Dan’s room, Steve had already herded all the kids back to their parents. He’d even cleared away all the toys they’d used for the games. There was no sign of him anywhere. When she went to the reception desk, Suzy – the other receptionist – told her that Steve had taken Marina down to the village. Suzy had no idea whether they were coming back tonight.

  Not very likely, then.

  Lynn tried another few bites of salad before giving up. She had no appetite, not after all that had happened. Once in her room, she called her mother.

  “Honey! I was just thinking about you.”

  She smiled, then realized that her mother couldn’t see that, of course. “Same here, Mom.”

  “By the way, you’ve got mail. From college. I think it’s the course catalog.”

  Her stomach twisted into a tight knot. Introduction week would start in exactly one month. It was only when she tasted blood on her tongue that she found out she was biting her bottom lip too hard.

  “Mom…”

  “Yes, hon?”

  “How’s…”

  Her mother kept quiet for a moment. “Better. They put up the tombstone at last. Day before yesterday. That was good. The police paid another visit to your aunt and uncle. They’re still looking, some tips had come in thanks to a Facebook message. But nothing useful.”

  The knot in her stomach got bigger. Her heart made a strange leap upward toward her throat, blocking it on its way out. “I – I should go back to work,” she finally managed to croak out.

  “Yes, of course, sweetheart. You’re probably really busy. You have fun, okay? Only two weeks left.”

  “Yeah. Mom…” She wanted to tell her. She really wanted to, but – she couldn’t. She didn’t dare.

  “Yes, honey?” Lynn thought she heard a hint of tension in her mother’s voice. But she didn’t know, she couldn’t possibly know. And yet, somehow, her mother could sense that she was holding something undisclosed inside. She’d never asked Lynn for it straight-out, but in moments like these, a dim hope to be let in on her daughter’s secret seeped through, like silver lining on the edges of a dark cloud blotting out the sun.

  “See you soon, Mom.”

  “See you soon, darling. I love you.”

  “Love you too.”

  Lynn clicked off and sagged back against her pillows. She tossed her phone to the other side of the bed, stopping herself from listening to that one voice mail message yet again. She waited for Dan to show up. Calmly at first, but her restlessness and irritation mounted as the hours crept by and he didn’t show. Crawling into bed, then out of bed and into the bathroom, under the shower, and back to bed again. By the time she finally drifted off to sleep, she had no idea how much time had passed. She did know that her tears had left a wet stain on her pillow. Tears she didn’t want to shed, caused by a pain she no longer wanted to feel.

  The sound of someone knocking at the door didn’t fit into her dream. It had featured Esmee. And Steve, of all people. They’d stood hand in hand on the edge of one of the cliffs that gave the island coastline its jagged and recognizable appearance. And no matter how loudly she’d protested, they’d commanded her to jump. The water was beating against the stone like angry fists, the foam on top of the waves more gray than white.

  She was jolted awake. Her heart pounded in her throat and for a second, she was too dizzy to fully sit up. Groping around for her phone, which had fallen off the bed and landed behind one of its legs, she saw the time on the display. 2:18. She switched on the light on her nightstand and waited.

  The knocking continued. Eventually she managed to get her ragged breathing under control and her legs steady enough to carry her to the door.

  Dan slipped inside and closed the door behind him before she had a chance to do it herself.

  “It’s almost two-thirty!”

  “I really couldn’t get here sooner.” He looked strikingly awake. It made Lynn wonder if he’d slept at all.

&n
bsp; She followed him to the bed where he had taken a seat, his back propped up against the pillows that still showed the faint impression of her head. He finally looked her in the eye. “You should wear your hair down more often.”

  “Huh?” Surprised, she ran a hand through her hair. During her tossing and turning the strands must have unbraided themselves. She scanned the mattress, looking for the scrunchie that still had to be somewhere around here. Of course, nowhere she could spot it right now.

  “Why did your father hit you?” She had to get the words out before he had a chance to say anything. One side of all the misery. His side, not hers. Dan frowned, rubbing his hands up and down his upper arms as though he was feeling cold. “Because…” His brown eyes scanned her face, gauging her character. Truly inspecting her, she realized. Making sure she was worth his secret.

  “Because I tried to commit suicide once, and now my parents are terrified I’ll try again. And succeed. Because my dad says I’m self-centered and a bad influence on people due to my total depravity. Or something along those lines.” The deep brown in his irises seemed to morph into a gaze of deep black, and Lynn cast her gaze to the floor. So much truth in a few sentences was too much to handle right now. Staggering back, she plunked down on the bed.

  “Why did you try to kill yourself?”

  Dan sighed. “Does it matter?”

  She contemplated his question. Did it? There was only one possible answer. Yes, it did. The reason why someone had given up on life absolutely mattered. Why would you want to die? She only knew the other side of the coin – someone who’d enjoyed living, whose life had been ended by another person making that choice for her.

  She didn’t understand that other side any more than she did Dan’s.

  But the answer to that other question mattered just as much, she now realized.

  “It does. It does matter.”

  “Why?”

  Lynn turned sideways to face Dan. “Because every single life matters. And someone ending a life needs a damn good reason to do so.”