by Lis Lucassen
The door thudding to a close made her jump a little. She looked back, rose from her seat, but Steve was already gone. Why hadn’t she spoken up? She should have found the words, the sentences, to help him somehow. To get that panicked tension out of his shoulders. She should have said something.
“You look like you have something to say?” Constanza had already picked up the phone. Her steely gaze was a clear hint for Lynn to leave the office. Lynn got up and headed for the door, but the small distance between her chair and the exit suddenly seemed unbridgeable. Her steps got smaller and smaller, until she finally stopped walking altogether, both of her feet planted on the floor.
“Yes. I do have something to say.” Without turning around to face her boss, she continued. “If you let Steve go, you’re making a big mistake. He’s kind. And he actually wants to be here.”
The meaning behind those words made Lynn dizzy.
“And you – don’t really want to be here?”
“No, I don’t.” She whispered the answer. Constanza wouldn’t understand, but she didn’t need to. She hardly understood it herself. And it was all because of Dan. He’d made sure she could no longer hide. Not in a faraway country under sunny skies. Not by making choices, willingly or unwillingly. Not by following the path mapped out for her, leading to someone else’s future. And not within herself.
The feeling hit her like some kind of intense homesickness. It wasn’t because she longed to go home, but because she knew she needed to. She had to go home. She had to tell her parents about Esmee. Lynn worried her lip. It meant she’d have to tell her parents about her role in everything. Her tongue traced the bite marks on her bottom lip, and she tasted blood.
“No, I don’t. I need to go home.”
Constanza let out another labored sigh. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll need to get someone to fill in for you in the final week. I’ll make arrangements.”
Lynn cleared her throat. “Thank you.”
She didn’t know what to do with herself when she closed the door of Constanza’s office behind her. Her heart was beating in an irregular rhythm and she felt nauseous. Relieved, stressed, determined, and uncertain all at once. The floor seemed to tilt under her feet and for a second, she was afraid she’d faint. Steadying herself against the wall, she carefully walked down the corridor, crossing the lobby to get to the elevator. Taking the stairs seemed unwise at this juncture – she’d probably trip over her own feet and tumble down. And by now, the only way should be up.
44
Dan
“I gave him a sedative. A thorough night’s sleep will do him good.”
The doctor spoke in hushed tones, but Dan heard every word. He was curled up in his bed like a ball. They’d switched off the AC, he’d been given an extra blanket, but he still felt cold as ice. Maybe he’d feel better once he could stop shivering.
“Thank you.” His dad’s voice.
“No problem.” The doctor shook his father’s hand. Dan saw it all from a horizontal position. The panic zapping though his body had fallen away, so the pills had probably started to work. The world looked different – like it had a fuzzy edge. It reminded him of the morphine trips he’d been on straight after the accident. The fog in his field of vision expanded, swallowing up everything else. His head turned light and he floated away, weightless. Nothing kept him tied to the world. And he’d felt like this before, too. Another handful of pills and he’d slip out of life.
“Be my guest.” Timo dug another six-pack of beer cans from the grocery bag. He pulled one out of the plastic beer rings and threw him the drink. The can trailed an elegant arch through the air. Dan caught the can and popped it open. Foam bubbled up from the hole and he put it to his lips quickly.
Ella moved closer, cocking her head. “I don’t like beer.” She pouted.
He leaned in and pressed his lips to her.
“Eww, Dan! Gross!” She pushed him and he laughed. The thought of the six-packs they’d just bought illegally made it sound more ebullient than usual. But he didn’t care. They were in the garden, sitting on the edge of the porch. It was cold for November, but at least it hadn’t rained or snowed all day. The other guys from his team were further down the garden. Nathan and Elin cuddled up in a corner, Rob, Henry and Mathias number one were standing around the brazier. Mathias number two was sick. Or that had been his excuse not to show up, at least. According to Timo, Mathias number two was just a loser who didn’t like parties. Fortunately for Mathias number two, he was a good center player, which was exactly what they needed. Otherwise he wouldn’t have lasted for long – Timo thought.
Timo also thought tonight had called for a party. “Because we need to celebrate our star player going to the U.S. of A soon! Lucky son of a bitch!”
He burped. It was a good and loud one. Timo collapsed into a laugh so loud that it made him get up and lean his hands on his knees. The laugh morphed into something else.
“Dan, I’m out of here.” Ella got up. “Gonna spend some time with the grownups.” She sashayed down to the brazier and found Elin to complain to, who generously offered her a puff of her cigarette. Dan stifled a sigh. Ella should be one to talk about hating the taste of beer – like it was appealing to stick his tongue down someone’s mouth if she tasted like an ashtray. He downed his can and crushed it with his heel.
Timo immediately passed him another one. Dan popped it open and quickly put it to his lips. Rinse and repeat.
A curtain seemed to be obscuring his view, making the world blurry in his mind. He raised the can to propose a toast. To life. Or to something else Great and Important.
“Dude!” Timo bumped into his arm. Beer soaked his shoulder. A wet stain drenched his coat.
“Timo, dammit!” Dan rubbed his sleeve. Trying to clean it was useless. He’d smell like a bar after closing hours when he got home. His mom would smell the alcohol on him, which was going to cost him thirty minutes of his life if she forced him to listen to another sermon about responsive behavior.
“Du-hude!” Timo insisted, pointing to the cluster of people around the brazier. “Get a look of that!”
His eyes followed Timo’s index finger. Ella was standing close to Rob. His hand was on her shoulder and she smiled up at him. Her long hair tumbled forward across her shoulder and Rob grabbed a lock of her hair, twirling it between his fingers.
It was like a broken bell went off in his head. The beer sloshed down his throat as he got up and felt the ground tilt under his feet. He blamed it on the thin layer of snow still covering a part of the tiles.
Timo followed him. “Dan. What the fuck are you up to, man?”
He shook off Timo’s hand and stalked toward Ella and Rob.
“Dan?” Ella looked up at him, a question in her eyes. Rob was no longer touching her. Good – that was good. He used his shoulder to knock his teammate away. Rob sidestepped his movement and raised a quizzical eyebrow.
“Keep your hands off her.” Again, he shoved Rob roughly.
“Dan, please. Don’t be an idiot.” Ella moved away from him, flicked her hair backward, and joined Elin’s side. Front-row seats for the drama unfolding. Elin whispered something in her ear and she couldn’t help a brief smile flickering across her face before her eyes swerved back to him and she looked serious once more. Her face was a perfect mask of mild shock and perfectly modeled indignation.
“Jesus, Dan. Calm down.” Rob raised his hands.
“Hands. Off. Her.” He was still pointing at Rob.
“Dude, don’t be an asshole.” Rob now lowered his arms and crossed them in front of his chest. “You know, you might feel you’re the man thanks to that scholarship, but you’re not God, okay? I was just talking to her, that’s all.”
Somewhere, deep inside his mind, two synapses refused to connect. Instead of listening to Rob’s words, he allowed his brain to raise countless red flags. His eyes darted back to Ella once more, who was clearly giving him an expectant look. His body moved, and he wanted to step forward to la
nd a few punches in Rob’s face, but someone stopped him.
He turned around and caught sight of Timo letting go of his coat. His friend must have grabbed him. He staggered. The alcohol in his system tipped his balance and he fell sideways.
And the brazier plunged down with him. It was only when he heard Ella shrike that he registered the burning pain going through his upper body.
He could hear Ella scream again.
No.
“Dan!” His father whispered in his ear. The screams he’d heard were his own, he realized. Slowly, his consciousness clawed its way upward through the dark edges of deep sleep.
“Daniel. You need to wake up, son.”
His eyelids felt immensely heavy. And yet, he managed at last to open his eyes. The winter evening in Timo’s garden retreated from his mind, taking the intense heat and the smell of burning plastic along with it.
“Dan?”
“Yeah, I’m here.” His voice was rough. He looked sideways, to the other side of the bed which was usually occupied by Jason. His father was sitting there now, his back against the headboard and a magazine in his lap. The bedside light was on and cast a yellow glow onto the open pages.
“What time is it?”
His father checked his watch. “Eleven-thirty.”
“Why aren’t you asleep?”
He put the magazine away. “I assumed you’d wake up at some point.”
Dan struggled to sit up. His head was spinning and his throat felt like sandpaper.
“You want some water?”
He nodded. His father got up and went into the bathroom. Seconds later, he came back with a plastic cup of water. He emptied it and set it down on his own nightstand.
“How are you feeling?”
His hair stuck to his forehead. “Sweaty.” Dan kicked off the two blankets covering his body and let the cool air of the AC waft up his legs. His dad must have turned the thing back on after he’d fallen asleep. Thank God. The room would have felt like hellfire by now without it.
“That girl came by for you.”
He frowned. “Lynn?”
His father nodded. “She wanted to know how you were doing. She seems like a nice girl.”
A question was hiding somewhere in that statement, but he wasn’t ready to answer it. He didn’t even know what to make of the whole situation between him and Lynn. “Yeah, she is,” he just replied.
His parents had never liked Ella. And in hindsight, he had to admit they’d been right. Even though they’d never openly told him, he’d known. The few times he’d brought Ella back to his place, they’d been distant. That’s why he preferred to go to her house instead. Her parents were never there anyway. Which made things a lot easier.
“She saw it. Me. My scars. When my shirt tore.” He didn’t really understand why he shared this with his father. But he had to share it with someone.
“And that’s a bad thing?”
Dan didn’t reply. He turned the question over in his mind and finally concluded that he didn’t know.
45
Lynn
Steve wouldn’t look at her. A suitcase was open on his bed and a pile of clothes was waiting next to it. He was packing his belongings so methodically. The shirts went in first. Then the shorts. Socks were sorted by color and his boxers by pattern. Checkered. Striped. Plain.
“Can I say OCD?” she couldn’t help remarking on the sorted piles, even if it was just to break the icy silence. When he hadn’t showed up for breakfast this morning, she was afraid he’d left before Constanza even had the chance to kick him out. But when she bumped into the hotel manager a few minutes later and the woman told her that the first available flight left in two days, she’d gone upstairs in the hope of finding him in his room.
And he’d been there.
“What?” He flung a pair of white socks into the suitcase. “Why did I pack socks..?” he mumbled to himself more than to her.
“Steve?”
He shoved the suitcase off the bed with an abrupt gesture. It hit the wall and broke off a piece of the plaster. Behind the stylish, white plaster, an ugly, gray wall was hiding. Concrete, if she wasn’t mistaken.
Everything looked better if you covered it up.
Steve plonked down on the bed and let himself fall backwards. His legs dangled over the edge. He looked up. “You know what I like most about this island?”
Lynn shrugged. “The girls?”
It took a while before Steve answered. “The fact that no one knows you in this place. You start with a clean slate and you can be whoever you want. Become whoever you want. No one to hold you back or to tell you to snap back to reality. To make you aware of your shortcomings. To tell you, time and again, why you’re never good enough. “
She let the words sink in. No one had ever told her that she was inadequate. It hurt her – hearing the edge to his voice and the deeper meaning of his reply. Quickly, she walked over to the bed and lay down beside Steve. She turned her face toward him. “The best thing for me is that nobody can get to you. The sea is everywhere you look. You have no options. No hard choices. Everything is clear.”
Steve turned to his side. “No hard choices? ‘
His blue eyes searched her face. What was he looking for? She felt awkward under his gaze, like he was seeing too much of her. Inadequate. The word echoed around in her head. “Sometimes – I… well, I used to think my life was all mapped out. There were no choices. At least, no choices I could make. They’d been made for me.” She bit her lip. “It may sound stupid, but…”
“Not at all.” Steve took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “You’re like a passenger trapped in your own life, headed for a future that others built for you. You’re not at the helm. You’re not holding the wheel. Someone else is. And no matter how loud you scream that you want to get out, or you want to take the exit, no one is listening.”
Now it was her turn to study his face. It looked tense, and the frown between his eyebrows made him look older. He sat up so fast that it startled her.
“I should keep packing. Who knows when Constanza finds me a seat on one of the planes. She’d rather see me out ASAP.” The smile pulling at his lips looked all wrong. So forced. He walked around the bed to pick up his suitcase and drop it down on the bed. The lid fell open and hit her in the arm.
“You don’t need to leave.”
Steve groped around to pick up the clothes that had fallen and dumped them in the suitcase once more. “We were in the same office, right? I’m unwelcome here. And rightly so. I should never have left that girl by herself,” he spoke with his back turned to her.
“So why did you leave her alone, actually?”
She saw the muscles in his shoulders tense up. “You really wanna know? I think you’ll find me an even bigger asshole than right now.”
“I don’t think you’re an …”
“I was with Ellis. Okay?” Steve interjected. “I was more preoccupied with following my dick than following protocol. So I abandoned a toddler with an obsession for swimming in the deep end by herself, near the pool, while she wasn’t wearing floaties.”
Slowly, the meaning of his words sunk in. She got up. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you so selfish?” Anger rolled off her in waves of ink-black water. Cherry could have died. She quickly pushed the thought of her tiny, lifeless body far away. And he – he’d chosen to do God knows what with Cherry’s big sister, of all people, instead of what he was supposed to do. Which was watching the children he was responsible for.
Steve finally turned around to face her. “I’m sorry.” He sounded genuine contrite, so Lynn knew he meant it before she looked in his eyes and saw his shame there.
“If he hadn’t been there…” Steve shook his head. “I mean Dan,” he clarified when she shot him a puzzled look. “I tried to talk to him afterwards but it was like nothing got through to him anymore.”
Lynn bit her lip. She’d seen Dan fleeing the scene, as
though he had been the one in the wrong.
Steve crossed his arms in front of his chest. “I tried to thank him, but he completely lost it.”
She remembered the uncontrolled shove that Dan had used to push Steve away. His clothes ripping. Her heart skipped a beat. And another. And seemed to stop altogether. Steve said something else, but his words were drowned out by the memory.
All of a sudden, she understood why Dan always dressed in those clothes. Why he never showed up at the pool in swimming trunks. When she was in the middle of all the commotion around Cherry, she hadn’t realized why Dan had bolted for his room. She’d been distracted too much by Cherry’s mom. Her cries of agony, then relief, when Cherry woke up again. But now, she understood what she had witnessed. Why Dan didn’t want her to touch him. Why had she never considered the possibility before? It was so obvious – a damn no-brainer, really.
“Uhm… Lynn?” Steve looked at her dubiously.
“I need to see him… I have to…” She wildly gestured at Steve to indicate she wanted him to step aside. He got the hint and she barreled past him toward the door. In the doorframe, she turned around.
“You’re a selfish jackass and you really should consider using your brains instead of your..” She indicated his crotch. “That being said, I know you’d never intentionally put Cherry in any danger. Constanza is booking a flight right now, but it’s for me. I want to go home. I need to go home. And you should stop being an egoist.”
Lynn stepped into the hallway and pulled the door to Steve’s room shut. She felt dizzy. And relieved. Somewhere inside of her, a door had opened that would never close again. And that door was letting out a whirlwind of words and emotions all at once.
It made her happy and sad at the same time. Like she was watching a movie trailer in which the heroine turned around and showed her, Lynn, a face that didn’t resemble her. An actress had been playing ‘Lynn’, but she hadn’t done her justice. She’d been in a black-and-white movie devoid of color.