She wrinkles her nose and shakes her head with precise movements. “No, that would have made me just like them, and I didn’t want to be that way. Even then, I knew one day they’d grow up and look back at the bad things they did as kids and feel bad for it.”
“That’s a unique perspective on bullying. Did you want an apology?”
“An accepted apology is a burden you take off someone’s shoulders, so if they felt the need to ask, then I guess, that already meant they felt bad for it.”
“And if they didn’t?”
“It doesn’t matter. Because they might have won the battle as children, but I won the war as an adult. Ivy League, valedictorian, popular, and until Tyler, extremely happy. And I did all of that without hurting someone, that’s something they can’t boast about.”
She’s leaning toward the ‘no revenge’ pile at the moment. Had it not been for the ‘until Tyler’ I would have solidified my assumption in writing. “Have you ever confronted them as an adult?”
“Yes,” she admits with a wide grin.
I point toward her notebook, and she rolls her eyes, jotting down the smile and the reason for it. The idea is to give her an actual list of things worth smiling about. “Would you like to tell me about how the confrontation went?”
“I was a teenager, had lost the weight, and grew into myself. I was in a really good place. Getting away from them and going to high school in a safer environment really helped me become who I am today.”
“Would you say the bullies inspired you to reach your potential?”
“No, I never gave them that kind of power. I followed what I wanted and barely thought about them until I ran into a couple of them. I had graduated summa cum laude from a prestigious school, had a plan, and a full life ahead of me. I had strong faith, a great family, and amazing friends. It felt really fucking good to show them they didn’t impact my life negatively, and that after all the negative things they said to bring me down, it didn’t affect me. As kids, they had power, but only because they didn’t know how to earn it.”
“I’m impressed with how grown-up you are about it. Childhood bullying is something, even as adults, we have a hard time processing.” Though severity and age are also critical. Teenage years in high school are particularly scarring for many adolescents. Part of IQ3 assesses bullying at its earliest stages, which later may bring about implementations of stricter no-tolerance policies. No child should have to be afraid to go to school. I speak from personal experience.
“Eh,” she says and shrugs her shoulders. “It also helps I dated some of the guys whom they used to crush on. Guess that makes me vengeful, right?”
“That makes you normal.” And a more interesting candidate. I give her a bully score of three and a confrontation score of two.
“I used to be nice. I believed in justice and upholding the law and treating people with the respect they deserved, but—” she cuts herself off.
I immediately follow up. “Do you think, given recent events, that’s changed?”
She holds my gaze and bites on her lower lip.
“Don’t be afraid to tell me how you feel. If you don’t tell me, I can’t help you. Nothing you say here will be conveyed to anyone else but me unless you give me the authority to.” Which she already has in her waiver, but I keep this to myself.
She nods and itches her nose. “I’ve considered murdering someone.”
Well, now we’re getting somewhere interesting. “Considered and doing are two very distinct things,” I remind her.
She rebuts with a shake of the head. “No, I’ve pictured it. I’ve dreamt it. If I knew who shot me and killed my son, I’d destroy them.”
Now she’s talking my language.
“That makes me a horrible person, doesn’t it?” She shuts her eyes for a second as she comes to terms with the idea of saying her deepest, darkest secret aloud.
“Not necessarily.”
“I don’t want to just kill the person, I want to torture them. To make them feel like my son did. Or tie them to a chair and set them on fire, so I can hear them scream and choke on their own melting tongue.”
“That’s very detailed.” And very reminiscent of Borshin’s demise. Bitten Senior not only killed him in the middle of the street, but he set him on fire and strapped himself with a fake bomb, threatening to set it off if anyone came near. I watched on the news as Borshin screamed out his agonizing confession before he passed out. Unlike Elijah, Borshin was doused with so much accelerant it didn’t take long for him to die.
“My pain is very detailed, Doctor. No one knows who shot me, but we were…” She shakes her head and changes the subject, obviously not ready to talk about her own culpability. “Cap said my injuries exceeded a physical diagnosis. Do you think my injuries are psychological?”
“I think trauma to the body always comes with some form of emotional sequelae. Fear is a very intrinsic emotion. It’s crippling, and when dealing with loss, we have to face many fears over and over again.”
“What do you mean?”
“Loss is a ripple effect, and when coupled with trauma, it’s like grabbing a bunch of stones and chucking them into the water at the same time.”
She watches me draw ripples on the paper.
“Sometimes, depending on where they land, the ripples may be one, or two, or three.” I point to where some touch and cross over each other. “Or they will overlap … For example, you have to face losing your identity and the fear that comes with finding yourself again. In your situation, you have to cope with the loss of family, of baring children, and what those implications have for you and your fiancé. Often, as a couple, you deal with losing what bound you together, or communication, or sexual desire. There’s fear in each one of those settings, and simultaneous confrontations are overwhelming. Sometimes, you shut down.”
“That makes sense,” she admits. “I feel like nothing makes sense anymore. Living, breathing, existing—it all lost value at some point. Even with Kace, it’s like we’re still the same people, who live in the same house, and there’s still something between us, but it’s different.”
“Are you not attracted to him anymore?”
“I’m not attracted to life anymore.” She shakes her head and starts again, “I mean, what am I still doing here? Going to therapy to get my job back, so I can see the same people who didn’t find who did this to Tyler. It’s like everything is a reason to just stop, except two things.”
“Which are?”
“One of them is Kace. We’ve been talking more lately. Being in his presence messes with my head. Or with my body. I don’t know.”
“Has it been difficult to be intimate with your partner?” I ask, looking down at the intimacy score. “Zero to five. Zero being no intimacy—”
“Zero,” she says blatantly. “The desire is there, but I can’t.”
I record the score. “How long has it been.”
“Since before Tyler was born. The big belly kind of got in the way, and I was always tired, but about four, maybe four and a half months.”
“Is that normal for you as a couple?” I ask, not because it’s relevant to my study but because she seems flustered over it. I prefer clear-minded subjects.
“No, we were—um—frequent, in that area.”
“And now you feel you can’t?”
“Yes.” She runs the palm of her hands over her jeans, massaging her thighs.
“Why? Let’s explore this a little bit. What will happen if you do?”
“He’ll think we’re okay.”
“And you’re not?”
“I’m not. He’s apparently ready to move on, adopt and forget all about Tyler.”
“It’s normal to forget to communicate with your loved one, but remember you both suffered the loss. It’s as unfair to blame him for coping with it differently, as it is for him to blame you.”
“But I’m the one who carried Tyler. He was inside me. I should have protected him—that was my job.”
“Tyler was half his,” I offer, though I sympathize with her. Often times, fetal loss is harder for a mother; it’s a literal loss—an entity which is no longer a part of them. Unfortunately, quantifying emotion is not a therapy objective for her, just a means to an end. “Do you think there’s a winner when you grieve?”
“What?” she asks with a scrunched brow.
“Do you try to one-up the one person, who knows what you’re going through, by telling him your loss is greater than his? Even if it is subliminally.”
“Maybe. He can’t just add a positive spin to the catastrophe of our lives. We shouldn’t be able to just pick up where we left off before Tyler came into our lives.”
Ah. There it is.
“Like, how do you do that? Did it mean more to me than it did to him? How can he talk about moving on?”
“He might be asking the same thing about you. Perhaps he thinks, how can she not want to move on with me? Do I not mean enough to her to try? Are we not able to surpass the challenges life throws at us? Did she only love me because of the baby? Would she rather I have died?”
“No,” she replies quickly. “I love Kace. Despite this hate I feel, sometimes…” She rubs her forehead and reaches for her locket, drawing strength from it.
I note down the mannerism in my notes.
“I still love him. If Kace died, I don’t know how I would surpass it. He’s been there for me, even though I push him away. But I would be okay if I had died with my baby, or instead of my baby.”
Love. As in the present. “You’re afraid of losing Kace, yet you want to pull your fiancé away?” The idea troubles her, so I leave her with that. “It’s just food for thought. People don’t automatically assume someone loves them. It’s hardwired into us, especially men, to need the affirmation.”
“I don’t want to affirm anything to him.” She closes her eyes and says, “If I find the person who killed Tyler and make them pay, Kace is going to hate me. If he’s associated with me, I’ll drag his name through the mud. I don’t want to do that to him. I love him, I just can’t be with him after I murder the bastard.”
“So, you don’t blame Kace for what happened to Tyler?”
“We were both to blame for that, so no. I don’t single Kace out.”
“It sounds to me like you’re not ready to live without him, and you do still have a ring on your finger. Perhaps you should explore your feelings before committing any rash decisions.” I glance at the time and squeeze in one last question. “I have one more before our time is up. Have you ever considered suicide since the event?”
“Yes,” she admits sadly.
“Have you attempted?”
“No. I want to find the person who hurt my son first.”
I get the lingering feeling, pushing her fiancé away is to shield him from the moment when that happens. A score of four for emotionally bound to loved ones, and a four for suicidal tendencies.
“Our time is up, but I’d like to see you again next week. On Monday, if that’s okay?”
She shrugs and gets up. “You’re in charge.”
I nod curtly. “Can you ask Kace to come in? I’d like to make an appointment with him as well.” So I can find out more about her.
“Sure. What we say here is private, right?”
“Yes, I won’t tell him anything. But I do have some homework for you. First, finish the sticky reminders and keep logging the smiles.”
She drops her hand to the table to grab her notes. “Anything else?”
“Write a letter to Kace … a suicide note.”
5
Interviewing
Eleanor Devero
Kace stops at the drive-thru of the coffee joint and orders both of us black coffee. As we wait to move ahead in the crowded lane, we sit and busy ourselves with our own things. I stare out the window of the passenger side, squinting behind my dark glasses. The sun shines too bright for someone who prefers to sleep most of the day. Kace fiddles on his phone, checking the weather and his messages. Neither of us looks at each other.
If I want to analyze the space between us and the alignments of our bodies, I’d easily come up with a preliminary conclusion on our status, but the first rule about reading body language is not to ask questions you don’t want answers to.
I don’t want to address the fact that we’re supposed to be over, not getting better. Nolan’s stupid idea to write a suicide note to Kace turned into lots of tears and me rushing into his arms for a hug.
What the fuck did Nolan not understand about me trying to distance Kace? The sticky notes, the smiling, the imagining Kace reading my death note—they’re tearing through me and making me second guess this whole finding the Bullet Man thing. I’ve gone from hating Kace to convincing myself the love I feel for him isn’t love, but fear of being completely alone—fear of what I’ll do in the solitude.
It’s all bullshit.
Putting things on paper solidifies my thoughts—it makes them real and turns them into evidence. Conspiracy to act is hard to prove, but evidence is rock-solid. Most of the smiles on my stupid log are because of Kace, and most of the sticky notes are of things that remind of Kace. In the letter, I pleaded with him not to blame himself because I loved him.
So, I ripped the numbered page out and shoved it between the couch cushions until I had a moment to burn it. I didn’t want him to see it, nor did I want to reread it and feel the need to cling to Kace, like my own damn life depends on him.
“The app this person used was called ‘BlackBoard,’ used by college students and high school students mostly.” Kace draws me out of my mild panic attack and waits for the woman to take his order. The attack plan starts with interviewing the couriers to see what we can drum up from them.
I swivel my head toward him and glance down at the application. “How many applications for this type of thing are there?”
“For jobs? Thousands.”
Instead of the grouchy woman, a young, peppy girl welcomes him and takes our order.
I scroll through the phone. “For shady jobs mostly.” I click on one of the jobs, and obviously, it’s for prostitution. “Looking for a garage to store my car. Clean, no cobwebs, no security-protection preferred.” I crinkle my nose at Kace. “Security-protection?”
“No pimps.”
“This is gross.” I click on another one. No pictures are on these postings, just contact information. “Looking for a babysitter.”
“Guy who prefers jail-bate. A lot of high school girls get money from things like this.”
“A lot of young girls probably get killed for things like this.” I hold my phone up in the air and wiggle it between us. “Why are these applications legal?”
“Ellie, this stuff is all over the newspaper, on job boards, social media—apps just make it easier to find.” He pulls forward to the window and hands his debit card over. “If it makes you feel better, they get shut down quick.”
“It does.”
The woman greets him and exchanges his card for our breakfast. He hands me a bag; the smell of melted butter hits my nostrils the second I open it. Once the woman gives him the receipt and the card back, he shuts the window and pulls out onto the street, heading in the direction of the precinct.
“The precursor to this one was called ‘WhiteBoard’ and before that ‘DryErase.’ It’s a group of creators who do it, and they always register under different names. They comply when we ask, and within a week, it’s shut down. Then a new one pops up.”
I hand him his plain donut. He has the same thing for breakfast every morning: a plain donut and a bagel with egg, ham, and cheese.
“Wait!” I shout before he takes a bite.
“Hell no! Don’t you mess my donut up by putting glue on it.” He switches it over to his left hand, out of my reach.
“Glue is edible,” I counter, holding the yellow piece with the number sixty on it. “It’ll be the first time you eat glue-glazed donuts.”
“Not even f
or that first, Ellie.”
“Fine.” I reach into the back and unwrap his bagel, plopping the sticky note between the top and the ham. “Sixty.” After my session with Nolan, I managed to get rid of a few more sticky reminders.
He stops at a red light and presses a kiss to my temple.
My heart stops again. With all these skipped beats, I should be dead by now.
“Anyway, we haven’t figured out why the apps even comply with us, but I guess it’s to prove they aren’t involved or responsible for their users’ intents.”
“They should be.”
“No. I mean, how many people use social media to stalk and murder their victims?”
I curl my lip in his direction. “Only if you want to kill someone. Normal people don’t run around stalking people.”
“Normal people don’t run around setting people on fire and pretending like they’re strapped with enough explosives to take down a city.”
“He deserved it.”
“What?”
Shit. “The guy burned his son alive and shot him twenty-six times while he watched, all because he was jealous. Sorry, but I don’t feel bad for the dead, charred murderer. I do feel bad for the dad, though.”
“For the murderer?”
“For the man who has been suffering. Have you never thought about hurting the person who killed Tyler?”
“Have you?” The condescending tone in his voice warns off the truth, sitting right at the tip of my tongue. He would never understand.
“I’d like to land a few punches, yeah.”
He cracks a smile. “You had me worried there, babe.”
Yep. This will never end well. “So, you were saying about the Internet?”
“Right. The Internet isn’t to blame because it offers motive and opportunity. You can’t charge it with accessory to murder either.”
We both harrumph at the thought, and I dig into my toast.
“I guess you’ve got a point. It’s hard to keep up with things if they keep giving people opportunities like this.” I wash my bite down with coffee. “I feel like we’re outdated and we were teens not that long ago.”
Leave Me Breathless: The Black Rose Collection Page 136