Deeper into Darkness

by Maria Ann Green

  And I only raise the phone when the final beep sounds, so I can leave a message. I open my mouth, no clue what to say, until the words start tumbling out, my brain still not really fully forming the ideas or listing to everything I’m saying.

  “You left me. I can’t believe you left me. And I’m scared. Did you know that? Well I am, buddy. I should have told you sooner. Sorry. I’m sorry. I’m stupid. It was stupid. You’re stupid too, though, you know. You shouldn’t have left. I’d never have left. I wouldn’t. Anyway, you left before I even got to explain myself. I’m still me. I’ve always been me, the me you fell in love with. And yes, I should have told you about my mistakes a while ago. But the mistakes, they’re still a part of me, and you do know me.”

  I take a breath.

  There’s a lot of time on this voice mail; it’s just letting me keep going.

  So, blinking and breathing, steadying myself, I do continue, because it could be the only time he’s forced to listen to the whole thing. He didn’t before, but at least now I can get it all out. So I do, all of it.

  “I killed some of my exes. Then I ran away. And each time, I changed my name. But changing my name didn’t change who I am. Samantha, Bee, Bridget…the name doesn’t matter. That’s the part you focused on, but that’s not that part that matters. I love you, and my love isn’t attached to my name. But I did…” I breathe, trying to catch up to the speed of my lips, my breath, my tongue. I’m speaking faster than I’m thinking, and it feels like I’ve been running.

  “I did kill a few people I’d never planned to kill, not originally. I loved them, and I dated them. But they were wrong, just like the playdates for you. And I killed them. I had to. And I wasn’t sorry, not until now, not until it could mean that I might lose you. I can’t lose you. I’ve been running for so long. I’ve run so many times, so far. I changed my name, changed the outside. But the inside was always the same, the inside was always looking for you. For my match. And when I found you, I stopped running. And I don’t want to run again, not without you. I love you. I never lied about anything else, and that’s it. That’s all you didn’t know. I’ve never left anything else important out. You know the heart of me.”

  A car honks a few blocks away and startles me. I hesitate, and I know I’ve got to finish it up.

  “God, this is all so mixed up. And long. I’m sorry. When I said you didn’t know who I am, who I was, I just meant the name. And I was scared to tell you about the others, the exes I killed, because I worried you’d fear me, fear that I’d want to kill you. But you shouldn’t. Never fear me, because I’m part of you. You’re part of me; we’re two halves of the same piece—and I was looking for you my whole life until I found you. And I need you. I do love you.”

  That’s suddenly it, all I have left to give, and I hang up, clicking the red button then dropping the phone. No goodbye, nothing else.

  It hits the curb and bounces back into the grass, just out of reach. I don’t want to muster up the energy to pick it up; I feel utterly spent, carved out and empty, emotionally devastated.

  I reach for my phone anyway.

  Forcing myself, with my fingers outstretched, the dark green of my nails blending into the grass, I reach for it. And when I grab my phone again, I know I’ll do more than hold it. I’ll grip it, my hands like a vice, clutching it as if it’s a lifeline, as if it’ll keep me going until I find a way to keep going on my own again.

  But I pause as it starts ringing.

  Because I don’t trust my eyes.

  Because I don’t believe it.

  Because…it’s Aidan.

  Aidan’s calling me back. I suck in another breath, in a reverse sigh sort of gasp, and start coughing immediately, hard enough to make my eyes water and my hands shake. I get my fingers wrapped around the phone, though. But then I drop it, still coughing. It cracks onto the street, and with sweaty hands it slips once more before I finally have a grasp, a real grip, on it.

  It feels like it’s been weeks, years, since I heard his voice, and I still doubt if he’s really calling. It feels like a whole lifetime has passed in the hours we’ve been apart, and worry starts to bloom in my chest that we can’t get back to where we were only yesterday.

  But I want to, I want to get back there.

  So I answer. “Hello,” I choke out, a wave of emotion and barely held back tears behind the single word, the two syllables.

  He breathes, exhaling a solid breath, and I know it’s really him.

  I start to cry in earnest, fat tears finally having permission to fall from my eyes and rush toward my cheeks then my chest, and even on the hand curled into my lap.

  “Baby…” he says, but then he stops.

  Panic starts to rise a little higher, contributing to the worry—or canceling out, I’m not sure which—that’s settling deeper into my limbs, and every part of me. I can’t tell if he sounds sorry, like this will be a really good phone call, or if it’s condescension, meaning this will be bad. Really bad, for me.

  Condescending and even a little angry.

  “Please. Wait,” I start. I’m still crying, and I’m not totally sure he understood what I said, but he does wait, still hesitating—or listening—and I stand, shooting upward in my dread. Alarm bells ring inside my head, and I’m talking, I think I’m talking, into the phone, but even I don’t know what I’m saying. It’s all mixed with tears and dread, and the wind blowing at me. I pace while my lips move next to the phone.

  It’s a while before he cuts me off, but eventually he does. “Stop. Breathe. I can’t understand you.” Aidan’s voice is soothing, and it actually helps. Closing my eyes, I breathe in, then out, a couple times. Then I count, and by the time I get to ten I’m feeling stronger, surer.

  His words haven’t been harsh yet, but in every one I’ve heard the hint of anger. I push my automatic reaction down; there’s no place for defensiveness right now, not if I want to fix all of this.

  “I’m sorry,” I finally say. It comes from deep inside my heart, a part that’s been hidden for a long time, and it feels good when it’s out.

  “Where are you?” His question follows so quickly after the end of my words, I wonder if he’d been trying to speak first.

  Looking around me for the answer, I see my own feet carrying me back and forth across the sidewalk and the grass, and for the first time I notice a shoe is missing. I have no idea when I lost it, or where, and it isn’t anywhere near. I hadn’t even noticed that I was lopsided, walking in a lift and a dip because of it.

  I try not to think about the last time, either.

  “I lost a shoe.” Not that that helps him; it’s no kind of answer to his question. But I don’t know where I am, and I have no idea what I’ve been doing. Parts of my night are gone, never saved to the hard drive that is my memory, and the rest I’m not sure I want to remember anyway. I was reactionary, and I’m sure I shouldn’t have driven here. I don’t actually know where I am.

  “Some bar,” I add.

  And he laughs. It’s soft, but it’s sweet, and there’s less red behind the sounds coming from him.

  There isn’t time to think about his colors, or his intentions, anymore, though. A car pulls up next to me, and I know it’s bad—I can feel blackness rolling out from it in waves. Every time I take a step, the car moves with me, not letting me be alone.

  I feel like eyes are on me, digging into me and slicing out pieces for souvenirs.

  It feels wrong, and I know that in my gut, in my bones. Something is wrong.

  “What?” Aidan asks in my ear, and I’d forgotten he was still here.

  But I don’t know what to say. Words don’t come, and when they finally do, I know he won’t like them. I have nothing else to say, no other options, so I go ahead anyway. “I should have done some things, a lot, differently. I know that,” I say.

  I can hear Aidan open his mouth to reply, but I cut him off. The car is filling my mind, and it won’t go away. I can feel its oppression, and how big of a problem
it is.

  Aidan sighs, and after that I let him have a turn. “Where are you?” he tries again.

  But I still don’t answer directly, because I still don’t know. “I’m sorry.” That I do know, because I can hear his annoyance, and I’m sorry. I should have just stayed home. Why didn’t I just stay home and blow off steam there, or just go back to sleep?

  If only I were sleeping, in my comfortable bed, and Aidan were crawling in next to me.

  “I hope you’re happy and move on. I guess we’re too far gone. I can accept that it’s over,” I say. And then I drop the phone again, for the millionth time, because the car starts creeping toward me again.

  I step over it, my phone still lit up. I can see little droplets of dew on the screen as I leave it behind me and turn my back to the car—moving so slowly next to me.

  When I turn, heading to the bar, I can hear it park. The gears give a little noise, and then it all cuts off, and the absence of engine is somehow worse than the sounds of being followed.

  A creak sounds as a heavy metal door opens.

  Drops of ice fall down my spine.

  Two feet click onto the concrete.

  My stomach falls past my pelvis, past my own feet, out the other side of the planet.

  And those feet beneath me, waving goodbye to my stomach as it sinks on past, they pick up speed.

  The same heavy door that creaked open creaks closed.

  And it slams, metal meeting metal, so loudly I flinch. My shoulders meet my ears, my hands jerk, and I suck in a breath—quick and deep. Barely stopping myself from exhaling the air into a scream, I bite my lip and keep walking.

  I’m overreacting.

  If I tell it to myself, I’m overreacting, enough times I can will it into manifestation.

  But I’m not. My gut knows it. Only seconds later, my mantra stops because there’s a loud whistle. It rattles through the air and sends my nervous system running at full speed. I don’t care what I’ve done to other people; I don’t care how brave I can be or what I’m capable of. I know, right here, I’m not in a good situation, and I know I don’t have the advantage.

  My anxiety is telling me in every single way that it can—with hairs lifting up on the back of my neck and on my arms, with my stomach muscles clenching, with my temperature skyrocketing—that I am in trouble. The shoes behind me clatter against the ground, and the whistle gets louder way too quickly.

  I want to scream.

  I want to run.

  But my body betrays me, and I feel paralyzed. Rationally, I know that I’m not. I’m still moving forward, it’s just not fast enough. It’s like I’m in a dream, you know the kind, where I’m trying to run but I can barely lift my legs to walk, like I’m walking through sludge or at half speed. It’s like I’m caught halfway between fight or flight.

  “Now,” he says behind me.

  And my eyes flutter.

  I was scared before, but now my chest tightens too until it feels like there’s a fist inside squeezing at my heart. It’s like there’s suddenly less room inside my body than there was seconds ago. My instinct, utterly stupid as it could be, is to ignore him.

  “Why’s a fine ass like that,” there’s a pause, a wet smacking of lips, and I don’t want to know what else, “swaying all alone tonight?”

  His voice is low, peppered with power and disregard, all the makings of a dangerous man. I don’t like it, the sound, it’s a voice I’d have avoided even in the middle of the day. He sounds dangerous. He sounds like someone that should be buried out in the woods and left for the animals to feed on.

  I don’t remember walking so far away from the bar when I left, or maybe it was while I talked to Aidan, but either way I don’t remember straying so far from safety. But I must have, because there’s still too many steps until I walk into the light and closer to safety.

  So I try to go faster.

  But I can’t completely see straight, which I’m sure isn’t helping. And I’m still missing a shoe, which now that I think about it is a horrible sign, because the last time I lost a shoe, that was a horrible night, and tonight can’t be so bad, it just can’t.

  But maybe it will go that bad, because I swear, somehow, the bar seems to be getting farther and farther away instead of closer. This can’t be happening. My legs need to move faster. And he needs to move slower.

  But now I can actually hear his breathing, and there’s danger in it, menace. I can feel the anger and the power rolling off him in waves, hitting me in the back and pounding me with his insidious intentions.

  He doesn’t have to voice them, words aren’t necessary.

  I can read them in the air.

  If I can just get to the bar—I’m pretty sure I’m parked there—then I’ll be safe.

  Safe, safe, safe.

  Safe inside, safe with help, safe around others.

  And god, I don’t even know what time it is, whether it’s safe enough to have time to sober up and drive home.

  But the thought disappears, the bubble drops as a heavy hand lands on me. I don’t even have time for my eyes to move far enough to the side to see the fingers pushing into me before my heart is in my throat and my world changes color.

  I can’t see.

  At first it was because his disgusting hands were covering my eyes, taking away that little advantage. But now, now he’s moved his hand, and I still can’t look. I don’t want to see where we are. Of course I need to see, want is irrelevant, but I’m scared.

  I’m so scared.

  The panic sitting in my chest, knotting a migraine in my forehead and both temples, it’s all-encompassing. It’s heavy and sharp, debilitating really. But the only thing I can think, the one thing running through my mind, is that this shouldn’t be me, that I should be on the other side of it all.

  Kicking does nothing. Flailing my arms has only gotten me scrapes and bruises, and a hard kick to the stomach, making everything go darker around the edges.

  I can’t breathe.

  I think I’m going to pass out.

  But I can’t. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. Because if I pass out…who knows what will happen to me? And no matter what happens, I have to know what it is. I have to know.

  I made it to the street, almost to the bar. I was so close. I could see the door, blacked-out glass shining in the streetlight. My hand was outstretched, and I could taste the pounding music inside, the sweet, stupid vibrations, on the tip of my tongue.

  And, you’d think, through this I’d be coming to some sort of realization about what it feels like to be on the other side of this situation, about how I should rethink who I am and what I’ve become. You’d think, but you’d be wrong.

  An anger is building in the pit of the terror, a rage that is slower burning, preparing to do far more damage.

  But my focus shifts again, failing to stick to any one thing when all around me is going a thousand miles a moment, and the hand he’d moved from my eyes to my mouth, the one he stopped me from calling for help with, the one he wants to do god knows what with, moves again. My lips taste fresh air, but the feeling is so short-lived. I don’t think to scream before his fingers are in my hair, pulling it.

  And he’s dragging me, truly dragging me behind him to wherever he wants to go.

  “Let me go,” I croak out.

  The words are so quiet, so timid, it shocks me. I meant to yell them, meant to scream and get noticed. It was the best I could do, and it wasn’t nearly enough.

  Tears leak from my eyes, from the frustration, from the fear, from the numbing dread. Taking a moment from clawing at his rough fingers deep in my hair, I slap at those tears, and then return to my attempts to get away, get him off me.

  I wish I didn’t bite my fingernails; if I didn’t, they’d be long enough to actually do damage scratching.

  I wish I had stayed home, hadn’t walked out alone, had been smarter, safer.

  I wish I knew this man before and had already killed him.

  I blame, I bla
me, I blame myself.

  I wish he weren’t such a disgusting pig. I wish society, and his parents, had taught him better, had shown him how to be a decent human being. I wish he didn’t spend his time hurting others.

  And screw it if that makes me a hypocrite.

  My eyes fling from side to side, looking, hoping, for someone else to walk into the situation. But there’s no one. Not a single living thing has stepped outside, anywhere near us. No one has seen what’s happening. No one else is around to stop it, to intervene.

  There’s a low laugh; I can feel the depth of it shaking the bones of my ribs, rattling them together like wind chimes. It’s a horrible sound, and I don’t think I’ll ever get it out of my head. I’m going to have nightmares about that laugh, for however much longer I’ll get to live.

  “You should have done better than that,” he says, reaching back down and taking his free hand, the one not in my hair, to cover my mouth again. And I realize, it’s barely been a moment since I tried to speak.

  My brain is in slow motion, making every horrible second seem like minutes stacked upon minutes, stretching out this horrible night, this awful thing happening.

  I try to bite his fingers, but he doesn’t even seem to notice, let alone let it affect him.

  I’m going to die.

  I’m going to die and one of the last things I said to the love of my life was that I lost my shoe.

  I’m going to die, and I should be killing him instead.

  He leans down to whisper at me—not to me, but at me. And his breath is sour as it oozes onto me, stopping my body from shivering in fear while I wait, while I hold my breath and wonder what’s coming next.

  “I can’t wait to taste you.”

  Everything inside me explodes, and it’s like my senses go wild, go haywire. I see everything at once as I move from left to right and up, then down, looking everywhere. I can smell him, hovering over me, huge and disgusting. I can hear every breath I take, about twice as fast at the ones he’s leisurely exhaling.