Beautiful Beast

by Dayle A Dermatis

  I almost took a step back, but the grip of Taryn’s hand gave me the courage to hold my ground.

  “This is how you repay me,” she repeated. “I thought you had what it took to go all the way, but in truth, despite your pretty face, you’re rotten to the core. Get in your room. I’ll figure out how to handle you later.”

  Neither Taryn nor I moved.

  “Get into your rooms!” Mrs. Wentworth shouted, and spittle hit my cheek. “For fuck’s sake, now!”

  Whatever solidarity Taryn and I had crumbled before her mother’s rage. I’d never had someone so furious with me, and I didn’t know what else to do. With a final squeeze of Taryn’s fingers, I let go and dove towards the door to my suite. Before I could even turn around, I heard two ear-shattering bangs: my door and Taryn’s slamming shut.

  My legs didn’t want to hold me up anymore, and I dropped to my knees, shaking and sobbing.

  It wasn’t as if… All we’d done was hold hands, and kiss. What was so wrong with that, with sharing affection? I’d known Mrs. Wentworth had an issue with gay rights, but her own daughter? And the nasty, cutting words she’d said to Taryn, saying no one would want her that way?

  I staggered to my feet, turned to open the door and go to Taryn and…

  The door wouldn’t open. The knob wouldn’t turn.

  I wrenched it, tugged it. Nothing. I was locked inside my own suite.

  I’d never noticed an outside lock on the door to my suite, but now I knew there was one.

  That there was one on Taryn’s door, too, wouldn’t have surprised me.

  Except that the whole concept of it was insane.

  Right?

  I felt like I couldn’t even trust my own judgment on this, just as at Madison’s house when I’d questioned whether we could raid the kitchen.

  This wasn’t normal.

  None of it was.

  I sat down, my back against the door, my head between my knees, and breathed. Just breathed.

  It calmed my shaking, but didn’t entirely melt the knot in my stomach. When I felt calmer, clearer—relatively speaking—I got to my feet.

  In the bathroom, I dug into a bottom cabinet and pulled out a box of tampons. Not that I needed them right now.

  I needed the burner phone I’d tucked inside.

  Weeks ago I’d planned to hack our cell phones to remove the locks Mrs. Wentworth had put on them, but then I’d realized she’d notice. In the end, it had been easier to pick up burner phones she didn’t know about.

  Even before I’d accepted that things were weird here, I knew we’d have to hide the phones.

  The need for second phones should have made everything obvious. I felt like an idiot.

  I went all the way into my room, to my bed, which was about the farthest away from the locked door, just in case Mrs. Wentworth was listening outside.

  That sounded paranoid. Was I paranoid? I mean, we’d bought burner phones.

  My brain whirled like socks in a washing machine.

  I propped up pillows, slouched against them. Sweat stuck my shirt to my back, despite the AC.

  Taryn picked up on the first ring.

  I trusted she was away from her door. She was far from stupid. It was one of the things I loved about her.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Look, we just have to ride this out. She gets this way sometimes. She’ll get over it.”

  I stared at the phone in my hand, then brought it back to my ear.

  “She’s done this to you before?”

  Taryn sighed. “Not for a long time, but yeah. Like I said, she’ll get over it.” She paused. “Are you okay?”

  “No, not really.” It was my turn to pause, draw in a breath, let it out. “This isn’t normal, being locked in.”

  She was silent so long, I almost thought we’d lost connection. That her mother had tapped in and shut us down. I gripped the phone so hard my fingers were numb.

  “It’s just her thing,” Taryn said finally, her voice resigned. “She overreacts, comes to her senses, everything goes back to normal.”

  “Do you think it’s normal the rest of the time?” My voice almost failed me, came out as a rasping whisper.

  Another pause, another sigh. “For her.”

  “It’s not, though,” I said. “Not for the rest of the world.”

  “She’ll get over it,” Taryn repeated. “It’ll be forgotten.”

  It didn’t escape my notice that she’d sidestepped my statement.

  She continued, “We just have to…toe the line for a while.”

  I thought about saying, What if I don’t want to?, but I didn’t want to argue with her, not right now.

  I wanted to snuggle into bed with her and fall asleep, but that wasn’t an option, no matter how much I craved it. I reached out a hand as if to touch hers, and imagined the feel of her fingers brushing against mine.

  I imagined she was doing the same, in her room across the hall, which felt as far away as digging to China.

  “You said she’s done this to you before?”

  The silence was just long enough that my stomach started to clench.

  “Only once, really,” Taryn said. “I mean, we all get sent to our rooms, right? But only once did she lock me in.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  “It was when she told me Linny had left.” I hadn’t asked her for details, but she was giving them anyway. I clutched the phone.

  “I guess I was so young, I didn’t understand,” she went on, her voice matter-of-fact, as if it were something that hadn’t happened to her at all. “I kept trying to leave the house, to run off and find her. I have no idea where I thought she was, only that she was lost and I had to find her. So my mother locked me in my room, and told me Linny was never coming back, and that it was my fault.”

  “Oh my God. I’m so sorry.” I was repeating myself, but I didn’t know what else to say. Her mother had ripped her friend and mentor away and blamed her for it. It was…monstrous.

  Who did that to their child?

  I swear I heard the shake of her head, the unspoken “Whatever.”

  “I’m going to get ready for bed,” I said finally. “Then I’ll call you back to say goodnight, okay?”

  “I’d…like that. I miss you.”

  “I miss you too.”

  I wanted to spend all night talking to her, not about how weird this was, how not normal, but about everything else, the stuff we always talked about late at night. Art, science, dreams, secrets.

  But we didn’t have the minutes, or the money to pay for them.

  Still, I fell asleep with the silent phone against my ear.

  Despite Taryn’s assurances, though, the next morning, our doors were still locked.

  I went through my normal routine anyway. Showered, dressed, put on light makeup and my hair in a French braid because Carlos was coming to put me through my paces after breakfast.

  But the door remained locked.

  So Mrs. Wentworth was making a point. Creepy, but fine.

  I read blogs on my phone, did Sudoku, crossword puzzles. I didn’t text anybody, didn’t Instagram or Snapchat. There was nothing I could say that wouldn’t sound false, or trigger Mrs. Wentworth’s further wrath.

  I called Taryn on the burner phone, to hear her voice. Afterwards, I put my hand against my bedroom door, the closest place to actually touching her.

  If Carlos wasn’t coming after all—and it was well after our normal workout time—I figured I might as well get some kind of workout in. I did crunches, pushups, planks, squats, yoga stretches.

  Afterwards, I took a long, hot bubble bath, and pampered myself with a face mask, a hair mask, a long lotion routine over my whole body.

  Externally I felt good, but internally? I was hungry. Which, I realized, was kind of normal lately. I had picked up a few little bags of chips and some “power bars” that really were just candy bars at the convenience story where I’d gotten the burner
phones. I ate a bag of Funyuns, a chocolate-and-coconut Kind bar, and guzzled water. I felt bad with every bite, feeling like each one was another step away from my goal.

  Which was…crazy. Chips, a few bites of chocolate, once in a while weren’t going to keep me from being a pageant winner.

  I sat down heavily on my bed, flopped back, looking at the now-familiar dark blue canopy. It still didn’t feel like home. I’d been kidding myself about that.

  My parents had worked to make sure I never felt guilty about food. Mom cooked healthy meals, but treats were just that: treats. Birthday cake, pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving, popcorn with a drizzle of butter on Sunday nights with movies.

  Mrs. Wentworth served healthy food, provided healthy snacks. But a locked refrigerator and pantry? I remembered how Madison and the others had looked at me. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t normal, no matter how much I’d tried to accept that it was.

  It was all so…extreme. How had I been able to ignore it until now, pretend everything was commonplace?

  It was late afternoon by this point. How long would Mrs. Wentworth keep us in here? She wouldn’t let us starve, surely. (I wanted to believe that, but a small part of me wondered all the same.)

  Was I delusional? Loopy from lack of food?

  My thoughts were scattered, all over the place.

  I called Taryn.

  “This isn’t normal,” I whispered. I didn’t know why I was whispering. I didn’t know why I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “She’ll get over it,” Taryn said again.

  Her voice was like a shower of happiness and contentment flooding through me. I ached to hug her, to feel what she was saying in her touch.

  But I couldn’t.

  “It’s almost dinnertime,” I said. “We’ve missed breakfast and lunch.” I sucked in a deep breath through my nose, not realizing what I was going to say until it came out. “If she doesn’t let us out for dinner, I’m…I’m calling my aunt.”

  The next thing I realized was that it had been days since I’d called or texted Aunt Pat. Not since the day after the pageant. She’d sent me a few texts, and I’d answered quickly, but we hadn’t had a conversation.

  I wondered why.

  I didn’t know.

  It was Taryn’s turn to whisper. “Don’t,” she said. “It’ll be okay. I promise.”

  “This isn’t normal,” I repeated. “It’s not okay. None of it is okay. It’s…it’s one thing for your mom to be homophobic, to lose her shit over us kissing.” I didn’t normally swear, but seriously. “But locking us into our rooms, like prisoners, denying us food…that’s not okay.”

  Taryn was silent so long, I started to panic that she’d hung up, or been caught with the burner phone. Panic bloomed in my belly, my chest. I was contemplating trying to kick my bedroom door open, then hers, when she finally spoke.

  “I realize it’s…weird,” she said. “Okay, she’s controlling. “It’s just how she is, okay? Trust me, she gets over it. She always does.”

  But none of this is okay, I wanted to say, my stomach twisting. Locking the fridge and pantry, it’s not normal.

  But I couldn’t force the words out. I couldn’t tell Taryn what my gut was saying. It would hurt her.

  And maybe I was wrong. Maybe I was crazy.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, reaching out my hand again as if to touch her, even though I was lying on my bed. “But if we miss dinner, I’m calling my aunt.”

  Twenty-Six

  My hands shook so hard I could barely dial the number. With each digit, I questioned myself.

  Aunt Pat had a life, with a partner and a great job. Sure, she loved me, as aunts are required to do, but she’d agreed that my living with Mrs. Wentworth was the best for me. Who was I to say otherwise?

  I supposed I could call Mrs. Garner—she was certainly closer—but then I thought about how Mrs. Wentworth’s reputation was so important to her, and how she’d blow an absolute gasket if someone local questioned her. If she was angry now…I didn’t want to think about how bad it could get.

  Plus…it felt weird. As if I had done something wrong, something I’d be judged for.

  I was overreacting, right? I was loopy from lack of food, but it wasn’t as if anyone has died from missing a day’s worth of food.

  A day.

  Before I hit send, I texted Taryn.

  I’m going to call Aunt Pat.

  Please don’t.

  This isn’t okay. It’s not.

  It’s just the way she is. She’ll get over it.

  How long did she lock you in last time?

  I stared at the phone, at my question.

  —lock you in—

  That couldn’t be acceptable. Kids got sent to their rooms, not locked into them. And we weren’t kids.

  OK, maybe a couple days, until she was sure I wouldn’t try to run away again, Taryn finally answered. But she let me out for meals.

  I have to call, I said. Aunt Pat needs to know.

  I switched back to the phone icon, stared at the number I’d input.

  We’d pissed Mrs. Wentworth off. We hadn’t done anything wrong, not really, but we were under her roof and her rules, and she perceived our kiss as something bad. Wasn’t it in her right to react to that accordingly?

  I shook my head, tears blurring my vision. My brain felt so muddled.

  Taryn didn’t respond to my last text.

  Okay, I decided. Aunt Pat will tell me if I’m right or wrong. I could trust her to tell me what to do.

  I pressed send.

  Aunt Pat’s phone went to voicemail.

  “Hi, it’s me,” I said. “Um, things are…weird. Please call me back? Thanks.”

  I ended the call, and waited.

  The moments ticked by.

  I stared at the phone as if somehow that would help.

  Then it hit me: Aunt Pat wouldn’t have recognized this number. She probably assumed it was some robo-call.

  Hi, it’s AB, I texted her. I’m on a different phone. Can you call me, please? I paused. I wanted to type 911, but that seemed way over the top. Finally, I wrote, It’s important. Urgent. Thanks. xo.

  I didn’t have to wait as long this time, but almost as long. Or maybe it just felt that way. When the phone rang, I jumped.

  “Hello?” I scrunched back against the bed pillow, as if trying to get farther away from the door in case Mrs. Wentworth was outside, listening.

  “Hello sweetie! I haven’t heard from you in ages! Things must be going well.”

  The sound of Aunt Pat’s voice made my eyes tears up again, because she was right.

  “Hi,” I managed, but my throat clogged on my next words.

  “Look, sweetie, it’s wonderful to hear your voice, but Rhea and I were just about to leave for a gallery opening—the Lyft will be here in a minute. Can I call you tomorrow?”

  Panic surged through me, my stomach dropping and my head swimming. I felt like I couldn’t take in enough air.

  “No. Please. I need to talk to you now.”

  Sound from the phone went blank, and for a terrified moment, I thought she’d hung up on me, and I was trapped and had nobody else to call. Okay, maybe Madison’s mom, but that felt…oh God, what would they think? The tears welled up again.

  Then Aunt Pat spoke again, and I realized she’d put me on mute for a moment.

  “Annabelle,” she said. “Darling, what’s wrong?”

  The concerned sound of her honeyed voice made my shoulders drop. I hadn’t been aware of how high I’d been clenching them. My stomach righted itself.

  I sucked in a deep breath. “I’m really confused. Mrs. Wentworth—well, she got really mad at Taryn and me…. She locked us in our bedrooms.”

  “Well, that’s…disturbing,” Aunt Pat said cautiously. “Why did she do that?”

  “She saw us kissing. Just a goodnight kiss. She’s kind of homophobic. But that’s not the point,” I said. “It’s been twenty-four hours. I don’t even know if she�
��s still here.”

  I realized that sounded extreme, but the thought had crossed my mind. What if Mrs. Wentworth left the house, or had an accident, and nobody knew where we were?

  I guess then we’d call 911.

  I realized I sounded crazy in my own mind.

  “Wait, what?” Aunt Pat said. “An entire day? Without food or water?”

  “I have a bathroom, so water. I had a bag of Funyuns, but that’s it.” I didn’t mention that it was a snack-sized bag.

  My phone buzzed. A text from Taryn. Please don’t call your aunt.

  I felt guilty. I was betraying her trust, but it was too late now. I hoped against hope she wouldn’t hate me.

  “Jesus,” Aunt Pat said. “That’s insane.”

  My breath whooshed out of me. Tears welled up again. I wasn’t crazy.

  Well, maybe I was, but at least Aunt Pat didn’t think so. Excuses for Mrs. Wentworth rose up, but I couldn’t bring myself to force them past my lips.

  “Are you sure?” I said through a clogged throat. “I can’t tell anymore. I just don’t know.”

  “Yes,” Aunt Pat said. “I’ll call her, but I’m also coming to get you. We need to reevaluate the situation.”

  Relief flooded me, like a warm surf gently breaking over me. I hadn’t had to ask her, which somehow made me feel better. Still, I said, “Are you sure?”

  “If she can’t give me a reasonable explanation and doesn’t let you out immediately, I’m getting in the car tonight.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Thank you.”

  “I love you, sweetie. Let me call her, and I’ll call you back at this number, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  She hung up, and I texted Taryn.

  Sorry. I was already on the phone with her. She’s calling your mom.

  She didn’t answer right away, so I added, Everything will be okay.

  She responded. Have you MET my mother?

  I snorted. Point taken.

  I didn’t, however, tell her that if the call didn’t go well, Aunt Pat was coming to get us. I’d cross that bridge if we came to it.

  Honestly, just talking to Aunt Pat had made me feel better. She’d say reasonable things to Mrs. Wentworth, Mrs. Wentworth would unlock our doors and feed us supper, and things would go back to…well, this weird version of normal. I’d have a little vacay with Aunt Pat—Taryn was desperate to go to all the art museums—and I’d nail the next pageant, and onwards.