by Mark Tullius
* * *
It was seven hours before Day 39 officially began. Rachel and I were in our office, the only one with two desks. They put us there because of our shitty sales record. Jobs in Brightside were based on the ones we held in our former lives. I used to sell BMWs. Here, I sold timeshares. At BMW I never missed a quota, never blew a sale, but I was always within six feet of the customer, the range I needed to hear someone’s thoughts. On the phone, I was next to worthless.
The clock on the wall showed the same time as my computer. All the clocks in Brightside were perfectly in sync. No reason to be late. No reason to think this wasn’t all perfectly normal.
They even hid the security cameras to help us relax. They put them inside light fixtures, behind bushes in the Square, where we have a bakery, a bar, and even an electronics store. All built for us. To make us believe this is just a regular town, a place like any other. No reason to ever escape.
Rachel got hung up on before she could finish telling the guy how close the condo was to the beach. We had five minutes left of work, enough time for her to make another call, but she just opened the bottom desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of lotion. She squirted it onto her palm and rubbed her legs that were spilling out from under the desk.
Rachel and I had been dating for close to three weeks. Long enough for Rachel to decide I was the one. Long enough for me to give her a key to my place, to convince myself I loved her back.
Everything gets accelerated in Brightside, because you can’t lie. Everything’s exposed. Normal couples take six months to admit how they feel. Brightsiders do it on the first date.
Rachel rolled back in her chair and looked at me like I’d just said something. It made me feel sorry for all the people I’d done this to over the years. Taking whatever I pleased.
She got up with a smile and walked over to my desk. Her red skirt stopped mid-thigh and was tight enough to be painted on. She didn’t need to listen to my thoughts to know I liked it.
The last couple days, Rachel only saw me at work, and she knew I was ready to break up with her. It’s not that things were bad. They were just too intense. Rachel was the first Thought Thief I’d ever been with. I had no idea how exhausting it could be. You can’t just say you’re tired or that nothing’s wrong.
Rachel knew everything, even though I never said a word.
That’s why she sat on the corner of my desk, crossed her legs so I couldn’t focus on my computer screen. She’d put her dark hair in a ponytail so it looked less Jewish. I’d only thought that once, but she never let it go.
Rachel smiled and took off the glasses she didn’t need. The ones that looked exactly like Mom’s.
She took the part of the frame that rested behind her ear and put it in her mouth. She sucked on it a bit then spoke around it. “You got plans tonight?”
I noticed Rachel had gotten contacts, her eyes so fucking blue. Just like Michelle’s, my last girlfriend before Brightside.
Rachel turned her legs toward me. They were shiny and smooth and smelled like piña colada. “I just shaved,” she said.
We both knew I wanted to feel the inside of her thigh, run my hand up to see if she was telling the truth, but I just mumbled that they looked nice and powered off my computer.
Rachel rubbed her calf against my knee until I looked up at her. “I need to see you tonight,” she said.
I adjusted my khakis, pointlessly trying to conceal the fact her plan was working.
“We can go out,” she said. “Something nice. I’m thinking Oscar’s.”
Oscar’s meant a lot of money, something I wasn’t making in Brightside.
Always staying one step ahead of me, Rachel said dinner was on her. She wanted me to know things could be different. She was willing to change. It didn’t have to be so intense.
“Come on, it’ll be fun,” she said. “And I don’t even need to stay over tonight. Unless you want me to?” Rachel took hold of my collar and pulled me in, her red lips so close.
I could feel the security camera zooming in from its hiding spot. I pushed her back and said, “Fine, we’ll go to Oscar’s.”
Rachel smiled and spun off my desk. She let me watch her ass as she picked up her purse and walked out the door.
Oscar’s was only a few blocks from my apartment and, even though I was dressed and ready, I waited until the last possible minute to leave. I didn’t want to get there before Rachel.
I passed under the bronze archway and entered the park with its enormous pine trees. Someone had decorated them with little white lights to make it look like a winter wonderland. There were no rules about sticking to the path, so I cut across the grass, staying far away from the edge where the mountain dropped off. A full mile, straight down. Heights threw my stomach around in my chest and made me shake like a little girl. I passed the pond and took deep breaths to clear my head. The air was cool, everything silent.
The Cabin was high up on the hill, with its big red logs and long bay window. The curtains were always pulled back, so we’d see the residents who’d broken the rules. Some had refused to go to work or started fights. A few had slit their wrists too shallow.
In the common room, a small blonde in a nurse’s uniform sat behind the desk reading a magazine. The rule-breakers sat in chairs, their faces pale, eyes ringed in black. They weren’t allowed to talk during rehabilitation. They were given pills to keep them calm.
The Cabin was the big reminder in Brightside that our town was still a prison.
I focused my eyes straight, kept walking, went through the South archway and stepped onto Main Street. The six small stores were dark and closed, but everything else was lit. Every ten feet, a lamp post to wipe out any shadow. No place to hide.
I strolled down the deserted street as the American flag flapped high above the Square. The flapping like a goddamn slap in the face.
I knew I had to clear my head. I needed to blow out all the bad thoughts before I turned the corner.
Rachel was waiting for me on the bench outside Oscar’s. She was wearing her fancy green dress. The one she’d worn under her robe at graduation. Back then it fit perfectly. Now, she had to suck in. Her hair was up in a French twist, and her makeup was thick. Especially her lips. Dark red. Her glasses were gone. She wanted me to know she’d been paying attention.
I didn’t realize it was supposed to be that kind of dinner, but at least I had on my nice pair of jeans and my shirt had a collar. Rachel didn’t care what I was wearing. She was just happy I showed.
I took her hand and said, “Let’s go eat.”
Oscar’s windows were tinted just enough so you had to press your face against the glass to see the idiots paying thirty bucks for the same steak they could buy for ten across the street. Brightside liked to remind us we could still be special.
The hostess was going to seat us in the back, tucked away in the corner. Rachel asked if we could sit at a table. She knew I wouldn’t break up with her in the open. We sat in between two couples silently engaged in conversation.
Rachel wanted to talk though, wanted me to feel this was a normal date. She knew I was thinking about The Cabin and that fucking flag. She told me to order anything I wanted. She asked about my day, even though she’d been sitting next to me the entire eight hours.
Our steaks arrived, and Rachel kept asking questions, like the first concert I went to and the last book I’d read. She was trying, and I felt like an asshole. I answered her questions and even asked a few of my own.
It made me think this is how our first date should have been. Not me sharing how much I hated my mom. Rachel sharing what her uncle did with her panties.
But by the time we’d finished dessert, we’d run out of things to say. We were like an old married couple after only three weeks. I took Rachel’s hand and started to have the talk we’d been avoiding. She put her other hand on top of mine like it was a game.
“Let’s just grab a drink.”
She knew I wasn’t a drinker.
It’s not that I have a problem with booze. The problem is when I’m buzzed I start thinking about shit I shouldn’t. Back home in Ohio, I could get away with it. In Brightside it was a problem.
I said, “It’s kind of late.”
Rachel snorted. That’s how she laughed. “We’ll only have one.” She looked so desperate sitting there, her hand squeezing mine. She just wanted us to have some fun.
“All right,” I said, “we’ll go for one.”
We crossed through the Square and headed for Riley’s, the bar where everyone knows your name and all the horrifying shit that fills your head.
It started out fine because that’s how bars usually start out. Then an hour turned to two and I was somehow on my sixth Jack. All my thoughts started creeping out like cockroaches. Rachel handed me another shot. I talked louder to keep other things to myself, but some guy asked what I had against the flag. Rachel laughed and pulled me towards the door. Everything was spinning and I thought I might fall over. Rachel kissed me and kissed me.
And then it was Day 39.
I woke up to the darkness. The curtains were closed. I had no idea what time it was or how we’d gotten back to my place. Besides the pounding headache it seemed like every other morning with Rachel, but something was definitely wrong.
Rachel was sitting on the edge of the bed, legs dangling over the side. She kept pulling at her curls, over and over, again and again. Her right hand was clenched, her fingers pressing down on her thumb like she was trying to break it.
I put my head back on the pillow, tired and hungover. I was still halfway in my dream, and it was a good one.
Michelle and I were walking in the forest, its grass so green, Ohio’s brilliant blue sky above. Michelle stopped at a clearing and laid down her red blanket.
Then she was underneath me.
Her eyes were the lightest blue with the softest shine. I brushed Michelle’s sandy blonde hair from the side of her face, ran my thumb lightly across her cheek, around her ear, then cradled her head.
She reached behind my back and pulled me down. My heart covered hers. Her heart, my heart, beat to beat. “Can you feel that, Joe?”
And then I was inside her and we were white on red, all that blue above us. Beautiful colors back then.
Michelle. Michelle. Michelle…
“Are you fucking serious?”
The voice definitely wasn’t Michelle’s.
The dream was gone. I was awake, back in Brightside, darkness all around me.
I had no idea what I’d done, but I knew it wasn’t good. “Come back to sleep,” I said.
Rachel wouldn’t face me, all her focus on those curtains, the ones I refused to open, the mile of Brightside beyond them.
I reached out and put my hand on her back. Rachel recoiled and my hand fell. Her mouth was a black hole moving in the darkness.
“You still love her.”
I played dumb, what Mom wouldn’t call a hard stretch. “Who?”
Rachel swung her knee onto the bed so it was up against my ribs, the thin white sheet the only thing between us. “Please don’t lie to me, Joe. I’m not an idiot.”
My eyes were adjusting to the dark. I saw Rachel’s blue contacts, the black trails bleeding beneath them.
I took hold of her fist and eased it open. I rubbed her college ring, the emerald set in white gold. She’d gotten it a month before they brought her to Brightside. “You’re not an idiot,” I said. “You’ve got the ring to prove it.”
She said, “You think this is funny?”
It wasn’t funny. It was scary.
I said I was sorry. “I shouldn’t have joked like that.” I kept touching her ring, started picturing her in school, lying under all those guys.
Rachel’s hand clenched back into a fist.
I couldn’t control my thoughts. “Rachel, it’s late.” I looked over at the clock. “We’ve got work in three hours.”
“Do you wish I was her?”
She knew I couldn’t answer that. Not in one word. Not the one she was looking for.
Michelle was the woman I was going to marry. She found out the hard way about my secret. She was there when they took me away.
Rachel sat waiting for an answer, staring at me, peering inside. I took a deep breath, trying to clear my head, but she knew everything.
Everyone always did in Brightside.
I asked if she was hungry, mentioned the diner, some eggs.
Rachel just sat there. She needed me to say it.
But I couldn’t.
Rachel reached over and grabbed my dick poking up under the sheet. My hard-on was news to me, but the proof she needed was in her hand. It looked like she’d captured the world’s smallest ghost.
I said, “Let go. I have to piss.”
Rachel spoke like I was a Special Ed student. “How about you just wait?”
“I’m not pissing the bed because you want to talk.”
There wasn’t much left of my dick to grip because getting treated like a child isn’t my thing. But that didn’t stop Rachel. “You’re not walking away,” she said.
I took hold of her wrist and pried off her fingers. “You need to stop this.” And then real serious and slow so she heard me, I said, “Fucking relax.”
Fucking relax?
Rachel’s football player. His words coming out of my mouth. I hadn’t meant to say it. Not like that, at least. Or had I? Cornered, what was I capable of?
Rachel wasn’t the only one who could use thoughts against people.
I’d learned about the jocks, the Dartmouth boys, and all the other guys on our second date. She was drunk and underneath me. I thought she was moaning because of me, but then her thoughts started pouring, flooding her head, and then mine. She realized what was happening, and she started crying. She was ashamed. No one had ever seen these things with Rachel. I told her it was okay, that I didn’t care.
All things considered, I’m not a bad guy. I don’t try to hurt people on purpose, but just like Rachel, sometimes I can’t let shit go.
Rachel got off the bed, moved to the other side of the room to get out of my range. She couldn’t stomach the disgusting thoughts in my head.
Out of range, I could finally lie. “I’m over Michelle. It was just a dream.”
But Rachel was bawling. I sat up all the way and asked her to please come back to bed.
Rachel wiped at her tears like she was mad at them. “Yeah, you’re over her. You proved it to me, right? And it was so sweet. Carving my name on a tree. Just like we were in junior high.”
It was stupid, something I did on Day 7. I’d used my key to carve out a big heart, put “Joe loves Michelle” inside it. I didn’t think anyone would see it.
But Brightsiders see everything.
Rachel and I were coming back to my place one night, and my lock was sticking. I’d damaged the key by carving Michelle’s name.
Rachel didn’t say anything, didn’t need to. I felt awful though, so I went out the next day and crossed it out, replaced Michelle’s name with Rachel’s. It was childish, something an eighth grader would do, but it was better than what Rachel was doing back then, getting fingerbanged behind the gymnasium.
Rachel kicked the bed. She was back in range. “You got something to say?”
Fuck!
Thirty-nine days weren’t enough to get used to this. From Day 1, we all knew we weren’t alone. They told us being together in a group would make it easier, but it was so much worse. Everything on display, nowhere to hide. It’s what brought Rachel and me together. We thought we could elevate past all the dysfunctional relationships, especially our parents’, but we were even more dysfunctional, all honest and exposed, the little secrets and awful truths firing off like buckshot at anyone within range.
I’m not proud of it, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the list. It was long. All the guys Rachel had been with, the depths she’d sunk.
“You’re fucking sick,” she said.
“What
the hell happened last night? I remember going to Riley’s and you ordering those shots—”
“Oh, so you’re just drunk?”
“What’s your problem?”
“I shouldn’t care if you dream about her? That you gotta pretend I’m her to fuck me?”
As calm as I could, I said, “I don’t do that.”
Rachel’s jaw clenched so tight I thought she’d break teeth.
I usually have a great memory, one of the things I hate about myself. Not on Day 39. I was having trouble thinking, let alone remembering. The walk home was one big blur.
Rachel’s jaw relaxed. She was listening to my thoughts. I was trying to piece things together, grasping at vapors.
The smell of sex was stronger than my breath, and I guessed it was possible I imagined Rachel as Michelle. But I couldn’t admit that and saying I blacked out wouldn’t change anything. I put my hands over my head, as if that would block her out.
“I didn’t do that,” I said.
I heard her thought:
You’re a liar!
“Rachel, I don’t remember anything. If that happened, I’m sorry. I never should’ve had those shots.”
“So it’s all my fault?” She started pacing, moving in and out of range.
“Holy shit. Can you just stop? You’re acting crazy.”
Rachel smiled, breathed through her nose. “You want to see crazy?” Her voice scared the shit out of me. She was all the way on the other side of the room.
“Rachel, I know you’re angry. But you need to calm down—”
“You want me to calm down? Should I get some air? Maybe we should take a break. That’s what you want, right?”
Right then was my best chance of denying things, her by the door, both of us out of range, lights off so she couldn’t look me in the eyes. But I knew we weren’t going to work no matter how much I wanted it.
All I had to do was say it.
But I couldn’t.
“Rachel, come on…”
“Where should I go, Joe? Should I go back home? Huh? Oh right, I can’t. This is it.” Her smile was creeping me out. “This is home.”
I suddenly realized this was about so much more than Michelle. Rachel was cracking, like a dam ready to burst.
“Rachel, please, I’m begging—”
Rachel screamed like she was being burned. Her legs gave out. She thudded off the hardwood. She put her forehead to the floor. Her tiny fists strangled her matted hair and she just kept screaming.
The lights flashed on, the 120s blinding me even with the fixture over them.
“Rachel, come on, be quiet.”
I looked at the clock. We still had an hour before morning lights. They never came on early.
“Rachel, please!”
Her throat wouldn’t close, just kept spraying screams until I covered my ears.
“I think you’re great, Rachel. I wouldn’t be with you if I didn’t. Just please be quiet.”
She kept wailing.
And I knew they were coming.
Rachel knew it too, but she didn’t seem to care, just curled up under the bright lights. Everything exposed. The scar on her collarbone. The two-inch wide birthmark on her lower back. She banged the floor with her head, pleading for someone to let her go.
“I just want to go home,” she sobbed. “Why won’t they let us go?”
My head was pounding from the lights and the hangover, but I kept my voice nice and quiet when I said, “Just come to bed, okay? We’ll say you stubbed your toe.”
The bootsteps were coming.
Rachel, get over here NOW!
I jumped off the bed, felt foolish because my dick was just hanging there. But Rachel wasn’t looking at me. She was still crying to the floor, the voice not her at all. Broken and shattered. I yanked her arm, but she wouldn’t move.
The Boots were here.
It was going to hurt like hell, but I had to get close, right up against her so my thoughts would sound like they were coming through a megaphone.
GET UP! THEY’RE HERE! PLEASE!
Rachel made herself smaller, pressed her fists against the sides of her face.
They didn’t even knock, just opened the door. Two of them standing there, all calm, like they were here to fix the sink.
Rachel screamed, “Fuck you! You can’t keep us here! You can’t!”
I told Rachel to shut up.
She did, but only to spit in one guy’s face.
The guy didn’t even wipe it off, just twisted her arm, almost snapped it. She begged him to let her go. Then she clawed him in the eyes.
I stepped forward, my hands out to show them I wasn’t looking for a fight. “She had too much to drink. Please, don’t—”
The baton cracked off my skull and I fell. The boots walked right up to my face.
“You got anything else to say?”
I kept my face to the floor, listened as they dragged Rachel from my room, her screams slowly fading until they were gone.
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