CHAPTER 14

Present

WHEN I SHUT the door behind the cops, I walk to the center of my apartment. Look right, then left. Close my eyes and try to put my finger on the nagging thread that has bothered me since I woke. Something is off. Something more than cops showing up at my door and random broken noses appearing from nowhere. I walk to the bathroom and take a second look at my reflection. On this round, I notice the dark lines under my eyes. They’ll be black soon. My barely functional makeup skills won’t be able to cover up two black eyes and a broken nose. So I won’t, for the next few days, be able to cam. Damn.

I run a soft finger over the break in my nose. When I told them I didn’t know what happened to my nose, it wasn’t the entire truth. I don’t know exactly what happened, the events from last night a blur. But my weak, pathetic memory does have one clear picture, one of Jeremy, his face pinched. Worried. Scared.

It doesn’t make any sense, but I think he broke my nose. Why? I don’t know. I called him earlier this morning and he didn’t answer. I pull out my cell and call him again. Listen to the dull tones of unanswered rings, each one feeling like a step downward into hell. Then, the unfamiliar words of his voice mail. Hmmm. One unanswered call is nothing, two—a problem. His not answering my calls says something. I feel a flicker of fear, pulling from a spot of insecurity. I did something and he’s mad. I glance at the mirror. I did something and he broke my nose. I must have lost control. Maybe over that stupid family dinner.

I step out of the bathroom and to the window, the afternoon light flooding in. Oh, right. The window. That’s what it is, the other nagging thread that is off on the equation of my apartment’s normality. The window that, for four years, has tormented me and tested my level of control. The window, my one peek into the world that exists outside 6E. I have painted it shut five or six times, scraped it open a similar number of times. Six months ago, I got bold. Started running around town like I had options. Started opening the window and sitting on its sill, listening to the city and smelling its air. The window had been the crack in my world that had condemned it to hell, and after I had single-handedly endangered everyone I cared about, I closed it a final time. Stopped going outside, resumed my life of reclusedom, and covered the window with cardboard. Eliminated its pull the best way I knew. Now, I run my toe along the floor below the sill and remember the pile of cardboard pieces I discovered this morning, during the microwave of my tasteless oatmeal. I look at my fingers and am surprised I didn’t break a nail last night. I must have lost control and torn it all off in my maddening desire to be free. The hundred bits of ripped cardboard evidence had been there, under the sill, pieces I had swept up and put in the trash after I’d eaten. Now, I pop open the trash can’s lid and look down at them. Wonder, as I did while cleaning up the mess earlier, why I can’t remember tearing them. Wonder why half of yesterday is a fog, the latter half is gone completely. Maybe it was the knock on my head. Dr. Pat said it could have unpredictable consequences.

“Where were you last night, Ms. Madden?”

I was locked in. I couldn’t have done anything, and there are no bodies sharing this space with me.

Of all times for me to lose my mind, this is a really bad one. The flicker of fear grows into something more.

CHAPTER 15

Past

“I HAD A break.” I lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling, the fan’s slow spin breaking up my peripheral view. My fan blades were filthy, a black carpet of dust along their edges. I should have Jeremy clean those. Bring a ladder over. Pull off his shirt to improve the view. All it would take is to run a wet paper towel over the top of each blade. It wouldn’t take long. Fifteen minutes, tops.

Dr. Derek didn’t respond. He rarely does, the habit enhancing the moments when he does speak. I hate the habit, but love the result, each word a coveted gift, though I typically hate what each says.

“Jeremy wanted me to meet his family. His family. Then he complained about us not being normal. It was too much.”

“Which part was the hardest? His mention of his family or normality?”

I swallowed. Considered. “I don’t know. It was like an avalanche, having all of it at once. I was jealous… of him having a family. And of him being normal. But I also felt inadequate. And… God… I don’t know. Frustrated.”

“I’m sure he is frustrated too.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better.” It actually made me feel worse. One of the best things about my relationship with Jeremy was that he made me feel like I, like we, were great—just as we were. He didn’t make me feel like a circus freak. Until that conversation. Until those three sentences that stabbed a knife into our relationship and ripped out its heart.

“It’d be nice for you to meet my family.”

“For us to be normal.”

“Is that too much to ask?”

“What would you do, Deanna, if he broke up with you?”

“What?” I hadn’t even considered the possibility.

“How would you handle it if Jeremy broke up with you? Ended your relationship?”

“I’m familiar with the concept,” I said tartly.

“And?”

“And what?”

“And what would you do?”

“It’s a stupid question. Jeremy isn’t going to break up with me.” He won’t. He loves me. He tells me that all of the time so it must be true.

“But you’d be fine if he did,” Derek said gently. “I need you to mentally come to terms with that.”

“That’s like asking a child to mentally prepare for her mother’s death. It’s a stupid exercise.”

“Most relationships end, Deanna. It’s a fact of life, especially at your age.”

“Not this relationship.” I am the stronger party, I am the unfeeling one. He is the one who is in love, the one who pursued, the one who has stayed. He will never leave me. He can’t. Literally, he is unable to. I know it. Imagining anything else is a stupid, stupid exercise, especially right now, when I should be focused on other things. Like considering whether or not to break up with him. That’s what we should be talking about.

“We can talk about it at a later time. Tell me what happened.”

“He’s not breaking up with me.” Dr. Derek needed to understand. This conversation didn’t need to continue “at a later time.”

“Okay, Deanna.”

“Don’t talk to me like that!” I snarled, propping myself up on the bed. “I’m not a child. I’m perfectly capable of reading people, including your condescending tone.”

He sighed. There are times when I love his sigh. Love the caress of humanity it gives him. He is not perfect, he gets frustrated, he cares enough to sigh; I affect him enough to make him take a moment and breathe. Once, I stopped his breath. I described a sexual act and he stopped breathing, the line going so quiet I thought he’d broken the connection. He followed that with a sigh that was almost a groan, a painful release of breath that brushed lips down my neck and unzipped my dress. In that one sound, my fantasies around this man multiplied tenfold. That night, with every client, I fucked Derek. I imagined him on the other end, arched my back under his gaze, whispered his name through my moans. I came for him twenty different ways that night. Never again has he sighed that way. Never again has he asked about what I physically do with Jeremy, hasn’t opened that door for another moment. Never again has he given me that peek. Now, I only have the occasional sigh. I fall back on the bed and savor, for one long moment, the sigh.