When Madge returned, Luna smiled gamely. She’d done this before. Not this psychiatrist in particular, but it didn’t matter. The ones with the house-converted-offices were all the same. Burnt out, run down, tired. And all looking for an easy buck.
Madge stuck her noise in the air, pointed down the hall—“First door on the left.”—and got back to her computer solitaire.
* * *
I made my way through the maze of snow-packed roads to downtown Tinkers Creek and a non-descript pharmacy/department store combo. After my pelvic exam, my stomach had cramped, and I needed a few supplies to get me through the night.
I felt violated, as if I was more wrong than right. Tomorrow I would go to Granny’s, whether I’d talked with Clarence or not, whether Travis wanted me to or not.
Now more than ever, I believed my headaches were part of the secret between my parents, Granny and the whole Stone family. I needed to find some answers before I completely fell apart, and I would never be able to concentrate with Travis so close. With my prescription filled, I drove the twenty minutes back to Prairie Flats to pick Travis up from work.
“How’d your appointment go?” Although his face was casual, I could tell Travis was fishing for answers I didn’t yet have.
“Fine.”
“And?”
“And I had a mild concussion. No big deal.”
“You seem awfully jumpy. Anything else?”
The wheel jerked under my hands as I turned to face Travis. In slow motion, the pharmacy bag toppled off the bench seat, landing by his feet. The contents scattered. Tampons. Birth control pills. A bottle of generic ibuprofen and another of depression meds.
My cheeks flamed, and I swung my eyes back to the road to get myself under control. In my peripheral vision, I watched him slide the items back into the bag and turn to stare out the window into the darkness beyond. His jaw clenched and unclenched.
Lord, help me.
But God didn’t give me the answers. Daisy did, by reminding me just how much stress can affect a girl’s body.
“I’m kind of messed up, too, I guess. My period is off, my head aches and my heart is broken.” I nodded toward the bag between us. “I just need to get balanced again.”
“I understand.”
“Seriously, Travis. It’s nothing. Once my body gets regulated, I should be back to my normal self.”
Still looking out the window. “I hope so, Gem, because I miss you.”
A text chinked through on my phone.
I turned up the radio as if I hadn’t heard the notice. Only two people had my new cell phone number: my mom and Travis.
And Mom didn’t text.
Chapter 22
All the next day, prickly fear washed over my body, leaving me sweating and nearly paranoid. While changing the bed linens in room 218, I looked over my shoulder no less than five times, the feeling of being watched was so strong. When walking patients up and down the halls, I’d nearly scream whenever a door whooshed open or slammed shut behind me. I’d gone from forgetful to paranoid.
The text had come from my old phone number. The one that fell in the toilet at Granny’s funeral. The one that should never work again.
Hi.
That was it. But that one little word struck a nerve. I’d been through three phones in as many months, and having one call the other was too much.
I couldn’t put a name to this fear, or a face to my invisible stalker. Nor could I shake the feeling that after the drug store incident, I had broken something precious between me and Travis. I could tell he didn’t believe my birth control pills were for balancing my hormones and not because I actually needed them as a safety precaution.
When 3:30 rolled around, this feeling intensified. Travis and Collin stood face to face in the nursing home parking lot. I ran forward, hoping to head off an explosion. Their words came out raw and uncensored, neither of them noticing my approach, nor caring if they did.
“She’s coming with me.” Collin pushed a finger into Trav’s chest. “We have plans that don’t include you.”
“They couldn’t have been all that grand because she doesn’t remember your little date.”
Collin sneered. “In your dreams. Gemini doesn’t even know you exist.”
Trav’s jaw tightened. So did his fists. It was the cat thing all over again where Travis defended the helpless to the point of excessive force. I feared for Collin’s safety. Collin, however, remained oblivious to the threat. “You’re a convenience, and chicks don’t fuck a convenience. They spread their legs for real men.”
Travis smashed his fist into Collin’s face. “Bastard.”
Collin collapsed to the ground, rolled to his side and held his cheek in his hands. Blood poured through his fingers, but this didn’t stop him from delivering a parting shot. “And I have pictures to prove it.”
A primal scream ripped through the parking lot. Mine. Rooted in place, I watched in horror as Travis kicked Collin in the ribs and turned away. His eyes connected with mine. Before I closed the distance between us, he held up his hand, his face less forgiving than stone. He reached into his truck, pulled out my messenger bag and dropped it to the cement.
His pickup roared to life and peeled out of the parking lot, leaving me alone with Collin and a hole in my soul so deep I didn’t know if it could ever be filled.
Needing answers about the pictures, I drove while Collin pressed a wad of fast food napkins to his face. My head pounded. Brutus pulled at his bonds. I wanted to kick Collin until he couldn’t move and silently applauded Travis for leaving him with that parting gift.
“Turn left at the next light.” Collin’s words slurred through his puffy lips.
By the time we arrived at his apartment, my knuckles were white from gripping the wheel, and my elbows ached from holding myself so rigid. “What pictures?”
Collin grimaced. “I don’t have any.”
“You said you did.”
“I lied.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “Why not? You don’t like that prick anyways.”
“You don’t get to decide that. And from now on, stay the hell out of my life.”
Instead of answering, Collin reached over and caressed my shoulder through my jacket. That slimy, used-car-salesman look masked his handsome face.
The voices in my head rose to a dangerous level, the Dozen as irate as I was.
“Where’s Indie?”
I froze. “What are you talking about?”
Cobwebby darkness crouched in the corners of my vision. I shook my head to clear it of the smoke-infested fog, keeping focused on the steering wheel grasped between my fingers. Cold glass pressed against my lips. The sweet scent of nectar filled my nostrils. I turned my head, trying to get away, yet at the same time opened my lips to the dribble of liquid fire.
“Indie. Come out, come out wherever you are.”
Move over, baby, it’s my time.
Leave her alone, Indie.
Whatever, Rae. It’s not like Travis wants her anymore. She’s used goods.
She’s not. You are.
Oh come on, she likes it as much as I do. Just watch and see.
I fought against the drumming in my head. The voices that talked about me, then through me. I watched from the outside looking into my own life, incapable of stopping myself from accepting the peach schnapps.
Will somebody please put her to bed?
Bach, music.
* * *
The days rolled into each other.
Each morning, Collin gave me something that allowed me to focus long enough to fulfill my shift at the nursing home. He’d then pick me up in the afternoon and take me back to his place where he plied me with booze. I was helpless to refuse.
Each night, he subjected me to a deep, emotional probing, showing far more interest in dissecting my mind than ravaging my body. His questions were ruthless, the penetration into my mind so cruel and relentless that I could barely function.
I hated him and needed him at the same time. He fed me, medicated me and gave me a place to sleep, but he also made me feel dirty and unwhole, as if his only purpose was to peck away at my sanity.
Oh yes, I hated Collin.
But I needed him.
Unlike Travis, he had not abandoned me. He opened his arms and took me in when Travis turned his back.
I loved Travis, and he hated me. Hated me and loved me. Like I hated and loved myself. They are not opposites. Hate and love. The two passions so strong they can rip you in two. They are not exclusive. I held them both in my hand and my heart equally. Just as I held pain so deep there was no bottom to it.
Abandoned by my parents, by Travis, by Granny.
Only the Dozen remained to take me away from Collin’s incessant prying.
I found myself pulled, half-in, half-out of reality. I was in both Collin’s opulent apartment and the yellow room with the Dozen.
Luna had returned, a sad mess of a girl. Torn and bitter from finding no one to care.
She alternated between lining up pills in front of her on the wooden floor and rocking herself in the corner. Fell fought with her over the pills—“they make you suicidal”—while Luna begged to take them all—“I want to die.” In the end, she hid them in her sleeve and ignored everyone. Her hair hung limply around her face, her heartbeats weak and dark like her mood.
I no longer feared this quiet girl who seemed hell-bent on wasting away right before our eyes. Or Brutus, for that matter. Instead, I came to learn that the threat was from myself. Quite simply, I had lost my mind.
I cared about nothing and would have happily curled up in a corner and died if Collin hadn’t insisted on me working. I did, to keep him from punishing me. But it was at work that I would realize something was wrong.
When I whispered my secret to the residents in the Alzheimer’s unit, they stared at me with blank eyes, just as trapped in their own failing memories as I was in mine. I was a prisoner of my own making, powerless to break free. And so it was, each night I would wait for Collin at the end of my shift to repeat the cycle.
As soon as I got to Collin’s, I would lock myself away in the yellow room and fall asleep to Bach. We all would.
It was just easier that way.
* * *
While her family slept, Rae sifted through the newest batch of photos. These she hated. They were dark and ugly. It pained her to see them, and yet she needed to hand them over. The time had come to bring them to light. Gemini’s life depended on it.
Fell, however, intervened.
“She’s not strong enough. None of us are.”
“You don’t give her enough credit. You never have. It’s why she’s in this mess in the first place.”
Fell gave a bitter laugh. “You’re wrong, Rae. I’ve done nothing but protect her, and giving her these memories now will undo everything we’ve ever worked for.”
Rae set the pictures on the windowsill and stood. She was taller than Fell, something she didn’t know until now, as she’d never stood against the gatekeeper before. “I think you’re protecting yourself. You fear the loss of control, which is why you will never give Gemini her life back.”
“I am her life.” And with that, Fell stepped around Rae and threw open the window.
The stack of photos blew off the sill, carried away on the wind.
Chapter 23
After a twelve-hour shift at the nursing home, I stumbled into the night to wait for Collin. One of the gals hadn’t shown, and I’d taken on her shift in addition to my own. I’d spent the last hours with an amputee, massaging her stumps while the phantom pains plagued her non-existent legs.
My whole body felt like a giant phantom pain. The combination of meds from Collin and my doctor made my nerves tingle, and every time I shifted my weight, my shirt rubbed against my hyper-sensitive skin until it felt like liquid fire eating away my body. I scratched at the scabs on my wrist, relishing the ache.
I wondered if Clarence got phantom pains, and if he did, who rubbed away his pain.
Who was taking care of Trav’s? It should be me. Even if he hated me.
When Collin’s car slid around the corner and into the lot, I ducked behind a line of evergreens outside the staff door and breathed into my sleeve so my icy exhalations wouldn’t give me away. He would be mad if I didn’t show up.
But not as mad as I was at myself. I’d been weak. Stupid. Just like my parents. I didn’t want to be them. I wanted to tackle my phantoms before they crippled me. Clarence would help me. If only for his love of Granny.
From my hiding spot, I watched Collin bend his head over the light of his cell phone. A second later a message chinked from my pocket.
2 mnts and im leaving
Thirty seconds later.
u bettr get here
now
I pushed my hand into the snow. The icy sharpness focused my mind.