Coming Home (23 page)

Finally, you struck when you knew I’d be at my most vulnerable. When you knew you had my mental infatuation exactly where you needed it. During my dinner break from work I settled on a personal pepperoni and black olive pizza from the food court and then found an empty table in the warmth of the outdoors, far away from all the mall traffic. I knew you were there; I’d seen you several times that day and I hoped against hope that you’d finally approach me.

I could feel you before I saw you; the hair on the back of my neck bristled with every breath you took. My heart pounded, forcefully trying to escape the lonely confines of my hollow chest. Your footsteps finally made crunching sounds in the dead grass surrounding the table and I knew you were upon me. The first thing I saw were your blue eyes glowing with reflections of the moonbeams in the late summer sky. Neither of us said a word, I was frozen with pizza half way to my mouth and you just stood there smiling. I don’t know how many minutes passed but it seemed like a lifetime before the strangest thing occurred, the awkwardness surrounding us slowly weakened. I’d never experienced that before, an uneasy silence growing comfortable all by itself.

You held out a drink for me to take but I hesitated and felt my brow crinkle. “You forgot it,” you said and your voice was calm, airy, and felt like velvet to my ears.

“I forgot?” I puzzled.

You pointed back inside toward the food court. “Left it sitting on the counter.”

I looked down at everything I’d brought to the table with me: my pizza, the plate, and the napkins. No drink. I laughed too loud at my silliness and looked back to you just in time to see you blink rapidly as an uneasy nervousness spread across your handsome face. But as my boisterous laugh faded, your smile returned. At that time I didn’t linger on the reasons why my laugh would cause discomfort in you although I’m positive I should have.

“May I?” you asked, and gestured toward the empty chair next to me. I hesitated but you’d expected as much. Your hand reached to my face but paused to see if I would shy away from it—I didn’t, I longed to see what you would do. Rough fingers skimmed across my skin, trailing from my earlobe to the center of my chin. “It’s okay. I don’t bite … hard,” you joked and gave me your best non-predatory smirk that probably would have sent most girls running for the hills, but instead it made my heart leap. The warmth of your hand left my face and my skin screamed in protest at its loss.

You tilted your head back the way you’d came. “If you want, I can just leave you alone.”

Your blue eyes squinted with sadness. For the first time you looked normal, not like the dream man I’d seen for so long. Your façade of perfection started to break and I could see the weariness appear on every inch of your body. You still didn’t look like anyone else I’d ever known, you were so handsome with a perfect disguise. The mask you wore gave the illusion you wanted everyone to buy, just like I had. From the top of your head, where not a single hair was out of place, to the crisp linen shirt you paired seamlessly with pressed khakis. You showed everyone the person you wanted them to see. But for a mere moment I thought I saw the real you. The creases from worried anguish clearly etched in your brow and bright eyes that held dark secrets. The juxtaposition should have sent my naïve heart running, but it did the opposite, it pulled me in even tighter.

“You just got here.” I spoke timidly, almost as afraid you’d stay and see the real me as I was you’d leave and I’d never see you again.

“Right choice.” You winked, as your façade moved effortlessly back into place. “Stay it is.”

I inhaled deeply, counting as it took you three of my anxious breaths to walk around the table and sit beside me. You immediately moved so close I could feel the warmth of your body penetrate mine and I longed to lean closer, feel it deeper.

“The nights are so much better, it’s too hot in the day.” You spoke without a care in the world, like by my side was where you’d always been.

I glanced at you from the corner of my eye, afraid that if I looked at you straight on you’d disappear. You were beautiful. Your lips looked full and soft; I wondered what they felt like. There was a small, white scar under your left eye that added to your air of mystery. The planes of your face were rugged and you were older than I’d thought, maybe too old to be sitting under the night sky with someone my age.

“The stars are so clear, beautiful,” I said as I tore my gaze from you and looked upward.

“Not the most beautiful thing out here though,” you said, and moved your hand to rest on the knee of my crossed legs. A forward move I hadn’t anticipated

Heat of embarrassment rushed over me, so hot I was surprised we both weren’t sweating. Finally the warning bells that should have already been going off started to softly sound in my head in response to your intimate touch. But another part of myself, the one that wanted your touch, chose to ignore their ringing.

“Why are you out here all alone?” you asked pulling me from my mounting unease.

“I don’t really know,” I said, still watching your hand as it rested so certainly on my leg. “I like it outside after the sun has gone down and it’s not so hot. And I wanted to get away from all those people in there, I wanted to be alone. I wanted...” I let my sentence trail off, I was about to admit I was hoping you’d find me so we could be alone. But I couldn’t admit that to you. You made me feel alive, mature. What if you found out I wasn’t and how much I thought about you?

“You wanted what?” you questioned urgently, as your fingers pushed into my leg, causing me to flinch. Those warning bells resonated as fear pressed to the surface. Our encounter seemed off, you seemed off—not how I’d pictured, and I was afraid it was my fault. I feared maybe I wasn’t what you’d envisioned either.

I shook my head quickly. “I wanted to be alone … with you.” My words were barely a whisper dancing across the cool night breeze and I hoped you had heard them before they blew away. I hoped you’d believed them and that they pleased you.

You ducked your head timidly and slowly pulled your hand from its resting place. “You’d rather be with me? Over of all the other people here tonight?”

My heart jumped but I didn’t speak.

“Somewhere cool like it is right now? Or even better, how about someplace really cold?” you asked, as you tilted your head up to the sky and closed your eyes like you could feel the chill on your face already.

“Sure, I’d love that. I’ve never really been anywhere but here and I’ve always wanted to be around snow. There’s never any here. Maybe once or twice a year, but it’s never much. We did go snow skiing when I was young, but I barely remember it.” I could feel myself getting flustered the more and more I talked, I wanted to shut up but for some reason my mouth just kept moving. The thought that you wanted to run away with me, to be alone with me and only me had a dizzying effect on my whole body. I curled my lips under the edges of my teeth and bit down so hard a faint metallic taste spread across my tongue. “Have you been around a lot of snow?” I finally blurted out hoping to stop my assault of words.

“I have, all the time,” you answered calmly and subdue in comparison to my blathering.

“Are you from somewhere cold?” I asked, knowing it was none of my business.

“I am,” you said. “Maybe you should just come home with me.”

I laughed. “But I don’t even know your name.”

“And if you did?” You raised your eyebrows at me and I felt a rush shoot clear to my toes.

“Well, then maybe … you know, I, if only …” I stuttered, and then wanted to slap myself for sounding like a stupid child again.

“Eat, drink,” you finally demanded.

I did, chewing quietly, praying you wouldn’t hear me but I only took a few more bites before moving the plate to the side and out of reach. You moved my drink where my plate had been and gave me a wink. Finally taking what had brought you to my table, I took a long drink from the cup that was no covered with condensation. Little droplets of water dripped off and landed on my lap, both of our eyes turned down to follow them and then moved back to each other. Your eyes watched me intently, flickering back and forth from my mouth to my eyes before finally tearing away from my stare. I thought it was a moment of shyness as you were overcome with me.

But I was wrong, so wrong. Looking back I wish our story had ended there, it would have remained a happy story. A fond memory I could have looked back on as old age took away every ounce of beauty you saw in me. But that’s not where we ended, that is just where we began.

A lonely shade of white

M
y head began to fill with an overwhelming haziness. I scanned my surroundings to see if anyone else was around. All I could see was you and the stars brightly shining down from the heavens. You touched my face pulling my eyes to you. I saw your lips form into a perfect pucker as a
shh
sound washed over my ears. Fire spread from my chest up to the top of my head. I tried to pull away from your hot hands but you wrapped them around the sides of my head, digging your thumbs into the hollows of my cheeks. Suddenly your face was so close I felt your nose dig into mine. I wondered if this was what I was supposed to feel, was this what happened when a girl was attracted to a man? I’d been kissed before, I’d even made it to second base with a boy once. But I never really enjoyed it, there had never been any butterflies or sparks—I thought maybe that’s what this was, sparks. I was wrong again.

“You’re safe, my sweet Annabel, you’re safe.” Your voice just a whispered breath in my ear.

Annabel? I wanted to scream, who’s Annabel? But my voice wouldn't come. Annabel? I wasn’t her. I didn’t even know anyone by that name. My head was screaming but the words were blocked out by the fuzziness and confusion. No words came, only nothingness came—dark nothingness.

I felt my eyelids flutter and a rancid taste of bile rose in my throat. A clanking roar blasted through my ears. My hands tried to reach and cover them but I couldn’t. We were moving; my body could sense movement. We definitely weren’t at the mall anymore, we were in a dark room. I smelled you, soap mixed with honey, a sweetness that made my stomach churn. Then your hot, clammy hands brushed against my face as something bitterly sweet filled my senses—I’ll never forget that smell, the smell that brought back the darkness.

The hardest part was knowing that I slept as you robbed me away. Took me from everything I’d ever known and all I did was quietly sleep. You forced me to sleep with that sweet smell, always forcing it into my mouth and nose. I don’t remember it, the sleep. There were no dreams, nothing startling me awake—just sleep and that lingering bitter sweetness.

But when I woke again, the pounding in my head immediately told me I was still alive. A burning in my chest rose into my throat as pins and needles assaulted every inch of my body. I was alive, but for a moment I wasn’t sure I wanted to be.

I sat straight up and tried to look around. But my head was overcome with whirling. My arms and legs were free to move but they refused to acknowledge that they were still connected to my body. I told them to jump, to leap from this bed that was surrounding me but they wouldn’t.

One arm shot up and the other stayed limp. One leg moved left and the other right. The fire in my throat finally erupted from my thrashing and spilled its contents down the front of a plain white shirt that I saw was covering my body. Not my shirt though. Maybe it was no longer my body either.

This time I heard you before my body knew you were there, I think it had already grown accustom to your presence. My mind had not though, it had been sleeping.

“It’s just the medicine,” I heard your soft, sickly voice declare. I tried to find you but my eyes were lost, blurred in whiteness.

I tried to move again and felt the fevered pounding in my chest increase as I finally gained some control over
this
body. I fell, landing on the hard floor with a thud that reverberated through my body. Hurried feet appeared in front of me as nothing more than white socks. I watched as some of the hot liquid covering the plain white shirt dripped onto the plain white socks.

“You’ll be okay, just take it easy. The medicine is leaving your body.”

I opened my mouth, closed it, opened it, closed it. It felt foreign and would not do what my brain was commanding. My mind was racing everywhere all at once. So many emotions streamed through me that I couldn’t decipher them from one another—fear, hate, panic, pain—I felt them all in a rush of confusion at the unknown.

Legs bent in front of me slowly becoming knees. Your hot touch ran across my forehead, I felt nothing. No desire to sway into your touch as I had the times before, yet no strength to flinch away either.

I forced my eyes to rise to your face. I didn’t want it to be you that I saw. I didn’t want those icy blue eyes to look back at me. Someone else, I longed for the person before me to be someone else. Not the man I had yearned for. But there you were, the last face I’d seen under those bright, clear stars.

“You’re safe, Annabel, you are home.” I heard before the darkness pulled me back in.

I woke again, in the same room as before—I had no idea how long I’d been there or where you were. The space between pizza at the mall and waking in the room was muddled, all twisted together in a haze of dreams. But at least I’d had dreams again, at least they were there to tease me with a life outside of this white room. Your face was ever present though and I remembered you trying to give me food and water, but the memories were blurring flashes of bright light and blue eyes.

But I was growing more alert, my eyes opened to a stark whiteness that made them burn and fill with tears. White everywhere—walls, ceiling, bed, covers, door—nothing but pure brightness with a single light bulb hanging from a cord centered directly over me. I was covered with a thin sheet with nothing on my body underneath; I could feel the fabric rough against every inch of my body, every cell acutely aware of my nakedness. What had you done to me? That question screamed in a rush of blood that blared in my head. My fingers pressed against my inner thighs and ran over my bare center. I closed my eyes and exhaled in a slow and steady stream of relief when nothing felt different, I would have felt different—I knew I would. If you’d taken that part of me while I was unconscious, I would have known and my fear would have turned to loathing.