Complementary Colors (34 page)

“How?”

The crunch was close to my ear. I wiped my cheek, but there was no blood on my fingers.

“Tell me how he killed the cat.”

“He stomped it. One minute, the cat was playing, the next…the blood sprayed. All over. And it shit itself.”
The group of girls scrambled to their feet. Tears streamed down their faces. Their screams echoed off the side of the building. The boy laughed. He kept laughing.

When I swallowed, I tasted pennies.

Carmichael snapped his fingers in front of my face. His gaze fell to my arm. Red welts covered my skin and ended where I’d buried my fingernails into the back of my wrist.

I let go. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

I nodded. “What was I saying?”

“The cat.”

“Yeah. He killed it. That boy. And I got angry.” I flexed my fingers.

“How angry?”

“Angry enough.”

“And how angry is ‘angry enough'?”

I flexed my hand again. My knuckles ached.

Sounds from outside and the tick of the clock haunted the dead air between us. Doctor Carmichael watched me again, but the expression on his face had changed. I couldn’t read it.

“Tell me. How angry is angry enough?”

“They said I stabbed him over twenty times with a colored pencil. I think I would have kept stabbing him if it hadn’t broken off.” Unlike the screaming girls and the dead cat, the memory of that bleeding kid did not flicker in my mind. The only thing I ever saw was a blank spot. A solid slate of nothing.

“Where do you think all that anger comes from?”

From the well where it lived in the blackness, stinking of rot. Its cold breath left moisture clinging to my skin.

I met his gaze. “I’m sorry, what was the question?”

“When you get angry. Where does it come from?” There was knowledge in his eyes, but there was no way he could know.

I walked to a shelf cluttered with a variety of tin toys. I touched the metal horse, and it rolled an inch. “These look old.”

“They’re from the twenties.”

“Are they hard to find?”

“They used to be. Now there’s eBay.”

I picked up a circus bear. A key stuck out the side. I turned it, and the bear’s spring-loaded legs popped.

“That will work better on the coffee table.”

I put it down beside a magazine. The bear flipped a half dozen times before stopping. I put it back on the shelf.

“I’d like for you to answer my question,” he said.

“I can’t.” I found a chicken. When I pressed it down, little plastic eggs shot out of its ass. I laughed.

“Why not?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think you do.”

I counted twenty-eight metal toys. I walked over to count the various action figures on a different shelf.

“What about these?” I picked up a GI Joe.

“Sit, Paris.”

“And these?” I picked up a red figurine. “Power Rangers, huh?” I snorted. “I remember that show when I was little. Alice loved it.”

“Paris.”

I picked up another toy without looking at it.

“Paris.”

And another.

“Paris.”

Yet again.

I didn’t notice Carmichael had stood until he took the toy from my hand. He pointed to the chair. “Sit.”

“I’m not a dog.”

“No, you’re not. But you’re here to talk.”

I went back to my seat.

“Now answer my question. Where does the anger come from?”

I leaned forward. I leaned back. The cotton shirt I wore turned into sandpaper. I pulled at the collar, trying to loosen it. “Nowhere.”

“Anger strong enough to make you stab a boy over twenty times has to have a source.”

“Then I don’t remember.”

“I think you do. I think you know exactly why you’re angry.”

“I. Don’t. Remember.”

Dr. Carmichael raised an eyebrow. “All right. Then tell me about the painting.”

I stared at my feet.

“If you’re not going to tell me where the anger comes from, then I want you to tell me about the painting.”

“It’s a painting.”

“That you had to paint, right then. Why?”

“I felt like it.”

“What I saw yesterday was not a man who felt like painting. It was a man who didn’t have the choice not to. I want to know why.”

“And I told you I don’t know.”

“We talk about the anger or the painting, Paris, your choice.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“The anger or the painting.”

“I don’t have an answer.” I plucked at the hair on the side of my head.

“The anger or the painting. Tell me.”

“I don’t know.”

“The anger or the painting. Decide.”

I pressed my palms against the stabbing bolt piercing my temples. “And I told you I don’t know.”

“Either the anger or the painting.”

“For God’s sake, stop before you wake it up.” I slapped my hand over my mouth.

Dr. Carmichael knelt in front of me. “Wake what up?”

The shaking started in my knees and ran to my shoulders. Dr. Carmichael held my wrist. There were short black hairs pinched between my fingers.

“Tell me what you’re afraid of.”

I leaned closer and so did he. “The monster.” The words rolled from my lips on a trembling breath.

“Where did it come from?”

“The well. I think.” His sandalwood cologne battled with the memory of wet earth.

“Why is it in the well?”

My bottom lip trembled. I had to bite it to make it stop. “I can’t tell you.”

“Yes, you can.”

I shook my head.

“Yes, you can.” There were flecks of brown in the gray of his eyes. “Whatever you say is between you and me.” And a scar over the bridge of his nose. “No one will ever know unless you tell me it’s okay to tell them.”

I shook my head again. “I can’t. I can’t tell.”

“Why not?”

“It’s a secret.”

“Paris. I want to help you. You know that, right?”

I nodded.

“Then you have to trust me to do what’s right for you. And right now, what’s right is for you to tell me the secret.”

“Why?”

“Because I think it’s why you’re angry. I think it’s why there’s a monster. And I think it’s why you paint.”

It was there, my confession. The truth to my lie. It perched on my tongue waiting to be freed. All I had to do was open my mouth. Breathe the words. He was close enough he’d hear even the softest whisper. And maybe if I said it quietly enough, no one would ever know.

I tilted my head closer to his ear, and Dr. Carmichael shifted his weight to the left. Over his shoulder, on his chair, sat the white rabbit. Shoe button eyes watched me above a twitching nose.

“I need to go.” I pulled, but he held on.

Dr. Carmichael glanced over his shoulder. “What are you looking at?”

“Nothing, goddamn it. Now leave me the fuck alone.” The rabbit rose up on its hind legs to sniff the air. I shoved Dr. Carmichael back, and he hit the floor. I ran from his office and down the hall. Tiny paws padded against the floor at my heels. I didn’t so much hear it, as I felt it.

There were a few other people in the art room. I shoved a woman out of my path to the roll of newsprint. There were pictures on the wall today. I snatched them off.

“Hey, those belong to people.”

I whirled on the black man, and he recoiled. An old woman had the tray of paint. I took it.

“Paris.” Carmichael came into the room.

I smeared a streak of blue on the paper. Then yellow. Then red. Then green.

Dr. Carmichael tried to grab my arm and earned a streak of orange across his face.

The white rabbit stared up at me from the floor. “I’m doing it as fast as I can.”

Its eyes begged me to hurry.

“This is your mess.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Here, dig.”

“The ground’s too hard.”

“You’re useless, Paris, useless. C’mon.”

“Where are we going?”

“Since you can’t dig a proper hole, we’ll have to do something else.”

“What?”

“Be quiet and pick it up.”

The white rabbit’s head bobbed with the ragged motions of my hand as I drew line after line, cutting through the negative space until it was butchered and broken. I dove into the horizon, shadowed the depths, and fed light to the foreground.

Sweat dripped into my eyes and was lost to the tears. My heart raced until it bruised my ribs. I sucked in air as fast as I exhaled it, and I painted until the muscles in my arms melted. I couldn’t quit. If I did, it would wake up.

As the newsprint filled, the tension boiling inside me dropped to a simmer, and the fear faded back into the shadows. I collapsed. Only my shoulder against the wall kept me from falling over.

From far away, someone said my name. A hand under my chin tilted up my face.

“Can you hear me?”

I squinted at the man in front of me, and the features of his face fell together. “Yeah.”

“Can you stand?”

The lead in my veins made it impossible for me to get to my knees. Dr. Carmichael patted me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Oscar will help you.”

I didn’t know who Oscar was. Dr. Carmichael took one of my arms and Oscar the other. His hands were bigger than Roy’s. Together they pulled me to my feet. “Take Paris to his room. I’ll be there in a minute.”

Oscar led me to the door. “Wait.” I struggled. “Wait, I have to see it.”

“The painting?” His voice was deeper than Roy’s too, but it didn’t touch me in the same way.

“Yes.” Oscar held me while I trudged up the courage to raise my gaze.

He was skin and bones lying among a cornucopia of food. He ate, but it fell out the hole in his throat. He pleaded for a meal, just one meal, just one glass of water. The people around him ignored his cries so he turned to me.

I looked away. “The Glutton.”

“What?” Oscar said.

“The name of the painting. It’s called The Glutton.”

Oscar glanced back at the sheet of paint-covered newsprint hanging on the wall. “C’mon. Let’s do what the doc said and get you back to your room.”

At some point, I passed out and he carried me.

The phone in my room rang. I’d stared at the thing all day, willing it to do something even if all it did was melt into a puddle on the floor. Now that it had, I had to force myself to answer.

“Hello?” Roy said.

My exhale echoed over the receiver.

“Paris, are you there?”

God, his voice. It shimmied down my skin and settled between my legs. “Yes.”

“Are you okay?”

My entire body ached for him. “I’m fine, just don’t stop talking.”

“What?”

I swallowed the taste of his cum on my tongue. “Talk to me. Tell me the weather forecast, anything.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yes. Just don’t stop talking. I need to hear your voice.”

“Don’t you think I want to hear your voice too?”

I smiled and wished he could see it. Because it wasn’t fake, and he was the only one I let see my real ones.

“How are things going with the…”

“Therapy?”

“Yeah.”

“I talk to him. That’s what I’m supposed to do, right?”

“What about the meds? Are you taking them?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not spitting them out in the toilet?”

“I promise.”

“Good. I want you to get better.”

I did too. “What if… what if I can’t?”

“Get better?”

“I’m a thousand pieces of broken colored glass. You throw something like that away. Doing anything else is a waste of time.”

“It won’t matter.”

“Yes, it will.”

“Tell me why?”

“Because…”
How could he ever love me if I couldn’t be fixed?

“Paris?”

I cleared my throat and scrubbed away the tear making an escape down my cheek. “I’m here.”

“I’ll still love you. Remember that.”

“But you deserve…someone normal.”

“I only want you.”

I didn’t bother to wipe away the second tear. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Not giving up on me.”

“Never.”

“I miss you.” I inhaled a watery breath.

“I miss you too.”

“And I’m horny all the time.”

“What did you just say?”

I laughed. “I said I’m horny. All I can think about is you, and then your clothes fall off.”

Roy was the one who laughed this time. “I thought that only happens when you drink tequila?”

“The rules don’t apply to you, I guess. They never apply to you.” I hugged the phone closer, wishing for the warmth of his skin, the spice of his scent, the taste of his lips. “I’m never going to survive this.”

He shushed me. “Of course, you will.”

“It’s only been a few days, and it feels like years. By the time thirty days is up, I’ll be old and gray and crippled and…”

“You’ll be fine.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“You have to.” He sighed, and my heart skipped. “For me.”

“Okay. I will. I promise.” I hoped to God I would not let him down.

“Are you alone?”

“What? Why?”

“Are you alone?”

“Yeah, sure. I’m in my room. It’s private.”

“Shut the door.”

“Wha—”

“Shut the door.” He all but growled the command.

I carried the phone with me and did as Roy asked. “Why did you want me to shut the door?”

“Now get on the bed.”

“Roy?”

“No questions. Just get on the bed. But strip, first.”

“Are you trying to have phone sex with me?”

“Don’t ruin the moment, or I’ll hang up.”

“Don’t you dare.” My cock stiffened before I could get back on the bed.

“Are you lying down?”

I stroked myself. “Yes.”

“Get your hand off your dick.” This time, he did growl, and I almost came from the sound.

“God.” The heat of needing him rushed under my skin, and I panted.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get to that, but first, I want you to wet your fingers.”

I stuck them in my mouth.

“Don’t take them out yet. I want to hear you suck them. I want you to convince me it’s my cock in your mouth.”

I groaned.

“That’s right, baby. All the way to the back of your throat, then back to your lips.”

My fingers made a wet sound as I sucked them. The burn of desire condensed into a weight in my gut, making my balls ache. I undulated against the bed, and my weeping cock slapped my stomach. I could almost feel him. Stretching me, filling me. But my imagination would only get me so far. I whimpered around my fingers.