Dead Spell (10 page)

“I’ll never go back,” she whispered.

A weight pressed down on her chest, crushing her and sucking the breath from her lungs like a vacuum. She gasped and tried to breathe through her nose, but could barely get air.

The lights flickered and the mirror turned black.

The room became a freezer.

“I won’t let you do this to me.” She wiped her running nose on a wad of toilet paper and when she pulled it away, it was covered in blood.

“Shit, oh shit.”

She reached with a shaking hand for the finger nail clipper and used the fold out scraper to disassemble the disposable razor on the side of the bathtub. The flimsy casing splintered, cutting her hands and filling them with tiny, plastic thorns until there was nothing left of the razor but the strip of sharp, silver metal from inside.

She slid the thin metal along the inside of her arm and the blood dripped in small red dots on the ugly, green linoleum.

“I know your name,” she whispered. “I’m going to stop you.”

She sunk the pointed tip of the razor into the fleshy part of her thigh and the blood rolled down in perfectly tear-shaped droplets.

She let out a shrill, pained cry and Adam was immediately at the door.

“Harmony, open up.” He pounded the jamb with the heel of his hand. “Harmony, do you hear me? Open the goddamned door.”

Her mind said, “reach on over and unlock it,” but her body wouldn’t cooperate. She was Tom’s marionette. A doll for him to play with.

She dragged the razor toward her hip and let out another scream. Cut after cut, the razor tore through her, dulling increasingly, until the wounds skipped in dotted lines and she felt faint. Tears fell to her lap diluting the blood running down her thighs and swirling in Rorschach-like pools on the floor.

“Help me. Please.”

“Back away from the door.” Adam’s tone was nothing short of desperate. He kicked hard and the door bowed, but didn’t give.

Harmony’s hand fell to her side. The bent and dripping blade hit the floor.

Adam grunted, let out a guttural howl and kicked again, this time hard enough that it splintered the jamb and sent the door crashing into the wall behind it. The knob buried itself in the drywall.

Harmony was on her side, transfixed by her tattoo: Summerland.

 “I’m ready,” she said and went limp.

Adam dropped to his knees by her side. “What did you do?”

His hands were hot on her cool, damp skin. She was clammy and sweating. He wrapped towels around her wounds to tourniquet the bleeding.

 “Please, please don’t take me to the hospital. Please.” Her words were slow, pained, and pathetic. She was in and out only long enough to think about what the doctors and Adam would say: “self-inflicted” and “suicide attempt.” Words that would get her hospitalized, medicated, and worse.

Adam lifted her from the floor and carried her near-lifeless body into the bedroom. She couldn’t even hold on to him. She could only watch him cry.

“Harmony, I…”

“Please.” She closed her eyes and felt her weight sink into the bed.

 “Harmony, wake up. Come on, baby. Wake up. Look at me.” He shook her and patted her cheeks.

She opened her eyes, but couldn’t focus. She was mentally shut down. Not unconscious, but apart from reality and unwilling to join him.

17
.

Harmony woke up to the sensation of tape tugging her skin. Adam had cleaned her cuts and put steri-strips on the worst of them. The others he dressed with gauze before dressing her in one of his oversized sweatshirts.

He was sitting on the end of the bed and looked like he was waiting for her to say something. When she didn’t, he handed her a bottle of water. “Can I get you anything else?”

An exorcism, she thought, but shook her head “no.” Maybe Brea was right. Maybe contacting Tom did make things worse. She thought about their fight and needed to apologize.

“Actually, will you hand me my purse?” She pointed at the camouflage bag on the floor next to the dresser.

“Harmony, I think you should rest…”

“I didn’t ask what you thought.” Harmony was about to stand up when he held out his hand to stop her.

“I got it.” He set the bag down on the bed next to her and she saw right away that the zipper was zipped. She never did that because two of the teeth were broken and the thing stuck like crazy. He’d gone through it and not very slyly.

“Where’s my cell?” She rummaged through the papers, pens, empty cigarette packs, and crumpled money.

“I, uh…” He chewed his thin lower lip.

“What did you do with my phone, Adam? It’s not in here.” She pulled on a pair of hole-in-the-knee jeans and went out to the kitchen.

“Harmony, you need to relax. You shouldn’t be up in your condition.”

“What the hell does that mean? My only
condition
is pissed. You had no right going through my stuff.” She picked up the pieces of her prepaid off the counter. “Where’s the battery?”

Adam leaned against the counter. “I’m not letting you call him.”

Harmony suppressed the urge to throw something at him. “Him who? What are you talking about?”

 “Lance, Harmony. Do you think I don’t know where the drugs come from?” He held up the old aspirin bottle that was normally stashed in her purse and shook out two pills of ecstasy. “You need help.”

She scrambled for the pills and he put them down the garbage disposal, instantly hitting the switch. The blades chewed and the sink drain swallowed the last of her stash.

“Hey!”

“A joint now and again, I can forgive. But
that
? No way.”

She pushed his hand off the switch. “I don’t owe you an explanation. I don’t owe you anything.”

“You have to stop this. I’m trying to help you.”

“Adam, give me the battery.” She grabbed for the pocket of his jeans, but he fended her off.

“Will you just sit down a minute and talk to me about this?”

“There’s nothing to talk about.” She yanked herself free, ignoring the pain in her leg. One of the deeper cuts must have ripped open because a hot spot of blood leeched through her jeans.

Adam tried again to restrain her, but she fought hard enough that to do it would mean he’d have to hurt her. “Will you stop this? Please, calm down and listen.”

She flung open the cabinets and pulled out the drawers, dumping them out on the floor and kicking through the mess. “Where’s the fucking battery, Adam? I’m not going to ask again.” She grabbed a pointed, chopping knife out of the butcher block before he could stop her.

“Give me that.” He squeezed her wrist, hard, until the knife fell from her hand. It narrowly missed his foot as it buried its point in the linoleum.

Harmony let out a scream and pushed him as hard as she could, but she barely moved him.

He grabbed her from behind and crossed his arms over hers, holding them tight to her chest.

She bucked and pulled him like an ox hitched to a plow, dragging him toward the table and then bit his hand.

He pulled away and she reached for the coffee cup handle, swinging it around and hitting him in the protruding bone above his eye. The skin split and he hissed as his face dripped fresh blood and old, tepid coffee.

“What the fuck?” He open hand slapped her across the jaw, sending her tumbling into the mess.

She sat for a minute, stunned.

He had never hit her before and had it not just happened, she would’ve never believed he could. She held her hand to her face. The burning pain turned to a weird tingling and her jaw instantly swelled.

The next few seconds of silence felt like hours.

“Oh my god.” He started to cry and bent down to help her up. “I’m…so…I didn’t mean to…”

She shoved his hand away. “Don’t ever touch me again. We’re done. You hear me? Finished.”

“Please, wait a minute.” He handed her the cell phone battery from his pants pocket. “Here. I’m sorry. I found the drugs and I snapped. Please, talk to me. I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to…I just don’t want you to…”

“End up like my mother? It’s a popular concern, lately.” She reassembled her phone and turned it on, refusing to cry, determined not to let him see how bad he had hurt her.

It was his first time hitting her, but it wasn’t her first time being hit.

She opened her mouth and moved her lower jaw side-to-side. It snapped, but it wasn’t broken.

His eye, however, looked like it might need stitches.

She tossed him a hand towel and collected her things.

 “Harmony, wait.” He hung the towel over the back of the kitchen chair, the blood running down his cheek. “You know I didn’t mean it.”

“It’s not whether you meant it. It’s that you
did
it.”

She piled her laundry, her make-up, everything she owned right down to her toothbrush into the garbage bag and slung it over her shoulder.

Nothing he could say would make her stay. She knew better. She had seen his kind of apology before and, though she didn’t categorize Adam with the sleazebags her mother ended up with, she wasn’t about to end up fighting for her life in an emergency room, either.

It starts as a push, then a slap, then a punch, and then so many punches it’s a wonder you’re alive and with every step along the way, they always say they’re sorry.