Other Side of Beautiful (A Beautifully Disturbed #1) (21 page)

It never even occurs to me that I should cover myself up when I walk out of the bathroom wrapped in nothing but a white terrycloth towel hanging only halfway down my thighs. Ben won’t look. I trust Ben not to look. But Ben isn’t alone.

“Hey la—oh my god!” Collin’s words freeze me where I stand.
Please don’t finish.
Please don’t finish.
“What the hell happened to your legs?” And then I see Ben’s eyes dart from Collin to me and back guiltily. I run back into the bathroom choking down sobs, not emerging again until I’m fully dressed, fully dressed from head to toe in black. The only skin showing from my hands and face. I walk out to the car without making eye contact with either of them. Now he knows how ugly I am. They both do. How I could never be Kelly or Zena or Sabrina or any of them. As I sit in the back, both Ben and Collin climb in the front seat, neither attempting eye contact with me either. I think I catch a hint of repulsion in the air though. My eyes are already puffy by the time we reach the funeral home. Cars pack the parking lot. We are directed to pull up into the front of the procession where they flag the rental that only Collin and I will be riding in. Ben is expected to ride in the limo with his family.

Chapter 43

Elle

Attention turns to the pariahs the moment we step into the salon. Eyes pitch uncomfortably toward us, zeroing in on each step we take. Where will we sit? Will we attempt to speak? Their small town contains a whole lot of ugliness. Seems I’ve finally found a place to fit in, just for the wrong reasons. My heart hurts so badly to think of these two beautiful souls suffering because of that ugliness. We walk to seats in the very last row. I nudge Ben to go up by his parents. He shakes his head. Both men look respectable, beautiful, yet once we sit, no one bothers to even look at them but me. Ben’s hands stay folded in his lap. I think about taking them, holding them, but I repulse him now. So I don’t.

The ceremony lasts about an hour. Even though he clearly doesn’t want me anymore, my job is to make sure he survives as best he can for someone burying his grandmother. So I stay close to him, to both of them, like a protective mother bear just waiting for some redneck hunter to aim their heated words at my cubs. But no one does. Eventually, the men look upon and talk to Ben’s grandmother, and I find myself standing in front of the beautifully ornate open casket of a woman I’d never met. An old friend from school comes over to talk with the guys so I stay where I am, giving them time. Space.

Death. Dead. Death scares the shit out of me. I’d spent too much time around the dying a couple of years ago. Today isn’t about me, so I swallow back my fears and introduced myself. “Hello,” I say to her. She, of course, doesn’t answer. “I’m Elle—Ben’s, well—I’m a friend of Benton and Collin…He’s taking it all pretty hard. Being back here. I uh, went to meet Andrew this morning. If he’s there with you—awe fuck it!” Someone gasps. That’s when I feel the heat of several sets of eyes branding their ugliness onto my aura. Something I’ll never escape. Superpower go boom. I look around to tell Ben or Collin that I’ll be waiting in the car, but neither of them are anywhere near me. I don’t know where they’ve gone.

The hallway is empty, but there are raised voices coming from an adjacent salon. I shouldn’t peek. I shouldn’t listen. But I do and do. Ben’s back is to me. An older man with graying hair, only slightly shorter and wider in an expensive looking black pinstriped suit, seemingly bereft of any glad tidings toward Benton is only inches from him, pointing his finger at his chest. “You brought him here? What the fuck are you thinking?” The man, presumably his father by the matching eyes and nose bump, yells at him. A woman with Ben’s cheeks and mouth and hair color stands off to the side crying.

“Don’t start. Not here,” Ben says calmly, much more calmly than I’d be with someone’s finger touching me.

“Please, Benny, please try to get along…” The woman’s tears run harder. She steps forward to hug him, but he steps aside, letting her stumble a foot out in front of her.

“I came here for Grand, not you. I’ll be leaving in the morning.” That’s when he turns to leave, so I duck back out of sight. I really wish I would’ve just left right then.

“What’s the point of the entourage then?” the man spits. “The fag and the hag?” What did he call me?

“What did you call her?” Ben says. At least there’s a tightness to his voice.

“A hag. You know…those fat, ugly ones who hang with the fags because no real man would be seen in public with them. She must have attached herself to your friend there?” I hear Ben breathing. I hear his mother crying like a lunatic. What I don’t hear is Benton come to my defense. He promised he’d never reject me, promised he’d protect me against words or actions. That was before he saw my thighs. I begged him not to look at my thighs. Because no real man would be seen in public with me. Because I’m fat. Because I’m ugly. Because I played a nasty game of Russian roulette and just shot myself through the heart.

I have to get out, leaving the funeral home along with Ben and Collin behind. Walking. I walk, needing something to occupy myself. The March cold starts to settle in my bones once the sun begins to set. There’s a big green and white BP sign a few blocks up. The hag walks. Because no real man would be seen in public with her. I step inside the convenience store to warm up.

The cashier is handing back change to a woman. “Excuse me,” I ask her. “Is there a bus station nearby? And maybe a Western Union?”

“Sorry.” She shakes her head at me. “The closest Western Union is at the Wal-Mart off route sixty four, and that’s several miles from here.”

“Um…okay. Thanks.”

“Are you in trouble?” The older woman—she’s wearing a red and black flannel shirt, cargo pants, and work boots—who had just gotten her change approaches me, placing her hand on my arm.

“I’m stranded.”

“Where are you headed?” She is being nice. The damn teardrops form in the corners of my eyes again. Then they fall, spurred on by rancid emotion and gravity, my eyes betray me too. “Oh, honey…it’s okay.” She pats me on the back.

“G-grand Rapids…” Reaching into my pocket I pull out a used paper towel to blow my nose on. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”

“C’mon. It’s not that far. A few hours’ drive. If you were my granddaughter…I only hope that someone would help her in the same situation.”

Not that far? Only a few hours’ drive? Seven hours. Seven hours later a very tired looking Shirley, as she told me to call her, pulls up to drop me off at Kelly’s apartment. She’s not home. All the lights are out. I know where the spare key is hidden. Shirley’s truck drives off before I get the front door open. That’s it. She’s gone out of my life too. How could he not defend me? I thought, well, he affectioned me. He told me. He told me. He told me. He told me.

The tears still sting and burn my eyes. You’d think after seven hours they’d be all dried up, but no. Somehow there always seems to be more, running down my cheeks in rivulets of acid. How could I have been so foolish?

My phone has been blowing up. Ringing. Ringing. Ringing. And I don’t want it anymore, the sound. She was right. God, Cricket was right. I’m good for nothing. He saw me and rejected me. I take the ringing phone and shove it in the microwave, pressing the start for ten minutes. I slide down the cupboard to the floor with the two packs of Oreos Kelly kept on the counter, smoke filling the kitchen and the zapping electricity sparking and flaming above me.

There’s nothing of me here. Not in this apartment. Not at Ben’s. My dad is dead and gone. Why didn’t he take me with him? There’s nothing of me here. Not in Michigan. I want the pictures of my mom and Dinah laughing without me. I want the unacknowledged birthdays. I want the little apartment above the garage where I could live in my head and no one bothered checking in on me for two whole days. That’s where I am. That’s where I left me. I need to get back to LAX and unlock that Elly, set her free.

At least three fire alarms scream from the smoke as I shove Oreo after Oreo into my mouth. Barely chewing. Not tasting. Just shoveling, hoping one of them will be the one to make the pain finally stop.

Sirens from the outside start to drown out the alarms on the inside, and I know I have to get out. I crawl through my old bedroom window right as I hear the front door being broken in. Kelly’s stuff is safe now.

All I smell is burnt plastic. The smell coats my tongue too. I have no shoes and no money. No ID. There should be a way for me to get money tomorrow when the bank opens, but for tonight, I wander the streets. It’s so cold without shoes or a coat. A homeless man I’d passed wore bags on his feet. So if it was good enough for him. But eventually I stumble up on a Salvation Army bin. Me and my worn, ugly Christmas sweater and men’s shoes stumble inside an abandoned building. The kind of place druggies use. Tomorrow cannot come fast enough.

As I lie shivering on a damp cement floor in a shadowed corner, I want nothing more than to hear the comfort of Cricket’s hurtful words or Dinah’s mocking. That is home. That is home. That is home.

Ben couldn’t love me, could he?

Ben couldn’t love me.

Ben couldn’t love me.

Ben couldn’t love me…

Chapter 44

Ben

“She’s gone. Where the fuck is she?”

“Just calm down. We’ll find her.”

“She’s not answering her phone. Oh my god, I can’t breathe.”

“Jesus, Ben!” Collin catches me as my legs buckle underneath me.

The police were no help. She has to be gone twenty-four hours. Twenty-four hours? She could be dead by then. “She’s gone, Col. I don’t know what happened.” And maybe it makes me a pussy, but the tears won’t stop. Collin helps me sit, hugging me the whole time. But not shushing me, crying too. He’s crying too, which means the situation is as fucked up as I think. It’s not in my head. She’s gone. Vanished. And I’m just able to push Collin off and pivot before the vomit and bile explode from my mouth, running down the curb.

“We’re going to find her,” he whispers, holding me again. “We have to.”

Up and down the street from the funeral home I take her picture, the one on my phone from a few days ago, and show it to anyone I come across. This time it’s a woman working the counter at a gas station up the road.

“Yeah,” she says. “I recognize her, wearing black like she’d been at a funeral. Poor thing was really upset.”

“Do you know where she went?”

“Uh, she left with a trucker. I think I heard her say something about Grand Rapids.”

“Okay, good. She’s headed home,” Collin says.

“Good?” I don’t mean to shout at him. “She got in some stranger’s truck. What if we never see her again?” We can all hear the panic rising in my voice. Collin leads me outside. “I…I never told her.”

“Listen. You’ll get your chance. We will find her and you will get your chance. I can’t believe anything else.”

I don’t bother saying goodbye to my parents. They’ve screwed with my life enough. Collin drives the rental. We’re both afraid I might kill us getting home. It’s still hard to breathe, like when some bit of food or drink goes down the wrong pipe and you cough and cough trying to dislodge it, but you aren’t choking. The whatever just sits heavy in your chest, making breathing stressful. This is where I’m at.

He speeds and I don’t bother trying to get him to slow down. Fuck, if I thought we could get away with it, I’d slam his foot down on that pedal so damn hard. But we don’t talk. I think he might break, and I’m sure I will, my pieces held together by scotch tape, I’m unsticking fast. I’m unsticking so fast.

It’s dark by the time we pull back in front of our apartment. The lights are still off. Collin gives me time in case she’s in there and we have to talk. Why couldn’t one thing go my way? She’s not here. She’s never been here. Back outside all our people have started to arrive. Sabrina and Errol are already piled into my Jeep, and Kip’s car is turning into the parking lot.

He hugs me and then turns his attention to Collin, where it belongs. We’re just going to have to check places off the list one by one. Her old apartment with Kelly is next on that list.

What we see—the door boarded up like someone had kicked the damn thing in. Kelly and Zena standing out front. What the hell happened? I’m out before Collin even stops completely.

“Is everyone okay? What—”

“That crazy bitch torched my home.” She half screams, half sobs with Zena’s arm protectively around her shoulder the way Elle used to do.

“What are you talking about?”

“That crazy bitch was here. They found her phone in the microwave. I can’t believe this. I cannot fucking believe this.”

Neither can I, Kelly.

Chapter 45

Elle

Grace from the credit union has known me since I moved to Michigan freshman year. She didn’t ask for an ID when I withdrew my money. Chalk it up to perks or luck or whatever the hell anybody wants to chalk it up to.

All I know is a half hour later I’m balled up in the corner of my pay-by-the-week motel room shoveling oatmeal cream pies in my mouth to the point of gagging. The motel is only a motel in the sense that living creatures pay money to stay here. Broken down siding, chipped, cracked, faded paint on the window sills. Not like it used to be, but more like it never was. Desired to be. Strived to be more than this, this place. I never was, only strived to be once upon a time. A fruitless effort. We’re a perfect fit. Unloved from conception.

The fluidity of lust crusted in the corners, sleeping with the bed linens and roaches. I continue to gag. Gagging hurts. I deserve to hurt. Gorging hurts. I gorge until everything I’ve forcefully consumed explodes from my mouth into the dingy toilet.

Perversely, Cricket would be so glad to see I’ve fallen so low, showing the world her disappointment. For most people the past is ephemeral, a haze of memories shaped by time and new experiences becoming hazier and hazier as they layer, almost sedimentary clouds of days they can no longer recall.

I envy those people.

I envy those people because I remember all of it. My memories are solid and obtrusive without as much as a fringe along the edges.

I envy those people.

They don’t have to change.

I want to change.

I want to be invisible.

I want to be invisible.

I want to be invisible.

Superpower: Failure.

Superpower: Invisibility.

Someone once said there are mirrors we look at ourselves in. And there are mirrors in which we really see ourselves. What good comes from mirrors? I refuse to hang mirrors. Windows. I’ll only hang windows. Transparent. No reflection. How can others not see me if I still do?

I use the thumbtacks from the bedside table drawer. Why someone would leave a box of thumbtacks in a motel room, I don’t know. Maybe they didn’t much like mirrors either. They sat next to the untouched bible. I use those thumbtacks to tack up a towel over the bathroom mirror and the one by the bed. Now I can disappear.

Moving between the toilet and the bed with the television low in the background, the flickering light from the shows I’m not watching work as the only light source in the room. Mostly I lie staring at the ceiling, because anything else means I’m still living, and I don’t want to be reminded of that.

It’s hard to tell how many days I keep holed up inside the room. The cream pies and Oreos haven’t run out yet. My mind has been foggy for a while now. Gorge on a cream pie and then peel back the wrapper on another brick of chocolate laxative. Is it my fifth? Sixth? Maybe ten more minutes of lying in the bed before the urgent burning and pain grips throughout my abdomen. I almost don’t make it, but my clothing hangs looser now.

Dizzy, I stand to flush. More blood in the toilet today. It’s hard to steady myself as I wash my hands. And even harder trying to walk back to the bed, picking up another brick of laxative, passing by the television. I don’t get to lie down yet. Dizzy. A knock. Dizzy. A knock echoes toward me from the door, actually sounding so far away like it had bounced off the walls of a very large canyon. And I stagger, finally reaching the knob. My pores are sweaty, slicking my hands enough so I have trouble twisting the door handle. The door pops. Sabrina screams. And I collapse onto Errol.