Silly Girl (2 page)

She was
made
of stars. She pulsed and tingled with lights of her own. The memory was telling her this.

Yet, this wasn’t Jon the Doctor, Shelby, or Manny. Those bastards never made her feel this way.

Ah! She had it!

“I love you, Wesley,” she said.

Yes. At one time, Wesley had been her guardian, the man of her dreams, her hero on a black steed. Wesley was everything the others were not. Wesley, her knight, her paramour of the cosmos. That non-existent God had sculpted Wesley just for her. Between trauma and torture, he’d procured miracles. Light made him magical. Wesley cured affliction, eased every abhorrent scar.

Back in death, she might’ve thought:
Whatever happened to Wesley?
Why does he always disappear when I need him most? And he always comes when I least expect it.

Wesley’s huge, thick arms hugged her tight. Amanda breathed him in, looking out the window still into the night sky, her back against his burly, bare chest, bear-like arms encircling her. She felt she was in the arms of a bear—or a lion. More a bear, Amanda thought, because Wesley had thick, black hair. Amanda ran her fingernails across his forearm.

“Flying is for suckers,” Amanda Dear said. “Who needs wings?”

Wesley smiled. She didn’t have to see the smile, of course. Wesley smiled at everything.

“Doesn’t a grilled-cheese sandwich sound good right now?” he said. “Something about a grilled-cheese sandwich. Sounds like the best thing in the world.”

“I didn’t say anything about a grilled-cheese sandwich,” Amanda said. “I asked you about
flying.”

She thought about death, even then. Who didn’t? Perhaps she knew it was
about
flying. In death, you were a bird, and all you did was soar from one terrible landscape to another.

“You said nothing about flying.”

“I did so,” she told him.

“It’s over-rated,” Wesley said. “Doesn’t a grilled-cheese sandwich sound good?”

“What’s with your fascination with grilled-cheese sandwiches?”

“The same fascination I have with thunderclouds. Can you smell thunderclouds?”

“It’s a clear night,” Amanda told him. “Look. There’s nothing but stars out.”

“Thunderclouds are over-rated, also,” he said. “So are stars.”

“But not grilled-cheese sandwiches?”

Wesley smiled. He brushed a lock of blonde hair behind her ear.

“You never answered me about flying,” she said.

“What did you say?”

“I can’t remember. Who cares? This is better anyway. This is what I’ve been waiting my whole life for.”

“I think you should make me a grilled-cheese sandwich,” he said.

“With thunderclouds?”

“Humans worship birds because—since the dawn of creation—they’ve dreamed about flying. They think birds are heavenly, something along those lines. People want to be super-heroes.”

“There,” she said. “Was that so hard?”

“I love you, too, Amanda Dear,” Wesley said.

*

Amanda soared through space, a delectable moment with Wesley lost in the memory of stars.

In death, she thought about the life she’d lived, and another memory assaulted her now, time spent in an apartment she’d rented in Denver. She’d been working for the Fillmore Company at the time, a company manufacturing fake flowers. She worked in the main office.

Planters and plants covered the floors and shelves of her apartment, but not from Fillmore. Amanda was a fanatic with shrubbery perhaps because Fillmore produced fake flowers, and she wanted the real thing. Amanda wanted plants
everywhere!
Whenever, and wherever she saw them for sale, she always bought one.

This wasn’t Manny’s time. This was Shelby’s.

They hadn’t had a romantic night in weeks, she’d been thinking. Candles burned on the dining room table, instrumental jazz on the radio. The room was atmospheric, the perfect mood.

If Shelby didn’t think
this
romantic, he was crazy.

You’d have to be a lunatic not to be swayed by the atmosphere,
Amanda thought.

Shelby had gotten a promotion. For a long time now, she’d wanted to do something nice for him.

But everything happened too fast. Commotion and screaming came from the bathroom. The jazz disappeared in a whirlwind of chaos. Overhead lights came on, destroying the mood. Shelby cursed and screamed from the bathroom, a lunatic in his own right.

Of course, it was Shelby. Only
he
administered this kind of force, this brutality. She must have done something to upset him. Why else was he so enraged!

Amanda frowned and looked toward the bathroom.

How petty it was! Shelby was
looking
for a reason to pulverize her! If he couldn’t find a reason, he’d make one up.

Within minutes, Shelby’s snarling, contorted face—eyes burning with anger—took up her vision. Amanda couldn’t imagine what had set him off. What was he trying to tell her?

Shelby grabbed Amanda Dear, steel fingers digging into her biceps, and threw her against the wall. She crashed into the plaster, her head whipping back against the wall. Pain rang between her ears.

A picture of her younger brother, Michael, shattered to the floor. Plants fell from a shelf, spilled potting soil into her hair. Bright lights filled her head, a coming wave of blackness…

Shelby backhanded her. White lights rocketed through her brain. Amanda spun in a circle, knees turning to liquid, and dropped to the floor.

Shelby had never been nice. Every memory Amanda Dear had of him was violent, more terrible than the last. She should’ve known…the way he’d taken her arm that day when they’d gone to the movies. He was making his presence felt now…

Shelby picked her up and threw her against the wall again. In her ears, the ringing turned to sirens. Blood warmed the side of her face. What was she, another sparring partner, one of his bar-buddies?

This wasn’t the first time, either. He’d done this before, and she—the frightened fool—told herself he’d change. She’d laugh—at least later—when she understood why he’d lost control.

The air went out of Amanda. She was going to throw up…

His hands were steel. They drove into her stomach, lifting her off the floor. Amanda Dear gasped for breath, but it was useless.

Am I really this stupid?—
she thought.
Another chance? Staying again? It will be all right? Everything? He will change? Didn’t he say he would change? Things would be different from here on out.

He’d said those things, and she—the idiot—had believed him.

It had to do with the soap. Amanda was so confused. This was
her
apartment, but Shelby treated it like his own. If she didn’t wash the dishes, he got mad. If she used all the hot water, he got mad. If she left her clothes on top of the dryer, he got mad. Who did he think he was?

That coffee you’re drinking, buster! Know where that comes from? Whose car do you drive? Answer me that, sport. Who takes care of your mail?

Something more powerful than Amanda Dear, at least in life. That’s what Shelby was telling her.

Soap? Was that a joke?

She’d left the soap in the tub without draining the water. The soap was a mess of cloudy, pink particles adhering to the sides of the tub. It was an
entire
bar of soap, Shelby screamed!

He was explaining this to her, but she couldn’t hear him. Lightening bolts of pain exploded through her brain instead.

The soap…the soap he did not buy was the reason her head wailed.

She was going to learn, Shelby was saying. Was she
trying
to make life difficult? She did not understand the foundation of their relationship. He was explaining this now, the funds, the money they had to save…

“You ought to be thankful I’m
just
ramming your head through the wall!” Shelby shouted.

Before the dark, Amanda had just enough to think,
Thanks, Shel.
You’re a sport!

*

Again, through eons of space, she flew. She had no conception she had a lower body. Why would she if she could fly? To Amanda Dear, it seemed she was made of a single face, hair like silver trailing behind her, and an
upper
body.

For the moment, the hell and torture of her life’s memories fled into the dark. Even in death, she tried to catch her breath.

Of course, back to flying! She was dead!

Clouds rushed by. She gulped cold air. Limitless sky surrounded her, clouds, a view of mountain peaks. Apparently, the world above Earth and under space, was a part of death, too.

Amanda smiled. She might not get the chance to see these sights again.

Not with the hells I’ve been facing.

She descended through the clouds. Light mist touched her face.

Ah! The sight did not surprise her!

Yes, you know what you are. Wesley called you that a thousand times.

An expanse of ocean beside a rocky bluff stretched below, an awesome castle made of gray stone. Mountain peaks loomed to the north. The sun was going down.

Wesley stood on one of the battlements. He wore a long black cape and chain mail. The hilt of a broadsword was visible behind his head. He waved at her from one of the battlements. Was he waiting for her, his bride, his queen of castles across the sky?

Amanda tried to wave, but something held her up. That’s right. She was only a face zooming across the cosmos. Wesley laughed at her, as if sensing her thoughts. Did he know something she did not?

Just as quickly, Wesley and the castle slipped away. Death swept her into the black of cold stars again.

Earth never was! Don’t you see? Damnit, why can’t I
stay
here?

Amanda tried willing herself back into the clouds, to Wesley, but she disappeared, rocketing through space and colder air.

A demon chuckled behind her as if replying to her demand.

*

Another memory from the life she’d lived played before her:

She was standing in a lighted hallway, and open door several feet to her right. The lights were off in the room.

That was
her
room, she realized.
She
was in a hospital.

Amanda Dear closed her eyes. It was her spirit in the hall looking at the door of the room she was in.

When she opened her eyes, she was
in
the room, lying in bed. Shelby had mangled her to the brink of death. She was a pulpy, swollen mess, her face damaged beyond repair. She felt like rotten fruit.

What was that smell? Was that her? How embarrassing! Didn’t they clean her up? What were the nurses for?

“Good of you to come back.”

A man in his mid-forties, wearing tortoise-shell glasses, sat on the edge of the bed. His left arm stretched across her body. He was tall and rangy, reminding Amanda of a large, gangly bug.

Yes, the hospital! She hurt all over! She remembered now…

“It’s horrible, what he did,” Jon the Doctor said. “Lovely young thing like yourself. Perhaps next time you’ll choose better lovers.”

Was he lifting the gown off her legs? Was this his way of inspecting the damage? And in the dark, no less!

Despite her bumps and bruises, the damage to her face, she was still a beauty, he was telling her.

“Your face will heal soon enough,” Jon said. “That doesn’t worry me.”

If this was death, it was cruel and unmerciful to have to relive it. Why didn’t God show His putrid face? She had a million questions to ask! And where in the hell was
Wesley?

Amanda tried sitting up. To her horror, she realized her hands were tied to the bed rail.

“You were hysterical when they brought you in,” Jon told her, explaining the constraints.

Hysterical, huh?
she thought.
That’s good. Hysterical. I like that. You can still find time to be hysterical when you get your head bashed in. I didn’t know that.

The privilege of being a doctor! Why he signed his name on the dotted line! Violating patients came with the job, and a paycheck to boot!

Her legs were free, though. Maybe Jon had done the honors. She might be able to deliver a swift kick to his ribs if she tried hard enough...

Jon’s hands moved over her thighs, between her legs. He cupped her breast…

“Yes, it is too bad about the face, though,” Jon said.

Amanda positioned herself onto her hip, reeling back her leg. With all her strength, she brought it forward, and her knee connected with Jon’s kidneys. He made an,
“Uumph!”
sound, and fell on the floor, right on his ass.

More humiliated than pained, he stood up, brushing off his long white coat.

“You’re obstinate, like a horse,” he said, cheeks flushing in the gloom. “That’s okay. I like that.” Jon rubbed his back and winced in pain. He looked down at her, smiled, and rubbed his chest with perfect arrogance. He raised his hand and backhanded her.