Blood and Bone(21)

I don't know what he's talking about. I don't even care. I just want  out. My insides feel like a bomb has gone off. He holds my back to his  chest with his arms wrapped around me, making me face the room like I am  facing a fear of the dark or monsters.

He leans his mouth down close to my cheek, speaking in my ear with  breathy whispers: "When I met you, you had to sleep with the night-light  on. You were the only agent I knew of who went days without sleep  because of it. The dark scared you." He's trembling, but he doesn't  stop. He walks us farther into the house, pushing me forward with his  body. "This living room is where he usually got you to do things for the  camera. He filmed it."

The word diddle suddenly burns in my head. I gag on his hand, losing my  fight as all will and strength is sucked from me. I flop onto my knees  as images of the camera flicker in my fuzzy memories with jerks. Words  float into my head, words and images. A sweaty fat man talks slowly,  talking about how he wants things done. Hot tears fill my eyes. They're  desperate to block it all out. They want this to end. They don't want me  to see. But the problem is the things I see are inside me. My tears  can't block them out.         

     



 

"Your aunt's file was mostly from after the police got involved. It's  essentially the police report she was shown. I have added the pictures  you had from before the police got involved. The ones you made me keep,  even though they have burned a hole in my heart just by existing." His  voice shakes.

I hear the rustling of papers as a heavy sickness covers me like a cloud  of very bad things. They've waited for me to come back. The cloud sat  on the ceiling, building and gathering strength so when I came here it  could rain down on me. I open my eyes, realizing I have been watching a  movie in my head. The papers from the folder are spread across the  wooden floor, snapshots of the evil inside me. The vileness of my soul  has been captured on film. They capture a young girl doing things she  shouldn't know how to do. Hands and faces, body parts I refuse to see. I  can't see her face or her tears. I refuse to see her.

Horrors of the worst kind sit there, taunting me with the possibility I remember all of this but have repressed it.

Derek takes my hand, forcing me to stand, and pulls me into the hallway.  Every inch of my body clamps and tightens, squeezing and crying out for  our feet to freeze. The hot tears won't stop, and my mouth won't open.  It's clamped in protest. He opens a door at the end of the hall. Muted  light floods through dirty windows, making shadows on the wooden floors.  Shadows that become monsters, or rather feed the ones that are already  here, lurking.

I know this room.

I know this evil.

"This was your room. I made sure everything ended here for him. It was  the only way. He needed to go in the worst way possible, but I wanted to  make sure he went here."

The room is bare, but I can still see it all. I can still see the small  wooden bed and the little plastic bin for my clothes that was shaped  like a dresser but not one. A poor child's dresser. My father always  said it was an upgrade from a box. My eyes dart to the closet where the  other bin was, the secret bin. I was never allowed to touch that bin. It  was for the shows. They were the only things that made him happy. He  never hit or hurt me when I did the shows in the pretty clothes.

I back up slowly, feeling my stomach gurgling. I turn, running from the  room. I leap out the front door, losing my stomach onto the gravel and  weeds. I heave until there's nothing but tears leaving my eyes next to  the ropes of spit and drool.

Derek's hands are there suddenly, holding me. My soft whimpers become  sobbing. I don't know how to get past this moment. It feels like a cage  that has been lowered over top of me, trapping me back where I once was,  stuck in my head.

My heart is burning and my stomach aching, but even worse is the way my  blinding tears make a mess of the view I have of the world. They make it  pretty with a kaleidoscope of shapes and colors. He rubs my back, and I  now see how far he would go to love me and protect me and save me. I  finally understand his obsession with my memory and the bad things I  have saddled him with. I don't know why I did it. I don't know why I  made him know those things and let myself forget.

But I know why I forgot.

I wish I could again.

There is a horror show inside me. A lifetime of misery that was squeezed  into a few short years and made to be enough to ruin me forever.

"Just breathe, Jane. Deep breaths will calm you down."

I shake my head. "I remember. Pat came to the foster house I was sent to  when the police called her. She fought with them in the yard, arguing  about what they were going to do about it all. They left, and she took  me. She smoked and sang, and everything changed from that moment on. He  never saw me again. She made sure. I was nine."

He rubs like he's massaging. "She saved you, but she couldn't save all  of you. The memories and the nightmares and the sleepwalking. It was all  mental scarring, damage that couldn't be healed."

The sleepwalking still seems crazy, but the small house of horrors seems  crazier. The fact that's all that's wrong with me is a miracle. The  memories weigh a ton inside me, and I know I have only a tenth of what's  there.

He lifts me up, carrying me back to the car. He places me inside, laying  me down. I curl into the fetal position, holding myself tightly. "Who  knows about this?"

"Everyone. Your personnel file has it mentioned a few times."

I glance up at him. He's on his knees in the dirt, staring at me. He  looks apprehensive and scared. "So the world knew he was doing those  things and they never took me away?"

"They put you in a home for foster kids because Pat was your only living  relative. Pat lost it. She wanted to be certain you were not going into  a home where the same thing would happen to you. She wanted to bring  you to Texas, where she was living for work, but they said that you  couldn't leave the state until after the trial, and she had to apply for  adoption. She knew the process would be lengthy, and you were a mess,  so she just took you. She went the opposite way to North Carolina and  rented a house and got a job and never looked back. She put you in  therapy, but it didn't help, and you ended up repressing most of it,  recalling only a few details. But in your sleep it all comes back and  you sleepwalk, kill things, and act savage. You have always done it.  When you joined the military and government they used your lack of  emotion for their benefit. The same way they did me." He strokes my head  soothingly. "When we were assigned each other, we found one another in  the dark, Jane, but we made light for one another. You are my light and I  am yours."         

     



 

I believe him, but I fear I will always be stuck in the things that are  associated with this house. I won't age or grow beyond those moments.  They're a roadblock in my mind and heart.





10. SEE SAM LIE

The ride across town is painful. I don't know what to think or say.  Every thought has become linked to some aspect of the secrets I now  know, secrets I gave up everything to forget. "I need to see Pat."

He looks back at me with a frown. "We are disappearing, Jane. We need to  re-create ourselves again. I'm taking this away from you again, erasing  the damage. You understand why, right?"

"Yeah, but I don't want to leave her hanging like that again."

He sighs but nods. "You can say good-bye this time. But then we leave  and forget all about this vile coastline. There is nothing but  horridness here. We'll go to Europe, enjoy a beach or a village where  nothing bad will ever happen."

I nod. I'm lost on what else to do. He's right, even if I don't want  brain surgery again. I'm not fond of the idea of being back where I  started when my memory was erased, but I want the filthy feelings inside  me gone, forever. I never want to come back here or see any of this  again. I close my eyes, putting the passenger seat in recline. "How did  we decide on the plan? The one where you erase my memories."

"It wasn't the plan at first."

"Just tell me how it happened."

"It's a long story." He sounds like he's trying to dissuade me from being interested.

"It's a long drive back to North Carolina."

His voice calms considerably, regardless of the disturbing aspects to  the story. "I decided to kill you. I decided that it didn't matter that I  loved you. It was you or me, and I was choosing me. I got to your  house, snuck inside, made a sandwich, and watched you sleep. I turned  the night-light off, not fully understanding the ramifications that  would have. I was halfway through my sandwich when you started to  whimper. I don't know why, but I walked to you, touching your hand so  you would fall back to sleep. But you were awake, or so I thought. You  reached over to undo my pants, tears running down your cheeks. I  realized then how damaged you were. It broke my heart, what was left of  it." He turns, facing me, and I can see the raw emotions playing upon  his face. "I understood the pain you harbored and the suffering you had  endured. So I woke you from the strange sleepwalking sex act you were  about to commit. We fought, wrestled around the room, you trying to kill  me and me trying to defend myself without killing you. Eventually, I  overpowered you and told you I knew who you were but I loved you. We  kissed." He stops there, but he's blushing like there's more to the  story.