He steps back and lets me out. I glance up at him. "What are you doing here?"
He points, "I wanted to see her." His eyes are different now. They avoid me.
"Did you know I was here?"
I can see the answer in his face. "No. I expected you to still be in session. I was going to wait in the other offices." I feel my face pinch, thinking about the other offices. The ones with the cells and the kitchen sink. The intense role-playing therapy offices. He sees my reaction and fakes a warm smile, "How have you been?"
I look up at him, even though he avoids my eyes. "Since you messaged me this morning and told me to stop being a pain in the ass? Good."
He laughs and runs his hands through his dark hair. I want to touch it. I want to touch him. My insides are burning with conflict.
The doors have closed, so he leans past me and pushes the button. The proximity and the warmth of him heat my face up. "I need you." I whisper into his arm, I don’t even know why.
He steps back. I see his answer. Anxiety builds inside of me. I brush past him and walk out into the frosty January air. I grip my coat and walk to the car. Stuart waves at me.
I take a relaxing inhale and let go of the rejection. Eli is a head case too. He's the male version of me.
Stuart opens the door and I catch a glint of something in his eye. "Wipe the smug look off that face." I say as I climb in.
He chuckles and climbs in. The car is started and warm. "I still cannot believe that shit worked. Look at you, touching doors and shit. You were the toughest nut to crack girl."
I snort. I look out the window.
"You know you're a different girl right? Sarah, you look different, you talk different, you walk different. No more orphan Annie." I meet his dark eyes in the rearview. I see myself differently in his eyes. He nods, "It was worth it. It might not feel like it today or next month, but it was."
I pull out my cell phone and notice the messages I've missed. I still have to have it on at all times. I still have to answer his messages. His rules are still in place but I obey them now for a different reason.
'I need to see you this evening. I need to talk to you.' I shudder. The last time he sent a message like that, I ended up in a cell. I don’t get how he can talk to me on text but not to my face. I wonder if it's the same as me and Sebastian separated by the bathroom door.
I think about myself fantasizing about him the way I do Sebastian and shake my head. I should have called the cops. Shell was right. I should have called them.
The realization brings back a thought. I glance up and look at Stuart in the mirror, "She comes back today. You excited?" I ask.
"No. I know she is gonna kick my ass for taking part in it all."
I laugh in agreement, "Yeah. She is. She still thinks I should call the cops. She's pissed and I haven’t even told her anything yet."
His eyes flinch, "I know."
I smile, "I believed you were hurt. She is going to hate that fact. That you tricked me."
"I know."
I shake my head, "I still can't believe you tricked me."
He puffs up his chest and misses the heartache in my eyes and the point I am making. "Three years of theatre." He looks proud of himself.
I shake my head, "Are you even from Wichita?"
He shakes his head, "Nope. Detroit. Dr. Bradley said I should be from a southern state because studies show women feel safer with men with southern accents. They're more calming." He drops the Kansas accent.
I feel sick. "Is your name even Stuart?"
He laughs, "Yeah."
"How did you get into this?"
His eyes narrow. He watches me for a second and then looks back at the road, "Dr. Bradley, she's my doctor too. I've helped on a couple now. All the people there were either doctors or patients who have survived and come back around. No one else would get it. It's extreme and harsh but it's the only way sometimes."
I doubt the authenticity of the story for a second, but the look in his eyes isn’t something anyone can fake. It's the look a person gets when they remember something they'd rather forget.
"Do you ever just wish it had been you that didn’t make it?" I ask and stare out the window.
"Everyday." His words are hollow like mine.
Chapter Fifteen
The door bursts open. She leaps at me. She hugs and examines every inch. Tears have claimed her face and mine. She wraps around me and pulls me into her. I can't hear anything she says over the shriek in her voice. I feel like I'm in a melodrama.
She stands up and kicks the door closed, wiping her face. She's huffing and puffing. It takes her a minute before she speaks.
"Did they hurt you badly?"
I lick my lips and nod. I don’t have the ability to lie to her.
"Sexually?"
I grimace and shake my head.
"Beatings?"
I avert my eyes.
She breathes through her flared nostrils, "I'll kill him. I'll friggen kill him."
"Just sit."
She paces and rants, "I will peel his god damned skin from his body. How are you so calm? God damned. I was so worried." She sighs and sits beside me. She drops her dark head into her hands and shakes it back and forth, "You scared me."
"Scared me too."
She turns her head and frowns, "You seem different."
I laugh bitterly, "That was the point."
"Just start at the beginning and tell me every detail."
I sit back on the bed and let it flow out of my mouth. I watch her expressions as the words roll of my tongue. She cries and shudders. It no longer feels real to me. I've been combing through it in my therapy detox for weeks. I'm exhausted thinking about it. But for her it's new and real and painful. She looks horrified and when I finish she doesn’t speak. She curls into a ball and cries. I pat her hair and rub her back. I comfort her.
"I don’t mean to be selfish. I-I-'m so sorry." She heaves. She lies there for a long time. The sun starts to go down.
"Are you scared you'll never get past this?" She whispers into the muted dusk light.
"Yes and no. Sometimes I think it will never go away. I still have moments where I can't feel anything or I feel too much and get overload. Doctor Bradley has been helping me. I started heavy sessions with her. Eight hours a day of intensive therapy. I am so talked out. It's not even funny."
"I hate that they did that to you and you're so calm."
I laugh. "I wasn't calm. I cried for long time. I couldn’t talk. They made me look at hundreds of photos of her. They made me see her the other way and write her letters. I begged to go back to the cell for days." I hold out my arm, where a bandage covers the scab, "I smashed a window and cut myself on the glass."
She turns and looks at me, "You?"
"Yeah. It just doesn't feel real. It's like a movie I don’t want to watch because it makes my tummy hurt."
She frowns, "It makes my tummy hurt too. I can see you, all little and scared in the hole."
I frown at her, "Don’t try to see it. It already ruined the person I would have been. Don't let it in."
A single tear makes its way down her cheek, "It's hard. When I think about it I want to go on a rampage." Her lip trembles.
I laugh, "New Leaf?"
She laughs, "We need to burn the old friggen tree down and plant a new one. In a different country. Not just a New Leaf but a new everything." I laugh with her. It feels nice to laugh. For real. She plays with my hair, "How is he so rich and hot and normal?"
I shake my head, "He's rich and hot, but he's not normal. I see a sickness in his eyes. They're broken like mine. Like a mirror with cracks in it but none of the glass has fallen out of the frame."
"Spooky."
I stare out the darkening window, "Yeah."
"I feel so bad for him. I mean I feel bad for you too, but he knew his life before. You know?"
I nod, "I hate that his life is this. That I was part of the reason it became what it is."
"Em, you know you didn’t do it."
I smirk. She grimaces, "Sarah. Sorry."
I laugh, "I can't get past it either. I've been Em for so long. Em the orphan."
She sits up, "Why did you lie about it? Why did you make your name Em?"
I shrug, "I just remember loving her name when I met her. She was so pretty and clean. I named my Barbie Emalyn the day they got there. When the police found me and asked me my name, it just burst out. I didn’t want to be Sarah. Sarah was the name of the girl who killed Emalyn. She didn’t deserve to live on."
She grabs my arms, "You didn’t kill her. The circumstances did. No six-year old who lived the way you did can be blamed for that."
"I know. It's just hard. I can feel the gun in my hands. The facts are the facts. My statement is being given to the police. Eli's parents will see it. They'll know it wasn’t him, for sure." That gives me a sense of peace.
She snuggles into me again, "You didn’t do it. Killing someone is taking the gun and shooting them. Not missing him and hitting her. It was an accident."
"It hurts the same either way."
She squeezes my arm, "I love you homie. Sarah or Em or whatever. I love you. You're the same to me no matter what. I know your heart. I know you couldn’t hurt a fly."
I feel a sickening amount of relief. Tears slip from my eyes. I was so worried she would hate me. I was terrified she wouldn't understand. Like she would see the gun in my hands, the way I do.
She looks around the room. "It is different in here. It's dirty and there isn’t a variety of hand sani on every counter or shelf." She looks at me, she has avoided my eye contact for a few minutes, "What do you remember?"
I twitch my foot. I don’t want to answer. "All of it."
