I woke up strapped to a bed in a hospital in Hollister.
The nurse informed me that I’d been given four units of blood and that she couldn’t unlock the restraints for twenty-four hours, because that was hospital policy after a suicide attempt.
I was exhausted and drugged. It took much longer than twenty-four hours before I finally had a cop in front of me, taking down a statement.
I could tell from the start he didn’t believe a word I said. The nurses had shown him the outfit I was wearing when I came in, and he couldn’t seem to grasp the concept that it wasn’t something I ordered off Amazon.
“I know you kids get into some kinky shit,” he said, notebook open on his knee, not a thing written down inside it. “What happened? The guy took it too far?”
“Well he tried to murder me,” I snapped. “So yeah, that was a bit far for my tastes.”
The officer stared at me impassively, the pouches under his eyes deep enough to store handfuls of loose change.
“You’re saying he did that?” he said, nodding toward my bandaged wrists.
It took forty-nine stitches to close up the gashes.
“Yes,” I hissed.
“What about those?” He pointed his pen to the other scars farther up my arm, above the bandages. Thin white slashes, a dozen in a row. “He do those, too?”
I was boiling with rage, incandescent with it. I wanted to rip that pen out of his hand and jam it through his iris.
“No,” I said, through gritted teeth. “He didn’t do those.”
“Uh-huh,” Officer Fuckhead said. This time he did scribble something down, and in that moment I hated him almost more than the man who put me in the hospital bed.
“So where did you meet this guy?” the cop asked me. “Tinder?”
“I DIDN’T FUCKING MEET HIM!” I screamed. “HE KIDNAPPED ME OFF THE STREET!”
The fact that I never saw his face, that I couldn’t describe anything about him, also sounded like bullshit. I thought he might be tall. Strong enough to lift and carry me.
When he removed the hood over my head—when I squirmed and struggled and finally rolled over—he was already gone.
The one thing I didn’t tell Officer Fuckhead was what I saw next. The figure who came and stood over me. The one with the face of an angel and the eyes of a black hole.
I was afraid it would only make me sound more insane.
I wasn’t sure if he was the same person who kidnapped me. Certain details didn’t match, though it was so muddled in my head it was hard to be sure.
Truth be told, I wasn’t sure he existed at all. The way he watched me so long with that strange, cold curiosity. The way he finally stepped over me and walked away, as if he had seen all he needed to see—it didn’t make any sense.
I had already lost so much blood. I heard my mother talking in my ear, for fuck’s sake.
It didn’t help that the college student who picked me up was most likely drunk. I scared him half out of his mind, appearing in the middle of the road like an apparition out of a horror film. He swerved and almost ran off the road, the car doing a full 360 before it stopped. I hobbled over and wrenched his passenger door open, collapsing into the front seat. He could barely look at me as I bled all over his parents’ Accord. Not that I was in a state to care.
After a brief and mumbled explanation to the emergency room nurses, he sped away. By the time the cops tracked him down, all he could tell them was that he picked me up somewhere off the 101.
It seemed inconceivable to me that the state of my body, the deep marks on my wrists and ankles, the cuts all over my feet, the fucking slashes down my arms weren’t enough evidence.
“HE PIERCED MY FUCKING NIPPLES!” I howled at the cop.
Officer Fuckhead sucked on his teeth, a sound that enrages me. Then he wrote a single word in his notepad that probably said Liar.
At least Erin was worried about me.
“Where the fuck have you been!” she cried when I stumbled through the door four days later. “I called your phone like a million times!”
“I don’t have my phone anymore,” I mumbled, remembering that was another thing I was going to have to replace.
I gave her a brief and emotionless description of what occurred, again omitting any mention of a second psychopath.
“You can’t be serious,” Erin said, her pretty face crumpled up, mouth open in horror.
I knew she was feeling guilty that she hadn’t called the cops herself. I didn’t blame her for that—it wouldn’t be the first time one of our roommates disappeared on a four-day bender.
“Yeah, it’s insane,” I agreed. “Don’t know if I should buy a lottery ticket or watch out for lightning strikes.”
“Are you okay?” Erin asked, wincing like she knew how stupid the question was.
“Yeah,” I replied, carefully avoiding looking at the thick bandages around my wrists. “I’m fine.”
I wasn’t fine, but I learned a long time ago that the only options are to fake it or succumb to a complete breakdown.
To change the subject, I said, “What about you? How did things go with Shaw?”
“You don’t want to hear about that,” Erin said, blushing.
“I really do. A lot more than I want to talk about my night.”
“Well,” she said, trying to hide her grin, “we hooked up in the stairwell.”
“You did?”
I wasn’t really surprised. Erin is gorgeous and Shaw gets around. It was only a matter of time until she punched her ticket.
“It didn’t last long, but it was pretty fucking hot,” she giggled.
“Great. Good for you,” I said.
The words came out dull and emotionless. I was trying to pretend like nothing had happened, but it was fucking with my head being back inside the madhouse walls of the townhouse, with the scent of Frank’s burnt coffee and Joanna’s oil paints. She has the only room in the house big enough for a bed and an easel.
“So . . . you wanna go for a drink?” Erin said kindly. “You look like you could use one.”
We went to our usual place on Belvedere. When we tried to ascend to the rooftop bar, Erin hunted through her purse, swearing softly.
“Oh, fuck,” she said. “I lost my ID again.”
“You probably left it at Zam Zam,” I said. “Don’t worry about it, Manny’s bartending, he won’t card you.”
The rooftop bar was stuffed with hanging plants and fairy lights, and so many people that we couldn’t get a seat and had to stand by the bar. Erin bought the drinks because I was beyond broke, having lost my purse and cellphone, with god knows what kind of hospital bill coming my way.
“Thanks,” I said, gratefully sipping the mule she thrust into my hand. “So, you gonna see him again?”
“Who?” she asked, looking through the crowd for anyone else we might know.
“Shaw.”
“Oh, I dunno.” Erin shrugged. “I gave him my number but he hasn’t texted.”
I chugged my drink, pressing the cool glass against my cheek.
“I’m sure we’ll bump into him again,” I said.
For several weeks I couldn’t sleep outside on the deck.
It was stifling inside my attic room, but when I dragged my mattress out into the night air, I felt horribly exposed. Every insect buzzing, every distant car honking, made me jerk upright, staring wildly around in the dark.
I went back inside, still jolting every time the walls creaked, or one of my roommates laughed too loud in another room.
Several times I woke up screaming because the room was too dark and I thought I was back in the trunk.
Every dream was a nightmare where a low voice scoffed, “I know you’re awake.” That dark figure rushed at me and I tried to fight him off, kicking and punching, but my hands were too weak, fragile as wet paper.
Only once did I catch hold of him, tearing at the mask over his face.
I pulled it away, expecting to see those awful, beautiful features once more.
Instead I saw nothing at all: just blank, empty space, into which I fell, tumbling down, down, down . . .
After a while it got better.
I still had nightmares, but in the day I could smile and carry on a conversation. Well enough that people stopped asking me if I was okay.
I went back to work at Sweet Maple.
My boss at Zam Zam fired me for missing three shifts, but he hired me back when Erin marched over there and bawled him out, telling him she’d never stop leaving one-star Yelp reviews.
Joanna offered to cover the rent for me, as long as I promised to pay her back. That made me want to cry all over again. I kept the tears behind my eyes, hot and burning, while I hugged her hard.
The bandages came off my wrists. The two raised scars, thick and meandering as twin snakes, were pretty fucking ugly. But as Officer Fuckhead pointed out, they’re not the only ones I’ve got.
I’m probably recovering faster than most people.
I’m used to getting over things that really fucking suck.
