Change Of Season (27 page)

I only lost an hour so I guess that’s something, right?  Progress, good doctor?  But I shouldn’t do this at all.  It’s pathetic, ridiculous.  It was nothing.  It’s a five letter word.  Dance.  It’s something I enjoy doing alone in my room, something I like to watch on stage.  But mention it and me and a gaudy school gym with chaperones and spiked punch and I turn into some sad strange little girl sobbing and begging for mercy. 

I know why.  I know why I hate them and it doesn’t matter because it doesn’t change that I’m a freak and a basket case.  Shit like this is why I need a shrink, why I need to be locked away at a boarding school and not allowed to venture home.  This is why I don’t make friends.  I’m not normal.  Not anymore.  And that’s my big damn mistake, isn’t it?  I made friends.  I trusted that people could be friends. 

I trusted that I could be a friend like any other human being.  Instead, I… what?  Lead people on?  Let people down?  I don’t even know.  And why should this be my burden, anyway?  Why should a stupid goddamn ritual of adolescence make me feel so shitty?  Why can’t people let sleeping, bleeding dogs lie?  Just leave me in my corner, licking my wounds. 

I wish I could be Veronica.  I wish I could be Miraj.

I wish I could be the old me.  Then again, she was stupid, so maybe not.

With a heavy sigh, she shut the laptop and crawled back under the covers, pulling them over her head.  Like a five year-old, she knew what lay hidden in the shadows.  She knew that monsters were real, knew the feel of their teeth, the stench of their breath.  The only security was in remaining out of sight.

“Dreams never come true,” she whispered. 

There were no princes in castles, no knights on white horses.  She was foolish to even entertain the notion. 

She fell into a medicated, dreamless sleep, echoes of earnest sobs chasing her into blackness.

SIXTEEN

Toronto; January  11
th
, 2011

She waited for it every day.  Waited for him to show up, to embrace her as if he hadn’t broken her heart.  Waited for candy hearts or red roses or other bullshit expressions of love, empty apologies and promises to never do it again.

Of course he couldn’t do it again: she didn’t have another dog to run over with a truck.

Autumn sat in the library, stationed in a study cubicle besides a fire pull station.  If he came… if he… she could pull it.  She could make noise, make the world scream as it had when the vet had sadly told her and her father that there was nothing that could be done for Persephone.  She could make the sirens sing the shrieking of her soul as they’d buried her beloved pet, have them testify to the purple bruises that faded after nine days.

For now, he was vapour.  Mist.  Unseen.  Not since the day he struck out with his rage and vows of retribution, should she disobey.

Was this part of his game?

Heather and Corrina assumed that her melancholy and jumpy bones were heartbreak over his disappearance, and she allowed them that illusion.  She could never tell them the truth behind the smiling façade.  They loved Chris as if he were a movie star.  Perfect smile of a perfect man.

A perfect lie.

Her science homework wasn’t doing itself, though, and with reluctance, she forced her eyes back to the textbook pages.  Mitosis and osmosis and neurosis – why did any of these things truly matter? 

Twenty-nine days.  Why?

Cell division.  Cells divided and multiplied, conquered themselves and arose anew.  If only she could muster such an army to shield herself.  Blood cells had divided, tissues refreshing as she’d healed.  In her mind’s eye, the imprint of his fist remained, a blackberry stain upon her stomach.

“Autumn?”

Pencil flew to the ground as she startled, a deer trapped in headlights.  Fiona stood before her, face weary, limbs far too thin.  She was a paper doll ready to blow away.  Her white sweater and black jeans seemed far more dramatic against the pallor of her flesh. 

“Fiona.”  It was scarcely a whisper. 

Settling beside her, Fiona sighed deeply, running a bony hand through her hair.  She imagined the joints clicking, nothing to cushion them. 

He broke her bones
.

“I did it.” 

“What?”

“I called the cops,” Fiona mumbled.  “When you left, I knew I had to do something.  I told my mom the next day.”

“Oh.” 

Autumn felt stupid, but what could she say?  The next day, she was covered in blood in the backseat of a van.  Her mother’s white sweater was also spoiled.  Maybe she should warn Fiona about hers.

“He has a record.  In Alberta.”  Fiona paused, biting her lip.  “I guess he has a taste for what he does.”

She remembered their first conversation on the bleachers:  the sun streaming down; cheerleaders praising their school with a ra-ra-ra.  He’d mentioned transferring from Alberta then.  He’d never said why.

“Did they... arrest him?”

Fiona shook her head.  “He bolted when they knocked on his door.  He’s breaking parole by not remaining in Alberta, so I guess he ran to avoid being put in jail.  There’s a warrant, but they said they can’t find him.”  Venom tinged her words.  “Not like they’re trying very hard.”

Autumn folded her arms around herself, her heart racing.  Now what?  Did she just wait for him to find her again?  Did Fiona want her to say something too?  Autumn knew far better from the political blogs she followed: violence against women didn’t matter to police.  Without evidence, there was little point.  Inner scars didn’t count for shit.

“So, now what?”

Fiona shrugged.  “I guess I just wanted to tell you that for now, we’re safe… I mean, Toronto’s on a high alert and the only thing he enjoys more than control is his freedom.  Go us, I guess.” 

She rose shakily to her feet, inhaling slowly and holding the air inside her lungs for several long moments before releasing it.  With a sad sigh, she pulled a business card from her back pocket and passed it to Autumn. 
Constable J. Westminster, Violent Crimes Division
.

“You don’t have to, but if you decide to tell… He’s in charge of the case.  Just… take care.”

With this she departed, her head held high in the false bravery of the bullied child attempting to believe that sticks and stones are really all that might hurt her, that names and words bounce off and stick back to the one shouting them across the field at recess.  Autumn mulled the white cardstock in her hand for scant seconds before tearing it in half and shoving it behind the cubicle in haste.

No, there was no way she could ever speak of it.  Fiona could enjoy that spotlight alone. 

He was on the run, she said; he had a record.  A habit.  She had been just another fix for a sadistic junkie craving misery and mayhem.  A toy.  A puppet.  He’d played her note for note, and she’d sung his tune like a good little canary.

Caged bird singing as she was carried to her own doom.

Her head pulsed at the temples, another migraine striking.  With a grimace, she tucked her books into her bag and stumbled down to the main office, where a kindly secretary called her mother dutifully and confirmed that yes, she could go home and be in agony while surrounded by her blankets and cradling her cat.  She hesitated as she went to her locker, remembering balloons and orchids and staring girls, feeling jealous at the shower of affection not for them.

Safe for now
.  Ominous words.  How long?  Days?  Weeks?  Spinning her combination and yanking the door open, Autumn was only certain of one truth:

Chris Miller would return.  And when he did, nothing would keep him from her.

SEVENTEEN

Oakville; October 28
th
, 2011

Lisa Loeb played softly in the background as Dr. Stieg perused Autumn’s week of journal entries slash anxiety attack analyses, her perfect poker face pissing Autumn off more with every second.  Did she care?  Did she understand?  Was she as bored by her drivel as Autumn was bored with writing it and finding that little ever changed?

Her foot kicked the couch lightly, legs swinging as she rested her head against the back of the couch.  One more month of this imprisonment and she would hopefully be free to escape on weekends and cuddle with Pandora while her mom cooked awesome food and her father watched sports on TV.  Unless, of course, these stupid journals convinced Emma that she was too damn crazy to be trusted away from the hallowed halls of Casteel.

“Thank you for sharing these with me,” Emma said at last, seemingly sincere.  “I know exposing your private thoughts must be unpleasant, maybe even violating.”

“Whatever.  It’s just my stupid thoughts,” Autumn grumbled.

“Feelings, too, and neither are stupid,” Emma countered, leaning forward in that tell-tale way that meant it was
question time
.  “I wanted to explore a common theme, if that’s okay with you.”

Autumn shrugged, toying with a strand of hair.  “Like I have a choice.”

“Why do you say that?”

With an exasperated sigh, Autumn explained, “If I don’t talk with you and demonstrate some sort of progress you can take to Logan and say, ‘Aha!  She’s not Columbine Crazy!’ then I don’t get sprung for home visits.  If I don’t get sprung, I get to hear my mother calling me sadly, begging to know what’s wrong with me.  It’s really a no-win sort of deal, Dr. Stieg.”

“That’s still a choice,” Emma said firmly.  “You can choose not to speak, which in turn leads to my own reactions.  For the record, I don’t see any reason why you can’t resume home visits as per normal school rules, whether or not we talk about the pattern in these pages.”

Autumn remained silent, feeling somewhat rebuked.  She was being testy, and it wasn’t as much about Emma and her questions as it was about Veronica and hers, and that night’s festivities. 
Stupid freaking dance!
  Why did these bullshit rituals of school matter so much around here?

They once mattered to you, too.

Thanks, self.  Helpful as always
.

“Autumn, I’ve noticed that you seem really triggered by the dance tonight; it comes up in three of your five journals.  I can pick up pieces here and there, but I’m really curious about why they upset you so much.”

She shrugged, slouching further into the couch.  “I hate them.  They’re bad news.  Have you seen the decorations? Watched teens sway in slow dance?”

Emma’s brow furrowed.  “I think it goes a lot deeper than that sort of generational distaste.”

“Look, I hate them, okay?  I don’t have good memories of them.  Every teenage girl thinks a dance is this fairytale setting where she and her magic prince will swirl around the sticky gym floor and find romance.  We’re trained to believe this lie, and we fall for it, courtesy of Disney movies and young adult drivel books.  But the fairytale isn’t real, and everyone learns that eventually.  I learned it the very hard way, and having seen past the veneer, I can’t swallow the bullshit anymore.  That enough exposition for you, dear doctor?”

Autumn seethed, her chest heaving as she finished her rant.  Of all the things to worry about, why pick her hatred of this pseudo-mating ritual?  What was so crucial about it?

She’s not stupid.  She knows it’s important
.

Emma sat silently, studying her intently.  Her auburn waves hung loose today, framing her face and grazing her shoulders.  She’d probably been prom queen or something of that sort of title in her own teenage years.  She was naturally pretty.