Held: A New Adult Romance (21 page)

 She takes another cigarette from the packet and doesn't bother going to the window this time. "He said," she begins again - a false start. She clears her throat. "He said that the world wasn't going to come between us anymore. I didn't dare say anything - if I moved my jaw I'd feel the gun and if I felt the gun I thought I was going to die of fear before he even had the chance to shoot me. I'd already pissed myself. Isn't that awful? I'm such a coward."

 I don't speak, but I squeeze her hand hard, to tell her that she's not.

 "I couldn't tell him that I was still pregnant. I just kept thinking about my Dad seeing me dead on some morgue slab, and how hard his heart was going to break - first my Mom, and then me. And then it was like there little voice in the back of my head - panicking hard. Screaming, you know. And it was like 'What the fuck are you crying about? We're not dead yet -
think
, moron. Think.'"

 Amber takes a shaky drag of her cigarette. "I don't exactly remember how I did it even now," she says. "But I said something like 'Wouldn't it be better if we went out after one last time? If we died like real lovers?'. And he liked that. He started to cry and I could feel the gun shake under my chin..."

 She trails off for a second and rubs her forehead. "I don't think there was ever a moment when I knew I could kill him, but everything changed in that moment. Just that shake - that was all it took to bring me back. The real me. The me who didn't know how to live without him but was sure as hell gonna learn because the alternative? No way. It's a weird feeling, when you decide to keep on living - it's deep down, primordial stuff. I tried to make myself forget it after he d...after I killed him. But I guess I didn't. Not completely. Otherwise I would have cut deeper, or taken more pills. I don't know."

 Her hand goes to the nape of her neck. I want to ask about the scar there, but I don't. She catches me looking.

 "He got off the bed," she says. "Took the gun with him. 'I'm glad you saw sense,' he said. That sticks in my head. Sense? Holy shit. He went into the bathroom. I heard the water running. 'It hurts less in warm water,' he said. 'That's why the Romans always opened their veins in the bath'."

 "You don't have to go on if you don't want to," I say, but she shakes her head.

 "I want to. I've wanted to for a long time. It's one thing to share this with your psychiatrist or your attorney, but...well...you see - I'm never going to be able to get close to another person again without sharing this. Not really close."

 She looks down at me and I can see the question in her eyes - are we really close? Do we mean something? I can't answer - not right now.

 "When he came back in he had a knife - one of my good kitchen knives. He put the gun down on the dresser opposite the bed. He took my iPod and hooked it up to the speakers. That song - you know? Wonderwall." She lets out a nervous little laugh. "And I was like 'Fuck you. I'm not dying to this song. I don't even
like
this song. This is your song - not ours.' But in my head, obviously."

 She closes her eyes, as if she's trying to place herself back in the room. "He put the knife down next to the gun. I didn't dare move, but I was starting to think clearly. I had this bedside lamp - the base was made from a solid rock from the beach. Someone had drilled it somehow to thread an electrical cable through it. He got on the bed with me and I tried to pretend I was into it - that I wanted him one last time.

 "I reached out. When I went to grab it the first time the cable caught. My arm jarred and that was all it took - one split second for him to know something was up. I got him - hard, but not nearly as hard as I'd meant to. He went out - rolled off the bed."

 I squeeze her hand once more, but she's not really here.

 "I'll never forget trying to stand up," she says. "My legs wouldn't fucking work. I knew I had to get to that gun before he came round, get to the phone. Call the police. It was like 'Oh my God, you could be home and dry if only you could just fucking walk,' but it was like a nightmare. Every step I took I thought my knees were going to buckle. My stomach hurt and I thought I was going to throw up. Then I looked down and realised I was bleeding."

 "Holy shit, Amber."

 She shakes her head. "The number of times I'd wanted to see blood in the last week. And I got what I wanted. I'd never seen so much. I don't know if your sisters tell you tell much, but it's a weird thing with women - sometimes you don't feel the period cramps until you see the blood. Like it's psychological or something. But as soon as I realised I felt like I was being scooped out with a rusty spoon. And I didn't even think about losing a baby - I just thought 'Great - that's all I fucking need right now.'

 "I had the gun in my hand. That nasal guy was singing about blinding lights on the iPod. I was going to shut myself in the bathroom with the gun. And phone the police. That's what I was going to do. I think. It's hard to be sure, no matter how many times I've gone through this already. That was when he got up - like something from a horror movie. I saw his hand on the side of the bed. I heard him groan. He got up. Slowly. He looked at me. He saw that I was bleeding and he had to see how hard I was shaking; I could barely keep the barrel straight in my sights.

 "And he said 'Amber, let's talk about this, okay?'"

 She pauses. "I missed," she says, and I exhale. "It was mostly dark and I'm a terrible shot. It went about a foot wide and embedded in the wall above the bed. Like an idiot I freaked out and dropped the gun. He was halfway across the room before I even realized. I ran for the bathroom - there was a lock on the door, you see. I cracked my knee on the bathroom floor. I screamed and he turned on the light. I knew I was bleeding - I could see it kind of black and sticky looking in the dark - but that was when I saw my legs were streaked with red. It was a moment's panic but that was all it took - he was through the door and on my back."

 Her hand goes to the scar on her neck. "That was when he decided to try a little DIY tattoo removal."

 "Amber..."

 She shakes her head. "I'm okay. It's okay. I can do this. I've done it before." She keeps her fingers pressed to the back of her neck. "He said if I didn't want to be his in this life, I sure as hell wouldn't be his in the next one. I had his full weight on me - totally pinned - and this knife in my neck. I couldn't move so I just screamed. The pain in my belly was getting worse - like something was working its way out. I could feel my back was soaking wet - there was fucking blood everywhere. All this red under the bright bathroom light. 'That's what happens when you go to the abortion doctor, baby,' he said. 'He butchers you and you bleed to death - and serve you goddamn right, you murdering bitch.'

 "I was getting lightheaded. I really did think I was going to die then. I didn't think I had any more blood left in me. And then...it was like a miracle. I felt him kind of jerk on top of me - like he'd had an electrical shock. He started moving - like flailing. Really hard. I was covered in bruises afterwards. I heard the knife hit on the tiles and he was making these weird gobbling, gasping noises. I managed to get out from under him and realized what was happened - he was having some sort of seizure."

 She takes a deep breath. "And then he stopped," she says. "And that was that. He died."

 "Holy shit."

 Amber shrugs. "Afterwards they said I'd fractured his skull. When I clocked him with the bedside lamp. I barely broke the skin, but it was enough to make him bleed into his brain."

 "It was an accident, Amber."

 "No," she says. "I meant to do it. If I'd had the gun in my hand I would have unloaded the rest of the clip into his evil fucking head." She gets up from the chair, her arms wrapped around herself. "I wasn't sorry he was dead. I was relieved."

 She exhales and turns back to me. "I called 911. I kept thinking 'I've killed him. I killed Justin,' - kept trying to make myself feel something I should have felt. I killed a person, Jaime. And I wasn't sorry."

 I get to my feet and go to her. "Amber, he was trying to kill you. State law says..."

 "And what about natural law?" she says, her eyes filling with tears. "What about that? What kind of human being takes a life like that? I bashed him on the head with a rock like a goddamn cavewoman."

 "It was him or you." I reach out to her, and this time she walks into my arms. I hold her there for a moment, her chin sharp on my shoulder.

 "I know," she says, in a near whisper. "I keep telling myself that. My doctor tells me that too - there are some relationships that almost always end in murder, and that I'm lucky it wasn't mine."

 "Well there, see? She's right. It was the only way it was ever going to end. You got out alive."

 Amber sighs. I feel her ribs expand against me. "I know that. It was afterwards - that was the hard part. I got out alive, but the hardest part is convincing myself that I deserved to."

 Chapter Twenty

Amber

He spent the night.

 It was all very proper, or maybe he just didn’t feel like trying to get down and dirty on an air mattress.

 There's no coffee; there's no kitchen as yet. He rubs the back of his neck like it's stiff and it's all I can do not to pounce on him with the pretext of offering him a neck rub. The awkwardness is coming off him in waves. For the first time I wish we'd had sex last night - maybe things would be less uncomfortable.

 "We could go out for coffee?" I say.

 He hesitates, and it's all I need to know. I can feel the anxiety bubbling up from my chest like acid indigestion - that same fawning, edgy state that's so familiar. It was the way Justin used to make me feel.

 "I just think," I begin, unsure as to how I'm going to end the sentence. "I just...it would be nice. We could...I don't know..."

 "No, I know," says Jaime, the goddamn liar. Nobody could have made any sense out of that last mouthful of word salad. He doesn't want me. He doesn't. How can he?

 The fear heads south, needling me between the legs - a thin little spike of vague want that gets me when I remember I can still charm him in that way. Wasn't that always half the fun of it? - the fear of running the risk of rejection, even though you were sure he'd still collapse when you raised your skirt or your t-shirt? I could have tried to seduce him all over again last night, but when I laid down on the bed - such as it was - I was suddenly aware of how tired I was. Deep down tired. It's amazing how it can get you like that. In the early days with Dr. Stahl - after she had managed to coax the worst of it out of me - I slept like the dead for the first time since Justin died. Like reliving it was that exhausting.

 It's enough that he stayed. Isn't it?

 Or maybe he just thought I'd try and open a vein again. I hate the sympathy in his eyes - it's way too close to pity for my liking. Then he asks, "Are you busy this evening?" and my heart flutters wildly back to life.

 Another sign that it's way too soon.

 "I don't think so," I say. "Why? Do you want to get dinner or something?"

 He's wary and rumpled; he slept in his clothes last night. I would do anything to take it all back, go back to the way we were before I told him. Except that wouldn't have worked either, would it? You can't shut the world out forever.

 "Sure," he says, scrubbing a hand over his dark stubble and stifling a yawn. "You want to go out?"

 "I don't think I'm ready for that yet. We can eat here?"

 He glances around the apartment - the empty walls, the bare floor - but he's too polite to do anything but come up with a solution to the problem. "Okay," he says. "You wanna get pizza?"

 All my tension bursts out of me in a laugh. "Pizza? Here? You're in the land of low-carbs now, kiddo."

 "Right," he says, and his smile is so warm that I want to cry. "Of course."

 "Sushi? We're going to be sitting on the floor, so..."

 "Sounds like a plan."

 We're standing at the door and the tiny, bright moment has already burned out between us. Stiffness once again locks our limbs and pins our tongues in their proper places. "So - about six?"

 "Seven?"

 "Okay," he says, and hugs me - a mechanical, funeral kind of hug. Oh God, I shouldn't feel this way. I won't feel this way.

 "Take care," he says, kissing my cheek. "I'll see you later."

 "I'll...go get some furniture," I say, in a misguided attempt at being cute. Quirky. It doesn't suit me and I'm instantly ashamed of myself for trying to fake it. I can still feel the touch of his lips as I dial the phone.

 An hour later I'm in Dr. Stahl's waiting room - an angular white jungle of minimalist surfaces and lush green plants. The receptionist brings me jasmine tea and offers me magazines, but I've brought Madame Bovary along with me. I could never get on with it in college - too wordy and slow, but I feel as though I should be reading something worthy. Sooner or later I'm going to have to meet other people, and my dropping out is bound to come up in conversation.

 But the words make no sense. I'm not that smart. The magazines are as bright and shiny as a poison butterfly. I know they're bad for me. I know they're full of the kind of idle, meanspirited bullshit that could destroy a sane person. What if there's something in there about me? I glance up at the receptionist, wondering what the hell she was thinking, but all I can see is the back of her blonde chignon, mostly obscured by palm fronds.

 A door opens. “Amber,” says Dr. Stahl, throwing it wide. “Come on in.” When she turns to lead me into her office I see the red soles of her black patent leather shoes.

 “I like your shoes,” I say, with a kind of shock at the words coming out of my mouth. She’s always been my doctor. We’ve never exchanged the kind of words you would think of sharing with another woman.

 “Oh, thank you,” she says. “We all have our vices, I guess.”

 “Vices?” I take the offered seat - a cube-shaped white leather armchair. The first time I came in here I wanted to retreat into it and never come out. She sits down opposite me, on the high backed white chair I remember from before. Between us there is a low, glass topped coffee table. In the middle of the table is a tissue box, with a Kleenex protruding from the top like a tongue - both a taunt and an invitation.