13 Tales To Give You Night Terrors (4 page)

Marisol didn’t remember the boy and she didn’t
like this young professional’s vice grip on her arm. Her eyes lost
focus again and she tasted blood on her teeth. Someone screamed for
help. It wasn’t until two nurses and a doctor were pulling the man
away that she realized the call for help had come from her own
mouth. His frantic screams and protests filled her ears as her
knees gave way and she collapsed in a heap on the
linoleum.

● ● ●

SHE
spotted him on a
Tuesday afternoon, two weeks after the accident, scanning shelves
of biographies at the library. Not the high-strung young
professional who turned out to be her lawyer, nor the mysterious
boy he’d rambled about. At least, Marisol didn’t think
so.

No, this twenty-something manchild worked
at
the home
.

Patches of her childhood and early teens had
returned but Marisol remembered almost nothing about the home aside
from brief snapshots.
Plastic utensils.
Beds with scratchy sheets. Broken crayons. Pills in a cup.
And even those hazy fragments surfaced only after her lawyer
informed her that she’d lived at the home for almost four
years.

“
Four years?” she’d asked as she
sat dumbfounded in his office. “Why?”

He cleared his throat and adjusted his tie
with his right hand. His left arm was still in a sling, propped on
top of his desk like a gentle but persistent reminder of the
accident. Instead of telling the police he’d swerved to avoid
hitting a mysterious boy, he told them a deer had bolted into the
road.

“
Your guardian has asked that I not
go into detail about that at this point. It would be
counterproductive to your, um, treatment.”

“
Fucking Lorna.”

The lawyer cracked a sidelong grin.
“Technically, the state is your guardian. But, yes, Lorna is the
social worker in charge of your case.”

“
She can’t do that,” Marisol
argued. “I’m
nineteen
years
old.” As disturbed as she’d been to learn that the past four years
had been all but obliterated from her brain, she figured she wasn’t
missing out on much. Those years had been spent with a bunch of
loonies and screw-ups.

“
Yes, you’re an adult. But when you
turned eighteen, a judge determined you weren’t capable of taking
care of yourself. You don’t have any relatives capable of caring
for you, so the state was appointed as your guardian.”

“
But I
am
capable of taking care of myself. I’ve been
at the motel for almost a week. No one there is babysitting
me.”

“
Talking Lorna into that
arrangement was no easy feat,” the lawyer reminded her. “You could
be living in a temporary foster home right now instead of enjoying
the comforts of basic cable and scratchy towels.”

Marisol glared at him. “Gee. Thanks for doing
your job. And don’t change the subject. Your Jedi lawyer tricks
won’t work on me.”

He grinned again. “I don’t know how, but I
missed that attitude of yours. And I’ve already initiated
proceedings to have the guardianship removed, but these things take
time, Mari.”

“
Ugh. This so dumb. And it’s not
right.”

The lawyer sighed and leaned back in his
chair. “Mari, it’s my job to advocate for what you want. But I will
say this. Lorna has been your social worker for a very long time
and she cares about you. Really cares. I’m pretty sure she loves
you as much as she loves her own kids.”

“
Then why won’t she tell me what I
want to know?”

He studied Marisol’s face. “Has it occurred to
you that she might be protecting you from something you might not
want to know? I’m not really a spiritual person, but maybe the
accident was a gift. It’s given you a blank slate. A chance to
start fresh.”

She crossed her arms. “Can’t really appreciate
that if I don’t know what I’m starting fresh from, you
know?”

“’
Kay.” He tapped his fingers along
the edge of his desk. “That’s fine. We’ll work on lifting the
guardianship and then you can do whatever you want with your
file.”

Marisol knew it might be months until the
court got its ass in gear and just the thought of sitting around,
twiddling her thumbs with a memory full of holes made her limbs
twitch. But now, in the library, a chance to bypass all the
bureaucratic bullshit was standing right in front of her, wearing
skinny jeans and a T-shirt that read
#vegan
.

Over-privileged.
Under-experienced. Probably used to wet the bed.

“
Hey,” she barked at him. “I can’t
remember your name but I know you.”

“
Huh?” he shot her a quick glance,
like he wasn’t sure whether she was really talking to him. Then he
did a double take. “Oh. You. Holy shit.”

“
Yeah,” she said, realizing she
needed to play it cool. She twirled a strand of her dark hair
around her finger. “So, what’s up?”

“
Um…you know…nothing.” He blinked
at her as he tried to shove his hands into the tight pockets of his
skinny jeans.

“
I still don’t know your
name.”

“
Oh…right.” He tapped his skull.
“The accident. It’s Brent.”

“
Brent. I like that. It’s crisp.
Like the first bite of a granny smith.” She took a step forward,
hoping he wouldn’t shrink away. By some miracle, he stayed put.
“It’s so weird running into you here. Do you want to get coffee or
something?”

He smiled at her, revealing a row of perfectly
straight teeth. “Um…I would but, you know, ethics and
stuff.”

“
It’s just coffee, man.”

“
Right.” He glanced over his
shoulder, like he expected to find someone watching him. “Yeah, I
guess. Sure. Why not?”

● ● ●

MARISOL
sat on the
second-hand couch in Brent’s apartment, staring at a poster for
some band she’d never heard of. She figured a hand job would be
enough to make him crack. If it took a blowie, she’d just have to
suck it up.

He flashed those perfectly-straight teeth and
handed her a beer as he sat down next to her. “You like
IPAs?”

“
What? I mean, yeah. Sure. Who
doesn’t?”

She took a sip from the bottle and had to will
her face not to pucker.
Screw this. Let’s
get to it.

She put the beer on the coffee table and
nuzzled her face into Brent’s neck. To her surprise, he smelled
nice, like fresh laundry, and his smooth skin felt warm against her
lips. He sighed softly and buried a hand in her hair. She pulled
his lips to hers and licked those perfectly straight teeth. He
stiffened and pulled away.

“
I’m sorry,” he said as he shook
his head. “I just…I can’t. I thought I could, but I can’t. It’s too
weird.”

Ugh.
“Why? Because I
was at the home?”

“
No. Well, sorta. You
were…”

Maybe she could still salvage this. “I was
what? A total psycho? A monster?”

He blinked at her. “No. Jesus, not at all. You
were so sweet, like a little kid. That’s why this is so
weird.”

His words made her skin crawl. “A little kid?
What, did I play with dolls and jump rope and watch
cartoons?”

He shook his head again. “We shouldn’t even be
having this conversation.”

“
Dammit, Brent.” She got up off the
couch and planted herself on the coffee table. If the sneaky-sexy
route wouldn’t work, maybe the direct one would. “Imagine waking up
knowing next to nothing about yourself and finding out you’d spent
the last four years living in a loony bin. Only you can’t remember
anything about the loony bin or why you were there.”

“
Yeah, that would suck.”

She gritted her teeth and resisted the urge to
backhand him.

“
Yes, Brent. It does suck. I want
to move on with my life but I can’t until I find out what I’m
moving on from. If I you were in my position and I was in yours,
I’d help you out,” she said, though she knew it was a
lie.

Brent raked his hands through his ash blonde
hair. “I’m going to get fired for this,” he moaned. “I just know
it. What do you want to know?”

“
You said I was like a little kid.
I want details, man.”

“
It’s hard to describe. You were
like…” His hand flew to his back pocket. “Wait, I can show you.” He
pulled out his phone and fiddled around with it while Marisol
tapped her sneakers on the floor.

She heard the video before she saw it. A
sing-songy little voice so precious it could rot your teeth
chanted, “I want juice! I want juice!” When Brent handed her the
phone, her stomach caved in on itself. That voice, suitable only
for a toddler or a Muppet, was unmistakably coming from her mouth
as she playfully pounded her fists on a tabletop.

“
What do you want?” someone asked
from behind the camera.

“
Juice, juice, juice!” the Marisol
on the screen shouted.

Someone giggled in the background and an arm
appeared on screen, handing her a sippy cup. “Yay, juice!” she
shouted.

Everything about the girl on the screen was
wrong. Her voice. Her uncombed hair. Her sunshine yellow T-shirt
and hot pink Crocs. Her wiggly kindergartener posture. The sight of
her squeezed the air out of Marisol’s lungs. She flung the phone at
Brent and pulled her knees up to her chest.

“
Jesus H. Fuck. Is that shit for
real?”

He didn’t respond, just gawked at
her.

“
Say something, man. Was I like
that all the time?”

“
Pretty much. I mean, every once in
a while you’d seem like a typical angry teenager. Like, you’d spend
half a day stomping around in a quiet room, trying to punch holes
in the walls. But all the kids do that. After a while, you’d go
right back to…you know…that.” He pointed at the phone.

A fat knot of dread tightened in Marisol’s
ribcage. “I don’t feel right.” She sucked in deep breaths, but no
amount of oxygen seemed like enough. She wanted to run, to hide
somewhere deep and dark, to bury herself. “I think I’m having a
heart attack or something.”

“
What? Oh!” Brent sprung up off the
couch. “No, I know what to do. It’s a panic attack. Lay down on
your side.” He handed her a pillow. “Squeeze this.”

She shoved her face into the pillow and felt
the warmth of her own breath on her cheeks. Her heart pounded
against her ribcage, on the verge of exploding. Eventually, the
pillow took the edge off the world and her heart rate slowly eased
back to baseline. She got up and paced across Brent’s living
room.

“
Why was I like that?”

“
I don’t know.”

“
You don’t know or you won’t tell
me?”

“
Honestly, I don’t know. Your
therapist told us it was due to some kind of trauma. You know,
something bad that happened when you were a kid. But it’s not like
I have access to your file. File access is strictly need-to-know,
you know?”

Marisol whisked back to the couch and
reclaimed her perch on the coffee table, her knees almost touching
Brent’s. “You have to get me that file.”

“
What? No. Definitely, no. I can’t.
I would be fired in a millisecond.”

“
I would do it for you.”

“
Bullshit you would.” He crossed
his arms against his scrawny chest. “You should probably
go.”

Marisol’s eyes narrowed. “Would you rather be
fired for stealing my file, or fired for filming a resident with
your phone and then taking her back to your apartment with the
intention of screwing her?”

His nostrils flared. “They can’t fire me if
there’s no proof. I’ll just delete the video.”

What a dumbass.
Marisol flew at him. His hands shot up, blocking her. He was
stronger than she thought. She pressed against his arms, almost
groaning with the strain. Then, in one swift movement, she dug two
fingers into the skin just above his collarbone. Brent yelped and
sank into the couch, allowing her to snatch the phone from his
pocket.

“
I’m taking this
hostage.”

Brent rubbed his face with his hands. “Jesus.
I should’ve just said no to coffee.”

● ● ●

MARISOL
tossed and
turned in her bed at the motel. The light from the neon sign
outside pierced the room’s flimsy blinds, illuminating her walls in
salmon pink. The incessant buzzing threatened to drive her mad.
Something about the afternoon with Brent had put her off. She
should’ve been upset about the video or the fact that Brent had
taken her home despite the fact that the last time he’d seen her
she’d been toddling around like the world was her own personal
romper room.
Some people are seriously
sick fucks.

But it wasn’t the video or Brent’s
questionable moral compass or even the fact that she’d blackmailed
him without a second thought. It was the way she’d taken him down
with two fingers slipping beneath his collarbone.
Where did I pick that up?