Closing Books (12 page)

A few of the men continued staring at them until Dan shot them a glare.
 

Everyone around them got back to work, leaving the two of them alone. Dan placed his hand on her back and led her out of the gym. Sitting by the curb, he waited for her to finish the call and join him.

Instead of sitting beside Dan, she went over to her car and opened the trunk. She opened a bottle of water and poured it onto a clean face towel. Striding back to Dan, she gently dabbed on the wounds to wipe away the blood, then handed the towel to him. “Apply some pressure on it.”

Dan did as he was told. With a wry smile, he said, “I didn’t think you were someone who’d keep a water bottle and a towel in the trunk.”

Sniggering with absolute understanding, she answered, “Not only do I have that, I have a fresh set of clothes in a Ziploc bag and a first aid kit.” Smiling at him, she continued. “Kate packed them for me.”

“I knew it.”

She chuckled softly. It was always easy to laugh around him. “I’m sorry for getting you hurt.”

“I’m fine, really,” Dan assured, flashing a wide grin.

She grinned and nodded, but her smile instantly evolved into a frown when her phone buzzed. She looked at the unsaved number and sighed.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing; it’s…” She wanted to come up with an excuse, but she was so tired of lying. “Nothing.”

“Who’s the one calling?”
 

She stared at him, clutching the phone in her hand.

“Let me help.”

She wanted so much to tell him everything; everything that had happened during the last few years of her foster nightmare; everything that she had been going through, but she couldn’t bring herself to speak. Her voice disappeared and she couldn’t get it to work.
 

“Eve, you can trust me.”

Again, she opened her mouth to speak. She wanted to tell him that she already did.

Since her foster days, she had found it difficult to ask for help.
 

She had asked for help once. She had told her teacher what was happening in her foster home. Instead of the help that she had prayed for and expected, her teacher scorned her.

In hindsight, she could understand why her teacher didn’t believe her. She wasn’t the best student. She talked back to the teacher, never handed in her work, and was barely passing her tests.
 

She could understand, but she couldn’t forgive.
 

Yes, she wasn’t the perfect student, but she didn’t deserve to be scorned and told off.

Then, she asked for help from her school nurse. Instead of telling her what happened, Evelyn had taken off her shirt and showed the nurse her wounds. Her school nurse immediately called in Evelyn’s caseworker, but after an interview with the she-devil, her caseworker chose to believe that Evelyn got her wounds due to a fight she had gotten into.

A look at her wounds would have been clear that it was impossible for the she-devil’s story to be true. All her wounds were carefully made such that they would be hidden by her clothes, but her caseworker never bothered. The result of her cry for help was another scathing remark from her caseworker, the cruel realization that she was indeed all alone, and the increased disproportionate torture toward her.

But even with all that, she trusted Dan.
 

Each time she picked up her phone to call him, no matter where they stood in their strange relationship, no matter how late it was, he always picked up and showed up without demanding any explanation.

She trusted him, with all her heart, but she didn’t trust herself.
 

How could someone like her ever make Dan happy? How could she expect anything of Dan when she couldn’t give him what he wanted.

In the end, she could only shake her head.
 

“Eve…”

“I’m sorry, I should go.” If Dan hadn’t been thoroughly disappointed by her, she was positive this would do so.

“Eve, wait!”

She ran across the road, not caring about the cars rushing by and the angry honks she incurred. She slid into her car and drove off, peeling her eyes off the disappointed face of Dan in her rear view mirror.
This is better for everyone.

After a whole day of working at her workshop, carving intricate flowers into the chest she had made, Evelyn was just stepping into the office when her phone vibrated. She threw her head back, giving a loud, annoyed sigh before reaching into her bag to dig for her phone.
 

Her morning with Dan already had her mood rocking between throwing herself off the building and a volcano eruption. After an unsuccessful day of trying to drown herself in work, her mood was definitely tilting toward a major volcano eruption.

As she took out her phone, she caught a glimpse of Kate walking out of the pantry. Without thinking, she turned around, hurried away from the office, and down the corridor she’d just came from. “Again? I just gave you a thousand this morning. Do you know how much you’ve already taken from me? Do you really think that I’m a bank? I don’t have any more money.”

“Well, you’d better find some in the next hour. I want two thousand. You know where to find me.” The line went dead, leaving behind the monotonous beep to mock her.

The elevator’s door flew open and she jabbed impatiently at the button, even as it was already descending.
 

She kept her feet moving and managed to keep her tears at bay until she got into her car. Her tears fell in unison with the groaning of her car’s engine. Tears slid down her cheek and landed on her ebony skirt, seeping into it and disappearing within moments of their landing.
 

Again, she flung her arms against the steering wheel, fighting a losing battle against it.
 

She wasn’t sure how long it was, but eventually, her arms lost their strength, and she dropped them onto her legs.
 

Between sobs, she reached for a piece of tissue and dabbed at the tears on her face.
 

Leaning back against the leather-cushioned seat, Evelyn closed her eyes and focused her attention on the radiating pain on her arm. The pain, in an uncanny way, was a reminder of what she’d overcome, and that gave her hope; something that had been missing in the recent weeks.

Tucking her hair behind her ear, she took in a slow, deep breath, easing away all the emotions from her face. She locked all her fears, shame, and pain away into a small box and shoved it into a deep corner of her heart.
 

Evelyn took her bag from the passenger seat and pulled out her pocket mirror and makeup to touch up the washed-off concealer around her eyes.
Thank God for waterproof mascara.

When she decided that she looked decent enough, she pulled the car out of the building and made a quick stop to withdraw the two thousand dollars she needed before driving toward the meeting point.

The towering trees and well-mowed grass faded as she drove toward an area where decent people avoided. Soon, the suit wearing crowd was replaced by sparse loitering crowds wearing hooded sweatshirts and jeans hanging low on their hips.
 

The bored faces gathered along fences, some in groups while others idled alone. Most had their hoods over their heads while their watchful, skeptical eyes glanced around.
 

The solitary colored, high-rise buildings had also disappeared, and in place of it were low-rise buildings that lined the sides of the roads. A layer of grayish dust had settled over the neglected walls. The only hint of fresh colors was the vibrant red, yellow, and blue graffiti that overlaid the dullish walls.

Words and random symbols were drawn over one another, making the task of deciphering the words near impossible.
 

The whole neighborhood brought up only one word in her mind. Despair.

She could see herself in the jaded looks of the teens; teens who shouldn’t be out on a street like that.
 

Months ago, she would have driven through a neighborhood like that and think she was done with that life. Life with a sense of hopelessness, with nothing to look forward to.
 

No silver lining.

Evelyn sighed and crooked her jaws as she stopped by the same street that she had become a frequent visitor to.

The streets were still relatively deserted, but in a few hours, it’d be teeming with women standing by the sidewalk, and there would be plenty of cars driving by.
 

While she sat in her car, she stared down everyone who walked by. Looking away from the stares would only make her look weak, and being weak in such an area equated to becoming a victim.

She knew most of the stares she was receiving were out of pure curiosity. Her car, though old, was polished, cleaned, and without any signs of bullet holes. An unusual sight in this neighborhood.
 

While waiting, her mind wandered off to the younger version of her blackmailer.

Amy was only six when Evelyn met her.
 

No, Evelyn hadn’t met Amy, Mandy did.

Mandy Shannon; the young girl who was thrown from foster home to foster home, carrying all her possessions in a black plastic bag.

Plastic bag was a nice term. It was really just a black trash bag.
 

A black trash bag they gave to foster children to keep their belongings. It was as if all of her things were garbage; just as she was.
 

She was thrown from homes with parents who promised to care for her to another when she was no longer wanted.

They always had a reason.

The foster parents finally conceived and needed to spend more time on their own flesh and blood. The foster parents couldn’t afford to keep her, the checks received from the government weren’t enough. The flesh and blood of the foster parents didn’t like her, so she had to go.

With each home, the young, naive Mandy Shannon quickly died and an older, colder, and angrier Mandy Shannon appeared.
 

She learned never to trust the words of adults. No one truly cared for her, not her caseworker and definitely not her foster parents. She was only at a house until she was no longer needed or wanted.
 

Like her stuff, she was disposable garbage to them.

By the time she had gotten to Mrs. Moore, Mandy was by all means a problematic child. She stood and gave no reaction when the seemingly cordial Mrs. Moore introduced Amy and Leah to her.

Her caseworker had smiled politely to Mrs. Moore before whispering harshly into her ears, warning her to behave. Then, the adults led all of them to a dull, yellowish couch where they had their own conversation. While the adults chatted, Mandy took the chance to glance around the living room and at Amy and Leah, the other two girls who were already under Mrs. Moore’s care.

Under her feet, the floor was covered with an old, algae green carpet with its fiber completely flat. Though the walls were white, there seemed to be a gloom in the house.

There wasn’t many decorations in the house, either. Besides the couch they were sitting on, there were only the ugly olive curtains with hideous red flowers printed all over and the small television in front of them.

She wasn’t expecting a grand house with antiques displayed all over the house, but there wasn’t a single picture or book. It felt like an empty shell, like the house was merely for show.

She had shrugged those thoughts off and turned to the girls.

The girls’ hair hung neatly around their shoulders, covering the nape of their necks, and their clothes appeared fresh and clean. They seemed to have just taken a bath, but instead of the freshness she’d expected, they appeared weary and somewhat demoralized.

Leah sat like a statue, blending in so well with the furniture in the background that she was almost invisible. Amy, on the other hand, sat quietly, but her hands were clasped so tightly that her knuckles were turning whiter than her already pale skin.
 

But what truly struck her as odd was how subdued the girls were. They kept their eyes on the floor, occasionally gazing outside as though they were daydreaming, but never directly at anyone—not even at each other.

Despite having acted out in the last foster home, she kept her behavior in check. Something about the house was weird.

She toed the line and did whatever Mrs. Moore told her in the first few days.
 

Things were normal then and Mandy never suspected anything was wrong. She merely thought Mrs. Moore ran her house with an iron fist, which was why the other two girls were always so quiet.
 

No matter where she’d gone, foster kids always stuck together. They would talk or warn each other about the parent and watch each other’s back. But Leah and Amy kept to themselves. They didn’t speak to her or each other. The only time she heard them speak was when they answered Mrs. Moore’s questions.

Mandy didn’t care how they behaved. She kept to herself as much as they did.
 

There wasn’t any point in making friends when she could be thrown out anytime.
 

What she didn’t know then was that she wouldn’t be discarded this time. Mrs. Moore was determined to keep her in the hell hole for as long as she could.

It didn’t take long for Mrs. Moore to peel off her mask. Just four days into her stay, the torture began.

Mandy fought hard. She screamed, yelled, and thrashed her hands about, but she was always overpowered in the end.
 

After a year, the torture became routine and though it was weird, Mandy got used to it.
 

She feared it tremendously; she couldn’t sleep and found herself listening out for the dreaded footsteps that would come up the stairs each night.
 

Even on the rare occasions when the she-devil decided to take a break, Mandy still couldn’t sleep. Her ears would be on alert for the slightest movement on the wooden stairs that creaked with each step. Still, despite it all, she grew to accept it as a situation she couldn’t get out of.