Crazy Love You (24 page)

And I could hear a jagged edge of bitterness and anger in her voice.

“Do you know what they did to me?” she asked.

I looked over at the gravestone that tilted and glowed white in the moonlight: P
RISCILLA
M
ILLER
.

“No,” I said. I didn't want to have this conversation with her. I didn't want to know who she was, what she was, or what they had done to her. But I asked anyway, because I knew she wanted me to. “What did they do?”

“What
they
do—the bullies, the betrayers, the ignorant. What do they do to things they don't understand and can't control?”

She looked like a little girl, but she was not a little girl. Not anymore. I guess I always knew that on some level, that she was not what she appeared to be.

“I don't know,” I said.

Because I didn't know. I was just a boy and I didn't understand yet how ugly was the world, even though I'd experienced more than my fair share of horror and misery. I didn't know how utterly bankrupt, how unforgiving, how soul-crushingly indifferent people could be. Her embrace was cold, like holding the wind.

“They take a special thing and try to break it,” she said.

Her voice had turned into a whisper and it mingled with the wind, and became one with the chorus of the trees, of the night. A million voices trying to tell me their sad stories, but there were too many. The Whispers. I couldn't tell one from the other.

“What did they do to you?” I asked.

I closed my eyes and leaned closer to her, but then I tumbled to the ground. And for a moment I thought that I was alone, the full moon hiding behind a thick blue cloud cover.

“Priss?”

Then she was over by the trees, her wild hair licking up in the wind like flames. I saw the fire all around her, a blue-orange blaze. She was an angel and a demon, beautiful and terrible. I moved to pull her to safety. But the heat drove me back, searing my skin, a wall of pain that kept me away. We locked eyes and I saw all her fathomless sorrow and rage. She lifted her arms up to the sky and started to scream, a shattering, primal wail of pain and terror. I felt it in my gut and in every nerve ending in my body. And her scream was living in me then, my wail joining hers.

I guess I don't have to tell you that Priss didn't make it to our little meeting at the Shake Shack. Megan and I waited for an hour, doing our time on the burger line, ordering, eating silently at one of the metal tables. We sucked on our shakes and didn't say a word, Megan's eyes scanning the perimeter of the park. She was waiting for a tall, buxom redhead to approach us. I was waiting, too. Priss wasn't one to answer when called. She had always come and gone from my life as she pleased.

Still, I looked for that flash of red, that slash of color in the gray and black and white of a cool early-spring day in New York City. The buds hadn't appeared on the trees yet; there was no bright green pushing up from the brown, no explosion of blossoms. I tried to imagine them, Megan and Priss, occupying the same space, exchanging words. I couldn't.

“This is where I first saw you,” I said. I looked over at the park where the children were playing. I was hoping I could make Meg reminisce, see her smile. But she was pale, her mouth a sad little line. She had the purple shiners of fatigue under her eyes, in addition to those bruises. It was more than an hour past the time we'd asked Priss to meet us. The afternoon was growing ever grayer, the veil of afternoon falling—contrasting with the yellows of the taxicabs and their bright red taillights.

“It wasn't that long ago,” she said.

“No,” I answered. I took her blue-mittened hand. “But I can't remember my life before you.”

It was the kind of corny thing that I said to make her blush. But she didn't even smile. She pulled her hand back.

“So, Ian, I've been thinking.” Her soft, pretty face was set like stone.

I hadn't told her about the apartment, or my financial situation, or my disturbing conversation with Natalie from the management company. Because, frankly, it didn't look very good, did it? I was asking her to believe something that no one else had ever believed. And I sensed, particularly since Priss hadn't showed, that I was pushing Megan to the brink of her very understanding nature. Past the brink. How could I tell her that somehow I'd allowed my checking account to go into overdraft, hadn't paid my rent in months, and didn't even realize it? Does that sound right to you? Would you want to marry that guy? Meanwhile, all of my credit cards were near their limits. I had about two hundred dollars in cash in my wallet, and that was pretty much it.

Megan had wrapped herself up in her arms, a posture she'd retreated to every so often since last night.

“Maybe we need to take some time off,” she said. Her tone was a closing door.

Believe it or not, I did
not
see that coming. All her talk about unconditional love and being there for each other no matter what? I bought all that. I thought she
meant
it. But adult love is not unconditional, is it? That's a myth, a fantasy they sell you. You have to earn that shit, work to keep it alive, feed it, nurture it. Otherwise, it shrinks and grows cold.

I had closed my eyes to take in all the implications of her words, and when I opened them, she was crying. It wasn't just tears in her eyes. She sank her head into her hands and she was shaking, releasing these shuddering breaths. The two girls at the table next to us gave me a dirty look. Both of them, like:
What did you do to her, asshole?

“Megan,” I said. I leaned in toward her. “Don't do this, okay?”

“I told the police about her,” Megan said. She seemed to steel herself by taking a deep breath. “Priscilla Miller, right?”

Had I told Megan her last name? I didn't remember.

“They want to talk to her,” she said. “And they want to talk to you.”

She slid a business card across the table. I'd lost the one she'd given me yesterday. She must have talked to them again. Detective Grady Crowe. Great, here we go again.

“I told them how you said she squats on the Lower East Side,” she went on.

I stared at the card, then put it on the table.

“I told them about the other things you said she did, when you were younger.”

“You did?”

She nodded. I could tell that she was unsure of her actions. She had that look that good people get when they've managed to stand up for themselves. She couldn't muster self-righteousness, but she had done what she'd thought was right—or what her parents had encouraged her to do. It felt bad to her, though, like tattling. I read all of this in the wiggle of her eyebrows, the flush on her white cheeks.

“They are going to have that security video today or tomorrow, Ian. So we'll know then if it was her or not.”

I felt a little flutter of panic that I couldn't explain.

She was drawing away from me, pulling herself out of intimate distance. She leaned away, cast her eyes down. A week ago she'd have been leaning close, some part of her—her hand, her foot—touching me. That was Meg, she was touchy, cuddly like that. Now she pulled herself to standing.

It was then that I noticed Binky sitting on the park bench over by the playground. He was wearing a thick parka and a wool hat, holding a newspaper. But he had his eye on us. When he saw me looking, he stood up and approached us. I stood as well.

“I'm sorry,” I said when he reached us. He didn't have any visible marks on his face. I couldn't have hit him
that
hard. “I never meant to hurt you.”

He lifted a hand.

“I know, son,” he said. He gave me a kind, patient smile that reminded me irritatingly of Dr. Crown. “I know you're dealing with something. I don't pretend to understand what. But I hope you get your act together.”

Before I could say anything, he told Megan that he was going to get the car. He'd meet her at the corner. And then he was gone into the crowd.

“You need to call that detective, okay,” she said. “Tell them what you told me.”

“You don't believe me,” I said. She'd believed me last night; I knew she had. It must have been Binky and Julia who made her doubt me.

She dug her hands deep into her pockets and shook her head. “I'm confused,” she said. “I don't know what to believe.”

“Meg,” I said. “Please.”

“Let's talk tomorrow,” she said. “I just need to get some rest.”

She held my eyes for a second and I could see her—the sweet, funny, quirky girl who loved me. I could still have her back. I just needed to straighten out the mess of my life, and get Priss to back off once and for all. Then it would be okay. Right?

“You need to make a choice here, Ian,” she said. “It's me or her. You can't have us both.”

She walked off then, and I didn't have the voice or the energy to call her back. I took the long walk back to my place, waited for someone to let me in, and then went up to my apartment. They hadn't evicted me yet, and I was still thinking I could talk my way out of whatever was happening to me.

But when I went back inside, the place had been trashed. The couch was turned over, the throw pillows shredded. My big-screen television lay facedown on the floor, the cable and Xbox cords ripped from the fittings. Dishes and glasses had been taken from their cabinets and smashed on the counter, the tile floor of the kitchen. My bed had been tossed; clothes from the drawers and my closet were hanging from lamps.

The only place that remained intact was the corner of the loft where I worked. My computer, the pages I had scanned in yesterday, all sat undisturbed where I had left them. My pens, paints, and pencils were all as orderly and organized as they always were.

I stood, looking at the mess of it all. Had she done it? Knowing I'd be waiting for her at the park, had she come in and done all this damage? Or in that blank space after I hung up the phone with Natalie, when the veil of red had come down, had
I
done this to my home? Was there a part of me that wanted to destroy everything good in my life? That's what Dr. Crown would say, no doubt.

He believed that Priss existed to express the apocalyptic rage I had inside me. I felt abandoned by my mother when she sank into postpartum depression after Ella was born. That's when Priss first showed up in the woods behind my house. And then, when my mother killed Ella and tried to kill me—the rage, the shame, the horror, the betrayal I felt was too much to bear. I couldn't direct those feelings toward my mother, whom I loved and missed desperately, so I created someone to express them for me at whoever the object of my rage happened to be. It all works, as far as theories go. It makes a kind of sense. There's just one problem with it: Priss is real. My rage is real, too, I guess. They are not mutually exclusive.

I didn't bother cleaning up. What was the point? I hadn't been able to reach Zack, which was a bit odd. I'd left a message; I wanted to hear his voice, wanted him to confirm that I still had a contract. Likewise, I couldn't reach my agent. Which was also odd.

So with my life in a shambles around me, I walked over to my drafting table, sat down, and disappeared into the only place where I'd ever truly been happy. Maybe, I thought, if I could tame her on the page, my life would get easier to handle.

•  •  •

“There's no mistake,” Molly says to Priss. A mammoth streak of lightning splits the sky, casting them all in a yellow glow. “You weren't invited to our wedding because you're not welcome here.”

The rain is coming down in sheets, the sky a thick gray black. Molly's parents are also there and they wear expressions of fear and surprise. They each have a hand on their daughter.

“Is that true?” Priss asks Fatboy. “Am I not welcome? Is there no place for me in your new life?”

“Tell her,” Molly says. She is looking at Fatboy with an angry frown. “Tell her to go hurt someone else.”

Fatboy opens his mouth, but a crash of thunder silences him. He never wanted them to meet, never wanted them to exist in the same frame in his life. He almost can't handle it. Molly's parents try to pull her away, but she won't go.

“Tell her,” says Molly. “It's time.”

“Why don't you let him speak for himself?” says Priss.

And then they're screaming at each other, angry faces, red lips, flashing eyes. Priss's orange hair is wild. Molly's white gown blows around her like a mist. And then Priss reaches out to push Molly, and Molly shocked, stumbles backward. Fatboy grabs for her, but Priss is already on her—and they are moving to the edge of the bluff. He wants to help Molly, but he's paralyzed, can't move his arms or legs, like in a dream where you're weak and powerless against an assailant.

“Priss,” he yells. But his voice is just a whisper in the storm. Molly's father reaches for Priss, but she strikes him back with a powerful blow to the jaw and he falls into Molly's mother. Priss is strong, so strong. She is all power, no reason, when rage takes over. No one can talk her down; no one can stop her.

“Let go of her,” he yells again.

“Do something, you coward,” yells Molly's mother.

But they all three are weak, hanging back and afraid, as Molly and Priss fight like berserkers—punching and clawing at each other. Molly's dress is splattered with blood. Priss has a warrior's slash on her face where Molly has scratched her.

They move closer and closer to the edge as the storm rages. Finally, Fatboy starts to move toward them.

They are in silhouette now against the night sky, locked together in a violent struggle. Fatboy feels numb, disconnected from the scene. Molly is all that is right in his life—love, a future, a family, stability. Priss is all that is wrong—rage, addiction, angry sex, madness. The choice should be clear. But it's not. It's not at all. Darkness is a cocoon. It asks nothing of you but your complicity. A life lived in the light—a job, a wife, a home, a family—that requires your presence. It's work.