The Contradiction of Solitude (39 page)

“Of course I did,” I admitted. The truth. That’s all I had. So I gave it away. To the person I hoped wouldn’t judge me for it.

“What are you doing, Layna?”

“I don’t know.”

Silence.

Solitude.

I hated it.

I loved it.

Contradiction.

“You should leave. Go back to wherever it is you call home now. Forget about
him.
Let it go. Please,” Matt begged. He pleaded. He appealed to my empty, empty heart.

“I’m
him
, Matty,” I murmured.

Silence.

Solitude.

I loved it.

I hated it.

“You are not!” my brother seethed. Knowing exactly what I was thinking. What I was feeling. He felt it too. Sometimes.

Not all the time like I did.

“Go home,” Matt tried one last time.

“I plan to.”

Elian came back with bagels and fruit from the continental breakfast in the hotel lobby. I wasn’t hungry. My stomach was in knots.

My conversation with my brother still rang in my ears.

“Do you love him?”

I wasn’t sure who Matt was referring to.

“Elian. The man you have there with you. Do you love him?”

Do I love him?

“I love him in the only way that I can, Matty,” I told him, meaning it.

“I don’t know what that means, Lay. Why don’t I know what that means?”

“Some things were always just for me. You know that.”

“He always loved you best. But his love was the worst thing he ever gave you.”

Matt spoke with sincerity and I believed him. I agreed with him.

“Go home, Layna. Back to where you and Elian can have a life.”

“Can we have a life? With everything that I am?”

Matt sighed, and I could feel his frustration. With me. With what our father had left us with. For the blood that ran through both of our veins.

“It’s because of everything that you are that I know you can have it all.”

“You’re not dressed,” Elian noted, taking in my still naked body. I didn’t cover myself. There was no point.

Elian saw everything.

Everything I
wanted
him to see.

“I will,” I said, taking the bagel he handed me.

“If you don’t want to go, we can always head back,” Elian offered. I knew he was hoping I’d take him up on it. That we could get in his car and turn around. Head back the way we had come. Towards Brecken Forest and the dishonesty we built there.

A life built on lies was the only life we would ever have.

“No, I need to do this.” I broke off a piece of bagel and put it in my mouth. Not chewing. I swallowed it whole. Almost choking on it.

“Are you sure? We can—”

“Stop it, Elian. Don’t make this harder than it already is.” I was sharp as a knife. Cutting skin. Wanting him to stop.

I didn’t want his excuses. I didn’t want his well-intentioned words. Or his constant support.

I wanted him to let this
be
and let me do what was required.

Elian’s eyes were unreadable for the first time.

Not dancing.

Not dead.

Something else entirely.

“Well, I’m going to take a walk. I can’t just sit here and wait for you to go to see him. I’m crawling out of my skin.” He was so agitated.

He didn’t want to be around me.

Then I feared.

Was Matt right?

Was I making a mistake?

Was it even possible for me to go back to Brecken Forest and have a life with Elian? I knew the answer, why was I even questioning it?

Doubts were dangerous. They clouded the mind and dampened the soul with
what ifs.

Elian stared at me for a while longer and I almost stopped him. I almost told him that we could leave. Forget about this ill-conceived trip into hell.

I almost allowed myself to forget about who I was and to embrace this world that he so easily offered.

But I didn’t.

I let him leave.

I was alone.

“Your dad’s a psycho!” Tasha was supposed to be my friend. We played together. We shared secrets. We had sleepovers and playdates.

But she looked at me like there was something wrong with me.

Daddy had gone.

The police had come to our house and taken him away. Mom had screamed and tried to stop them. They told her to stay inside or they’d take her away as well.

Matty hid upstairs, and I stood in the living room, watching my beloved father being put in the back of a police car.

Now there were reporters and cameramen outside our house all of the time.

Mom started sneaking us out the back door and through our neighbor’s yard.

“No he’s not!” I yelled in her face. Tasha curled up her lip and rolled her eyes.

“He murdered a bunch of girls, Layna. He’s a total nut job. What if you’re a nut job too?”

I ran away. Far, far away. I tried to hide from the taunts and the sneers.

But most of all I missed him. I missed my father.

And I hated the stars.

The stars named Stella. And Jessica. And Emma. And Elizabeth.

I hated Amelia. So much!

I hated them all.

Those stupid, stupid stars.

My daddy had lied. Those stars weren’t for me.

They were his.

And now he was paying the price for taking them.

I thought about the house. The one on the outskirts of Norton Hill. The place my dad had taken me when I was eight years old.

On that cold, cold night when everything changed.

When I felt the click inside of me and I knew that I was
different.

All because of the man I called
Daddy.

It came to me in flashes. Bits and pieces. Like a movie. Like something that happened to someone else in some other life.

I could never recall everything from that night all at once. My brain shut down. Refused to function.

Only flashes.

Parts.

Not the entire thing.

My subconscious knew I couldn’t deal with that.

Not yet.

But one day…

I got dressed and took my time with my hair and makeup. I wanted to look pretty.

Though I wasn’t sure why.

“Is Daddy a psycho?” I asked Mom after I got home from school. I had heard it all day. The ridicule.

My mother didn’t look up from her magazine. Since Daddy had gone away, Mom had been a lot worse. She used to ignore me before, but now it’s as though she wished I were never there.

I had known for a long time that she had stopped loving me. I could still remember being a young girl, and my mother putting bows in my hair. She had kissed me and hugged me and loved me then.

But as I got older that stopped.

And my father’s affection grew.

I had never felt the loss of my mother’s love because my father made up for it.

But now that he was gone, I felt the emptiness. The loneliness.

“Mom, everyone is saying Daddy is a nut job. Is he?”

Even though I had always been secure in my father’s devotion, I knew, with confidence, that there was something different about my daddy. He wasn’t like Tasha’s dad. He was something else.

I knew that even before the night at the house in the woods.

A night I had a hard time remembering. Only in chunks that my brain could handle.

I most certainly didn’t think of him as a psycho.

He was my dad.

“Stop asking me silly questions, Layna. Go to your room,” my mother answered dully. Never looking at me.

I hated her. So much. She was weak. She didn’t deserve my father.

We would have been better off without her.

I saw the pair of scissors lying beside her on the table and I thought about picking them up. About burying them into her neck. About watching the blood spurt out of her artery. Onto the floor.

We would be better off. Without her.

There was a noise behind me and I looked over my shoulder. Matty peeked around the doorway, peering into the kitchen.

“Layna? Is Daddy coming home?” Matty loved Daddy too. But not as much as I did. But enough. Enough to make me love my brother just a little bit. Enough.

“Come here, Matthew,” my mother called out, holding her arms open for her son.

Matty ran to Mom. She wrapped her shaking arms around him. I was forgotten.

Always forgotten.

When I was finished getting ready, I walked out into the hotel hallway and headed for the elevator. I went out into the bright, bright morning.

I found Elian sitting on a bench underneath a copse of trees.

He looked up as I approached but said nothing. His eyes were dead once again.

“I’m ready,” I said, fiddling nervously with my purse.
Nervously?

“I don’t like this, Layna,” Elian remarked, and I heard him. I really did.

But there was nothing to be done about it.

I was going to see my father.

It had to be done.

“I want to get there before noon. So we should get going.” Elian shook his head in quiet disbelief. Then he got up, keys in hand, and headed towards his car.

He stopped after a few steps and held his hand out. Towards me. For me to take.

Touching me. Finally.

We went palm to palm. Full of questionable love.

“I’ll wait out here for you. I’m not going in there,” Elian stated once he pulled into the parking lot.

“Okay. Thank you, Elian. For coming with me. I know this is just as hard for you.” It was important that I tell him that. He deserved to hear it.

“Just go and get it over with so we can put this behind us and move on,” Elian said gruffly as I leaned in to kiss him.

Move on?

Is that what I was doing?

Trying to move on?

Elian gripped my hair at the back of my head and held me still as he claimed my mouth.

Taking. All of me.

This time.

I gave it to him.

I slipped out of the car before I could
hesitate.

I headed for the front of the prison and went inside. I passed through metal detectors. I had a pat down or two. I handed over my ID and the guard checked it to make sure my paperwork was in order.

When he realized who I was there to see, I noticed the twist of disgust on his lip. The sweep of his eyes up and down my body, as though trying to match the beautiful woman with the vicious killer.

He didn’t realize we were one and the same.

Right?