The Contradiction of Solitude (43 page)

Amelia.

Daddy cupped my face and gave me an indulgent smile. “I don’t expect you to. Not yet. But one day, you will. One day you will see that memories are the only places where we can truly be free. To remember things as they should be.”

He had a knife in his hand. I hadn’t seen it before.

Then he turned away from me.

Away.

Towards Amelia.

“Park the car here,” I said. My voice sounded muffled. Slurred. I was here but I wasn’t.

I was lost.

In memory.

Elian turned off the engine and got out of the car. He seemed hesitant. He should be.

“That’s the house?” he asked, inclining his head in the direction of the run down building.

The grass was high, and the porch was sinking into the ground. It looked condemned. Not much different from the last time I had been there.

Many, many years before.

In my memories.

“Your dad left you that place? It looks like it needs to be bulldozed.” Elian didn’t get it. I shouldn’t expect him to.

I walked toward the empty, waiting house. Just like I had one night…a long time ago.

The crying had stopped.

The tears all dried up.

And the blood.

The blood was everywhere.

The blood was all I saw…

“I don’t want to go in there, Layna,” Elian protested, pulling on my hand. Stopping me.

“I need to go inside. Both of us do. This is where it started.” I couldn’t see him. It was dark. So dark. The glow of Elian’s headlights illuminated the things I didn’t need to see.

“Where what started?” Elian asked. He sounded spooked. Breathless. He gasped and wheezed. I could almost hear the thump, thump of his unreserved, painful heart.

“Me. You. Both of us.”

I watched my daddy tell his story. Sharp. Merciful. Careful. Gentle.

He smiled at me, and I smiled back.

Inside I buzzed…

I opened the door. It was unlocked. I wasn’t surprised. Who else would find this place? Out in the middle of nowhere?

“I came here,” I said, my voice echoing.

“When?” Elian came inside behind me. It was bleak. Just like that night.

Déjà vu hit hard. Hit true.

“Go back to the car, Layna.”

I had already seen everything.

I had already seen it all.

Why did I have to leave now?

“This part is over. But for you, my little, little Layna, it’s only the beginning.”

“I was eight years old. My daddy was supposed to take me to get some ice cream. That’s what he told my mother anyway. It was his excuse.”

I stepped through the puddles on the floor. Sticky. Wet. Warm. Small shoe prints on the wood. Tracing my steps back outside. To before I had seen. Too much.

“He had a girl here. Tied to a chair.” I looked around the room I remembered. All those years ago.

All at once.

But it was empty.

When had that happened?

“She was crying. Her mouth was gagged. And he loved her. I could tell,” I whispered.

“He loved her? What are you talking about?” Elian wouldn’t come in. He stayed by the door.

Disgusted.

He was repulsed.

Smart.

I could hear my daddy singing as I walked back out to the car. Sweet, mournful sounds that filled my ears and bled out into the night.

Waylon Jennings. His favorite.

And he sang and sang.

“She was really pretty. Just a girl. A teenager. And her eyes. They were the most brilliant shade of green I had ever seen…”

Elian stilled. His face went white.

He
knew…

“What are you saying, Layna?”

“Are you ready to get that ice cream now?” My father asked after he returned to the car. I didn’t ask where Amelia went.

I knew she was gone.

But where did he put her?

He had changed his clothes. He threw a trash bag into the backseat before getting in.

“I feel a little sick, Daddy,” I told him, hiding my face. I didn’t want him to see me. To see how upset I was. Because of Amelia.

Daddy pulled my chin around so that I had to look at him.

“It’s okay to feel bad, Lay. It’s okay to feel good about it too. Do you remember what I told you that day after you got into the fight at school?”

I nodded. “You said that I shouldn’t feel bad for being who I am.”

“Right. And this is who I am, Layna. Is that all right?”

What was he asking me?

I thought about the pretty girl with the green eyes.

“She was unhappy, Lay. She was sad all the time. She didn’t have a daddy that loved her the way that I love you. She’s free now. She’s a memory. And there she can be whoever we want her to be. Happy.”

I nodded.

I thought that made sense.

“This place, our stars, they’re for us, Layna. Not for your mommy. Not for Matty. They wouldn’t understand. So it’s important not to tell them. But you understand, don’t you?” I nodded.

My father’s coal black eyes glowed in the starlight. “You’ll write the stories too.”

I beamed.

“So how about that ice cream?” he asked, backing the car up. Driving away. Away from Amelia.

“Can I get Rocky Road?” I asked.

“Amelia. She was there. My father, he killed her. In front of me.” I swallowed. The bile rising in my throat.

Elian let out a noise and fell to his knees. His hands in his hair, he pulled and he pulled.

“Amelia,” he groaned, and I lost him.

He cracked.

Into.

Pieces.

I watched Elian lose his mind.

So I told him about his sister. All the horrible, horrible things that for him had been guesses.

I gave him the truth.

My memories.

My long kept secrets.

And it killed him.

All over again.

I was killing him.

“No. No. Not Amelia. Not you.” He was out of his mind.

He had snapped.

Then he got to his feet and ran out of the house. I followed him. The devil on his heels.

He had pulled out his phone and held it up, staring at the dark screen.

“She’s calling again! I can’t talk to her! Not now!” I watched the phone in his hand. No ringing. All was silent.

I wasn’t the only one who had found comfort in ghosts.

In memories.

“Are you going to answer it?” I asked him. I would play his game. In his brokenness, it was all he had left. He needed it. It anchored him. Just as he anchored me.

“I can’t. She can’t know! What would she say if she knew I was out here with
you.”
He shook his head, his quiet phone gripped in his hand. Out here in the woods where my monster had come to play, Elian’s demons had found him waiting and eager.

He was a man who had lost
everything.

Alone.

He was so, so perfect in his mad, mad sanity.

“Who’s calling, Elian?” I asked him.

Knowing the answer.

His mind split open. Fracturing. Lucidity lost.

He stared at his phone. “She won’t stop calling.”

I moved beside him and put my hand on his arm. He flinched but didn’t pull away. I leaned up on my tiptoes and pressed my lips to his neck. Over his wounds.

The visible ones.

I tasted the scars that I couldn’t see.

“Tell me who she is, Elian.”

He melted into my mouth. Into my hands. He gave me all of him. Absolutely everything.

He had nothing.

Nothing left.

“Amelia,” he whimpered, dropping the phone onto the ground.

The ringing went on and on that only he could hear.

“H
as Amelia called back?” I asked Layna. She was driving us home. Was it home? Where was home?

I knew nothing.

I saw everything.

It had all gone black.

“Answer the phone, Elian!”

She was angry with me. I hated it when Amelia was angry. She said hurtful things when she was in pain.

Her calls had been a comfort. They helped me get through hard times. I spent time with Amelia in the soft quiet of
home.

It felt good knowing she was there…
always there
.

But she wasn’t. Amelia James was gone.

“She hasn’t called back, Elian. Rest. Sleep. We’ll be home soon.”

Home.

Home.

She was taking me home.

Layna.

I felt myself recoil at the thought of her name. Layna. I wanted to scream.

Layna.

The face of my angel. The eyes of my terror.

She had seen it all.

She had seen Amelia. She knew Amelia. What
he
had done to her. She had been with her at the end.

At the end…

I want to talk to you, Elian. I miss you…

No! I wouldn’t answer the phone. Never again. Amelia wasn’t there! She was gone. I knew that.

So why was I letting myself believe in the lie?

It was safer to be with her than without her. In her nonexistent company I could stop
pretending.

“You threw out all the pills, didn’t you, Elian?” Layna was asking. The pills? Why is she always asking about the pills? Hadn’t we already talked about this?

“Turn the phone off. The ringing hurts my ears!” I demanded.

“Okay, I’ll turn it off.” Her hands never left the steering wheel. She was lying. Layna was lying all the time.

She had seen Amelia.

She
knew.

How did she find me? How did she know where I was?