After the Woods (29 page)

“That's ridiculous. Shane doesn't have the brainpower to plan his own course load each semester, never mind mastermind ways to keep a girlfriend,” Liv says, closing the suitcase and snapping the locks.

“People don't realize,” I say. “It takes a lot of courage and strength to break it off with an abuser. The fact that people experience domestic violence doesn't make them inherently weak. Abusers like Shane are able to manipulate and coerce girls like you by chipping away at your self-esteem. It happened so slowly that you probably weren't even aware of it. Then, bam! The violent attack happens.”

“Wait.” Liv stands and brushes off her knees, the round hall table between us. “What do you mean by ‘girls like me'?”

“Statistically, many victims grow up in homes where there's abuse, physical or emotional. It's the norm. It conditions them to accept dysfunction and unhappiness.”

Liv circles the table. “Conditions them. The victims?”

“Sure. Victims like you were raised to accept abuse as the norm. So, in some way, your mother orchestrated all of this.”

“My
mother
,” she says, shaking her head. “My
mother
doesn't get credit here.
Shane
doesn't get credit here.”

I reach out blindly and touch the table, trying to blunt the urge to run. “I was thinking. It's a shame you weren't able to hold him off.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Just that he's such a scrawny punk. So soft. Weak-seeming.”

Her eyes flash. “He had a knife, Julia.”

“Like Donald Jessup. Been there.” I laugh weakly, clear my throat, and back away, avoiding her eyes. “I was so afraid of that knife the first time I saw it. Nine inches of serrated stainless steel, I found out later. How big was Shane's knife? Never mind, it doesn't matter. When I pulled Donald Jessup off of you, I was sure he would swing around with that blade and get me. The thing is, with a knife, you have to control the attacker's weapon hand. Kick 'em in the groin, gouge the eyes, strike the throat. Hurt their vulnerable targets. But skills can only get you so far. I didn't have them that day in the woods. Kellan's father says stopping an attacker requires innate bravery.”

“Are you saying what I think you're saying?” Liv's voice quivers. She steps closer, her ear resting on her shoulder at an extreme angle. “Are you saying that I'm not as brave as you?”

“I'm not suggesting that at all. I'm devastated about what happened to your face,” I say.

“You think brave is answering someone's cry for help in the woods. I call that an instinctual reflex: fight or flight. Some people choose flight. You happened to choose fight. You want to know what brave is? Brave is meticulous planning. Staying with the plan, even when you get cold feet.”

My stomach grips. “What plan?”

“Bravery is trading something you love for something you love more. Like your freedom.” Liv leans in close and says coolly, “I gave him the knife, Julia. Think about it.”

“I have,” I whisper.

“You want the real story? An exclusive? We both know you're a fan of those. Fine. You know something? After all this time, you deserve it. Here's the thing: this is for you.” She jabs the air in front of my chest with her finger. “Not your fancy doctor. Not your mother. And absolutely not Paula Papademetriou.”

I nod slowly.

“He did it fast, like I expected he would. It felt like a paper cut across my cheek. Far worse was watching him fall apart afterward, coke-addled and freaking out over the blood. I didn't scream. He screamed, high-pitched, like a girl. I had to taunt him for over an hour; it was exhausting. First I had to make sure he smoked enough pot to make him impotent, then snort enough coke to get his frenzy going. Throw in some insults about his real mother, then his fake mother, then his manhood, all the while straddling him until my hips ached. A few moans of ‘Ryan' instead of ‘Shane.' After all my coaching, who would have ever thought it would have taken him that long?”

My bag slips to the floor. I leave it.

“I researched what it would feel like, to be prepared,” Liv continues. “The cutters of the world love to blog and tweet. They won't shut up about it. The touchy-feely cutters use words like
release
and
orgasmic
. The more common minds say ‘it burns' or ‘it stings.' Duh. There's a subset that waxes on about best tools, with a majority in the razor blade camp. I sort of wish I'd done more research before I spent $10.49 on the Grim Reaper, because it sounds like a razor blade would have been the way to go from a precision standpoint. But no one grabs a razor blade in the heat of the moment. It's too awkward. And from the gift standpoint, it wouldn't have worked. Might as well give him a kitchen knife.

“After a few seconds, it felt exposed, like when part of your body gets cold unexpectedly. Imagine dropping trou on a freezing winter day. It was almost refreshing, the moment the air hit that thin line of muscle and blood. I guess that's why corpses are cold, because living blood is warm.

“On the subject of blood and surprises: in case you were wondering, there was very little. All the gauze I bought sat untouched in my bag. I hadn't worked through how I was going to explain carrying what amounted to a first aid kit anyway. Evidence of premeditation, that's what the courtroom dramas would call it. I clasped my hand to my flayed cheek, surprised, which required no acting whatsoever, because even when you're expecting something to happen and are fully prepared for it, getting hurt is always a surprise. No need to fake wide eyes, your eyes just fling open. I made a noise too, but mostly, I kept thinking, my cheek is so cold, and I should get that antiseptic out right now.

“It seems a shame that Shane didn't get to enjoy his Christmas gift a little more. As all future criminals do, Shane has it in his DNA to hide the weapon, so before he even attended to me, he threw open his bedroom window and hurled the knife into the yard. I should have given him a harder time about that. It's funny that his first instinct was to cover his butt, when he admitted his guilt to his mother and the police right away anyway. It just meant some fat cop had to fish it out of the rhododendron next to the Cuthberts' driveway.

“His mother. Oh, God, his mother. She heard his shrieks as she walked in from bunco. How horrid that must be, coming in from Eighties Night. Running upstairs, coat flung open, pink scrunchie hanging halfway down her teased ponytail. Shane pointing to me, her screaming, ‘What did you do? What did you do?' like I'd been the one holding the knife. Running to the window and leaning into the darkness, her butt one big tweedy hump, as though an intruder had assaulted me and scaled down the face of her house and was now running down Evergreen Lane. She kept yelling, ‘Where is he? Where is he?' and Shane kept moaning ‘There was no one,' but pausing for a minute, wondering if she might be onto a good fabrication.

“I was surprised when I started to feel a little woozy, like when you blow your nose too hard and the room tilts and everything sounds muddled. Mrs. Cuthbert yelled at Shane to step away from me then, a motherly move made by someone who had reason and experience enough to be afraid of her son. She forced me to sit on the floor—I don't know why they always force traumatized people to sit on the floor—and hold toilet paper she'd grabbed from the upstairs bathroom against my face to ‘staunch the flow' (I expected to find she'd handed me a tampon) while she called Mr. Cuthbert at the bar who advised we go straight to the hospital.

“Even if she hadn't called the police, I knew from TV that the ER doctors would have reported the incident to the cops anyway. It's not like I wanted anything bad to happen to Shane—didn't care, really—I just wanted it on the record, to keep things straight. It was good that I had some time alone with the social worker to recount all the times Shane pushed me and punched me and yelled at me: a quantifiable record of growing violence. There was even corroboration. Half the school had seen him grab my ankle in gym, and certainly Ryan Lombardi had been worried enough by my little bruises that he regretted not saying something sooner.

“I think it's beautiful. When a scar heals, it pulls at the rest of your face like it's clinging to the old skin, as if nostalgic. This morning was hard, I confess. I woke up to itchy stitches, and caught myself about to cry when it all came back to me. Then I heard Mother on the phone arguing with the airline over ‘unforeseeable circumstances' and demanding a refund on our flight, and I snuggled back under the blankets and realized it was worth every stitch. I will never second-guess myself again.”

The only sound is Liv catching her breath. I have stopped breathing.

“Does it hurt to smile?” I ask, my voice shredded.

“Yes. But I can't help it.” She grins widely.

I nod at the suitcase. “You're going somewhere?”

“Yes, right. Those. I'm leaving town. For a hospital in Belmont. A little mental respite. In fact, I thought you were my cab. Mother will follow later, after she drives Crystal home. She was coming anyway, to wish us bon voyage. It all worked out.”

“How did Crystal take it? The public version.”

Liv frowns, crinkling the dressing on her cheek. “Crystal wasn't really fazed. This is not an unheard-of event in her world. In fact, this very thing happened to her cousin Jessie last year. Except, well. A bit worse. Her boyfriend had a violent history. Unstable,” she adds behind her hand in a stage whisper.

Sing-songy voices and splash sounds trail from the kitchen. My ears start to ring and my vision narrows.

“About Crystal and my mother,” Liv says, stepping closer, smelling of antiseptic. “Remember your promise.”

“I need to use the bathroom,” I say, moving drunkenly past her and squeezing into the tiny downstairs toilet in the back hall. I leave the door open an inch and brace myself over the sink. The voices from the kitchen are clearer from here: Deborah, and a younger voice, notes rising and falling, and a cascade of giggles. A strong vinegar-apple smell. I peek through the crack and see Deborah's back, arms bowed, blocking most of Crystal, who leans over the sink. Deborah squeezes a pink plastic bottle in a circle over her head.

“You're going to love it! Your hair will be so pretty and smooth. Try closing your eyes so the fumes don't bother them.”

I flush the empty toilet bowl and run the water before stepping out, pausing at Crystal's rush of laughter as Deborah ties her hair in a towel turban and hands her a mirror. “Make believe you're at a spa. If you're good, maybe we'll do your toenails next.”

I stumble past Liv as she calls, “Wait, aren't you going to say goodbye?” But I don't stop, because her cab is coming, and Shane is in juvie, waiting for her call, waiting to be told she loves him no matter what, and he is her one true hero, having rescued her in a way Julia never did, and no one can understand that real love hurts, and he will tell her about the visitor's lounge bathroom at McLean that they can use to be together on visits if he ever gets released, and she will tell him that she will, but she won't, because she's done with him.

I pause to breathe in the day. The rain has ended. Much as I hate the rain, the smell that comes after isn't unpleasant.

Liv's breath is at my neck. “This is the end, Julia. You have to say goodbye,” she murmurs.

Porch planks groan under my feet as I face her. Liv holds out her arms, and I drop the bag from my shoulder, pressing myself into the brushed weave of her coat, clavicle mashing against a hard button. She squeezes, then shoves me away and holds me, stiff-armed. Her eyes flicker over my face.

“You won't tell anyone. You'll keep your promise?”

I wait, considering. “I'll keep my promise if you tell me one thing. Why did you bring me with you that day in the woods?”

Her cheeks rise with a faint crinkle. “Because I knew if things went bad, you'd save me. The truth is, we're both brave.”

I touch the tip of my finger to her bandage. “You're right.”

I sink down the porch stairs as the door clicks behind. At the last step, sunlight cuts through the clouds, a momentary, milk-white explosion. I reach for the porch rail and hold on, waiting for the memory of when I topped the crest of the Hill, before the Sheepfold. It comes, and in a moment, I am back. I am in control. I am out of the woods.

I cut through the evanescent haze toward my car, hand in my bag. When I reach the trash can I lift the cover and drop my notebook inside. I don't need to write Donald Jessup in the blank cat's eye, the seed shape, the space common to Liv, Ana, and me. It is no longer relevant. It's not a bad thing, to be irrelevant.

This is the last time I will leave the Victorian. I cross the lawn and touch the edge of the staked sign advertising Park Pro Painting. A contract will be canceled, a stop payment placed on a check. The sign will disappear, because there is a new project to occupy the owner's time. The house will blister and peel into reptilian cracks, then bare wood.

In the parlor window, a silk curtain moves aside, and a bandaged face smiles through pain, waiting to carry her suitcases out the front door and find her own version of perfect.

 

EPILOGUE

400 Days After the Woods

A flutter of porcine blinks. “Who are you?”

Liv hops from foot to foot, panting and shaking out her hands. “It's me, Liv!”

Jessup presses his palm to his forehead and paces on short legs, three steps, two steps, one step. “You can't be Liv.”

“I know you're confused. Listen, I don't have much time. I'm not alone.”

He freezes and lowers his head, peering from the rim of a black knit skullcap. “Not alone?”

“Don't you get it? I'm the girl you love! We're finally meeting in person!”