Arsen reread that single word, over and over again—“yes.” He didn’t know what it meant, exactly, out of context. Was she coming back to the city? Arsen’s heartbeat immediately picked up, echoing in his ears as it thudded against his chest. It was like his heart had just woken back up after months and months of sleep. That was the kind of effect that Maya had on him, even with a single word.
That’s the way it had been before when she left him. A single word had caused all this damage, had completely shattered him and left him in pieces. When Maya had first come to him and said that she couldn’t do it anymore, he thought it was just a bluff. Like she always did after a particularly hard case, she had come home, popped open a bottle of wine, and sat in the dark of their bedroom, silently crying and flinching away from him whenever he tried to touch her. Arsen had decided to just sit next to her on the bed, to be there for her in whatever small way he could, even though he knew there wasn’t really anything he could do to help.
“It’ll be okay, you know,” he said to her, but even he was aware that his voice didn’t come out particularly reassuring.
“You don’t know that,” Maya whispered back hoarsely, raising the bottle of cheap red wine back to her lips to take a huge gulp. “It’s not okay. It’s not okay at all. It never will be again.” She sniffled a little and wiped her nose on the sleeve of her black work dress. “Their little girl is dead, and she’ll never come back to them. Ever again.”
Arsen didn’t know what to say to that. He figured any talk of God or heaven or “everything happens for a reason” would just aggravate her at this point. In any case, she resumed talking a minute later.
“You know, he kept her in his basement for a week before he killed her. He starved her and he tortured her and he…did what men like him do to girls like her. She probably thought…she probably thought it was her fault, that she was stupid enough to get kidnapped in the first place. So she just sat there all alone while he played with her, until he got bored and threw her out with the rest of the trash,” Maya said, summarizing her latest case before sipping some more on her wine.
“You shouldn’t think about stuff like that,” Arsen said, tentatively reaching a hand out to touch the edge of her foot.
“It’s my job to think about this stuff,” Maya snapped, pulling her foot away from his touch. “And anyway, it’s not like I have any choice. The thoughts…they don’t fucking stop. They just don’t ever fucking stop.”
That was the part that killed him, the part that tortured him months later as he ruminated on the incident alone in his office. He should have said something. He should have fought with her and argued with her and made her so mad that she had to stay with him, if only to continue to yell at him for the rest of her life. He should have said what popped into his mind at that moment because he’d understood what she meant. The images. They’d flooded his brain, just like hers, one after another after another after another, and there was no running away from them. There was no hiding. Almost once a week, they appeared for Arsen, for the last fifteen years—images of his sister, tied up, utterly helpless, and utterly hopeless as she awaited her death. No matter how hard he fought to push the thoughts away, they stuck to his brain like his thoughts were made of Velcro.
But maybe saying that wouldn’t have helped, either. Maybe he understood it a little too well. Maybe that had been the problem all along.
“I think I need to go, Arsen,” Maya had said after a long silence that stretched on for several uncomfortable minutes. “Do you know what I mean?”
He shook his head, but she probably couldn’t have seen him in the darkness of their bedroom. In any case, she must have understood his answer, regardless, because she spoke again a minute later. “I need to get away from the city. I need to get out of here.”
A thousand things popped into Arsen’s head at that moment. This city isn’t so bad. Or, the city needs you, Maya. Or, I need this city to feel alive, why can’t you understand that?
Instead, he said, “Why don’t you just try to hold on until the spring? Things always get better then. You’ll be happier. We’ll be happier. Why don’t you just try, Maya?”
She cleared her throat before finishing the bottle of wine, tossing it over the side of the bed with a loud clattering noise. Then, she collapsed onto her side, curling up in the fetal position, facing away from Arsen. “Can’t,” she murmured.
She was telling the truth. That was the horrible thing, the thing that Arsen couldn’t run from. Maya meant what she said. She was done. Finished. Completely worn-out. Her work dealing with murderers and their victims had drained her like an overused towel, wrung out each morning to begin the same thankless work over and over again. But it was over now, and Arsen knew Maya’s decision without her voicing it aloud. She was leaving him, along with the city, as soon as possible. Staring at her as she cuddled with the sheets on their bed, he knew he’d already lost her.
“Really?” he whispered to her, the word falling out of his mouth without his brain’s permission.
“Can’t,” Maya repeated, like it was the only thing she was capable of saying now. It seemed that her work of dealing with such horrors had removed everything inside of her: her hope, her passion, her strength, her speech, and her love. Arsen knew there was no point in trying to stop her. She’d already made her mind up. There was no going back.
As the memory faded away—slowly, like a sandcastle gradually effaced by the waves of the ocean—Arsen returned to himself, sighing deeply in the silence of his empty office. He leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms behind his neck to create a makeshift headrest and bending his head back as he stared at the computer screen, his blood powerfully thrumming through his veins even as he sat perfectly still, just waiting for Maya to elaborate. After a few minutes, it became clear that she wasn’t going to say anything more without being prompted.
His fingers itched to type out another message. “Yes? What do you mean, yes? Are you coming to help me?” he wanted to say, but he held himself back. If he came on too strong, he might just scare her off, and he really, really didn’t want that.
Arsen leaned up to the computer again, his hands hovering over the keyboard as he wracked his mind for the right thing to say. It used to be so easy for him to talk to Maya. He understood her so well and vice versa. But talking to her now was like trying to defuse a nuclear bomb with sweaty, imprecise fingers. What could he say that wouldn’t piss her off or make her less likely to cooperate with him to save Roxie?
Before he could respond to her e-mail, he heard his cell phone make a shrill “ping” noise. He just received a text message. Who was messaging him at 8:00 in the morning? Arsen pulled his phone out from his pocket, revealing a new, unread message from an unfamiliar number.
“If we’re doing this, we’re doing this MY way,” the text message read. It was Maya. It had to be. She was probably at work and away from her computer.
“What does that mean?” Arsen texted back quickly, without thinking.
“It means you listen to me when I tell you not to push me on this shit. You respect my boundaries or this isn’t happening. Don’t try to fuck with me,” she replied back in less than a minute.
There was so much unspoken subtext underneath her harsh words, but Arsen knew what she was saying immediately. Don’t try to get back with me, his brain translated as he read her words. Don’t tell me that you want me. Don’t tell me that you love—
Arsen cut off his own thoughts, rapidly typing out a response on his phone. “Of course. I understand.” He stared down at the small screen of his phone for a long minute, tapping his foot impatiently as he waited for an acknowledgement text from Maya. But nothing came
He groaned and put his phone back into his pocket, closing his laptop roughly and shoving it into his desk drawer before grabbing the photograph that the Greenwoods left behind a half-hour earlier. Arsen stared down into Roxie’s wide, hopeful eyes. “I’m going to find you,” he said out loud but was met only by the chipper noises of the birds outside finally waking up. “I’m going to save you, if it’s the last thing I do. I promise.”
# # #
Maya’s work day passed by annoyingly quickly, the hours flying by even as she prayed for them to slow down. She was dreading the conversation she knew she had to have with Chuck after work. More than anything, she wished she could avoid it. But she had no real choice in the matter. Chuck would figure out what was going on sooner or later, and it was better for all of them if she went ahead and told the whole truth rather than dancing around it.
When Maya walked into the apartment at dusk, Chuck was already sitting on the couch in their living room, which still had boxes lining the walls. Maya had moved in several weeks earlier in preparation for the wedding, but she still didn’t have room for everything, despite the apartment’s numerous closets and drawers. Somehow, things just refused to fit.
Maya put her bag down on the floor, slipping out of her shoes but keeping her tights on for the time being. She couldn’t give herself permission to relax yet. She still had a lot of work ahead of her. She inhaled deeply, willing herself to be strong, before she opened her mouth to speak. Chuck was staring down at his laptop, typing away furiously. He still hadn’t looked at her since she’d walked in. Maya wondered if he noticed that she was here at all.
“I have to talk to you about something,” Maya said slowly.
“Sure thing, honey, come sit next to me,” Chuck said without looking up from his laptop, his eyes laser-focused on whatever work situation he was currently dealing with. He worked a lot, even during the evenings and on weekends, but Maya had gotten used to it by now, even just six months into their relationship.
Maya walked over to the couch, stiffly plopping herself down next to Chuck without touching him. That was a personal problem that she had sometimes. When she was stressed out or bothered or annoyed or even just a little bit anxious, she couldn’t stand to be touched by people. Through years of therapy, various psychologists had all informed her reaction was perfectly normal and natural and even expected after surviving something like what Maya had experienced. But not a single one of them could offer her a solution for it.
“I, uh, I got a request for an out-of-town job today,” Maya said, choosing her words carefully to start with. Chuck knew about Arsen, or at least knew of him, and even though Chuck wasn’t really the jealous type, Maya hesitated to mention Arsen’s name right away.
“Oh, yeah, what kind?” Chuck asked, his eyes glued to his computer screen as he continued to type.
Maya hesitated for a long moment, unsure of how to phrase this delicately. For the whole time that she’d been with Chuck, she’d only worked mild cases, cases involving only minimal to moderate violence. She usually didn’t deal with rape, even if she did still have to contend with trauma every day. As such, Maya worried that Chuck might not quite understand the type of work that she used to do, the ways she used to be mired in the muck of murder.
“Um, well, it’s closer to the criminal profile work that I used to do, um, in the city.”
“Oh, yeah? That’s interesting, honey,” Chuck replied, but his tone was so bland, so unengaged that Maya couldn’t help but feel like he hadn’t really heard her. So, naturally, she felt herself grow irritated, much too quickly for her own good. That was another bad habit she had, lighting her own, rather short, emotional fuse.
“So I said I was going to do it. And it’s in the city. With my ex-boyfriend, Arsen,” she said in a rush, spilling out all the information at once.
Unsurprisingly, that managed to catch his attention. Nothing like a little bit of good, old-fashioned male jealousy to get a job done. Chuck finally looked up from his laptop, closing it slowly as he stared at her over the rim of his glasses. Maya leaned back further on the couch, wanting the tactile comfort of the inanimate pillows against her back and neck.
“What’s that, you say?” Chuck asked, still clutching onto the laptop that remained in his lap, even though it was now closed.
“I’m going to go work with my ex, Arsen, on a murder case for a little while ,” Maya said, trying to keep her voice as steady and confident as possible, even though her insides were squirming around like dying worms. She didn’t know why she felt so scared. Chuck had never even so much as raised his voice at her. But this was the way she was around men, angry and defiant one second, weak and cowering the next. It was just one of those neat little symptoms of being a kidnapping victim. Or “survivor,” Maya guessed, was the proper term, but most days, it didn’t feel an appropriate term to describe herself.
“Did you already tell him you’re going?” Chuck asked, but he interrupted her before she could answer the question. “How long will you be gone? What…what will you be doing, exactly?”
Maya shrugged, unsure of which question to tackle first. “I don’t know how long it will take. It depends on if…if we find this girl that’s missing. But…yes, I did tell him I would do it, a few hours ago.”
“And did you ever stop to think that I might want to be let in on this decision?” Chuck asked, raising his arched eyebrows until his forehead wrinkled up.
Maya immediately felt like she was a disobedient schoolgirl being scolded by the principal. Her entire body was flushed with heat, and the tips of her fingers trembled like she’d been stuck with ten sharp needles.
“The case…they need me. I figured you wouldn’t have a problem with it,” Maya lied, smiling weakly at Chuck as he stared at her with his eyebrows frozen in place.
“I don’t have a problem with it,” Chuck replied, stressing his syllables harder than he normally would. “But I wish you would have asked me. That’s all.”
“Okay,” Maya said softly, inching a little bit closer to Chuck on the couch until their thighs brushed up against each other. “I’m sorry.”
“Will it be dangerous?” Chuck asked, shifting back on the couch, away from Maya’s legs. Maya didn’t know whether or not that was a sign that he was secretly pissed. Maybe he just didn’t consider the contact necessary. Chuck didn’t like to be touched a lot. He and Maya got along that way, most of the time.
“No,” Maya said without considering the question. Then, a second later, “Well, anyway, I don’t think so.”
“I’d like to meet him,” Chuck said, opening his laptop back up and typing in the password to unlock his screen.
“Wha…what?” Maya stuttered out, utterly confused, his words taking a while to sink into her brain.
“Your ex—Arsen. I think it’s important to meet people who are important to you. Maybe he could come to the wedding,” Chuck said as he resumed typing up a storm on his keyboard.
“I—no,” Maya replied, feeling absolutely tongue-tied. “No,” she repeated herself, trying to sound stronger and louder, more firm in her decision. Because it was her decision, Goddammit, she kept thinking to herself. She got to decide this. Not Arsen, not Chuck, but me, she said to herself. Right?
Chuck’s fingers slowed down over his keys. “No? Why not?”
“Because I don’t want you to,” Maya said, quickly getting to her feet, the need to pace around suddenly overwhelming.
“Well, that doesn’t make sense to me,” Chuck said before he started typing again, his eyes narrowing to little slits as he stared at his computer screen. Maya was silent for a long moment, just staring at him, looking at him not looking at her, and her gut physically quivered with how angry she became out of nowhere.
“Is that all you’re going to say?” Maya demanded, putting her hands on her waist as she stood across from the couch.
Chuck paused again, finally pushing the laptop over to the side of his body and clasping his hands in his lap as if he were about to start praying. “What else is there to say? You made a decision without consulting me, I’m unhappy with it, I told you what I’d like to do, and yet you’re not willing to budge. Do you want me to argue with you or to respect your decision? Which is it, Maya?”
Maya flushed with embarrassment, feeling like she was about two feet tall, even though she was standing at her full height above him. Somehow, he had a way of verbally dismantling her, taking her apart like everything she ever said was a weak assembly of Legos. It’s a good thing, she tried to remind herself internally. He challenges you. That’s important. But somehow, she still felt sick with shame, her entire body shaking a little even as she planted her feet and tried to stand strong.
“I want you,” she began carefully, choosing her words like they were weapons, sharpened for precision, “to respect me. That means letting me make decisions about my own life, Chuck.”
“Isn’t it our life now, though?” Chuck argued back.
“No,” Maya replied without a single moment of hesitation, stepping forward so that she closed the space between their two bodies, tilting her chin down to look him in the eyes. “It’s mine…it’s….it’s a part of my life, not yours. It’s none of your business.”
Chuck was quiet a moment, twisting his mouth to the side in a slight grimace. Maya hated that. She wished he’d just get pissed like a normal person instead of just doing this passive aggressive bullshit. Even though it’d scare her, maybe it would be better if he’d just yell at her, scream his lungs out, get in her face, get red-faced and mad. At least then she’d know where she stood. Instead, Maya was always terrified by default whenever she had to disagree with him or disappoint him, doing something that would make him unhappy or at least fail to make him happier.
“It could be my business, you know, if you’d let it. You’re the only reason, Maya, that it’s not. You’re the only thing standing in the way. Why don’t you let me get to know your life better, huh? Why don’t you let me see your past?”
“Because he’s a part of my past that I would rather keep separate from my present,” Maya explained, the words spilling out of her like water out of a spring. But she felt the sick sensation of desperation start climbing its way up her throat, filing her mouth with brackish bile. She swallowed it down, her throat working hard to clear the taste out of her mouth, even as the rest of her body remained still, frozen on the spot, staring down at Chuck. “I’m…I’m sorry,” she said with a sigh, feeling herself deflate as she spoke the apology, effectively accepting defeat. Oh, well. She had used up all her strength for the day, and she couldn’t afford to dip into the allotment for tomorrow.
“What’s so bad about your past?” Chuck asked casually, as if it wasn’t the stupidest fucking question she’d ever heard. That’s not fair, she berated herself as soon as her anger started to fade. It’s not stupid. He’s a good person. He’s whole. He’s undamaged. He doesn’t understand people like you.
Maya sighed again and reached up to pull her hair down from the tight bun she’d collected it in earlier, letting her red locks cascade down around her shoulders. “There’s a lot of things…there’s a lot of things you don’t know about me,” she said softly, brushing the random coppery strands of hair out of her face, pushing them behind her ears out of habit.
“Like what?” Chuck replied.
Maya smiled, trying to break the tension between their two bodies. “Like how stubborn I am,” she said, a teasing tone to her voice. Chuck took the bait, smiling back at her rather than pushing the issue further.
“Come give me a hug,” he said, reaching out his arms in invitation for her to crush herself against his chest. Instead, she leaned in and kissed him on the top of his head, brushing his hair back from his forehead.
“I’ll get dinner started,” she said, turning away from him to march off into the kitchen.
She’d keep her secrets safe inside of her like a thousand knives embedded in her chest. If she pulled them out, she might bleed, she might gush and gush and never heal. But as long as they were deeply inserted, away from anyone else’s prying eyes, she could go on. She could pretend to be a person. That was the way her life was going to go, as soon as she got this one last thing out of the way.
Maya was going to say goodbye to the little girl who’d been chained up in a dark cellar, cut into again and again by a man who didn’t know or care that she was human, too. She was going to finally leave that part of her life behind, after one last, prolonged look.
She wasn’t going back to the city to save a girl, not really. She was going to bury one.