Ava
I lie curled up in the corner of my closet, my eyes swollen shut from crying, my body exhausted from sobbing. I haven’t eaten. I’ve barely moved. My hand hurts, but the pain brings me solace. Something he’s trained in me. I’m also naked. That brings me solace too. Something else he’s trained in me. But the solace is wasted. Because all I feel is terror. Pure terror, ripping apart my mind.
Please don’t let him die.
Please don’t let him die.
Please don’t let him die.
I chant the words over and over. I’ve been chanting them since Shayne left. All because I wasn’t strong enough. Wasn’t strong enough to keep my word. Wasn’t strong enough to pull the trigger.
Then there’s the beast, and all he revealed. All his dark secrets that flayed me open, forcing a new kind of torture on me, more painful than anything in The Cage.
I don’t sleep, I drift. In and out. In and out. Between green eyes and black eyes, between a turquoise pool and a dingy basement, between a dark forest and a grey cell, between guilt and madness. Guilt over the destruction my choices have caused, and madness over not being able to regret any of it.
I have no idea how long it’s been. Just an eternity. An eternity of horrors so painful, I think I’ll just wither up and die. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought of that razor. But if I haven’t doomed Gavin already, then that certainly would. And then there are three gentle souls and a cranky old man. I seek them all out, holding them tight against my chest while I wail in the darkness.
But they’re not all I cry for. I cry for the beast too. Because I’m bound to him now, in so many ways. In ways I can’t understand. Ways I’m not meant to understand. Because it’s too dark. Buried too deep within the shadows.
Like me.
All around me it’s black. So black I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to find my way back. I’m not sure I want to find my way back. That’s a devastating thought, knowing I’m drifting to that edge, knowing I’m flirting with that dark void that whispers to me from the other side. Taunting me with numbness. Calling to me with emptiness.
And then a voice drifts into my head. Not my voice though, her voice. Helen’s voice. ‘You can kick and scream and cry when no one’s looking. But don’t you ever give up, Ava. Never give up.’
Her words hit me like a jolt of lightening and I scream. I scream so loud because it hurts. It hurts so much. It hurts when I pound on the floor. It hurts when I kick at the walls. It hurts when I sob so hard I think I’ll break in two. It all hurts. Everything hurts. It hurts because I want to give up. It hurts because I can’t give up.
I can’t.
I can’t.
I won’t!
I lie flat on my back now, panting, staring up into darkness while the tears carve a canyon down my face. It feels like I’m falling. Falling down some bottomless pit. All I’m missing is the wind at my back.
I keep falling, like I’m falling through time, memories of my life slipping by me. Memories of orange poppies and mustard fields. Of precious horses and kind neighbors. Of my mom leaving. Of my dad dying. Of green eyes. Of a pool on the edge of the world. Of black eyes. Of a glass room with books and wild roses. I pass them all in a blur until I land with a thud in a basement. And then I’m there again, holding a gun in my hand, mine and Gavin’s freedom just a click away. I can see it now, see myself huddled on that stained mattress, the pistol shaking in my hand. I see his bared chest. See the carved up tattoo over his heart, with my name in broken script. See the roses and thorns and barbed wire all around it. I see the damaged face and the snarling lip. See the black hair and the black eyes. Eyes filled with pain—so much pain—and rimmed red from crying. Crying over me. See myself pulling the trigger. See the blood spreading out. See Shayne falling. See myself falling too. Because he’s part of me now. Just like I’m part of him.
And I know.
I couldn’t have done it.
But then I see Gavin. My beautiful Gavin. I see him falling. Falling because I couldn’t pull the trigger. Then the pain explodes, choking me to the point I can’t breathe.
I roll onto my side and clutch at my stomach, crying so hard and breathing so fast that I pass out.
When I come back around, I’m in a daze, staring into nothing. It’s quiet, except for the heartbeat echoing in my chest, slow and weak. My mind begins to wander, trying to search for a way out of this, not willing or able to give up. I begin falling through time again, only this time slower, and another memory drifts into my mind, of that moment when everything changed.
I’m back in my house, watching Shayne walk through the door. I see his dark eyes shift from me to Gavin, then back to me. And then I see it—the hurt I didn’t see before. I hear it too, in the groan he makes, before launching himself at Gavin. And I know now. I know Shayne was telling the truth. He would’ve taken care of me, in his own way. It still would’ve been brutal, but I would’ve survived him. Just like I survived Gavin. It’s not the same, I know. But while my night with Gavin was tender in some ways, it was still brutal in other ways. He left his own marks. He had his own beast inside him, making him need things, want things. And who knows, maybe I do too. Maybe this is how life has shaped me as well. I didn’t have to go running out into the night, knowing I was feeding the beast inside Gavin. Maybe I wouldn’t have known what to do with someone gentle, someone kind. That in itself is a terrifying thought. So I guess if I think about it, it came down to choice. I wanted the right to choose. And Shayne had taken that from me when I was at my most vulnerable.
And while some might think that’s a choice I could’ve made—turning away Shayne’s offer—it wasn’t. It was never a choice. Just like I couldn’t hate my father for all his faults, so too I couldn’t let him go homeless when he got sick, no matter the price. The same way I couldn’t stand by and let a dark eyed boy throw rocks at a cat, no matter the consequences. For a cat, like he said, who would’ve bitten me if I’d tried to pet it. Because that didn’t matter to me. I knew the cat could only be what life had made him to be. A beast. And when you know what makes a beast the way they are, you know they’re just trying to survive, any way they can. Some try to fight their way through, like Gavin. Others give up, like my father. And then there are those who get lost, like Shayne.
Shayne, the boy who grew up in a basement. The boy who loved me. The boy I betrayed. The boy who was there for me, at a time when my world was giving way. He never questioned a bill I sent him, never questioned money I asked for, never touched me until my father was gone. They’re painful truths I’ve chosen to look past, because all I could ever see was a beast. A beast who frightened me. A beast who tormented me. A beast who did horrible things, to so many people. And while the beast is still there, maybe doing something horrible now, I see the man inside too. Because I know. I know what made the beast. And it changes things. It changes everything.
I feel myself falling again, when another memory appears, of Shayne in the kitchen, when I’d walked in to find him standing at the big window, hands in his pockets, staring out at the mountains.
By the way his head moves ever so slightly, I know he’s aware of me. He stands there, his hair down today. My eyes linger on it, on the way it hides his face, but I look away as soon as he talks.
“You’ll make a grocery list,” he says, still staring out the window. “I’m sure you did all the cooking back home, so assume you know how to cook. If you need a cookbook, you’ll find a few in one of these cabinets. You can make what you want, but no fish and I’m allergic to peanuts. Not deathly allergic, so don’t get any ideas. All it’ll do is scratch up my throat a bit and make me uglier than I already am.”
He sounds more man than beast again, and I feel that strange feeling running through me, stronger than ever. It’s a feeling that makes me hurt, a feeling that has me wanting to go to him. To comfort him, like one might want to comfort a wounded wolf, even though you know he’d just as soon kill you as let you help him.
And then I know.
I know how to make things right.
I just hope it’s not too late.
For Gavin’s sake, and for Shayne’s.