It’s not much consolation. I would rather experience any amount of slimy Oakdale waters than to feel the way I do right now.
“Damien was detained,” he mutters. “He didn’t mean for this to happen. Trust me, this is the last thing he would have wanted. He had no choice. His hands were tied. I can’t tell you what’s going on, it would be dangerous to tell you, but you have to believe me. He had no choice.”
I keep my eyes down, refusing his stupid explanations. I don’t believe him, and I don’t believe Damien. I’ll never believe Damien again.
I want to…” begins Logan, then pauses, before saying gruffly, “There’s something for you in that bag. Thought you might want it.” Then he stands up and leaves, turning off the light once more and banging the door shut.
I exhale, thankful he’s left. Then I sit against the headboard for a while, my body rigid with all the emotions coursing through me. There’s no way to extinguish the pain and humiliation that have overtaken me.
I’m not sure how long I stay like this, frozen on one side of the bed, my arms wrapped around me, desperately trying, and failing, to comfort myself, but after a while, pink streaks fill the sky, illuminating the bag he’s left on the bed.
I reach for it gingerly. It feels like another trick of his, but I don’t see how he could hurt me with whatever’s inside.
I pull it toward me, and the contents spill out, catching therays of the morning sun.
The gold locket. And… the dress.
I grab it and bury my head in it. Somehow, this cheap pink dress means more than all the designer garments Damien has purchased for me over the past months.
My fingers cling to the locket, letting the cold metal wrap itself around my heart. No, this doesn’t compare to the fancy clothes and the luxury apartment. It’s far better. This is childhood, no real childhood of mine, but an idealized one that’s always been just beyond my grasp. I slip the cheap trinket around my neck and feel soothed by it. Then I lie down and let myself fall into a deep, broken sleep, clutching the dress to my chest like a security blanket.
Bloody hands fill my dreams, but they don’t wake me. If anything, I embrace the polar bear inside me. I no longer wonder why I did. Only why I didn’t do it sooner.
-
Two days pass, and although, true to the masochist that I am, I had retained, deep inside me, some hope that he did care, that there was an explanation for all of this, his continued absence forces me to conclude that he really doesn’t give a shit about me.
If he did, he would have come running. He would have explained himself. Because this is the worst thing he’s ever done to me, and there’s no way he can’t be aware of that.
But he doesn’t come. In fact, apart from the quiet woman, no one comes. And she’s quieter than ever.
It’s as if he wants to see me suffer.
To see me suffer, to humiliate me, to make me feel once morelike the jellyfish I was before I met him.
Tying me up to be discovered by his best friend.
He probablydidtell Logan to push me into Oakdale River. He probably wishes I’d drowned there.
I’m starting to wish it, too.
The pain, the humiliation, the despair, are crushed under the rising weight of an almighty anger. Not the kind of passing anger I experience when I’m made fun of. Not even the deeper anger at the broken dinner promise. This is a much greater, nearly uncontrollable fury.
Losing control of myself used to scare me, but now I let myself sink into that feeling.
The jellyfish cut open, revealing a polar bear in its heart. Hot-blooded but ice cold to the touch. A hunter. A killer.
The only predator that hunts men for sport. I remember reading that once somewhere.
I never wanted to be a polar bear. I didn’t want to be a predator, I wanted to be Wendy, with a Peter Pan to protect me. The quiet, shy girl with the boy who can read her innermost desires and make them come true. Who can protect her from the monsters.
Not a monster herself.
When I realized I couldn’t be Wendy, I decided to be invisible. A tiny forgettable thing who didn’t take up space. A jellyfish.
Anything to keep the polar bear at bay.
But now, I welcome it. I’m sick and tired of it all, and I’m going to do something about it.
