I knew that there were others in the world who had gone through the same kind of abuse I had suffered, but I also knew that I wasn’t as strong as I appeared. More likely than not, I would never escape my personal hell. I would never be free from the poison that flowed through me.
“Neil, wait!” I heard Megan calling after me as I strode rapidly toward the exit. I walked through the automatic doors, and as soon as I got outside, I took in a deep breath of fresh air.
I pulled the keys to my Maserati out of my jacket pocket and continued to stalk furiously toward the parking lot until Head Case grabbed my arm, trying to stop me.
“Wait,” she said again, and only then did I turn to face her. Her green eyes bored into me immediately, lush lips parted to say something while her high ponytail swung in the slightest breeze.
“Wait for what?” I pulled away from her unwanted touch and loomed over her. “I want to forget about all this shit.” I gestured to the clinic behind us, and she started. “Go back in. I’m out of here,” I said firmly and continued walking, halting almost immediately when I saw her Ducati parked right next to my car.
What the…
“Why in the fuck do you gotta park your bike right next to my car every goddamn time?” I exploded in rage, longing to punch something if only to get some relief. I was on the verge of an unparalleled nervous breakdown.
Megan chuckled and arched an eyebrow with an air of superiority. “Shouldn’t two bombshells be together? Those two look like they should be on the cover of a motorsports magazine,” she observed as though there wasn’t a man at the breaking point standing right next to her. I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment and rubbed my eyes with my fingers, taking three long breaths so I didn’t give in to the urge to strangle her and leave her lying there motionless on the sidewalk. There was a small part of me, however, that had to admit she had a point. Especially now that my Maserati was sporting a new windshield and a gleaming chassis after Player’s attack.
“Listen, Head Case, in a few minutes here, I will not be responsible for my actions.” I opened my eyes and approached her threateningly. “So you need to go get on your bike like a good girl…” I told her with a frosty calm. “Then you take it and yourself out of my sight. You disappear. You get the fuck away from me,” I continued, feigning self-control. “Are we clear?” I truly hoped she wouldn’t keep pushing it with her intolerable sarcasm, but apparently she had a different take on what was happening, because her lips turned up in a sharp smile. I narrowed my eyes at her warily.
“I know a way you can vent that anger of yours,” she rhapsodized, obliterating any hopes I’d had of her knocking off the provocation.
“Me too. I can put you flat on your back on the hood of this car and pump it all into you. Sound good? Except you’re not the right kind of woman, so I’m going to rule that one out,” I said, making it explicit that I would never fuck her. The thought of calling Jennifer instead flitted through my head—she was the only one who could remedy the sickness I felt inside. With her, I could unleash the beast that I really was without any restraints, self-righteousness, or faux morality.
I could violate myself again to restore the natural order of things.
The Boy would have been assuaged.
“Don’t talk shit. And don’t do that, not with me and not with your other girls. If you’re frustrated, take it to Selene,” Megan bristled, and I pulled backbecause I hated it when people tried to get overbearing, even if it was only in the tone of their voices.
“It’s not frustration I’m feeling, and you know it.” I’d had it; I was over talking to her. Lately, everyone was trying to squeeze something out of me, to analyze me and make me use more words than I ever had in my life up until that point.
But she didn’t give up and followed me instead. “I don’t seek out men who look like Ryan to hurt me. What you’re doing is totally insane!” she shouted at my back, unwittingly giving me the answer to a question I’d always wanted to ask her.
“Well, if you think I’m so crazy, then stay away from me,” I answered without turning around. I could hear her heavy breathing behind me and her rapid footsteps trying to catch up to me, but by that point, I had reached my car. I opened the door, despite her motorcycle blocking my way, and started to get in. But she stopped me again.
“You are doing yourself an injustice,” she said softly, her fingers digging into my arm. “Kim stopped raping you a long time ago; now you are the one who won’t give yourself peace. You won’t let yourself have a second chance.” She shook her head, and, again, I threw her off roughly.
“It’s the only way I have to keep from going crazy,” I muttered without much heat, feeling exhausted. Megan should have been the first person to understand me, but instead there she was, ready to judge me.
“No, you’ll go crazy if you keep doing what you’re doing.” She released me, slowly dropping her arm in surrender. I didn’t want to keep having that conversation, but I didn’t want to go on the attack against her either, so I let my instinct take the wheel and threw my honest thoughts in her face.
“It seems I’m surrounded by women who’ve got that Florence Nightingale syndrome. You all need to stop trying to save me and accept reality for what it is. You need to stop looking for some good in me. There isn’t any. It does not exist. What you see is what you get.” And it was in that moment that I realized the real reason why I’d left that infamous note for Selene: I was testing her. I was letting her know who I really was so I could see if she really would be able to stick by me the way she said she wanted to.
It was easy for Babygirl to say she would when she didn’t know the other part of me, the vilest part, the tortured part that I still dragged along behind me. And if she did what Megan and the rest of them did and started thinking about how to fix me or save me, then I would have known she wasn’t the right woman for me after all. Not even for the brief time before I left for Chicago.
I was afraid to discover that she wasn’t right for someone like me, especially because I was beginning to trust her. Or maybe I already frustrated her because we’d crossed so many boundaries together, boundaries I’d never even approached with the others. With that, even the erotic daydream of calling Jennifer or some other lover evaporated into nothingness. It wouldn’t help me get better.
I slid into the car without telling Megan goodbye and scrubbed a hand over my face, even more on edge than before.
The truth was, my body only wanted Babygirl, my Tinkerbell, because when I was with her, I wasn’t thinking about Kimberly or feeling repulsed by the man that I’d become.
Still, I was afraid to find out what she’d think of me when my full past came to light, especially the part about Scarlett…
What if Selene also abandoned me one day?
I would have kept on struggling, running through a city of madness.
No one would turn on the lights.
No one would stop me.
