Like Gravity (10 page)

“You must be feeling better if you’re back to insulting me already,”
Finn said. I could hear the smile in his voice and felt the tension drain from his arms.

“Thank you,” I whispered,
not sure what else to say.

“Don’t thank me. Believe me, i
t was a pleasure to hit him. That guy is a total tool.”

Silence descended once more. I could’ve
– should’ve – moved out of his embrace, but I didn’t. I felt safe here, cocooned in this warm pair of arms, somehow far removed from everything that had just happened.              It was a good feeling – one I couldn't remember experiencing since I was a little girl.  

I didn’t want to break the silence between us, but I felt I owed him an explanation of sorts. With anyone else, I would have brushed off what had happened, but
Finn would see through any lie I spun. I was better off saving my breath and telling him at least a semblance of the truth.

I forced myself t
o move out of his embrace and sat on the seat beside him. Making sure no parts of our bodies were touching, I turned to face him. If his eyes had held any pity, I might have simply climbed out of the truck and walked away, but they were carefully guarded against any visible emotions. I took a deep breath and began.

“I’m sorry if you’re looking for some sort of explanation. I can’t really give one to
you.” I swallowed nervously. “He grabbed me too tightly, and sometimes that triggers my panic attacks. I don’t like strangers touching me. I can’t handle being confined in a grip like that. That’s it.” I looked at him, waiting for some kind of reaction. “Thank you for helping me,” I added, almost as an afterthought.

He was quiet for a long time.

“Okay,” he said.

“That’s it?” I asked. “No questions? No demands that I explain?”

“Brooklyn, you’re not the kind of person who reveals anything she isn’t ready to. So I’ll wait. As long as it takes, I’ll wait. Because when you’re ready, you’ll tell me.” He sounded so confident, as if it were inevitable that I’d one day lay my soul bare to him.

“You might have to wait
a long time,” I said doubtfully. “You might be waiting forever.”

He shrugged, as if the prospect didn’t bother him. “I’ve already been waiting my whole life.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, my eyes narrowing in suspicion.

He just smiled a sad sort of smile, ignoring my question as he turned to put the key in the ignition. The engine flared to life and we began rolling out of the parking lot.

“What about Lexi?”

“She’s with Ty. Don’t worry.”

“And your set?”

“There’ll be other shows,” he shrugged.

With anyone else I might have demanded to know where we were going, but all my fight was used up. I was exhausted, emotionally drained and ready for this hellish day to finally be over.

“My mother died
fourteen years ago, today.” Was that my voice, saying that? Out loud? To Finn, of all people? I was losing it.

He looked over at me, surprised. Of course he was. After all, hadn’t I just told him that I didn’t do explanations? That he’d have to wait forever?

“Death sucks,” he said. “It never really gets easier. People say bullshit clichés like ‘time heals all wounds’ to comfort themselves. But anyone who’s experienced real grief knows that it never goes away – you just get better at lying to yourself, at covering up the signs, at faking normal.”

He spoke from experience; he’d lost someone too. It was comforting, in a twisted way, to know that there was someone who’d felt the loss I did and was still standing. I wasn’t alone in my ceaseless battle with grief.

I didn’t say anything else as he drove me home – I don’t think he expected me to. When we pulled up outside my house, I hesitated before reaching for the door handle.

“Whose truck is this?” I asked, realizing that since we weren’t on his motorcycle, we must be in someone else’s car.

“It’s mine, actually. I use it when the weather’s bad or when I have to move the band’s gear before gigs.”

“Oh,” I said, wondering how a college boy could afford not only a motorcycle but a relatively new truck as well. “Well, it’s nice.”

“Thanks. Hey Brooklyn?”

“What?”

“Just for the record, we’re officially friends now. Once you get into a fistfight for someone, there’s no going back.”

I smiled. “Figures, you’d want something in return. I suppose chivalry really is dead after all,” I said teasingly. “I’ve never had a male friend before.”

At my words, a strange expression flashed across his face, but it was gone too quickly for me to process. His grin was back, and I almost thought I’d imagined the dark look.

“Well, I don’t exactly do the female friendship thing myself, so it’ll be new for both of us,” he said.

I hopped out of the truck and turned around to say goodbye, but
Finn was already jumping down from the driver’s seat. Coming around the truck, he grabbed my hand and towed me to the stairs leading up to my apartment.

“What are you doing?” I asked, rolling my eyes. “You don’t have to walk me to the door.”

“As your friend, it’s my duty to get you home safely. Its also my duty to point out that you are the most stubborn, pigheaded girl I know.”

“Thanks,
friend
.”

“Anytime.”

We reached the top of the stairs, and I unlocked the door. Turning to face Finn one last time, I did something that surprised even myself.

Standing on my tiptoes
– a feat, I might add, in stilettos – I twined my arms around his neck and tucked my face into the hollow of his throat. His chin came to rest on the top of my head as his arms wrapped around my waist. Standing this way, we were like two puzzle pieces rejoined. A perfect fit.

A content sigh slipped from my lips as he held me. Friends hugged, right? This wasn’t crossing any boundaries. This feeling of utter security, of safety, was a perfectly normal reaction to a friend.
But
, a small voice in the back of my head nagged,
even on the rare occasions that Lexi and I had hugged, I’d never felt this way. Crap.

“Thanks again,” I whispered, slowly lowering my feet and unwinding my arms from his neck.  I turned quickly to the door, not
wanting to look into his eyes – afraid of what I might see there. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Bee.” I heard him say quietly, as I closed the door between us. I watched him walk down the stairs, climb into his truck and drive away. My legs weakened and I slowly slid down to the floor, bracing my back against the door and curling into a ball. A glance at the illuminated microwave clock informed me that it was 12:03 AM.

The anniversary was finally over.
What a day.

Bad Jokes

I pressed my fingertips into the black leather upholstery and tried to ground myself. It was a nice chair, expensive
– the kind I imagined might litter the office of a wealthy businessman like my father. It surprised me, this chair.

Most shrinks I’d visited in the past had offices designed to inspire feelings of comfort and an idyllic home life. They’d been stuffed with bookshelves,
packed with knickknacks, and always had a conveniently placed box of tissues within reach. I’m not sure who decided that ‘troubled youths’ like myself would prefer such an environment; if anything, it was a slap in the face, reminding me in no uncertain terms that my father’s modern, uncluttered mansion would never be anything like a home.

Psychiatrists
– at least those I’d had the misfortune of knowing – didn’t typically go for the modern look; it was too clinical, too sterile to foster any false sense of camaraderie. So far, by her furniture selections alone, Dr. Joan Angelini had surpassed my expectations and was flying in the face of convention. Then again, nothing about this situation was conventional, considering she was the first shrink I’d ever sought out voluntarily.

For the tenth time in as many minutes I fought the urge to bolt for the door, reminding myself this torture was self-inflicted. She wasn’t some state-issued doctor, checking up on me at my father’s or the court’s behest; she was sitting there analyzing me strictly because I’d asked
her to. I’d actually handed over several hundred dollars – and a small piece of my soul – and
requested
this torment.

And for what? One little panic attack had me running scared.

“Aren’t you supposed to ask me questions?” I demanded, crossing my arms over my chest and glaring at the woman in front of me. She was in her late forties and stylishly dressed, her blonde hair coiffed in an elegant chignon and her blouse pressed to perfection.

“Is there something in particular you want me to ask you?” she replied with practiced indifference, unruffled by my irritable nature.

“Well, I’m not paying you to stare at me for sixty minutes.” 

“Brooklyn, you sought me out. Why? What made you decide to come here?”

“I had a panic attack last night.”

“Okay, that’s nothing to be too concerned about. Nearly everyone experiences a panic attack
at one point or another. Was this your first one?”

“No.” I took a deep breath, and prepared to unload
fourteen years worth of pent up dysfunction on this woman. I just hoped she could handle it – it was her job, after all. “I’ve been having them sporadically since I witnessed my mother’s murder at age six. The drug-addict who killed her took her keys and drove off. Apparently he was so high he didn’t realize there was a little kid in the backseat.”

I watched Dr. Angelini’s eyes widen
– not even shrinks could hide every emotion – and the flurry of her pen assured me she was documenting each detail. I kept my voice impassive as I offered her the facts – and nothing more.

“I hit him in the face and he let go of the wheel. We crashed. He grabbed me and used me as a human shield during a shoot-out with the police, but I don’t remember much of that. I think he held me so tight I passed out. I remember losing a lot of blood and not being able to breathe
, though.”

“What triggered the panic attack last night?”
she asked.

“Some asshole in a bar grabbed me from behind and lifted me off the ground,” I said, absently rubbing the bruises hidden beneath the sleeves of my jacket. “I couldn't breathe. I heard sirens and
his
voice in my head.”

“His?”

“Ernie Skinner. The guy who killed my mom.”

“So you’re saying the attack triggered a memory?”

“I think so,” I shrugged. “I’ve never really
tried
to remember much about that time in my life. In fact, I’ve done everything in my power to avoid it.”

“And now?”

I looked her in the eye. “Now, I think I want to remember.”

Dr. Angelini smiled for the first time si
nce I’d walked into her office.

“
That’s a start, Brooklyn.”

***

I walked through the door of my apartment and tossed my keys on the kitchen island. My meeting with Dr. Angelini hadn’t been as bad as I’d been expecting – for some reason, I’d opened up to her in ways I hadn’t with any of my other shrinks. Maybe I just hadn’t been ready to talk about it before now.

Lexi wasn’t home, which didn’t surprise me; she was spending most of her spare time at Tyler’s apartment these days. I didn't mind being alone, though. I’d learned self-sufficiency at age six.

Walking into my bedroom, I immediately noticed two things: Finn’s unreturned leather jacket still hanging from a hook on my closet door, and a bouquet of flowers lying on my bedside table. They definitely hadn’t been there this morning when I’d left for my appointment with Dr. Angelini and, to my knowledge, Lexi hadn’t been home all day.

I quickly crossed the room and looked at the flowers. They weren't in a vase and their only adornment was a black satin
ribbon, which held bouquet together. The flowers themselves were unusual – a dozen black roses. There was no card with them, nor was there any indication as to how they had arrived in my bedroom. The hairs on my neck instantly stood on end and despite the warmth of the day, goosebumps flourished across my skin.

Someone had been in my room.

I whirled around and scanned the space for intruders, an umbrella clutched in my hand as a makeshift weapon. I checked under my bed, in the bathroom, Lexi’s room, the kitchen, and the living room. I wasn’t an investigator, but I figured I’d watched enough episodes of CSI to know what to look for. Nothing seemed to have been disturbed; there were no mysterious footprints in the carpet, the doors and windows were all locked and didn’t look tampered with, and not a magazine was out of place. It was as if the flowers had simply materialized.

Returning to my room, I scooped up the bouquet and tossed it into the small wastebasket next to my desk. As I released the stems, sharp thorns tore at my hands. I winced as several drops of blood fell from my fingertips
, landing on the black petals in the trash bin and staining them crimson.

All kinds of red flags were going up in my mind as I thought about the flowers. Who had left them? How had they gotten into my room? What did they mean?
Who gives someone black roses with the thorns still attached?

I wrapped a tissue around the worst of the scratches to stop the bleeding and pulled open my laptop. A quick Google search told me exactly what I wanted to know.

Black roses, which do not exist in nature, are most often used to symbolize intense hatred or death, though they can also mean farewell, rejuvenation, rebirth, or the return from a long journey in which one did not expect to survive. In folklore, black roses are a foreshadowing of death on the horizon; a person who comes across this ominous flower is likely to suffer their demise.

Death.

Someone was sending me roses as a harbinger of my coming death. My heart beat faster at the thought and I felt the walls closing in around me. My mind began to flip through a list of people who might want me killed, or at the very least scared. Gordon came to mind immediately. After the beating he took last night because of me, he might want revenge.

Another possibility, a suspect infinitely more deadly than Gordon, lurked in the recesses of my mind, but I didn’t dare examine it yet. I didn’t want to even consider
him
an option. Plus, he was safely locked up in San Quentin. If he’d been paroled, I would have been notified.

I pulled out my phone and quickly dialed Lexi’s number. When she didn’t pick up on the first try, I hung up and
immediately redialed. She eventually answered, sounding slightly out of breath.

“Brooklyn? Is everything okay?”

“Lex, have you been here at all today?”

“No, I’ve been at Ty’s since last night. What’s going on?”

“There was a bouquet of black roses sitting on my bedroom table when I came home just now. The apartment was locked. I don’t know where they came from.”

“Did you say black roses?” Lexi whispered, a tremor in her voice.

“Yes.”

“I went through a big roses phase when I was helping my sister plan her wedding floral arrangements. Black roses aren’t good, Brookie. They usually mean
—”

“Death,” I cut her off. “I know.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“I thi
nk I’m going to call the police,” I said, feeling paranoid and foolish but not knowing what else to do.

“I’ll be right there,” she said, disconnecting the call before I could protest.

Within minutes, the front door opened and Lexi’s running footsteps could be heard as she made her way to my bedroom. Throwing open my door, she launched herself onto my bed and wrapped her arms around me. I was so stunned that I didn’t even have time to return her hug before she was pulling back to examine my face.

“Are you okay?” she asked, concern flickering in her blue eyes.

“I’m fine,” I shrugged. “Just a little freaked out I guess.”

“Where are they?”

I nodded in the direction of my trash can, and Lexi leapt off my bed to investigate the sinister bouquet. After a few minutes, she returned to sit on the bed.             

“There was no note?”

“No.”

“Have you called the police yet?”

“I was waiting for you,” I lied. Truthfully, I’d nearly talked myself out of calling. It was probably just a stupid prank. Creepy? Yes. Life-threatening? No. Plus, what could the police do at this point?

“Brooklyn Grace Turner,” Lexi glared at me, easily seeing through my lie. “We are calling them. Right. Now.” She whipped out her cellphone and dialed the non-emergency number for the local police. As soon as it began to ring, she offered the phone to me.

“Charlottesville Police Station, how can I help you?”

“Um, hi. My name is Brooklyn Turner and I’m calling to report… I guess we’ve had a break in.”

“You guess?” The man sounded exasperated. “Ma’am, if this isn’t a serious call I’m going to have to hang up.”

“Well, I came home this afternoon and there was a bouquet of black roses sitting in my bedroom. I have no idea how they got there, nor does my roommate. The apartment was locked. And there was no note.”

“I’ll send someone over to check it out and talk to you. What’s the address?”

After rattling off our street name and house number, I was assured that an officer would arrive shortly. I handed Lexi’s phone back to her and she quickly grabbed my arm and towed me into the living room.

To my surprise, Tyler and Finn were sitting on our couch, talking quietly. Their conversation stopped and they both looked up as we entered the room. My eyes met Finn’s and quickly skittered away. I had no idea what to say to him after last night. Before I could move further into the room, Finn was on his feet and standing in front of me, his hands gently clasping my forearm and examining the smattering of dark bruises that Gordon’s hands had left behind.

I looked up into his eyes, which had clouded over with rage. Seeing the anger there, I tried to tug my arm from his grasp but he held fast.

“I’ll kill him,” he growled through clenched teeth. I’d never seen him so furious and I definitely didn’t like it.

“I’m fine,
Finn. It’s no big deal, so please relax.”

“No big deal? Are you kidding me, Brooklyn?”
Finn dropped my arm and began to pace around the living room. “He put his hands on you. You have fucking bruises! Please explain what part of that is not a big fucking deal!” He was yelling now, running his hands through his hair in exasperation. Abruptly, he turned back to face me.

“It is
never
okay for someone to put his hands on you like that. Please tell me you know that.”

“I do,” I said somewhat meekly. I hadn’t realized how much the sight of my bruises upset him. “But really, they don’t hurt anymore. And you took care of him last night.”

“I’d like to do a lot more than mess up his pretty face,” Finn muttered, evidently contemplating Gordon’s murder. To calm him, I placed both of my palms against his cheeks and turned his face toward mine. He startled, clearly surprised by my touch, but as soon as his eyes met mine he seemed to relax.

“Thank you for last night,” I said, holding his gaze. “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been there.”

He pulled in a deep breath and closed his eyes. “You don’t need to thank me.”

A knock at sounded loudly at the door and I dropped my hands from
Finn’s face.  Lexi pulled open the door, revealing a middle-aged police officer with a beer-gut, a graying beard, and a receding salt-and-pepper hairline.