Precise (12 page)

T
he next morning when I wake up, I have a plan. My nightmares and flashbacks won’t control me. I’m done with running. Sort of.

Today’s the day. I’ll march up to my master bedroom. Rip open that door as if chains aren’t bolting it shut, and yell until I’ve shrieked my Molten Man from me.

The box under the bed. I’ve thought about it on and off. When Paul used to go away on a boys’ weekend, I’d scatter the contents around me and wake up wondering why the box had fallen off my bed. Sometimes Paul would mention the box after we’d made love too. Until I fell asleep, he’d be touching, stroking me.

If I can face what’s in the box, I’ll be strong enough to give Ella the attention she deserves. To prove to people I’m fine. For what’s happening with Liam. Then I remember I shouldn’t care about him. But his scent fills my lungs, and an image of he and I lying together in a daisy field hits me from nowhere. Neck lifted and exposed to the sky, just taking in the world without having to be responsible for anything but the enjoyment of now.

Suddenly, a memory hits me. I remembered the box on Saturday night. It was when . . . when I saw an old school friend kissing a stranger.

It was Dina Hemmingway. The man she was kissing doesn’t feel altogether alien. The logical part of me tries to reason this isn’t possible. I haven’t seen Dina in a decade. I don’t know where I was last night.

Last night
.

I clamber out of bed and dash for some coffee to wake up. To think. To remember.

Chlorine stings my throat while I hurry down the stairs. Paul has always been a trigger but I’m not thinking of him for once. Maybe it’s because the chemical has burned its way into my head, throat and tummy. As if it never leaves.

But this feeling doesn’t remind me of the countless mornings, afternoons or nights when Ella isn’t home and it’s just Johnny, Molten Man, and Paul.

No.

A hot swirl of uneasiness fills my stomach.

When I assume a self-embrace, stroking my arms, they are cold
—
like, goose bumps cold. There’s a niggle begging me to remember something, yet it’s too vague to reach. Like an itch in my mouth I can’t get to.

Dina Hemmingway.

Her boyfriend.

The box.

Alcohol.

Hold it together. Promise yourself you can. Or else you
will
hand over Ella to your parents.

I pull out a mug, and spoon one teaspoon of coffee in. God I need my morning coffee.

The flakes are a rich brown, the ugliest darn color invented. Yet I’m transfixed. They slip off the teaspoon and collect at the bottom of the cup. It’s a heap of brown.

This isn’t coffee I’m seeing. My tongue gets close to that itch, it wiggles and I can feel the hint of remembering. That’s it! The flakes remind me of the balls that collect on clothes over time. Strange, ‘cause coffee flakes and balls on clothes don’t look or feel the same.

Suddenly, I remember.

The snippet of memory doesn’t piece together neatly. But seriously, who needs neat? I’ll take any form.

A man with dark hair, Italian heritage, hands me his brown sweater. It’s the same one I woke up with on Saturday. In this snippet, there’s a distant lamppost. The shapes and textures of the flowers, bark and leaves are invisible.

I’m in a park at night.

The man smiles as I take his sweater and he says, “You’re different to what I thought . . . ” I put the sweater on and he adds, “You’re more than just a pretty face.”

Bingo.

I remember that sweater, you monster
.

I remember my rapist.

• • •

S
OS calls only. How typical. I don’t remember paying phone bills since forever but Mom has been collecting my mail, buying groceries. Why would she stop paying my bills now?

“What’s the password to your email?” she’d asked.

I don’t know how I remember that. I don’t recall conversations that happen. So I’m at a loss as to why she asked. I know I didn’t answer.

Another few stabs at my mobile. Nothing. I even try re-inserting the SIM card. Nada.

Okay, Mom. Let’s see what you were up to.

I fire up the computer. On my email screen, a number pops out at me next to “Inbox”.
Two-hundred-and-ten
unread emails. I search, and perform a mass delete of anything with the words “Daily Deals” strung together, or free upgrades. One hundred unread emails to go.

After sorting further, at the bottom of the first page, an email with the subject, “Mobile Phone Bill” explains everything. Date? Over a month ago. There are two subsequent reminder emails, no doubt a kind warning of how they’ll shut down their services if I don’t pay up.

I open the original email. Oh God. I haven’t used a computer in weeks. The buttons are bloody everywhere. I switched providers a couple of months into the year, so I only remember ever paying one of this provider’s bills myself.

I’m still searching for directions on how they want me to pay when a new email comes through.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: Pics from Tim’s party

Hi Marco, here is the one that wouldn’t work before.

Cheers. Brenny.

Um.

A few seconds later, while I’m still trying to understand the relevance of this:

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Cc: [email protected]

Subject: Fwd: Pics from Tim’s party

Take two.

Marco: here is the one that wouldn’t work before.

Kates: My finger slipped and typed “K” instead of “M” so when I typed “Kate” and pressed enter, silly Hotmail sent this to you. Okay, I’ll shut up. I’m saying way too much. All right, I’m quiet.

Laugh away you guys.

Cheers. Brenny.

P.S. I’m sorry if I offended you on Saturday, Kates. I know I fell asleep but someone thought it’d be funny to swap my cigarette for a, er, different type of smoke when I was too drunk to notice. Hem, hem. I passed out within no time at all. I tried phoning and leaving messages but I couldn’t get through to you. I only tried making up for being a bad big brother to you and now I look even worse. Sorry. :(

Oh.
Oh!
Marco.

It.

Was.

Him.

Pains throb between my thighs, reminding me of what he’s done. Then I remember him chasing after me in the park. The brown sweater is Marco’s. Details click together, connecting like magnetic pieces. He took me away to chat. Yeah, right. I remember him offering a smile, coming across so, so kind. Did he really gain my trust by the simple gesture? I remember goose pimples, and a warm rush over my skin when I put his sweater on.

“Cooper’s an asshole,” he said to me earlier.

Cooper who? I remember
you
, Marco. Your sickening generosity. Mom always warned me to be careful of the sly ones.

And not long after: “I just wanted to talk to you.”

Talking doesn’t involve wiping my memory.

I see the color green. Feel some type of connection to Marco. Green like
—
grass. Grass?

Oh, God. Drugs.

I’m relieved I didn’t call Brent back. Look what he got me involved in. But then I flick back to his last email and shudder.

Grass: weed. Marco gave him drugs when he didn’t want it. Marco spiked Brent with something, too.

What else is he capable of?

Lastly, “I like you,” I remember Marco saying.

What happens if I didn’t like him back?

I suck in a breath too fast, spinning my vision into a flurry. I click confirm in my phone providers email to pay the bill. Then I grab my keys and leave the house. I don’t know if I locked the door
—
nor do I care.

Ella is at school. I have nothing stopping me.

I
stop once I reach the roundabout. A sign indicates straight ahead that Norweigh Drive continues. To my right, there’s the local park which, up until an hour ago, I thought the last time I’d been there was with Ella several weeks ago.

Marco changed that.

I pull over to recheck the only other clue I have, apart from my memory. The invitation in my lap feels as surprising as the first time Ella showed it to me. Black cardboard. Red, blue, yellow, purple and green fireworks. “Celebrate”. “Norweigh Drive”.

It still doesn’t change much; I don’t know whose party this is. If the party for this invitation is the one I’d been at, then anything shaky in my mind would be set rock hard. Maybe Marco’s and my walk in the park links to this party.

Closing my eyes, I imagine the half-brick and half-rendered design with two circular poles extending from the top story to the ground. Soil for a yard. If I keep crawling down the road, running into it will be inevitable.

After a minute, I find it. The next thing I notice is the gap between the driveway and the garage roller door. I’ll have to make my stay short. The last thing I need is to be caught out.

My shoulders are tightening, my breath beginning to feel shallow.

I can’t face this.

The once-perfect bedroom I woke up in yesterday splays out in my mind. The blood stains, pillows strewn everywhere.

Maybe I don’t want the answer. What the hell do I do once I find out? Already, a shiver racks my bones and I feel ice cold.

How did I spend Saturday night at a park, with a stranger, and possibly come back to this house? Was Brent hurt?

Guilt eats at me, reminding me how self-absorbed I’ve been. Even though Brent told me what happened to him, too, on Saturday, for the last hour I’ve still been wrapped up in me, me, me.

If he was emailing Marco, then he must be fine.
He wouldn’t talk to him if there were anything wrong.

Funny
—
how easy I’ve come to justify actions and meaning for an easy answer. I was checking email too, but that’s easy to tuck away. Perhaps knowing too much would ruin the lie that everything was fine with Brent, my substitute brother.

The longer I think about it, the less likely it seems that I’d be stupid enough to have both alcohol and sleeping pills and risk my life. Even if I had, it couldn’t produce a blackout like this.

Marco ensured I forgot.

Coming back to me standing by my car, I see a pair of shoes peak under the roller door. All of this unraveling occurs too fast, and I haven’t thought about what to do if I am faced with a situation like this.

Can I confront my rapist yet?

I reach for my car door.

• • •

“K
ates . . . is that you?”

This is it. He caught me. I gulp, spin around.

His tone is assertive, though not domineering. “Kates!”

I try on Ella’s I-didn’t-do-anything-wrong smile and walk over with some type of swing in my step. He ducks under the roller door and looks at me. He tilts his head up, stretching his voice over to the sidewalk where I approach. “You forgot me that quick, did ya?”

I hum in response. My stupid act seems complete; I wiggle unnaturally and act foreign like I was an alien who’d taken over a human body straight from
Men In Black
. Where is Johnny when I need him? That’s right, I’ve finished the last of him. My house is noisy, tense without him.

This man has his hands in his pant pockets and grins until I stop in front of him. He sticks out his arm. “Tim Johnson. I met you at my party on the weekend. You came in with Brent,” he says, as if reading my clueless thoughts.

Hand out, I say, “Oh, Tim. Right. Hi, how are you?” Oh, God. I sound like I’m reading a script. And no Johnny to save me.

Tim seems awkward too, as if his mom has ordered him to stay here and talk to me.

“You caught me off guard.”

“I can tell. Lucky you came by this morning. I’m not going into the office today; slept a lot of yesterday and didn’t get to clean up.” He looks around the edge of the garage to the front porch then falls back against the roller door. “Luckily, boss lady didn’t mind too much. How did you pull up, by the way?”

The pressure in my lips almost isn’t enough to restrain my hysterical snigger. “All right.” I feel stupid for asking, but my curiosity gets the better of me. “Is this yours?” I hold up the ripped invite.

He gasps. “Ha! Those things have turned up everywhere. You know Dina found one stuffed inside a vase in our living room? Crazy, right?” He wipes his face, the joke dissipating too. It seems as if his mind is returning from somewhere else. “What are you up to?”

“I was just going for a, er, drive.”

“At your parents’ house again, right?”

I must look stunned. “I’m sorry, you know Rochelle and Logan Burnell?”

“No, of course not, silly. I guess I have a better memory than
you
seem to have!” He laughs, tries to stop. Laughs again.

Should I
only
worry about Marco? “You must. How do you know?”

“Well, you told us of course, at the party. You sure you’re okay? You don’t seem like you’re really
here
.”

“No, fine.”

Pause.

“Oh, I feel bad. Please, come in.”

I don’t know what to think, let alone say. He’s a stranger. Why would anyone be friends with someone like Marco, unless, of course, they are exactly like him? Where did that leave Brent?

Stuck. How I am with Liam.

Does Brent remain friends with Marco to stay out of his bad books?

“No. Thanks anyway. I’ll . . . ”

I don’t know why I’m scrambling to find an excuse to answer this guy. I don’t know him. I’ll never see him again.

He sees me turn. “I insist, a cup of tea, coffee . . . something a little stronger?”

I raise my eyebrows suspiciously. Something a little stronger? Who even says that? “I don’t know you. I don’t know why I’m here,” I blurt.

“That’s a bit rough. I thought we were friends.” When he seems sure that I won’t run again, he pushes up the roller door. Dusting his hands against each other, he says, “I’d love to chat properly. I was all over the place on Saturday.”

The words escape before the meaning hits me. “Like Marco, ‘ey?”

“Er, yeah.”

I press my lips into a thin line, unconsciously willing my eyes to look anywhere but at him
—
the soiled front yard, the roof that I squint at to see against sunrays
—
until I realize how childlike my anxiety must look.

“I believe you like your scotch? I have a fresh bottle of Johnny Walker
that my sister-in-law gave me on the weekend.”

He’s here? My tongue feels like a swab of sandpaper suddenly “Okay.”
Fuck
, what did I just do?

“Okay, you’ll come in?”

Can’t stuff Johnny back into the bag now. Might as well find what I came here for: clues. “Sure.”

Tim leads me inside. I keep my eyes low. Shining mementos stand tall in corners, hanging under oversized frames. I’ve seen them before. I’m sure of it.

I tuck my chin closer to my chest.

Tim talks right away. He might even be conversing with me, but my mind is elsewhere.

I walked in with Brent along the same path Tim takes me now. I should know why I walked into a stranger’s house with someone I rarely see anymore, but the memory is still blank.

“Kates,” Tim says.

I jump, put my hand over my chest after my embarrassing reaction. Tim’s done it again
—
calling me “Kates”. Only friends call my name like that.

“Uh, are you
—
”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“I guess you’re not, then. It’s just Dina was saying how well the pair of you got on and that you exchanged numbers . . . don’t worry.”

“I’m sorry. None of this is making sense.” Really, it’s starting to make plenty of sense, but I have to hear him say it. A confirmation of the mess inside my head. “You’ll have to rewind and start from the top. The lot of it.”

He steps back.

Now, in his kitchen, I find my hand resting on his stone counter. It wraps around the walls and extends further than I expected at first glance. The smell of rich meat slips through the oven and hangs in the air around us. It reminds me that I haven’t eaten today. That I’m not ready to, yet.

On the counter lies a chopping board, knife, spices and a couple of clean plates. It makes me feel like an intruder on a nice family lunch. To rid the awkwardness, I say, “And some water, thanks.”

“Er, cool. Sit down.” He motions toward a seat at the dining room table and fiddles through the cupboards before saying, “All right, I’ll explain it all. I just don’t understand why
—
”

“Please,” I beg, “just go on.”

He pulls out a glass and takes it to the sink. “All I know is that you ran into Brent outside my house and he ended up inviting you inside my party. I thought you would have remembered us boys. Ha, I guess you really were plastered. Don’t worry. We were just as bad anyway.”

“When you say ‘we’, do you mean that other guy?” This is too easy. Tim is about to confirm a name, and probably more.

He shuts off the water. “If you meant the two others, then yes. Ice?” I nod as he plops a few cubes in my glass. “The Italian guy was Marco Benini and the surfer-looking one was Cooper Lucefic.”

Cooper. Marco. I remember both names now, as if Cooper’s has been there all along and Tim only dusted off some confusion.

I aim for a girly softness in my tone as I slap my head and say, “You’re so right! We must have all drank too much. I know I’m struggling to remember.” I give him a look. “As you know.”

He props up an arm on the counter, then glances to the backyard for some reason. “Marco told me the same thing.”

And again
—
this doesn’t feel like spying. “Marco, too, huh?” In the spur of the moment, I throw in something I hope makes sense. “I remember now . . . Do you reckon he was like that before or after the park?”

“After, definitely. You remember how much he smoked?”

“Yeah. Did I stay with him for most of the night?”

“Nah, you were with Brent. Brent was either with you or looking out for you right up until he conked out.” Tim mechanically peers above him, as if looking through the ceiling. “Brenny told me he only had four hours sleep the night before. Had to go through the books for his café because the register chick stuffed up the entire week’s balance. Brenny came to the party even though he should have been sleeping. But other than that, you only spent time with Cooper, Marco and me. I tried to share my time between as many guests as I could.” He shrugs, as if he gave it his best go. “Um, actually, I think Cooper told me yesterday when he phoned that you and Marco did go for a walk or something by yourselves. And you were with Dina and her friends at some point for a good, hmm, forty-five minutes. That’s it.”

“How can you be sure of what I did the whole night? You sound sure of your story. But you said you were smashed too.”

“I guess you forgot what Dina was like. She hasn’t changed. She kept an eye on me all night. That’s why I couldn’t leave with you guys. And when she’s sure . . . ” He grips the back of another wooden chair near me with his free hand. “She’s sure. I take her word for everything. She has more sense than me.”

Why am I learning more about myself from Tim? That doesn’t sound like me at all. Suddenly, everything is making sense about why Brent called multiple times. However, what does Dina have to do with me? I’m still waiting for the confirmation, the link that the Dina Hemmingway from high school is the same person I remember kissing the stranger
—
who I now know as Tim
—
in my memory.

“You keep mentioning your girlfriend, Dina. In high school, I knew a Dina Hemmingway. You aren’t talking about the same person, are you?”

“Yep.”

“Where did the two of you sleep if I woke up in, presumably, your bedroom upstairs? That
is
the only master bedroom in the house, right?”

He pulls out the chair and sits down. My lips feel like they are cracking from watching the condensation dribble down the glass in his hands. Why isn’t he passing it to me?

“
That
’s where you woke up? Shit. Someone stained our sheets, like cut themselves open on them, or something. Uh, I woke up curled around the loo cistern and Dina fell asleep on our downstairs sofa.”

In the space of ten minutes, Tim is giving me attention as if he were one of my friends. Why does he care so much? Does he have something to hide, too?

“Hmm, the whole thing is odd. I’m no alcoholic, but I can hold my liquor. It makes no sense why I’m struggling to remember all this. You say I was only with you, Brent, Cooper, Marco, and Dina’s girlfriends the whole night. Then you say I was alone with Marco in a park . . . it’s just . . . well I’m confused how I don’t remember.”

A smirk itches at the corner of his mouth. His hands begin to slide up and down the glass, mopping up the dribbles of water.

Tim looks at his hands, opens them and wiggles his fingers. Drops fall onto the tablecloth. He snaps his mouth shut and trots back to the kitchen.

No, just go on
. As if the roast couldn’t wait another couple of minutes. He was just about to tell me something. I know it.

“Tim, if there’s something I should know. Please—”

There’s a screech behind us and at that instant I lose any chance of uncovering whatever it is that almost occurred. “O—M—G. Kay—tie-Ans—e—lin!” Dina shrieks.

So close to finding out, yet so far now.

• • •

“W
e have a lot of catching up to do,” Tim says, ten minutes later. Nine minutes after Dina stopped talking. “Drink?”

“Oh, babe. Perfect!” Dina saunters over to a cabinet filled with different shapes of bottles and colorful liquids. She makes Cosmopolitan in a shaker then drains it into two martini glasses. My spirits drop; I’ve come here for Johnny and not only do I not see him, but things are twisting in bad ways.