Unravel

40—CONVERGE

Freedom is a heady thing.

When it’s been absent from your life for so long you become obsessed with it. You think of all the things you’ll do when you get it back. Maybe stand outside and breathe in all the fresh air you can. Or maybe you’ll lie in the grass, watch as the sky above and the white, puffy clouds slowly drift by, knowing that you have nowhere to go. The more time that passes, the more you envision what you would do. And then, when you are handed your freedom, so easily and so quickly, you almost don’t know what to do with yourself.

That’s exactly how I felt when Mary came into my room and told me I was going home. She had my suitcase in hand and a solemn expression on her face as she packed up my stuff. It was so unexpected, and completely out of the blue, that I could only stare with shock. I quietly got dressed, looking over at her every few minutes.

Before we left my room she handed me back my shoelaces, a bag of makeup. A nail file. One pen. And my cell phone. I had stared down at the items with shock. Was this really happening? I kept thinking. Or was this some kind of elaborate prank at my expense?

When we walked down the hallway, I braced myself for Mary to pull back and tell me that this was just a practice run for when I really was released and that I had to go back to my cold, lonely room.

I finally saw my mom by the front doors, standing next to Dr. Woods. I quickly realized that this wasn’t a joke. I was actually leaving. So where was my excitement? Why couldn’t it walk on up to my fear and kick it aside and fill me up with hope? It was there when Lachlan picked me up and that freedom was only temporary.

My mom turned around when she heard our approaching footsteps. She walked over to me. I instantly got a whiff of her perfume.

“Ah, there she is.” She hugged me.

“Mom?” I frowned over her shoulder as she patted my back. “What’s going on?”

She pulled me back, holding me at arm’s length. Perfectly straight, white teeth appeared when she smiled. “You’re going home.”

“I know that… but why?” Nothing was making sense.

“You need to be home, that’s why.”

That was probably the only explanation I would get.

“Are you ready to go?” she asked.

It didn’t feel right. Just yesterday, I had left Dr. Rutledge’s office feeling worn down. She had told me I wasn’t ready to go home yet, and now here my mom was, right out of the blue? My gut twisted tightly. I swallowed down the lump in my throat and nodded.

“Yeah, I’m ready.”

I reached for my bag. Mary was still holding it, both hands tightly gripping the strap. I didn’t want to look her in the eye. I don’t know why. I just knew that if I did, tears would ensue. Mary was always so stern and stoic but I was used to her. She had become a consistent part of my life and I didn’t know what I would do without her.

She reached out and hugged me. Her grip was tight. I had to pull away first.

“Take care of yourself,” she said into my ear and smoothed my hair. The whole time she had a smile on her face and tears brimming in her eyes.

“I will,” I said.

A few minutes later, my mom and I were walking out the front doors. Before I got into the car, I spotted that naked tree next to the rec room window. That frozen icicle was melting. Water slowly dripped down onto the soggy ground.

It felt like an omen—the ending of my time here.

I spent the entire drive home trying to figure out if that was a good or bad thing.

When my mom parked in front of the house, neither one of us made any attempt to get out of the car. She grabbed her purse and exhaled loudly. I just sat there, completely frozen over.

“You’re home,” she said slowly, staring at the steering wheel. “It’s time to move past your stay at Fairfax.” She looked over at me. “We need to be a family again.”

No welcome home! Or hugs. Just the cold, hard facts.

Instead of relaxing when I got home, I dropped my bags off in my room, and walked right back out the door with just my keys in hand.

An hour later I’m still driving.

I have no idea where I’m going and I don’t care. I follow the twists and turns of the road, trying to ignore the restless feeling taking root in my gut. It makes my fingers tap anxiously against the steering wheel. A few minutes later I park the car and get out. The air rushes into me, making me shiver. I cross my arms and turn in a circle, staring at the barren earth.

When I left Fairfax, I didn’t look at my discharge papers. I was just happy to be leaving. I assumed that it was deemed safe for me enter the world again. Right?

Everything seems harmless enough. The sky’s a cloudless gray. The temperature is warm, considering the bitter, cold weather that’s been happening. The ground is soggy. Potholes filled with water pepper the road.

That icicle runs past my memory. I bend down, my back resting against the car door, and drop my head into my waiting palms. I picture the water dripping onto the ground.

Drip, drip, drip.

I bet it’s gone. I bet there’s nothing left of the frozen water drop. Why does that fill me with so much despair? Because it meant more to me. It represented my life and everything I was fighting for. It’s gone, and I still haven’t figured out a damn thing. If anything, I am even more lost. Even more broken.

When I was in Fairfax I had one singular goal: to get out and get answers. That goal would keep me going, even when it felt like I was running on empty. To get out and still have no answers makes me feel hopeless. Tears of frustration slip down my cheeks and onto the black asphalt. I wipe my face, stand up and take a deep breath. No matter what I feel, I know one thing is for sure. Lana is out there somewhere. I know it sounds impossible and crazy, but I feel her heartbeat echo in my ears.

Not my own.

Just hers.

I get back in my car, do a U-turn and try to find a road that looks familiar. A few minutes later I finally do. The houses rushing past me are ones that I’ve seen for years. But I ignore them. I only focus on one thing: the heartbeat echoing in my ears. In fact, the closer I get to Lana’s house, the more prominent her heartbeat becomes. I press my hand against my heart. My heartbeat is calm and steady and very quiet up against Lana’s, which is loud, with a short, staccato beat.

Dr. Rutledge once told me that Lana is safe and that her dad could no longer hurt her. So why, when I get to her house, does the echo burst from my ears? Why do I feel her all around me?

I run toward the front door, knowing with a sickening gut that Lana is here. Maybe Dr. Rutledge thought Lana is safe but she’s wrong. She’s been wrong the entire time. That thought alone is powerful enough to make my legs buckle.

I make it to the front door and burst into the house. I’m panting, looking frantically around. There’s a candle burning somewhere, the scent meets my nose. I can hear the sound of the grandfather clock clicking in the dining room.

I just want to find Lana. Instead I find Max. I freeze in my tracks. He’s pounding on Lana’s dad’s office door.

“Michael!” he screams. “Open up!”

His hands are frantically beating against the hard oak. A crash sounds from behind the closed doors. Fear shoots down my spine.

I walk down the hall, closer to Max.

“No, no, no,” I whisper faintly.

Max doesn’t see me come closer. He takes a step back and kicks the door down. The wood splinters and the door hangs from the hinges.

He runs into the room. But I can’t. I’m too afraid to go forward. I already know what I’m going to see and I don’t want to see it. Once is enough.

The only reason I step forward is because of Lana. I can hear her voice. I can hear her crying and moaning. I walk into the room and the blinds are closed, shutting the world off. Only the light on her dad’s desk is on. And on the floor, right across from her dad’s desk, is Lana, being held down by her dad.

I think I scream, but no one notices.

Lana’s dad holds her hands above her head with one hand and covers her mouth with the other. His pants are down and so are her jeans.

Her eyes are wide and frantic. They find mine and she looks at me with alarm.

“No,” I whisper.

“I own you,” her dad pants. “Your life is mine.”

“No,” I groan.

Her dad turns and looks at Max. He yells something. I can’t make it out. The volume has been turned down. All I can hear is the sound of Lana’s heavy breathing.

Max’s mouth moves rapidly. Lana’s dad lets go of Lana, leans back on his knees. He’s getting up.

That’s when I notice Max reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a gun.

“Stop!” I scream.

Max keeps walking and his index finger wraps around the trigger. He’s pointing it directly at Lana’s dad.

I run up behind him. “Don’t!” I yell.

Lana stares at Max, trying to warn him with her eyes to stop. Her dad lets go of her hands. She covers her face; her cries are muffled against her hand. Her dad pivots his body and goes to stand up.

Max pulls the trigger.

Everything happens so slowly, as if time is resisting, trying to stay in place, yet our actions are moving it forward.

The bullet releases from the chamber. It circles out into the air slowly. The aim is perfect, going directly to Lana’s dad’s head. It hits him. “Go,” Lana mouths to me. Her eyes are wide open, pleading and begging for me to leave the room.

The black pinpricks of her pupils draw me in and I’m pulled into a vortex so powerful, there’s no getting out. Everything changes in that second. Lana’s brown irises that made her always look so vulnerable and quiet. The irises that hid so much are now dark, cobalt blue.

The exact shade of my eyes.

I drop to the ground and moan. It feels like someone’s reaching into my chest and ripping the very life out of me. My breath comes out in shallow gasps as pain starts to radiate throughout me.

My body is leaden. Walking seems like too much effort. Yet, somehow, I’m moving. I stare down at my body as it’s pushed across the room by some unseen force. I hover right above Lana and her dad. Her eyes, that are now identical to mine, meet my gaze. The pain throughout me starts to double.

The first bullet punctures her dad’s skin. I watch in horror as his body jerks once before he falls backwards onto his daughter.

That’s when the impossible happens: my body merges with Lana’s.

It’s so painful, like I’m being squeezed through a small opening. My skin pulling, resisting. Nerves are tingling. I scream at the top of my lungs. My body starts to twitch. I grasp the air above me frantically.

Reach, reach, reach. I’m trying to grab onto anything to get me out of here. The pain inside of Lana is soul destroying, filled with demons waiting to smother me. It becomes too much and my hands drop limply to the floor.

My eyes feel heavy and swollen from tears. I blink a few times trying to adjust. But reality doesn’t give me time to adjust. It slams into me.

I’m not Lana. I’m not Lana. I’M NOT HER! My mind screams.

I’m too numb to hold onto anything, except for the fact that I can’t breathe.

“Get him off,” I pant. “Get him off me.”

There’s too much going on. My brain is on overload. It’s ready to explode. I feel so much pain. Little moans escape my mouth.

I feel a wet, sticky substance on my fingers. When I lift my hands, I see that my skin is paler and on my wrists are horizontal scars about four inches long. The skin is red and puckered.

My lips quiver.

“I’m not her,” I croak.

I turn my hand around and can see the bluish veins running underneath my skin. That sticky substance? It’s dark, warm blood and it’s on my fingers, slowly traveling down my hand, onto my arms. “Naomi.”

I look up at Max. He’s pushing Lana’s dad off me. When his weight is off me, I greedily suck up all the oxygen I can. Max drops the gun and stares down at me. His face is pale and his eyes are wild. There are flecks of Lana’s dad’s blood on his cheeks.

Not my dad. My dad wouldn’t hurt me like this, I think.

Max holds my face and looks into my eyes, saying my name again, this time with more concern.

“Talk to me,” he pleads.

And then I blink. It’s just one simple blink. But when I open my eyes back up, Max is Lachlan.

Impossible.

My mind is playing tricks on me. Or maybe the world is playing one big trick on me? Either way, I blink frantically, hoping that I’m wrong.

But Lachlan is still here, dressed in the clothes that Max had been wearing seconds ago and with flecks of blood on his face. His hands hook underneath my arms. He pulls me onto his lap, cradling my head. I lay there like a rag doll, my arms hanging at my sides. My eyes close and when they do, I see a memory.

It’s reeled in front of me slowly, giving me no choice but to absorb everything that happened. Lana is playing on the black asphalt, but it can’t be her because I remember sitting there and drawing. I remember the pieces of chalk spread out around me. I hum a song that my nanny had taught me. I was only eleven. The sun is hot on my back but it feels good. I continue to draw and trace and when my creation is just right, I curl up in a ball, right in the middle of my creation, on that hot asphalt, and fall asleep. The memory ends there. I remember it being a good summer day. But Lana gives me the rest of the memory. She shows my dad finding me later on. He was furious. He asked what the fuck I was doing. I nervously tell him that I was sleeping. His eyes narrow slightly. He looks down at my creation and asks what I created. I move off my creation and look down. On the black asphalt was the outline of a body. I didn’t give it eyes, nose, mouth or even hair. But I gave it a heart. Because in my 11-year-old mind, that’s all that it needed, and it had been holding me tightly in its arms. On this black asphalt was a parent I had always wanted. It accepted my love, and in return loved me unconditionally. On this black asphalt was something I could never have.

My dad had screamed at the mess I made on the driveway. Told me to get a hose, clean it up and then to go clean myself up. When I was clean, he raped me.

My body starts to shake.

All the pain I felt was one dark soul unraveling and intertwining itself around the other soul—the clean soul. The darkness hands over its black memories, hoping that purity of the clean will obscure all its pain.

I feel arms squeeze me tighter. Keep pressing, keep holding, I think to myself. Maybe then all this pain and agony will leave my body.

I look down and finally accept that it’s my own dad’s blood spreading across the ground, seeping into the cracks of the wood floor.

The body holding me pulls away. I’m looking into the eyes of Lachlan.

“I’m so sorry,” Lachlan whispers hoarsely.

This pain is mine and only mine. My body starts to shake until I’m practically convulsing.

Time speeds up right after that and I see Dr. Rutledge standing in the doorway. Her face instantly pales as she takes in the room. Her eyes go from the gun to Lachlan. She’s putting the pieces together quickly.

Then she looks at me. Not with her doctor eyes, she looks at me with so much sorrow and understanding. I realize then that she knew all along. She walks into the room, kicking pieces of splintered wood aside.

“What happened?” she asks.

Lachlan doesn’t turn around. His lips are in a flat line, nostrils flared, and eyes flat. “I caught him. I—” He tightens his grip on me. “I saw him. I saw him—” his voice croaks and fades.

Dr. Rutledge approaches us slowly. She touches Lachlan’s shoulder and he tenses up. She backs away and quickly speaks. “This was self-defense, okay? He was going to come after you and you had to protect yourself.”

Lachlan turns and looks over at Rutledge. “That’s not what—”

“Lachlan, you had to protect yourself and Naomi.” Dr. Rutledge utters meaningfully.

Lachlan nods.

“It’s done,” she whispers. And I want to know who she’s talking to, me or Lachlan?

I hear footsteps outside the door and the murmur of voices. My mom walks into the room. All kinds of emotions run through her eyes as she stares at my dad’s lifeless body. Her face crumbles. She runs over to him and drapes herself over him. She’s sobbing so loudly my ears ring.

In the midst of her tears, Dr. Rutledge is on her phone, speaking frantically. I know that cops and EMT’s will be here soon. I know they’re going to ask me questions. Ask Lachlan questions. I know they’re going to take my dad away in a black bag, placed on a gurney.

What I don’t know is how I’m going to survive all the pain Lana has given me.

An hour later, I’m sitting outside on the front steps with a blanket draped around my shoulders. Cop lights are flashing. Five cops are here. Three of them are walking in and out of the house. The other two are talking to Dr. Rutledge and Lachlan. They’ve talked to me a few times and I know it won’t be the last. Two EMT’s walk down the sidewalk, flanking a stretcher. My mom’s still inside, still sobbing. I haven’t talked to her. And she hasn’t looked at me once. If she did, I don’t think much would pass between us. With Lana’s memories, my memories, slowly coming to me I see there was nothing there to begin with.

I look ahead. Lachlan is walking this way. This whole time he’s been Max. I still can’t wrap my head around it. There’s a lot I can’t wrap my head around.

He stops in front of me. “I’m going in for questioning.”

My eyes widen. I go to stand up but he places his hands on my shoulders, and kneels next to me. “It’s standard procedure.”

“I want to go,” I say, my voice is hoarse and scratchy from all the screams.

Lachlan smiles but it never quite reaches his eyes. He’s trying to make this entire situation appear better than it looks. It’s a waste of time though because I know it’s bad. I know that what happened inside that office will have serious consequences for him.

“Lachlan, I—”

“Naomi, it’s okay,” he says, his voice steady.

Dr. Rutledge walks over and sits down next to me. She places an arm around me. “I’m going with Lachlan. I promise everything will be fine.”

My eyes are wide, frantic. “I’m not staying here by myself!”

“No, you’re not staying here.” Dr. Rutledge looks at Lachlan and back to me. “You’re going to the hospital to get checked out.”

“I’m not—I’m not ready…” My voice wavers and veers off because I can’t form the right words. I don’t know how to tell them that I’m ready for nothing. Haven’t I been through enough in one day? Questions have been answered, but there are a whole slew waiting to be answered. Those answers are in my head, waiting to be uncovered. I’m too scared to reveal them.

My body starts to shake. Behind Lachlan two police officers are walking over. I grip his arm tightly. He leans his head against mine. One by one his fingers curl around the back of my neck. “He can’t hurt you anymore, Naomi.”

He kisses my forehead and stands up. I stare down at the sidewalk, refusing to watch him leave. I want to feel numb right now, but I feel everything. Isn’t that what Lana was so good at: being numb? Keeping the pain at bay? I now realize just how endless her pain was. I place a hand over my heart, as if that will make the ache lessen.

A car door slams and then another. I hear a car pull away.

“Miss?”

I look up. An EMT is staring down at me with a calm expression. “Are you ready to go?”

Freedom is heady, yes, but as my life falls down around me I see the underlining truth: freedom has a price.

I just wish someone had told me it was my life.