From my novel, The Abduction Myth, now available on Amazon:
For a while I tried to make my new “seaside” apartment feel
like home. It wasn’t such a bad place: from
one window you could see the ocean, if you pressed the side of your face
against the wall and really strained.
But when that got old, and I lost interest in unpacking, I started using
unopened boxes as convenient stands for things like junk mail and canvases. As much as I wanted to care, I couldn’t. Somehow, in my desire for flight I’d
forgotten that my belongings would only remind me of the life that had blown up
with the barn. When I tried to deflect
this by buying a lovely watercolor from a local shop I wound up just putting
that on top of a stack of boxes, too.
The only one who seemed happy with our new life was
Daisy. Lazy though she might have been,
she relished the chance to stretch her legs during our beachfront walks. “Dogs like you just aren’t meant for places
like L.A.,” I told her, when she ambled up to me with a piece of driftwood in
her mouth. “I’m sorry I put you through
that. It won’t happen again.”
Because even if I were lonely and frightened and not nearly
as pleased with the move as I’d hoped, there was no going back. I would rather stay with this slow death
instead, waiting for everything and nothing at the same time. Hopelessness stretched out before me, as wide
as the Pacific Ocean.
And then Christine called.
Right away I knew something was up by her nervous giggle. It kept popping out at weird times, as she rambled
on about a few pieces of mail she needed to forward to me, and then about a
delusional client who wanted to look like Jennifer Lawrence in American Hustle (“I nearly suggested
plastic surgery and a time machine,” Christine joked.) At last I couldn’t bear it anymore. When she finally took a breath, I demanded,
“What is it? You’re doing that weird
fake laugh thing. Did something happen?”
“Yeah...well, okay. It’s
just that Rick called me.”
I went very still.
When I didn’t say anything, Christine explained, “He wants to see
you. He asked me to ask you if that
would be all right.”
“Where is he? Is he back in El Prado?”
“He just said he’s in California, but when I told him you’d
moved he said that he could get to you without any problem. Do you want to see him?”
“...I don’t know.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t, if you’re not sure,” Christine told
me. Grateful she couldn’t see my hands
shaking, I asked, “How am I supposed to contact him?”
“He said you could text him, if you don’t want to call. He said his number is the same as it was before. Do you still have it?”
“...I think so. Yes.”
“So you’re going to tell him no?”
“I don’t know...do you think I should?”
“I think it’s up to you,” Christine said carefully, “but if
you have any doubts, it must be for a reason.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, I think he’s a nice guy and he obviously
really cared about you. But I’m not so
sure he’s your forever, you know? And
with everything that’s happened...you’ve worked so hard to reclaim your
life. Maybe that’s a wound you don’t
need to reopen.”
But that was the problem—I hadn’t reclaimed my life. I only left the house to run errands or walk
Daisy, I still couldn’t remember how to illustrate children’s books, and every
day I felt myself inching that much closer to the edge of the precipice. The self-hatred that tormented me over how I
allowed myself to become Vince’s victim had also risen to epic
proportions. The only question was,
would seeing Rick again make things better—or worse? “Did he say much to you?” I asked.
“Not a lot. It was a
short call—he didn’t want to chat.”
“I wonder why he wants to see me.”
“I don’t know...you could always talk to him on the phone
instead,” Christine suggested, but somehow that sounded worse—to hear Rick’s
disembodied voice after all this time, when I’d heard it so often in my dreams. I took a deep breath, willing myself not to
cry until I hung up. “I guess I’ll have
to think about it,” I said. “But thank
you for letting me know.”
“You’re welcome. And
if you need to talk about it some more, call me, okay?”
I promised her I would do that and hung up the phone. When I leaned against a stack of boxes, I almost didn’t recognize my surroundings—everything looked different. Everything was different now. Rick had returned.
*You can also read Chapters 1-3 of The Abduction Myth here:
http://thedevilsdiaries.blogspot.co.uk/p/chapter-two-abduction-myth.html
No comments:
Post a Comment