All's Well(91)

“What, am I supposed to feel guilty?” I say.

He looks confused. “Guilty?”

“That I feel fine for once? That I’m not limping and moaning around? Dragging my leg like Briana? Lying on the floor, crying into my ears while everyone else around me rolls their eyes? I’m supposed to feel bad that I’m better now? I’m supposed to cry over a little cut. To what? To make you feel like I’m not a monster. I need to perform my little bit of pain for you so you’ll know I’m human?”

“Miranda, I didn’t mean—”

“But not too much pain, am I right? Not too much, never too much. If it was too much, you wouldn’t know what to do with me, would you? Too much would make you uncomfortable. Bored. My crying would leave a bad taste. That would just be bad theater, wouldn’t it? A bad show. You want a good show. They all do. A few pretty tears on my cheeks that you can brush away. Just a delicate little bit of ouch so you know there’s someone in there. So you don’t get too scared of me, am I right? So you know I’m still a vulnerable thing. That I can be brought down if need be.”

He looks at me. “Miranda, that’s really not what I—”

“Why don’t we try it? Why don’t you try hurting me right now and see? See if I can feel it. See if you can make me feel it. Make me cry out. You probably like a little of that, don’t you?”

A flicker of recognition in his eyes. Yes. He likes a little of that. Of course he does. But he plays shocked, confused. Looks at me like I’m fucking crazy.

“What? No. Of course not,” he says. Shakes his head again and again as I move in closer to him. Asking him to pull my hair, to punch me in the gut, go on. To strangle me if it turns him on. Does it turn him on? Yes.

“No. Miranda, look, stop this, okay? I’m leaving. I’m—”

But I’ve already grabbed his hands and put them around my neck. He tries to resist but my grip is surprisingly strong, my strength surprises both of us. He looks at me in horror as he tries to pry his hands away, but he can’t now. I’m holding his hands down. Holding them down around my neck. His hands encircling my throat.

“Miranda, what the fuck are you doing?”

“Go on,” I tell him. “Hurt me.”

He shakes his head, horrified. So appalled by the fact of his own hands around my throat. The drumming of my pulse under his thumbs. He tries to pull away again but I hold him there.

“Is this what you did?” I ask him quietly. “Was it like this?”

He shakes his head again. I press his hands deeper into my neck.

“It’s all right, you didn’t mean to. We never mean to, do we? Or maybe we do. Maybe we fucking do mean to, don’t we? Anyway, it’s done, isn’t it? No going back now. Too late, am I right? So do it. You know you want to. I feel it. I feel it from you.”

I drop my hands. Now he’s the one gripping my neck all by himself. His hands, resting hot on either side, holding tight. Each thumb poised above the clavicle. Ready to press. I know he’s tempted to press into my flesh and see. Will he leave a bruise? Will he leave a mark like Mark used to? All of Mark’s little marks. All those soft black, purple, and yellow spots blooming down my legs and flanks, the strangest watercolors. John’s welts on my thigh. The surgeon’s scars on my hip. Three prongs like a pitchfork under the Scotsman’s tongue. And Paul? The hurts Paul inflicted, his marks, are on the inside. Does Hugo want to leave his mark too? Here on the neck where the skin is so thin, shot through with blue veins, right here in the little hollow where my pulse jumps. See what I’m made of? See if he can make me cry, make me scream?

“You want to. I know you do. They all do.”

He wrenches his hands away from my neck. Wrenches his hands away like I’m the one still holding them there. He drops his hands like he’s awakened from a terrible dream. He hasn’t had one like this in a long, long time. He looks at me. Wide-eyed. Afraid.

Then he walks away. He doesn’t look back once as he pushes through the exit doors. Gold hair glowing in the dark morning. Red-gold like a fish.

“Probably just as well,” I call after him. “You couldn’t handle my pain. Couldn’t handle my tears when they were actually falling, could you? That was just a bad scene, wasn’t it, Goldfish? A bad show. And you want to see a good show, don’t you?” My voice is singing, light and carefree as my heart of air. So light I can’t even feel it beating. No marks, no tears. Just smiling here. We just want to see a good show, Ms. Fitch. Just put on a good show. That’s all they want is a good show. So that’s what I’ll give. Tomorrow night, am I right? Or is it tonight now? Opening night. So very soon, ticktock. I better get some rest, hadn’t I, Grace?





CHAPTER 26


I DRIVE HOME in the predawn dark, singing. I’m really my own radio these days. I tell myself I’ll stop at Grace’s on the way home again. Just to check in on her. Definitely. Make sure she’s all right. All’s well? I’ll ask her.

But I don’t stop at Grace’s on the way home this time. I keep driving. Keep my hands on the wheel, my foot on the pedal. I turn up the music. Up, up, up. The song is so lovely, isn’t it? It really transports you. I float above my seat. Literally. Surely because the music is so uplifting. Judy singing about being happy. Poor Judy who was mostly so sad. Who wouldn’t levitate to hear Judy sing? What did Paul once say to me about Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”? That it sounded like the happiness that can only come after great sorrow, great pain. Judy is my “Ode to Joy.” “Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart” is a happy roar all around me now. I turn it up higher. Not only because I love it but because lately there’s been this other sound I’ve been hearing. Scares me a little, if I’m honest, but I’ve really been too busy, far too busy, to deal with it. At first, I wasn’t even sure, was it even a sound? Was I even hearing something? It was so very slight. Far away and close at the same time. Underneath everything, like a hum. Could you call it music? You could call it an underneath music. I wasn’t even sure if it was outside or if it was inside. Could it be inside? Surely it was outside, I told myself, and I forgot all about it, there was so much to do. But no, no it was inside. Definitely inside. Inside me somewhere. Something like a drone. A drone? No, that doesn’t even make sense but, yes, a drone. In my skull. Surely my head doesn’t have a skull anymore. My head feels far too light for a skull. I’m hearing it now. Just under this song like a bass, but it’s not a bass sound. More like the music has a lower floor, a basement that Judy’s “Zing!” doesn’t know about. Dark and unfinished. Full of boilers. Dread is the word that comes to mind. Dread, dread, dread. I see the word in my mind as black stones. But I don’t fill with dread. At all, at all. I put my fingers on the dial and turn up the volume. I drown it out with Judy’s joy, which really can’t be any louder.