Strapped Down Page 5

  “You’re bleeding.” I motion towards his hand, but he raises the other one to stop me. Taylor walks over to the sink and runs the wound under the faucet. “Let’s just try to go back to the way it was. This could be a blessing,” I reassure Taylor.

  “Blessing…” He says under his breath in a mocking tone.

  “I don’t mean the situation, but the fact he’s gone. We can just move on.”

  “You don’t get it. There is no moving on.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s either him, or me.”

  “Come on. Don’t let him infect you like this.”

  “Why aren’t you as angry as me? Don’t you want to get him too?”

  “Yes! For Christ’s sake I just lied-!” I look around and lower my voice to a whisper. “I just fucking lied to the police so we could get him, but I don’t want to let him ruin what we have. The bitterness will destroy you.”

  “Shyla, this is on me…on me! It’s because of me that this happened to you, that he came into your life and because I didn’t finish the job when I had the chance…”

  “Don’t say that. None of this is your fault!”

  Taylor shakes his head, his vacant expression and pursed lips informing me his mind has gone elsewhere. “I’m going to go work out. I need to clear my head. I’ll be downstairs.”

  “Are you mad at me?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. Please don’t go looking for him. He’s gone and that’s exactly what we wanted.”

  Taylor begins to clean the dishes, which is something I have never seen him do before. I sit quietly behind him, leaving him to stew in his silent fury. Finally, turns to me.

  “Did you say you were going out of town? Did you mean us going to New York?”

  “Actually, I was thinking I should go visit my mother. It’s been a while, and like I mentioned, maybe this will give me some air so I can absorb all of this.” The thought crosses my mind to invite Taylor, but I don’t think he’s ready for that. In fact, I’m not sure I am, and “meeting the ‘rents” right now just seems so trivial.

  “When?”

  “Well, I was going to make a long weekend of it, take Friday off. I am going to call Chad and let him know something happened this weekend. Home invasion without all the personal details. I’m sure he’ll cut me some slack.”

  “Do you want Harrison to come with?”

  “Harrison? No, Eric’s really gone this time. I just want to be normal, no security, no stalker step-brothers…”

  “No ultra-kinky dom boyfriend with a sordid past?” I think he says it jokingly, but I am never sure with him.

  “No…you’re welcome to come. I didn’t mean it that way. I didn’t think you would be interested in meeting my mother.”

  “No, you should go see your mom alone, have a chance to be a kid again and escape all this madness.” And with that, Taylor throws the dishrag on the sink and heads downstairs to the gym.

  I watch him walk away, saddened by the guilt I know he holds for what happened to me. Things are so tense now that it never seems like the right time to tell him what I’ve learned about his mother. At best, he will feel betrayed by my snooping around, and rightly so; at worst, he will never trust me again. Eventually, I will have to tell him. He needs to know the truth whether he wants to or not. Some time away at my mom’s will allow me map out how I will break the news to him. I call Chad.

  “Hello? Chad speaking.”

  “Hey Chad, it’s Shyla. Sorry, I’m calling from Taylor’s phone.”

  “No problem, what’s up?”

  “Well, everything is okay and I don’t want you to freak out, but someone broke into my condo and attacked me.”

  “Attacked? Oh my god! Are you alright?”

  “Yes, I’m fine. Everything is okay, I was with the police until late into the night.” Then I hear Kristin’s familiar voice in the background.

  “Okay…Kristin is freaking out, I’m gonna pass the phone to her before she rips my face off…”

  “Shyla! Oh my god! You were attacked? What the fuck happened? Are you okay?”

  “Yes! I was going to call you next, I swear. I didn’t know you were with Chad. You two are spending a lot of time together.” I hope her budding relationship is not nearly as tumultuous as mine.

  “What happened?”

  “Someone snuck into the condo, I guess to steal something, and I walked in. We struggled so I am a little beat up.”

  “Oh my god,” Kristin’s voice sounds shaky on the other end.

  “I’m okay, really. Don’t worry about me.”

  “Do the police know who it was?”

  “Can we talk about this another time? I love that you’re with Chad, but he’s still my boss and I need a little privacy.”

  “Of course! Can I come over today?”

  “I don’t have any specific plans, I’m at Taylor’s for the time being.”

  “Sure. Do you want to do dinner?”

  “Yeah, let’s. I’m going to see my mom later this weekend. Actually, that’s why I wanted to talk to Chad.”

  “Oh yeah, I forgot you called him,” she laughs. “I’ll pass the phone back to him. Love you, and I’ll see you later, okay? I just cannot believe it.”

  “I know, it’s crazy. I’m fine though, really.”

  There is the sound of the phone bumping around a bit, then Chad gets back on the line. “Hey Shyla, it’s me again.”

  “Yeah, so I wanted to let you know because I am a little beat up. There was a struggle…I didn’t want to freak you out tomorrow.”

  “You’re coming in?”

  “Well…I’m okay.”

  “Take tomorrow off, please.”

  “Actually, I was hoping to take Friday off to visit my mom in light of this disaster. So I don’t want to get too far behind.”

  “It’s up to you, but you can do most of your assignments from home this week. It’s all about your comfort level. I know it can be hard to have to rehash the story to people and with any visible injuries, people will ask.” I wonder to myself if Chad would be this understanding if he wasn’t crushing so hard on my best friend, but I am grateful for the latitude.

  “Okay, well I’ll see how I feel tomorrow. If I stay home, you won’t miss me, I’ll be in touch and get everything done.”

  “I know you will.”

  “Thanks so much for understanding Chad. You’re the best.”

  “Don’t mention it. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  I wasn’t expecting to be able to stay home all week, and the surprise is welcome. The thought of showing up to work with a busted lip, a bruised neck, and cuts on my arms wasn’t something I had fully thought out. And while I know intellectually that Eric is gone, I can’t shake the feeling that I am being watched. Hopefully working from home this week will let the fact that Eric is gone for good register.

  Instead of calling my mom next, I choose to surprise her with my visit. My mother now lives in Massachusetts. She moved about three years ago when she was offered the position of executive director at a drug rehabilitation center. It was a very proud moment for her and me. She suffered greatly from the loss of my father and it took many years for her to get back on her feet and regain her independence. Since my father’s family wanted nothing to do with me, the only family we had was my aunt, her sister, who lived out of state. It made for hard times growing up. I never could afford the perks that a lot of my friends had; no vacations, no nice clothes, no allowance. During the really bad times, food was scarce. Most times, we had each other and only what we absolutely needed.

  When I saw my mother struggle, I often felt like I was a burden, even though she never expressed that I was ever anything other than the person she loved most on Earth. Yet, I could see the weight on her shoulders, the heaviness in her eyes and I knew I was at least partly responsible for her troubles. Then, after years of trying to hold it all together, she too turned to the bottle. I was crushed in high school when I saw my m
other slowly fall apart under the loneliness and responsibility. That’s when the cutting started. A side of me felt guilty about my presence, the fact that I was a daily reminder of my father, but another side of me was angry with her, for allowing herself to be so weak and for abandoning me for her own brand of escape. She was all I had and then she left me just like my father; maybe not physically, but in every other way. I felt so numb to my predicament and the cutting made me feel; it was my personal brand of coping. Something about brightness of the red blood was a thrill, and the danger made me feel alive. I didn’t want to drink, because that only numbed me more. I wanted to feel, I wanted to feel things with intensity. Pain seemed to be the only thing that could bring me that.

  Luckily, around that time I met Kristin, and something about her and I just clicked. I didn’t feel so alone anymore. I started laughing again. When she found out about my morbid tendencies, she didn’t treat me like a freak, while at the same time making it clear that she was not okay with my self-harm. When my mother decided to turn her life around, it created a crack in the wall of my self-loathing where I could break through. She started to smile again too. Slowly, over time, the need to cut was not so great and by the time I was a freshman in college, newly in love with an adorable, tall, lanky, amber-eyed boy, the urge had all but entirely disappeared. The stability was great, I felt so “normal,” and “adjusted,” but after so many years of stillness, I began to miss the rush of danger, the thrill and the pain of that first cut. It was right around that time that Taylor walked into my life and I could smell the danger on his skin. It smelled delicious.

  After the call, I find myself with nothing to do. I could attempt some work, but am just too full of nervous energy to accomplish anything of significance yet too jittery to sit and watch TV. I wander around the house; strangely enough, there are some rooms I have yet to explore. During my tenure at Holden Industries, I never went into various rooms for professional reasons…well, except for that one time. After Taylor and I started our relationship, it just never happened. We were always together doing our thing and never really got around to the grand tour. I make my way upstairs, finally using the staircase to climb to the second level. First, I poke my head into a few bedrooms, which are decorated in a minimalist fashion. I smile to myself wondering why this extreme introvert would have so many guest bedrooms. I think of his subs and where they might have stayed. That hot and jealous sensation creeps up, but that only makes me think of it more. Did he leave them upstairs here until he was ready to beckon them? There is one very large bedroom with its own huge bathroom. I imagine this would be the preferred bedroom of a longterm guest such as a sub. Ugh.

  Eventually, I make my way to an office. It’s smaller than the one downstairs, but still bigger than the living room of my old apartment. The shelves are lined with books and photos. There is one photo, tinted with age, in a frame on the desk. A man and a blond woman, smiling, standing next to a beautiful dark-haired boy. Oh my god, that’s Taylor! It’s so hard to imagine the tall, brooding man I am completely enamored with as this little boy. And while he should be smiling, engulfed in the embrace of these people, he is off to the side, alone, not a speck of joy in his expression. His father, tall and strikingly handsome, tries to hold in a mischievous, crooked smile. Taylor’s right, he looks so much like his father, except his father’s brow is much darker, heavier. The platinum blond woman with bone-straight, shoulder-length hair must be his stepmother, based on what I know about his life and his age in the picture. She smiles, but it appears forced, as if some invisible force is tugging down at the sides of her mouth. A small hand peeks in from the corner of the picture, separated from its owner by the composition of the photo. It must be Eric. I wonder if he was left out of the photo entirely or cut out later by Taylor.

  Gently, I return the frame to the desk and scan the bookcase. It is full of very old books, and I make a note to later ask Taylor if he collects them. Then my eye catches something out of place. The spine clearly does not belong to a book. I carefully glide it out of the bookshelf and see it’s a photo album. My heart skips with glee and curiosity. I am so hungry for knowledge about Taylor’s life and his family, I open it without hesitation. A photo slips out of the album and floats to the floor, landing face-down. I carefully pick it up, hoping not to bend it. When I flip it over, it feels as though someone has stuck their hand in my chest and clenched my heart.

  A tall, thin blond girl with a bright, wide smile tucks her chin away from the camera. Her hair is long, nearly down to her lower back. Her golden waves are occasionally interspersed with light brown locks, and adorned with a single flower by her temple. She wears a loose-fitting white dress peppered with faded blue and pink flowers. Her bare feet bury into the grass. The bushes that surround her hold the same flower as the one she is wearing; the innocence of a girl picking a flower from a bush and placing it in her hair breaks my heart. I know what her future has in store, and from the hopeful look in her glimmering blue-green eyes, she has no idea. Those eyes. Sometimes I think they will be the death of me.

  “What are you doing?”

  I let out a loud yelp, still shaken up from yesterday’s events.

  “Uh, I — I was just looking around.”

  “Do you have any concept of privacy? You’re just snooping around?”

  “I wasn’t snooping around.”

  “Well, you could’ve fooled me.”

  “I didn’t think there was a problem. I mean this was just sitting in a bookshelf, out in the open.”

  “Those concepts are mutually exclusive, Shyla.”

  “I wasn’t snooping, like looking for stuff, I was just curious about the parts of the house I hadn’t seen and then I came upon this office.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “You know exactly what it means.”

  “No I don’t. Please don’t play games and tell me exactly what you are referring to.”

  “You’re looking for the journal.”

  Honestly, the thought had not crossed my mind, and I can’t believe how offended I am by the accusation even though it’s pretty logical. Sure, most women would be obsessed with finding the mysterious book of her boyfriend’s ex-lovers, but Taylor’s stalker brother, my new hobby as a detective of cult murders, and my new job have left little time for trying to find sex diaries. I guess it says a lot about my predicament that that task has fallen so low on my list of todos.

  “Seriously? That’s what you think I was doing? After all of this, all that I am willing to go through, you think I am sneaking around behind your back?” Oh no, here come the waterworks. This is not the time to come at me with anything that might even remotely touch anything having to do with emotions. I am just a hot mess. “That is so fucked up, Taylor. I just wanted to find out more about you, learn about your family when I saw the photo on the desk and you think that I was looking for what? Incriminating material? You can be so hurtful sometimes. Why are you so protective of that journal? Are you hiding something?”

  “No, I destroyed it. Not because I was hiding anything, but because I don’t want to hold onto it. I thought it was a way to protect myself, but it was just another burden, having that thing around.”

  “Well I guess I’ll have to take your word for it. But what about the other way around? You have to do the same for me,” I say, clearly heartbroken by his tone.

  Taylor watches me hold back tears in silence, seemingly dumbfounded by my emotional reaction. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. You did snoop around once before, remember? It’s not like I just pulled this out of my ass.”

  “I’m sorry I did it that one time. It’s not like me, I just had a hunch and I had to know. I’m sorry, okay?” He grabs my arm and pulls me close to him. He hasn’t showered yet, but I find his natural scent intoxicating. “You smell yummy.”

  Taylor laughs. “Really? I just worked out.”

  “I know, that’s why you smell s
o yummy.”

  “Am I gonna find you sniffing out my shoes or something? Do you have some sort of odor fetish?”

  “Oh you should talk, Mr. Dom!”

  Taylor lets out a faint smile and sighs. “I didn’t mean to snap at you, I’m just stressed, and I know you are too, so it’s not okay for me to take it out on you. I’m not used to living with someone all the time, even as much as I love having you around, I am not used to navigating what that’s like.”

  “I know,” I say tenderly.

  “Why are you smiling?”

  “Nothing, it’s silly.”

  “No, tell me.”

  “When you were a kid, did you ever watch Beauty and the Beast?”

  “No, I was too busy being a badass.”

  “Oh, nevermind.”

  “I’m joking!”

  “Oh, god, I can never tell with you! Well, you remember that scene when the Beast finds Belle in the west wing?”

  “Oh christ, so now I’m the Beast?”

  I start to laugh uncontrollably. “Nevermind…that’s why I didn’t want to mention it. You’re way too hot anyways.”

  Taylor looks down at me warmly. “You know, if you want me to show you stuff, you can just ask.”

  “Well, I know how you hate to talk about things from the past. Plus, I never took you as someone to have pictures around.”

  “You’re right, but you can still ask me.” He steps away for a second and then leads me by my hand to a large leather chair, pulling me onto this lap. “Did you look through the album?”

  “No, I just pulled it out when you came in.”

  Taylor’s eyes glance over to the single picture I hold in my hand. “So you found her?”

  “Yes. Sorry to bring her up. She just slipped out of the album.”

  “No, it’s okay. I’ve seen that picture for years. It was the one my dad kept in my room growing up.”

  “She was beautiful.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know when this picture was from?”

  “No, I never asked.”

  “You have her eyes.”

  “I know.”