Come To Me (Owned 3)

“You’ll always be here Vic,” she said, smiling. All the while that fucking droopy ass song continued to play, like a soundtrack to her high.

“That’s no longer a guarantee Lennox.” I stepped on her phone, my foot colliding with the glass and causing fissures in the screen. Lennox was sitting on the plush of the rug, high as a fucking kite, and if I could break some of her high, I would—even if it meant crushing her phone and killing the song.

“I don’t understand what the problem is…” Twirling the fabric of the shower curtain in her hands, she looked up at me, head cocked, as if her eight-hundred-dollar phone wasn’t sticking to the bottom of my boot. “You said you wanted me to take pills.”

“Pills your psychiatrist prescribed, Lenny.” I reached down and pulled her up by the shoulders. “Don’t twist my words.” Holding her in my arms, I wanted to shake her. It was like holding a doll, lifeless and limp.

“Did you know we didn’t even have to drug her?”

“A psychiatrist did prescribe them,” she said, chin to her chest. I narrowed my eyes, not buying her shit. She was masterful with words, her intellect sharper than my knives. Some days I wondered why she’d picked a thug like me. Lenny jerked in my grasp, trying to get away.

“Oh no you don’t.” My fingers tightened deeper into her shoulders, but she wiggled harder and I could feel my grip slipping. The slick fabric of her shirt slid against my skin and she almost broke through, so I dug my nails into her shirt until I heard a ripping sound and swung her body around.

Once again I felt like a beast, an animal tearing at its kill as I whirled her tiny frame away from the exit and plopped her on the lip of the tub. With her shirt now tattered just like the rest of the bathroom, she folded her arms, glaring at me.

“You can’t intimidate me,” she said, crossing her legs. “I know your tricks.”

“I’m not trying to intimidate you, fuck!” I groaned, exasperated. She didn’t say anything else and I refused to speak, so we fell into another broken silence. It seemed like the past few months had been nothing but silences and screams. Though her stare was on her thighs, it was obvious her mind was elsewhere.

Fisting my hand until the nails dug deep, I looked around the bathroom. Fractured wood from the splintered door. Her ripped shirt. My bloody body. Shards of glass from the broken phone.

And us.

Water dripped from the sink faucet, the sound amplified in our silence. I thought back to when I was going to fix it, when I was going to fix all the broken things in this stupid house. There was a list somewhere…but that list had been written before, when other, more important things hadn’t started to leak.

“I’m okay now,” Lenny said, looking up at me with no emotion in her face or voice. I felt the way my skin and face pulled together as I thought back to the pills that had been in my cabinet, pills that were probably in her stomach. Some part of me liked having a calm Lenny, and the other part, the part that should care about why she was calm, was getting too tired to care.

And that fucking sink kept dripping.

“What did you take?” I asked.

“Does it fucking matter? I’m here. I’m not crying. Explain to me what happened.” She opened her hands to me and just as quickly folded them back up.

I rubbed my chin and said, “I was gonna ask you the same thing.” Pushing herself up off the tub, Lenny crossed the short distance and wrapped herself around me. She hadn’t showered and I could smell the hotel on her, but beneath that layer of grime was Lenny. It made me crazy. It made me w

ant to pound into her and erase whatever filth they’d put on her.

Grinding my teeth, I focused harder on the mirror. I hadn’t showered either and dirt stuck in wrinkles, hardening the lines. I looked scary, gaunt, and hollow. Lenny’s was away from it, her red hair a curtain against her back. My hands hung limply at my sides, but in the reflection I could see Lenny wrap her arms tighter around me. I could see it, but I couldn’t feel it.

“I don’t know,” Lenny answered, resting her head on my shoulder. “One minute I was in bed and the next I’m here.”

“You don’t remember anything?” I watched my mouth move in the mirror.

“I mean there are bits and pieces here and there, but they feel like a bad dream.” I watched as Lenny started to pull away. “I should probably shower.”

“You were kidnapped,” I said to the man in the mirror.

“So the bad guys are real this time?” Lenny laughed, the sound like an echo. Her head fell back and the red shimmered in the mirror, but some spots were dulled by the splotches on the surface. I hadn’t cleaned the mirror in a while, too busy with other, more important dirt. Toothpaste had piled up, fingerprints, you name it. It dulled her. It dulled everything.

Years ago when we’d first met, I’d lied to keep her with me. I’d made up a threat to make her stay with me. There was a twisted irony in the fact that now the threat was real, and she saw it.

Despite the fugue from the drugs…

Despite her constant self-loathing…

Despite all of that, Lenny didn’t miss a single thing.

I grabbed her wrist as she made another move to push past me.