Elastic Heart

Is it crazy that sometimes I want the darkness? I stare into the abyss that has become my soul and instead of searching for a flashlight, I want to take a nosedive into the inky black waters. I’ve dipped my toe, feeling the cool rush of sublime apathy and blue cruelty overcome me. The only thing stopping me was him. I never wanted to become like him.

Maybe he was sick in the head.

Maybe he needed help.

Maybe he had been hurt as a child and was riding around on the terrible carousel that is a vicious cycle.

Maybe I should have had sympathy for him. Maybe he was tortured and in more pain than I could imagine.

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

Maybe his pecker should be ripped off and fed to him while he bleeds out.

It had been just a day since my botched burglary on Becca Riley. I’d stayed inside to recoup, reformulate, and rewhiskey. There hadn’t been many wins in my camp—strike that, there had been zero wins. Sunday was almost over and I hadn’t come up with any new ideas on how to destroy Morris. Depression was sinking in.

Curled up on the couch, I posted a picture of shibari on Secrets. I didn’t say anything, just posted the picture. That was my secret for the day. I wanted to be tied up. I was a former rape victim who wanted be tied up during sex. I hated that everything I did now was defined by that goddamn event.

I was no longer Nami DeGrace. I was Nami DeGrace, rape victim. The label followed me wherever I went, except on Secrets. I knew when I posted the image I would get sexts. It was a naked woman tied up, hanging from a ceiling. Of course people would send me images and nasty texts. They sent them to me when I posted innocuous messages, so now that I’d practically given them an opening, why wouldn’t they respond?

Not five minutes after I’d shut off notifications for Secrets, I received a text message from Huck.

“Too afraid to call but not too afraid to be tied up?” he asked. “You’re a mystery Dandelion.”

I typed my response. “No mystery. Just not into talking to random dudes off the internet.”

His response was immediate. “Not random. Do random ‘dudes’ know that you miss your stepdad Tony?”

I stared at the words for longer than I liked, wondering how to respond. Huck was right; I did miss Tony. I missed his thick Boston accent and the way he ate meat out of a can. I made fun of him for it, but you don’t realize how much you miss those quirks until you no longer get to see them.

“I didn’t tell you that,” I eventually sent.

“I read between the lines,” Huck sent back almost instantly. “I’m going to call you now.”

“I’m not going to answer,” I replied just as quickly.

“What are you so afraid of, Dandelion?” His response maddened me at first. Huck didn’t know me, didn’t know what I’d been through. He didn’t know the life I led, so how dare he accuse me of fear? My finger hovered above the block button for a good thirty seconds before I calmed down.

“I’m not afraid of anything, Huck.” My fingers typed quickly, making smudges against the glass of the phone. “I don’t know what you expect to happen between us. I’m razed ground. No fruit will grow here.”

It was a long while before Huck responded. I’d assumed he’d gotten the picture and moved on. I set my phone down next to me and had all but forgotten about him when the blue screen lit up with his response: “Even in the desert, fruit grows.”

It was only eight at night, but it felt like three in the morning. I was exhausted from the previous day. Exhausted from that day. Exhausted from all the days, really. Still, I felt cooped up. I felt like I was going insane, and I wasn’t the only one. Raskol was growing tired of the apartment, opting to chew the couch to allay his boredom. I watched him through sad eyes; it wasn’t his fault his owner was a basket case.

When I was in high school there was a spot called “The Beach”. It was named that because when you turned your head upside down at night, the city lights looked like the twinkling ocean waters crashing on the shore. It wasn’t too far away from where I lived now, only a ten-minute drive. That night, The Beach called to me.

I wanted to forget everything that had happened to me after high school. I wanted to go back to the time when I drove with my friends up to that point on the mountain. When we got out of our cars and turned our heads upside down like that was the only thing that would ever turn upside down for us.

Grabbing Raskolnikov, I walked out of the apartment to go to The Beach. I gave a quick glance to a black car parked opposite my street. I couldn’t see who was inside, but it didn’t fit in my neighborhood. It was much too nice. Post-rape Nami wanted to investigate. She wanted to go inside and grab her gun, march up to the car, and demand whoever was inside make themselves known. Tonight wasn’t about that, though. Tonight was about forgetting. Shaking the car out of my head, I jumped in my own and headed to The Beach.

I rolled down the window for Raskol even though it was December and freezing. He loved sticking his head out the window and I loved watching him. Raskol was the only good thing to come out of all the shit. He was entirely guileless and full of love.

It sounded crazy, but some days I was glad for the rape, because it had brought me Raskol. The days when it was just him and me on the couch were some of the best of my life. Because I’d grown up without pets, I’d never understood the connection people had to dogs before, but now I couldn’t imagine my life without him. He held a piece of my soul.

Raskol was never a part of the plan. I’d driven past the humane society and stopped on a whim. I’d gone inside, not sure what I was doing there. It was full of people gleefully picking out companions, and then there was me: a broken girl unsure of her next move. Raskol was all alone, unlike the other dogs. When I asked the volunteer why he was alone, she said it was because he was afraid. He didn’t do well with people or animals.

“I’m afraid he might never find a forever home,” she’d said. That was all I needed to hear. Raskol and I had been inseparable ever since.

Checking my rearview mirror, I turned down the street that led to The Beach. When I looked in the mirror, I saw what appeared to be the same car that had been parked on my street. I tried to get a better look but it switched lanes and drove quickly past me. I should have turned around and gone home, I know. After the past months, I’d learned that nothing was a coincidence. Still, the part of me that had decided to go to The Beach wouldn’t allow it. I needed one night to be normal. One night to shed the armor random black cars had made me build.