Elastic Heart

“I believe you,” I said. My eyes dropped to his hold on my wrist. I did believe him, I did. I believed everything about him and Becca and Morris. It was horrible and ugly, so of course it was true. “I believe you, Law, but that doesn’t make it hurt less.”

I gently peeled his hand from my wrist and turned to go. When I left, I didn’t look back; I couldn’t. His amber eyes would melt my resolve, and right then I needed to be strong. I’d said I wanted the truth, but I hadn’t known it would hurt more than the lies.

In my mind I saw an intricate web. In the beginning it was only three fibers: me, Morris, and my mission to destroy him. Enter Law: enigmatic, mysterious, and a bit of a dick. What I thought to be a just a single strand turned out to be the spider. Law wove the reality around me.

I tried to disentangle the web, but it was too vast and convoluted. Where one strand ended, four others began. I huffed, turning on my side, and pulled the blanket tight around my shoulders. It was three in the morning, hours after I’d left Law at his hotel, but my mind was reeling. Once again I was thinking back to the beginning. This time I wasn’t thinking about Morris, though. I was thinking about Law.

He’d never been anything but kind to me. Even when I was an utter shit to him, he’d treated me gently. He’d listened to me. He’d seemed to know what was wrong even before I did. He’d saved my life. Even when I was at my most vulnerable, he’d never taken advantage of me. Law was perfect, except for, you know, one tiny problem: Law lied. About everything.

Law lied about his job. Law lied about the company he kept. Law lied and lied and lied until he was wrapped so comfortably in his lies that they became his reality. His lies even shaped the reality of those around him. Unfortunately, I was around him. I pulled the blanket tighter, tossing around on the couch until my gaze stared straight at the ceiling.

Knock knock.

My head shot to the side at the sound of rapping at my door. Nice people didn’t knock on doors at three in the morning. I should have been wary, but then again, I didn’t have any nice people in my life. Sluggishly I rose from the couch, keeping the blanket wrapped around me. I still couldn’t afford heat and my place was much colder at night. I could see my breath in the air, like wispy tendrils of smoke.

I opened the door without checking who it was. At that point in my life I didn’t care if someone was there to kill me. Every part of my being was utterly obliterated. My heart had been put through a meat grinder. My mind had been fucked, defaced, and effaced. There was nothing left save a body, so why try and save the body?

I’ll admit I wasn’t expecting what stood on the other side of the door. I thought maybe it was one of Morris’s henchmen finally coming to finish the job. I figured it could be some paparazzi who’d discovered where I lived. Never in a hundred nightmares did I imagine what it really was: Law covered in blood.

Speechless, I took him in. Blood covered the hands that had always been so gentle with me. Red stained his t-shirt. Eyes widened, I swallowed the sight of him. Bloody, disheveled, but not hurt, it appeared. Before I could ask what the hell happened, he spoke.

“I snapped.”

“Can I come in?” he asked. Stupefied, I stepped aside to allow him entry. Law walked past me and I watched his movements as if in a dream. He wasn’t the brutally stoic man I’d come to know these past months. He was undone, eyes wild, hair a mess, muscles twitching. Rubbing his thumbs together, he paced around my apartment as if I wasn’t even there.

“You what?” I finally asked when the air filled with too many unasked questions. I stared at the blood on his shirt; it was soaked into the fabric, hard and stained. His gray jeans even had splotches of blood on them.

“I snapped,” Law repeated. He rubbed his forehead with his palm and I noticed his bruised and bloody knuckles. I realized the lights were still off and bent over to turn the table lamp on. Pale yellow light engulfed us, making the shadows we cast bolder.

“What does that mean?” I asked. Law walked back and forth across my living room, his strides practically wearing the floor thin. While he searched for his words, I went to the kitchen

to get something to clean him up. I grabbed a kitchen towel and ran it under some warm water, then grabbed some ice from the freezer and threw it in a sandwich bag. Exiting the kitchen, I thrust the contents at him. He thanked me gruffly but I was already heading to the bathroom to grab some antiseptic. When I returned I made him sit on the couch.

I took the towel back from Law, who was gripping it so tight I swore I saw bones beneath his skin, and started to dab at the blood on his knuckles. Law hissed but didn’t say anything. Silence once again surrounded us as I did my work. I cleared away the crusty blood from his knuckles and fresh blood started to flow. I stood up to get a towel or a bandaid but Law grabbed my arm.

“Stay.” I looked at the hand on my arm and shrugged, sitting back down with Law. Finished with cleaning him, I sat unmoving, unsure of what to say. That is, until he spoke. “I beat the shit out of Mitch Morris.”

“What?” I exclaimed, turning to see his face. His expression was unreadable. “Is he alive?”

“Of course he’s alive.” Law waved my question off and stood up. He started pacing again but I wouldn’t have it.

“What happened?” I marched up to Law and stood in front of him, blocking his circular route. “You can’t just come in here covered in blood and not explain to me what happened.”

Law sighed, placing a bloodied hand over his face. “I had my monthly meeting with Morris and I just…” Removing his hand, Law pierced me with his eyes. “I snapped, Nami. I thought of all the pain he’s brought to you and to Becca…to others. I should have kept my cool. He obviously knows now that I know. Maybe he always did, but now he knows I’m not okay with it.”

“I don’t…” I struggled with what to say. “What does this mean?”

Law shrugged. “Well, GEM fired me.”

I rolled my eyes, like that mattered, and pushed for more answers. “Is Morris going to press charges?”

“I don’t think so.” Law leaned against the wall and exhaled a long, hard breath. “It was really fucking stupid of me to do. I was building a case against Morris. I don’t know what this means. My contacts at the bureau haven’t gotten back to me yet.”

I stared at Law leaning against my wall. I wasn’t as convinced as Law was that Morris wouldn’t press charges. He had the entire police force in his pocket. Morris didn’t need a bloody face; he could have put Law away without any evidence. Why was Law so sure he wouldn’t press charges?

“You threatened him, didn’t you?” I didn’t expect Law to tell me the truth. He’d been feeding me lies since the inception of our relationship. I’d asked the question not looking for an answer, but to let Law know I was already aware. I turned back to pick up the now bloody cloth and antiseptic, when Law replied.

“Yes.” I spun back, surprised by his honesty. “I was one good punch away from ending his miserable life when I stopped myself. I’m not that person, Nami. I don’t intimidate suspects. I follow the rules. But I really fucking wanted to finish him off.” The look in Law’s eyes, the grimace on his face, let me know he was telling the truth. Truth was uglier than lies, and the ugliness in Law had me convinced.