Chapter Twelve #2
“I’ll go,” I said, looking only at Elyse.
“Really?” he said. “Awesome.”
I slid off the couch and did my own crawl to him.
“This is Gwen’s first time,” he told the group, as if this even registered on the spectrum of deranged things I had experienced in my life. He reached for the bottom of my shirt, ready to lift it for me, but I panicked and stopped him.
He grinned, thinking I was chickening out. The truth was, I had to be careful lifting my shirt, not wanting to expose that I had already been cut, much deeper than this tomfoolery. It would ruin the admiration these people were about to have for my pain tolerance.
I lifted my shirt myself, slowly. We made intense eye contact.
That was part of it, I guessed—the anticipation building.
I brought my shirt as high as my rib cage, holding it at the center like a tent, keeping my sides covered.
I sucked in my exposed stomach from a place of insecurity, but quickly released it, knowing the more fat the knife found the better.
I didn’t want him accidentally slicing a tendon.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
I nodded and he put the knife to my skin.
He hesitated again, waiting for me to change my mind.
Everyone was silent, still. He put his other hand on my stomach to guide the knife.
His thumb moved slightly, brushing my skin and trying to elicit a reaction.
Realizing his parlor tricks weren’t working, he finally pushed the knife down. “Five, four…”
It hurt. I won’t pretend it didn’t. I put my head down and looked over to Elyse—making obvious and piercing eye contact.
“Three, two, one!” Jake pulled the knife back and the sting amplified.
The crowd cheered. How amazing it was to win the affections of this group of societal rejects.
Maybe later they could prop me up on their shoulders and we could march to an animal shelter and kill some puppies.
It could be any or all of these wackos who was messing with me—probably the one who had just sliced my stomach with a knife.
I crawled back to my seat after I let Jake bandage me. Porter grabbed my face and kissed me three times on the cheek. I could tell Elyse was watching me, but this time I didn’t turn to her.
- - - - -
After the bonding exercise wrapped up, most of the group was experiencing the effects of the alcohol they had swallowed in defeat and I followed Elyse out onto the fire escape. She sat in her same spot, lighting a cigarette.
“How’s your stomach?” she asked, pulling back the lighter and inhaling.
My brain was telling me to confront her. I liked her. I could tell her I understood that she was batshit crazy, but maybe she could channel it elsewhere and we could be friends. I wouldn’t mind having a friend I could be honest with.
“Do you think it will scar?” I asked.
She shook her head as she blew out the smoke. “Jake tries not to cut too deep.”
“How considerate,” I remarked. “Do you do this sort of thing often?”
She offered me a drag of her cigarette, which I declined. “It’s something to do. They’re looking to escape. They like to get all fucked-up and think they’re badasses.”
“And you?”
“Everybody likes to do something they’re good at.”
“What’s that?” I asked, leaning against the railing.
“Mind over matter.” She brought the cigarette to her lips again. “You weren’t so bad yourself.”
“Why did you invite me here? I could have freaked out.”
“I knew you wouldn’t.” She blew the smoke over her shoulder, her eyes leaving me to watch its trail.
“You must think you know me pretty well.”
“Maybe.”
“And maybe I know you,” I said, waiting for her eyes to come back to mine.
“I doubt it.” She grinned and I reciprocated.
Maybe this could be fun after all.
We stared out onto the street. College kids were everywhere, guys lugging cheap thirty-racks, girls moving in groups—still sober enough to make safe choices.
Neither of us said anything, a surprisingly comfortable quiet given that we were, by most definitions, still strangers.
I went numb for a moment, but the peace didn’t last.
“Holy shit!” someone yelled from behind the curtain.
I clocked Elyse’s reaction. She didn’t seem interested, but a grumbling started inside the apartment that I couldn’t ignore.
“I’m going to…” I pointed inside like I needed permission to leave.
“Yeah, yeah.” She waved me off like I had disappointed her. She had a clear disdain for the things that brought excitement to the morbid people inside, her friends.
I would make it up to her later—prove I, too, was above it all because we were the real deal, not like these posers, but right now I wanted to know what all the fuss was about. I was only human.
- - - - -
I climbed through the window to find a bunch of the guys huddled around another of their kind who had gotten a laptop from somewhere.
More were reading and scrolling on their phones.
Jake was tearing up couch cushions looking for the remote.
I found Porter in the second layer of people around the laptop.
“What’s going on?” I said quietly so as to only draw his attention.
“They found one of the bodies. One of the arm guys.”
“Which one?” I asked, like it mattered.
“Oswald Shields.”
I sighed, actually relieved it wasn’t James. I hadn’t really known Oswald. “Where?”
“The river. By the science museum. Washed up on shore.” The Charles River.
I had gone with my father to dump many things in there, but never a body.
He was not into disposing of bodies. He wanted people to see what he had done, and if he didn’t, he made it look like an accident.
He told me missing person cases were trouble for people like us.
They let things linger, overlap, correlate.
The energy in the apartment was electric—a horde of dudes, euphoric from substances, horny for a dead body. It was like I was on the floor of some NSA facility the way they were all searching for information, shouting things out as they discovered them.
Did they suspect it had to do with my father like Dominic did?
These were Dominic’s friends and he was pretty adamant he was the only one who had figured out the connection to Oswald.
It must have just been the body, confirmation of a murderer in their city, that was getting them all hot and bothered.
It was gross fanaticism. I doubted any of these people had what it took to ever take matters into their own hands. They were the couch coaches of murder.
Or did that make them all the more likely? Obsession taking over like an addiction, the need to escalate to find the same high? In one breath I could convince myself there was no way it was one of these dudes. In the next I was sure it was.
I had to get out of there.