Thirty-Five
Winslet
There was a hollowness inside my chest. I went through the motions. Wishing I had an answer. A way to make it all fit in a way that I could accept or understand. My fear that he didn’t love me at all but that I was an obsession that had spurred unbalanced choices in him had become the thing that haunted me the most. There was no question if I loved him. This had revealed just how deeply I felt for Oz. Because the idea of living without him seemed unbearable. It was my brain that was telling me that big black flag meant a future heartache that I might not survive.
I stared down at my phone and read through the texts he had sent since I had made him leave Saturday night. Every day since, he had texted me in the morning, in the afternoon, and before I went to sleep. Nothing long. No begging forgiveness, no rationalizing his behavior.
Oz
I love you.
Oz
You’re all that I think about.
Oz
I’d give anything to hear your laugh.
Oz
It’s hard to face the day without you.
With each text, my heart twisted painfully in my chest. Yet I reread them. Several times a day. I’d fallen asleep last night with my phone in my hand and my eyes locked on the words. It was the only way I could get any sleep. My mental stability was in question because when I did get in bed, there was an overwhelming sadness akin to grief because I knew he wouldn’t come inside and watch me sleep. Who thought that way? What was wrong with me?
The needing to seek therapy thing wasn’t a joke. I had fantasized about this man after he abducted me and put me in a basement. There was no one else that appealed to me when I had alone time with my vibrator. Just Oz- his face, his smirk, the way his body moved and flexed so effortlessly. As if he had been created for the viewing pleasure of heterosexual women everywhere.
He’d seen me do it too. That damn camera. He had invaded my privacy. Read my texts. Followed me to places. Watched me unknowingly God knew how any times. And yet he had said I had no flaws. I knew I did, but why hadn’t he seen them? Even if he loved me, wouldn’t he see those? I loved him, and I saw his flaws. The giant, massive, disturbingly dark, and twisted ones.
My phone started ringing in my hand. I recognized the number. It was the prison. Perry. Worry for my brother replaced the constant internal battle about my feelings for Oz as I answered. There was a pause as the prison connected us.
“Hey, Winzy,” he said, his voice sounding years older than twenty-one.
The sorrow that came with that sank into my chest, along with the rest of the heaviness I carried.
“Hey. Is everything okay?”
He used to tease me that I was always checking on him. My first words were asking if he was okay.
“Yeah, uh, listen. Could you come see me soon, like this week, and come alone? Don’t bring Marley. I just want to talk to you. I need to.”
He sounded bad. Something was wrong. I knew when he was upset.
“Visiting hours aren’t until Friday, right?”
I wanted to go right now. I was going to worry until then. Had someone hurt him there? I felt sick, thinking about horror stories I’d heard about prison.
“Yes, normally, but the psychologist they have me seeing here can get me a visit if you can come sooner.”
“I’ll call and get a substitute for tomorrow. How early can I be there?”
“Eight.”
“I’ll see you at eight.”
“Thanks, Winzy.”
“Of course. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
He ended the call, but I knew his call hours were limited each month. I held my phone tightly as one horrible scenario after another played in my head. I hadn’t known he’d been seeing a psychologist. I was glad. I thought perhaps we both needed one.
Marley had begged us to see one when she took us in, but we both refused, and she didn’t force us. Instead, she tried to casually sneak in her brand of therapy, attempting to get us to open up and talk about things. She did it when we were together and singled us out when we were alone. That hadn’t worked. There were things you didn’t want to share after living in the home we had.
That was then. We weren’t kids anymore. I could see the damage it had done to both of us. Perry committing a crime so severe that he was in federal prison for eight years. Me needing a normal, excitement-free, scheduled life. One that held no surprises and where I worked with children rather than dealing with adults. I had placed myself in a bubble, and until Oz popped it, I’d thought I was happy. Satisfied. I had been neither.
Oz
You own me.
The text lit up my screen, and a longing pang came with the words. Yet I reread them. Touched the screen as if I could feel him. Did loving him make me broken?
The rain pelted down, making my drive to Yazoo City a solid hour. I’d left early, already having checked the weather. Just like with everything else in my life, I was a cautious driver. Marley often asked to drive because my staying the speed limit drove her nuts. I never let her because she scared me to death, changing lanes and speeding around other cars.
Although it wasn’t cold temperature-wise inside the facility, it still chilled me to the bone when I followed the officer. He was taking me in a different direction than usual, and I debated asking him about it. Was he new and didn’t know where to go? The way he had checked me out, however, kept me from speaking. It had been an ogling leer that gave me the creeps. I’d rather he not turn around and look at me again.
When he stopped at a door, I hesitated, thinking I might need to go back and find someone else. This was not where you went to talk to prisoners. If he was trying to get me alone, he wasn’t going to succeed. I’d scream this place down.
“This isn’t where I’m supposed to see my brother,” I said, standing as tall as I could, not wanting to appear weak or as an easy target.
He glanced back at me after he knocked on the door. “It is today,” he said as his eyes did another once over of my body.
Nope, did not like him at all.
Another officer appeared, one that I recognized. He nodded at me, then stood back for me to enter. I didn’t move.
“Where are we? This is not where I normally see Perry.”
“You do today,” he replied, sounding annoyed, as if I had no right to question him.
I moved closer and peered into the room, and my eyes found Perry sitting at a table. There was no glass separator between us, and I rushed past both men as my heart lifted for the first time in days.
“Perry!” I gushed, wanting to wrap my arms around him. Try and give some warmth to his frail body.
“Stop,” the officer behind me said in an authoritative command.
I paused, agitated. I’d not hugged my brother in two months, and he was delaying the moment. I glanced back at him.
“This side of the table. He has been granted this due to his psychologist’s recommendation; however, you are to stay on your side of the table and him on his.”
I wanted to plant my fist in his face. I glared at the man, then nodded once before turning back to Perry and walking slower over to my side of the stupid table. What did it matter? This was silly. How did a table separating us do anything? My thoughts were bitter as I took a seat and softened my expression as I focused on my brother.
I blew out a breath as the emotion at seeing him without the glass between us hit me. “Is this a new thing for good behavior?” I asked hopefully.
The sadness in his eyes made me want to cry as he shook his head. “No, I’m afraid this is a onetime thing.”
And Marley wasn’t here. She would have loved this. Why hadn’t he wanted her to come? She would have been over the moon. I didn’t ask that though.
He smiled at me, but there was such pain there. How was he going to survive this for six more years, if he got out early? He had gone through enough, growing up. I longed for the life I had thought he was going to have. The successful, brilliant brother who owned his own software company before he could drink legally. The one who had gone to an Ivy League when he was sixteen years old. He didn’t belong in a federal prison.
“I, um…” he said, as an anguished expression slashed across his face.
I tensed, my hands fisting and my nails biting into my palms.
“I won’t be staying here. They’re going to move me soon.”
What? They couldn’t do that, could they? The judge had sent him here.
“Why?” I asked, searching his face.
“I’ve been seeing a psychologist here, like I said on the phone. I, uh…I’ve opened up to him. Shared things. The stuff we don’t talk about, and that led me to sharing other things. Things you don’t know. Things…things that will upset you.”
He shook his head and let out a humorless laugh. “I knew this would be hard. Saying this to your face. You are the only person I’ve never wanted to let down. Not Marley. She’s been good to us. Me. But I’ve only had any real emotion for one person. You.” He paused. “The doc said it’s because you protected me as a child, so while the abuse was warping me and twisting how my brain developed, you became something that stood alone. The thing—person—that didn’t get cut out, and what little emotion I have was because of you.”
I smiled, needing to reassure him that he wasn’t warped or twisted. Why would the psychologist allow him to believe that about himself?
“You have emotion for more than just me,” I said, wishing I could grab his hands and squeeze them with reassurance.
He shook his head. “No, sis, I don’t.”
I started to argue, but he continued, “Our mom didn’t fall down those stairs. I’d pushed her. You were asleep, and I waited, stayed awake, and when I heard her open the door, I followed her. Seeing her lying there, her eyes void, staring at nothing…I found…joy. I hadn’t known what that was or what I was feeling because it was new. Exciting. I wanted to feel it again.”
Panic slowly creeped over me. Taking my ability to breathe, to speak, to even move.
“So, I waited. Watching. Wanting to find someone else who deserved to die. To feel that joy again. And I did. Another mom that didn’t deserve to be. She was at the apartment complex across from ours. I saw her slap her son. Twist his arm. I watched her. Memorized her schedule. And when she got home late from the diner she worked at, I was waiting at the top of the stairs. She noticed me. Asked me what I was doing up and where I belonged. I walked over to her as she scowled at me like I was some rodent. She didn’t expect it. Not from a kid who looked like me. But that flash of horror in her eyes as she fell backward sent a thrill through me.”
He was watching me. I said nothing. I was numb. I felt like I had stepped out of my body and stood off to the side, observing. My brother had killed two people. My mother? Well, I could almost understand it. But a woman he hadn’t known? Someone he’d deemed unworthy of life?
“My methods of taking lives changed as the years went by. I got more complex. That was the last time I used stairs. I did research and used different options for poisoning drinks and food. It wasn’t as quick and clean as I preferred, so I moved on to other ways. Torture wasn’t really what I sought. Just taking their life, seeing them in their last moment and knowing I’d cleared the world of their waste of space.”
“Please stop,” I choked out, not sure how much more I could listen to.
The doors opened, and three guards came in, going directly to Perry, and he stood up. My gaze swung from one to the other as they grabbed him roughly and painfully, jerking him up by his cuffed hands.
“Wait!” I shouted as I sprang up, wanting to help him, but knowing there wasn’t anything I could do. My eyes filled with tears that began to roll down my face, and a sob broke free as my chest heaved.
“This was my confession,” he said, his eyes holding the smallest trace of sorrow. There was a relief there that dominated them. “They were waiting for it. My psychologist let them know it was coming. I just wanted to be the one to explain it to you.”
The guard behind him drug his much smaller body toward the door, saying things I didn’t understand.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
I rushed after him, but another guard blocked me. I covered my mouth as the reality of all that he said and what it meant bombarded me. Another hard sob shook my body, and I bent at the waist, wrapping my arms around my middle, as if that could hold me together.
The officer reached out to touch my arm, and I moved back, shaking my head. I didn’t want him to touch me. I understood that his manhandling Perry was valid. He had just confessed to murdering numerous people. But I wasn’t thinking rationally. That man was still the enemy.
“Ma’am, you can’t stay in here,” he said sharply.
He moved toward me again, and I staggered back.
“Don’t touch me!” I shouted.
The door opened behind him, and another officer entered. My eyes darted from one to the other, and I felt frantic. I just wanted to be left alone.
Then, another figure filled the doorway, and his slate-gray eyes met mine. It was as if a lifeline had been thrown out to me while I was drowning in sorrow deeper than I could navigate. I let out an anguished cry and ran to him. Knowing that he wouldn’t let me go under. He would hold on to me.
Oz’s arms were there to catch me as I slammed against his chest.
“Has he had clearance?” the officer snapped.
“Yes. I know him. He’s come to get her.”
The strong hold and scent of him gave me comfort in the middle of the nightmare I was in. He bent his head, tucking it close to mine.
“I got you.”
Those three words only made me sob harder. He was here. Why he was here I didn’t know, but this time, I wasn’t questioning it. He had come out of the darkness, surrounding me like my own personal avenging angel.
The other men spoke, but I focused on the sound of his heartbeat beneath my ear, keeping my eyes closed tightly. Blocking out all that was going on around me. I would be okay if I could stay like this. I could breathe. I wasn’t alone. Oz was here. But then…he was always there.
I jerked at the sound of the door slamming shut.
Oz ran a hand over the back of my head. “It’s okay,” his deep voice said soothingly. As if comforting a child.
It wasn’t okay. I knew that it might never be okay again. But I also knew Oz wouldn’t let go of me. I wept, grabbing on to his shirt.
“You’re here.” The words were hoarse and didn’t sound like my voice.
His lips pressed against my temple, and he held them there. I heard him inhale. “Where else would I be? I go where you go.”
He’d followed me. That thought no longer seemed like a massive boulder that I was afraid to move past, but a gift I wanted to dig my nails into so I could hold on. If he hadn’t been here because of his need to know where I was and to watch over me, I would have fallen apart completely. My sorrow and agony too much to navigate alone.
I turned my face, burying it into his chest and breathing him in.
Mine. He was mine.