34. Enslee
It’d been several days since I’d left Staten Island or had last seen Brogan or Declan.
I was now in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, where I’d spent the day talking with a prisoner at SCI-Greene.
I’d wanted my life back over the last few weeks, and this was what it’d been.
I should’ve been happier, yet I was not.
This was the type of work that I’d loved to do, and while my body was physically here, my heart was somewhere much different.
My heart was almost four hundred miles away in New York City.
And not just in the city, but in the arms of two very different men who’d made me feel wholly different things.
Yet, both had made me feel desired… cared for…
and so much less lonely. Before, I’d always shrugged it off, but it was harder to do this time around, going back to the life that I’d lived, the life that I’d loved, and one that I didn't even realize was hollow and meaningless until now.
Now, my blog and podcast and everything else were meaningless.
Lately, I missed Edna's warmth, mostly because her sweetness matched my grandmother’s.
She’d been someone taken from my life far too soon.
And Jenni. I’d never truly had any girlfriends, and I suspected that we might’ve changed that had I been around longer.
And while I’d also had boyfriends in the past, there hadn’t been any steady relationships.
Once I’d started Killer Thoughtz, it’d been really hard to maintain any sort of relationship when I never knew where I’d be from one day to the next.
I chased the big stories. I chased the untold stories.
And in doing so, I tried to give a voice to those who'd been silenced, whether just recently or forever, and in doing so, I realized that maybe I was just trying to make up for my own sins. To make up for my own silence.
Lately, I'd been thinking a lot about my grandfather and how he'd broken everything inside me. I thought the money, fame, and freedom to travel the country doing what I loved made me happy. It’d all been a front, as I was no different than these criminals I’d interviewed.
Everyone had a story, some more tragic than others, but a story nonetheless, and I’d had one as well.
I was sure Declan had one, and I knew that Brogan certainly had one.
“I shouldn’t give a damn,” I said, but it was easier said than done.
Once I’d find a place to park each night, I'd stare at the file that I’d compiled before I’d ever laid eyes on the man.
I’d saved dozens of articles and hundreds of social media posts of Brogan.
I’d also filed away any statements made for and against him.
I’d been sure at the time that he was possibly guilty, but now I didn't know. Was it my own foolish naivety because I’d let him touch and possess me in a way that very few ever had?
Did I now consider him some martyr or misunderstood hero because he’d given me a glimpse into his wounded soul?
He wasn't a fucking character in those books Jenni would bring me. This man had a fiancée who was now missing. He also had a secret lover. Beyond that, Brogan was rich, and like most wealthy people, his name held power. His family was influential, and they knew very formidable people. He had the means and opportunity, and keeping his relationship with Declan secret was the motive. If I needed any further confirmation of that, all I had to do was look at what they’d done to me.
No, they had no way of knowing I’d fall and hit my head.
I suppose waking up with amnesia had been a gift to them.
What if I had just fallen and gotten back up?
Would they have let me leave? I didn't know, but I remembered the fear in my blood as a possible killer chased me, and one who’d need to silence me.
After, I woke up in their house with my entire life nothing but a blur.
I wish I could lose all memories after that.
And it wasn't that I only had selective amnesia right now, because I remembered every fucking moment of my miserable, godforsaken life before them. And everything from my hollow, meaningless life after them, but mostly, I remembered everything from the days they’d made me feel alive.
When I'd been in their arms, either together or individually, they’d brought my body so much pleasure.
And knowing it was all a lie was a betrayal that still stung.
They’d also brought me such incredible pain, and not the kind that was easily erased with an orgasm.
Each night since I’d left New York City, I’d sit on the bed scrolling through the articles trying to compose a blog, which was what led me to Waynesburg.
I needed to do something other than focus on Brogan’s case.
The more distance I could put between us and the sooner I could get them out of my mind, the better off I’d be.
I’d thought about turning them in for kidnapping because it’d crossed my mind.
I'd been so incredibly fucking angry that night that if I’d been pushed further, I would’ve shot Brogan in the fucking head.
I would’ve put a bullet right between his eyes, and gorgeous ones that haunted each night because less than twenty-four hours before that, those same eyes had stared into mine as he’d pushed inside of me.
And it’d been more than sex. I’d felt a connection.
His shameful past didn’t mirror mine, but it did match the turmoil I’d always felt.
He’d told me more about the conversion therapy, and how his entire life was a lie.
I hadn’t known at the time that the one he’d claimed we’d shared had been a lie too.
Still, those mistruths wrapped around my soul like a vine.
I’m stupid… I’m foolish… I’m pathetic… I’m a dirty whore…
Someone else’s voice entered my thoughts, and that person cared no more about me than these men had. If I hadn’t woken up, I had no idea what would’ve happened to me, but there was no way they could’ve predicted amnesia. So what would they have done?
What were you going to do to me if I would’ve woken up with all my memories intact?
I guess I’d never know because I couldn't believe a word they could ever say to me again. I used to think actions spoke louder than them, but the way they’d reverently touched me didn’t match their actual intent.
Or did it? They needed me to be into the scenes so they could sell them better.
That had to be the only reason they’d made sure to bring me pleasure.
They’d not treated me like an accessory in their bed or an afterthought lying between them.
Instead, they’d completed me and made me feel whole.
Now, I was just left with two holes—one in my heart and the other in my soul.
The lies that bind us together had been exactly that—lies.
A series of mistruths and manipulations.
I’d always been told the truth would never hurt as much as a lie, but I now had an argument against that.
Letting out a sigh, I couldn't even focus on putting together the notes from the interview earlier today with the prisoner.
This one was doing hard time for murder.
And he'd only avoided the death penalty in a federal charge because he'd confessed to the crime.
The more I’d spoken to him, the more I kept wondering if he really was guilty, or had he just pled to it out of fear of the death penalty?
“For fuck’s sake. I’m so damn stupid,” I said aloud to myself.
This bleeding fucking heart of mine made me want to find the good in everyone.
I wanted to feel as if the mounting evidence was the reason their own words had somehow been coerced.
I wanted to pretend as if they weren't the monsters hiding under the bed, and that there was some redeemable quality inside them. I’d never been so na?ve about these things, but I was starting to realize it was because I’d wanted those things to be true when it came to Declan and Brogan.
Especially with the latter, I’d wanted those articles to be fabrications.
Sure, they still hadn’t found any actual evidence against him, which would explain why he was still a free man, but I wanted to believe it was because none existed.
How could the man who’d confessed his darkest trauma end another’s life?
How could the man who’d let me walk away do so knowing I could bring him down?
How could the man who’d claimed to care about me hurt me the way that he had?
And not just that man, but the other man we both loved. No… love.
Not love in the past tense, but in the present tense because I still felt it deep inside.
I didn't want to feel the way I did right now. I’d never experienced anything like it.
From the crushing ache in my chest to the emptiness in my head.
I wanted to find a time capsule or even a genie so I could go back in time and never meet them, but I couldn't. For once, I almost wish I’d never regained my memories after all.
The old and forgotten ones made the new ones hurt that much more. Every time I closed my eyes, I could hear myself tell Declan that I loved him. Of course he hadn’t said it back. Knowing now what I didn’t back then, it all made sense.
“What a fucking fool he probably thought I was,” I bemoaned.
The memories taunted me rather than haunting me.
To be haunted was to be tormented, but to be taunted was to be mocked.
At the moment, the latter hurt me more than the former ever could.
It’d especially caused a piercing pain in my chest as I remember lying there stupidly waiting on him to pull me into his arms to say it back.
But he hadn’t. Instead, he’d gotten out of bed and on his cell phone to Brogan, then disappeared.
The two of them probably shared a fucking laugh at my expense as they chuckled at my absolute stupidity.
And the worst thing was, I’d told Brogan the same thing but without the words.
When he'd rejected me, I’d returned to him.
I’d wanted to be the woman he deserved, the woman he needed.
Against my better judgment, I wanted to be a sanctuary for him, so I knelt before him.
As I’d stared up at him from the shower floor, I’d wanted him to see my love.
I suspected that he had, which would’ve explained why he’d proceeded to punish my body for daring to challenge him. It was only when he came that I could still recall the moment when something flashed in those dark eyes of his like a streak of lightning across a moonless sky.
Our tragic pasts became part of our identity for several beautifully sad seconds and one we’d shared together.
I hadn’t known what I’d desperately needed to shed at the moment, but I did now.
And he’d made me believe I could also be a phoenix and rise from the ashes of heartache, betrayal, and pain.
Brogan had it all, or so I’d thought. I now realized his life was in as many pieces as mine.
Only, he’d brought on his current circumstances all on his own.
That night, something had passed between us, and I knew he’d felt the same for the briefest of moments.
Maybe his had been due to the high of his orgasmic haze, but mine hadn’t been.
I had no idea what memories I’d been running from at the time, but I did now.
And those years of shame and disgust wouldn’t leave my head.
Even at the prison, all I could think about were two different men.
One who’d rightfully spent the last decade of his life behind bars, while the other deserved to have spent his there right alongside the other.
And those unresolved emotions toward my father and grandfather lingered still as they simmered inside of my head and heart.
But even they couldn’t make me stop thinking about Declan or Brogan.
I’d honestly believed myself to have loved them before the memory loss because of what they did to me.
Even knowing the truth now, I still loved them both.
It’d never been returned because I’d been nothing but a fucking game to them.
A pawn on their chessboard. I’d never been their queen, but a lowly fucking pawn.
I should write a blog post about how not to be so goddamned stupid, how not to trust those that couldn’t be trusted, and how not to trust yourself when you were the least trustworthy person of all.
Killer Thoughtz. I laughed because my thoughts were definitely that. They were going to be my downfall.
I closed Brogan's folder and pulled up Google to do some more research on the guy I’d interviewed earlier today.
I also needed to request additional interviews with others as I moved forward with my life.
As I looked at the browser, my last search was still populated, but there was a new alert, so I clicked on it.
My eyes scanned the first couple of lines multiple times, unable to believe what I was reading. The more it sank into my dense head, the space inside this van closed in on me, and I slapped my hand to my mouth.
“No, no, no, no, no, no, no,” I kept saying as I shook my head and hit play on the audio clip, unable to believe what I’d just read.
“According to NYPD Detective John Graves, a key and bloody knife were found in the loft owned by Layla Harte. Police are on the scene as the grisly evidence of the missing socialite’s fate is now all but certain…”