18. Would you ever believe that a fire is set each time I try to sleep?
18
Would you ever believe that a fire is set each time I try to sleep?
Moth
W hen I woke up the next morning, part of me was shocked to still be alive.
I opened my eyes, looking around the room, rapidly blinking and rubbing my eyes, but no matter how hard I looked, everything stayed exactly the way I’d left it.
I was alone. It was daylight.
I had closed myself into a cage with a rabid wolf and lived to tell the tale.
Not sure if I was lucky or if I had really won, I looked up, gazing into the closet.
He’d said there was a camera in there, but even now, squinting in the broad daylight, with sunlight streaming in and directly into it, I saw nothing.
Had he been lying? Probably not, but I also didn’t plan on going looking for it .
Why? What did it matter? He could get in any time he wanted anyway, so who cared what he could see and what he couldn’t?
I moved to swing my legs over the edge of the bed and stopped, groaning. I knew that feeling—that sticky, warm, disgustingly wet feeling.
“Son of a bitch,” I grumbled, reaching down to gather my clothes and step across the room, grabbing my duffel bag and dragging it along with me. I tiptoed down the hallway into the bathroom, snapping the door closed before Amelia could ask questions. Plopping down onto the toilet, there was no denying it. Surprise periods were always fun.
I stripped and threw my underwear into the sink, jumping into the shower.
I hated the way it made me feel so unclean. I hated the way it made me sticky and uncomfortable, and the throb had already begun in my lower belly, radiating outwards to every limb until my entire body ached and hurt.
Love it. So fun. Flipping on the tap, I aimed the sprayer away from me to give the cold water time to leave while I shuffled around in my bag for the razor. It had been a while since I shaved anyway, and I hated inserting tampons when I hadn’t shaved. It hurt, it tugged, and it was all around unpleasant.
I had just found my razor when a soft tap on the door alerted me, and I ducked back into the shower.
“Nessa?” Amelia’s soft voice floated through the air, already humid and steaming from the shower. “You okay?”
“Yes,” I called back. “Fine. Just grabbing a quick shower, then we can make breakfast. ”
“Alright,” she said, and there was relief in her voice. “I’m gonna watch some TV.”
“Fine by me.”
As the water cascaded down my body, I let out a long sigh, feeling the tension slowly ebb away with each drop of water across my shoulders. The bathroom was filled with steam, enveloping me like a comforting hug. I lathered up with shaving cream and carefully ran the razor over my skin, the familiar ritual bringing a sense of normalcy amidst the chaos. It calmed me, helping me forget—at least for now.
I quickly finished my shower, trying to shake off the discomfort that lingered both physically and emotionally. I dug my emergency box of tampons out of my duffel bag and got dressed in a pair of loose, baggy black sweatpants and an old Barbie t-shirt I’d had since college.
It was my comfortwear, and if any day called for it, it was today.
Tampon in place and phone safe in my pocket, I stepped out of the bathroom and down the stairs to find Amelia sprawled on the couch, her attention fixed on the TV screen. She glanced up at me as I passed by and offered a small smile before returning to her show.
I made my way to the kitchen, feeling the hunger gnawing at my insides. I pulled open the fridge and found a carton of eggs, a couple pounds of bacon, some peppers, and some butter.
I couldn’t cook. I somehow managed to fuck up boiling water, but I had to try. I had to feed myself. Eating at the diner every single day simply wasn’t practical, and it was expensive. I pulled a pan out of the cabinet and plopped it down on the stove, glaring at it like it was an unfortunately placed pile of dog excrement on the bottom of my shoe.
I hated cooking.
Cooking hated me.
It was a mutual hatred born from not having a parent around to teach me, and me deciding it just wasn’t an important skill to learn.
Just as I flipped open the carton of eggs, Amelia called from the living room.
“Holy shit, dude!” she said. “Someone set a fucking factory on fire!”
I stopped, turning away from the stove and making my way into the front room, my arms crossed over my aching uterus.
Goddamn hormones.
Sure enough, she was right. The arsonist seemed to be back at work. On the screen, the same reporter as before stood in front of the camera. Behind her, an old, abandoned factory smoldered and smoked, the flames licking at the sky in a blazing dance. The reporter was gesturing wildly, her voice barely audible over the crackling fire.
“…latest in a string of attacks that has spanned for nearly ten years. Still, no suspects have been found. The factory had once been a paper mill that shut down in the mid-’90s, purchased last month by a developer who—”
I stopped listening, yanking my phone out of my pocket and flipping it on. Did I dare to poke the bear with a stick?
I dared.
Opening the text, I found him and typed a quick message.
Kinda odd that these arsons happen every time you’re frustrated. Coincidence?
It took a few seconds, but I got a response.
I don’t believe in coincidences, Little Moth.
I guess we had that in common.
I hadn’t heard Amelia get up from the couch or creep across the room. I didn’t even know she was there until she snatched the phone from me and bolted.
“Hey!” I screamed, taking off after her. She shrieked like a banshee, cackling in glee as she stared at my phone screen. Somehow, she was able to read while also dodging every single one of my attacks like a border collie dodged cattle.
How the fuck did she do that?!
“Give me the phone, Amelia!”
“What’s this?! What is that ?!”
Finally, I caught up to her, half tackling her to the ground with an oomph and a screech, and we went tumbling down like a pair of dominos.
As we hit the ground, the air whooshed out of my lungs and my head smacked against the hardwood. Groaning and disoriented, I tried to focus on wrestling my phone back, but she was surprisingly strong for her size. Our limbs tangled together like a pair of drunken octopuses, each of us fighting for possession of the phone that lay just out of reach.
“Amelia, stop it!” I gasped, finally managing to pin her arms down with my knees. She wriggled beneath me, her giggles turning into squeals of protest as I reached for the phone .
But before I could grab it, she twisted her body and pushed me off balance. With a triumphant grin, she scrambled to her feet and darted towards the front door, my phone clutched tightly in her hand.
“No! Amelia, come back here!” I yelled, staggering upright and lunging after her.
“You were on the phone with him for an hour last night!?”
I sprinted after her with a newfound burst of energy, fueled by frustration and determination. Amelia was fast, but I was determined, and I had many generation’s worth of feminine rage and Aunt Flow backing me. She made it to the front door first, fumbling with the lock as I closed in on her. With one final burst of speed, I lunged forward and managed to grab her by the arm just as she swung the door open.
“Give me the phone!” I panted, my heart racing in my chest. She turned to face me, her eyes wide with a mixture of mischief and defiance.
“You were on the phone with him for an hour last night?” she repeated, her voice filled with accusation.
I felt a surge of anger rising within me, mixed with embarrassment at being caught.
“It’s none of your business,” I snapped, fighting to keep my voice steady.
Amelia raised an eyebrow, a smug smile playing on her lips.
“Oh really? What’d you talk about?”
“Nothing,” I hissed, finally prying the phone out of her grip.
“You LIKE him?”
“I didn’t say that! ”
“You didn’t not say that!”
“I don’t even know what he looks like!”
“That didn’t stop you in high school! Remember that guy on AOL messenger in the chat room and—”
“That doesn’t count!”
“A six-month internet relationship, Nessa!”
“I was sixteen!”
“So?!”
“He’s stalking me!”
“But that’s not stopping you from having an HOUR-LONG conversation in the middle of the night?!”
I stayed quiet, seething. She had a point, but that didn’t mean I had to go ahead and admit it.
“What’d you talk about, Vanessa?”
“That’s none of your—”
“Hmm?”
“W-we… I-I didn’t…” I sighed, my hands coming up to shove through my hair. “Ya know, h-he—”
“You had PHONE SEX!”
“WHAT?! No, I did not have phone sex!” I spluttered, my face turning violently red. Amelia burst into laughter, doubling over with glee at my mortification. “It was… just an interesting conversation.”
“Oooh, interesting conversation, huh?” she teased, waggling her eyebrows suggestively.
I glared at her and reached over my shoulder, grabbing one of my dad’s dusty throw pillows and launching it in her direction. She sidestepped it easily .
“Ha! Missed me!” she crowed, ducking behind the doorway with a mischievous grin. Despite my annoyance, I couldn’t help but feel a small smile tug at the corners of my lips. Amelia always had a way of turning any serious situation into a lighthearted moment.
As I watched her peek out at me, her eyes sparkling with mischief, I couldn’t stay mad at her for long.
“Fine, fine, you caught me,” I admitted grudgingly. “We did talk for a while last night, and it went a little south, but it was not phone sex.”
Amelia raised an eyebrow skeptically.
“Uh huh, sure it wasn’t,” she replied with a sly smile. “So, spill it! What did Mr. Mystery Man have to say for himself?”
“I mean, not a lot. He wouldn’t tell me his name.”
“No shit.” She rolled her eyes. “Like he’s gonna just come out and say it.” Her voice took on a mocking tone. “Here ya go, beautiful. Here’s all my deets, go ahead and take ‘em to the police station.”
I sighed, crossing my arms in front of my chest and glowering at her. My cheeks still burned. What could I say to defend myself? Not much.
“So, what did you talk about?”
“Well,” I said bashfully. How much did I tell her exactly? “I asked him if I knew him, and he said I did. I asked him why he didn’t just tell me who he was. He said people would talk, and he didn’t want that.”
“And theeeenn?” she said suggestively, a perverted smile folding her lips.
“Shut up, you’re gonna make me puke!” I spat at her and she cackled like a maniac .
I shook my head, trying to push away the mortifying memories of last night’s conversation. It was all too much for me to process at once, especially with Amelia teasing me relentlessly.
“I asked him what he was gonna do to me…” I admitted finally, and Amelia’s eyes grew even wider.
“And?”
“And then he told me to call him daddy and take off my panties and show him what I was doing with my hands because he could see me through the camera in my closet.”
I spat out the words as fast as I could, hoping maybe she couldn’t decipher them. Unfortunately, she did. Amelia’s eyes widened in horror as my words sank in, her playful expression replaced by one of shock and concern.
“He said what ?!”
“Yeah,” I muttered, biting back a grin. This should not be funny to me, yet I could feel the laughter crawling up my throat. “And so I said ‘make me’ and he said… some things … and I said no, and he said ‘Don’t tempt me, little girl’ and I said CLICK!”
I mimicked the sound of a phone call ending. Of course, I left out the fact that I hid under my blanket like a terrified toddler afterward. That part wasn’t important, right?
“You’re taunting him!”
“I am not!”
“You are!” Amelia shrieked, her voice so high pitched I’m surprised it didn’t break the windows. “You’re having fun! Like some kind of twisted game!”
“I am not!”
“So, what’d you do with the camera? ”
I clammed up. Shit.
“You left it there?! You’re INTO this!”
“M’not,” I whined, standing up off the couch and retreating into the kitchen. Of course, Amelia followed me.
“Don’t walk away from me, Vanessa!” Amelia’s voice echoed in the small kitchen as I ripped an egg out of the carton and attempted to crack it—anything to distract me from this conversation. But Amelia was relentless, her curiosity piqued by the strange and unsettling situation that had become my life. I managed to get a lot of egg on my hand, and some in the pan, but most of it ended up on the stove. I grabbed another one.
“What are you going to do about it?” she demanded, crossing her arms and leaning against the counter. I could feel her eyes boring into my back, searching for any sign of weakness or hesitation.
I finally turned to look at her, a mix of frustration and fear bubbling up inside me.
“I don’t know, okay? I don’t know what to do. This whole thing is freaking me out!”
Amelia’s expression softened slightly at the raw honesty in my voice.
I cracked another egg. This one ended up in the pan, but so did a huge chunk of the shell. I grumbled and grabbed a spatula, trying to fish it out.
With a sigh, Amelia pried the spatula out of my hand and gently eased me away from the stove.
“I’ll do this. You go sit down.”
“I don’t want to sit down!”
“I said sit ! ”
So I did. I marched over to the table and lowered myself into one of Dad’s rickety chairs, my legs crossed and my foot bouncing in annoyance. Amelia took over the cooking, and within a few minutes, good smells were drifting through the small space.
“So, tell me the truth,” she said, stirring the eggs with the same spatula she’d snatched from me. “You’re kinda like… into this, right? Like, that’s why you’re like, going along with it?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” I shrugged. “But I also wouldn’t say that’s wrong. It’s more curiosity than anything.”
Amelia raised an eyebrow, still stirring the eggs.
“You know what they say about curiosity. Watch out for your kitty cat.”
She flashed me a wink and made a noise like a horny cat.
Beautiful. Just the visual I needed.
I sighed, leaning back in the chair.
“Yes. I know.”
The rest of the day was a lot more calming. We had breakfast and then retreated upstairs to go through some of my mom’s old clothes. Fighting cramps, I sat on the floor and looked through dusty boxes. Some of these would fit me.
“Is that weird?” I asked, looking across the room at Amelia, trying on one of my mom’s old sun hats. “If I wore my mom’s old clothes?”
Amelia twirled in front of the mirror, adjusting the hat on her head before turning to face me with a grin.
“Not at all! It’s like you’re carrying on her legacy or something. Plus, vintage is totally in right now,” she reassured me .
I smiled back at her, feeling a sense of comfort for the first time in a long time. It was nice to think that wearing my mother’s clothes could keep her memory alive.
As we continued sorting through the boxes, I stumbled upon a familiar-looking dress that brought back a flood of memories. It was the one my mother used to wear all the time, the one that always smelled faintly of her perfume. Without thinking, I brought it up to my nose and pulled in a deep sniff.
The smell was still there—lilacs, jasmine, and baby powder. It hadn’t changed.
Immediately, I choked up, dropping it into my lap.
Amelia noticed the change in my demeanor and walked over to me. She plopped down beside me and placed a hand on my shoulder.
“You okay?”
I nodded, blinking back tears.
“I just miss her, ya know?”
Amelia sat down next to me, her presence a comforting weight on my shoulder. I let out a shuddering breath, trying to compose myself.
“I know,” she said softly, her voice filled with empathy. “I’m sorry, love.”
We sat in silence for a moment. The only sound filling the room was the ticking of the old grandfather clock on the wall. I wiped away a stray tear, feeling my emotions settle in my chest like a heavy stone .
“I just wish I knew what she would say now,” I said with a shrug, letting my hands stray over the dress. “About the house, and dad, and…”
I trailed off, letting the words hang in the air. She knew exactly what I meant.
“She would want you to be happy,” Amelia said.
I nodded, clutching the dress in my hands as if it were a lifeline. Memories of her flooded my mind, her laughter echoing in the recesses of my heart.
“I just wish she was here,” I whispered, my voice barely above a breath. “Sometimes I just wish I could go into her room and lay my head in her lap and tell her about everything and get her advice. Advice about life, about cooking.” I swallowed hard. “About boys? I never got that, ya know.”
Amelia wrapped her arms around my shoulder and pulled me into a deep hug.
“I wish she was here, too,” she said, nuzzling closer to me. “She sounds like an awesome mom.”
“She was,” I said, pulling in a shaking breath. My chest was burning, my throat tight with tears. “She was the best mom. I wanna be just like her when I have my own kids.”
I let myself dissolve into Amelia’s embrace, the weight of my grief finally breaking through the carefully constructed walls I had built around my heart. As I clung to her, the dam holding back my tears finally burst, and they flowed freely down my cheeks, unchecked and raw. Each drop carried with it a piece of the pain that had been festering inside me, a long overdue release. Amelia held me through it all, offering silent comfort. Her steady presence grounded me in the turbulent sea of emotions threatening to drag me under, a lifeline in the storm.
Eventually, as the tears subsided, I pulled back from Amelia’s embrace, wiping away the remnants of tears from my cheeks.
“Why don’t you try it on?” she suggested, her voice gentle. “I bet it would look amazing on you.”
“I can’t,” I grumbled, my hands coming up to slap at the tears that had settled across my cheeks. “I’m on my period. I don’t wanna ruin it.”
“Oh dude, come on. Shark week is the perfect time to get a little dolled up, makes you feel better. Besides, peroxide can fix any oopsies.”
I hesitated for a moment, but something in me urged me to take this small step toward healing, toward honoring her memory in a way that felt intimate and personal. I looked down at the dress in my hands, my fingers tracing the delicate lace that lined the scooped neckline. The deep red fabric was still soft, adorned with black roses and lilies. The back of it laced up in a corset style that was form-fitting and flattering. Could I ever pull it off like she had?
Without a word, I stood up and made my way to the bedroom where I could change. Amelia followed silently behind me, giving me space but remaining close enough to offer support if I needed it.
As I slipped off my clothes and carefully put on the dress, memories flooded back to me. My mother twirling around in it, picking dandelions and telling me to make a wish.
What had I wished for ?
I couldn’t remember now. All I could remember was her smile and the way the wind drifted through her red curls.
I smoothed down the fabric over my hips and took in a deep breath before turning to face Amelia. She sighed, her eyes shining.
“You look beautiful,” she said softly. Tears welled up again as I looked at myself in the mirror. It fit me perfectly.