CHAPTER 36
Stalker
The rain patters hard against the window, almost rhythmically so it feels safe when I close my eyes to listen to it.
The wind has picked up now, a storm moving across the town and stirring up the dark, cold edges of nature.
From somewhere deep in the house, a window blows shut, leaving a jittery energy in the air.
“Can you close the damn windows?” I say before I realise there’s no one here.
My skin feels like it’s stretched too thin, but there’s no stopping it as it pulls taught over my bones.
I’m growing tired. Or maybe I’m growing impatient?
I don’t know if what I am doing is working.
Instead, I hope. I lean over the desk, pulling up the window, which groans in protest. This house isn’t that old, none of the houses on the estate are, but mine seems to be falling apart at an alarming rate.
Is there a Benjamin Button situation happening?
No, that’s not right, it’s Dorian Gray. Are my horrible actions eating away at my beautiful house?
I shake loose the thoughts and roll my shoulders. My eyes hurt from staring at the screen all day, watching you, thinking about you, moving in your shadows. It’s always you. The curtains shift with the cool air that tightens my skin further.
Today’s been a tough day.
I had therapy, Ella. There, I said it. Are you happy now?
I went to a woman’s office and I sat there and let her talk to me as she does with all her patients.
She looked at me with these big green eyes and I kept thinking, who has green eyes?
No, really. Who in real life has green eyes?
Then I imagined placing them in a little pot and leaving them on my mantelpiece to see what colour they’d turn when they were sun-kissed.
I hate therapy.
Father said it was good for me to talk about what had happened and get it all out there.
But there was never any space for sadness and anger.
After a while, you have to morph into something else because you can’t carry a black heart like a trinket.
I kept thinking about you in therapy. If you’d be proud of me if you were watching me.
Are you watching me? What’s that thing they say about the loop of cannibalisation? Is that us?
I stand up, pushing the desk away and finding it’s me that moves. The wheels of the chair groan against the wooden floors.
It wasn’t meant to be like this. You’re fighting back.
I get myself a drink from the kitchen and swallow it down, the liquid burning. I pour another.
“Woah, slow down,” a voice says behind me, and I stare for a moment, trying to work out if it’s real or not.
“Are you OK?” he says again.
“Yes,” I manage. But am I? What have you done to me? It’s only been a few weeks, or has it been months?
Change needs action, Ella. That’s what Father would say when I’d cry in the cold or beg to go home. But now I’m wondering if I’m doing the right thing.
“Am I doing the right thing?” I say, tasting the drink on my lips.
“Of course you are, son,” Father says. I know he’s not real.
“Well,” Benji steps into the light, “what we’re doing isn’t nice. But I think it’s right.”
“How can you be sure?” I ask but I don’t know who I am asking. My eyes hurt. Everything hurts.
“Why are you asking that?” Father says, and I turn away from him.
Benji leans over the sink, washing his hands. They come off red.
Finally, he speaks. “Because of everything you told me she did. Everything she is. She needs to be brought down a peg or two.”
I’m giving you that.
My therapist asked an interesting question today. She placed her left ankle over her right so that her knees fell apart and the navy material of her trousers drew upwards. I trained my eyes on hers, the way you’re supposed to.
“Does your anger ever make you want to hurt someone?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
She blinked at me, those big green not-real eyes. They think they know me. But she doesn’t know me. She coughed and shifted her knees together, as though she could tell where I wanted to look.
She looked at her notes before speaking again. “Have you thought about killing someone?”
She doesn’t think I’m serious. We speak about you in the way someone might speak about a crush on a teacher. My therapist holds you as a metaphor, but not me.
“Would you kill… Ella?” She waves a hand in the air as though she pulled your name out like a wild example, but I know she was thinking it from the moment we sat down.
That’s when my skin began to crawl, a persistent itch that turned into a burn. My shoulder blades slid towards the middle of my back to try and calm it. I couldn’t stand the question.
Would I kill you? Or when would I kill you?
I spent the remainder of the session in that stuffy office in silence.
But it made me think that maybe this plan was weak.
“You’re weak,” Father says. Or maybe it’s Benji who says that. I swallow down the rest of my drink.
“Will you make some food?” I ask Benji, and he nods because he’s here and he can. He also knows what’s to come. We’ve accelerated the momentum of our plan. Soon, we’ll get to the end. I’ve never felt more ready. I heard you speaking to your friends, telling them how you lied. We all know you lied.
I watch as the shadow of my father sits at the dining room table, folding his arms and looking at me. I know he’s not there. I know he is dead. I’m not losing my mind, but I let him stay. I sit down with him, letting Benji cook.
“Dad,” I say, and I hear it. It’s weak.
“What are you planning to do, son?”
I turn my face away.
“I have a plan,” I say.
“Is it a good one?” He’s testing me. I sink my fingers into my upper arms until they turn white.
I say nothing, because if I answer him, it shows arrogance. He hates arrogance.
“Good,” he says finally.
“Why are you here?” I ask. Despite knowing it’s a weak thing to ask, there’s hope in my voice that he came for me.
“I’ll always come for you, Robbie,” he says, and I close my eyes, letting the darkness take him back.
Even in my imagination, I could never be the one my father wanted.
My gaze lands on my arm, little wells of blood pool under my fingernails. I release my hand, looking at the half-moon scars they’ve left.
In the end, Ella, everybody dies.