“Now, now, now, Grace. I said it was time to be quiet. Haven’t we caused enough trouble already?”
Just as quickly as it came, his hand lifted away—but then something rough and coarse was shoved deep into my mouth, almost gagging me. No sound could escape now. Tears rolled down my cheeks in fear of what would come.
“I’m sorry, Grace. Truly, I am. I can’t promise you will enjoy any of what is about to happen to you. In fact, I can promise quite the opposite. But just know that it wasn’t your fault. You merely, well . . . made it worse.”
Goose bumps covered my body as something cold and lifeless pressed into my center. And then a heat like I have never felt before, followed by immense wetness. It was as though I had pissed the bed. Then it came. The worst pain I had ever felt in my life. My muffled screams were drowned out by Calvin’s deep laughter. The steel moved up toward my navel, meeting resistance as it passed every sinew and fiber of muscle, bone, and tendon. I was being treated like a freshly caught fish, laid out on a newspaper.
“Remember what I said about fishing? The trick is to get the hook all the way through it from end to end, so it can’t get off. You’re the worm, Grace. You could have been the fish, but you wanted to get away from me so badly.” He laughed maniacally.
I felt the steel press farther inside of me, scraping and tearing my insides. A hand squeezed my throat, crushing it further like a vice grip. My last breath was mere moments away. My mind closed off as the steel and barb began to push up through my esophagus and then . . .
“uggghhh.” Panting breaths and cold sweat consumed me as I jarred awake, sitting up in the bed. I ran my hands all over my body, my throat, my wrists, my stomach—all unscathed. Oh my fucking God! What was that? I looked around the dark room. There was nothing—just blackness and silence. When I was convinced no one else was in the room, I laid back down and closed my eyes, repeating over and over to myself, “One more sleep.”
Day Ten
48.
Calvin
“Shit,” I muttered. The time on the clock read 9:07 a.m. I hadn’t slept in this late since I lived back in Colorado, when animals weren’t depending on me to be fed and watered. The evening before was all a blur. After Grace went to sleep, I went deep into a bottle of whiskey, trying to forget her as I knew she’d leave me in the morning. I realized it after she pushed me away and looked at me like I was someone to be avoided and feared. Running my hands over my face to wake myself up, I noticed how quiet the house was. My eyes went wide. Had Grace left? She couldn’t have. I hopped out of bed; my heels thudded as they hit the hardwood floor. Tossing on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, I came barreling out of my room. Grace’s bedroom door was open. I peeked my head in to find that all of her stuff was gone and the bed was made. It was like no one had ever stayed here.
“Shit,” I yelled.
Then I heard the trunk of a car close and all my worries melted away. Glancing outside the living room window, I watched Grace toss a bag in the back of her vehicle. She was ready to go. She looked back at the house and started walking toward it. I breathed a sigh of relief and ran to the kitchen.
I poured myself a cup of joe, waiting for her to come say her goodbyes. She’d clearly been up a while because the coffee was lukewarm. I guzzled the whole thing and refilled it again. The tepid acid coated the sides of my stomach as it made its way down, not much different than the whiskey that played the same role just several hours prior. The screen door creaked open and then closed, the wood slapping against the frame, a punctuation mark for the person entering the room. But unlike the free-swinging door, her footsteps were light and quiet, traveling through the living room as if she were gliding a few inches above the floor.
“Hey,” she said, standing at the opening of the kitchen, her arms crossed and guarded.
“Hay is for horses,” I joked and sipped the coffee.
Grace gave a tight smile and glanced around the house like she was taking it in one last time.
“You heading out?” I already knew the answer, but I wanted to hear her say it.
She nodded. “Yeah, I’ve got a long drive ahead of me.” Grace jingled the keys in her hand. “I really appreciate all you’ve done. Thanks for showing me the Wyoming way.”
“It was my pleasure.” I took another sip. “You got everything?”
She nodded again.
I finished the second cup of coffee and set the mug down on the counter. It being lukewarm made it taste funny. Not hot enough to punch with bright acidity and warm the body, but not cold enough to thicken into a sweeter, smooth experience—the worst of both worlds, something undesirable. My eyes returned to Grace. She was dressed in the same outfit she arrived in: a black knee-length skirt, heels, and a black top with that bunched-up fabric on the front of it. It was like she had come full circle. The big city once again making itself known out here in the untamed wild. I took her all in like a glass of lemonade on a hot summer day, from the heel of her stiletto up to her golden hair that fell perfectly below her shoulders.
When I stepped toward her, she stepped back, a scared animal ready to dash. “Let me walk you out,” I said.
“Yeah, sure.”
Grace walked backward a few steps before turning around. She glanced over her shoulder at me, not letting me out of her sight for too long. I slid on my pair of work boots at the door and followed her out onto the porch. She looked back again. Perhaps she discovered something that gave her pause, or maybe it was intuition.
The sun was a blaze of glory set halfway up that big blue Wyoming sky. The animals were agitated, making all sorts of noises—probably because they hadn’t been fed at the proper time. My boots clomped down the steps of the porch. Grace was already to her car, opening the driver’s side door. She paused and turned to me.
“I really enjoyed our time together,” she said, and for the first time, I saw the dimples her smile created. I wasn’t sure if they were there before. I assumed I would have noticed something as cute as Grace’s dimples, but maybe I wasn’t seeing things clearly—enamored by the entirety of her and not the details.
“I did too,” I said. My smile was as wide as a six-lane highway as I slowly strolled toward her. “Will I ever see you again?”
Her hand gripped the top of the door as she glanced at her driver’s seat and then back at me. Her fingers repositioned the keys. They jingled slightly.
“I don’t think so,” she finally said.
I was only six feet from her now. I slid a thumb into the loop of my jeans and rocked back on my feet. I liked that she thought she was leaving. It was cute.
“Goodbye, Calvin.” She got into her vehicle and closed the door.
Grace slid the key into the ignition and delivered a small smile before turning it. The engine went click, click, click. She struggled, turning the key again. Click, click, click. The engine wouldn’t turn over. Her face became panicked, and she tried a third time. Click, click, click. Music to my ears. Her arm flailed like a windmill as she cranked the window handle on her dated vehicle.
Grace gritted her teeth, clearly displeased. “I thought you said you fixed it?”
“I thought I did too,” I lied. “Go ahead and pop the hood.” I moseyed over to the front of the car and lifted the hood, toying around with some wires, pretending to examine and make adjustments to random parts.