Later that night, after I dozed off a bit, I returned to normal, sobered up. I looked at the time. It was around midnight. Peaking out the door, I saw the kitchen lights on. I tip toed out the bed room.
He was in the kitchen, with a glass in hand. He leaned against the table, standing up, with a hand on his face, looking relaxed. We stared at each other. My black eye was swelled up. He stared at it for the longest time, but turned away, as if it didn’t affect him at all. I tighten my lips.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” I mumbled.
“Are you ready to talk about this?”
“Talk about what? You hitting me?” I snapped.
“No, about your little fit,” he said walking over to the living room and sitting down. He went down with a hard thump.
“Excuse me?” I said, being caught off guard.
He was slurring his words a bit. “Okay, I am going to try to be calm about this-”
“About what?”
He breathed long and hard. He didn’t say anything, so I went on.
“You hit me,” I stated. He stared at the black eye, took another sip of his drink, and looked at the fireplace. He seemed to be a bit out of it. “You told me you brought me here to protect me, but you’re not.”
He didn’t look at me. “Sometimes, punishment is a form of protecting.”
“Did you hit me because I kissed her?” I asked, holding my breath.
“No, I don’t care about that.” He just glared at me, and said quietly, “She was an acid snowflake.”
“She was not!” His eye cut me, stabbed me in the heart. I had to fight back. I had to get to him somehow, because he was wining. “Your family,” I said. I found the knife. His eyes soften yet, he was looking at me sharply, wanting to say something, but not able to find the words. I had to stab it into him. “What were they like?”
He sat up, putting the drink down. “They were lovely. They were young. They shouldn’t have died.”
“In a fire, wasn’t that right? A fire killed them?” I asked him. He didn’t like it, but he answered.
“Yes.”
“How did that happen?” When he didn’t say anything, I stepped in front of him, so he would be forced to look at me. “William, how did it happen?”
“Accident,” he spoke with sad, drippy words. “I did it, by accident.”
“What were they like?” I asked. I wanted to push him as far as I could.
“Good kids, very good kids. Long time ago.”
“Was it always happy in your house?”
“No,” he said looking away. “My wife was sad. I was sad. Maybe that fire was okay after all.”
“That’s a horrible thing to say,” I informed him. He shrugged it off.
“My wife and I fought every day. My son was angry. He was a good kid. So was his sister. They were all good kids. I miss them; I don’t miss her.”
“What was she like?” I asked. I knew I needed to get down a road that he hated. I needed to turn the tables. He got up and put his glass in the sink. When he came back, he stood over me. He reached out and touched the black eye. I flinched. The look in his eyes said something different.
“She was brainwashed.”
“How?”
“She bought into a lot of things. Tavi, in today’s world, you have to be strong. Don’t let the world tell you what to believe in, you need . . . need you make that. . . choice. Tavi, how about we get to bed or something,” he proposed. “It’s getting late.”
“I’m not tired.”
He sighed. “You always have to argue and have the last word, don’t you?” he laughed and went on, “Just like me, I guess.” There was a pause. He was a piece of artwork that you couldn’t just glance at and walk away.
You had to study him till your eyes burned out. He changed every second, and you couldn’t keep up. He was a million screams, and yet, silences. He went to the kitchen and poured another drink of alcohol. I turned and watched him. I saw empathy bottles in the sink.
“Are you still drinking?”
“What’s it to you?” he asked, walking back to the living room. Watching him was truly interesting and yet bloodcurdling. Something about him just draws you toward him, and yet at the same time he gets under your skin and crawls his way to your heart and brain.
Something about him just making little circles with his hands, swirling around his glass, him not looking you in the eyes, wondering around with his shine. I couldn’t make out of this person in front of me. I wanted to push him again.
“Your house burned down due to you drinking, wouldn’t that make you stop? I mean, you lost your family.”
He shrugged and took another sip. “You would think it would stop me, but the drinking pushes it all away. Well, a couple drinks a night before bed anyways. . . . Every night.”
“You drink every night? Wine, right?”
He seemed to have giggled a manly giggle, and shook his head. His hair was all wild, like a big bush on top of his fat head. In the light, it made him even looked unkempt. How many drinks did my mother have to get with him? His glasses rested on the end of his nose, and he said, “No, kitten. With you, wine, with me . . .”
“You need to stop,” I tried to order. The crack in my voice did not help.
“Why?”
“Because, you’re drunk.”
“Can you tell the difference?”
I paused and thought about it. “No . . . but-”
“But nothing, I’m okay, okay? So stop your worrying, kitten,” he said sitting down on the couch. He looked at me, with sorrow in his eyes. The eyes that didn’t shine anymore, not since the coffee shop. It was all gone now. He was gone along with me. We were both dead, just ghost waiting for flowers from the living.
“You’re not used to having someone worrying about you, isn’t that it?”
His mouth was opened, and it stayed there. He was so alone here. He had no one. I would probably drink too if I was so alone. He shook his head, and said in a cold tone, “Well, not really . . . I guess not. . . . Let’s worry about each other then, what do you think, uh kiddo?” he smiled that human smile.
“You’re completely drunk, aren’t you?”
He rose up his glass and said with a mumble, “Amen.” He wasn’t a mean drunk. It was humorist in a petrifying way. I was okay with him, no matter what he was like, as long as he didn’t hit me.
“Do you need to go to bed?” I asked.
“Nay,” he said taking another sip.
I studied him for a moment. “William, please stop drinking.”
“Tavi Irises Smith, I am fine,” he told me, spacing each word apart. He sat down, and stared at me. “You look so much like Emily.”
“Who is she?”
“My wife,” he sat, taking a drink. “Ex-wife I guess? I’m not sure. It’s the hair, I guess. She was taller. Though, you do look like my mom in a weird way. She was beaten every night by my father, even when she got sick.”
“She was?”
“Yeah, it was pretty bad. They screamed at each other every night and one by one, we all ran away. My three brothers and me. We all simply ran away from the monster. I was the last one to run away. It wasn’t until my mother died. After that, I left. Never talked to my brothers ever again, they all went their ways. Last I heard, Daniel was in med school, and Karl opened a coffee shop. I think, I haven’t heard in years about them. I was keeping up with Derrick, but I haven’t talked to him in a few years. I worry about them, you know? But, I can tell you for a fact, they don’t remember me.”
He was turning human. I actually started feeling sorry for him. “I’m sorry.”
“For what.”
“Feels like the right thing to say, I guess.”
Tick, Tock.
I felt a shiver. I whispered his name. “William.”
“Yes?” he asked. I didn’t say anything, instead I shook my head. “What is it?”
“I don’t know,” I said looking down, giving up. He went on and pushed me.
“If I was a cat, you would love me,” he mumbled. I heard him, and I think he wanted me too. I felt a sharp pain in my belly when he told me that.
“William,” I said in a near whisper.
“I’ve came to an agreement for myself, I’ll let you believe what you want, because it’s getting tiring to make you believe in what I want.”
“I guess that seems fair.” We were getting somewhere. I went on and joked, “Liberal.”
He laughed, “You’re lucking I’m drunk, because I would shoot your fucking head off.”
I gave a nervous laugh. “Okay, I won’t call you a liberal again.”
“Good,” he sat up, “Shake on it?”
I held my hand out, and he took it. He pulled me in and wrapped his arms around me.
His breath smelled sour. I put my arms around him too, and he patted my back. He rubbed it and hugged closer. He let go after a few more moments. I stood up and looked at him. He was smiling. “We need to hug. It helps us, you know, brings our bond closer.”
I gave a goofy smile, and nodded. He stood up, stumbled a little, making him sit back on the couch again. He laughed loud.
“William,” I started. I held out my hand and he took it. I anchored my body to the ground, and I almost went down with him, but he got up. “Come on, you need to go to bed, no more drinking.”
He giggled and nodded. I took his hand and he acted like a giant three-year-old. I guided him to his room. I uncovered the covers for him, and he removed off his shoes, jacket, and shirt. It was the first time I saw him without it.
He wasn’t actually fat at all, he had very hairy muscles, and it was weird. His stomach had scratches all over it. There was dried blood also, fresh. His back looked the worse though. It had burn marks all over.
“Wh-what happened?”
He just giggled. “I got into fights . . . way before you were born though. I was stupid and young. You made me a better person.”
Yet, I knew nothing about this man, not even his last name.
“William, what’s your last name?”
“What?” he asked.
“William, what is your last name?” I repeated.
“Why? Do you not know?”
“No, you never told me,” I informed the drunk.
“It’s William Calvin Anderson, that’s my full name,” he said smiling. He was a stupid drunk. Which I liked a lot better than a mean drunk . . . or him sober. I smiled at him.
“Calvin?” I asked.
He laughed, “I know, silly right?”
I nodded with a halfway smile, “Very silly. When is your birthday?”
“December 20th I think,” he said drifting off. I thought about it for a minute. That was the date he took me away to the mountains.
“Are you sure?”
He giggled again. “No. But you were my birthday gift. AMEN!”
“Are you really tired?” I asked him. I couldn’t really get mad at him.
He nodded and made a noise. “Yeah.”
“William? Do you have other children? Alive and running around I mean.”
“No,” he said, staring at me. “You’re the only thing I got going for myself in this life.”
“Why didn’t you just meet me, and talk to me? Why did you want to kidnap me?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. This was better. Pro-protection.”
“I don’t understand.”
He shrugged once again. “Me either.”
“If you don’t understand, then why am I here?” He got into the bed, and I covered him with the blankets: the bear in his cave, the man in his bed, the monster in his nightmares.
“I don’t know,” he said looking at me. I sat on his bed. I was starting to get more answers. “You’re here because I love you. Tavi, I love you so much and it’s heartbreaking you don’t realize this.”
“It’s heartbreaking to be a bird,” I told him.
He reached out and touched my black eye that he caused. He sighed. “I guess so. I guess it is wrong. Very wrong what I did to you. Can you possibly forgive me?”
“No.”
He nodded. “I understand, little bird, I understand.”
“Do you?” I questioned him. “You have to truly understand. Please understand, please understand that you hurt me and scare me at the same time.”
He nodded, “Yeah. I’m trying. To me, I’m protecting you.”
“You’re hurting me.”
“I’m sorry. Ma-maybe I’ll let you go,” he said the words I’ve been dying to hear for so many weeks, so many days.
“Really?” I asked, eyes bright like a Christmas tree, until he started laughing at me, as if he had heard the funniest joke in the world. Anger clouded my mind again when he started his laughing. I rolled my eyes and begun to walk away, until he stopped me.
“Wait, Tavi, come back,” he begged. “I’m sorry for laughing. No, I really mean it. We could talk about it, maybe.”
I sat back down on his bed. “William, you have to be serious. I’m not a joking person.”
He laughed, “Yeah! I know.” I hated him acting like a stupid drunk, but I liked him better this way. He was a better man drunk than sober.
“I hope you realize it’s creepy that you had been stalking me way before you pulled me up here,” I informed him.
He nodded. “Yeah, you kind of became my life in a way, just watching you. It didn’t seem wrong to me. It seemed like the only way to get to know you. If I could, I would have rented that place out to be close to you forever. I loved watching you.”
A shiver went down my spine.
“I’m going to bed,” I told him.
“Wait,” he pleaded.
“Yes?” I asked.
“I love you Tavi. Please remember that. No matter what, even if you left me, I will still love you. There is no where you can go I wouldn’t go. But . . . I know you’re unhappy here. I think . . . I promise I’ll let . . . I’ll you go one day.”
“Promise?”
“Yeah,” he nodded.
“That’s,” I realized I couldn’t say anything else. I couldn’t even get myself to tell him I loved him. I didn’t even try to fake it.
He closed his eyes and slept. I stood over him for a little while. I watched him. He mumbled, “Are you just going to stand there all night? You’re not going to take off again, are you?”
“No,” I shook my head, smiling. “No, why would I? I’m happy right now.”
He seemed confused, “About what?”
“Our talk, I’m happy you’re going to let me go,” I smiled looking down on him.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he mumbled as rolling over. My heart broke and cracked once again.
“William?” He was snorting. “William?”
The meaningful conversion we had, he didn’t have a clue about it. He forgot it like an old homework assignment. I was stuck forever and ever in this cabin, no family, no chance of finding love, no friendship, no nothing.
Just a monster and his prey he would never kill, just play with until her heart falls out. I went to bed and starting crying. The doe was staring at me.
“You need to help me,” I whispered to her.
She didn’t say anything, and just faded. I must have been crazy, maybe just seeing things, just like a mental person. Wherever the doe went, I envied her.
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