OK, that’s all I needed. She’s not unreasonable. She’s scared of something. I highly doubt she has agoraphobia, but I do believe she has a good reason for wanting to stay in.
She doesn’t have a fear of leaving the house. She has a fear of getting caught. It’s just, I can’t figure out what she’s afraid of getting caught for. Was she raped? It seems possible with all the marks on her. They are beginning to fade now, which tells me they probably happened that morning we found her.
But she’s alluded to being a willing participant in some sexually deviant thing on several occasions. So who is looking for her?
“I can see your mind spinning, you know.”
“Is that right?” I ask. “What am I thinking?”
“You want answers. And I’m not going to offer them up. Not yet. If I leave this loft, I’m not coming back.”
“What?” I sit up for this part. “Explain.”
She shrugs and turns over, showing me her marred back in the bright morning sun. I lift up her hair and study the brand. “It’s a circle, so that means forever.”
“Yes,” she says in a low voice.
“But there’s no legally binding contract on forever, Blue.”
“I’m aware.”
“So what are you afraid of? That someone will see you and take you back?”
“Something like that.”
“Kill you?”
Silence.
I take a deep breath and lie back down, my arm pushing under her hip so I can circle her waist. “We can stay in. It’s no big deal. We’ll have dinners together.”
She turns her head a little, looking over her shoulder at me. “We can? All three of us?”
I shrug. “I don’t control JD, but yeah. I’ll eat your food.”
She turns all the way over this time and stares at me. “What’s this about? You’re Mr. Agreeable now?”
“I’m never Mr. Disagreeable.”
“Whatever,” she laughs. “You’re nosy and bossy. You want to call all the shots and you hate it when you can’t. I barely know you, and these things are so true, I figured them out on day one.”
“Day one? You were out of it on day one.”
“And still I had you pegged.”
I stare at her for a few seconds. She needs to eat more, that’s for sure. She’s not sick-looking, like the first day she got here. But she’s still too thin and she looks weak. Her complexion is far too pale and her hair isn’t shiny and bright. But her eyes are getting there. And this gives me hope. Enough hope to allow her some leeway in finding her way forward. “I just want what’s good for you, that’s all. Staying in or going out isn’t a fight I’m interested in fighting just yet.”
She reaches up and touches my face. “Why are you interested at all?”
I take her finger and pull it to my lips to give it a kiss. “I think you need help. And I want to be the one to give it to you.”
“You’re a good Samaritan?”
“Something like that.”
She chuckles at the way I mimic her answer a few seconds ago. “OK, then. I’ll make you guys food and you will eat with me and not pressure me to leave here.”
“Deal,” I tell her. “Now let’s go back to sleep. With any luck, JD will get lost on his way to the breakfast place and leave us alone for a little while.”
She turns back around, her back pressed against my chest. “I know you worry about it. But I don’t understand why. He seems fine to me.”
“Well, Blue, if you ever get a desire to leave the loft, maybe one day you can follow him. Then you’ll know what he’s up to. Then you’ll know why I worry.”
“Is it bad?” Her voice betrays her worry.
“It can be. But it’s not bad now. So just let me take care of it. And the birth control. I’ll set up a time for the doctor to come here and see you.”
“What doctor? You have a doctor in mind?”
“The one we send the girls to.”
“Your whore doctor?” She pushes off me, but I wrap my arms tighter and lean into her ear.
“Stop. I’ll find a good one, then. I wasn’t trying to insult you. It’s just something we need to take care of and it’s non-negotiable.” She huffs out a breath and relaxes. “But it would be a lot easier if you just agreed to leave the loft.”
“I don’t have my ID. I don’t have a health card. And I don’t want to give my real name.”
I don’t know why, but hearing her admit that Blue is not her name stops me cold. I mean, I gave her the name. I know it’s not real. But somehow it slipped my mind. “What is your real name?”
“Blue,” she says, huffing out some air so that it blows her hair up above her eyes. “I like being Blue, so that’s my real name. What’s your real name?”
“Ark,” I tell her back. “I’m just Ark.”
“Ark is a weird name. What’s JD’s name?”
“He never said,” I lie, thinking about the day I met him outside the bus station. “So it’s never been anything but JD since I’ve met him.”
“I don’t need birth control, Ark.”
I close my eyes, immediately understanding, but not wanting it to be true.
“I don’t need birth control because I can’t get pregnant. So don’t worry about it.”
With most girls, I’d call that bluff. But I know it’s not a bluff.
We lie there in silence for a little while. Thinking about babies that will never be conceived. And fake names. About finding people when you’re not looking. About escaping the past and pretending there’s no such thing as a future. We live in the present for a few moments and then the contemplative mood breaks when the front door opens and closes.
“I’m back, asshole. And I got breakfast,” JD yells from the living room. Neither Blue nor I move as he walks into the bedroom. But JD can read us immediately. “What’s the matter?”
I unwrap myself from Blue and sit up. “Nothing.”
“What’s your real name?” Blue asks him.
“Huh?” JD smiles at her in that way he does. God, sometimes I wish could be him. Sometimes I wish I could let all this baggage go, and be JD. Cool. Fun. Charming. Beautiful.