I’m here, he’s not, but it doesn’t answer the much bigger question looming in my mind tonight.
What am I, precisely, now that he’s gone?
Chapter Five: Rebecca
Good thing Trevor’s a consummate night owl, because after thirty minutes of driving up and down Sunset, gazing at giant billboards of half-naked men in their Calvins, I realize I can’t go home yet. My brain is buzzing too loudly. It’s like some hyperactive Beat poet, tossing words at me ninety miles an hour. Gay. Lonely. Widower. Lover. Sexy. Romantic. Beautiful. Strong. Smart. Lost. Lonely. Gay.
Bi?
Warring to be heard over this Ferlinghetti-style energy are my own gnawing insecurities, whispered taunts about my face, my body, my scars. I haven’t had a date—not a real one—since my attack three years ago. I haven’t wanted one. In fact, I don’t think I’ve even had a genuine crush on a guy since Jake dumped me two weeks after I left the hospital. But this thing with Michael… I’m not sure how to handle what’s going on inside of me after tonight. I’m scared and edgy, and only one person can talk me out of my tree when I’m feeling this way.
Cutting the steering wheel right, I turn onto La Brea, digging inside my purse for my cell. The nighttime landscape of L.A. spreads downhill from me, a glittering panorama of city light and dying heat as I cradle the phone against my shoulder.
“Hello, Rebecca,” comes the cultured, silken British voice. Of course he knows it’s me; he’s as devoted as I am to caller I.D.
“You still up?” I turn onto his side street, heading uphill toward the Spanish-style apartment building where he lives. It’s an old, moss-encrusted dwelling filled with the kind of moody atmosphere my best friend adores. We both moved away from our once-shared apartment building in West Hollywood after my attack.
“For you, I’m awake at any hour, sweetie.”
“I’m right outside your building.” I nose my Honda neatly into an empty space along the curb, then double-check that my car doors are locked.
“I’ll be right there.” Of course he offers to walk me up, since he knows how being out this late unnerves me.
Holding my purse in my lap, I settle in and wait, and as always this late at night, the waiting seems to last a lifetime. I glance anxiously toward Trevor’s apartment doorway, then back at the street again. At that precise moment, seemingly choreographed to terrify me, a man materializes from nowhere, right beside my car window. I give a startled yelp, my heart hammering with fear as he brushes past my door, close enough for me to touch his shirt sleeve if the window were lowered more than a crack. Or for him to grab me, just as easily.
But he doesn’t look back, and instead continues up the street. It must be a lost dog he’s after, judging by the way he whistles and hurries down the palm-lined road.
These are the moments when terror comes shrieking unexpectedly out of my dark past. When I can still find myself held captive by Ben’s butterfly knife, shocked by how easily it slashes into my abdomen. My chest. My face. And I can still feel myself dying with every slice of that blade, one eternal second at a time.
I clutch the purse against my breast, shivering uncontrollably. And it’s not as though I’m out here in the middle of the night. It’s a little past eleven, but I still feel like a victim, buckled and locked into my coffin of a compact car. My lungs pull tight as a drum and I struggle to find air. Slow down, girl. Slow down. If I don’t, I’ll hyperventilate. Then I’ll need the rescue inhaler tucked inside my purse, and my fingers do search it out reflexively, even as I try to normalize my breathing. Stilling, quieting… better.
But then I begin to shake a little. It starts first in my bones, quickening like wildfire to my extremities. I dig my fingers hard into my thighs, feeling the khaki material of my pants bunch beneath my fingernails. Thankfully, Trevor appears below the awning of his apartment entryway, dressed in pajamas, the streetlight bathing him in bluish shadow. He doesn’t wait, but comes right to me, because he knows. Oh, he knows what I live with, all right. And what I remember. That’s why he’ll always come to me first.