If Malcolm Taylor were still alive, I’d fucking kill him myself.
I pick up the stop tray filled with developing solution and I hurl it across the room, yelling, venting my rage. The small lamp on my bedside table topples over, crashing to the floor where the ceramic base smashes into pieces. The developer runs down my bedroom wall, soaking movie tickets and torn stubs from gallery shows alike.
“Fuck.” I can’t fucking cope with this. I can’t fucking do it. Coralie’s on the other side of the street, hurting as badly as I do. She lost as much as me. More. She had to experience it firsthand, had to feel her father’s fists impacting with her body over and over again. She had to live through the loss, feeling it happen inside her, feeling the life fade and dim to nothing. I can’t even comprehend how terrible that must have been for her. And then to feel responsible? To blame herself for all of these years?
Jesus, she wasn’t to blame. She was a fucking kid who should never have been in that position in the first place. Yes, my anger over her not telling me the truth has been misplaced. It’s been hard to see that until now. I feel completely fucking helpless. I wish there was something I could do to make this right, but there isn’t. Malcolm’s dead. He won in a way. He took his own life, so now I can’t relieve him of the task.
The next few minutes are surreal. I don’t purposefully open the door to my bedroom, ruining the few remaining pictures that are only half developed. I don’t purposefully find myself walking outside and into the garage, rifling through dusty old boxes and plastic containers of bolts and screws until I find a full canister of gasoline at the back of the packed space. I don’t purposefully then walk on over to Coralie’s old house and put my fist through the glass window on the front door, reaching through so I can open it and let myself inside.
My mind isn’t fixated on the highly illegal nature of what I’m about to do. I’m actually not even thinking about it. I’m only thinking about the task I must complete in the basement.
Inside the house, everything is weirdly clean and tidy. It seems as though it should be like my place, dusty and hollow, but in reality it feels as though Malcolm is still very much in residence here. Like any moment he might come barreling down the stairs, fists clenched, fury in his eyes, ready to beat the living shit out of me. I spent so little time in this house that it holds no memories for me as I walk down the wide hallway, peering through the open doorways and into the dark, silent rooms beyond.
My body is covered in goose bumps as I place the gas canister at my feet; I’ve come to a halt at the door to the basement. I shiver when I see the deadbolt on this side of the door. The chipped and splintered woodwork where someone has attempted to force it open from the other side. That was Coralie. That was the woman I love, trapped and scared, knowing what was happening inside her.
Malcolm probably stood exactly where I’m standing right now, watching the door bulge against its hinges, and he probably smiled. I can imagine him doing that. There was no compassion in the man. No soul. No heart. He wouldn’t have cared when he heard his daughter crying and pleading for his help. He would have waited for her to go silent, hours of unconsciousness, before he slide back the iron bolt and carried her out of that place.
My eyes prick with tears as I open up the door and descend.
It’s pitch black. Takes me a while to find a light switch, and during those moments of blindness, alone, oblivious of what might be waiting for me, it feels as if the darkness is a living thing, thick, like swimming through glue, and it’s trying to slip down my throat, snake its way up my nostrils, trying to drown me and choke out my voice.
Is this how she felt when she was alone down here? Was Coralie in darkness, feeling like she couldn’t fucking breathe?
Eventually my fingers trail along the wall beside me and find what they are looking for. I don’t hit the switch right away though. I take a second to pull in one last shallow breath, to try and understand what this must have been like for her. It would have been terrifying, no doubt about it.