“Go on,” she encouraged, causing me to stare into her hazel eyes.
I took a deep breath, shrugging my leather jacket off my shoulders and laid it across my lap. It was a splurge I had indulged in before the fire, trying to keep with the latest fashion trends and all that. Dr. Spiegel never met ‘the Reina’ who used to love pretty things. She never got to see the girl who would wake an hour early just to curl her hair or went for weekly manicures. No, she never met ‘the Reina’ who had stock in Macy’s shoe department. Vince Camuto, Michael Kors, Sam Edelman, I had them all: high heels, low heels, boots, booties, even shooties. They all sat in my closet collecting dust in clear plastic bins.
Dr. Spiegel only knew the Reina after the fire, the one who moved to the Projects hoping to hide from the rest of the world. It seemed like a good plan at the time, ditching the sweet life of the suburbs where status mattered, where the neighbors talked shit about you if you walked out of the house without makeup. No one looks at me now. I’m just another struggling soul living amongst the rest of the world, fading into the crowd.
“I had a momentary glimpse of my life before the fire, of the person I was before I became…well…me, I guess,” I frowned because the truth was that girl was just a memory and the girl that hid from the world was who I was now.
“You aren’t two different people, Reina. We’ve discussed this before. There is you, before the traumatic experience, and you now, who is trying to evade that person because of what you’ve been through. They are one and it’s up to you to merge them,” she explained. “What’s happened that has provoked this epiphany?”
“Remember when I mentioned the man that comes into the diner night after night?” I asked, watching her glance down at her notes.
“Jack,” she declared. His name instantly bringing me back to the night before, feeling his body against mine, the soft touch of his hand when he cared for my burn. My hand subconsciously touched the sleeve of my silk blouse that covered the gauze bandage I had placed over it this morning.
“I had an accident last night at work. Johnny, the cook, had gone out for a cigarette and asked me to take the food off the grill and plate it for my customer. I don’t know how I did it, but somehow my arm snagged a burn from the grill. I lost it,” I confessed. “I felt the sting of the burn and all I kept seeing were flashbacks of being trapped in that house, the flames chasing me, lapping at my skin.” I paused, shuddering as I remembered. “I felt like I was there, like I was begging the firemen to help us, even knowing that Danny was already dead,” I continued, lifting my eyes to Dr. Spiegel. “I don’t know if I mentioned that before,” I said.
“You mentioned that you didn’t want to leave Danny. You told me you fought the firemen off at first, begging them to rescue the both of you,” she commented, reading from her notes.
“He was dead,” I whispered. “I came home from dinner with my girlfriends and found him dead in the living room.” I closed my eyes picturing Danny lying face down on the floor, surrounded by his own blood. “I went to check for a pulse, turned over his hand and screamed.” Even now remembering that night, my own screams still echo in my ears. “Whoever killed him had cut off his pinky finger.” I continued, as tears slipped down my cheeks. Quickly wiping them with the back of my hand, I tried to keep talking. “Danny was brutally murdered before the fire started. I didn’t realize at the time that the fire was already on the second floor because I was in shock.” I threaded my fingers through my hair and kept going. “I begged the firemen to take us both because he had suffered enough. He had been brutalized and tortured. He should’ve been spared being burned too.”
Dr. Spiegel leaned over handing me a box of tissues. I plucked a few from the box and wiped at my face.
“Thank you,” I cried, trying to pull myself together. “Anyway, Jack came into the kitchen when I was having my meltdown. I don’t know when he came into the kitchen or why but I remembered hearing his voice and it pulled me out of my thoughts, out of the memories. I don’t know what it is about that man. I mean it’s crazy I barely know him. I can count on one hand, and that’s being generous, the facts I know about Jack.”
“What are they?”
“His name. How he likes his coffee is another. His club is called the Satan’s Knights and the only reason I know that is because when I was on the back of his motorcycle I was staring at his patch on the back of his leather jacket.”
“He’s part of the Satan’s Knights motorcycle club?”
“Yes,” I answered, narrowing my eyes toward her. “You’ve heard of them?”
“It sounds familiar,” she said passively. “So, what you are saying is that you feel safe with Jack? Am I right?”
I pondered her question for a moment before nodding my head.
“Yes amongst other things.”