Almost.
I straighten my skirt, smoothing it down with the palms of my hands. “Thanks for the ride, Cowboy. I’m pretty sure we just saved a few horses.” And then I flip the lock, tugging the door open. The guy on the other side practically falls into me.
“Wait,” Cowboy calls. He’s probably wondering if his jollies are going to be getting off any time soon. Maybe he wants my name, my number, whatever. It doesn’t matter. He isn’t getting any of that from me. I keep walking. The combination of his saliva and my arousal is sliding down my thigh, slowly making its way along my heated skin.
I relish in the feeling.
I can’t wait to get home and shower it away.
I’m always split. Two opposing sides within one body.
This is who I am. I deal with it the best I can.
I make it to my car as the cowboy saunters out the door of the piece-of-shit bar. He stands there, watching me as he adjusts himself. I notice my pink panties hanging from his pocket. He’s pissed, I can tell, but he doesn’t make a move in my direction. He just watches me with that predatory gaze.
Looks like it’s time to find a new bar.
Three
Link
The world has no idea what it’s lost. People just go on, living each day, none the wiser that someone so beautiful was taken from the world. Murdered at only nineteen.
On certain days, it’s difficult to get out of bed. I’d rather bury my head under the pillows and sleep the pain away. Maybe pain isn’t what I’m feeling. I think I’m more numb than anything. Which is good. I prefer it. But there is the distinct sensation that something vital is missing. I never contemplate it too long because I’m afraid I’ll realize it’s her. Olivia.
It was hard enough when she died. I can’t lose the memories, too.
It’s been taking a little longer to recall her features. I forgot about the little scar above her eyebrow. I didn’t realize I forgot about it until I noticed it in a picture the other day.
Since then, I’ve been trying to summon the images of all her distinctive markings—the set of freckles on each shoulder, the birthmark on her left ass cheek, the tiny mole on her neck. I know there’s more, but it’s fading. If I can’t see it in a picture, I’m losing it.
I try to focus on my day. I have too much going on to stay in this bed.
There’s a new guy starting at the gym. Ex-marine or some shit. Knows how to handle himself. I think he’ll be a good addition, but I don’t feel like answering the questions all the new guys ask.
Why is my gym named after a chick?
Who is Livie?
Where is Livie?
They always ask. And I can never answer.
Damn it. Maybe I should call Augie, let him fill the new guy in.
I rub my face, trying to scrub away the sleep. Fuck it. He can handle it. I palm the nightstand in search of my phone. Peering out of one eye, I wince against the harsh white light from the screen as I shoot him a quick text before placing my weekly order with the flower shop. It’s the same thing I do every Monday. One dozen roses—red and white today—and specific instructions: vase placed in front of Olivia’s headstone, a picture taken to ensure delivery. I won’t go to the cemetery. I never have. I never will. But I keep every picture they send. I can’t find it in me to delete them.
Maybe if I hadn’t missed her funeral, maybe then I could force myself to visit her grave. Maybe if I had been conscious. Maybe if I hadn’t been in my third?, fourth? surgery at the time of her service—maybe then I could have visited her and told her how much I missed her. But it didn’t happen that way, and now it’s been too long. I just can’t. I can’t look at a stone and say all the things I want to say.
Like how I miss her every single day. How I’m weak, so weak, without her. How four years have passed me by and I’ve felt nothing but loss, and pain, and anger each of those days.
After I end the call with the florist, I notice the missed call icon and slide the screen down. My adrenaline kicks in, pulsing through my veins and making my hands shake.
The missed calls are from Byers—the detective handling my case. That fucker never calls me. Not once in four years. He’s never needed to. I call him weekly, checking in and making damn sure the investigation is kept active. The fact that he called so many times can only mean one thing.
I squeeze the phone, pressing it to my forehead. Four years. I waited four years for this moment. And now that it’s here… I sit up and plant my feet on the cool, hardwood floor.
I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel right now. Not happy—definitely not happy. Not excited, or content, or nervous…
I place the call.
“I’ve been trying to get a hold of you all night,” Byers says. No greeting, no formalities. Just straight to the point. Exactly how I like it. “I’ve got a guy here, came in on an assault charge last night. Linken, he looks a lot like the police sketch of suspect number two. I need you to get down here and ID him.”
“What’s his name?” I ask. Surprisingly, my voice is calm, quiet, deceptive.
“You know I can’t tell you that right now. Just get down here.”
I flex my back, feeling the scars pull tight on my skin.
Eighteen. That’s how many times I was stabbed with a flaying knife. I remember eight.
Five. That’s how many surgeries it took to repair all the damage. The damage caused to my body. Not my mind. Not my heart. There’s no repairing those.
Ten. The number of months I spent in the hospital.
Four. Months in rehab.
Fourteen hundred and sixty. That’s the number of days I shouldn’t have been living. If this is living. I feel dead inside.
Three. This is my number. It’s the exact sum of reasons I continue to go on. One: To strengthen my body. Make it strong. Make it a machine. Make it so that what happened before can never, ever, happen again.
Two: To help others find their own strength so that what happened to me, what happened to Liv, doesn’t happen to them.
And three: My favorite—to find the bastards that took my life away and make them pay for what they did.
This is what my life is now. A dead man, inside a scarred body, living only for revenge.
“I’ll be right there,” I utter.
“Good.” The call ends, missing the same decorum as when it started.
Four
Rocky
I was supposed to be a boy. When I was still baking in my mom’s tummy, the ultrasound tech told her I had a penis. My dad was thrilled. My mom not as much. Although she swears up and down all that mattered was my health, it’s obvious she wanted a girl by all the pink dresses I grew up wearing. I can’t blame her. She already had my brother and he was Dad’s little boxing buddy. On a good day, they’re hard to handle.
Mom never got a second opinion on my gender because I shocked the shit out her by making my appearance two months early. And then I surprised them again when I didn’t have a penis. What can I say? I’m an unconventional girl.
Dad had already picked out my name—Rocky Marciano Cutrone—and he wasn’t willing to change it just because I had a vagina. Dad had three names predetermined because my parents had planned to have three children. But after my early arrival, the doc broke the news that Mom couldn’t have any more kids. Dad considered giving me his third and final name, Sugar Ray, but Mom, thankfully, encouraged him to stick with Rocky. I’m not fond of the name, but it’s better than the alternative. He bought a dog a few years later—just to name her Sugar.
My brother is named after Joe Louis, Dad’s number one favorite boxer of all time. He adores the name. He also adores boxing. I never bonded with Dad that way. Even though I can’t say I was very girlie growing up—I was more tomboy than princess—I was still a girl and had a very feminine mother. While Dad and Joe cussed out the TV during boxing matches, Mom and I had girl’s night out, shopping, getting our hair and nails done, and secretly gorging ourselves full of chocolate ice cream. It was a ritual from the time I could walk all the way up to high school.
And then Garrett Marshall happened.
On a Tuesday. In broad daylight. Just a door away from a gymnasium full of screaming teenagers. In my school, where I was supposed to be safe.
Ever since that day, I haven’t felt like doing girlie rituals to pretty myself up. I haven’t felt like doing much of anything, really. If it isn’t drinking or sleeping, I’m not into it.
That was three years ago.
It feels like yesterday.
What’s really fucked up is that I did everything right. I told someone immediately. I found a teacher—Mrs. Haring who taught Art and was responsible for my favorite time of the school day. She took me to the nurse’s office and called my mom first, then the police.
The police took Garrett into custody while I went to the hospital and cried through five hours of torture as they completed a rape kit.
My mom found a counselor that specialized in cases like mine.
I spent days upon days crying with my family, talking to my counselor, and working with the police. I thought I could get past it. I thought I could move on. I thought I could get better.
And then came the news from the prosecutors’ office. Not enough evidence to convict. It was Garrett’s word against mine and I didn’t have stellar standing when it came to sex and boys. Because I had multiple relationships in high school. It didn’t matter that all of the boys I slept with were boys I dated at the time. It didn’t matter that Garrett and I never dated.
The only thing that mattered was his insistence that it was consensual, and I was an apparent slut.
A rapist is walking around, free to hurt another young girl—rob her of her sanity, of her security, of her life—all because the prosecutor thought it would be too difficult to get a conviction.
I’m angry.
It took two years of therapy to figure that out.
I’m scared.
It took one night of sleeplessness to accept that.
I’ll never be the same.
I’m still coming to terms with that one.
The hardest part, I think, is the look in my dad’s eyes when he sees me. It’s this mix of guilt, sadness, and shame. I can’t stand it. So I stay away as much as possible.
I stay drunk as much as possible, too. It makes it all just a little bit easier to deal with.
Some nights, when sleep is impossible, I fantasize about finding Garrett Marshall. I imagine what it would be like to take the knife I keep hidden under my pillow and shove it through his heart.
Would I feel better? Would I magically transform into a newer, better version of myself? Would I be able to drive by a high school without my chest tightening? Would I be able to put the knife back in the drawer?
Somehow I doubt it.
But I can guarantee I would finally be able to close my eyes at night and sleep.
Five
Link
I look at the men on the other side of the glass. There are six, but I focus all my attention on one. It’s him. One of the bastards that ruined my life. One of the four that took Livie away from me. I know it’s him. Every cell in my body is certain it’s him. I would never—could never—forget his face. The only differences I pick up on are the faint creases around his eyes. Those weren’t there four years ago. Living as a murderer must have taken its toll, forming premature wrinkles.
My eyes narrow as I scrutinize his face. I memorize his clothing.
He doesn’t appear as monstrous as the memory I’ve stored in my head. If anything, he looks weaker. Meeker. Milder. Pathetic.
It pisses me off that I can remember him, but I’m beginning to lose Liv.
“None of those are him,” I say, swiftly pivoting on my heel and heading for the door.
“Linken,” Byers calls after me.
I don’t pause. I don’t hesitate. I just keep walking. “It’s not him,” I repeat.