Title: Twisted Pretzel
Author:
2he_re (Heather and Reena)
Fandom: Jonas Brothers
Pairing(s): Joe/OMC
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, the real people in it are used without their permission and we do not own them or have any copyright to any part of any of them. We do not believe any of this happened, is likely to happen, or will happen. It is simply a story created around known facts about those involved.
Summary: Mrs. Johnson dislikes the Jonas Brothers. She hates Joe. Why? Doesn’t really matter does it? What matters is that she was playing a game to get rid of him. Death. Horrible death.
“Tristan Darthe” was her pawn. Arrested a year after the incident and tried. His mental state was proven to be unstable, and instead of a jail sentence he was sentenced to an asylum for the rest of his poor, pathetic, lonesome life, where I'm not even allowed to go suicidal.
Call me unstable, call me insane, but oh deary me, I’d loved that game. I mean, money is good and all, but you know, killing is better.
But damn, I’d lost.
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 pt. 1 Chapter 21 pt. 2 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 ~*~
Let’s say for a moment you believe in something. You believe in this something so much that you’ll do anything to make this something work, or this something happen. You believe in this something so much that you can’t let it go. Believing in this something is like having an obsession. Your belief becomes your obsession. Try to ignore the belief. You can’t. You see it everywhere. Try to get away from the obsession. You can’t. It leaks into your mind; it whispers in your ear. All the time, everywhere. When you sleep, when you breathe, as you run, as you hunt, as you try to pull away.
I paged through his papers. He hadn’t come in yet. Too early. The sun had only begun to rise.
I noticed my name here and there. I found Joe’s name. I saw the scribbles of notes about him. I read how he reacted to one thing; how he refused to answer something else. But I wanted more. I needed more.
I glanced out the huge window. I wondered if it really was bulletproof. I abandoned the papers, knocking lightly on the glass. It had a nice ring to it. I bet I could break it. Anything I put my mind to, I could break.
I’d broken Joe. I’d twisted his values and his mind, until all he did was run. Run. Run. Run. Not getting anywhere, stuck. I bet he thought about the bodies that had piled up because of him. I bet he couldn’t sleep because of them, because of me.
I closed my eyes against the spinning room. Around and around. I opened them slowly. I sunk into the beanbag chair, like old times, two month old times. My head hit the glass with a dull sound. My hair had started to get oily. My skin flaked with dryness. My legs barely listened to what I told them to do. They shook even when I sat. They hurt even when I put no pressure on them.
My head pounded: lack of water, lack of food, lack of sleep. Things swam in front of my eyes. Nothing stayed still. Outside of the window all I saw was a big blur of green. Inside the couches blended into the wall. I couldn’t see the outline of the door. I needed sleep. But I couldn’t sleep. Not now. Maybe later.
But what if I just relaxed for a little bit, would my mind still race? Would I see the outlines? Would the room stay still for me?
Would I even get sleep?
What would I see if I closed my eyes? Bodies. Whose bodies? People I killed; people I needed to kill? Dad’s lips. Dad’s laugh. Dad’s touch. Mom’s hands. Mom’s voice. Mom’s eyes.
Joe’s face.
I closed my eyes.
His eyes twinkled at me, his pretty brown eyes. His hands were cupped together before him. I took a step towards him with a smile. Him and me. Me and him. He opened his mouth to speak, and his lips bled. I took a step back. His mouth spilled blood. He coughed and gurgled through the liquid. His hands frantically parted. Blood flew from them. Blood crashed to the ground and covered his clothes; his hands clawed at his neck.
I stumbled back; my feet caught under me. His eyes leaked red. Down his cheeks spilled more blood, more and more and more. I crashed to my knees into the lake of blood. A hand reached up for me, searching, searching, searching. I tried to move away, but my legs wouldn’t move. My legs couldn’t move. It grabbed my foot and I screamed. They pushed in syringes up and down my thighs. I thrashed at them, turning my head from the human blood fountain. I screamed, pulling out the needles. But I couldn’t tear them out fast enough.
Over and over and over.
I stopped. I couldn’t win. Not with Dad. I dropped my head. My hair fell past my eyes in pieces, sinking into the blood. I couldn’t twist away from the hands. They tugged at my hair, cutting it from my head with scissors that scarped my neck. I watched as up and down my arms ran the needles with the red liquid. One by one they pushed down. In, in, in, in. Inside me the red flowed.
The hand wrenched my head up and back. I looked at Joe, still spilling blood. His skin so pale. His cheeks sunken. His waist too small. Dad pulled the knife from his chest. Dad slammed the knife into his leg. He didn’t wince. He didn’t cry: he didn’t plead. He just looked at me, still alive. He looked at me with eyes that had lost their twinkle. Dad sliced down his arm. I watched more blood spill out, flowing up to my neck.
Dad’s hands on Joe’s neck. Joe’s neck twisted. I opened my mouth in a scream, in and in and in rushed the blood. I coughed, trying to get it out. More entered. More and more. I still felt the sting of the needles, pushing in blood that wasn’t mine, moving like sludge through me. I still saw his eyes without the twinkle. The dead look. The look that didn’t care. Never cared. I heard the snap of his neck under the blood.
My eyes flashed open. The door pushed forward. I watched him, unmoving. He closed the door behind him. He took two steps into the room.
“Hi.”
“You’re here,” he said simply. He didn’t stop moving. He walked over to his desk, sliding into his wheelie chair.
I focused my eyes on only Dr. Quinter, with his hair that had faded to one color. Two months without me and his hair had gone all grey. I remembered him with light speckles of the color. “Are you surprised that I’m here?”
“What do you think, Tristan?” I watched him look over his papers. He hadn’t looked at me yet. He scooped up the papers I had messed with, pushing them back into the filing cabinet that I had taken them from. The cabinet was the only new thing in the room. The plant that had lived on his desk had now died. “How did you get all the way from her house to here?”
I shrugged. “Don’t you already know about that?” I waited for the answer, but he didn’t give one. I answered for him. “Of course you do. I run so much on foot, that's just how I get around. -- I can take off my shoes, and you can see the blisters. Joe tells you everything now. He’s not seeing Janice because I didn’t like Janice. He didn’t want to hurt her. Has he told you all that?”
“Confidentiality between clients, Tristan, is, as you know, one of my strong points here.”
I snorted. “How much did you tell the police about me?”
“Not enough, considering you haven’t been caught yet,” he said drily. I watched him pull out his pad of paper and pen.
“You never told them anything,” I said. He looked mildly up at me. I let him study me.
“You cut your hair,” he said.
I forced my hand not to reach up to touch it. Grown out more, but still shorter than when Dr. Quinter had seen me. “You didn’t tell the cops anything. Joe did. Joe told them nothing helpful, nothing true.”
Dr. Quinter shrugged. I watched him scribble something down on his paper. “You and Joe have an interesting relationship.”
“We don’t have a relationship.” I turned my head to the window. I didn’t like him looking at me anymore. I only had traces of makeup from two days ago.
“Yes you do. The two of you know each other and interact with each other. That means you must have some sort of relationship. Never said it had to be good, never said it was bad. Just interesting. Confusing to the both of you.” He let the words rest between us. I watched the tree line.
I could see Dr. Quinter’s reflection in the mirror. “Don’t you want to know why I’m here?” I asked.
“You’re here for Joe.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.” He looked down at his watch.
“No you’re not. You were positive that I wouldn’t hurt Joe. You don’t know anymore what I will and won’t do. You try to understand from what Joe says about me, but it doesn’t help. What does he say about me?”
“Why do you say we talk about you? There are other people and things in Joe’s life.” Dr. Quinter looked at my reflection in the glass.
“What does Frankie say about me?”
“That you’re a runner.”
I gave a smirk, turning around to look at the therapist. “So you can say what Frankie says, but not what Joe says?”
“Frankie gave me permission to share whatever he says to you.”
I laughed. “Think about this as a little alternate universe. Nothing will leave this room. This universe is only here when I’m here. Anything can happen in here and I and you won’t be judged, because it’s our world. You can share anything with me. I won’t tell. Promise, cross my heart. Who would I tell it to? The hobo I spent the night next to?”
“Frankie seems to have a good grasp on who you are.” Dr. Quinter looked expectantly at me.
“He’s a kid. Kids always catch on to things easier than adults, teens, older people. We get dumber as we get older, not smarter. It happened to me too. Look at this shit I’m in. I’m supposed to pluck the heart from Joe’s body, but do you see me doing that? I’m a fucking idiot. When I was younger, it took me literally one look to have someone all figured out. I just needed a few facts and then my imagination came up with the correct rest.
“I think that’s why Dad did what he did. When he did it I’d go away to my little place where I’d dream up all types of things. My little alternate universes. I created good worlds and bad worlds. I would make myself whoever I wanted to be. That’s one of the ways I can know things. Because I know all the options. I know all the options. I know where they’ll lead. There is nothing you can do that I won’t, can’t dream up. In a blink of the eye, I know how I’d react, you’d react. Judge the type of person you are by the way you look at me. Just staring at me. I learned to lie in my mind and make everything seem so real, there wasn’t even a real world outside of my realm.
“I could lie that the pain wasn’t there, that I really had everything I could want. I had all the time to think when he raped me. It hurt at first, until I learned how to live in my own worlds. Live only in lies that changed every time. Three, four times a day the worlds and lies in my mind changed. He made me play these games too. I couldn’t think during those, impossible to hide in my mind. I could only do.
“What do you know about the games that psychopaths play with their children?”
Dr. Quinter stared at me. His little eyes bore into my head. He tried to read me; he tried to know the right thing to say. In the beginning he’d known. Thinking in the present, people are more predictable than they are in the past. In the present you can’t mess up facts or images. In the past, who knows how someone remembers something. Does emotion overtake a fact or do facts push aside all emotions?
“They hurt,” I hissed to him, stretching my legs out. “They hurt so bad you don’t want to get up. To bend over is like having a knife shoved up there.” I settled back into the seat. He looked uncomfortable. I liked that. I loved doing that to people. “But the games teach you things that you’ll never forget. When you’re a kid you learn quicker, better. I was a fucking amazing kid. I learned like nothing else. I was dragged along and always there like fucking ragdoll. I didn’t fight back because I knew how Dad got. I knew what would tick them off, make them hurt me.”
“Joe didn’t describe things quite like that.” Dr. Quinter tried to remain blank. But it didn’t work. His eyes said all. Eyes always say all.
I laughed. “Talking about my childhood? The relationship between my parents and I? Did he mention that I killed my mom? She was my hundredth kill.” I hissed. “I saved that number just for her. All for her I hunted her down the way she raised me to, and she didn’t even know what hit her, until the pain started for her. I hope it was so much more than what she put me through. I still can’t see straight all the time because of all the things she did to me, but you don’t know that. You can’t tell, because I grew up my whole life with the problem. And if I didn’t hide it, it would make it easier for authorities to find me - a distinguished stamp on my person -- for my victim to change the positions, and I to die. She might’ve stood by as Dad hurt me, but she pushed me through more pain, other pain. Sometimes worse. Imagine a pain worse than a dick shoved into you, over and over and over again, starting at two years old, ending only when my Dad left me at fourteen. He dropped me in a fucking gutter and told me to crawl out. I couldn’t find a way out of the sewer for seventeen days. Guess what seventeen days in a sewer does to some, Dr. Quinter. Guess.”
My eyes raked over Dr. Quinter. He sat wordlessly. His pen didn’t scratch over the paper. I could barely see him breathe.
“Joe doesn’t know shit about me. Do you know that I was the one who made Mom leave at seven? I knew my parents so well; I could predict everything about them. They had taught me how, but they didn’t realize it. They were too old; thought they were too good to notice what they did. At four I started the events to split them up. At four. It took three years to split them. That’s how specific, horrific, detailed my plan was. Four years to think up, three years to execute.”
He finally got his voice back. “How?” The word cracked in the middle, and he swallowed, his throat so dry.
I gave a chuckle. That question seemed so stupid to me. Even if I did remember, why would I tell him? “Who knows? I was too afraid they’d see it in my eyes as it was executed, so I never really consciously thought about it. Or afterwards, because I thought Dad would tell I had forced Mom out just by my body language. I could tell things about him with just his posture, what meant he couldn’t do the same with me?” I shook my head. “But this shouldn’t be about me. This should be about Joe. I came here for Joe.”
“Why did you come here about Joe?”
I pushed myself out of the beanbag chair. My legs had lost their shake. I walked over to the couch, running my hand over the fabric. “He’s running. Why do you let him run?”
“You run. Is someone telling you to run?”
“There are people who’ll put me in some shitty place if I stop running. You can’t turn me in. You wouldn’t. You’re too scared for your wife,” I looked over at him with a slow smile, “your child.”
“Are you threatening me now?”
“No, no.” I looked back at the couch. “You misunderstand. I just want to know things. Tell me what I want to know. I don’t care if you lie. I’ll know if you lie. I’ll know that whatever you say then will be the opposite of the truth.”
“Are you going to keep running?”
I licked my lips. “Depends on whether or not I catch Joe.”
“Catch Joe?”
I settled down onto the couch. I studied his face. He seemed to generally not know. His eyes darted down to his watch. I narrowed my eyes. “He runs fast, but I can outrun him. He can’t run forever, I can. I can for days, months, years. He barely lasts two hours.”
“How do you figure that?”
“I watched him.” I saw Dr. Quinter’s breath catch. I saw his frantic, unchecked movement of head to door. “For a while. Eight days. He runs without thought or reason, just with a rhythm. No thought. He doesn’t know when he has to slow down so he won’t fall, so his breath can catch him. He outruns the air, isn’t that kind of funny? Do you know why he’s running?”
Dr. Quinter didn’t answer for a while. I let his eyes dart between the door and his watch. Door and watch. Door and watch. “No.”
“Yes, yes you do.”
“Why do you think Joe is running?”
I flopped my head down onto the cushion, listening to the quiet scratch of pen on paper before speaking, “Me. He’s running from me, to me. Something. I’m in his mind now, all the time. Does he know all the deaths are his? Tell him that.”
“Excuse me?” He stopped writing.
“Is that what he told you about his running? What did he tell you?”
“I’m not sure I under-“
“Of course you do,” I snapped across to him. “You understand all the words spilling out of my mouth; you’re just trying to calculate. Don’t calculate. Just listen. Just tell me. I know where you live. Way back when you came in your car the night I had the knife over Joe, I saw your license plate. Isn’t that scary to you that I know where you live? If you don’t understand that, understand this: I’m threatening your family.”
“You said you wouldn’t hurt them,” Dr. Quinter said dismissively, trying to keep from showing fear in front of me. Fear urges the attack dog on. Dogs can smell the fear. They don’t need to hear it. Dad called me a bitch.
“I lie. I lie all the time but I didn’t lie then. I said I wouldn’t hurt you. I told you to tell your wife not to worry. But I’d worry about hurting them. How do you want them to die?”
“Tristan.”
I stretched out, cracking my back. “Tell me, what does Joe say about me?”
I saw his eyes go to the window, his watch, the door. “He says he’s confused. He doesn’t know what to think.”
“Have you talked to him today? Did he call you at some ungodly hour in the morning once he found out I killed a pretty girl so close to him?”
“No.”
“Lies. Lies,” I seethed. “Tell me the truth. What did Joe tell you?” Window. Watch. Door. Windows. Watch. Door. Me. “Bitch,” I breathed out. “Bitch, bitch, fucking - Where the fuck is he?” Window. Watch. Door. Dr. Quinter’s eyes widened. He shook his head. Scared, confused. I roared, springing out of the chair. “Where the fuck is Joe? He has an appointment next! What the fuck did you say to him? Did you tell him I’d come?”
“No.”
“No. No. No. No.” The truth. Fuck. I grabbed my head. I raked my fingers through my hair. He was telling the truth. Fuck. “What no?! What do you mean by no?”
“I didn’t tell Joe to not come.”
I screamed. I lashed out at Dr. Quinter. My hand stopped only centimeters from his face. I took a breath. Dad didn’t like rage. Rage never did any good. Door. Watch. Window. I pulled my hand back. I cradled it to my chest. “He told you something. He said he wouldn’t come.” I waited for an answer from Dr. Quinter. He stayed silent. Rage bubbled in me. Fuck Dad. Fuck him! “Answer me!”
“You won’t hurt me.”
I scowled at his composure, too calm. “Maybe not. Maybe so. I lie. Maybe I won’t leave a scar on your skin,” I walked over to his desk, picking up the picture of his wife. I ran my finger over her beautiful face, “Your girl, she’s so pretty. Your daughter looks more like you than her. Would you like her dead in the bed next to you or with your dead wife?”
“Don’t touch them.”
“What are you going to do about it? Huh?!” I slammed the picture into the window. It shattered. I stepped through the glass. “Tell me!”I followed his eye movement to the window to his watch to the door. My face paled. Two plus two equals four. “Joe knew,” I whispered. “Joe told you.”
“He told me you watched him. He told me you didn’t touch him. You watched him fall.”
“He knew. He knew it all, didn’t he?”
“He said someone tried to kill you that’s why you ran. He talked to authorities. He pointed them in a different direction. He still -“
“No,” I hissed. “No. Don’t you fucking say anything.”
“He couldn’t believe you did that, to the girl. He knew her. Samantha. He…”
“He called you. He called you and told me I’d come. He said that - fuck.” Window for where he’d see a signal. Watch to check them time. Door for when they’d come through. “He’s not coming. He’s starting the tour today. He’s sent the cops here instead of coming himself, figuring to get as far away from me. The running was a lure. He set me up… Fuck, he set me up. No, no, no. I… ”
Dr. Quinter’s pen slowly crossed the paper. Drawing a line? Writing a slow note? I didn’t know. I couldn’t tell. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t feel my fingers. I stood too numb. I barely felt like I was still attached to my body.
“I forgot,” I said. He looked up at me. “That I had to kill him.” Like a trance, I raised up my hand. It felt so strange, so different. Not me. I twisted it around and around, looking at it. Did it look like these hands could kill someone? Did it look like these hands had once been painted in blood, even despite the washing? I’d scrubbed my hands so hard. They were still raw from the gas station soap. “I forgot I had to kill him a few times. A nightmare reminded me. She held out her hand for the heart. I didn’t have the heart. When he said about the song being about me… I forgot then. I knew I had to remember something… I can’t believe I forgot then. What if I never had a nightmare? Do you think we’d still be together, Sid?”
“Was it night you tried to kill Joe that the nightmare happened?” he asked, but the question didn’t register.
I shook my head. “I can’t believe him. I just…”
“I don’t think you’d still be together. Too different. Too opposite. Too many secrets.”
I picked up my bag from the corner: the one with the makeup and the lies hidden in it.
I left the office. I took the back way out. I didn’t want to be seen. I didn’t want to be caught. No cage, no trial, no jail. No beating. I heard Dad’s flesh against my skin. I felt the sting. I heard the screams in my head, my own screams.
I started to run. Fast. Faster. I saw Joe ahead of me. His legs strong and fast. I ran, trying to catch up to him. Someone shouted nearby. I heard a gun go off. I tried to run to Joe. But no matter how fast, how far, he stayed right ahead of me. I screamed at him. He turned back at me, and all I saw were his eyes. His dull eyes. I reached out for him, snapping my hand back at branches when they whipped into me.
I stumbled to a stop when he disappeared among the cars, busses, and taxis. I heard a dog bark. I closed my eyes. They were coming after me. If I stumbled, stopped, they’d catch me.
“Move, bitch.” I winced at my dad’s voice. “Moving you fucking worthless -“
I ran, hearing the gunning of the engine behind me. I stole a glance back. He flew at me, behind the wheel. His eyes mocked me. I pushed my legs longer and longer. I didn’t like sliding underneath a car. I didn’t like it when he touched me. He wouldn’t touch me. No. It would all end soon.
Where to first? Where would I go?
I took a sharp right, my feet twisting onto their sides as I ran. I felt a pull at my stomach with each step. I found a bus. I got on it right before the doors closed. I pulled out the fair from my pocket. I dropped it in as the doors shut and the barking disappeared.
I saw faces in all the seats. They sneered at me. I looked away. I slid into the only free seat. I looked up at the person I sat with. I snapped my head away. Dad. My heart beat. Dad. Faster and faster. I tried to even my breath. I couldn’t. It went too fast. My head started pounding.
His hands ran up and down my sides. I closed my eyes, and braced myself against the seat. The hands ran lower and lower. My breath hitched. Nails blunt, skin dry and cakey. I wiggled back, trying to get away. One gripped my thigh, the other one spreading me open. I snapped my legs shut. I put my hands on my thighs. The tears started to come with the probing fingers.
“Hey, are you ok-“ I threw his hand off my shoulder. I slammed him into the window. My arm pressed up against his neck.
“Don’t touch me.” My voice cracked. I didn’t know if I could talk to Dad; if I could talk back to him like this.
“Okay, okay, I won’t. Just, let me go. I’m not going to touch you.” Whatcha going to do now? What are you without me? You’re nothing. Shit. You’re just shit. Hanging in my hand.
“Stop saying that,” I yelled. I braced myself against the seat at the sudden stop.
“What am I saying that you -“ You don’t command me you little fucked up -
I grabbed his head, and I snapped it. I heard the crack. People screamed. Someone yanked me back. I grinned. Why fight, when I could watch? The neck rolled forward, eyes wide open. I looked in the eyes, and I saw everything I could ever want to see. Pain, Confusion. Betrayal. Surprise. Dad was dead. Dead Dad. I saw without really seeing. Phones flashed out, I heard hysterics.
I needed to get out, but I couldn’t for a while, I could only stare. The person holding me shoved me down onto the seat, and I fell like a ragdoll. A ragdoll Dad always played around with. Now that he was gone, could I move? No one to play around with me. To tug my arm.
Move. I jumped at his voice. Joe’s voice. The person holding me tightened their grip. Run, damnit. No. I shook my head. “No,” I whispered. I wouldn’t. Why should I?
Because.
“Because isn’t good enough. Because isn’t good enough…” Because is never good enough. Only good enough for Dad, or them: them with the money in their hands. Then because is enough. I heard her say because.
I stumbled away. I pulled my capturer along with me. He struggled to hold me. I ducked out of his grasp. I hurried towards the back. I forced open the emergency exit, and I hopped out. I slammed my knees into the ground. I scrambled to my feet.
I ran through the streets. I ran out of the town. I kept running and running. Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop.
Dad ran.
Joe ran.
He ran from me. He ran to me. He laughed at my running. But I laugh at him. He’s the one who really did it all.
Dad played with my mind.
Joe played with my mind.
He made me see things I didn’t want to see. He made me do things I didn’t want to do. He pushed me into something. It’s his fault. He did it.
I’m a doll, and they both play with me.
I bought a dress, barely affordable. I moved into the back alley. I waited for the sound of the engine, the one that would tell me to run again. But I didn’t hear it as I stripped off my shirt. I pulled the dress over my head, and it swished at my feet, covering the crummy sneakers. I rinsed my head in a bathroom sink, drying it with paper towels. I let it fall down over my neck.
I pulled the makeup out of the purse, changing my face. I stuffed everything from the small purse into my pants under the dress. I dumped the purse in the toilet, flushing it a few times for fun. I walked out of the bathroom, and watched as two police moved past me, searching the faces of everyone they passed. I kept my head down, but not so far down to look suspicious.
I found my way to a pay phone. I put in some change, and waited for him to pick up. “Hello?”
“They’re the same,” I started.
“Tristan?”
“Joe and Dad. They’re the same. They have brown hair, brown eyes. They have muscles that can keep me from moving. They have run, ran. They mess with my mind. They don’t care about me, they just play with me. They don’t know when they’re thinking too much, thinking not at -“
“Slow down.”
“Are they tracking this phone call somehow, listening in to what I say?”
“Who?”
“Dad and Joe.”
“No, your father and Joe aren’t -“
“I’m going to get your family after all this is done. You should put them somewhere different, show your wife how to work a gun and always keep it by her side.”
“You -“
I hung up the phone. I picked it back up and redialed. “I’m a doll.”
“What do you-“
“A little ragdoll. Day one. Think about day one with my parents.”
“I can’t -“ I heard the click of someone else picking up the other line. I ignored the person trying to be silent on the other line. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that Sid broke all his words on confidentiality. Why did it matter? I’d be gone soon. Running so fast no one could see me. Breath would barely match me. I wouldn’t outrun it, not like idiot Joe.
“Ever since the beginning all I did was follow. I followed and they towed me along. Did I have opinions? I don’t think so. I only did what they said, because I knew if I didn’t, if I didn’t… God, and those people. Those people just strung me along all the time with the money, and fuck. Fuck. Fuck. He does that too!”
“Who’s -“
“Joe.” I knew his voice. I knew it, I knew it. “What are you doing there? Shouldn’t you be on tour?” I leaned against the side of the box. I titled my head back. Little ragdoll. I closed my eyes.
“I’m -“
“Aren’t you afraid I could be standing right outside your window right now? You wouldn’t know. You couldn’t know.”
“Tristan.”
“I’m going to kill you,” I told him. “And I’m going to drug you so you’ll stay awake and your heart pumps the blood slower. I’ll have more time to rip you open alive.”
“Flash.” His voice broke in the middle. I stayed on the line, but I fell silent. I listened between his breathing and people on other lines. How many people were listening in to this conversation? How many people were doing a psycho analysis?
I opened my eyes, looking at the dirty glass across from me. “I’m only your ragdoll.”
“You’re -“
“Just tug me around when you go out. Let me drag against the ground. Let’s play house. Let’s go shopping. Let’s rip out the stuffing! You and Dad aren’t any different. You both play with me illegally.”
“What do you mean?”
“Seventeen. Seventeen.” I hung up the phone. I redialed. “Remember when I was at that fair?” I waited for him to respond. I knew he would. I just had to wait long enough.
“Yeah.”
“What do you remember about it?”
“You ran off.”
“I ran off.” I felt the boy’s flesh in my hand. I saw his crash through the mirror. The room shattering around. Aladdin. “What else do you remember?”
“You won a giant chicken. Asked why I liked you.” I nodded, running my tongue over my lips. Could he feel my nod? Did he know I nodded? “You hurt that kid.”
“What kid?”
“They found a kid in the fun house. I saw it on the news. You came out of the fun house, and shit.” I imagined him running his fingers through his hair, messy and down, natural and the way I liked it. “You warned me. In your own way. You bought a pretzel, you said -“
The line disconnected, not enough money in the phone. I dropped the receiver. It clanged against the side of the booth. I pushed out of the door. I stepped back onto the sidewalk, walking with even steps. Running away. Running, running.
More like dragging. Dragging of the ragdoll. Back exactly as Dad said. Always going back to the job, to the client. They own you until it’s finished. I lifted my chin up. I snapped my eyes to faces as they passed by, fixing up their story with just a glance.
My eyes darted down to pockets. I bumped into a man, and he grabbed my arms to steady me. “Are you alright?” His eyes looked into mine, like he was trying to find a soul. Not like there was one there. Not in a ragdoll. Just a ragdoll, to be used and passed on. I slipped my hand down his side.
“Yeah,” I breathed out. Deception. I pulled away. My hand wormed its way out of his pocket. I hid the wallet on the inside of my palm. “Sorry ‘bout that.” He snatched at my arm. Panic didn’t flash through me. I pressed into his touch.
“You better be careful out there. A pretty lady like you, something might --”
I pulled away from him. I put as much distance between the two of us without running. The wallet sweated in my palm. I pulled it in front of me, pulling out the bills, dropping the rest of the wallet back to the ground. Even steps.
God, I don’t even remember where I slept. I don’t remember what I did. It’s like I fell asleep. It fits. Ragdolls don’t think. They’re just towed around.
But I remember all my times sleeping.
I dreamed in blood. I dreamed with bodies and Joe.
I dreamed that something.
~*~