“Yes, you screwed that up, too. Not only did you have another girl, you can’t even try again. You’ve always been a failure. I’m going to bed.”
Paxton spat his hurtful words at me and then he climbed from my bed. I was stunned, but I didn’t know why. Paxton had said a lot of mean things to me. This one hurt a little.
“Wow, Paxton. Band-Aids don’t fix bullet holes.”
Paxton’s eyes snapped to mine, fierce and angry. “Taylor Swift. That’s cute. How is it you can remember the words to high school songs, but not who you are?”
I sat up and scratched my head when he slid his shorts up his hips commando style, and left me. “And another one bites the dust,” I said out of frustration. This guy had some serious issues. I would have given anything to know what they were. Jesus Christ.
My lavender scented shower was spent, reflecting, first on why I couldn’t get pregnant, and then the sex. For the first time since my accident I understood something that I couldn’t begin to describe. Paxton was a drug to me, having the same effect as cocaine on an addict. It was physical, enhanced with complicated emotions and powerful poisons. I even felt like I wanted to crash, yet I was still feeling the high, the memory burning my chest every time I thought about it.
The thought of a walk along the beach sounded amazing to me. Maybe the magnificent beauty and the natural sounds of the ocean would relax some of the nervous energy.
I grabbed a pair of red shorts and the first T-shirt I came to from my closet. A smile and a frown simultaneously crossed my face when I realized I’d been tiptoeing, the feeling of being watched rushing over me. I internally chastised myself for my silly actions, but continued with my charade. Like a cat with precision, I opened the door. Internally chastising my silly actions.
“What are you doing?” I heard from above. I looked up to Paxton’s dark silhouette after a startled jump.
“I want to walk on the beach.”
“No, go to bed.”
“I can’t sleep.”
“You’re not going to the beach after dark. Forget it. Go to bed.”
“Can I at least—
“Shh, goodnight, Gabriella.”
I sighed an audible breath and walked inside. I might have been an idiot, but I was smart enough to know, complaining would do no good at all. I did however leave my room long enough to check on both my sleeping babies. Rowan first. She slept on her side with her little hands tucked under her cheek. Ophelia was on her back with her arms out to her sides, and her legs in some sort of weird position. I laughed and covered her legs.
The way my bed cradled my body and the scent of lavender sheets made me realize how tired I really was. Watery eyes followed a yawn as I turned to my side. Snuggling into a fetal position, I snuggled into my comfortable bed, welcoming sleep.
~~
“Don’t move, Clydes. Promise me you’ll stay right here.”
“We don’t want to, Mommy,” Izzy said with her body huddled up next to mine.
“Please, let’s just go,” I pleaded with a tight grip on Izzy’s hand.
My mom brushed the back of her fingers against my cheek and smiled. “Hey, we have to have money to eat, right? We’ll be back on the road in no time. Now sit here and wait for me. Don’t move from this spot. Don’t touch anything. Okay?”
Izzy and I both nodded and watched her walk away. The guy had his hands all over her before the elevator even closed. Izzy and I were only like ten, but we knew what she was doing for money. We’d seen it before. Hell, we’d even heard it. The summer we spent on the beach was all the sex education anyone needed. Izzy and I sat outside by a fire many nights while my mom made a few extra bucks. She seemed to rather enjoy it, but this place was different.
We didn’t like that guy. There was something about him. We both sensed it, and we were both scared. We sat in the dingy hotel lobby and waited. Neither of us moved a muscle. Not until a few minutes later.
The tattooed guy our mother had left with, exited the elevator alone. Without our mom.
“What’s he doing? Where’s mom?”
“Shh, I don’t know,” I replied, eyes following him to the door. Only he didn’t go to the door.
“Hey, your momma’s going to take a little nap. Why don’t we go for a ride? You like ice cream? Let’s go get a treat while your mom rests,” he quietly spoke in front of us.
“We’re not allowed. We have to stay here,” Izzy firmly told him.
“It’s okay. Your mom said it was okay.”
We both shook our heads. No way. We weren’t doing it.
The guy looked around the room and then grabbed Izzy’s arm. Hard. I jerked mine away before he had a chance. “You listen here, you little sluts. If you ever want to see your whore-mommy again, you’ll do what you’re told. I can blow your mother to tiny little pieces with a click of a button. You want that?”
Izzy and I both shook our heads, terrified out of our skin.
“Good girls. Now get up and take my hand. If you behave, I’ll have you back here before your momma even wakes up. You just have to promise not to tell her where we went, okay? If I find out you did, I’ll kill her. You got it?”
“We don’t want to go,” I whined with a pang in my chest, a pang that told me not to get in the car with him. I knew not to go. Everything in me told me not to go, but I did, and so did Izzy. If we ever wanted to see our mom again, we had to. The guy kept walking, one hand on each side of him.
“You two are about to make me a lot of fucking money,” the guy boasted as he led us across the street to a black car in a dark parking lot.
“Don’t cry, Gabby,” Izzy said after the guy closed the door, leaving us alone and afraid. I did cry. I was scared for my life. For Izzy’s life.
We sat in the middle of the seat, joined from the shoulders down. Hand in hand. He didn’t speak one word to us while he drove us a couple of blocks. He smoked a stinky cigar, filling the car full of smoke. We hadn’t drove five minutes before he pulled into a bank parking lot. Right up to a payphone.
“Don’t move,” he ordered as he got out.
“What’s going to happen to us, Izzy?” I whispered to her in the empty car.
“Shh,” Izzy hissed.
The windows were up, but we could still hear.
Rod. His name was Rod.
“Grant! This is Rod, man. You’re not going to believe what I got my hands on. You ready for this?”
I wasn’t ready for it. I still didn’t know what he was talking about. My ears were on high alert, my posture stiff, and my heart pounded in my chest.
“Two of them. Girls. Twins… Nah, man. This is gold. Their crack-whore mom is back at the hotel all fucked up. She’ll be out for at least five or six hours. Plenty of time…
“Fuck if I know. I don’t fucking care what her name is, or where she came from. All I know is the bitch is stupid. Some immigrant slut. But, damn, is she a pretty one. I just fucked the hell out of her before I borrowed her pretty little girls. This is gold, dude. I’m telling you. We’re about to make a shitload of money.”
I heard the words to the song, playing quietly in the car while he paused to listen. Something about a broken wing.
“I’m over on Longengate Boulevard. I’ll meet you there in ten.”
Izzy’s body clung tighter to mine as Rod got back into the car and lit another cigar.
“Good news, girls. We’re all set. We’re going to go over and see my friend, Dink.”
“Why?” Izzy asked in a frightened rasp.
“Don’t worry. We’re not going to hurt you. We’re just going to take some photos.”
I relaxed a little. Photos? Phew. That wasn’t so bad. Even at ten, I knew Izzy and I were pretty. People told my mother all the time how pretty we were. Maybe they wanted to put us in a catalogue or something. A lady at a campground once told our mother she should put us in magazines.
After the first initial meeting with Dink, it’s sort of a blur. Neither one of them hurt us. Not
by touching us anyway. Not really. The only time one of them touched us was to pose us in different positions or move our legs out. We just did it, because we didn’t know what else to do. We let them take our clothes off and became the product of child-pornography.
Rod didn’t lie to us though. As soon as he was finished with the photo shoot, he took us to McDonald’s, got us an ice-cream cone, and dropped us off at the front of the hotel with a fifty-dollar bill and the hotel key.
“Thanks for your time, ladies. Thank your crack-whore momma, too. Just don’t tell her our secret, okay?” he asked while using a gun-finger to point at Izzy and then me. The imaginary gunshot was enough to scare any little girl.
At least we got the hotel for the night, and a good meal. Our mother slept, passed out naked on the bed. I covered her up and tossed the used condom into the trash with a hotel pen. Izzy removed the band from her arm and brushed dark hair from her face.
My mom stirred and turned to her side. “Mmm, my Clydes. I love you, my pretties,” she slurred. And then she was out.
Izzy and I never spoke of our photo shoot. We didn’t have to. I knew how she felt, and she knew how I felt. We were twins. We felt everything the other one did. I’m pretty sure it had been that way since before birth. My mom told us that every time she laid us down together, we either held hands or locked elbows. That’s what we did on the other bed. Izzy and I stared at the television, elbows locked, internally processing what had happened to us.
Izzy and I never told our mother, we never spoke of it, and I have no idea what became of the pictures. I suppose they’re still out there somewhere. Probably somewhere on the internet now, but I’d never seen them. I didn’t want to see them. I was an adult. They wouldn’t look like me now, anyway.
~~
My eyes opened to the dark room. A heavy lump swelled in my chest and heavy emotions washed through me, like I wanted to cry. My heart hurt for both little girls. I knew that had happened to me. I knew that it had happened to Izzy, but why that? Why did I keep putting pieces together that hurt, that made me sad, and made me miss my mom and Izzy? Why couldn’t I remember who I was now? This day. Not years ago.
I got up and walked to the bathroom, trying to compartmentalize my new memory, the one I didn’t want to remember. The thought to try to go back to sleep wasn’t there. I didn’t want to sleep. I wanted something else. I just didn’t know what.
I strolled out to the kitchen, poured a glass of apple juice, and made my way to the breezeway. Sultry air filled my lungs. I moved to the far end and sat on the concrete wall, overlooking a breathtaking view. The moon was bright and shined off the deep sea. If I could describe a mood, it was that night. Nothing stirred. Nothing but the roar of the distant ocean and the soft breeze.
And the sound of a sob. I don’t even know where it came from. It swelled in my chest and spilled over.
“Gabriella,” I heard in a quiet tone from behind me.
I snorted and shook my head. “Go away, Paxton. Leave me alone.”
If only it was that easy. I sucked in a deep breath while he closed the distance between us, and then I held the air in my lungs.
Paxton wrapped his arms around me from behind. “Why are you crying?”
I snorted again. “You’re a fucking idiot. Anybody ever tell you that?”
Paxton spun me around to face him, but it wasn’t the anger I’d expected. His hands held my face, forcing me to look at him. I did, but I didn’t really see him. I saw a dark silhouette, illuminated by the moonlight.
“I don’t know who the fuck you are. I can’t handle this. I just want things to go back to the way they were before you took off to God knows where.”
“Is that what you really want, Pax? You want me to be that person? Your person?”
“It’s what you agreed to. We had a deal, and you’re fucking it all up,” Paxton said out of desperation. His thumb brushed a tear from my eye and his lips kissed mine.
“I have a feeling you’ve never known me. You know nothing about me.”
Paxton sighed and dropped his hands. His arms crossed and he looked to his bare feet. “That’s the way it was supposed to be. That was the deal. I never wanted to know you. Not until now.”
“What does that mean, Paxton?”
“Come in here. I want to show you something.”
Paxton took my hand and I followed, feeling so overwhelmed. So lost, and broken.
Chapter Twelve
Paxton unlocked his office door and I looked around. Nope. Nothing. Not one thing felt familiar.
“Sit,” he ordered.
I sat in Paxton’s leather chair and he reached around me. Every room in the house came alive. I had been on camera ever since I’d met him.
“Look at the difference in you. This footage was taken the day before your accident.”
I watched with outrage, shock, and confusion. One second I felt raped, and the next puzzled. It was me. I was in the kitchen, dressed, hair done, makeup on, and breakfast on the table. The microwave said six-thirty, and I could tell by the brewing coffee and the darkness behind the doors that it was morning.
Paxton walked in, carrying work boots. After setting them to the floor, he strolled over and kissed me. A pang of anger shot through my chest when I watched him hold my jaw and say something. Something out of anger.
“I can’t hear it,” I said. I wanted to hear it. I wanted to know a typical day. The life of Gabriella Pierce—pre-accident.
“You don’t need to hear it. That’s not my point. Just watch,” Paxton said. His arm went over me again and he sped up the feed and turned up the volume. “Listen how you talk to the girls here,” he said as the video moved ahead to breakfast with Rowan and Ophelia.”
“Rowan, sit up straight. Eat your breakfast,” I said from the island.
A fight broke out from nowhere. Ophelia used her napkin and she screamed. The look on my face was always the same. It never changed. Not from happy to sad, or angry to scared. Nothing. I was emotionless.
My expression never even changed when Paxton entered the kitchen. He settled the fight in a split second. Both girls sat up and ate.
“Can you do anything to help out around here?” Paxton said through the speakers, lips on mine.
I turned to look at him over my shoulder. “How could I do anything when you didn’t even give me time?”
“That’s what I’m talking about, Gabriella. Look.” Paxton switched to another folder. A couple of days ago. I remembered that day. Both girls were sitting on the bar stools, eating apple slices. Ophelia took a slice from Rowans plate and licked it. Rowan did the same to hers, but Ophelia screamed a shrill, extremely long, ear-piercing scream.
Unlike the last time where I wore the same blank stare, I cocked my hip and looked at her like she’d lost her mind. Paxton stormed around the corner, but his face, too, changed. His expression shifted from anger to bewilderment.
I placed two fingers between my lips and whistled louder than her scream. She stopped. Total shock on her face.
“What are you screaming about?” I questioned while my elbows slid across the smoky gray marble for eye contact.
“Her licked my apple,” she whined.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. No whining. I can’t understand you when you do that.”
“Why did you lick her apple, Row-row?”
“Ophelia did it first.”
I held my eyes in contact with Ophelia’s and she looked down. “Look at me, Phi. Don’t look down when someone’s talking to you. You look them straight in the eyes. You’re bigger than that. Now. Did you lick Rowan’s apple first?”
“She did,” Rowan tattled.
“Shh, hang on.” I wagged one finger in the air.
“Yes,” Ophelia confessed.
“Which one?”
Rowan pointed to the apple her sister left her germs on. “This one.”
“Pick it up, Phi,” I requested with a nod toward the contaminated apple. Ophelia picked it up and placed it
on her plate. “Which one did Rowan lick?” Ophelia pointed to the slice and Rowan picked it up.
“There. No more germs. You good? You good?” I asked with a straight finger from one to the other. They both nodded with smiles. “Good deal. Fist-bump,” I ordered. My little Clydes giggled and bumped tiny fists. “Hey, I need some bumps, too,” I teased, and all was good.
I walked past Paxton, bumping his shoulder as I passed. “Damn. Your offspring’s are drama queens, dude.”
My hand covered my mouth when I watched Paxton’s expression. I’d just knocked the wind right out of him.
“Who the fuck is that, Gabriella? You whistled at them like you were calling a cab. I didn’t even know you could do that. Fist-bump? What the fuck is that? Who the fuck is this? You don’t act like that.”
The next video was me waking the girls. No biggie. No dilemmas. I gently woke them from their sleep and stood in the bathroom while they brushed their teeth. We talked. I explained to them their schedule while I brushed out their hair. Ophelia whined about swimming lessons, and Rowan assured me she could already swim.
“What?” I didn’t see anything wrong with that.
“This was the other day.”
I turned back to the screen and watched, remembering it with a smile. Ophelia was in bed with Rowan when I went to wake them for stupid art by the bay. I picked up a pig wearing a Florida State jersey and eased my sore body to the floor. With just my arm the pig woke the girls in a deep, cartoony voice.
“Hey. Hey you sleeping girls. Wake up. You have to go make stupid noodle necklaces that are going to get damp and moldy around your neck. Hey. Phi. Row-row. Come on. We have an exciting day, thanks to your dad.”
I screamed when they both rolled over the side, giggling instead of fighting for once. Paxton didn’t have to point it out. I saw it with my own eyes. When I woke them before, I’d worn the same blank stare. This time was different. It was playful, happy, and in love. I loved them so much. Even if I didn’t remember them pre-accident.
The next clip brought crimson to my cheeks.
“This was the night before your accident.”