CHAPTER TWO
1884 Words
CHAPTER TWO
She couldn't shake the icy feeling until she returned home. It was a small apartment in downtown Birmingham, Alabama, a place she'd called home for six years now. When she stepped inside, she'd been hoping to smell something cooking. Maybe some salmon or seasoned chicken. Her boyfriend of two years was honestly not good for much; but good Lord, could the boy ever cook.
Plus, it was his day to cook. It was a tradition he’d been failing on lately, but she’d chosen to stay quiet on it.
But there was nothing. The only smell in the apartment was the scented candle, burning on the coffee table. Mahogany. Maybe teakwood. She wasn’t sure. Sitting on the couch behind the coffee table was Declan. He was lounged out, scrolling through his phone. The television, mounted on the wall, was showing one of those awful cooking competitions.
"Hey," Camille said, doing her best to fight the irritation she felt rising up.
"Hey, babe," Declan said. He didn't even look up from his phone. As she passed by him, she saw that he was looking through his stock market app. Several months ago, he'd made a risky bet and put a grand or so into a start-up business that had taken off. It had earned Declan almost nineteen thousand dollars in a month.
But then he'd lost it all just as quickly by making other risky moves, moves that had not paid off. And because he was between jobs, he spent a lot of is time doing nothing. Camille came home to this sight a lot. She was really starting to get tired of it.
"No dinner?" Camille asked.
"No, babe. I figured I didn't know what you wanted so it was no used in getting started."
"You could have texted me."
"I know, but I...shit. Is this going to be one of your little miniature blow-ups?" He put his phone down, rolled his eyes, and said, "I really don't want to fight."
"Yeah, me neither." Camille said as she tossed her briefcase down by the kitchen table. She marched to the fridge to see what she could make quickly for herself.
“Then let’s not. Did you have a bad day or something?”
“It was fine,” she snapped. “How about you? Lots of sitting around, staring at a screen as you play the big-boy lottery?”
“Jesus. Tone it down. No need to be a b***h about it.”
The use of b***h was a trigger word for her, and he knew it. He always said he didn’t want to fight, but she thought he rather enjoyed it. Sometimes, she did, too. It was often the most emotion they ever put into anything.
She hated to admit it, but it was true. And after looking into the eyes of a madman today—a madman that came off as civil and almost respectable behind closed doors—it made the context of this relationship seemed trivial. Almost foolish.
“This is a waste of time, Declan.”
“What is?
“This. You and me, trying to pretend we’re going to make it work.”
“Just because I don’t have a traditional job?”
“No. Not only that. It’s because we make each other absolutely miserable. And I think we’ve gotten too used to it. We’ve become comfortable in resenting one another.”
“Resenting?”
“Be honest,” she said, leaning tiredly against the kitchen counter. “You resent my job just as much as I resent you for not having one.”
Silence filled the apartment. It felt odd to have gone so deep so quickly. Had she really only been home for five minutes?
"I really don't know what you expect of me," Declan finally said.
"I don't expect anything of you. I haven’t for a while, and I think that’s the problem."
He looked hurt by it, but his eyes drifted back to the TV, as if he were already trying to forget the conversation had even happened at all.
Camille turned her attention to the fridge, in search of something to eat. The fridge was pretty empty. There was some leftover pasta and a jar of salsa. She could make some sort of quick pasta dish but she was in the mood for something lighter. She had a couple of Lean Cuisines in her freezer, too.
She pulled one out and threw it into the microwave to cook.
"Do you want to go out to dinner or something?" Declan asked. He asked it in a monotone voice. It was clear that going out was the last thing he wanted to do; he was just trying to fill the silence.
"No. No, I really don’t,” she said. And she decided right then and there, in that moment, that their relationship was over. The realization was a relief rather than a heartbreak and that, she supposed, told her all she needed to know.
Declan sighed, a sound she had gotten very tired of over the last few weeks.
"Sometimes, I feel like I can't do anything right with you," he said.
"That's not true."
"It is true. I mean, you're always bossing me around."
"I'm not bossy," Camille snapped. "I'd just like to see my twenty-nine-year-old boyfriend show some initiative. Send out some resumes, use those contacts I know your father has been texting you. Stop relying on your girlfriend to make sure you have a roof over your head. Just…try, Declan, Try to get a real job.”
"Like yours?" he snapped. "A job that keeps you running around all over the place and coming in at all hours of the day and night?"
The microwave beeped, saving her from the conversation. "So good of you to notice when I come in," she snapped right back. She took her lukewarm dinner out of the microwave and carefully peeled the lid back.
“Sometimes I don’t even know why you come back at all,” he said. She could hear the same realization in his voice. He wanted out just as badly as she did. Why the hell had they kept trudging along for so long, knowing they were going to fail. Were they both that desperate for love and companionship?
“Maybe tomorrow, I won’t,” she said softly. “And I don’t mean that as an insult or a jab. Declan…we can’t do this. It’s ridiculous. Both of us…we’re wasting our time.”
He said nothing. He simply gave a curt nod. She could not tell if he was hurt or simply had nothing to say. But she could feel the ending of their relationship in the air, like bad news delivered in a doctor’s office. Heavy and pressing…stale.
Without another word spoken between them, Camille took her sad little dinner into the bedroom and remained there for the rest of the night.
***
Sometime after midnight, she had the sort of nightmare where she knew without a doubt it wasn't real...just a very bad dream. But it did not make the nightmare any less horrific.
She was walking down a very long, dark corridor. There were jail cells on both sides of her. She was wearing a long pajama gown from her childhood, the one with the frolicking puppy in the field of flowers.
Her feet were bare and she was tracking something down the hall. What was that? Was it blood? Her feet were not cut or bleeding, but somehow, there was blood on the bottoms of them. She left little prints on the concrete floor as she continued through the corridor.
Shapes lurked in the darkness behind the cell bars. Some, she knew, were men. Others had impossible outlines, amorphous shapes that could not settle on a single form. She heard groans and grunts, she heard weeping and the gnashing of teeth.
From up ahead in the darkness, someone called her name.
"Camille. Oh, my poor Camille..."
It was her father, and there was lunacy in his voice.
She looked back to the floor and now saw that she was walking in blood, not just trailing it behind her. Something moved through it, something dark and serpentine.
"Daddy?" she called.
"My poor, sweet Camille, I'm so sorry. Why did you do it?"
She followed the voice and closed in on the final cell along the hall. She peered inside and though she could not see him, she knew her father was there.
"Do what, Daddy?"
"Haven't you heard of the slaughterhouse?" he asked. "Haven't you seen the dead hogs?"
"Daddy, I'm sorry. I couldn't do it. Please forgive me." Even in the dream, she could hear the hogs squealing, the grunting and the panic. She thought of the pig pen, of the mess along the ground and how she’d tried so hard to avoid it. But he’d insisted that she climb over that fence, and that changed everything.
"No, Camille. I forgive you. I know what you are now...what you've become. I miss you so much. I miss our games. You were my best little girl."
"Daddy, I miss you too."
"Oh, Camille. My little girl," he said. "Why did you have to be so good?"
His voice was growing thicker, his presence drawing close. But she didn't want to see him. She was afraid of what he might look like.
"Daddy?"
"You never got in trouble, Camille. Never. Not once. Not ever. You never made a mistake. I wish you had. I wish you'd had it in you back then.”
"I couldn't, Daddy, I'm sorry."
"She hurt my little girl. She hurt you. And when I got my hands on her, I just couldn't stop."
A frail, pale arm rocketed out from between the bars and grabbed her throat. "There you are, my Camille..."
And there were his eyes, hollows of madness lurking in the darkness. He smiled at her and all the blood and—
She was yanked out of the nightmare by the sound of her phone dinging at her. She slapped for it, her hand landing in the empty Lean Cuisine box from dinner and knocking it to the floor. She grabbed the phone and saw the time and the text she'd received.
It was 3:45 in the morning. The text was from Milton, her director at the bureau. And if Milton was texting, it was serious. She sat up on the edge of the bed and gathered her thoughts for a moment, barely aware of the sleeping shape on the other side of the bed.
She only even thought of him when he let out a sleepy remark as she made her way into the bathroom.
"And off she goes again," he said.
She bit back the comment that rose quickly to her lips. She was better than that—and she had to prove it to herself.
Not returning tomorrow would be her response. She’d come back sometime later to get her things, but for right now, her job called. And her job, as sad as it seemed, had treated her far better than the man occupying the other side of the bed over the years.
She left him behind, closing the bathroom door, shutting him out of her life.
- Writer
