The subway air smelled like a mix of urine and stale body odor, so she tried not to breathe too deeply. Now that she had gotten this far she didn’t have a plan, which was strange for her, as she had always been a type A personality. She had always planned her days in meticulous detail, filling her time so she couldn’t have a moment of quiet. Quiet scared her. It meant time alone with her thoughts and memories, which she still couldn’t bear after all these years.
“Stella!”
The sound of her name bounced off the dingy subway tiles and reached her ear with a surreal feeling. It was as if she was in 1952, playing the role of her namesake. She swiveled her head to look into the throng of nameless faces. His sloppy-on-purpose mop of black hair bobbed above the crowd.
“Stella, wait…”
The gust of wind from the incoming train blew her hair across her face, cutting off her view of him. She could barely glimpse him pushing through the tired nine-to-fivers to get to her. Please open up. Come on, come on. As soon as the doors opened she jumped in, willing them to close behind her faster. As they closed she breathed a sigh of relief, but then a hand slipped through the shrinking gap, followed by an arm, and then a smiling face. Dammit. He pushed through the strangers’ bodies. She couldn’t escape now.
“So,” he said with a tentative smile that she once found charming but now felt menacing, “Where are we going?”
“Anywhere else,” she said, silencing him.
She wanted to find a small town where everybody knew everybody else. She could hide in this little place with the safety of people who would know if something terrible happened to her. In the city nobody knew her name, no one would know or care if she just disappeared. That left her too vulnerable. He could do what he wanted to her under the cover of thousands of apathetic bystanders. He gave her the attention she so desperately needed, made her fall in love with him. He was the cheese in the trap that would inevitably snap on her slender neck and break it.
***
They met in the tattoo parlor a few blocks south of her apartment. They chatted for a while and he offered to hold her hand while the artist worked. She didn’t know at the time why she felt compelled to talk to him. He had this strange, animal magnetism about him when she looked into his hazel eyes and studied the intricate flecks of gold and green. She told him the story behind the ink. She told him about her childhood, and the many nights she couldn’t sleep where her mother would creep into her room after her father had gone to bed and read to her from a dog eared book of poems with a cracked spine. She described the way she would kiss her forehead and tell her “Now get some sleep my little tree, you’ve got so much growing to do”. She told him that when her mother died tragically in a car accident, she decided to get this tattoo of a tree that would take up her whole back and arms as a memorial.
“She taught me everything I know about how to live and how to laugh, and how important it is to keep growing for the rest of my life. I want to make her proud. I want to never stop growing. Each day I get a little bit taller.”
“That’s an amazing way to live. She sounds like she was a wonderful woman”
“She really was. She had this way about her that made everything feel like it was gonna be okay.”
She couldn’t stop telling him everything about herself as the artist drew the branches out across her shoulders and down her arms. The tattoo took five hours, and he stayed the whole time. He had only come in for a consultation he said, but he had seemed so enraptured by her that he forgot about everything he had to do that day and just listened to her talk. When he listened to her he looked straight into her soul, drawing her out into the open, exposing her, and she couldn’t resist the intensity of his gaze. She wanted him to know her. She had never met anyone so interested in what she had to say.
He made her feel weightless. They spent every day for the next month together, tangled up in his silk sheets for most of it. She fell in love with the way his body moved, the way his arms wrapped around her as she fell asleep, the way he looked into her eyes when he took her over and over again. The calendar pages kept turning and she didn’t care. She couldn’t tell one day from the next, but she didn’t care. She was happy to let the world pass her by while she was cocooned in her little piece of paradise. She let her lust blind her to the signs all around her, screaming at her. They screamed and screamed and she ignored them. You’ve been sleeping with a stranger.
Everything was perfect. Until he didn’t come home one night. Or the next night. And she couldn’t reach him. The phone would ring and ring at first, but then it went straight to voicemail. She watched the news for days straight, but the news wasn’t saying anything. After a week she had become constantly on edge.
She started to notice the signs that had been screaming at her. He had so few possessions. She hadn’t thought about that before, how little personal effects were actually in his apartment. Aside from some clothes and toiletries, most of her own things were still at her apartment. His kitchen only had a few plates, minimal silverware. He had a laptop that she couldn’t guess the password to. He didn’t have any stuff that would make it clear that he even really lived there. His medicine cabinet was empty. But what troubled her most was the closet that had a lock on it. She had never been able to find the key, and whenever she asked about it he changed the subject or distracted her with sex.
Eventually, her curiosity got the better of her. She hardened her resolve and told herself she would find out who he was and what he was hiding. She threw on her coat over her hoodie and slipped into her jogging shoes. She jogged to the hardware store around the corner and bought lock cutters. It was time to find out his secrets.
Back at the apartment, she went straight to the closet doors. Part of her was afraid of what she might find. Would it shatter her perfect world? Or was this all in her head? Maybe there was nothing special in the closet. Maybe it was just some cash or valuables he wanted to keep safe. Was she being ridiculous? She worried that if it was nothing then she would ruin everything by not trusting him. But a part of her had a feeling that made the hairs on her arm stand up. This couldn’t be nothing. So, with a deep breath, she cut open the lock and opened the doors. It wasn’t a closet.
What greeted her was a small dark room filled with computer monitors. On the screens she recognized images from her life. One screen showed her favorite park bench where she spent time singing for tips. Another showed various subway stations she frequented. One large screen had multiple images, all of them rooms in her apartment, except for the bathroom. Oh, well at least he respects my privacy, she thought. The next monitor over was filled with images of his apartment, and she could see herself in one of them. She turned around, looking up, and for the first time saw the camera trained on her, the little red light flashing. She turned back and moved her gaze around the rest of the room. There were newspaper clippings plastered all over the walls.
WOMAN DIES IN TRAGIC CAR ACCIDENT, 10 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER SURVIVES
The memory hit her like the car hit the railings of the bridge. Flashbulb memories of the accident filled her mind. The way her body pressed against the seatbelt as gravity seemed to turn off. The water crashing against the windshield, and rising up from the floor. The way the blood swirled and spread slowly in the cold water. Swimming through the open window, and nothing else after that. How does he have this?
REAL ESTATE MOGUL BECOMES WIDOWER AND SINGLE FATHER
VIOLENT DEATH OF SEVILLE WATERS, SUSPICION OF FOUL PLAY
MISSING: STELLA WATERS, 15, DAUGHTER OF ESTEEMED REAL ESTATE DEVELOPER
15 YEAR OLD STELLA WATERS MISSING AND PRESUMED DEAD
The worst moments of her life were captured in headlines that were now plastered all over the walls of her boyfriend’s secret room. She was reminded of the months she spent living in the same house without her mother there to protect her. Her father had blamed her for her mother’s death, which only escalated the abuse. Yearbook pictures of herself through the years were taped there, too. In each one her face grew thinner, her cheek bones stood out and her eye sockets became deeper and darker. By the last one she looked hollow. What the fuck she thought. She was frozen there, looking all over the room in shock and fear and every other emotion she had ever felt.
“Stella! I’m home! I’m sorry I was gone so long, but I promise I will make it up to you,” came Will’s ominous voice from behind her. She nearly jumped out of her skin and whirled around. She hadn’t heard the front door open.
“What the fuck is this?”
“Stella.. you weren’t supposed to open that”
“Will?! what is all this? Where have you been for the last week? What are you doing here now?”
“It’s not what you think. I’m not going to hurt you. I love you. I’ve always loved you.” he said, evading her other questions.
“I don’t even know who you are”
“Yes you do, just trust me. I’m here for you, my life has always been about you.”
“No! Why the fuck should I trust you? You’re a stalker and you need to get the hell away from me.” She said threateningly. Will took a step towards her, and she took the opportunity to bolt. She ran as fast as she could, heading for the subway to get away from him. She was too afraid to look back, but she knew he was behind her. She knew he was always watching. There would be no escape.
***
“So, where are we going?”
“Anywhere else.”
What was she going to do now? He had caught up to her, and now she was stuck on the subway with him looming over her. There were so many people around them but none of them could save her. Why had he stalked her all this time. Why did he lead her on and make her love him? What was he going to do to her?
“You have some explaining to do,” she said once she had built the courage to speak again.
“Stella, I told you, its’s not what you think—”
“Then what is it?”
“Okay, I have to tell you now don’t I?” He didn’t wait for her response, “Your dad hired
me to keep an eye on you.”
“Why?”
“He wanted me to shut you up, to keep you from testifying”
“So he wanted you to kill me?”
“Yes and no. He wanted me to keep you quiet”
“Why did you make me fall in love with you? Was that part of the job description?”
“I didn’t make you do anything, Stella. I couldn’t watch from the sidelines forever. Your dad is getting anxious, I think he might seek someone else to finish the job. Over the last year I’ve watched you, and you have enchanted me, Stella. I’ve loved you from a distance for so long. I thought that if I finally crossed that gap, I could protect you from him. I’m sorry you had to find out about it the way you did. I love you.”
“Where did you go when you disappeared for a week?” She couldn’t help it, the questions just kept pouring out. Her father was still watching over her, she had never truly gotten away from him. She felt pressure on her neck. She felt like it was going to snap under the weight of her fear.
“I went to settle some business out of town. I want to protect you. We needed money to get away, we have plenty of that now. Let’s get out of the country, okay? Anywhere you want to go. I promise I’m telling the truth, I won’t hurt you.”
She still had more questions, but she could feel the sincerity in his voice. She worried he was faking it, but what choice did she have? He was still a mystery, but she had always been one to trust her gut.
“Okay,” she said, taking his hand. “Let’s run away.”
Short Stories