It's over.
Ray, Danny, all of it.
Over and done with.
I should be relieved. I should be ecstatic.
I shouldn't be looking at the bedroom of my childhood and wanting to weep.
I don't belong here anymore. I realize that now. I look at the floral bedspread and pastel sheets. I look at the ribbons and the trophies and the Madame Alexander dolls.
And I hate it.
I hate all of it. The very walls of this room seem to be laughing at me.
You had them all fooled, didn't you, Michelle? You were their princess, their angel. That girl belongs wrapped in light pink flannel sheets. That girl deserves her trophies and blue ribbons. You...you're just an imposter.
The second night back in my room, I destroyed it. I tore the vapid posters of flowers and kittens off the wall. I ribbed my blue ribbons to shreds and I trashed every trophy I could get my hands on. I ripped the sheets and comforter from my bed and stuffed them in a trash bag.
Then, when my room was completely empty of everything that had defined the Michelle I once was, I stared at the empty walls and wept.
Because I didn't know what to put in the room now.
I can't define me anymore.
Rick and Abby are worried. To say Rick was shocked when he saw what I'd done was an understatement. He was horrified.
"Michelle, have you lost your mind? You know better than this!"
I started to laugh when he said that, when he talked to me, yet again, as if I were five.
You know better than that.
"I used to," was all I said, which just made Rick look more worried.
Every night, around eight, someone calls and hangs up.
I know it's Ray.
I've thought, in the few weeks that I've been home, many times about calling him myself.
But what would I say?
Sometimes, it's easy to pretend the whole thing was a dream.
But time isn't making the memories distant.
It's making them sharper, more painful. They're more in focus now than ever. There are times when I can't see past those memories.
And Danny...I miss laying in bed with him night after night. I miss the way he looks at me.
Late at night, when I lay on the bare mattress of my tiny bed, a whisper starts in my soul.
I could go back to him. I could be with him. And he could be everything that Ray is.
It's those thoughts that scare me. That I would go back to Danny because he's like Ray.
Because he's the dark, too.
Danny came by tonight.
Rick was working and Abby had gone over to Reva's for dinner, so I was alone in my room studying.
And then, suddenly, my newly estranged husband walked through my bedroom door.
His clothes and hair were completely disheveled and there was a wild look in his eyes.
I asked him how he got in and he replied that he'd picked the lock.
I told him to get out and he just stood there.
Even when I jumped off my bed and screamed at him to leave, he still just stood there, watching me with those dark, bottomless, unreadable eyes.
His eyes that are too much like Ray's.
I wanted to hurt him. I wanted him to know some of the suffering I was going through. I wanted to hit him until I broke through to him, until I made him look at me and see who I truly was.
Maybe I wanted him to take responsibilty for what I have become.
But I didn't strike him. No, I hurt him by exploiting his one weakness.
I kissed him.
I didn't mean for things to get out of hand, but they did. God...they did.
All I knew was that his lips were warm and his hands were insistent and I felt so alone.
This time, I didn't pull away.
I clutched at him and begged him, wanting something, anything, to take away the emptiness.
When it was over, we lay on that tiny bed, stripped of its sheets, breathing hard.
Then he pulled back and looked at me with eyes so cold, I shivered despite the warmth of my body.
"Nice. Did you learn that from Ray?"
Everything within me seemed to stop: my heartbeat, my breath, the flow of my blood. Then, it all started back at twice its normal speed.
There was no use in denying it. Danny got off the bed and began pulling on his clothes.
"How did you find out?"
He gave a laugh that chilled me. "It doesn't matter."
He turned back to me, his eyes glittering. "I tried to be everything to you, Michelle. I gave up everything I ever wanted for you."
He didn't shout. Instead, his voice was soft and tight with controlled fury.
"And what did you do to repay me, huh? You fucked my cousin."
He found my shirt on the floor and tossed it at me.
I slid it over my head, tembling slightly. "You don't understand," I said softly. "You...you can't understand."
Danny turned with his back to me, buttoning his shirt.
I got off the bed and stood behind him, my hands outstretched, but not touching him. "I felt so alone, Danny, and I needed someone...I needed to turn to someone and I couldn't turn to you, I...I just couldn't."
He turned and faced me then and the emptiness in his eyes took my breath away. "Why, Michelle? Why couldn't you turn to me? Because I'm not a killer? Because my hands are clean?"
I started shaking my head,crying. Why couldn't he see?
"I didn't know...I didn't know..."
Danny slid his coat over his shoulders. "When did you find out what Ray really is?"
"Was," I said, looking up defiantly, still needing to somehow rationalize this to myself.
He met my gaze coolly. "Is."
I sat back on the bed, burying my face in my hands. It wasn't supposed to be like this. It wasn't.
Suddenly, I felt something cool pressing against me temple and I knew it was a gun. I didn't even know he had one on him, but I relaized it must have been in his coat.
I looked up at Danny, my eyes confused.
"Is this what it takes, Michelle?" he asked softly. "is this what I have to do to make you want me?"
I shook my head, sickened at him, at me, at what we've done to each other.
"I could never do what Ray did," he continued. "And I felt weak because of it. Like I was a coward. but still, at night, when I laid in bed, I told myself that at least I knew there had to be some good left in me somewhere. Ray didn't have that anymore. Maybe he never did."
"He does," I cried insistently and the pressure at my temple increased.
"You'd like to believe that, wouldn't you? But you know as well as I do that he's nothing more than a void. Is that why you sought him out, Michelle? So you could just fall into him and hide from reality for a while?"
I reached out and grabbed the bottom of his jacket. The leather was cool and slippery beneath my fingers and I knew from that moment on, I'd always associate that feel with Danny.
"I don't know why I did what I did with Ray, but Danny, please believe me, I care about you."
He laughed, a cold, hollow sound. "No you don't. You just want to think you do because it suddenly turns out that I'm the safe one."
"I don't feel very safe," I told him shakily, but he didn't move the gun.
"No, I guess you don't. But you know what? You want me right now."
I tried to pull back, but he gripped the back of my neck and dropped to his knees, pulling my face to his. "All the times we've almost been together, you never looked at me the way you're looking at me now."
"I'm scared," I said through sobs that are starting to choke me.
His eyes were speculative as they drifted over my face. "Yes, you are. But I don't just see fear in those big brown eyes of yours, baby. I see desire too."
"No, no." I shook my head frantically, trying to free myself from his grip. He wasn't right. He couldn't be right.
But then he brought his mouth down on mine, one hand holding my chin while the other still held the gun.
And I kissed him back. I opened my mouth hungrily under his and slid my hands under his jacket to feel the beating of his heart.
"Is this what you want?" he panted as he pulled away from me.
I kept my eyes firmly shut as I sagged back against the mattress. "I don't know," I said at last and he laughed. The bastard actually laughed at me.
When I opened my eyes, he was tucking the gun back into the waistband of his pants.
"Sleep tight, Michelle," he said and after one last perusing glance, he walked out the door.
And, I think, out of my life.
I called Ray around midnight and told him what happened.
He didn't say a word when I was finished.
He just hung up the phone.
I didn't cry this time. I can't cry anymore tears over him. Over either of them.