The Forgotten Girl, Page 4

  “Sometimes, I feel like it’s moving farther away,” he utters quietly without taking his eyes off the town.

  “Maybe that means you should go down there,” I say, taking in his profile, his nose, his lips, the ones that I want to taste, yet I don’t at the same time because I’m scared. “Maybe it’s time to leave this place.”

  “I can’t.” He says it so soundlessly I barely hear him.

  “Why not?”

  His jaw tightens and then he whispers, “Please don’t start today. I’m begging you.”

  I sigh and give him what he asks—he’s the only person I’ll do that with. Silence stretches between us, but it’s comfortable. There are some days where I come up here and neither of us says anything at all to each other. Those are near perfect days.

  “So do you want to tell me what’s on your mind today?” he asks, opening the takeout bag and peeking inside.

  I shake my head and flop back on the mattress, draping my arm over my forehead. “Not really.” I shut my eyes and relax.

  Do you feel that Maddie?

  The peace.

  There’s a pause and then he lies down beside me, close enough that I can feel his presence but far enough that we’re not touching. We’ve actually never touched and I could blame it on the fact that he’s so skittish, but I’d be lying to myself if I did. The real reason is me. I’m afraid—afraid that the peace I get coming here will change somehow if we touch. “Are you sure? Because you seem sad,” he says.

  “I always seem sad,” I remind him. “And so do you.”

  Another pause and I secretly hope that he’ll tell me why he’s sad, why he lives here in the middle of nowhere—anything really, because I know nothing about him. I once offered for us to move in together so he wouldn’t have to be so lonely, but he said he couldn’t. So all I can do is cross my fingers that one day, whatever’s keeping him here, will finally let him go.

  “It’s getting worse,” I eventually say, cracking the silence. “Lily… it feels like she’s gaining more control over my mind.” It’s amazing how easy it is to talk to him about this stuff, how freeing it is, if only for a moment.

  “I don’t think you should worry about her so much.” He never judges, never seems afraid, accepts me for who I am. “You need to stop fearing who you are and just be yourself.”

  “But I don’t even know who I am,” I reply, desperate to reach over and hold his hand—finally touch him. But I’m afraid of what will change between us if we touch.... Afraid he’ll disappear... Or maybe I will. “Maddie… Lily… they’re supposed to be two different people, but both of them feel like me…. God, I sound so crazy.”

  “Crazy’s not always such a bad thing. You can be two people, Maddie, if that’s how you feel—be whoever makes you happy,” he says, shifting his weight. I feel the sunlight vanish and when I open my eyes I find him leaning over me, eyes warm and caring. “And I think everyone’s got a little crazy in them, but have a hard time admitting it exists.”

  “I can’t admit it exists,” I admit, thinking about what he said. Be whoever makes me happy? I’m not sure who that is. “I can only imagine what would happen if I did.”

  He acts like he’s going to reach out and touch me, but then withdraws his hand back to his side. “You admit it to me.”

  “But everything’s easier with you.”

  This seems to sadden him. He frowns, forehead creased. I wonder what he’s thinking. What he’s feeling. I wonder what I’m feeling. More unspoken words pile up between us as he sighs and lies back down beside me. The quiet sinks in, surrounds us, consumes us. I can almost feel us shifting to another place and time, where I’m somewhere different—less confused. He’s happy. I’m happy—free.

  “She’s always quiet when I’m with you,” I divulge more of myself. “Lily. She hardly ever says anything to me. I think it’s because she likes you… she doesn’t like anyone but you.”

  “And that’s a good thing, right?” he asks. “I mean, not the not liking me part, but that she’s quiet?”

  I want to say yes, but I can’t find my voice at the moment. Yes, Lily drives me crazy, makes me feel like I’m crazy, but at the same time, I feel lost without her. Like a part of me dies when she’s quiet. I hate the feeling; that I’m drifting away from reality when I’m not insane. Honestly, it makes no sense, yet it does. Even though I hate to admit it, Lily is a part of me. And no matter how much I despise her, she might always be.

  Chapter 5

  Maddie

  I leave the cabin and Ryland about an hour later, not to the bank to cash the check, not to the library where my mom thinks I work. I go to my real, Lily approved job down at the Devil & Angels Bar. I applied there about five months ago while I was working nights at the library. I was becoming so distracted by the idea of actually stabbing someone that I feared an impulsive murder was in the making. That’s when Lily arose and enticed me to go down to the bar and do something more reckless and worth my time. I filled out an application for a dancer/bartender. Even though I had no experience, the owner took one look at my curves and said I had the ideal look for the thirty to forty year-olds that generally migrated there. I was hired on the spot and I quit my library job an hour after the interview zealously with a bow as I walked out of the door. I blame the latter on Lily because Maddie felt furious and somewhat embarrassed like she does now in this slutty outfit. She even tried to convince me to tell my mother or therapist what was going on inside my head, but it never happened, and so my double life began.

  I enter the bar where I’m greeted by Bella Anderfells, one of the waitresses/bartenders who I converse with a lot and who started working here a couple of months after I did. I’m actually not positive what our title is. Friendships baffle me and don’t seem possible, except for maybe with Ryland and Bella. They are my two exceptions in this world where they are more than just a face and a name, who I don’t feel like some strange alien creature around.

  “Hey Maddie,” Bella says. She smiles as she strolls out from behind the bar, her cheeks rosy, her blond hair pinned up, her bangs framing her face. She’s about twenty years older than me, but looks like she’s in her thirties and dresses and acts like she’s in her twenties. She told me once she has some sort of disorder that the doctors say make her act younger than she is, because she’s trying to grasp onto something she lost when she was younger; her son and the man she was dating died in a fire. She said it so forwardly, so openly and in a way I envy her for it. To not fear the fact that she might be a little off. Maybe that’s why I like her.

  “How’s it going Sweetie?” she asks. She kind of reminds me of a Barbie doll and I could see her going well with Preston, arms linked, head’s on of course. She exchanges kisses on the cheeks with me, a ritual she does with everyone she likes. Then she backs up and adjusts her red tank top, rearranging it to show more of her cleavage.

  “I’m fantastic.” And at the moment I do feel fantastic, like myself—Maddie and Lily are subdued and conjoined into one single person. Serenity. No extra voices. No feeling like I’m being pulled in two directions. Like I have control over myself, a feeling leftover from my visit with Ryland. I know from past experience that the sensation will linger for another hour or so, and then the real world will catch up with me and poof, I’ll be crazy Maddie/Lily again.

  Bella picks up a rag and begins wiping the barstools down. “Did you hear about the party going on after hours tonight?” she asks.

  “I didn’t hear about it.” I drop my bag behind the counter and then kick it into one of the bottom cubbies. “Who’s having it? Glen or River?” Glen’s the owner of the place and River is the manager, although it’s just a side job for him until he gets out of grad school.

  “River? Seriously?” She gapes at me because River hates parties and drinking. He’s a recovering alcoholic, something I discovered by accident one day when I crossed paths with him coming out of an AA meeting down on Broadway. At the time I was coming out of my support group m
eeting, which was coincidently next door. He was extremely nervous and somewhat agitated that I suddenly knew something about him that he kept from almost everyone except his brother. He told me to please not tell anyone at the bar. When I asked how he even was able to work at a bar without melting from his addiction, he simply said that some stuff had happened that made it nearly impossible for him to drink again. That’s what they all say, I’d thought, but on the outside simply smiled and I’d kept his secret just like he’d asked. After that, he started talking to me all the time during work hours, calling me up to his office for the vaguest reason, like to find out if we needed to order soap. I wasn’t stupid. I could see the way that he looked at me. He wanted to fuck me and eventually he put a move on me. Even though we haven’t screwed yet, we still fool around all the time and I know he’s waiting for me to give it up, which makes me never want to give it up.

  “Maybe River decided to step out of his comfort zone,” I say as she shakes her head, giving me a dirty look. “Oh fine. No more jokes. Who’s party is it?”

  She continues to wipe the sticky residue that we all pretend is alcohol, when really it’s a mixture of that and the residue leftover from sex encounters that go on after hours at the bar. It’s what made this place so intriguing to me in the first place. Dancing/bar until midnight then it shifts to a whorehouse. There are two sides to this place, just like there are two sides to me, and sometimes I wonder if there are two sides to everything.

  “It’s one of Glen’s acquaintances,” she says, making air quotes, because acquaintance means some rich guy who comes here to fuck around with women, do drugs, and pretty much everything that’s illegal. She tosses the rag onto the countertop and turns to face me. “His name’s Leon. I actually new him in high school. He was arrested for drug trafficking or something, but he pretty much paid everyone off so he could get out of it.”

  “Leon…that name sounds familiar. Has he been here before?” I ask, slipping my jacket off and shoving that into the cubby with my bag.

  “Not since either one of us started working here.” She shakes her head as she plops down onto the stool, props her elbow on the counter, and rests her chin on her hand. “I did hear that he just got acquitted for trafficking.”

  I try to shake off the unsettling feeling that’s rising in my body. A feeling like something’s set off a trigger in me, the hairs on my arms and neck standing on end. It happens sometimes, usually when I’m being reintroduced to something from my past and I glance around the bar to see if there’s anything out of the ordinary. There’s a guy in the back corner working on the ice machine, but he doesn’t look familiar. Other than that, everything looks normal, yet I feel like it’s not, like there’s something else here I haven’t seen before and it’s seeing me. What is your problem?

  “So he’s innocent, then… if he got acquitted?” I wiggle my neck and then pop my knuckles, trying to get myself… Lily… I can’t tell who, to settle the fuck down. “I mean, no cops are going to show up and take this place down, right?” I’m hoping not because I need this place.

  “Yeah, he’s innocent according to the trial.” She pats my arm, like she can sense I’m getting worked up. “Don’t worry, Maddie. Everything’s going to be okay. Just another day at the bar.”

  “I know… I just… I just need this job and I don’t want anything to ruin it,” I say, reaching for two shot glasses.

  “The bar will be fine.” She glances around, then leans over the counter, lowering her voice. “But just to let you know, I’ve heard rumors that he got in pretty deep with trafficking and that someone tried to kill him and everything. The guy is super hardcore.”

  “Sounds dangerous and kind of mobsterish,” I joke, trying to make myself feel less like I’m about to slip out of my skin, but it’s not working.

  “Yeah, it does,” she says, biting her lip as she deliberates something then mutters, “Although, I do find it really weird that he got mixed up in it at all.”

  “Why?” I ask. She taps her fingers against the countertop, dazing off at something behind my shoulder and I wave my hand in front of her face. “Earth to Bella.”

  She blinks out of her trance and then laughs. “Sorry, I was just zoning off, thinking.”

  “About what?” I grab a bottle of vodka and unscrew the cap.

  She shrugs. “High School and stuff. I used to know Leon back then and he never did seem like the type to turn into a criminal.” She tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear. “In fact, he was sort of a nerd, even through college.”

  “So you know him, then?”

  “Kind of. I mean we went to school together, but didn’t run in the same group or anything. This will be our first time seeing each other in about ten years.”

  “Well, maybe his being a nerd was just a facade.” It makes me wonder what I was in high school—a good girl like my mom says I was, or maybe that was my facade. “Sometimes people aren’t what they seem on the outside. Plus, that was over twenty years ago. A lot can change over a couple of decades.”

  “Yeah, I guess, but still. It’s so weird. Like he completely changed into a different person. Like he had this dark side and suddenly it came out of him.”

  She’s making me feel really uncomfortable, to the point that I’m starting to sweat. I feel like I have this giant crazy sign flashing above my head. I’m about to change the subject when she does it for me.

  “Alright enough reminiscing,” she says, her upbeat personality returning. “Pour me a drink.”

  “Okay, what do you want to start off with today?” I ask, setting the glasses down on the bar. The disconcerting feeling inside me, thank God, is cooling down. “Vodka? Whiskey? Tequila?”

  “Just water,” she replies, tucking a strand of her blond hair behind her ear. “I’m getting burnt out. In fact, I actually went to an AA meeting down on Broadway the other day to confess my sins about how much I’ve been drinking.” She thrums her finger on her bottom lip. “Strangely, they were very unsympathetic.”

  “That’s because AA is a recovery group.” I shake my head, reaching for the Vodka. “Not a church.”

  She rolls her eyes. “You say potato. I say potato. Besides, I needed my support group fix.”

  “You need to stop doing that.” I pour two shots of vodka, licking off a few drops that spill onto my hand. “People are really serious about that shit. Trust me. I used to go to one.”

  “To an AA meeting?”

  “To a support group.”

  “For?”

  I tap the side of my head and she nods, getting it. For my amnesia, although I think I could go to a Potential Killers Anonymous if one existed. Maybe there I could finally express what I was carrying around inside me. Maybe I could finally let Lily out for a moment and be okay with it.

  “I sometimes forget that you’ve forgotten.” She grins then scoops up the shot glass like she’s going to make a toast. “And just so you know, I’m still going to go to the AA meetings. I met a hot guy there and now we’re dating. And let me tell ya, the sex is amazing.”

  “Does he know you’re not a recovering alcoholic?”

  She bites her lip guiltily. “I haven’t had the chance to mention it yet.”

  “Sure you haven’t.” I collect the other shot glass, spilling a little of the liquid. “You’re so manipulative.” Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black?

  “So are you.” She grins before downing her shot. Then she puts the glass down and goes over to the table area and begins putting down the chairs. I slam my warm-up shot back, then begin to get ready to open up the bar, checking the glasses and alcohol bottles to see what all I need to get from the store. Glen usually doesn’t show up until the after hours, if at all, and River is always fashionably late, something he gets away with because he’s Glen’s baby brother by about twenty years.

  After Bella and I get everything set up I turn the lights and music on, while three of the other waitresses/dancers—Mindy, Sydney, and I think the other�€
™s name is Marilynn—get ready to open up. I try to remember names, but waitresses come and go here about as frequently as internet trends. I blame it on the high amount of males touching themselves at the tables and how the waitresses and dancers are just supposed to overlook it and “do our thing.”

  Sydney is the only waitress that’s worked here for over two weeks. She’s tall, leggy, and has a heart tattoo on her ankle that matches the little heart buttons on her shirt, that are actually kind of pretty and for a stupid moment I picture myself plucking them off her shirt. She also doesn’t like me at all. No surprise since most women tend to not like my blunt and bold personality. Plus, I think she has a thing for River. Honestly, I’m not even sure what the real foundation of this dislike is for me, other than her first day working here, she took one look at me and made this noise in the back of her throat that sounded an awful lot like disgust. Then she walked away, shaking her head, and that was that. She hated me and has acted upon the loathing several times over the last couple of weeks, including one very intense fight where I discovered that I don’t fight like a girl. I kick and punch and can throw down like a guy, something Sydney and her nose didn’t appreciate when I crashed my knuckles against it. She actually tried to get me fired, but luckily Glen likes me.