Page 22 of Phoenix
“Christ, sorry, I was just checking…” I try to rush out, but she merely shuts her eyes and shakes her head, still breathing rapidly.
I step up to reach her and she flinches a little in my grip, but then lets me pull her against my chest so I can rub her back in calming circles. After a few minutes of us standing like this, her breathing calms down and she stops trembling, but, for reasons unknown, I don’t let go. Not that she’s fighting me on this. In fact, she feels like she needs me just as much as I need her in this moment.
Her hair smells like coconut from Lou’s shampoo, her pale white complexion contrasts with my tanned one, and her skin is smooth, all over. Apart from when I brush my hand against her shoulder where I feel a line of rough skin, all bumpy beneath my fingertips. Only when I touch this scar does she back away from me. Her mossy green eyes stare back at mine, mine which are searching for answers she’s reluctant to give.
“Did he do that?” I ask, looking at her shoulder where there is a two-inch scar marring her otherwise perfect skin.
“No,” she replies.
“Will you tell me how you got it?” I ask brazenly. She looks down to her feet before looking back at me with what looks like some courage in her eyes.
“I-if I do, will you tell me something?” she ventures, trying to stand tall before me. I like her standing up for herself, trying to show the strength she doesn’t know she has, so I smile and agree with one nod of my head.
“Ladies first,” I reply with a gesture for her to begin.
“When Jake and I escaped, I caught my shoulder on the door frame,” she explains, “it hurt like hell, but we didn’t exactly hang around to tend to it properly. We weren’t even sure if he was dead or alive but didn’t want to risk it if he wasn’t.”
“Where’d you leave him?” I ask, not knowing the details because Jake simply said he had died from prostate cancer when he returned. Lou and I never thought to question him any further on it.
“In the basement,” she murmurs, fidgeting with the sleeve of her oversized robe. Lou is petite, but Jessie is practically half-starved. “Where he had kept us for six years. Occasionally, he’d let us outside to walk around in the woods, but he always had a gun kept on him so we couldn’t wander far. Jake used to joke about us getting rickets.” She laughs as though it could turn to crying at any moment. “He used to threaten us with getting to our families if we ever tried to leave him. My parents and…you and your sister.”
“Jesus!” I hiss through my teeth, seething with rage. “I can’t imagine what that must have been like, to live that way for six years. No wonder you sleep so much, you must be exhausted.”
She perches on the side of the bed, using her hand to move some of the pencils out the way, clearing a space for me to sit beside her. I cautiously make my way to take up what she has offered, because from what I’ve read, Jessie’s never opened up to anyone before now. All past psychologists have noted that she remained monosyllabic during therapy sessions, whereas police reports were factual, nothing more. She never contacted her friend, Tammy, when she got back, the one who was taken with her, and her parents told therapists that they failed to rebuild any sort of meaningful relationship with her. In fact, for all I know, she never left her house until I took her.
“Who’s this?” I ask, gesturing to the dragon. “Who’s Stanley?”
“There’s an old folk story from where I live, about a dragon who lives in one of the caves on the beach,” she says with a smile. She looks at him as if he’s a short reprieve from reality, a fictional beast that allows her to get safely lost in the nostalgia of her childhood, before all of this happened to her. “Legend says that if you find one of his scales, he’ll grant you a wish. His name is Stanley, and he’s incredibly shy. If you wish to see him, he’ll send you a letter telling you how he had tried to show himself but got too scared. He fears people will stop coming to find his scales.”
“Ah,” I laugh with her, “your mom got very inventive then.”
“I guess she had to, being I was that irritating kid who had to wish for the impossible,” she says with a smile that is beautiful because it’s real. A genuinely real smile from the girl who is still very much lost. I smile back at her, and something seems to pass between us, something that feels remarkably like trust.
“Stanley reminds me of someone,” I whisper, “someone who wants to remain hidden because she’s too frightened to be seen. She’s also scared of finding out who she really is. Must be lonely, Jessie.”
“It is,” she whispers back, “but then you would know all about that wouldn’t you, Warren?”
“Touche,” I reply with a grin.
“So now it’s my turn to ask you, Phoenix,” she says, sounding confident but averting her eyes at the same time.
“That it is,” I reply, hoping my tone encourages her to speak freely.
“Why a phoenix?”
I have to smile because it’s the obvious question for anyone who doesn’t know my story.
“When I was seven, someone petrol-bombed our house. Dad was away and Mom was sleeping in the room next to mine and Lou’s. I was the only one who woke up when the fire was underway, and I remember thinking something wasn’t right, so I took Lou into Mom’s room and did everything I could to wake her. She tied Lou, who was only about one, to my chest with the belt of her robe and told me to get Lou out, that she would follow behind.” I pause to release a soft laugh into my hands, even though the memory is anything but funny. “I even asked her to bring my baby blanket with her. She said she would, even though she knew she wasn’t getting out. I crawled out of that burning house only to have it explode with her still inside of it.”
I stare at my hands, waiting for her to say something, but the silence that follows becomes almost deafening. When I finally look back up at her, her eyes are closed, and tears are running freely down her face. It’s so heartbreaking to see, I can’t help but cup her cheek with my hand and brush the tears away, making her gasp and look at me in such a way, I feel vulnerable, as if entirely at her mercy.
“They said I was the phoenix rising from the ashes,” I eventually continue, “that I was a little superhero who rescued his sister. But I’m no hero, Jessie, because most of the time, I’m just as lost as you are.”
I lean in and kiss her on her plump, red lips that taste salty from tears, all the while pressing my other hand against her right cheek. At first, she tenses up, but she doesn’t stop me, and neither does she open her eyes. As I continue, she eventually places her hand on my bicep and kisses me back. It’s soft but so intoxicatingly comforting, I feel like I could do this for the rest of the night and not want a single thing more from her. But then…then she moans, and when she does, I want so much more from her, more than I’m willing to take, not a second time, not like this.
“Why are you stopping?” she asks when I pull back, keeping my hands on her face because I crave the contact.
“Because I should never have slept with you that night,” I reply ashamedly. “You deserved better than that for your first time, Jessie.”