Page 18 of Miserable Marionette

“Mrs. Johnson just called earlier. Apparently, soon-to-be Mrs. Kessler decided at the last second to change the suit color so I’—"

“You’re going in on your day off again?” Bryan groans before releasing me. “Lame!”

“At least have a few drinks with us. I brought Smirnoff,” Jess singsongs, hooking one of her feet around the handle of their overnight bag and dragging it toward her. My stomach is already curdling. Still recovering from the last Jordan sibling-induced hangover.

“I don’t think—"

“Keep this up and I’ll have to get a second girlfriend, one that’ll actually spend time with me.” My jaw clenches at his “joke.” I know he sleeps around. I ignore it because… well, I just don’t care that much. I only agreed to date him because Jess begged me to. Said her mom was getting suspicious of us. Shortly after, that fizzled out too. Apparently, it’s not a huge turn-on to share a girl with your brother. For either of us.

Fair.

I’m already halfway to the kitchen for a mixer, listening to them argue about Bryan being a misogynist and Jess having no sense of humor. When I return, setting three cups down on the table, slipping a coaster underneath them, hoping Bryan won’t ignore it, I’m ready for my first shot. I don’t bother with the lemonade mixer this time, letting the alcohol burn my throat. Groaning inwardly as the oven clock hits one a.m.

By my second poorly mixed drink and third shot, the fact that it's bordering on four in the morning doesn’t seem like a huge deal. The music is loud as it thumps, Jess and Bryan fighting again over something on the TV before the adult part of my brain reminds me I have to be up in a few hours. The dark woods at the end of the long side yard next to my house are menacing in the dark. My glass smacks loudly against the sink as I wobble, struggling to fill it up with my first water of the night. My eyelids are heavy and drooping more and more each second. The ice-cold water feels like heaven on my throat as I chug it, ignoring the small line that escapes, trailing down my chest and into my white tank top. My heart shudders in my chest as I lower the glass, my eyes catching movement outside the window, far back.

Was that a deer or the breeze?

My heart rate picks up as I lean closer to the window, fighting past my reflection and burning eyes to stare into the dark. Woods and tree lines I used to explore with a quiet little boy, our special place that’s now overgrown and long neglected, barely the grove I remember at all. The cache of snacks and knick-knacks he strung up in the tree that used to house that old swing, long rotten and decayed.

The sound of a glass knocking over and Bryan’s following curses takes my attention away from the tricks my eyes are playing on me. Bryan jerks off his shirt for whatever reason, using that to mop up the lemonade vodka mix now covering the old coffee table. My brows knit together as I get the cleaner from underneath the sink, all but shoving the cup into his hands as he drunkenly apologizes but mostly stands there laughing and burping.

“Ohhhh, she’s pissed now,” he jokes. “I ruined her dada's table.”

The sound of a smack and his resounding ouch would’ve made me smile if I wasn’t so tired, or focused on cleaning this properly. When I’m certain none got on the rug, I toss the cleaning rag at Bryan. “Toss this in the washer, please. I’m going to bed.” I’ll be lucky if it makes it to the floor beside the washer, but I’m too drunk to care.

He stands at attention, ramrod straight, saluting me before gripping the back of my neck, smothering my lips with his. His kisses are the same, drunk or sober. Sloppy, wet, and fevered. Like we’ve just started the race, but he’s already at the finish line. My lips are more covered in his spit than my own as he finally lets me up for air. “Be in there soon, babe.”

No, you won’t.

You spent the first half of your day with the new cashier at your parents’ greenhouse. It’s a comfort knowing he won’t be drunkenly shoving his cock between my legs. Last time we slept together, he didn’t even make it inside me, just rubbed between my thighs, came on his sheets, and passed out. God, I’ve got to be up by nine if I push it. I kill the music and with it, silently, the party, only the sound coming from the attic fan pulling air through the creaky house. The curtains billowing wildly from the windows, the ones I can open up anyway. I lack the strength to unstick several. What was once a wonderful, magical place that I never wanted to be fell quicker than Rome. Dad stopped doing weekend home improvement projects that he’d ask for my help with. Mom stopped asking him to fix the things that went wrong. They stopped paying attention to the little girl upstairs. The little girl wasn’t here most of the time anyway, wandering through the woods with the weird little boy from across the street. I doubt they even noticed or cared, not toward the end. Mom certainly didn’t.

I rush through brushing my hair and teeth, cringing at the little buildup of grease at my roots. Nothing some Minipoo powder and a braid can’t hide. I’m already halfway asleep when I tug off my sweatpants, collapsing against a bed I don’t even bother unmaking. Definitely not dreaming about the man across the street, or the way his eyes felt on me, the thrill I felt at the idea of having that unwavering attention again.

Gideon, Present Day, 1994

My fingers twitch, pulling invisible strings. Manipulating and arranging a puppet I don’t have possession of. It's muscle memory at this point. A tick I’ve noticed growing over the years. The more I take, the longer I work with them, the harder it becomes to break the habit. My shadow looms over the man on the porch swing, snoring loudly, his arm draped over his eyes as his chest rises and falls with each heavy breath. He doesn’t budge as I adjust my glasses, leaning over his bulky frame. Being sure not to interfere with the gentle swaying of the swing. His lips are dry and rough as I prod at them, picturing how they felt against hers. Three times tonight, he kissed her, shoved his dry, rough lips against ones that don’t belong to him. Lips I claimed years ago.

My jaw clenches, my pulse ticking in my neck as I place my hand over his mouth, fingers gripping his nose. He doesn’t struggle at first, too drunk to realize he’s not taking in oxygen. The swing rattles with the first sign of life. His arm jerking down to slap at the obstruction. His panic is sudden and violent. He’s much larger than I am in girth. Height, not so much. Where his bulky, corded muscles overpower, there’s no calculation in his struggle. My forearm strains with the effort to keep his mouth covered. He jostles the swing again, his legs kicking wildly as I glance up at the hooks in the roof, debating the sturdiness of the rusted brackets. Not wanting to damage my puppet’s family home, I decide to test it slowly, placing my knee underneath his sternum, adding enough pressure to control, but not to bruise. Not a tremendous concern either way. If he’s found, I’ll be the one who gets him.

“Gideon, you can’t do these things without thinking! They’ll take you and lock you away somewhere like you’re some goddamn animal.” My father’s warnings echo in my mind, snapping me from my daydream as I remove my hand.

He coughs, adjusting his bulk on the swing, barely registering I’d touched him at all. Far from the pleasantly violent thrashing he’d done in my mind. My breath stills in my lungs, the buzzing in my head the only sound between us as I wait. Will he wake up? Will he make this choice easy? If he woke up and was enraged… he couldn’t be trusted. What if he hurt me, hurt her? I’d have no choice then. Technically, I wouldn’t be going back on my father’s teachings at all. It’d be too late, a matter of self-defense. It was too late the moment I left her. From the second the wheels of that moving truck turned onto the highway, I was just taking the long way home. The buzzing in my head silences as the rapid beat of my heart doubles, that familiar sick excitement coursing through my veins. Anticipation. My muscles tense, ready, but he settles, spittle dripping from his gaping mouth in a loud snore. Audrey, I’d thought better of you. Getting involved with a man who gets so fucked up he doesn’t even come to enough to realize he’s being suffocated.

My eyes dart to the dark, open window a few down from me, where I know my girl is passed out. Careful of any signs of movement. They’ve been drinking all night. If the baggy of white pills poking out from his jean pocket is any indication, he at least has been mixing poisons. Something to note for later.

“Pills and alcohol,” I tsk quietly at the soon-to-be corpse. “Accidental overdoses kill upwards of sixteen thousand people a year.” Dragging my eyes from the dark windows of the living room, I play out in my head how I would’ve disposed of his body had I gone that route.

I don’t drink myself, not more than a few sips here and there. I’ve cut open enough career alcoholics, and the thought of liquor seems less appealing. The force of my actions hit me all at once, and like usual, there’s little to show for it. No breakdown, no panting or sobbing, screaming, not even a hole in the wall or something more dramatic like a fist through a mirror. There's no regret, no remorse, not enough to matter anyway. My father, everything he fought so hard to prevent, all unfolding in a matter of days. And here I stand on her porch, the girl I haven’t seen in ten years. The girl who has unknowingly been the cause of death for so many others. Seventeen, to be exact.

The man snoring on the porch represents the first step toward my undoing. An unraveling that’s been years in the making. The first thread was cut and frayed the day I left Audrey. All roads, no matter how much distance my dad put between us, were always going to lead me back here. Back to her. I’ll drown her with me almost as surely as I’ll eventually have to answer for my crimes. I’ll have to leave her again, and the thought sours my gut. Killing off any pleasure I got from imagining this man’s death. My steps thud quietly on the porch as I round the corner, the familiar creaking lighting a fire within my bones as I reach through the window, dragging my finger over the dusty windowsill, peering in at her sprawled on her bed before I head back home. Each step further from her is taken on rusted nails and jagged glass.

10

Un-Welcome Home

Audrey, Sixteen Years Old, 1983

Before That Night