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Aurnia
A part of me hoped that someone would see through the ruse.
I’d called him, after all, so it was stupid to wish that he would get caught, but hey, I never really claimed to be all that smart. As I dialled the number, I secretly hoped that someone might notice that it wasn’t the one on the little piece of paper in front of me. As I spoke to him on the phone, I kept glancing at the officer spinning idly in his chair to see if maybe, just maybe he might notice that my voice didn’t sound quite right. That I was tense. That I was uncomfortable. That I was lying.
It took a few hours for him to arrive at the station. In those hours, there on that cold, hard bench behind those cold, hard bars, I ran my palms over my thighs. I wouldn’t mind all that much if he didn’t show up.
But of course he finally arrived. I walked out to the front with the officer. I greeted him with the name that was not his as he grinned at me wildly.
Even then I held out for the slim chance that someone would recognise him. From a mug shot. From a person of interest list. From an altercation on some seedy city sidewalk. I signed my signature on the release papers slowly to give the officer at the front desk a few extra seconds. Just in case.
He lied through his teeth to the officer. “I’ll give her a firm talking to, don’t you worry. She’ll not be doing anything like this ever again if I have anything to say about it. Boy, I sure was worried about this dear, dear little child.”. How could anyone be buying this? Surely the officer wasn’t going to let him just walk out the door with me. Sure he had tattoos, but they were clearly done with a ballpoint pen and a fifth of whiskey. Yes, he said the right name, but it was so obvious that it didn’t fit him. It couldn’t fit him. If I could see straight through him and his darting eyes, his stinking jacket, his fidgeting fingers, then why couldn’t anyone else?
I dared to hope that as we were walking down the street outside the station toward his car, someone might run after us. “How’d you let this happen?” some sergeant would chastise the officer at the front desk. “Are you all lunatics?” he’d shout at the guys in the back. “This man is clearly not Conor Mac Haol!”
None of those silly hopes, those ridiculous wishes mattered now.
Because I’d called Nick.
I’d left with him.
There I was, sitting in his car with his hand on my thigh.
“You’re a clever little one, ain’t you, Aurnia?” Nick said.
The car shifted dangerously across lanes. He wasn’t looking at the road: he was looking at me.
I forced myself to keep my eyes straight ahead. I didn’t want to encourage him. A single glance was all it took to make him believe that I was his. In school we learned about this lady in Greek mythology with snake for hair whose gaze turned people to stone. Nick’s gaze didn’t turn you to stone. It justclaimedyour soul. I guess “fucking devil” would be a better name for Nick than Medusa.
And yet I had called him. There I was, not shoving aside his hand from my leg and leaping from the moving car.
“Did you like how I said I was so worried?” Nick said, tugging at the wheel just before we hit the chain-link fence of an abandoned warehouse. “I thought that asshole ate that right up. Like he was holding a goddamn spoon.”
I remained silent.
“He fucking ate that right up.”
I knew he was grinning. Grinning at the road in that dangerous part of town he thought was his. Grinning at the blanket of grey clouds he claimed as his own. Grinning at me. Finally back where I belonged. In his possession. He squeezed my thigh more tightly.
“Did you like how I grabbed your head and pulled it to my chest like that?” he asked. “Like I was just so overcome with emotion that you were safe and sound? I saw the way that prick looked at me when I did that. He really believed it. Someone should send me a goddamn Oscar, you know? My little baby Aurnia?”
Nick blew through a red light. I didn’t turn my head to glance in either direction to see whether we were about to be hit; it wasn’t worth the risk of catching Nick’s eye. Death would be kinder anyway.
“Maybe you’d like that, eh?” Nick said. His tickling of my side felt more like the jab of a screwdriver over and over again. “Maybe you’d like to be with an Oscar winner. Maybe you wouldn’t run off where I can’t find you so often then, eh?”
“I really appreciate you picking me up,” was all I said. “You can drop me off right here.”
The car kept going. If the doors hadn’t already been locked, I was sure that Nick would have locked them.
“Did you like when I said all that about being disappointed in you? In wishing that you hadn’t done what you did? In feeling that you were slipping right through my fingers?”
Nick’s hand was back on my thigh. His knuckles were white as he gripped me, the black of his tattoos all the blacker in contrast.
“Maybe you thought that part was especially convincing?” he said. “Well, let me tell you the secret to that part of the performance.”
I sensed his head leaning toward mine just as clearly as if he had been a spider crawling over my bare shoulder. The car swerved on the deserted road, but neither of us seemed to care all that much if we crashed. Nick didn’t believe it was possible; he was Superman. And me? I was simply unable to care anymore.
Nick’s breath was hot against my ear. “The secret, little baby Aurnia, was that it wasn’t a performance at all. I meant every single word I said to that fat pig. I meant it all the way down to the pit of my belly. I meant it from my fucking heart, do you hear me?”
