Colin is used to recruits being difficult and uncertain.
But Emmalee takes it to another level:
She finds a way to escape.
He’s only in the bathroom for a second, but in that second, she breaks the glass on the window and is gone before he opens the door.
“Impossible.” Colin says, cursing as he half-limps, half-jogs out the door.
Once out on the street, he pauses, trying to determine which way she ran. He doesn’t have the energy capacity to spend the whole night in a chase of guesses. Besides, after their last chase, she should be smart enough to avoid him. He would expect nothing less from a recruit.
“What the hell?” Lydia asks as she suddenly appears in front of Colin. “What happened?”
“She escaped.”
“You let her escape?”
“No, I didn’t let her! What the hell kinda question is that?”
“A valid one, obviously. She escaped.”
“What are you still doing here?”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to miss the entertainment. Plus, obviously I’m needed.” Lydia looks up at the broken window to their room, at the ground, and then at Colin. “She didn’t break the window, and she didn’t jump.”
“What? How do you know? Where the hell is she? Did you do this?”
“Like I said before, if I wanted to undermine you, I could be more creative about it.” She says. “There’s no glass on the ground. The window was broken from the outside.”
“So she had help. To create a diversion.” Colin’s face pales as he realizes what’s happened. “Shit.”
He begins running back to the hotel room, dragging his broken leg with him as quickly as possible. Lydia runs ahead of him, but this time he doesn’t try to stop her. He needs her help.
Emmalee is officially the most difficult recruit he’s ever had.
My earliest memory.
I didn’t sleep well.
In fact, I was quite the little monster when it came to sleep, refusing to close my eyes in a peaceful slumber for longer than five minutes. I stubbornly refused to adhere to the sleep schedule of the rest of the world, preferring to get my shut eye during the day. I’d cry inconsolably from 11pm to 6am, falling asleep only when the first rays of sunlight hit exhausted, bloodshot eyeballs.
My parents tried the usual tricks to get me to sleep, of course. They bought a state-of-the-art mechanical swing that only made me flap my stubby wings in a fearful protest. Warm milk made messy sheets and an upset stomach. Music left me in a quiet rapture, but never for long. I was hopeless.
Eventually, my parents figured out that I could be easily lulled to sleep during car rides. They’d strap me in my carseat kicking and screaming, and before long I’d become the personal definition of Sleeping Beauty for my parents: beautifully, finally, asleep. However, it was nearly impossible to get me from my carseat to my crib without disturbing my peaceful slumber, and I’d often wake with a piercing wail that would last throughout the night. My mother would hold me against her chest, rock me in her arms, and croon soothing words in my ear, but to no avail. I refused to sleep.
Sometimes, my father would decide to help, probably on nights when my wailing was impossible for him to sleep through. On these nights, I’d be asleep in a matter of minutes, an ear pressed to my father’s chest like a human stethoscope. My mother was baffled by this. Why would I fall asleep so easily for my father, but spend hours in despair with her? This unfair expression of favoritism fueled my mother’s frustration with me. Upon birth, my lips had been deemed too small for normal suckling, and I’d been tube-fed formula until I could manage a bottle. It seemed endearing until it became to look like yet another personal slight against my mother.
“My baby doesn’t love me!” My mother cried.
My father attempt to deny this by setting up little tricks to make my mother my “hero.” He’d place me in my crib, and send my mother to “rescue” me as I screamed my loudest. However, my screams would only subside as soon as the sound of my father’s heartbeat could soothe me to sleep. Rigidly postured and petrified of waking me, my father would catch glimpses of sleep as I snored against his chest, always vowing in the morning that I would never again leave my crib in the middle of the night. I could cry all night, but I would not be consoled!
But as much as he tried to deny it, my father was my hero, and the sole savior of sleep in the Mathys family household of three. As long as his heart was beating, he was stuck with me, another lesson and blessing wrapped in a baby-blanket bundle.
Eventually, my parents managed to get me to fall asleep in my own bed. The nocturnal schedule I kept as a newborn diminished with my transition into toddlerhood where I was finally able to recognize sleep as a luxury. However, I would still wake in the middle of the night with tears streaming down my face, begging to join my parents in their bed. My mother tells me I would claim to have woken from nightmares in which strangers wouldn’t stop talking to me, but if that’s what occurred, I have no recollection of these nightmares.
I do, however, remember a night I woke crying and blubbering all the way to my parents’ room. I remember, precisely because it was the night I saw the boogie monster. Not the imaginary monster that hides in closets or under beds, but the actual, real-life boogie monster. The kind that creeps into the corners of eyes during sleep and leaves crusty little eye boogers upon waking. Usually the boogie monster is relatively harmless, but on this particular night, it was terrorizing.
I woke in the middle of the night to find that the boogie monster had covered both of my eyes in a screen of boogers. I blinked behind a veil of green, the glow of my Winnie The Pooh nightlight muted. I began to cry in panic as I blindly made my way to my parent’s room, running my hand along the familiar walls to guide me. My mother was the first to notice me when I burst into their room, but I ran straight for my dad who was the closest to the door.
“Daddy, daddy!” I cried.
He jumped out of bed to a sight that must have been as scary for him as it was for me because he immediately took me into the bathroom to wipe my eyes with a warm washcloth. As the boogie monsters film of fear faded from my eyes, so did my tears.
This is my first memory. I was only three.
A fictional interpretation of a song by The Beatles
It was a stroke that killed him.
His brain finally overpowered his body, and my first thought was it’s about time.
“Oh my god.” She said. “We have to go to the funeral.”
“I’m not going.” I said.
“What’s the matter with you?” She asked. “He’s dead!”
As if I didn’t know.
***
He was the head of the English Department at her University.
In his spare time, he taught free art classes to underprivileged children. When she invited him over for dinner one night, he brought an expensive bottle of wine. I tried to hate it, but I only hated him.
I saw the way she looked at him, the way her eyes lit up with excitement when she talked about him. She started staying late at her classes “to study” and I pretended I didn’t know.
I’m glad he’s dead.
***
“Why are you going?” I asked her as she dressed for his funeral.
“Because.” She said, adjusting the straps of her black dress.
“Because why? He was just your teacher.”
“And my friend.”
“If that’s what you want to call it.”
“Don’t roll your eyes at me. He was a good friend.”
“I’m sure.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Don’t go.”
“I’m going.”
“But why?”
“Because at my funeral, I don’t want people to ask that question.”
Then, she grabbed her purse and left.
***
She believed in karma.
I wondered if, as she stood at his funeral in her black dress, black heels, and red lips, she thought this is karma. She never told me. I never asked.
***
She came home and cried. I held her until her tears dried.
Then we went to bed.
***
She wore black for six months.
The proper grieving time, she said.
For widowers, I said.
She said nothing.
***
What if he hadn’t died?
Would she have realized her mistake?
Would we have been okay again?
I guess we’ll never know.
It’s not what Emmalee expected.
“First, you’ll go through training. Don’t ask me what that will be. It’s different for everyone, and even if I knew—and I don’t—I wouldn’t be allowed to tell you.” Colin says.
Emmalee frowns, but doesn’t complain. She would like more information, but fine. She can be patient. Surely, there’s more information to come.
“And after training?” Emmalee asks when Colin doesn’t immediately continue.
“You’ll have your first assignment.”
“Assignment?”
“I was getting there. Jeez.” Colin sighs. “The job is made up of assignments. They’ll seem random, but they are all appropriately coordinated with your level of skill and your current location. Your level of skill is determined during training, and kept track of after each assignment completion. Your location is tracked by the company. Don’t ask me how. I don’t know, and I don’t care.”
“They track my location, and I’m not allowed to know how?”
Emmalee crosses her arms over her chest, stands up, and begins pacing back and forth in front of the bed. She doesn’t like having her location tracked. That was why she had started this whole life of escaping. How is she supposed to be okay with this? Colin should have warned her. He knew about this, and he didn’t—
“We’re not the bad guys.” Colin says.
“How do I know?” Emmalee asks. “How am I supposed to believe anything you tell me?”
“Well, I don’t see how you have much of a choice.”
“Exactly!” She stops pacing, and stands in front of Colin. “I don’t have a choice. I’ve never had a choice. I’m just supposed to give up everything for one giant mess of secrets!”
Colin is silent for a minute, and Emmalee struggles to keep from crying. She hates this, hates all the unknowns. She’s worked hard to keep her life in her control, and then Colin showed up and wrecked every sense of control she thought was hers to keep.
“We all have secrets, Miss. Whittaker.” Colin says. “We all have things happen that are out of our control. It’s part of life.”
“Not mine.”
“What?” Colin laughs. “Now, you’re just being ridiculous. Are you going to let me finish or not?”
Emmalee takes a step backwards. She knows her options for escape are severely limited. Colin may be injured, but Lydia isn’t, and Emmalee knows she can’t be far. Surely, they anticipated her desire for escape. Surely, Lydia is waiting for her to try.
“I don’t know.” She says.
Colin sighs. He leans back on the bed, and grabs the remote for the television, turning it on.
“Let me know when you’re ready. I’ve got all night.” He says. “But just so you know, it’s too late to change your mind.”
A fictional interpretation of a song by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
You won’t know she’s damaged just by looking at her.
She hides the bruises well, and puts on a lipsticked smile that almost looks genuine. But there’s a kindness and empathy in her eyes as she takes care of the women in the shelter she volunteers at three times a week. It’s obvious she understands exactly the pain they’ve been through. Husbands and fathers who beat them; boyfriends and brothers who tried to kill them. You can’t understand that kind of pain unless you’ve been there.
And she has.
***
The first time it happened, she convinced herself she had it coming.
She had never seen him get so angry before. He had always been so kind and nurturing. The lawyer with a heart.
His name was Jeff, and they met in court. She was there to support the woman who had died in the hospital two days before. The woman’s husband was the one on trial, charged with the second-degree murder of his wife. Jeff was his lawyer, though he would later claim he didn’t want to be.
“He was completely guilty. Without a conscience guilty.” Jeff would tell her over dinner many weeks after the case. “I could have gotten him off, but why should I?”
“Are you saying you threw the case?” She asked him.
He leaned in close, his brown eyes glittering with proud deception.
“I’m saying I’m a really good lawyer.” He said.
Then, he winked at her, and changed the subject.
Three weeks later, they were living together.
***
She thought they were moving too fast.
But she didn’t say anything. How could she? Why would she?
He was barely home. He worked all the time, sometimes even through the night. It wasn’t like he was disrupting anything or taking over her life. Sure, she had to cut her visits with family and friends short many times because he would call her, and expect her to come home to him.
“I don’t have a lot of time.” He would say. “I want to make the most of it…with you.”
And she wanted that too.
It didn’t seem manipulative, the way he only ever seemed to have free time when she made plans. She could spend weeks alone at home, and he wouldn’t have a second to spare, but as soon as she made plans, he was suddenly urgently available.
She assumed it was just the funny way life worked sometimes.
But she was wrong.
***
The first time it happened she was eating breakfast.
She had good news, big news to tell him.
“I’ve been offered a promotion at work. I’ll have to travel a lot, but it’s really good pay and will be a great opportunity for me.” She said. “So I’m going to take it.”
He smacked her hard across the face, stood up, and walked out of the kitchen without a word. She sat there with her hand on her bruising cheek, and her lips parted in shock until she heard him leave for work.
It was so casually unexpected that she convinced herself she imagined it. It didn’t really happen. Even when the bruise appeared the next day.
He didn’t come home for three days.
She turned down the promotion.
***
He told he was just surprised.
“I thought we were going good together, and then you go and make this huge decision without me, and I don’t know…I just snapped. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t hurt you, did I? I’m so sorry…”
She told him he was right. That she was fine. That she shouldn’t have accepted an offer so huge without consulting him first. They were good together. How could she have thought it would be okay to make such a huge decision without including him?
She blamed herself, and in the back of her mind she knew that was a warning sign. Violence is never the victim’s fault. That’s what she teaches the women at the shelter, isn’ t it? It’s not your fault.
But in her mind she was saying,
It’s all your fault. You should have known better. You did this.
***
She became an expert at hiding bruises with makeup.
Her wardrobe became a collection of long sleeves and loose fits. Her friends and family would mention the change, but she quickly defended it.
“I’m comfortable.” She said.
But she wasn’t comfortable.
She was terrified.
***
The end came the night before her sister’s wedding.
He didn’t want her to attend the bachelorette party. But she was the Maid of Honor. She was hosting the party. It was her sister, and she had to be there.
She knew by now that to call him ridiculous was dangerous, and she also knew better than to try to argue with him. He made his living winning arguments. She didn’t stand a chance.
But she fought anyway.
Her sister found her face down in the dirt outside her house, dressed in a pink sequined dress, repeating the same line over and over again:
I’ve had enough.
***
She doesn’t remember that night very well.
She suffered a concussion and multiple contusions. Two broken ribs. One broken collarbone. A twisted ankle.
But she remembers her brother-in-law’s voice, angry and shouting.
“Do you feel like a man when you push her around? Does it make you feel better to see her face down on the ground? Huh, you piece of shit! How do you like it?”
Her sister later told her the whole bachelor party showed up. Jeff didn’t stand a chance. The tables were turned.
The official ruling was justifiable homicide.
Enough was enough.
When Emmalee bursts through the door, Colin is unprepared.
He had been expecting her to show, of course. And when he heard her at the door he intentionally didn’t answer. He was wanting her to prove that she could find a way in without help.
And she did.
But it still caught him off guard.
“Have you been there the whole time?” Emmalee asks when she sees Colin lying slightly startled on the bed.
“Yes.”
“Didn’t you hear me knock?”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t you answer the door.”
“It’s not in my job description.”
Emmalee crosses her arms over her chest and glares at him. Colin grabs the remote to the television, but Emmalee snatches it from his hands before he can push a button.
“I thought your offer was a serious proposition,” Emmalee says.
“It is.”
“Obviously not.”
“It is if you’re here to take the job.”
“Do you really think I’d be here if I wasn’t?”
“Good point,” he says. “I’m injured.”
“Injured?”
“I was hit by a car.”
“No, you ran right in front of it.”
“Yes, well, the driver should have been prepared for that.”
“Right. Because it makes total sense for a driver to expect a crazy man to come running in front of the car unexpectedly.”
“Are you done?” Colin asks, sighing.
“Done?”
“I’m not going to give you your job description if you’re going to stake your opinion in everything as some sort of defensive mechanism. You want answers. That’s why you’re here. You’re hoping that by taking the job I’ll answer all your questions, and ease whatever fear you have going on. But can you please just say that? I’m not in the mood for this whole argument act.”
Emmalee blinks, and then sets the remote control on the bedside table. She takes a seat on the empty bed across from Colin, and waits for him to speak. He grins before getting up from the bed and limping to the drink station.
“Want something?” He asks.
“No, thanks.”
He pours her a drink anyway and makes one for himself before limping back over to the beds and handing one of the drinks to Emmalee.
“You’re going to need it. Trust me.” He says.
And then he begins to explain the job.
A fictional interpretation of a song by The Four Tops
Love is a drug when it comes to her.
I’m weaker than a man should be because I just want her. Only her. She’s the only one my eyes can see.
I can’t help myself.
I’m in love with her and I don’t want anyone else.
***
She has the curves and confidence of a woman who knows she can have whatever she wants.
One snap of her fingers and she knows I’ll be there, right there, to give her whatever she asks. She often takes advantage of this, but I don’t care. Why should I?
Love doesn’t need a reason for action.
“You have it bad.” She says.
“Sugar pie, yes I do.” I say.
***
She makes me happy, and that’s what counts.
I have to remind her every time we fight, and we often do honey bunch, you know that I love you. And she’ll fight so hard to keep that smile from her face, to keep her anger boiling, but she fails every time. Because she loves me too.
She drives me crazy, but if love was sane, it wouldn’t feel like love, would it?
Love is a drug when it comes to her.
And I just can’t help myself.