Page 24 of Sublimate
“Too bad they went gambling with what they stole from you.”
“I’m so glad he’s there. In a perfect world, they would keep him forever, but they never do,” I said. “I don’t know one person who ever got what he deserved, good or bad.”
He didn’t answer and I might have fallen asleep as we continued the drive on the winding roads. There weren’t big highways up here, like the I-80 that I’d driven across the country. Now that I was away from Kolter, I could get on that road again. First, I would try to see if people would take me back as their cleaner, even though I had disappeared from their lives with no way to tell them since I’d had no way to communicate with them. Kolter had also smashed my phone with the hammer I’d used before to try to fix the furniture. Now I would start over (again) and save until I could leave.
Nolan did have to help me down from the seat when we arrived, and I seemed to be even stiffer than when I’d gotten into it. Iwas preoccupied with trying not to moan or cry, which most people found annoying, and I didn’t notice much about the outside of his house. I did see that the garage was fairly empty, whereas those areas were full to the brim in most of the houses I’d cleaned. My clients had sports stuff, outdoor stuff, toys, tools, and so much else that sometimes there wasn’t room for a vehicle. He didn’t have any of that, but he did have two steps to get inside and they were very hard.
I finally made it up but then I stopped in a kitchen. “I don’t think I should be here,” I said. It had taken me about five minutes to get in from the car! And now he was going to feel like he had to take care of me, when we were strangers and he had a lot of problems of his own.
“You’re right. I think there’s a better place,” he answered. He led the way with my plastic bag of belongings and then called from somewhere else. “Come this way.”
I followed the sound of his voice and found him in a large living room with a fireplace like in Cadence’s library, two couches, and plenty of other places to sit. “This is nice,” I said, and lowered myself onto the cushion that he was pointing to. I needed to rest for a minute. “You didn’t know you had it?”
“I don’t spend any time in here,” he explained. “There’s a back staircase that leads from the kitchen to the second floor, where I sleep. I use that rather than the main stairs and I never even see this part of the house.”
“Why do you need it, then?” He only shrugged. “How did you get this furniture?” I tried to lean back but that hurt so I stayed upright.
“I have a cousin, Annie, who does design…you look very uncomfortable.” He frowned at me and this was exactly what I had been afraid of.
“I’m ok just like this!” I promised. “I’m feeling fine.”
He took some of the pillows and built a stack behind my back. “Is that better? What are your injuries, exactly? Why did you have to stay overnight in the hospital?”
“They wanted to keep an eye on internal bleeding stuff, but I’m good now. It’s just bruises.” I looked up at him. “I haven’t wanted to see myself. Is it bad?”
“It’s very bad,” he said. “Your lip is split, your cheeks are swollen, you have two black eyes…” He stopped, shaking his head.
“My nose isn’t broken, which is lucky,” I answered. “But my jaw is fractured. I don’t have to have surgery and my ribs will also heal.”
“Is your body as bad as your face? Who the hell did this to you? A stranger?”
“Yes,” I answered, and that was true. I tried to shift to get more comfortable. “You can go ahead with whatever you planned for tonight—oh, I was going to make dinner. I’ll do that.”
“No,” he said, and placed his palm on my shoulder when I tried to get back up. “I’m not hungry and I don’t have anything todo. I’m going to go look at your discharge instructions. Try to…” He stopped again, withdrew his hand, and then recommended, “You should rest.”
Since I was still sitting bolt upright, I didn’t feel like I could do that very well. I eased myself down until I was lying on the couch and I tried to feel comfortable like that. Physically (like in terms of my body), I was at a low point because now I was definitely in pain, a lot of it. But also physically (in terms of my location), I was in the nicest place I’d ever been. The room was big but also cozy, like the Reading Room, and the furniture had no tape, weird stains, or smells. I couldn’t understand why Nolan didn’t want to spend more time here, because I would have lived very happily in this exact spot for the rest of my life. The couch was amazing and I closed my eyes and tried to enjoy it.
Sometime later, I woke up to a voice telling me to open my mouth.
“Kolter, no, please, I’m so sore. Please don’t,” I begged him.
“Vivi, you have to take this pill.”
I gave up fighting and swallowed, then I sipped water from the straw that was at my lips.
I woke up again because there was sun streaming into my face, and that didn’t happen in Kolter’s house because the tape that held together the panes also blocked much of the light. More anger had led to more broken windows.
I blinked and looked at the art on the wall, a painting of a stern looking old guy in a silver frame. Then I looked at the rug on thefloor, which didn’t seem to be covering any missing pieces where plastic boards were broken. It was quiet, though, which was the same as in my former residence. I had come to the realization that I was in Nolan’s house but I couldn’t hear him at all.
Two prescription bottles sat on the coffee table next to me, along with a glass of water. Slowly and carefully, I swung my legs around, helping them along with my hands. Then I worked myself up into a sitting position, got the glass, and drank every drop, but I was still thirsty. I moved even more slowly to stand. I blinked and swayed for a moment before taking a step, and it went ok so I took another. I needed to find a bathroom, immediately, and I needed more water and maybe food? I wasn’t sure about that last thing.
In Kolter’s house, there was a main room with a kitchen, a bedroom, and one bathroom attached to it. This place was more like a maze. I walked down a hallway and found a closet with several coats on hangers. I opened the door of an office with a desk and a wall of huge windows. I found another room that had three sides of bookcases, another fireplace, and chairs that reminded me again of the Whitaker Reading Room.
It seemed to take forever but I kept going, and I finally did find a bedroom with an attached bath…thank goodness, a toilet. I felt much better after peeing but then much worse after seeing my face in the mirror as I washed my hands. I had never been so beat-up, never, not after the car crash, after Kolter, or after problems with any of my other boyfriends. None of them had spared their fists but this was terrible.
But it would heal, eventually, because bruises always did. The fear part of it and the feelings of shame and humiliation would last longer because they always did, too. I looked at the shower and wished I could get in there, but this wasn’t my house and I wasn’t sure what I could use. The toilet had probably been ok, and anyway, I was going to clean it all from top to bottom to pay him back for letting me stay for the night. I ran my finger over a panel in the door and was impressed with the lack of dust. Maybe he didn’t need my help.
I was about as fast as a turtle as I made my way back to the living room. I saw the front door, which we hadn’t used yesterday, and the big staircase that Nolan had said he never used at all. I went down another hallway that I vaguely remembered from the day before, too, and passed a large dining room with a big, beautiful chandelier that was probably very hard to reach to clean or to change the bulbs.
