Page 22 of Kill For Me Kill For You
Amanda halted, unsure.
Wendy gave her a hug, and Amanda felt that warmth once again. A warmth she had sorely missed.
‘I’ll call before the next group meeting. Maybe we could get Chinese food or go see a movie?’ said Wendy.
‘Sure,’ said Amanda, recalling that they had indeed exchanged numbers the night before, drunk and proclaiming each other new best friends.
Amanda left Wendy’s apartment, called the elevator and rode down to the first floor. By the time she stepped outside Wendy’s building, her mind was already racing. She looked back up at the tower of glass, and wondered if she should tell her new best friend what she had seen in that room. She knew Wendy’s real name now. And she knew they were more alike than Wendy could possibly imagine.
9
Ruth
Ruth stood naked in front of the full-length mirror in the hotel bedroom and let her fingers follow the pink line that ran horizontally along the bottom of her stomach. It was the longest and thinnest scar, but the one that had remained resolutely bright and keloid. The others were a mix of jagged little curves and some thick pink bumps. Mostly on her stomach, some on her left side, one on her thigh and some on her chest.
She counted them.
All seventeen of them.
The long one, lowest on her stomach, was the scar Dr. Mosley had made when he’d opened her up. Same for the one on her side to repair the lung. Somehow, she didn’t mind those scars. They were kinder. They were the ones that had kept her alive. She took a band from the dresser and put up her thick brown hair. It was getting too long. There was no way she could face going to the salon. She couldn’t face a lot of things.
She had not returned to work since leaving the hospital. She had not left the hotel room. Not even once. And so the days had rolled into one long miasma of time, marked only by the weekends when Scott got a break from work on Sundays. She guessed it was around a month since she’d left the hospital – maybe more. The 9/11 anniversary had been on the Tuesday, and the attack had happened that Friday, September fourteenth. When Farrow and Hernandez came to her hotel room to take her full statement, they kept repeating that date, September fourteenth, and then calling it ‘the night in question’ or sometimes ‘the date of the incident’.She supposed it was to make it clear exactly when this had happened for any prosecutor or cop reading it, but it had a strange effect on Ruth.
Some dates in the calendar become haunted by their events – like 9/11. It has significance for the whole country, but she knew it held a cold place in the hearts of those who’d lost loved ones that day. They would look at the towers of light in the sky from Battery Park not just with the deadening sense of loss shared by the city, and the country, but with their own personal grief gnawing behind their eyes.
Nine/eleven would now have an additional significance for Ruth. It would mark three days until her next dark anniversary. There would be no Tribute in Light on that date. She knew September fourteenth would have no light at all.
Ruth shook her head. Who was she kidding?
So far, every day had been September fourteenth. She couldn’t get that man’s face out of her head. And he was there every night in her dreams. Ruth knew the dreams had significance. As if her brain was reminding her of the events that had almost killed her, so that she would never forget the face of her attacker, and never put herself in that danger again.
She checked the date on her phone. Ruth had been meaning to check the date for days. This evening was the first time she felt brave enough. It was nearly November. Six weeks had gone by since September fourteenth, but it didn’t feel that way.
All of her scars were still raw. Not just those on her skin.
She heard the shower stop, and quickly put on her bathrobe. She still couldn’t wear underwear – the waistband grated against her scars. She got into bed and grabbed the TV remote.
Scott emerged from the bathroom in a cloud of steam, wearing only a towel. His hair was still soaking wet, along with his short beard. Ruth wasn’t sure about the beard. It was a change, but she had more on her mind and couldn’t bring herself to object. It felt rough on her cheek when he kissed her, itching on the back of her neck when he held her during the night after she had woken screaming.
She wondered if he would bring it up again tonight.
Scott wanted to go home. Go back to the house with her. She’d worked hard to buy that house with Scott. It was supposed to be their dream home. The house they’d grow old in, the house that they’d bring their baby home to, the house where Ruth would draw lines on the door frame above their child’s head to mark their height on their birthday, same as her mother had done.
Now it was the house where she’d almost been murdered. And her future, their future, had been stabbed to death in the hallway.
There would be no baby for this house. No pencil marks on the door frame. No sound of small feet on the parquet floor. The house had changed. It wasn’t safe now. It had no future. It was a grave for all the children she would never have.
And yet part of Ruth didn’t want to let this monster have her house. She had decorated every room, chosen the floor, oiled it twice a week, picked out every painting and every piece of furniture. The monster shouldn’t be able to take her house too.
He had taken too much already.
‘You want to watchJeopardy?’ asked Scott.
‘Okay,’ said Ruth, finding the right channel. The volume was way down, and she turned it up a few notches.
‘Are there any snacks left?’ asked Scott, opening the mini fridge.
‘Not many. I got hungry this afternoon. There might be some pretzels,’ said Ruth.
