Numinous

Two

As soon as Avery was through the front door she discarded her purse on the floor, kicked off her shoes and ripped off her uniform. It got stuck around her wrist in her hast, and she screamed in frustration before throwing the dress across the room. She hated that place, and she hated this place too. She hated everything and wanted to die, but she didn’t at the same time. She didn’t know what she wanted, except to not live like this anymore. There was no escaping how horrible her life was. She was disillusioned if she ever thought that there was. 

She stood, naked except for her undergarments in the middle of the one room apartment, chest heaving as she stared into empty space. There was a tiny fridge in the corner, a stove next to that. A tiny bit of counter space and a single compartmentalized sink, old and rusty, like everything else in this apartment. She had a twin sized mattress on the floor, pushed against the far wall. Next to that, a laundry basket with ten shirts, three pairs of pants, five pairs of underwear, and four pairs of socks inside of it. There was a small stack of books next to that, books she found that she thought she might read, but she didn't know how to read all that well, so they sat. Served as decoration.

The bathroom was separated by a curtain, the door had been off the hinges when she began living here. Inside the bathroom there lived a shower, a sink, a toilet, one toothbrush, one tube of toothpaste, one stick of deodorant, one bottle of lotion, a hairbrush that she never really used, a bar of soap, hair oil she stole from the hair store on third street, and shower shoes that were really just flip flops. The shower shoes were for when pieces of tile broke off underneath her feet due to water damage and just being plain old, so she didn't get stabbed in the foot. It has happened too many times.

It was a small apartment. Dimly lit, unfurnished besides her mattress, but that was all that really fit. She could see maybe fitting a love seat in the corner, a small end table. Maybe a rug. But she couldn't afford any of that. Slowly, she reached inside of her bra, her worn, old ratty bra, to pull out six dollars. Her earnings for the day. Slowly she made her way to the mattress, dropping down onto it, the springs screeching at her. She reached behind her pillow, for her stuffed teddy bear, the one she packed with her to leave all those years ago. She had no idea how she kept him, but she was happy she had him. He used to have a speaker inside his back, so he could talk when she squeezed his paw.

He would say 'I love you' and 'sweet dreams'.

But it stopped working years ago, and she tore the speaker out to make room for her savings. She saved what she could of her tips, and stuffed him up. So that maybe, one day, when she could get out of here, she'd have something to get her far, far away. Further than her mother’s measly pocket change got her all those years ago. She zipped him back up after she put her money up and hugged him to her. She squeezed his tiny paw with her thumb and forefinger. "I love you," she said in a falsely high voice, imagining it came from the bear.

The silence she was met with brought tears to her eyes.

She shut her eyes, rocking back and forth, trying to hold herself together, but she couldn't. She let out one sob, and then another. She lay down on her side, pulling the thin flat sheet she used as a blanket over her body.

She used to do this exact thing when she knew her father was coming. Like he wouldn't see her hiding, shaking in fear underneath the blankets. He always saw her. Every time, though, she would think he was going to leave her alone if he thought she was sleeping.

He hadn't cared either way.

She would hear his footsteps creeping down the hall, and then she would hear her door creak open, and she would smell him. The stench of cigarettes and booze fresh in her nostrils; as if he were there now. She remembered how he would prey on her, how he would rip the blanket off of her, grab her by her ankle, tug her out of bed, away from safety and comfort, and close to him. He always laughed, always told her she was a sissy la-la for crying and begging him to just let her sleep. She never thought it was funny though.

Because she knew what was coming next.

When she hadn’t known what was coming, he used to try to make a game of it. Tell her they were just having fun, even when he was hurting her. He told her he didn’t have a choice, and neither did she. Even when he disregarded her feelings and her pain for his own pleasure, she would believe it was a fun little game they only played with each other. She had thought that it was normal, and the pain would end sooner rather than later, just like he promised. But sooner never came. It would always hurt. It made her think that it wasn’t their own little game, and that, perhaps, it wasn’t a game at all. 

He always used to hurt her, and he always would if she hadn’t done anything to stop it. But that came with severe consequences and she lost her mother because of it. It was also the reason why she fell into Allen’s line of vision. There was no way she would let the hurt swell into anger and cause those consequences to grow. Allen was just another speed bump on the road to wherever she was going to end up next. 

Avery often feared that to escape Allen, she would have to kill him. She didn’t want to kill anyone. Besides, the knowledge that her father was dead didn’t stop the fear of him lurking in the shadows and waiting to attack her once more. What was to say Allen being dead would stop her life from being like this? What was to say there wouldn’t be another man waiting to take Allen’s place, just as he took her father’s place? Suddenly the sheets were suffocating and she sat up, fumbling with the sheet until it was down around her waist, eyes wide as she searched the apartment for any sign of her father.

But he was dead. Long gone. A distant memory she couldn’t forget. 

Her heart still pounded in her chest, faster every minute, her skin sweat slicked and itchy. She stood, letting the bear drop from her arms as she cried out. It was almost like she could feel his breath in her face, his huge, monstrous hands on her body.

"Leave me alone!" She screamed.

She felt crazy.

She knew it was crazy, but it was like she felt him there. Watching her. Avery turned and went into the bathroom, turning on the water in the shower. She turned the knob to the coldest setting and watched the water run brown for a good few minutes in disgust, before it came out clear. She turned the knob up to the highest temperature after that. Couldn't waste a drop of hot water. It went fast. She stepped into her flip flops and got into the shower.

Avery always felt dirty. No matter how many times she showered. It was like she couldn't get the disgusting things she did off of her skin. It was just there for the entire world to see. It made her feel so exposed.

The feeling never left her.

She scrubbed every inch of her body about five times, even her scalp, to the point it hurt when she touched her skin, but she still felt unclean. She wondered if pouring bleach all over herself would make her feel cleaner or if it would just feel like she was rubbing in all the dirt and disgust that surrounded her. 

She stepped out of the shower, sitting on the closed toilet to put lotion on. She didn’t know why she even bothered with lotion. Her skin felt dry either way. Dry and bumpy and gross—which summed up her life perfectly. She opened up the tiny compact mirror she kept on the back of the toilet and sighed, grabbing her toothbrush and putting toothpaste on it, beginning to brush her teeth vigorously, trying and failing to remove the taste in her mouth. She brushed four times in a row, until her gums were raw and bleeding and felt no better. She looked back inside of the mirror once she had finished brushing and sighed, wanting to cry some more, but finding it difficult to draw the energy it took to do so from within herself. 

There was an angry red mark on her cheek, where Allen had slapped her earlier. She always had a bruise of some sort thanks to Allen. Or perhaps it was her own fault. She knew exactly how he was, and she still chose to try him and make him do things to her that she wished he didn’t. She couldn't help but get mad at herself for making him hit her in the face. She challenged him. She tested his patience—as if he had any.

Avery just wanted out. She just wanted to repay Allen, settle the debt, and move on. It was bad enough he wasn't paying her, it was bad enough he made regular house visits to collect his rent, it was bad enough they both knew she would never have it, why the f**k did she have to make it worse by being difficult?

She knew it better than anybody; it was better to do as he said, speak when spoken to, shut up, and take it. She had endured six years of this torture.

Six years of working with no pay.

Six years of living in this shitty apartment.

Six years of monthly visits from Allen.

Six years of being beaten whenever she messed up, even a little.

Six years of torture.

Six years of saving tips up, and her teddy bear was barely full. She kept going in, and digging around for money for food, for toilet paper, for deodorant, for things she couldn't live without. Try as she might.

Her whole life added up to this mess. This broken down, disgusting, mess. It was empty and dark and ugly. It was sick, sad, and pathetic. She really ought to just kill herself. She thought about death a lot, but naturally—being anxious and fearful—she was too afraid to do it. Too afraid to try it. She had nothing to live for, but did she have anything to die for, either?

She finally got up, deciding to get dressed. She felt restless, like she was cooped up when she had just gotten home barely a half hour ago. But that didn’t matter, she felt like she was crawling out of her skin just sitting around doing absolutely nothing with her life. There was nothing worse than having to come home to her empty apartment and sit and silently think about how much she wanted to die, or cry about it, or try to fall asleep so that death would come faster to her. She really had nothing keeping her here. Yet, she had nothing to motivate her to leave, either. Day in and day out, this was her life. She was s**t on relentlessly, and then she came home to s**t on herself as well. What kind of life was that? 

Sitting and stewing about the situation wasn’t helping her any. She realized that she actually had to be proactive to try and get out of this situation. She would have to escape within an inch of her life; she was going to have to fight. But that all sounded exhausting when all she really wanted to do was sleep forever. She could have gone to bed, but she didn't want to think of her father all night long. Or Allen. Or what could have happened had she gone to meet Benj like he asked her to. 

Before she really knew what she was doing, she had put on her shoes and left the apartment, grabbing her purse from the floor and locking up behind her. She couldn’t stay in that apartment for one more second. She had to go. She had no idea where she would go, but she wanted to leave and get some fresh air. Maybe she could get hit by a bus or a stray bullet and die before work tomorrow. 

It was a subconscious decision that led her to propelling herself to the bar. She wanted to gamble with life, and was there a better way to do that than to meet a strange man at a bar alone at night? Maybe if she died tonight it would be better for everyone.

It was peaceful, for a Wednesday night. The streets were clear, the sky a navy blue, the streetlights looked like stars against the night sky. Avery hadn't seen a real sky of stars. She grew up in the city, never had much reason to leave it, and besides, she spent all her time inside of buildings, or crying into her pillow. She didn't notice the sky most nights. How sad was it that she never really got to experience simple moments like this too often? How sad was it that she was often too sad, too distracted, too hurt to realize that life was beautiful, even with all of the terrible things going on inside of it?

She was about a block from her apartment when she dipped through an alleyway to cut across. It was dark and sketchy, but that’s kind of how she preferred it at this moment. The danger behind it thrilled her. There could be anybody waiting behind a dumpster or at the other end. Alarms went off inside her head, her palms itchy and sweaty, breath short. If she were meant to die tonight, she was making it easy.

Avery emerged on the sidewalk unscathed, half relieved, half disappointed.

She rounded the corner and almost turned back around instantly, her blood running cold. There he stood, leaning against the brick wall outside of the bar. There was a bright red neon sign that read "The Metro" illuminating half his profile.

He wore jeans and a dark sweater. His blonde hair, red in the light, was wild and curly. He had his headphones up, and he was bobbing his head to the music pouring from them, tapping his leg with his fingers absently. She was over two hours late meeting him, and he was still here waiting for her? Why?

She sighed. Was she really going to do this?

She leaned against the cool wall and decided she'd count to twenty. If a car passed before she was done, she'd go home. If not, she'd go and meet him.

She took a deep breath.

"One...two..."