As she lies alone in the dark, silent cell, Niki knows that it's her fault.
She didn't do the things that Jessica did, but it's her fault that Jessica exists. That the real Jessica is dead. Her beautiful older sister, killed, because she would draw their father's wrath onto herself, a lightning rod for his electric anger.
She did it to protect Niki.
Once this false Jessica, this secret creature peering out of mirrors appeared, Niki wondered how she could have forgotten her sister. Then she realized that she hadn't. Jessica had been growing inside of her mind, a wish, a hope, a dream, that had lost her sister's name, but not what she was.
Someone to watch over her.
Since Jessica died, that's all she's ever wanted.
She had wanted someone to save her from her father. Instead, she just ran from him, hiding, a fugitive to the world, and then she forgot what he had been.
Now she knew that Jessica had been keeping the memories from her. Watching over her again.
She had run from her
father as soon as she could, away from him and his money and his
brandy and his fists, landing in waitressing jobs, in shady modeling
gigs, in seedy motels, in cocktail bars, both to work and to drink.
That's where she had been when she met D.L.
"A girl like you doesn't belong in a place like this," he had said, and the line was cliché, but the idea was new to her. She was a runaway, and somehow still an abandoned child. She didn't belong anywhere. He acted like she was noteworthy, precious, worth protecting. He waited until her shift was over, even though it was one in the morning. She knew that respectable men who were going places didn't keep those kinds of hours, but she was going nowhere, and she loved his kind eyes and the smile he flashed her that showed what he must have been like as a little boy. She left with him, trusting, falling into love the way a suicide jumper falls off a building.
He caught her.
That first night they went to an all-night diner and he bought her waffles and cups of coffee, clucking over her like a mother. "You're too thin, baby. You need to get some meat on those bones."
She smiled, playing coy a little. "Why should you care about my bones?"
"Why not?" He gave her the little boy smile again, and made her drink a glass of milk. He finished his food before she finished hers and spent the rest of the meal looking at her like she was his sustenance, touching the golden waves of her hair with light fingers, like taking the first bite of something good.
She let him walk her to her apartment, an unprecedented event. She had been living like she was in the witness protection program, or like she was on the lam.
She didn't run from him.
At the door he kissed her, all his boyish qualities vanishing in her eyes she saw him draw near, his height and the bulk of his muscles, his big hands that took her small ones, his kiss full of brave passion. Please take care of me, she thought, wishing on him like a star in the night or a birthday candle, eyes closed into their embrace.
When they pulled apart he told her good night, started to walk away, then turned.
"I don't wanna leave," he said, voice low and rough and somehow so sweet.
"Then don't," she whispered, and that was that.
She slowly gained her footing. She knew that D.L. wasn't always law-abiding, but she didn't care. Some part of her was still in survival mode—food, shelter, safety, I don't need anything else, just don't hurt me, please, don't leave me. He didn't hurt. He didn't leave. He healed her.
He kept away the real dangers of the world—burglars and rapists and landlords and bill collectors. Even better, he chased away the dangers that lurked in the primeval corners of her mind, still unnamed. He erased the scars of her father's beatings with his gentle hands, big like her father's but dark, the color reversed along with the intent and the result of his touches. He chased away nightmares with his warmth at night, with the quiet, half-awake voice he used to soothe her.
When she found out she was pregnant, she lost the ground she had gained for a moment, went back to primitive terror, imagining D.L. leaving her, imagining loss and fear and shame, but when he found out, he smiled, then laughed. He pulled her into his lap and teased her about how she would finally have some curves now, joking that the baby should be D.L., Jr., and finally, a sweet and sincere afterthought, he whispered that they should get married.
Just as she used to block out her bad memories, she now blocked out the good ones. She couldn't bear to think of the good days (of D.L. still free and still there, of baby Micah, of the family that had been). It hurt too much to contrast that with this. It was all a haze in her mind, a sunlit montage of security and contentment, and hope. No despair then. Just D.L.'s arms and Micah's baby curls and smile like his father's. Just peace.
Then it had crumbled, slowly. D.L. came home late and smelling funny—not of other women, but of sweat and smoke and stealth—the scents of crime. His day jobs dwindled and his night life took over. Things that he wouldn't tell her about. He didn't play with Micah anymore. Nightmares found her as she lay alone in her bed, if ever found her at all. Her love for him stayed, but frustrations and doubts began to slowly strangle it.
Then the slow growth of nightmares, of lost time, of confusion. And then he was gone.
Now she knew that it was her fault. Jessica had been watching out for her again.
In her darkest hours (and this hour rivaled them all), she accused herself of burdening Micah when she should have taken care of him. She wanted to be his mother, but he was all she had, and she felt herself leaning on him sometimes. Not leaning—falling. He caught her, his father's son except for better, but she didn't want that for him. She should have watched over him more carefully.
She had let herself drink, and sometimes even gamble. Just like someone else she used to know.
In her darkest hours, she called herself her father's daughter.
It's all my fault, she thought, tossing and turning, her bound arms pressed under her. She thought of D.L.'s ruined life, of Micah left without her, of the men Jessica had killed. She had made Jessica. She wouldn't let her rest. She called out to her, over and over. Please help me.
Sometimes she went to bed like this, feeling like she was living a nightmare, and falling into more as she dreamed. Sometimes she dreamed of good things, then cried when she woke up and they weren't real. Sometimes she dreamed nothing, falling into oblivion.
This time, she didn't do any of that.
She clenched her hands into the white, ungiving fabric. She straightened her body; it had been lying like something broken. She sat up and willed good things into her mind—D.L. sliding through her prison's wall to find her, Micah's eyes that always looked at her with love, the real Jessica as she had been (playing piano and teasing Niki and living fierce and strong, as Niki never could).
She took all of these things inside of herself. She had never known that so much was there, so much beyond Jessica and her beaten image of herself. Her hopes, her dreams, her family as they were in her mind, the best thing there could be, even if it was not all that it could have been. She closed her eyes, willingly, and thought of Jessica's strength, Micah's trust, D.L.'s protection, her own love.
You are all part of me.
There are more than two parts to Niki, but there is only one Niki.
It is all hers.
When she gave up her freedom to protect those she loved, she watched over them.
Someday, soon, she will learn to watch over herself.