Authors note: If there's anyone out there, this is my spiel- thanks for listening! This is my attempt to conquer the iconic and rather popular mad love story- I know every other writer has done it and there really are some wonderful versions but I wanted to give it my own spin, and I sincerely hope that I've created something fresh.
This story is from Harley's perspective, documenting her life in and out of Arkham, eventually leading to her transition into our beloved Harley Quinn. I do borrow from comic cannon in some places, but this work veers quite frequently off that map, so don't expect it to be completely faithful to that.
My Harley is probably most similar to a pre-52 Harley, that said, this is my take on the character, so there are some notable differences.
My Joker is a mix of mainstream comic incarnations with a dash of Arkham series Joker- but you should Definitely be hearing Mark Hamill's
I will be updating as frequently as possible- probably every two weeks or so, barring unforeseen circumstances.
In conclusion, I hope this is an enjoyable read and I apologize in advance for any spelling errors- I've done my best to edit but sometimes I can miss really obvious mistakes.
Constructive criticism and reviews are appreciated!
CHAPTER 1: Into the Abyss
I sit attempting to compose myself, though the term is relative because my muscles are tensed to eject me from the room at a moment's notice. I close my eyes, and take stock of my anxiety.
1. My lungs seemed to have crawled up into my trachea, pressing on my esophagus.
2. Every muscle in my body is being juiced with acetylcholine. Classic, sympathetic nervous system response. Just Cortisol and Adrenaline.
Conclusion: I am not dying. I am not going to die today in this room. This is just performance anxiety-and it's justified, because I'm about to meet a highly skilled con man. A man who devours lives not for sustenance but for joy.
I've meet lots of the former, a few of the latter. But this feels categorically different. This is the ultimate specimen of psychopathy. He is the apex predator. I've read the case files, spoken to a few colleges who've worked with him and I'm still waiting for that sense of readiness, the composure I've become accustomed to in my work. I glance at my reflection in the two-way glass across from me and am perturbed but unsurprised to see that I do not have my game face on.
At all-not even a little.
I try to ground myself, focus on the buzz of the artificial bulbs, the way they make the hospital-green walls look dirty, all of the uneven patches where the drywall had to be repaired because a patient got overexcited. I feel my breath start to hitch again.
Oh no no no. This will not do. Pull yourself together Harleen, you're a professional, you don't want to waste a chance like this!
Sobered by the appetency of the academic opportunity at hand, I take a moment to smooth my hair into its bun, readjust my glasses, and straighten my clipboard. An approaching set of footsteps sends a fresh rush of adrenaline into my blood stream and I remind myself that it's priming my body for optimized performance. I can do this. I've been preparing for this for years. I am ready.
The door opens and he walks in, smile first.
My first thought is that even without the makeup, he is still shockingly white.
His limbs are long and wiry beneath the jumpsuit and the straight jacket, and he is half a head taller than the two guards escorting him in. He struts like he's walking onstage, though his rather beaten slip-on shoes scuff against the dingy tile flooring. Not surprising they don't allow him shoelaces. I note a suspicious red stain on the toe. Come on, look him in the eyes, I think.
I make it to his mouth first; to the scars that carve his face into a permanent rictus. Like horrid little mountain ranges they swell and dive. Sometimes he says he did them himself, sometimes it was one mobster or another, or his father or a lover-his stories change as quickly as his attending doctors. In the absence of his warpaint, the pink lines make him look skeletal.
His features are angular, his nose thin and his nostrils flared like a cats. His eyes, however, are what the case files can't capture- acid green islands swimming in an expanse of white sclera.
He looks alert in spite of the high dosage of Amisulpride they have him on, but what surprises me most is neither the color nor the medically improbable vigilance. It's something he radiates; it's wanton unpredictability and unfounded malicious euphoria. I find that for once I have no read, no intuition.
I stand as the guard pulls out the chair across from me, and he steps forward, not having broken his dangerously puckish gaze since he entered the room. I find that I have to crane my neck to look him in the eye as I stand in his protracted shadow, only coming up to his sternum.
"Hello Mr. Doe," I hear myself say, the pitch of my voice a little higher than I would like. "I'm Doctor Quinzel."
His mouth twitches- dyskinesia or micro expression?
"What's up Doc?" His tongue darts out to wet his lips. His voice is deeper than I thought it would be. "I'd uh-shake your hand but I'm a little tied up at the moment." He chuckles, leaning forward at the end of the sentence, but the guard jerks him back and then shoves him with unnecessary force into his seat. He bites at the guard's retreating hand, and hoots with laughter, then leans back like a king settling into his throne. Resting an ankle on his knee, he tucks his chin to look at me from under his brow. The posturing is both casual and sinister.
I frown, redirecting my attention to the senior C.O.
"Was that really necessary?"
The older man rolls his eyes at me, his florid face glowing under the florescent light.
"Listen lady, I know you ain't been here long and you seem a little wet under the ears so I'll give you a hint: this animal would tear you apart and dance in your blood without a second thought if he got the chance." Glancing at the man in question I see that he's cocked an eyebrow as if to say he's right little girl, and I'd look simply divine wearing your insides. I suppress a shudder of something between fear and anticipation, looking back to the guard.
"So don't go critiquin' me!" He blathers on. "I'm here to protect you- and at least I know how to do my job!"
I would like to nail the imbecile in the face with my clipboard, but instead I clasp my hands behind my back and widen my stance a little. I smile, intending to display a removed confidence, but it might just look like I'm baring my teeth. Either way he seems a bit jarred.
"I often forget that some peoples' parents don't teach them not to judge a book by its cover, and I'm sorry to say that yours have quite obviously failed you-" I read his name off his badge. "Officer Bradley."
I have to admit he has perfect timing. I needed an opportunity to remind myself how I got here, that I deserve to be here. So I let loose little.
"I don't know if you feel insecure having a young female superior, or if you're just trying to compensate for a certain sub-par appendage, but I will not have you undermine my authority in front of a patient-" He whistles with the mirth of a child reveling in the toppling of a kicked sand castle. I try to shove his presence to the edge of my consciousness for the moment, but he makes that fairly difficult as he begins to hum the theme from Jaws. "I could stand here and recite my credentials, but I consider that a waste of time." I say, putting my hands on the table between us, conquering a bit of the guards ground and savoring his uncertainty. "So you have two options: either you learn to treat me and my clients with respect and courtesy, or I write you up for insubordination and mistreatment of a patient. " Bradley looks dumbly at me, his blubbery lips hanging slack like a fish's mouth.
A high staccato giggle breaks my concentration.
"That's right doc, give him a real good spanking- you'd like that wouldn't you Officer? You masochistic little minx you- HA HA!"
Well at least someone is enjoying himself; Officer Bradley however, by the quivering of his jowls and the rapid flush of his already ruddy skin, is not.
I smile, all sugar and spice.
"So? What's it going to be?" I ask.
Poor Bradley turns back to me and admirably attempts to soften his gaze.
"Sorry ma'am, won't happen again." He mumbles.
"Glad to hear it." I respond coldly but not unprofessionally.
Damn Harleen, you are on a roll today!
The shamed C.O finishes his job of hooking a metal chain attached to the back of my patients straightjacket to a clasp set into the back wall.
Despite the burning frustration of feeling like I constantly have to prove myself to arrogant men who couldn't touch my Weschler score with a ten-foot pole, the familiar argument has my engine running at full speed. Quite revitalized, I can't wait to dig into the man I wrote my honors thesis on. So I smooth my skirt, and take my seat in front of the Joker.
I buy myself time, crossing my legs and resting my clipboard on them. When I look up he arches one cartoonish eyebrow, and I wonder if he's blinked at all or if he has a second invisible eyelid like a snake.
On TV you see him with his hair electric emerald and slicked back in a tidy pompadour. He'd been back for two weeks before they let me see him, and in that time the usually tightly shorn sides had grown out, and the longer, now dulled green mop on top had been pushed to one side. His roots are just starting to peek through. Light brown-or maybe ginger.
I guess I'll find out.
I know that he's waiting for me to say something, anything. I know that once I open my mouth he will try to take my words and make them dance on puppet strings. I can see now why most doctors don't get far with him, he looks at you as though he's peeling you layer by layer, feeling out your innards. I smile pleasantly at the mass murderer and he smiles back.
" So Mr. Doe, what would you like to talk about?" There's that twitch again, maybe related to my use of the placeholder name? There's a moment where he's not quite looking at me, not quite in the room despite the fact that he hasn't moved an inch. It's only when he's back and he's peeling me again that I realize he wasn't gone, he was calculating.
"How delightfully old fashioned of you Quinzel." He purrs my name and I mute the shiver running down my spine. "No one in here EVER thinks to ask what I want to talk about!" He plays the prosody of his voice like a fiddle, making every utterance a grand production. I can tell that if he were unrestrained he'd be gesturing wildly
"If you wanna gab then lets gab! How about we talk about my dreams? They wont let me keep a journal, I'm not allowed pens." He sniffs, like it's an outrage. "I tell ya, this place is worse than airport security." I resist the urge to snort- the last time he got hold of a pen he performed a rather fatal tracheotomy on a nurse. They found him blowing bubbles into her throat. "No need to worry though, I keep them all in here," He knocks his left shoulder into his head. "So hopefully you can make sense of them- I keep having one where I'm about to stab mom- OOPSIES! I meant Tom! The congressman! HA!" The giggles bubble up between words as if he really can't restrain himself. " Isn't it funny when you say one thing and mean your mother? HA HA! Silly me, I've done it again!"
There isn't a chance he's being serious of course, but it is impressive that he managed to guess I was borrowing from psychoanalytical technique based on my open-ended starter question. This time when I smile, it's genuine and I know he doesn't miss it.
"Do you read much Freud then, Mr. Doe?"
Immediate twitch. It's almost definitely about the name then. That's going to be a useful tell.
"No. I only read mad libs." He says, sedately for a man who seconds ago was cracking up. Though the orientation of his mouth and brows portray the essence of continence, the mania is unmistakable in his eyes.
He's lying of course, it's not as if I don't have access to the feed from his cell. I take a moment to sublimate my eye roll and jot a note about the twitch.
It's a rush, speaking to an equal.
"Oooh!" he squeals, startling me quite effectively. "Make sure you get my good side, write me like one of your French girls."
"Do you have a problem with me writing notes about our sessions?"
"Me? Never. But I don't think you need them." He says guilefully.
"And why is that?"
"Because you'll ruin all the good stuff that'll happen in your noodle!" He exclaims, seeming to escalate like someone's turned up the contrast. "You see, people think you need to remember everything exactly as it was-and they do all they can to record it, they try to hold on to it. But they're just slaves to the past-and the past isn't. Even. Real! Everybody thinks they have a stable personality, they think they're a product of circumstances or some crap like that, and they use that as an excuse. But they haven't even seen the tip of the iceberg- I have. I know how malleable the human mind is. So many fun gears to turn and knobs to push, if you have the right…touch, you can make a whole new person." He roles that last bit across his tongue with relish, like it tastes particularly good.
Classic. Doesn't like talking about the past. I feel like I did as a lion obsessed five year old finally getting to see a live one roar at the zoo.
"So how does one go about making a whole new person?"
" Did I tell you I love your accent Doc? Its just sinfully scrumptious."
I blink. Was that as lascivious as it sounded? Yes it was, come on Quinzel-you know he likes to make people uncomfortable. And he's deflecting.
"You didn't answer my question."
"Yes well, you don't want to eat all your Easter chocolate in one go, do you?"
"I rather like chocolate."
"Dangerous game, eating too much chocolate-it'll make ya sick." He chuckles darkly.
I frown slightly, feeling quite let down after my lion tamer moment. He caricatures my chagrin, scars only adding to the comedy, and I swallow a laugh.
"Well if I can't have the chocolate, can I have the peeps?"
If possible, his smile widens.
"Since you put it so nicely, ask away Doc."
"Why do people think they have stable personalities?"
"Because they think that if they follow a bunch of arbitrary rules and guidelines, if they do all the right stuff, they get to fit into a nice box. People love boxes, because boxes create order. They can breed with other people in their boxes and make little box-families!" He plasters on a hyperbolic wholesomeness. " The funny bit is there's no such thing as order! The world is entropy, my dear- so you may as well just get out of the box and enjoy the ride."
"So does being out of the box equate to being free?"
"Ding Ding Ding! We have a winner!" He booms in a voice like a carnival Bally.
"You consider yourself free- even in here?"
"Why would I want to leave? I love it here; this place is like my vacation home! Dr. Zappy does a delectable brain floss if you're ever in the mood." He drawls, referring to Dr. Zadd, who performs the electroshock treatments.
He's wonderful at dogging questions, but I know from my predecessors that pushing won't do any good. He's also reminding me that I may be in here with him, but that I'm not one of them.
"Is there anyone here you like to talk to?" I already know he doesn't have friends.
"Zsasz is always good for a laugh. Nygma's tolerable if he's not being too…neurotic."
"Do you think Nygma's in a box?"
"Of course he is! Kid thinks he can predict the whole world with a bit of math and a few lines of code. HA! You can't map the future, it's just like I said: entropy!"
I shake my head.
"Don't try to tell me you don't make plans. I know your work."
His eyes flash at my use of the term 'work'. That was definitely a mistake.
"Oh I plan. I just know how to plan with the chaos." He giggles. "And by the way, glad to know you're a fan."
"I'm not sure I would put it that way. I think your actions are the product of a very interesting paradigm."
"Yes of course, we wouldn't want to glorify violence would we?"
"Is that what you think you do?"
"Are you asking if that's my big purpose? HA! To breed a generation of school shooters? Maybe build a great clown army? Hilarious! I've already got that, and all I had to do was put out a casting call. Seriously I was starting to think you were smart, this is really very disappointing. Violence is already glorified; you don't need me for that. People just get freaked out because I employ it privately."
"Well I certainly wouldn't be very smart if I thought it was that simple. But I would be an imbecile to think that you're not a showman. Perhaps I should have been more specific: why is it that you want attention ?" I try again, my use of the name this time is completely intentional.
"I wanted to be an actor but I was too ugly." His tone says that if he weren't leashed he would be done with this conversation in a way I wouldn't like- not one bit. The room suddenly feels drastically colder, but moisture blooms on the skin of my palms.
Well shit.
And I thought I was doing so well! I cant lose him this quickly, I need to win him back before the end of the session-If I don't he'll play the silent game until they take him away-
"A sadist, necrophiliac, pyromaniac, zoophiliac, and a masochist were sitting in a jail cell together. The zoophiliac says, 'I want to have sex with a cat.' The sadist says, 'I want to torture a cat then have sex with it.' The pyromaniac says, 'I wanna torture the cat, set it on fire, then have sex with it.' The necrophiliac says, 'Well I want to torture the cat, set it on fire, have sex with it, then kill it and have sex with it again.' Finally, the masochist says, 'Meow."
The whole joke fell out of me in one rushed breath. I don't know why the hell that was the first thing I thought to say- let alone how I thought it was ok in a professional context? How do I explain this to my supervisor?!
Just as that horrid, foreboding feeling is about to anchor itself in my gut - he snickers softly. It builds until he's roaring, really going off, and then I'm laughing too. He's throwing his head back, gasping for air and I feel…proud?
"Ahhh, now that's what I call comedy! Really, I would be giving you an encore if buddy over there didn't like me in bondage." He says nodding at Bradley, who huffs. "You're just full of surprises, aren't you?" he turns back to me, and there isn't a doubt in my mind I've won him back- I'm just not so sure I did it the right way.
His eyes narrow, lips pursed ever so slightly before he puts that mask on again. A professor of mine used to call his smile that- a mask…but now that I've met him the term doesn't feel quite right.
"I think I owe you a treat for a joke like that, so listen up buttercup cause I'm about to give it to you good: My only purpose is having fun, and I have a great imagination. It's as simple as that!I'm not limited by morality because I know it doesn't exist! We're all just animals doctor Quinn- the only animals dumb enough to think we're something more."
"Non-human animals kill to eat, not for fun. Are you telling me that you want to add cannibalism to your list of recorded offenses?"
"Mmm wouldn't that be a juicy little tidbit for your next paper? You're right though doctor, you caught me. I don't often partake in long pig." His eyes flash. "Humans are also the only animal smart enough to crave more than base sustenance."
"So you crave violence?"
"Oh yes doctor, I do." His voice is velvet. "But you know that already, I'm the sadist" He chuckles. "and the sociopath and-I think I was schizophrenic, and then one time I had Paranoid personality disorder- HA! I've been so many wonderful things, haven't I? But the real question here is why don't you crave violence Ms. Quinzel?"
"I could never take a life-"
I think I mean it. In a dire situation, there's no question that I would do everything in my power to defend myself. But to take a life for fun…
"I didn't ask if you could, I already know that answer perfectly well- and you're lying to yourself kiddo." He chuckles, shaking his head at me as if I'm a child asserting that the moon is made of cheese. "Everybody can take a life, people just fill up on pretty little lies to convince themselves that they're lambs instead of lions. For example, you took the Hippocratic oath when you got your medical degree, didn't you? Now what is an oath?"
To be honest my mind is blank.
"A promise. A vow." I regurgitate.
"That's perfect darling you're proving my point!" He says, like I'm his lovely assistant, haaarleeeeen!
It would be great if I could stop sounding so dorky sometime soon.
"You don't even know what it is!" he exclaims, and I'm alarmed to realise that he's right. He leans forward to prop his elbows on the desk between us. Latently, it occurs to me he's done so in mimicry of my own posture, though his arms are strapped tightly around his torso.
Something tells me I'm standing too close to the enclosure but still, I can't quite tear myself from it- or him, I should say. The way his expression seems to shift on the minute but his eyes remain bright, with an uncanny focus. "Oath is just a word." he declaims. "Just a random combination of letters that correspond to a randomly selected meaning, which is made up of more words! Nothing has any meaning. The 'oath' you took, the one I'm betting you fought tooth and nail for, is meaningless. So why follow the rules? The whole wide world is my playground, just because I dare to see what happens when you break the rules and piss on the wreckage, and everybody wants to play with me." He takes a pause and it's all artifice, all to build the suspense-but it works. I'm clutching my pen like it's the safety bar on a rollercoaster that ends in a cliff-hanger. "I didn't know I liked blowing up buildings until I lit the first fuse- think about how much I would have missed out on if I hadn't tried it out?"
"So why don't more people break the rules?" I ask, barely waiting for him to finish his sentence.
"Lots of people break some rules, but they're too afraid to burn the rule book, and that's the first mistake. Rules are like viruses. If you keep them around, they multiply and spread until you forget that they're really just suggestions and before you know it you're trapped in a mediocre apartment by student loans you won't have paid until you're fifty, or until you find a nice wealthy hubby to pay it off for you. Sound familiar doc?"
Eyebrows raised, he scans me. I know he's doing it, cataloguing the minutia of my discomfort. The way my shoulders have bowed and the fallen strand of sandy hair that I have absently started to play with. I shove my hand back into my lap and he winks. I feel my eyebrows knit together before I can subvert the reaction and that smile becomes a bit more hedonistic.
"But the rules help us, they are put in place to protect us from each other and to help us build our lives." I produce another lovely textbook response because I think I might be looking into the rabbit hole, and I think there might be something down there, whispering my name.
"HA! Protect us from each other?" His tone evolves rapidly from glib joviality to quiet thunder. "What a load of horseshit. If you think I couldn't get out of this nut house and slit your throat if the mood struck me, you're a very silly little girl indeed." He's right. We've never been able to keep him locked up before. Why would it be different now? "There is no real 'protection' there is no way to build a 'life', haven't you been listening?" His voice begins to ratchet up and I swear I can feel it physically battering at my temporal lobes. "The world is arbitrary, it's a giant Rube-Goldberg machine that ends in death, so it doesn't matter what you do because the dice are already rolling! You may as well have a little fun. Sanity is just what they call it when you forget that."
The buzz of the timer in my pocket makes me jump.
"Got ants in your pants doc?"
"Unfortunately our time is up for today." I say in a bit of a haze, switching off the timer. He plasters on a ludicrous pout.
"Aww and I was just starting to enjoy myself! Although I can't wait to see what surprises you have up your sleeve for our next session, maybe you could jump out of a cake? I've always been fond of that." He prattles as Bradley goes about unhooking him. "Toodle-ooo! See ya next time- and watch out for those pesky ants!" He calls over his shoulder, his eyebrows dancing. Feral laughter spills out into the hall as they pull him from the room.
I feel quite…dissociated as I pack my things, and when I finally exit the interview room I have the surreal impression that I'm emerging from some underground cell. I blink, blinded by the light, though the glare in the hallway emanates from the same artificial bulbs they use throughout the hospital.
I make it through the rest of my relatively uneventful shift with all the charm and personality of a tuna melt. Thankfully neither clients, nor co-workers make a peep and I'm not forced to acknowledge just how burned out I feel. I had known he was a lit match, it just didn't register that he came with his own supply of oxygen gas.
I check my voicemail on the way to my car- there's one message from my sister asking if I'll join her and her husband for dinner on Sunday. I send her a quick text to confirm, even though we do this every week and it sort of annoys me that she acts like it's still shiny and new. I can without a doubt say we will either be eating meatloaf or Sheppard's pie.
My sister likes to stick to her standards.
I mean that's why Lucy married Paul isn't it? The man isn't exactly an animal in the sack- two glasses of merlot and she'll tell you that herself. I used to spend a lot of time trying to figure out what she saw in him. It's completely obvious now that we're just very different people. I was reading about Dahmer while she was reading Judy Blume. It's a simple matter of taste.
Honestly though, I cant think of anything more boring than resigning myself to alternating meal duty and a standing greys anatomy date with the same person for the rest of my life. I watched her fall into routine with him and felt increasingly phobic about that possibility for myself. I still have nightmares about waking up one day as the proud owner of a minivan used exclusively to shuttle 2.5 kids to soccer practice. So I kicked and screamed against anything even remotely suggestive of settling down. I told my lovers they were just bodies and I railed against my mother when she tried to tell me a Ph.D. would make it too hard to find a husband.
Don't think I regret that- I have my own apartment and a vibrator and career that by nature resists stagnation. I can eat ice cream out of the tub and stay out late and watch as much Buffy in my underwear as I want. There's no one tying me down...but somehow I'm still bored.
I had planned on curling up with some wine and leftover Chinese, but by the time I pull into the parking garage of my building I feel so keyed up that I could probably power a small community if someone stuck me in a hamster wheel. So I change out of my work clothes and grab my gym bag.
Bob's isn't your typical gym. I found out about it from a girl I used to see at parties when I was at Gotham State- Selina. I still see her at Bob's every once and a while but I get the feeling she's a bit of nomad. We bonded because I saw her vault onto the roof of a frat house garage and asked if she was a gymnast. She told me no, she just needed to get away from the 'idiot brigade' before she started a campaign of enforced tooth removal. So I vaulted on to the roof next to her and offered her some of my warm beer, and she showed me the wallets she'd just taken off the football team.
I remember being quite smitten.
She was the essence of independence and unapologetic female confidence, and it was refreshing to talk to someone who didn't shut me down.
Anyways.
Bob's was originally a warehouse-and based on its proximity to the docks I'd be willing to bet it used to be mafia property. Bob bought the place just after the Maroni family fell apart using his mother's inheritance, and it is very clearly an homage to her greatest passion, a way to hold on to her presence. He once told me quite gruffly that he'd built it for himself, he never intended on sharing it with us 'kids', but I know he loves seeing us do the things that brought his mother so much joy.
Now Bob is no Wayne, there's no state of the art equipment, no bowflex or elliptical, and when something breaks down we all pitch in to have it fixed. But there's balance bars and a pommel horse and a trampoline, and Bob gave me a key so I can get in whenever I want- which is all I really need.
I Paid for my undergrad with a gymnastics scholarship, though I never really liked competing, it felt like a bastardization somehow. What I loved, what kept me coming back was that feeling of flying through the air, so unfettered that for a few seconds you don't even exist in the real world. Simultaneously being the master of my body and completely at the mercy of gravity...that's the kind of freedom I can't put a price on.
So, after a quick round in the ring with Bob's nephew John, I waste no time climbing up to the trapeze and loosing 2 hours inside my muscles and bones.
By the time I'm packing up there's no one left and I have to lock up. I feel a bit jumpy in the empty shadows stretching between the warehouses, but then again I've been on edge all day. I slip a my keys between the fingers of my fisted hand, thinking to use them as a particularly nasty set of brass knuckles should anyone try to jump me. I think about how it might feel to actually use them, to take a chunk out of some predator who mistook me for prey and a little self-satisfied smile tugs at my lips.
But then, just as my car comes into view, I picture him
I jog the rest of the distance.
I had planned on using Saturday to review my notes from that first session- that is I had planned on it until realizing that I hadn't taken any. So instead I review the footage from his cell that I had requested the week before. I watch him strut about, do a jig, and make some very lewd and to be honest, very entertaining gestures at passers by. Mostly he reads and talks to himself, although the feed doesn't have audio so I can't hear what he says. He doesn't sleep much, but when he does, he sleeps like a baby.
Even in the darkness with his eyes closed and his breath slowed, the scars keep him smiling.
At 7:30 I snap out of my trance and realize I've been ruminating. I take my glasses off and rub my eyes.
Don't obsess Harleen; it's not healthy.
I pick up my phone to text a friend and ask if she wants to go for a drink. I really need to get out of the house.
I force my self out of my shredded cupcake print pajamas and into a relatively plain red dress, swiping on some mascara and a bit of lipstick to match. I take my blond hair out of its perpetual bun and attempt to brush some of the kinks out of it, but I end up putting it back up
The girl who stares back from my reflection still looks like she's playing dress-up in her mothers clothes, and I sigh. I had a particularly painful set of experiences in university that taught me the only way to be taken seriously was to dress myself down, so I did. Only in the past few years have I felt confident enough to start dressing up a little, and it's still horribly uncomfortable.
I feel like a sore thumb but I need to look passable for the place Ashley suggested.
Everyone will be a thumb there, Harleen. You wont even be the sorest one.
Satisfied that at the very least I don't look underage- years of gymnastics will give a girl a real complex about that- I make my way down town to Eris.
It turns out to be more of a club than a bar- Ashley's always had a taste for the theatrical. Inside I wander a myriad of rooms lit in various colors, all playing different music. I watch woozy girls in stilettos twist and sway against other woozy girls and equally woozy men. I watch cocaine and money exchange hands and think about boxes and rolling dice.
"Harley!" I snap to attention and then melt into Ashley's slightly potted hug. "You look great!" she yells over the music. I do my best to ignore the compliment.
"Its good to see you Ash!"
" You want a drink? I'm getting you a drink, C'mon." and with that she drags me into the watering hole throng that wraps around the bar.
I try to lose myself in the music and alcohol, but behind my eyes I'm still watching his footage. I'm thinking about how, overall, he's responded very well to me. I think my attempts to format our session as more of a natural conversation than an interrogation have paid off. It's entirely possible that he's feeding me bullshit like he's done with everyone else but…I don't know. It didn't have quite the same sweet carrion reek. Maybe if our sessions keep going well I can persuade the warden to let him out of the straight jacket-I don't like having such a terrible read on his body language.
I feel hands on my hips and look behind me to see a blond guy with a jawline like Adonis. And though I'm annoyed he couldn't have at least approached me from the front, I want a distraction, and it's been a while since I got to palm some ass-if you'll excuse my language. So I dance with him until my legs feel like Jenga towers near the end of the game and Ash sweeps me into a cab.
Once I finally manage to wrestle my key into the lock, I stumble to the sink; my only thought being to relieve the gritty dryness of my tongue. I fill a glass, struggling to see only one faucet. In my disordered state I miss my mouth, pouring water down my face and onto my dress. I huff and absently wipe at my face with the back of my hand, greedily gulping down as much water as I can swallow without choking.
Oh! Oooh no.
My stomach turns with the sudden flood and I rush to the bathroom, falling to my knees and emptying myself into the toilet. When the heaving subsides I stand with some difficulty, and grasp onto the sink to steady myself. I catch sight of my reflection, of the vivid red smears on my cheeks, and I laugh.