On the Edge of Wakefulness
Chapter 19
Todd wasn't really looking for a response to his horrific revelation about his mother. It was simply yet another fact he kept hidden in his subconscious the same way he'd hidden other facts. But this one scorpion of a memory…hidden as it was, seemed somehow worse than everything else. From deep within the black of unknowing since its inception, it had been injecting its poison into his consciousness. Each day he lost a little more of himself to it until he no longer recognized who he was. Until he easily hated all women, culminating in repeated rapes and a host of other female humiliations. He might have survived the abuse… had his mother never left him behind. She was the true sine qua non of Todd's badness, the primary cause-in-fact.
Turning away from his doctor, he paced back and forth, muttering to himself unintelligibly. He was shuffling his feet, tiredness showing on his features.
Tim sat on the edge of the bed, trying to discern what he was saying but couldn't. He wasn't able to hear the theorizing, the self-blame. The hatred. Todd finally spoke a little louder, saying, "Whore...I was a whore..." He chuckled every so often, shaking his head in disbelief as he watched his feet. No, he thought, that did not happen. Could not have happened. It isn't real. He ran his fingertips along the wall and furniture as he walked, switching hands when he turned around.
This is real. My room. My bed. My dresser. The walls. The carpet. Me. Today. I am real. All those memories…they're not real. They're not real. Please, God, don't let them be real.
The doctor watched him, waiting for a moment to break through the blackness into which Todd had sunk. When he found one, he asked, "What's a 'whore' to you? Why do you say that's what you were?"
"Whore...the monster's whore. I called my ex that once. Told her she was one because she said I was a monster." Todd crunched down on his teeth, talking through them, withholding a sudden bubbling of raw emotion. "Called her that when I found out she...sh- she...lied to me about being pregnant, duped me into marrying her. Married me f-for my money."
"And you called her that because..."
The hostility spread across Todd's face as he started to spit out his explanation, moving his hand in front of him angrily. "Because that's exactly what she was! Fucking me for my money, for all that came with it." The anger affected his pace and movements; the tightening of his jaw, his fists. He rubbed his forehead with the heel of his bleeding hand, his eyes then glancing sideways at the doctor, distrust peeking out.
"Wasn't that relationship redeemed though? You had a child with her, you fell in love with each other. Viki told me how much you'd cared for her. How much you still care for her. It sounds to me that in the end, she wasn't whoring for money...at all."
"Oh...that is such bull...SHIT!" He stalked the end of the room, shaking his head angrily.
Starr. Jed. Starjed. Shhh. No, not now. None of those memories are real.
Then why are you so broken?
"Todd, focus that anger you feel right now. Who is it you're really angry at?"
"Focus, focus...I AM FOCUSED! Did Viki tell you what I saw...in front of my EYES?! Did she tell you my 'loving' wife was..." He took a breath, trying to regain himself, trying not to be thrown back to that time. To that sick, empty feeling of being betrayed. To seeing the one person he thought he loved turning her back on him, leaving him. Leaving.
Have I left them?
"What happened?"
"Fucking happened. On the floor...her legs...his body… on her. Makes me sick! I nearly died for that hairy bastard! I was shot for him! And there he was… on my wife… on Blair… in my own… home."
He started walking again, breathing hard, unfocused.
Home. Where is that now? Where is my home now? Right here. It's real. It's real.
"Blair was with the man who was responsible for you getting shot," Tim said. "So you saw her as turning her back on you… like… your mom did?"
"My mom?! Oh yeah...so typical of you doctor types...always goes to the mother...my mother left because of what 'I' did! This has nothing to do with Blair!"
"Stay with me...you're suddenly really pissed at Blair. Listen. You say your mother left because she saw something. The way you saw something. The way you saw Blair. With him 'on' her."
Todd stopped, confused, trying to make out the similarities, the parallels. "No...you got it all wrong...I..."
"Todd, you're angry at Blair, but I think it's because the incident reminded you of what happened when you were a child. You re-organized it. It's not your mother betraying you, but Blair. Betraying you. You see your mother in Blair. She's a much easier target because she's alive - your mother isn't."
"Screw you...you're confusing me..."
"She shouldn't have left, Todd. Mothers are not supposed to leave. You have every right to be angry at her, too. It wasn't your fault. You are not a whore."
But I am. I am betraying them. Starjed.
Todd groaned and then took a breath, starting the pacing again. Tim could hear the sound of his hand rubbing along the wall and furniture. Touching things to keep oriented.
Don't send me back there, God, not there. Please don't give me any more memories.
Sensing a closed door, Tim decided to push on, exploring further. "What is it, Todd? Still think you're the 'monster's whore'?"
"Once a whore, always a whore."
"Well, if that's true and you say Blair was doing it for money, what were you doing it for? Explain how you're the 'whore'. What did you prostitute yourself for?" Tim said.
Todd stopped walking and tilted his head at the doctor, thinking. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, blood staining his lips, which he licked off. Something else came across his face. A light went on. The corner of his mouth lifted in the barest of smiles. His voice dropped to a softer tone.
"You like to hear this shit, Doctor Graham? All the details of what Peter did to me? You like it?"
The doctor widened his eyes just a little, surprised at the shift. There was a whole lot of heat coming his way out of the blue. The doctor understood sexual abuse victims sometimes sexualized relationships that shouldn't be and a doctor-patient relationship of this sort was definitely one that might spur such reactions. Still, Tim was surprised at the tone, at the realness of it.
"This shit turn you on? I bet your cock's hard listening to me talk about it." He licked his lower lip, eyes running down the doctor's body. "Wanna see mine, Doctor Graham? Wanna touch it, Doctor Graham? Wanna suck it? Taste it?" Todd cupped himself as he taunted the doctor, stuck his tongue out in a distinct… accurate… movement.
"No, Todd."
"I bet you're lying. We all lie about the things we want."
Tim stayed quiet, keeping on a face of empathy, concern. He sighed. For all the intense sexuality his patient was throwing at the doctor, his eyes told more of the truth. Distraction. Devastation. These revelations were killing Todd and he desperately wanted a way out. Jesus, he was heartbreaking. But Tim also recognized something in the manipulation to take note of. To keep an eye on. There was a curious ease in the come-on to a male doctor. He wondered if the suggestion was something experienced at an older age. The sexual abuse ended at nine years old? Tim wasn't so sure.
"Aww fuck you and your fucking questions." Todd paced again. Touched the walls. Back and forth. His effort at provocation gone in a flash. "You don't give a shit about me," he murmured.
"Yes, I do. I'm angry at Peter Manning for what he did to you. It makes me sad for the little boy he molested so horribly. How does it make you feel talking about it? How do you feel about that little boy?"
"I have no feelings. The walking dead...have no feelings." Todd had heard Tim's words, absorbing them, and looked away. Kept walking. Back and forth. The little boy. What boy? He's dead. His fist tightened and loosened, not knowing where to go now with this. Not knowing what good all this was. As his hand pulsed, blood seeped in between his fingers, into the webbed skin. Blood on my hands, he thought. Grabbed his cock again unconsciously. Making sure that was dead, too. Growled at its sensitivity, at its readiness. At the fact that it was living other times...
Blair's blood, Tea's, Marty's. My mother's. All my victims' blood. God help me. Don't do this to me…don't give me these memories…tell me they're not real. Keep them in the fog. Please, please, please...
No such luck. Todd slowed his walk, drifting, his eyes becoming glassy. Tim called his name but he simply stared. His past played out in front him. Clear as day. As real as the walls, the dresser, his room.
He could still hear his mother gasp as she walked into the bedroom that night. Her "oh god" as she turned around, faltering. His feet had been rubbing against the sheets and mattress in a gruesome combination of terror and pleasure. He'd been on the verge of what might have been a first ejaculation, which quickly became a halted one. The birthing of a rapist and the killing of a child. The heat of the room had been suffocating. He'd not been able to breathe as he struggled against Peter. Fighting it and yet not being able to get away. Almost not wanting to because of the physical feeling. Seeing the abhorrent pictures in his head, he found he could barely remember that little boy Tim talked about, the one who died so long ago in that little bed. In that little room with the red propeller toy airplane hanging from the fan, hanging still in Todd's nightmares. Dead to the wind, to a future, to dreams.
Tim rested his hand on Todd's shoulder, "Come on, kiddo, you staying with me?"
He turned to Tim and spoke flatly, his eyes still unfocused, "You asked what I whored for. For basic necessities? A place to sleep? I don't know...maybe for food. Yeah...I fucked for food. From seven to nine. Seven ... seven … to nine..." He looked at his bleeding knuckles and with his other hand he rubbed the broken skin, spreading the blood around, wearing a vacant expression.
Disconnecting.
"Ok. Except your logic is flawed. You took it because you had no choice. You weren't fucking for anything, Todd. You were being forced, raped. You weren't a whore. What would he have done if you had been able to fight him, if you were a hundred pounds heavier, three feet taller?" Todd only continued to stare at the cut on his knuckle with dazed eyes, then bringing it up to his mouth and tasting the salty ooze. Licking his wounds.
"Todd? What would you have done?"
Eyes lazily moved to the doctor. "I told you, maybe I liked it. Maybe I wanted it to happen. Maybe I was a willing whore."
Tim sensed he was referring to that possible confusing complication that always seemed to derail his status as a rape victim. "No. Don't misunderstand your physical reactions to being touched as desired pleasure. You did NOT ask him to molest you. You were only seven years old. He assaulted you, he raped you. I know it doesn't mean much for me to say these things. But you still need to put the blame where it belongs. On Peter for being the rapist and on your mother for leaving you to be assaulted. Please, try to understand that."
Todd drifted again, his knuckles up at his mouth again. His eyes closing, tasting the blood, He didn't seem to be caring to stay in the present.
Tim's eyes went to his patient's hand. "Let's take a break and take care of that cut, ok?" Tim was concerned at how far this shut-down would go, at how much Todd might remove himself from the process. After getting gauzy bandaging and antiseptic pads from his bag, he walked slowly to his patient, reaching out for his hand, "Let me clean this up for you."
Todd looked at the man who was trying so hard to help him. So tired, he thought, feeling strange, separated from everything. Splintered. He reached up and with his bloody hand, he touched Tim's cheek. Human. A normal man. What does that feel like to be normal? He touched a springy curl that stuck out above Tim's left ear and a smile danced at the corners of his drained eyes. He moved his fingertips to Tim's mouth and lightly ran them over his lips. Normal. Todd stared at eyelashes that were blond, protective blue eyes which gazed sympathetically back at him. The color of deep water. Deep enough to drown in. Like the cold New River which took his beloved Michelle, the mother of Jed. His son. Todd dropped his hand, his eyes staring down at his own body, his boots, his unbuttoned jeans, his t-shirt which had a damp spot at the bottom from his own saliva.
Tim had not moved while Todd touched him, taken a bit by surprise because he was not sure what was going on with him. The touching was not sexual. He worried about the jumps, the flow of thinking, and the disconnection. Although expected, the retreat worried him further because of Todd's unpredictability. Tim never knew what was going to come next.
"I don't...uh...need anything," Todd whispered. "Can I just go...but where will I go? I don't belong anywhere."
"Let me clean your hand and then we can talk about it, ok? I won't hurt you; the cleaning might sting, but I am not going to hurt you."
Todd finally lifted his hand a little, giving it to Tim, who carefully took it into his. "All right," the doctor said as he cleaned the wound. "Just hang on, kiddo. Please don't give up." Tim wrapped a bandage around the hand, delicately, periodically lifting his eyes to evaluate his patient.
In turn, Todd watched as the doctor cleaned the injury, noting to himself that it didn't hurt. As if he was dead. See, I'm right, he thought, I am dead.
Yeah. Betraying them. Starjed. Like she betrayed me.
Tim let go of his hand and Todd studied the bandaging, his eyes eventually moving to the cuts on his arm. "Nothing hurts me," he said. "Don't you get that?"
"I don't believe it. I don't think that's true."
"Sure it is. I learned to take pain from my dad. Dear Peter. My teacher. My master." He smiled that crooked smile again. "He used to burn me with this...lighter of his...which I kept."
Tim turned around, suddenly remembering that he saw one near Todd's bed. He turned back again. "He burned you? With a lighter...like the one on the floor?"
"With THE lighter on the floor. My palms. A test. A game of chicken. Who could outlast the other? Who had the bigger balls?" Todd looked at his palms. "I lost a lot of times, having to pull my hand away. But...sometimes, I didn't. Sometimes I kept my hand on the fire and he was the one to pull away the lighter." He laughed softly, dropping his hands to his side. Then Tim heard him utter quietly, "'You sick bastard,' he'd say to me. Now who was calling...the kettle black?" Todd looked at his palms again, remembering those games.
After a moment, the doctor asked, "What would he do when you 'won' the round of chicken?"
Looking up and dropping his hands again, he said, "What would he do? He'd beat the shit out of me because I was such a sick kid. Same thing he did when I lost. He beat me those times to toughen me up. Which it did. Won me a football scholarship to Llanview U. Sam never could understand how a little kid like me could be so tough. So really, I ought to be thanking Peter instead of condemning him. Right? Right, Doctor Graham?"
Todd eyes then looked past Tim to the doorway. Tim turned, hearing a light knock at the door and saw Viki standing there.
"Sis...welcome...to my humble home. Welcome to my Hell." His words were slightly slurred.
"Everything all right?" Tim asked Viki.
"Oh, yes, I was just concerned. It was so quiet up here, I wanted to check on him."
Although she was talking to Tim, her eyes were aimed at her brother. She saw the sleepy eyes, the absence there. "I want you to know that I am here," she said to him now, directly. "In case you need me."
Todd slowly pushed past Tim and headed to her, wanting to run, wanting to let her hold him like she used to at the hospital. Words fell out of his mouth as he walked, words he had no control over, words that meant something to him. "Need… need. It's ok, kiddo ... it's ok, sweetheart. Shhh. Don't cry." Viki looked across the room at Tim, who met her gaze with equally concerned eyes and a shaking head. Damn, his patient was losing it.
"Todd?" Viki asked. "What's the matter?"
As he walked toward his sister, he remembered that brushing of his hair that she would do sometimes. Always reminded him of brushing his mother's hair. Then her brushing his, right out of the bath, his little body wrapped in a thick towel. She didn't know what she was washing off him, the stench, the sweat... semen from Peter. Whore. We were all whores, he thought. All betraying each other, all fucking for something.
Starjed. I am betraying you. This time I've left you.
As he moved closer to her, Viki started to look fuzzy, fading away. He reached out to her, trying to clear the fog, trying to hear her voice. "Keep talking," he said, sounding afraid. "I can't see you, sis, you're going away… please don't leave me… please, please, please..."
"I'm here, sweetheart. I'm right here. Todd…"
Viki's voice echoed and floated above him. He tried to grab the words right of the air, hands desperately trying to hold them because he was disappearing into the abyss. He felt his knees hit the floor...
Suddenly, he was in his old room in the Manning house. Chicago. Spinning around, he saw the bed in the corner, the sheets pulled down messily, wetness darkening the sheets and he knew it was his own sweat. A sauna, he thought. This room is like a fucking sauna. Shit, it's so hot. He saw books on the bookshelf about airplanes and hot air balloons. A nature book on birds. Dr. Seuss. Richard Scarry. The model fighter jet he and his mom worked so hard to put together. It stood still on his shelf. Not moving. Not flying. Like the red toy airplane hanging off the ceiling fan. He reached for the red plane, the thing hanging there, stuck forever, going nowhere. He eyed the wood paneled walls and the framed posters there; three antique advertisements of a long-defunct local circus. Todd always liked the images of the flying trapeze. Their smiling faces. No net, they boasted. Nothing to catch them if they fell. He had a memory of being at a circus with his mother. His face crinkled in pain, knowing he had chased her away. He was the monster's whore and now she knew. She knew. No net. No one to catch him when he fell.
And fell, he did.
He heard a sound, a strange choking sound coming from the down the hall. Gagging. Coughing. Vomiting.
He walked out of the bedroom and heard a deep voice, chastising someone. "This is your fault! If you would give me what I want, when I want, I wouldn't need him! I wouldn't have to turn to him to get off!"
"Oh my GOD! You're sick! How can you do that to a child?! How can you blame me for your...perversion!" A new wave of vomiting started up again. Todd followed the sound right into his parents' bedroom, into the doorway of their bathroom. And stood there watching them in this exchange. His father wore brown gabardine slacks, belt-less, unzipped, with a white sleeveless undershirt. That fucking zipper… made him hate zippers. His mother was in a white terry bathrobe over a pink cotton nightgown he recognized from the material below the hem of the robe. He could still feel the lace rub against his cheek.
"I'm sick?!" Peter Manning bellowed. "I'm sick for wanting a wife who'll perform when she's supposed to?! Who isn't too drunk or passed out when I get home from work?!"
Spitting ended the wave of vomiting. Coughing.
"Oh God, help me...this isn't real…please, God…this isn't happening," his mother cried, moaning as she gripped the avocado green toilet. Barbara Manning looked up from where she knelt, "Well I don't have a penis! How the hell am I suppose to satisfy THAT need of yours! Oh my God..."
"Shut up, you bitch!" Peter grabbed her hair and reached back to slug her, at which point Todd jumped to stop him from hitting her, holding on to the swinging arm.
"NO!" Todd screamed, a young voice coming out.
"What the..." Peter felt his arm restrained by the naked boy whose eyes blazed with fear and rage, who bared his teeth, growling like a dog. "Jesus fucking Christ." Easily, Peter whipped his arm, throwing Todd against the bathroom wall, his head hitting the gold wallpapered wall.
"Todd!" His mother cried. "I'll get you out of here! I'll-"
"You'll what? Get him away from me? I don't think so. In your fucking dreams! No court'll ever award this little shit to a drunkard who has no money! Who has NOTHING!"
Peter laughed as Barbara kneeled by her dazed son, "Darling? Honey? Are you hurt?"
Todd could smell her sour breath, the smell of loss, defeat.
"'Darling'? 'Honey'? Give me a goddamn break. Get the fuck off the floor, whore!"
Todd scrambled in his mother's arms, trying to get up despite the awful dizziness from hitting his head on the wall. He tried to get up in response to Peter's voice like Pavlov's dog. Gotta get up. Gotta get up. Do what he says or he'll punish me. All he felt was his mother's brown hair in his hands. Strands of it in his tightened fist.
The monster's whore. Get the fuck off the floor.
The image faded, the lost memory fizzling away, and Todd felt a cool wet cloth on his forehead. He heard a drawn out moaning sound which he knew to be his own; one he was now familiar with.
"There you are," he heard, his fingers scratching the carpet fibers. A nice voice, he thought. Comforting, soothing. Angelic. He smelled perfume and through a haze saw her glittering gold bracelets as she lifted the towel and turned it over. Peter's voice came back, commanding him to get off the floor. He tried to get up, his whole body scrambling, pushing, with no result.
"No, it's me, Viki...shhhh...stay down. You had a flashback."
Viki, he thought, his sister who loved him. He fought a little more, only this time it was to feel her arms close tighter around him.
She heard him say sluggishly, "Tighter, hold me tighter… don't let go. You'll never come back for me if you leave." He was pulling at her sleeves, curling onto his side.
"I'm not leaving," she said. "Never will." After a moment, Viki looked up from their position on the floor and said with a bit of surprise in her voice, "I think he has fever, Tim, he seems so hot."
The doctor came close, kneeling down, and touched his face and back of his neck, checking him, guessing.
"Yeah, could be. Jed told me they were up all night. Was really cold out too. Could have caught something. We'll get him taken care of." He sighed heavily, going to his bag for acetaminophen and Todd's usual prescription. Surprisingly, he didn't object to the medication, taking a few sips of water, swallowing the capsules easily.
Walking to the telephone, Tim then said, "I'll get an internist to meet us at the hospital."
Viki found herself instinctively rocking her brother like she used to rock her children, who was curling up a little more, in her arms with closed eyes.
As he lay there, he could still hear his mother's voice cutting through sobs, Oh my God...oh my God...you pervert...you bastard...
"Mama," Todd kept repeating under his breath, over and over. Viki started to cry softly, not knowing what tormented him, not wanting to know, wondering if the nightmare would ever end for him.
It's alright, Little One.
Are you here?
I am always here. Always.
Tim watched the brother and sister on the floor, overwhelmed a moment at seeing them. Like Jonathan, Todd had had a life. A future in front of him. Even more so. A family, wealth, a thriving business. And like Jonathan, he lost it, becoming completely engulfed in mental illness. A cutting off of a life. Jonathon lost his for good. God damn it, this one wasn't going to lose his, too.
Asa Buchanan threw the Banner Newspaper at Phillip Manning's feet, "This is poppycock!"
"'Poppycock'?"
"You heard me, boy."
Phillip laughed, the sound of it making Asa itch. "You know, Buch, you really are naive. You haven't travelled the slums too much, have you?" He bent down and picked up the paper, glancing over Cassie Buchanan's first article in a series where she presented the argument that the Buchanan patriarch, Asa, was involved along with a reputable judge, in a massive bribery scheme. It was good; there was some evidence there. But it was all circumstantial.
"Not in the dregs like you," Asa said, staring at the cold sonofabitch in front of him.
Something that always got to Asa whenever he was in the presence of Phillip Manning was the snake-look in his eyes. He made Todd Manning seem darn right priestly. Phillip was meaner than a rattler. Shaking his tail at him. Ssssssnap.
"Well, this little reporter chick, your daughter-in-law, I guess, is going after blood," Phillip lectured. "Yours and mine. And you know, the one she'll catch'll be you. Because you're new to this. You're green. Green as a little tadpole swimmin' in the swamp." Phillip mocked Asa's southern drawl, insulting it. Pissing on it.
The mention of Cassie made Asa nervous, his palms becoming wet with perspiration. He had no idea what this man was capable of and suddenly felt antsy thinking she might be the focus of Phillip's anger. He had accepted her pursuit of this story out of self-preservation, not wanting to make a stink lest she figure he had something to be afraid of.
"She doesn't have anything hard on me," he said. "A few checks from your 'company'. So what? No confession, no hard proof. Nothin'."
"I wouldn't bet on it. There's a leak and I haven't caught it yet. But, that's neither here nor there. MY main purpose for coming to you is to warn you. To keep your mouth shut. You turn evidence, so do I. You decide to cover your ass, so will I. Tit for tat. As they say. You're in deep, bubba. You and your goody-two-shoe sons." He didn't crack a smile. His words were unencumbered with flair or fancy lip work. Mean as all get out.
Asa was ruffled, standing up and shouting, "Get outta here! Take your scumbag ass outta here and don't ever come back!"
Phillip turned, shrugging his shoulders, humming the tune of the "Belle of Texas". He patted Nigel on the back at the entrance of Asa's mansion, "Take it easy. Watch the old man."
Jedediah sat downstairs, waiting for the outcome, waiting to find out what was going on. He heard Todd yell in that angry voice of his and had broken out into a sweat. God, was Satan back? He kept thinking of his mother, Mimi. And the notes that Todd had hidden. That writing of hers. Loopy, careful writing. Always so careful with her words. The way she was taught by Beatrice. Be careful. Don't tell. Be polite and stick to etiquette and social acceptability.
Loopy, careful writing.
He stood up and walked to Todd's desk, picking up the telephone. Once again, he dialed the familiar number. "Kevin?" he asked.
"Jed! God! I've been worried sick! Not to sound like an old lady or anything but shit!"
"I'm all right."
"You still at Todd's? You want me to come?"
"You know...I kinda do." Kevin could hear the child in Jed's voice. The truth of who he was: a boy. Still wanting to be a boy. But, it was too late for him as he'd been shoved into adulthood at the death of Michelle and now, by dealing with Todd.
"Course. I'll come get you," Kevin promised. "How...is he?"
"Don't ask. Viki's with him. Tim, too. I'm downstairs."
"All right. I'll be there in a few. You take care. If it gets too hot, go and wait in the hall by the elevator."
They hung up and Jedediah ambled back over to the couch, feeling that agonizing melancholy come over him once again. He would be patient with Todd, he knew that much. Nobody said he had to like it though. He could still hear Todd's voice in his head cursing Tim upstairs and still feel Viki's hold on his hand tighten as they looked at each other. He knew how hard it was on her to sit there and wait. He could see it in her eyes. Familiarity with Todd's pain.
They shared joint access to a club nobody wants to belong to; a club where its members are raped by parental figures; where its members are violated by trusted people; where its members routinely experience a loss of themselves and of their souls. Souls that are pecked at, bitten, shredded.
Hell wasn't a theory; it was real and it was here on earth.
Todd opened his eyes to Viki still holding him and he shuddered, crawling away from her, over to the bed. Once there, he momentarily sat, leaning against its side as if resting and then he finally climbed on top of it. He tried to talk but he was too tired and too sick. Sick with a broken heart. The loss of his mother was something he could never deal with, much less to see and remember the real circumstances under which she'd left. He had shoved away what had happened, just like Tim had said he did, a long time ago. It was now exploding out. He didn't want to remember the fact that she betrayed him. That she left him to be eaten alive, body and soul, by that monster.
And now, here I am, he thought. Empty. Dead. Eaten. My insides sucked out.
Am I betraying them, too, he wondered? Starjed. He could feel Starr's kisses on his cheek; how he missed her. She needs me, he thought, but I have nothing to give image of Jedediah's disappointed eyes suddenly interrupted the memory of his daughter and he shook it away. I am betraying him. I am nothing.
There is perfection within imperfection. You are something unique and wonderful. You are real. The One loves you. You will learn to love you. Accept that.
He shook his head to the spirit's voice.
He lay flat on his stomach, silenced, his cheek to the bed. His eyes were open and he stared at nothing in particular. He remembered the night before at the park. Seeing Peter. But he lacked the energy to react to it. He saw it and couldn't do anything, couldn't move. I am a slug, he thought.
Viki got up off the floor, stretching her legs out, cramped from holding him too long. She moved closer, glancing up at Tim who was writing in a notebook. She noticed Todd looking at her.
"Todd?
He mumbled, "Jedediah...where?"
"Downstairs."
"Alone?"
"Yes, he's fine. Do you want to see him?"
"No. Don't leave him by himself...Peter's alive...he might come for him. I don't want him to get his hands on him."
Tim looked up quickly from his notebook, creasing his eyebrows. Viki bent her head close to Todd, "What did you say, sweetheart?"
"Peter ... he's alive ... he tried to hurt me in the park. Don't leave Jed alone ... please ... call Kevin..." Todd seemed to swallow hard, holding back something. He finally spat out, "Lock him up...hide him..."
Tim got up, seriously concerned, fearing he was delusional again. He walked around to the side of the bed and Viki moved out of the way so he could look at Todd. He was awake but calm; presenting an impossible scenario without any particular emotion. He tried to sit up, but ended up just falling back into the bed.
"So tired," he said. "What's wrong with me?"
"A little under the weather, plus…exhaustion…plus…trauma," Tim said. "We should get back to the hospital. An internist will be there to help you."
"No...no," Todd mumbled.
"I really think we should."
"No...no hospital," Todd said. "Can't do that...Peter's there."
"Peter Manning?" Viki asked.
"Yes, Peter…he's there and he's going to hurt me, he's going to hurt Jed."
Viki began to get frightened and whispered to Tim, "Is he...delusional again?"
"Might be. He's believing something that's not possible. Let's talk to Jed, get a fuller picture of last night. He didn't tell us much."
Turning his attention to his patient, he said to him, "Hey, kiddo, help me out with something, okay? Peter Manning's dead. He's not going to hurt you or Jed. Tell me you know that."
Looking directly at Tim, he answered, "He's alive. I saw him. And he will go to the hospital to finish me off because I told you everything. Please, Tim. Let me stay here. Please." Tim looked back at Todd, trying to see through him, into him.
"I'm too tired to move," Todd then said. "Don't make me move."
With a heavy sigh, Tim gave in, "All right. You rest. But someone has to stay with you."
Todd nodded and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, thankful to be sleeping in his own bed. As he drifted off, he heard Tea laugh, her voice brightening the darkness. He felt her soft skin underneath his hands and her lips pressed against his. She whispered to him as she wrapped her arms around him.
Come back to me. I am waiting for you. I have never stopped waiting for you.
"Téa."
To be continued….