Vulnerable (2 page)

            “You replace those every day?
Why?”

           
She shrugged, smiling, “It’s my job.”

            They continued to the next room, which was significantly smaller, but still large for a laundry room. After they looked at it, they came upon the master bedroom, the room in which Michael would be staying. Millie whipped her head around, her hair spilling around her like water.

            “Well, here you are! Sorry, not much of a tour, I know,” she laughed, her eyelashes fluttering their own language.

            “That’s all right, I’m kind of tired after all those hours of driving anyway,” he said. He gave an almost identical laugh as hers before awkwardly heading into the master bedroom.

            They stood there staring at each other for a good five minutes before Millie added, “Let me know if you need anything! I’m just next door… here…” she laughed again as she pointed to the door of a room that looked less than half the size of the bedroom Michael would be staying in.

            “Sounds good! See you tomorrow! Have a good night… enjoy painting!” he said, and with that, they had their last few awkward laughs and went their separate ways into their bedrooms. Michael turned the curved golden knob and sulked inside.
Enjoy painting?
He thought to himself scornfully,
could I possibly be any more of an incongruous fool?
He shook his head.
Incongruous fool? Even in my thoughts I’m socially hideous…
he paced around the room in self-loathing for thirty seconds before realizing the grandeur of the surroundings all around him.

            His eyes widened at the majesty of such a bedroom as the one he’d be staying in. The walls were cloth and looked hand-stitched in fine linen of red and dark green with gold linings woven within every other patch of color. There were sections of the wall that buttoned together and matched the chairs that sat stationary with feet like lions and smelling like lilacs and summer. Nothing beat the bed, though: it was the biggest bed Michael had ever seen, and it looked like a cloud from the heavens. Michael inched closer as though to test if it was an illusion or not. He threw himself on the bed and immediately felt the satisfaction of a thousand sea horses nibbling on his feet and sides, giving him the massage of Poseidon. He sunk deeper and deeper in the foam majesty and soaked in the luxury.

           
After all the success I’ve had in novel writing, how did she ever beat me so immensely?
He thought,
this is Heaven…
And then he fell asleep, but only for a couple of hours. He always hated how much of a light sleeper he was, and tonight was no different.

            His eyelids fluttered open before he realized how harshly his heart was beating against his chest.
Millie? What’s going on?
Michael realized the sounds he had been dreaming of were actually quite real and that they were emanating from the wall partitioning his room from hers. They were far from weak and sounded like muffled cries. He slid one leg after the other as he made his groggy way over to the wall to get a better listen.

            He pressed his ear against the white grooved wall and held his breath. The noises were louder and clearer: Millie was sobbing.

            Michael’s heart began to race and he almost forgot to start breathing again. He backed away from the wall, stumbling over his own legs in the process. The door looked so far away, but as he reached his arm out it was as though his body was moving faster. As soon as he could, he swung himself from the doorway of the master bedroom and propelled himself to Millie’s door, knocking restlessly.

            “Millie?” he asked, his voice shaking. “Millie! Are you okay?”

            There was no answer.

            “MILLIE? CAN YOU HEAR ME?” he shouted through the door, but still no answer came. His heart felt stings of pain—of anxiety—like it did that night two years ago…

            “MILLIE?” his voice cracked and his body toppled to the designer carpet next to Millie’s door. Obviously he hadn’t woken up his body as much as he had thought. He slid his body closer to the bottom crack in the door and turned his ear towards the opening. The sobbing had stopped.

            Exasperated and confused, Michael got back up and shuffled his way into his room.

            He moped on his bed while his brain threw darts at him.
What did you do?
Hissed one dart.
She cries just like Lindsay used to…

            He shook them out of his head, crashing them onto the foam pillows engulfing his pounding head.
Lindsay…

           
Now Michael was wide awake, thinking of the night his whole life turned to Hell, and of tonight, when it seemed to reawaken. And the only thing that could have made it any worse happened: through the thickly layered wall lying no less than twenty feet away from Michael’s stiff being came Millie’s sobs once more. And to them, Michael swayed himself to sleep, unable to ignore the horrors plaguing his brain.

            Michael awoke the next morning with pain like knives trailing up the bones in his legs and sagging lines hugging the space beneath his eyes. It took him a moment when he woke to realize where he was and what had transpired just before he’d fallen asleep, but as soon as he did, he whipped layer after layer of skin-like blankets and sheets off of his aching legs. Consequently, his legs seemed to have minds of their own and refused to do their job, causing Michael to fall face-first onto the carpet. Luckily it was as soft as a baby lamb in spring.

            He sunk his face into the furry mass and bent his arms towards his chest, portioning all of his weight to his upper body, and heaving himself up by his arms and back. The moment his head was so high up in the room, he saw everything around him spin in a hazy daze. It was a long and painful journey to the door, but he was determined to make it there.

            After much tiresome effort, Michael turned the glassy doorknob while his face met the doorway unpleasantly. He felt his lips smushed against the grainy paint and used his forehead to peel away—it was the most awkward, confusing sequence of events that had ever occurred in his life (and that’s saying something). He swung his head and body through the doorway and lunged towards Millie’s room. Catching onto the chrome doorknob that he swore was made out of everlastingly frozen ice cubes, Michael felt as though his hands might melt off due to extreme cold. What did she do at night to make her doorknobs so cold?

            And he knocked.

            And knocked.

            Knocked.

            Knocked.

            No answer.

            “Millie?” his voice cracked, “Are you in there?” This was ridiculous. She didn’t answer last night, so why would she answer today? Maybe she was in a better mood? Nah, probably not—she wasn’t answering the door. So, he did what any reasonable guy would do in his state: invite himself in.

            After letting all of his weight smack hard against her door, he twisted the knob and… barely had to push. He fell over. Hard. On his face. Again.
Really?
He thought to himself. He went through the entire process that he’d just gone through in his own bedroom, but this time a lot quicker because he still wasn’t sure if Millie was in there or not. But to his dismay, once he got up and looked eagerly around the closet of a room (compared to the master bedroom anyway—it was actually a rather large bedroom for a regular house; let alone a lake house), he saw that she wasn’t there.

            “That’s odd,” he whispered to himself, realizing that the old creative writer’s habit of talking to himself that he’d try to kick was coming back. He ignored it, fanning away the passing thought for more important ones, which he spoke out loud: “Where could she be? Work? No… she works here… Maybe the church… THAT’S IT!” The sudden volume switch surprised himself.
Okay, I’ve gotta get more sleep tomorrow night,
he thought.

·
       
 

The audacious blare of Michael’s car made him feel even more out of place in this sleepy hidden city than he had already felt before. Nevertheless—after much caffeine and sugar to curb the groggy trauma bubbling through his body and brain that morning—he made it to the church.

“Huh,” he said in an unusually high voice for himself when he got a good look at the church, “It looks kinda nice… and cozy…” He closed his car door and leaned against the hood to study its frame, its shape, and soak in the feel of it.

It was a quaint little building with a few windows and one small door in the front—maybe one or two in the back as well, but he obviously couldn’t see back there at the same time. It was a light tan, almost the color of honey, with window and door accents of deep mahogany. But, like anything subtly beautiful, it had one large eye of stained glass workmanship accenting the peak that met at the tip of the roof. It was really a magnificent piece of work.

“Doesn’t it, though?” a voice from behind asked. Michael turned around to see a terrifyingly thin teenaged girl with bleached blonde hair and a flowerbed of makeup caked around her tiny, inclined blue eyes. She raised her eyebrows flirtatiously. It was then that Michael realized how scantily clad she was dressed to be waiting outside a church, but he shamefully pushed out the thought as judgmental. Either way, he had no idea what she was talking about.

His mouth hung down stupidly and he could feel his eyebrow twitching in a compulsive response. She threw her arms down and scoffed along the quiet side. She moved in closer to him, and closer, until she was so close to him that he could feel the freshness of the spearmint gum she was gnawing on. “The church,” she clarified, “It looks cozy.”

“Oh,” he said. He looked at her face; she had freckles that he knew she was probably self-conscious of by the look of the smeared makeup that was fading over the little brown spots.

She smiled to reveal slightly crooked teeth, unevenly bleached, “You’re new… and you’re cute…” she started twisting his hair through her bony fingers, “What’s your name, anyway?”

Michael removed her hand and pushed it away gently, but backed away bluntly, “Michael. Michael Lansbury.” The girl’s eyes widened and her casually cocked head drifted upright on her shoulders.

“
The
Michael Lansbury? Writer of
A Thousand Roses?
” Her blurry eyes sparkled.

“That would be me,” he replied, bored but slightly scared at what this adolescent girl would do next. Luckily, as the girl opened her mouth to continue, a man’s voice called out from a distance, making her turn around.

“Haley! Come on! I’ve been waiting forever!” the voice came from a boy about the same age with a tan shade to his muscular build.

“BUT IT’S MICHAEL LANSBURY!” she shouted back, unnecessarily loud. Michael winced.

“I DON’T CARE IF IT’S THE DEMON SEED OF SATAN! I WANNA GO! NOW!” he retorted in an even louder voice. Were they competing?

“All right! All right!” She scoffed, kicking at the dirt and lunging down to hook her lanky fingers around the strap to her crocheted beach bag. She turned to look at Michael and winked, saying in a sultry voice, “I’ll see you later.” He waved, irritated, as she shook her butt as she walked away. He rolled his eyes and returned to the much more pleasant view of the church.
Now, why was she even in front of such a delicate structure,
he thought.

The doorknob was classic and old-timey and looked charming against the wooden contrast. He felt the slickness of the metal knob and was twisting it when he heard the unfortunately all too familiar voice of the teenaged boy shouting out to him: “HEY GRAMPS! I HEARD YOU WERE HITTING ON MY GIRL!”

“No, Jeff, he wasn’t! Shut up! Don’t you
know
who that
is
!?”

“Why must you both yell when conversing…”

“I told you I don’t care if he’s the demon see—,”

“All right already!” Michael ended the string of chaotic slurs, including his own. He walked up to the boy that was just sneering at his—what seemed to be—girlfriend and crossed his arms, staring at him in an expectant glower.  “Now what bone do you want to pick with me? I suggest you hurry up and tell me before I leave because this is getting tedious.” The two teenagers looked two differed types of awestruck at the almost-middle-aged man before them.

“Wow,” the girl finally said in a flirty gasp, “What a man!”

“Calm your hormones,” Michael said bluntly, “They’ll settle soon enough—don’t ruin your life over your teenage angst. I have a feeling that a reputation wouldn’t fade in a place like this…” Michael looked around at the town, imagining how difficult a place it would be to stay long-term. But then he thought of Millie…

“Don’t be squashing my girl!” the boy spat.

“Squashing?” Michael cocked an eyebrow, “Really?”

And for lack of a better afternoon, Michael squabbled with the boy for a good amount of time, occasionally stopping to calm down the hormonal whirlpool swirling around rapidly within the girl’s changing body.

Finally, Michael realized what he was doing. “You know what, this is stupid—why am I even talking to you?” He turned away, looked at the church, had an inner battle of whether or not he should risk going in if the morons might follow him inside, and opened his car door.

“Have a nice life,” he said, sarcastically saluting them through the window before peeling out of the dusty driveway.
Now what…
he thought.

·
       
 

He didn’t know what else to do after that so he just drove along the ocean and reflected for a while, which he seemed to be doing a lot of lately. He thought of Millie, of Lindsay, and of his novels. These alone caused a great deal of anxiety and confusion.
If Lindsay hadn’t gotten sick, would she have been so cruel? Why was he feeling nervous at the sight of Millie, and why was he so tormented last night when she couldn’t fall asleep through her tears? Why was she crying anyway… I need to finish that novel… The publishers are riding my back to get it done…Millie’s so beautiful… What about Lindsay… I don’t even know Millie; how do I feel this way…

A sea of confusion seemed to crackle against the sand of his subconscious, much like the ocean was crackling against the sands on the beach. Michael’s head had been resting on the steering wheel for who knows how long before he lifted it up. He looked at the ocean in front of him through his windshield. It was dark and ominous, full of secrets, and afraid…like him… It was afraid to be washing against the sand, which is why it pulled back… right?

The grays and light blues of the sky turned to dark purples and near-blacks, reflecting into the seemingly endless water. He’d been there for hours. And before he could punish himself for not accomplishing anything, he realized that he felt better somehow.
I guess sometimes all a person needs is a few hours of alone time and a chance to think—
really
think.

He glanced at the clock: 7:35 p.m. “
7:35
?” he mumbled, turning the keys to start the rumbling of the ignition, “Why is it so dark… this place is a loop hole of time and space…” This led him into another string of thoughts that carried him back to the Withersworths’ lake house. He parked the car in the driveway and looked at the structure in front of him as he set the car in park. Feelings of loss, being lost, and hopelessness swirled and stirred in a smoothie of anguish in his stomach, creating psychologically stimulated nausea as he reflected on his reflection that evening.
What am I doing here?
He thought. And just at that moment, the kitchen light in the lake house flickered on.