Girl Disappearing

Funny thing is, maybe I'm as bad as her when it comes to just knowing things, sometimes. At least, knowing how she operates. Shauna Mull and I hadn't been face-to-face in over two years, and I still knew exactly how to break into her apartment.

Chicago was moving behind me as I clambered up the stairs, half-stumbling a bit from the exhaustion of it all. Travel-sick and sleep-deprived. Maybe heartsore. The dark wood of the steps was slightly damp and smelled of mildew, and the dull thumping of my boots as I climbed was too loud in the weird and half-suspended dawn before rush hour. There was the soft sound of traffic, down below, and papers and footsteps, but here in this passage it was all muffled, unreal.

My face was raw. I'd finally gotten all those goddamn tears in check, but everything felt so disconnected, so precariously balanced, the slightest breath of air could probably tip me over again.

Never mind it.

I shrugged hard with my good shoulder, adjusting my pack. Eyes ahead, Rockford. Just breathe. Breathe and stop thinking about anything besides putting one foot in front of the other. I hauled myself up to the final landing, and I stood there in front of a door that I knew I couldn't knock at. There was a label on the wall—S. Mull—and one of those stupid fake plants kinda hanging out by the railing, which I could only assume was a landlord's attempt at cheer. I kicked at it as I went past.

She didn't like spare keys, my friend, but she could be so hopelessly disorganized with her personal life that it was established early on as a necessity. And when it came to hiding it…

I set my pack down by the doorway and headed for the landing's furthest corner. Security camera, right there. I reached up, felt at the backside, and my fingers met chilled metal. I scraped the tape away with my thumbnail and peeled the key away, grimacing. If you're gonna break into Shauna Mull's apartment, you better have the balls to do it with your face mashed against a camera lens, leaving all sorts of prints and hair strands or fibers and bits of evidence behind you as you go.

Christ, standing on my toes and straining to reach up that high, it'd hurt. Even if the bad arm hadn't been doing anything. Took a few tries to get the key into the lock, but eventually I shoved the door open and slid inside, dragging my pack behind me and easing it shut with my heel.

The sun was coming up gold, but the dim and coagulated illumination coming through the venetian blinds was bleached to the dullest gray. I'd expected the place to be either barely furnished or an absolute wreck. She'd somehow managed to do both. Both chairs in the living room were covered in boxes and books and—just random assorted shit, really. Crime scene photos shared space on her coffee table with five empty mugs, most of which looked stuck to the glass. Three pairs of shoes lined the hallway: black uniform boots, a dangerous pair of wickedly tall stilettos that probably had yet to be worn, and scarlet high-tops. Knowing her, it was likely all she owned in the footwear department.

She had her wallet and badge out on a side table in the hall. I nudged the latter with my finger and couldn't help but be surprised. She'd made detective. Funny. Same age as I was and she'd already made detective, just like she'd said she would. Should've expected it, really.

The bedroom door was open, so I just went in. Here the light trickled in all filtered pale, tingeing the air to something akin to the color of seawater, shifting. The silence was the same. There was a bed under the windows and another sofa along the opposite wall and a desk. I let my bag fall to the dusty carpet with a muted thump.

Shauna always slept all burrowed under a mass of blankets, head nearly covered until merely a tuft of ash-brown hair peeked out, maybe along with the curved prow of her nose. But when I looked, there was her thin and angled face, just as I remembered it, those gray eyes of hers running over me with a razor's edge. She regarded me and I regarded her; then, with a sigh, she gently set her handgun back on the bedside table with a little click and disappeared into her covers.

No talk, no questions. Just a little nod to the sofa and complete, wordless acceptance. God, I needed it so much right now that my chest was aching with the urge to break down. I sat on the couch instead and bent to unlace my boots, kick 'em off. Shucked my jacket next, and belt, and after tossing everything in my pockets aside, too, I finally let myself flop back, settling there on tired, musty cushions that smelled of mothballs and age under a faded cover. It was okay. No, it was so quiet and it was better than okay, but it didn't make it right.

I wanted to sleep.

I took another pill, dry, just to be sure that I could. I lay on my back, real careful of my bad shoulder, and studied the cracks and peels in the ceiling. I wondered if I could make shapes of it, or maybe even some sort of sense, or if maybe Shauna would understand if I told her how a wounded vet on an army pension could be stone-broke, but maybe my headache was fading some, and maybe my body didn't care where my mind was going anyhow. There was somewhere to sleep, right here, and it was real, and it didn't smell like hotel room, or hospital, or Iraq. It smelled like another person. Just like a person, nothing more.

My dog tags were sitting heavy at my throat. I tried to yank them of, thought of flinging them across the room or something, but my fingers only tangled in the chain and I fell asleep instead.




I'd never liked dreaming; coming back from a war didn't help it any. Those first hours, there on Shauna's couch, were predictably fitful. Maybe I'd come to expect the nightmares and thrashed against 'em too hard, but I couldn't pass out without the fragments flinging past my eyes just like I'd seen the shrapnel that'd buried itself in me weeks before. Some tree, bare branched and sun-warm. Dust, and a scrappy kid with baked skin and a smile too wide for his face, trying to find candy in my pockets. Scrawled Farsi words on a paper napkin. Heat and sweat tickling my nostrils, my fingers slick over a gunmetal trigger, pebble in my boot. Try to negotiate, try to negotiate, they ever tell you what they'll do to you if you get captured, kid? You're a woman—and some Megadeath song I had stuck in my head one morning, and the last thing I drank with my feet touching foreign soil was coffee that tasted like absolute shit…

I was dimly aware, at some point, of Shauna moving around me softly, trying to say something to me, or was I trying to say something to her? M'sorry, Mull. M'fine. Sorry. Couldn't really register if any conversation really happened, but she was padding past the sofa, getting ready for work, and that meant it couldn't be more than a couple hours after I'd first laid down, but it'd seemed so long already. I felt her fingers pressing over my brow, warm, softer than I would have thought. But then they pulled away, then she was gone.

Eventually, though, I couldn't take it any longer and forced myself to open my eyes, really open them. It was dim, the shades drawn, and the typical chaos of city noise was muted, far-off. For one absurd moment it felt like I was in a fishbowl or something, suspended in a weird and separate realm of dislocation, that everything beyond this little sanctuary was blurred and distant and dangerous.

Whatever. I shook my head, roughly, like it could dislodge the dazed non-thoughts, and hauled myself upright. I felt empty, a little ragged. Sick. My stomach was fluttering uneasily. I slipped off the couch and half-staggered out of the bedroom and across the hall.

I didn't vomit, thought I ended up wishing that I would. The goddamn lights in that bathroom were bright and cold enough to leave me panting, my headache roaring back to the surface full-force. I leaned my forehead up against the glass, grimacing at my reflection. I was flushed, shaking. I hadn't looked, really looked at myself in so long, and here it was that I'd lost weight and gained some circles under my bloodshot eyes that I didn't appreciate at all. Skin around them was a bit swollen, too, from all that crying earlier. Well, Christ, I was just one sweaty, disorganized mess. I splashed water on my face until I was choking, thinking it'd maybe help me feel a bit more human. It didn't really, but it somewhat lessened the urge to lie down and die right there in on Shauna's bathroom tiles. Made much more sense to go do that on the sofa.

I emerged and stumbled back into the bedroom, a bit at a loss. I was still tired enough to feel drunk with it—sleeping, apparently, hadn't helped at all—but my watch said it wasn't yet noon and that meant Shauna wouldn't be back until… well, whenever it was that detectives came home. Sometime in the evening, I hazarded.

A scrap of crinkled blue caught my eye. A tiny strip of a note had been impaled on the sofa with a safety pin. I tore it off, a kind of grim half-smile touching my mouth at the sight of scrawled and family spidery handwriting.

Rock:

There's coffee in the fridge and cereal in the cupboard. If you must indulge in this new and lung-destroying army habit of yours, do open a window beforehand.

You're welcome to anything. Make yourself at home etc. Get off that goddamn couch and take the bed. No need to destroy an injured shoulder further than it is already. Extra blankets in hall closet.

It's good to see you. You know my cell number, call if you need anything.

—S.M.

I wasn't hungry and I didn't want to smoke, though somehow she'd discovered that I'd started to. Maybe I smelled like it. And maybe I'd been favoring my shoulder while I slept. Or had I told her, weeks ago? Or this morning? Couldn't remember.

I pawed at my face and shambled to the bed. Didn't lay down so much as fall, face crashing into the pillow, automatically burrowing for purchase in the blankets. Like some desperate, childish part of me was groping for the warmth, the signs of a human, the trace of a real and breathing person in these linens for the first time since I'd landed in a hospital. I could inhale traces of dryer sheets and Shauna, who was all strong, plain soap and faint chemicals and paper. Same as I'd recalled. Perhaps she was a constant, one of those constants that my life so really lacked.




I heard the snick of a door being a shut and sat up blearily, swinging my legs over the side of the bed out of pure instinct. A crack in the blinds leaked evening onto the carpet; I rubbed my sock-clad foot over the dimming patch of sunlight, trying and failing to dredge up a sense of shame over sleeping the day away.

There was a rustling of plastic bags, and I twisted. Shauna Mull was moving around outside the door. Rising, I made my way across the room, only a little unsteady, and I snagged my jacket on the way past and struggled into it.

She glanced up as I emerged, one eyebrow cocking. She was in her little kitchen, poking through a small pile of groceries and what smelled like Chinese food. I leaned up against the counter, resting on one elbow.

"Hey." It was all I could think of to say. She chuckled.

"An unchanging eloquence, Rock. Or should I chalk it up to the exhaustion?"

"Mmph. I dunno." I gnawed at a hangnail, uncertainly. "Haven't been face-to-face with you in almost two years, Shauna, and now I'm… Ah. S'hard to know what to tell you."

"If you're waffling between 'thank you' and 'I'm sorry', I'll tell you now that I don't consider it necessary. Or rather, the former isn't. The latter's just completely unwanted." Her voice was wry. A bottle of dish soap was stowed under the sink, and a cluster of bananas hung upon a hook. I sighed.

"Got hit by shrapnel. And… they told me it's called 'frozen shoulder'. Basically, I can't do much of anything with it now."

She grunted, tossing a block of cheese into the fridge. "I can hook you up with a good physical therapist. There's a practice not too far from here. It's not forever, frozen shoulder."

"I'd appreciate that." I watched her, a bit blankly. "You look good, Shauna."

She smirked. "Good as I can look."

"I mean it." She was sharp-dressed, crisp dark slacks with matching jacket, a burgundy shirt. There were still the red high-tops, but somehow, perhaps through sheer audacity, she was making them work. That thin hair of hers was tied back in a short and tight braid, and there was a new strength to her wiry frame, something I hadn't seen before I'd left. She moved like a cop. Her arms, bared under shoved-back sleeves, were far less bony than before, and lined with slender muscle.

"Homicide suits me," she remarked, and her eyes flicked up to give me a knowing once-over for a brief second. "And the army suited you, before you got hurt. You're stronger. Good tan."

"Thanks. But that's a door that's closed now." There was some note in my voice that I couldn't keep out, despite my best efforts. Shauna didn't say anything. She took a pair of glasses from a cabinet, filled them from the tap, and brought both of them, along with one of the little cardboard cartons of food, out to the living room. She kicked a few papers off of her coffee table, clearing a space, and set it all down. A box was shoved off the sofa, and the cushion pointed to. I sat, obediently. She left and returned a minute later with a box of her own, two sets of chopsticks, and a bottle of wine with little plastic cups.

"I don't have the proper vessels for this, so I pray you'll forgive me," she said lightly, pouring a goodly amount and shoving it my way. "But what can you expect for Two-Buck-Chuck?"

I scoffed. "Okay, you haven't changed a bit."

"Hardly." She leaned over to open the box she'd set before me, nudging it closer. "Now eat something. How long has it been, a whole day?"

I calculated. Actually, that was entirely possible. Part of me didn't want the food, throat tightening at the savory smell, but there was enough of a kindling in my stomach and stubbornness in Shauna's stare that I acquiesced. I took a swallow of the wine and picked up the chopsticks, poking at the noodles. Funny, I hadn't thought about how long it'd been since I'd had take-out. Had I really been this separated from the world?

"Lo mein. Beef. Possibly the easiest thing to eat in this country." She was crunching a water chestnut, probably working on something capable of making an ordinary person's tongue burst into flames. Woman had to have her food like a goddamned five-alarm to eat it. "I asked them to add some extra vegetables."

"Thanks." I fumbled a clump into my mouth. It mostly tasted like soy sauce and butter. But it was warm and somewhat satisfying. I ate half the box, both of us sitting in quiet.

Shauna glanced over as I set my chopsticks to the side. She'd been poking through papers and photographs of some bloody corpse, and looked entirely content to be doing so. "Feeling better?"

"I don't know. But thanks." I pulled my knees up to my chest, sinking back into the couch's saggy cushions. "I mean, seriously. Thank you, Shauna. I—hah. I don't even know what I'm doing anymore."

"You left your parents." Her eyes were hooded, unreadable. Thinking about something.

I nodded. "Couldn't take more than a couple weeks of 'em. It was… hard. Stupidly hard. It…" I had to pause, unsure. Shauna waited while I tried to find the words. "I was a good kid, Shauna. You know this. I used to be closer to both of 'em. But all it takes is one choice and—I know they mean well, I mean, they're my folks, but… God. I can't take it. I'm a… I was a soldier. They don't approve. Don't know what to do with it. You know what they're like. I just prove their point, this is what happens when kids go off to war. I could be anything else and they'd be more okay with. You know what…" I laughed under my breath, bitterly. "I think they were happier with me when I was in the hospital than when I was overseas, y'know?"

It was too long an explanation. Too many sentences, too much feeling. I fiddled with my cupful of wine. Shauna reached out with a long arm to top it off. I sipped. Burned more than it should have.

"I'm sorry. Don't mean to be annoying. Anyhow, just tell me when you want me out, 'kay?"

Shauna hummed a little, softly. I couldn't tell what she meant by the noise. But then she rose, gathering the debris from the table before us.

"You're taking the bed again tonight. I don't fit very well on most sofas, but I've heard that floors are good for the spine."

No. No. There was still some protest bubbling up in me, some desperation. I wanted her to tell me I was wrong, I did something wrong. Or that I could stay until the end of the day, end of the week. Or pay her for the food, or…

"You're only annoying, Rock, when you apologize for supposedly being so." She set the boxes of leftovers into the fridge, chucked the wooden chopsticks at the trashcan. I rose and went to her, taking the glasses she'd left behind with me.

She was washing the few dishes that'd been in her sink. I found a towel and took up a station at her side, silently. It was difficult, a bit, to dry things out with my left arm partially useless, but I'd be damned if I'd stand around and do nothing for much longer.

"I just don't know what I'm going to do," I mumbled, as I worked. My voice cracked on the last syllable; I nearly dropped a cup on the floor. It made me curse. This shoulder, this body of mine—

Shauna looked at me, seriously. There was a kindness in her eyes, something that didn't often appear. "It doesn't last forever, Rock."

"I know." I scrubbed my wrist over my forehead, exhaling heavily. "It's just…"

"Casey," Shauna said, in a voice like she was clasping my hand, even if she wasn't, "You're going to be okay."


*******


"You're going to be okay."

I was staring at her fingers because I didn't want to look at anything else, not really. But even then—her normal brand of skinny was now on the verge of emaciation, and under florescent lights, I could see the map of her veins like tiny, delicate webbing. But there was tape on the back of her hand, and needles, and the plastic tubing. Rusty dried blood on the sheets, it was a constant. They didn't suture everything, lessens degree of infection. Raw things, open in the air, or bandages, and it smelled dull and curdling, sour.

Fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes daily. I'd get more time, the better she got. If she got better. If she got out of the ICU. They counted me as family, since she had so little of that and I was always there, more than her parents. One of the nurses brought me tissues, once, but I didn't cry. Hadn't.

Things down her throat, a tube through her chest wall. So much medication, if she'd wake up she'd try and fight what they were doing to her, claw out the ventilator.

Five minutes left. I made myself look at her face, really look at it. Sometimes I'd see an eyelid flutter, sometimes she'd try and breathe like she knew someone was there. Her skin was like paper, cheeks sunken until the bones pushed out of her flesh like a craggy landscape.

Once I brought her iPod, an earbud pushed carefully beside her on the pillow, played her a little music. Opeth, one of her favorites. Read her, quietly, the latest issue of Science News or from her battered, loved-beyond-anything copy of The Old Man and the Sea. I'd do it 'till my voice was breaking. Her brother, Liam, he'd sometimes do the same, but once he only laid his head down on the side of her bed and wept, kept weeping, and the mattress was damp and he couldn't stop.

"You're going to be okay," I whispered. And I brushed my fingertips against her own. "You're going to be okay."