Page 7 of Creeping Beautiful

She told me once that Donovan taught her that. He told her to hug herself when she was alone and afraid because hugs cure everything.

“We are still very much here, aren’t we?”

“Bubbles?”

She nods. “Sure. Why not?”

“You gonna be here when I come back?”

“Do you want me to be here?”

I nod. “Please don’t go.”

She smiles at me. And when Indie smiles… fuck. I don’t even know how to describe the feelings that run through my body when she smiles. It’s relief, and happiness, and a sense that everything is actually going to be OK. Like this shit will work itself out and we’ll all be normal again.

But it’s a lie.

That smile is a lie and those feelings are lies too.

Because we were never normal.

There is nothing normal about the feelings I have for this girl. Woman, really. She’s a woman now. But she didn’t start out that way. No one starts out that way. There has to have been a time in her past when she was just… what? Just a child? An innocent child?

I want to believe it. I really do.

But it’s not true.

This girl was bred. She was made. She was a plan.

I know there’s a contradiction in there somewhere. Maybe it’s not even that hard to find if I cared to push the curtain aside and take a good look at my life, and my actions, and myself.

And all the ways I contributed to the plan called Indie going off the rails.

But this isn’t the time for self-reflection.

She’s home.

After everything that happened that day, she came back. And she came back to me.

Not Donovan. Not Adam. Me.

I walk to the bathroom and flick the light on. Stand there, still and silent. Listening for the tell-tale sound of a front door closing quietly behind her as she makes her escape.

But that sound doesn’t come. I know she could sneak out without me hearing, she’s that good at her job. But I also know that if she is leaving, she’d want me to know it so she’d make enough noise so I’d hear.

She made some mistakes early on, but in the grand scheme of things Indie’s job performance was impeccable. She is the meaning of the word professional.

Not professional like she says all the right things and always follows instructions. She’s almost never that kind of professional. I’m talking about that feeling you get when you know someone can take care of shit. Can get the job done.

Relief. That’s the feeling you get when you send Indie Anna Accorsi in to do a job. Relief that she will come out the other end and you can tick this particular task off your checklist.

But she never saw herself the way we saw her. I guess all truly talented people are guilty of that particular divergence. Geniuses are all insane, aren’t they?

I start the water, adjust the temperature, then pick up the bottle of cheap strawberry shampoo and squirt some under the roaring faucet.

If she leaves now, I’d never know. I could go check, but then she’d know I was checking. So instead I sit on the toilet lid, lean forward, and hold my head in my hands as I start falling into the past…

I met Adam Boucher when I was nine years old. I don’t think Adam was a part of what his father was doing that day they showed up at my family’s compound in Alaska. I don’t think he knew the real reason Mr. Boucher bought me and took me home with them.