How To Disappear Completely Part 6

"You bothering Ms. Narim again?"

"No, she asked me to come over." He lied as they shone a flashlight into his face.

"You ok?"

"Yeah I'm fine."

"You don't look so good. You in a fight?"

"Nah I just fell on my way over here." His confidence clearly waning.

"Let's say we take you to a hospital, eh?"

"Nah, I guess she's out for the night, I'll just head home."

"What do you say we take you home."

"I'll just walk."

"We insist."

Mark started to run, the poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d, and tripped before he got to the end of the block. For a moment I almost felt sorry for him and his complete lack of common sense as the officer's footsteps slowed as they caught up to him. I could barely make out the words from that far away, but I did catch an echo or two of the prologue in the fabled 'you have the right to remain silent' act. I never imagined that I'd hear it in person. Nicole and I made our way downstairs to talk with Officer Lawrence as Mark rested face down on the hood of the car mumbling obscenities to the system.

Mark's disobedient head was rammed into the backseat of the cruiser without any sense of patience or care. A quick wave and nod from the officer and he drove the mangy miscreant away. We stood there motionless for a minute until we could no longer see the difference between the night and the car, my arm wrapped casually around her shoulder as if I actually had the means to protect her from the world. It was clear, though, at least to me, that I was not a protector. The walk back inside to her apartment felt like we were running a marathon. Both of us completely drained from a truly ridiculous day. Our emotions were a stability ball trying to hold a small, very round woman on top of us.

Her bed welcomed us without any sense of l.u.s.t or mischievous intent, but rather to hold our weary bodies and minds. Any prior thoughts of s.e.xual intent we had when I was there earlier that evening were completely wiped clean from our minds and we fell asleep holding each other, fully clothed, waiting for a new day to come.

Chapter 10.

We woke up in the same position we fell asleep in. Despite the lack of s.e.xual activity of the prior evening, our intertwined bodies made what seemed like a new Kama Sutra pose, completely by accident. I made a note of it for future reference. How someone looks at first light has always been important to me. It was a good indication of a person as a whole, especially when girls have the matters of make-up altering their true selves. I was happy to note that Nicole was a true beauty that morning. I hadn't thought about her not wearing any make-up the night before because everything was so intense. I realized now that I hadn't noticed her naked face.

The realization made me smile as she looked up at me from my chest, which she had used as a pillow. "What are you smiling about?"

"I just realized how beautiful you are without any make-up."

She glowed even more from the compliment.

"I'm so glad you came back last night," she whispered groggily, "I was so scared."

"Me too."

The pain in my body screamed at me as I made my first move to get out of bed and couldn't help but grunt a little. "Are you ok?" she asked.

"I'm just really sore."

I finally crawled my way out of bed and looked at myself in the nearby mirror for damage report. My eye was as black as I expected, my lips had multiple cuts, and I had a tattoo in the shape of Marks' hands circling my neck. I lifted up my shirt to reveal another batch of bruises on my stomach. For a second I actually felt like a bad a.s.s, telling the story of my battles through the wounds on my body. Just as the story was about to get good, Nicole looked over and caught the tail end of it and ran over to me frantically.

"Oh my G.o.d," she cried, "that looks awful."

"It's really not so bad. I'm just sore."

"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry," her fingers cried as she traced the bruises, nicks and cuts. When her hands roamed across my face I felt her shudder. I wrapped my arms slowly around her neck and pulled her into a hug. She tried to hide it, but her whimpers couldn't be hidden. Knowing she tried so hard to keep me from hearing her, I never said a word I just held her until she was ready to let go.

"Can I make you some breakfast?" she asked as she grabbed pans, a carton of eggs and some bacon and started cooking. I answered by sitting down at the table. "I have to go to cla.s.s in a bit," she explained, "but feel free to hang out here until I get back. It's only an hour cla.s.s." The smell of the bacon and eggs moistened my mouth and by the time she scooped some eggs from the pan I had already swallowed their weight in saliva. "There are towels in here if you want to take a shower and please just make yourself comfortable." A few more formalities and she ran out the door hoping to make it to cla.s.s on time.

I ate way too quickly, as I tend to do, and wished I could have let the taste linger just a little bit longer. I cleaned up and washed the dishes that were in the sink. I felt like I had been driving all night so when I started to feel her lonely bed beckoning me back I gladly obliged. I didn't sleep, but I laid there staring around the room getting a backstage look at the life of Nicole. Not wanting to actually snoop around, I stayed in bed and just looked around. She didn't have a whole lot in her apartment, though I noticed an abundance of photos and photo alb.u.ms. I hadn't had film developed in years and wondered how old the photos were.

Her laptop sat on her desk with the rest of her thick pile of overweight schoolbooks. Her laptop's desktop picture was of her and another girl that I guessed was her sister and there was a surprising lack of icons on the screen. I would have guessed that she would be one of those people who tried to be organized, but their desktop got cluttered quickly from all the downloading and moving around of files. I was not one of those people and was pleased that she wasn't either.

A quick glance through her open closet doors showed bits of her sophisticated style. No s.l.u.tty club clothes, no knee-high boots, just cute clothes that a young intellectual would wear, though nothing too conservative. I got up to go to the bathroom and on my way I glanced over at her laptop and noticed that she had received an instant message. Though I was trying not to snoop, I couldn't help but read it.

aligurl13: hey nicole, how'd it go last night?

It took me a minute to actually piece together the letters I was seeing into something that my brain could fathom. The last piece fell into placethat was Allison's screen name. My My Allison. The very girl that denied me as a future part of her life and the girl that would be horribly devastated if she knew that at the other end of her innocent message stood the man who was betraying her. I tried to figure out how they might know each other, but I couldn't grasp at any ideas. Allison. The very girl that denied me as a future part of her life and the girl that would be horribly devastated if she knew that at the other end of her innocent message stood the man who was betraying her. I tried to figure out how they might know each other, but I couldn't grasp at any ideas.

Allison went to BU and had graduated 6 years ago. They wouldn't have even been in college at the same time. She was from Vermont and Nicole was from Texas. They were almost exact opposites in every equation I popped them into. For a few minutes I thought of different scenarios in which they may have crossed paths and become friends, but my muse decided to call in sick and I kept coming up empty. Then the screen offered up another tease.

aligurl13: i still haven't heard much from my josh. i hope he doesn't stay too mad at me for long.

The feeling of momentary terror turned into a horrible dread that made my body weak and had to sit. Nicole told Allison about me. How could they not realize? I told Nicole everything about me and she probably relayed to her friend as anyone normally would. Allison had to have told Nicole about the proposal. Does Nicole know, but she doesn't want to let Allison know? The possibilities soared above my head like a squadron of fighter planes breaking the sound barrier. I covered my ears to try and dampen the sound, shaking my head wishing it would all go away.

A photo on her dresser pulled me away. Nicole was much younger in the photo, maybe 14 or 15, and she was just as beautiful. Around her were about 6 other girls about the same age with one older one in the middle. It was a little harder to see the resemblance, but I knew at once that she was none other than a younger Allison. My heart sank like a school bus. Summer camp. You have got to be kidding me. I could just see the scene...

After the hugs, laughs, goodbyes, and a few tears running down sun soaked cheeks, they exchanged information to keep in touch after camp was over. They of course would be the only two to actually stay in touch, until in the era of social networking suddenly they were all reunited. Nicole must have looked up to Allison because she was many things that Nicole was not, but wanted to be. Allison must have liked Nicole for her kindness and curiosity. They had to have been instant friends from the first day of camp when Nicole's too large bathing suit top came off her as she dove into the river. Allison of course comforted her as the other girls laughed at her and her yet undeveloped body while her suit floated away down the river.

Further breaking my promise not to snoop, I shuffled through the rest of the s...o...b..x full of camp photos finding so many pictures of them together that I wanted to vomit. The cuteness of seeing Nicole when she was younger was completely drowned in the lake at Camp Happenstance where my life was taking place. I also came across a few letters that Allison had written about how she got into BU and was so excited to be moving to Boston. I kept digging through and found one about me. Allison wrote about how she had met a guy named Josh and how she wasn't sure how she felt about him, but there was just something about him and that she'd give him a chance. It took a minute, but I was able to find the memory of how we met in my mental library.

Allison and I were both in school at Boston University in completely separate circles of friends. I hung out with the musicians who wished they were at Berklee and the writers who wished they were at Harvard. She hung out with the other physical therapists and pre-med students. We both lived in Warren Towers on the 17th floor high above Commonwealth Avenue. I had a few friends who were having a small party one night and everyone was hanging out with a few guitars, singing some random tunes. Allison lived on the opposite side of the hall, but one of her friends lived a few doors down from the party. They had stayed up late trying to study like good students and were having a hard time concentrating with our poorly played covers of cla.s.sic songs bouncing around the hallway.

She got fed up with all the noise and came to tell us all to quiet down. Everyone at the party was way too cool to have some nerd tell them to shut up and so they didn't listen. In fact, everyone actually started to play and sing louder after she left. When the party started to die down, I knocked quietly on the girls' open door to see if they were still awake. "What?" came the answer from Megan, who lived in that room.

"I'm sorry to bother you guys, but I wanted to apologize for everyone else. It was pretty s.h.i.tty of them to not quiet down a little."

Allison turned around in her chair to face the doorway. "Are you guys done now?"

"Yeah, everyone is wrapping things up."

"Good, maybe now we'll actually get some studying done."

She looked at me with so much hatred that I felt as if I had just been tossed against the lockers by a bully in grade school.

"Hey, so I was going to go downstairs to grab something to eat. Can I bring you guys some coffee or something as a peace offering?"

Megan happily accepted and Allison threw a "Fine" my way, which I caught over my shoulder like a wide receiver, before the door was shut. When I came back up, they were furiously memorizing various bones and muscles of the human body. I didn't say a word. Megan had left the door cracked and I just walked in put two coffees on their desks and left. I decided that I'd just go back the next day and ask Megan more about Allison. She couldn't always be that mean, I thought, and like a good waiter I was gone before they realized their coffees had arrived.

Nicole's shower was alien and didn't feel at all like mine. No two showers are ever the same and like a new lover, it would take some time to get used to the way they touched you. I let it get used to the feeling of washing over my body, hoping that eventually it would be as good at it as my shower was. I couldn't say how long I was in there, but it must have been a while because I heard Nicole shut the door behind her as she came in.

I finished my shower and dried off. I could hear Nicole clanging around in the apartment as she settled in. After quickly getting dressed, I walked out of the bathroom with a cleanliness that my mother would approve of. I was still a little damp as I walked out, but how could anyone get dry in a room full of steam? Nicole was sitting at her desk typing on her computer when she noticed me. "Hey, how was your shower?" I answered with a few casual words as I wondered if she was chatting with Allison online. Scenarios where I could sneak a peek at her computer without her noticing tiptoed through my brain as I tiptoed closer to her.

"How was cla.s.s?"

"The usual. This cla.s.s is always pretty dull. The teacher is just wretched."

As she was telling me about her cla.s.s, I was bending toward her pretending to dry off my hair, while looking inquisitively at the screen. I could barely make it out. There was one chat window open in the same place it was before. It was impossible to tell who the sender was from so far away. My eyes were good but not that good. Nicole responded to another message on her screen as she continued talking about her cla.s.s. When she finished her story, she realized that I was behind standing her and swiveled her chair around immediately, blocking any view of the screen. I had accidentally positioned myself right next to the box of camp photos that my fingers were sniffing through earlier and she looked at me nervously before asking, "So, do you want to do something today?"

"Sure," I shrugged. "What did you have in mind?"

"I heard they're playing Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey as the midnight show at Fenway."

"Is that the first one or the second one?"

"I think it's the second one. Where they go to h.e.l.l."

"Yeah alright, let's do that. I like that one."

For the first time in our short relationship, we both felt an awkward silence. She broke it with "Did you ever send that band your review of their show?"

"No, not yet. Let's do that now." I leapt over to her desk to catch a quick glimpse of her screen before she could change anything. For a split second before she closed the window I saw that it was Allison that she was talking to. Nicole pulled up the band's Mys.p.a.ce page. I shook my head unsure of what to do or say about the whole Allison thing. Clearly she doesn't want to tell me that she knows Allison. At this point, though, she was visibly nervous that I might know about it as well. I decided to let her be the one to bring it up.

"Here, you sign in and send them a message to go see your site." She directed me with a clack of her keyboard, like a film slate, to start the scene. I positioned myself in her seat and typed my email and pa.s.sword to log in. She leaned nervously over my shoulder watching my every keystroke, her eyes glued to the screen sloppily like a first-grader's art project. It was kind of cute how nervous she was, hiding her little secret. I debated how long to toy with her before revealing what was behind door numbered 'I already know.' I sent the band a message with a link to my blog saying that I really enjoyed the show and that I had written a blog about it. When I was done I leaned back in her chair and felt her relax for a moment.

"You mind if I check my email real quick?" I asked.

"Uh. Sure, go ahead."

I accidentally hit a keystroke combination that brought back up her iChat window and blinked my eyes in preparation for a quick glimpse of whatever they could take in. Eyes, don't fail me now, I thought, I don't often make you guys work hard. Do this for me. "Oops," I lied as she realized what was going on and grabbed my attention by spinning me around in the chair. "You know what we should do?" She tried to cover. "That band is playing again tonight just outside the city. You want to have an adventure?" The real question was whether or not she she wanted the adventure. A surge of confidence lit a bright path from my brain to my lips as I apparently decided to call our little poker game. "When were you going to tell me that you know Allison?" wanted the adventure. A surge of confidence lit a bright path from my brain to my lips as I apparently decided to call our little poker game. "When were you going to tell me that you know Allison?"

Her face went so white that if it weren't for the various imagery tacked up to her walls, she would have blended in. Her jaw dropped as if all her baggage had fallen from her overhead bin and was now dangling from her chin. I almost took joy in the fact that I had called her out so blatantly because I was normally on the other end of this game trying to clean up the debris from some wreck. "I didn't think you'd want to know about that," she said quite honestly.

"You didn't think that eventually it would come out somehow?"

"I guess I was just waiting for a time that seemed appropriate."

"When could that ever be appropriate?" I didn't want to sound like I was too angry about it, but apparently I was. The truest feelings come out when you don't think about them, when you just blurt them out while your inner censor is on a smoke break. She looked horrified and I realized that things weren't going as I wanted them to. "What have you told her about us?"

"I just told her that I met a great guy named Josh at a bar and we've been hanging out for a while. I really didn't go into much detail."

I looked at her as a teacher may look at a student he's disappointed with. He knows that the kid can do better and still has all the hope in the world for her to succeed, even though statistically she won't get any better because she didn't care enough. But she did care, I thought, and so I corrected myself. I shook my head for dramatic effect, waited a few seconds and then added, "When did you first realize that our Allisons were the same?"

"When you told me about how you proposed to her. Who else would have done the same? It had to be you that she always talked about." After a few seconds she finally asked, "How did you find out?"

I navigated back to the iChat window of her chat with Allison and scrolled up to the top. "This popped up as I walked by your desk on my way to the shower. I wasn't looking for it, but it grabbed my attention and I focused in pa.s.sing on the name enough to recognize it." Then I pointed to the photos near the s...o...b..x. "I swear I wasn't snooping around, but after that I saw this photo laying there."

"I thought that I had moved that box and cleared all those up after I figured out the connection, but I guess I just forgot." She smiled wryly for a moment before finally asking, "Are you mad?"

"How can I be mad? I can't be mad that you know someone that I know. It's just bizarre to me that you didn't tell me that you knew her. I'm not sure what that would have changed or anything, but it just seems like the right thing to do."

"I know. I just didn't know what to do."

"You can't tell her that it's me, though. You do know that, right? I haven't even told her that I've met someone else yet. If she found out, of course she'd be upset, but if it was with someone that she knew, that would be much worse."

"I wouldn't dream of it. She's going to hate me forever."

I hadn't thought about that part yet. She was absolutely right, though. Why would she even want to tell Allison? If they were at all close, that would have completely ruined their entire friendship. "Do you ever hang out with her?" I asked.

"Sometimes. When I first got here and started school, we hung out for a bit but lately we haven't seen each other much." After a moment's hesitation she continued, "Ever since you and I met, though, she's been wanting to hang out again."

"Now that she has more time on her hands and fewer companions... "

"Yeah, I guess."

"So what now?" I asked, with a hint of hope lacing the rough packaging.

"I guess one of us will eventually have to tell her, right?"

"Yeah."

"You should probably tell her."

"Honestly, before I found out about this, I wasn't going to tell her until I was confident that this was actually going to go somewhere."

"Oh." She was deeply hurt. Her body language signed the rest of the sentence for her: you're not sure that it is?

"Look, Nicole, it's been, what, 3 days? How can either of us be sure of anything? I mean I really like you a lot, but I was with her for 6 years and only a few days ago asked her to marry me. Do you know what I mean?"

Of course she did. She had just gotten out of a slightly abusive long-term relationship of her own and probably wasn't ready to make any of those decisions either. I saw the realization come to her gradually like an incoming tideunless you pay close attention to it, you wouldn't see the transition from low tide to high tide, just the sudden rush of water against your feet out of nowhere.

"So what now?" she echoed my own question.

"That's the question of the hour, isn't it?"

"So how long were you going to wait before talking to her about it?"

"I didn't have a deadline for it, but it was certainly going to be a while."

"Don't you think she's curious what's going on?"

"Of course I do, but I'm bitter about her saying no to me and frankly I don't care. She can just stew in the pot she put herself into by saying no. It's her own fault as far as I'm concerned. She probably just thinks that I need some time and so I'm taking it."

"Actually, she's beginning to wonder about things."

"Oh?"