Forbidden: A Standalone by CD Reiss

that’s nothing compared to what he does next. The ropes of my fear try to pull me away, back to safety, and I let them.
    What is it? What does he do?
    I must have been silent too long. I must have watched Deacon’s face, frozen in my memory, for a second too many. The sense that he is going to do something terrible is all I have, but I don’t remember what it is. When Elliot asks from the present what Deacon does, I stay to see it.
    “I’m sorry,” Deacon says.
    I don’t say anything. My face hurts, and I taste liquid copper. We stay like that forever, or time is stretched in my memory. This is the moment I can tell him it’s okay, or the moment I can be angry, or I can have a reaction that will make him not do what he’s going to do.
    But I don’t do anything. Not a word or gesture.
    He walks out.
    I don’t know why there’s a finality to it that I haven’t ever felt before, but there is. When the bedroom door clicks behind him, that’s it.
    I want to wake up. I don’t want to observe my emotions, even as a time-traveling bystander.
    You’re fidgeting.
    Pinkerton Pinkerton Pinkerton
    Okay, on three, you’ll wake rested and happy.
    Amanda’s next to her hot pink Bugattti. Pinkerton, before it became the assassin of the 405. She tips, holds herself straight, smiles at me. Oh, no. I don’t think so.
    One.
    I snap the keys from her and give them to Charlie. I open the passenger door in the front, even though it’s her car. Let her sit in the back. I don’t want her puking on Charlie when he’s driving.
    Two.
    I’m not in the mood to die.
    Three.
    ***
    “You associate those two things,” Elliot said. “Amanda dying, and Deacon hitting you.”
    “He hit me all the time. It was a turn-on.”
    “Hard enough to break a molar?”
    I heard him shift in his chair. I wanted to sit upright, but my body felt like the inside of a broken egg.
    “Did you usually sit in the back of Pinkerton?”
    “If Charlie was driving and it’s Amanda’s car, I should be in the back. That’s just social mores. But Amanda got aggressive when she drank too much, and she was doing God knows what else. I just didn’t feel like worrying about her having a psychotic break while Charlie was driving, because it wasn’t like he was in much better shape.”
    “And Deacon hitting you?”
    “He left. That was the painful part.”
    “Why did he leave?”
    I sighed. It had been the sore point between us. Our thing. “He went away for a few days to hang a show in San Diego. And I swelled, so I needed to fuck, and I got it where I could. I tried not to. I tried to be good, but I failed, okay? And he found out, which was lying on top of cheating. I packed my shit and left. That was the last time I saw him. Until the stables, which I still don’t remember.”
    “So you feel responsible for him leaving?”
    “I was. We stopped sharing and fucking around. We agreed.”
    “I think you need some therapy after you leave here. I don’t think you’ve worked through your feelings. We haven’t had time to touch on anything in your past.”
    “Sure, Elliot. Sure.”
    “And I know you don’t have access to the outside world in here, but the press is being unkind is probably the nicest way to put it. You’re going to need somewhere to go to talk about it.”
    “I’m sure I can find someone.”
    “It’s been nice talking to you, Fiona. I’m pretty sure I know what you think of yourself, but I want you to know that you don’t have to believe it.”
    I twisted around until I could see him. He looked the same as always, relaxed and confident, middle finger on his upper lip as if he couldn’t think without it.
    “Believe what?” I asked.
    “That you’re useless.”
    “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “You’re sensitive. You’re bright. You’re brave. Can you believe that?”
    He pissed me off. He had no right to tell me about me, not after three days. But if I argued with him, if I put him in his place, it