There is no excuse for my behavior of Friday night. It was childish and vile to show up at Gabby’s with Tracy. What can I say? I was blinded by the pain of your rejection, and I desired to punish you. It was a foolish, contemptible gesture. Let me assure you, however, that the maneuver backfired. As much torment as I may have caused you, I caused myself more.
Let me also make it clear that I have no interest in Tracy. The sole reason I invited her out was to rub her in your face and, hopefully, to make you jealous. I do not care for her at all. Though you may find this difficult to believe (due to her well-deserved reputation and your opinion that I have nothing on my mind except sex), we did not indulge in any intimacies whatsoever. I even avoided a good-night kiss when we parted.
I spent last night alone in my apartment, miserable, wanting to be with you but too ashamed to telephone or come over and see you. I thought about you constantly, remembering how you look and the sound of your voice and the way you laugh. I thought about the many good times we shared, and no, not just the sex (though I couldn’t help thinking about that, also—especially how it feels when we are so sweetly joined, as if we are one). I even spent some time gazing at your photographs in the school yearbooks, but it was unbearable to look at frozen images of your face and know that I had possibly lost you forever.
When I slept, I dreamed of you. I dreamed that you came into my room and sat down on the edge of my bed and took hold of my hand. In my dream, I began to weep and tell you that I was sorry. I said that I never meant to hurt you, that I loved you and would do anything for your forgiveness. You said nothing, but you bent down and kissed me. I woke up, then, and I was never so sorry to wake up from any dream. My pillow was wet with tears. (I realize that all this must sound maudlin, but I want you to know everything, no matter how embarrassing it may seem in the light of day.)
Right now, it is three in the morning. I got up, after that dream, and sat down at my typewriter to let you know how I feel. I am sure it is too much to hope for easy forgiveness. The dream was a fantasy, the wishful thinking of a tormented mind. I realize that my treatment of you was rash and abominable, and that you probably prefer never to see me again. I wouldn’t blame you at all.
If you wish to have nothing to do with me, I suppose I will learn to live with it. I suppose I will have no choice, short of shuffling off these mortal coils with a bare bodkin. (Forget I said that; I don’t believe I am that desperate, though morbid thoughts along those lines have crossed my mind.)
Perhaps I won’t deliver this to you. Perhaps I’ll burn it, I don’t know.
I miss you, Alison. I wish that I could make everything right again, that I could turn time backward to Thursday afternoon when I started all this stupid, disgusting behavior. But life doesn’t work that way. You can’t just make the bad things go away, no matter how much you may want to. (There, I’m so distraught that I’ve ended my sentence with a preposition—now I know I’ll burn this.)
I love you.
I hope that you don’t hate me.
I am miserable without you, but it’s all my own fault and I know that I deserve the misery.
If this is the end, it is the end.
Have a good life, Alison.
Alison’s mind felt numb. She folded the letter, slipped it inside the envelope, and picked up the vase of daffodils. She carried it into the house, nudging the door shut with her rump.
“What’s the deal?” Helen called.
Alison shook her head. She didn’t trust herself to speak; her voice would shake and she might cry.
“Well, all right, flowers. Told you he’d see the light.”
She climbed the stairs to her room, placed the vase on her dresser, and sat on her bed. She pulled the pages out of the envelope and read them again.
He wrote about a dream. This was like a dream. She almost couldn’t believe that he had written such a letter. The anguish in it, the desperation. Even a threat, in the Hamlet allusion, of suicide—which he was quick to retract but which remained, nonetheless.
Alison told herself that she ought to be delighted. Isn’t this what she had wanted; to have him repent and plead for her to take him back? But she wasn’t delighted. The letter was almost disturbing. Could she mean that much to him?
Did she want to mean that much to him.
He sounded almost obsessed.
Alison lay down on her bed, the letter pressed to her belly, and stared at the ceiling. She kicked off a sandal, heard it thump the floor, then kicked off the other. She felt exhausted, as if she had just come back from a long walk. She took a deep breath. Her lungs seemed to tremble as she exhaled.
You wanted him back, didn’t you? Well, he’s yours. If you want him.
You’ll have to do something.
Something.
Evan’s probably sitting in his apartment, staring at the telephone, waiting, wondering if you sneered when you read his message, or if you wept. And very possibly thinking he had been a fool to open himself up that way.
It’s cruel to make him wait.
I should go downstairs, right now, and call him. Or walk over to his apartment. Make it like his dream. Don’t say anything when he opens the door, just kiss him.
Don’t make it that easy on him.
Maybe I don’t want to go back to him at all.
What should I do? Maybe pretend I didn’t get the flowers and note, go along as if nothing happened.
Alison lay there, wondering. She felt stunned, confused, hopeful but a little bit frightened.
She pulled the pillow down over her face. The dark was nice. The soft pillow felt good.
Later, she thought. I’ll do something about it later.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Roland couldn’t understand. He had taken off the cuffs before pushing her down the cellar stairs, and he hadn’t put them back on because she was beyond struggling and he needed both hands free. So how come, now that he was done, he was suddenly cuffed to her again? It didn’t make sense.
He knew that he hadn’t attached the manacles again.
Had she done it? No. Huh-uh. She’s dead.
Then how?
He felt a tingle of fear.
As he dug into the pocket where he kept the key, he wondered vaguely why he was wearing clothes at all. Hadn’t he left them upstairs?
The key wasn’t there.
Don’t worry, you’ll find it. You’ve got to find it.
Fighting panic, he searched every pocket. The key was gone.
This can’t be happening to me, he thought.
Fortunately, he had turned on the overhead light before following Celia into the cellar. The bulb cast only a dim yellow glow, but it should be enough. Getting to his knees, he scanned the concrete floor. The area surrounding them was pooled with blood. Could the key be under the blood? He began to sweep his free hand through the wet layer.
Out of a corner of his eye, he thought he saw Celia grin.
No.
He looked directly at her. She was scalped, her skull caved in (and brain gone, don’t forget that), her eyes shut, her face a mask of blood, and she was grinning.
Her eyelids slid up.
“You’re dead!” he shrieked.
Her jaw dropped. Her tongue lolled out. The handcuff key lay near the end of her tongue.
He reached for it.
Celia’s teeth snapped shut on his fingers. Crying out in agony, he jerked his hand back. The stumps of three severed fingers spouted blood.
In horror, he watched her chew his fingers.
The cellar suddenly went dark.