Feelings. Those pesky things that people always wanted him to have. He had known all along what she now knew. Feelings hurt! They suck! They’re the worst! No good for anyone, those pesky things. God did he know that emotion well. How their roles had so pivotally changed. She hurt to feel. She wanted nothing more than to be alone. She wanted to push everyone and everything away. She wanted to hide behind HER walls. How well he knew that emotion. He had invented that emotion. Maybe not invented, but at least perfected. How could he help her back, when he himself hadn’t quite made it out from behind his walls? At the cabin, those few short, wonderful days at the cabin, he had retreated permanently from behind those walls. She had made him feel, think, do. And he hadn’t been sorry, until the morning he awoke and she was gone and it was over. He had retreated back behind those dark, solemn walls and there he had stayed.
God had given him a second chance with Delgado, again, and this time, he had to rise to the occasion. How would he ever find the courage to do it again? She had so betrayed him the last time. He knew it was poppycock, but it’s what his mind believed. And until he could rationalize the situation and make sense of it, he couldn’t truly get through to his subconscious. God this was hard work. But she was definitely worth it. God had dropped that two of hearts into his lap and he couldn’t turn his back on a substitute emergency card. He had no choice but to move forward on this path. No matter where it led, no matter where it took him, no matter if it meant he finally had to examine his own demons.
Tea had spent two weeks in deep therapy, away from family and friends, away from Todd. The doctors had called and told him that she wanted to see him. He knew no good could come from two weeks of deep therapy. He entered the doctor’s office more afraid than he had ever been before.
Dr. B: Good Morning, Mr. Manning.
Todd: If you’re privy to the deepest, darkest secrets of my past, I think we’re past the Mr. Manning part. Call me Todd.
Dr. B: Call me Moe. And we have uncovered some secrets we think you should be made aware of. Do you think you can handle it?
Todd: The truth? Never. But if I have no choice, I guess so.
Moe: You have a choice, it may just be hard for you to hear. First of all, I wanted to thank you for sharing the major details of your past with us. I’m sure you’re trying to move on from your frat days, but having that knowledge helps us to fully understand all of the dynamics we’re dealing with here. It was a rapist that abused your wife. You have a history of raping. That must be incredibly conflicting for her to deal with.
Todd: What is?
Moe: Think, Todd. She’s in love with a man who did the exact same thing to her that you did to someone else. Have you made amends with your victim?
Todd: This is your business because?
Moe: Because your wife is my business. I have to know what she knows about your rehabilitation. (Emphasizing each word) Have you made amends?
Todd: Let’s just say, we’re not the best of buddies. Marty left Llanview not under the best of circumstances. We had made our peace, she had forgiven me, but now she blames me for the death of her husband.
Moe: That would be Patrick Thornhart? I’ve done some research. It seems the illusive Mr. Thorneheart isn’t dead after all. It seems he’s alive and well and living with his wife and three sons in Ireland. We made the decision to go ahead and tell this to Tea. She seemed as surprised as you seem to look right now.
Todd: Can you explain to me how any of this can possibly be helpful to my wife?
Moe: Like I said, her emotions are confused. She hates the man that brutalized her, but she seems to be transferring some of that anger off onto you. We believe it’s because of your past. This man supposedly knew you and was taking his revenge of you out on her. Do you know anyone who hated you that much?
Todd: The list is long and distinguished. Would you like it in alpha order or chronological? And again, I ask, how can any of this possibly help?
Moe: She has to admit that she’s angry with you for that side of you. She may not be able to get past that. We may get to a time when she asks you to leave and we’ll honor that request. When she’s under, deeply under, she has strong, sexual desire for you. She has a connection to you that is, medically speaking, unusual. It seems to be a chemical need, dependence if you will, on your loving her. It isn’t important what she feels about you, as long as you love her. She will test you and tease you all along the way, but underneath it all, all that matters to her is that you love her. She doesn’t believe in that love. When she’s under, she seems to, but it doesn’t last long. She’s told us a story of the night that her assailant kidnapped her. She…
Todd: (interrupting) Kidnapped. When was she kidnapped? I know she was held against her will later, but didn’t she leave me? You tell me what the hell happened.
Moe: No, I won’t. (Pulling out a tape recorder) I think I’ll let Tea tell you. Press the start button whenever you’re ready and I’ll give you some privacy. Would you like something to drink? It’s going to be a while.
Todd: No. Leave me. Leave us.
Moe left the room and Todd listened to the tale of a woman, lost in love, snatched from that love at the most inopportune time. He paced the room, listening to Tea’s voice tell how wonderful Todd’s touch had made her feel, how complete, how loved. Back and forth he strode, wearing out the carpet beneath his feet, listening to Tea tell as she watched Todd recklessly run from the house with the knife, to the car with the gun to the edge of despair and the darkness of his abyss. She notably cried as he went over the cliff, dying in the twisted metal, scathing rocks and melting inferno at Gilbert’s Run. Her life, she said, had ended that night. With Todd dead, there was nothing to live for.
He stopped the tape. He couldn’t bare to hear another word. She hadn’t left him. She hadn’t! She hadn’t abandoned him or their love. It had meant as much to her that night as it had to him. It had been a beginning. A beginning to a new life. Who was this bastard who had ripped their lives apart? He pressed start. Her words continued. Her pain evident in her words. She would whisper at times, screamed at others. She recounted an unspeakable tale of a man who consumed her being, leaving nothing but ruins on the other end. She had finally crossed that burning lake, but on the other side found nothing but more smoldering rocks and the deep, dark end of the ocean. Some details were too dark and traumatizing for her to recount. Others she spat out as easy as a confident defense attorney presenting a closing argument monologue in a courtroom. She was good at the art of covering. She was good at the art of deception. She had become an expert at hiding her true feelings.
Tea learned through the months about the man’s hatred of Todd. Todd had lived the life of privilege and wealth that had been previously reserved for him. It was Todd’s fault that he had been involved with a heinous crime, so heinous that he turned forever to the dark side. All Tea had done was love Todd. And to this man, that was enough to punish her for as long as she lived. Or as long as he lived. It turned out to be the latter.
Tea had suffered through months of this man’s abuse, never trying to escape because there was no one for her to escape to, for. She spent what little waking free time he allowed her reading books he left scattered about his cabin, once in a while catching up on world news from an old magazine he forgot to burn or toss. It wasn’t until one day, one rage filled day, that her world turned upside down and her captive became her victim, she went on to explain.
Over her months of captivity, she began to gain weight and lost her periods, along with her mind. He had entered the cabin, frantic and angry and out of control. “Or was that later? I forget,” Tea laughingly spoke…that laugh of the mentally insane. She went on to explain that her captor had entered the cabin with a copy of the Sun. She could tell, by the masthead, and he was furious with the headline. “It seems that Todd Manning is not as dead as we thought, dear wife,” he spat. He threw the headline at Tea and she shuffled her tied feet to pull it closer to her. Her captive decided to untie her, to push the dagger deeper into her lovesick heart.
She grabbed at it wildly. “One, Two, Three Strikes, you’re OUT, Blair,” the headline stung. He didn’t allow her to read the entire article, but she gathered enough from the first paragraph to see that not only was Todd alive, but he was sniffing around his ex-wife and had unwittingly fallen into her evil clutches again. The subheading read, “Hell No, I won’t marry you.” “At least he’s alive,” she said muffled into the recorder. “At least he’s alive.” She knew in that instant that she had to get away. She wouldn’t be able to run to Todd, but she had found the strength she now needed to get away from this demonic sadist. “I think it was that day. Maybe later. But it doesn’t really matter. It was me. I did it. I’m the one. There was no one else there. It couldn’t have been anyone else,” she said muffled into the recorder. She turned violent and angry in the bat of an eye and screamed against the microphone of the recorder, as like a child, angry that they did or did not do something wrong. “I did it. Do you hear me? It was ME!”
The it she had done was dreadful. It was horrible. Almost unspeakable though her words seemed to flow easily now. In one fell swoop, she had struck him upside the head with both of her hands held tightly together, arms extended, fists giving the full blunt of her body weight to the human baseball bat. He fell to the ground, the knife flying wildly through the air and she grabbed it as it hit the floor, the knife that now allowed her power over him. The knife, he had used to cut her ropes free only moments earlier. “I’ll kill you, I will,” she screamed. “You better do it now, before I get up, because once I get up, you’ll be dead,” he taunted. “I’m sorry,” she coyly purred, trying to throw him off balance. She said she threw the knife down, across the room. “He bought it,” she laughed into the tape. “Come here,” she purred again. “I want to be with you. You like it rough, don’t you?”
Todd winced and again stopped the tape. “She wanted to be with him? What was she thinking?” he rationalized to understand this side of her. This desperate, troubled side of her. He regained his composure, pressed play and listened as the session went on.
“He thought I wanted to be with him, but all I wanted to do was kill him,” she said proudly still in her subconscious state. Todd smiled an evil, knowing grin. Truly she had come to know the dark side intimately. “I did it. It was me. There was no one else there. Who else could have done it?” she reinforced. Sadly, he held his head down, knowing that she had come to understand first hand the evil that can be placed in your heart without anyone’s loving protection. She know knew firsthand what was in his own heart. Finally, someone just like him. How sad she had to be like him. He would never have wanted anyone to suffer the way he had. And clearly, she had suffered worse than him. He was a child and it was his father, his supposed father, whom was supposed to care for him and teach him right from wrong. Tea had learned as an adult, after knowing right from wrong and had to unlearn everything she held sacred in her heart. Trust, love. Surely, these things were now purged from her heart. How could they have possibly survived? And Peter was his fault. He hadn’t been strong enough to fight him off. Todd had the fate he deserved. But not her. Not Tea. She was the unwilling puppet of a madman whom had chosen her because of her ties to him. It gave new meaning to the ties that bind. Todd tried to refocus on the tape that was still playing, but was curious at her continual mentions of ‘I did it.’ Of course she did it. Who else could have? Unless…she was trying to protect someone. Was the lawyer in Delgado trying to protect him? Did she think someone would think he had come back and taken care of this madman for her? Didn’t they realize that he wouldn’t have then just left her there. And what about this weight gain? Was she sick? Was she hurt? Was it the lack of movement and exercise? How much of this is Delgado and how much of this is someone else? That someone else she surely created to face this madman, other than herself? “What’s going on inside that brain of yours, Delgado? What are you trying to tell me? I know this is for me. I WILL figure it out!” he thought aloud to himself. Again, Todd tried to refocus on the tape. Tea’s voice rang out again.
Without thinking or without reservation, as he held her in his arms, she reached around jamming the knife deep into the back of his neck. She pushed back smiling, she said, watching him grasp for his last few breaths. He had grabbed toward her, then turned around and stood and stared at her, walking slowly toward her and then desperately grabbed at his neck and had fallen dead within seconds. She lay on the bed, exhausted from her battle, but complete in her knowledge that he could no longer hurt her. Later that night, she had drug him out into the woods and buried him in a shallow grave out back, again reinforcing that she had done it alone. She had thought about leaving, but seemed dumbfounded as to where to go. She couldn’t even remember her name at this point. She stayed in the cabin, going outside only occasionally to bathe in the nearby stream or to gather berries for food. “We needed food, wait, I needed food, because I was alone then” she said calmly.
Todd still seemed perplexed at her incessant need to qualify that she was alone. He went on listening, confused by what it was Tea was trying to tell him. She had some supplies, but mainly staples. He had supplied the house well, but hadn’t planned for a whole winter alone in the cabin. She decided to stay put for a while, watching the seasons change and her body grow. After all she had been through with Miguel, she couldn’t think about aborting this baby, even if it was conceived by a monster.
Todd stopped the tape again. A baby? She was pregnant? Had she had this child? Was it a boy or a girl? And if she had the child, where was it now?
