A long overdue Amber Poe update.
Nov. 25th, 2004 07:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crows[yes, I am still working on this story.]
I woke some time after noon, sore but feeling more energized than I had when Trent had woken me earlier that morning. I took a quarter hour to recount my evening and morning, recalling the names of Trent’s friends and what information I’d gathered concerning them, recalling the Trent and Forrest had gone back into the lion’s den to do business and gather belongings. Post this careful meditation, I hauled myself unsteadily to my feet and made my way into the bathroom. It was minimal, but clean and pleasantly spacious. There was a little bit of dust on the counter, indicating to me that the room – and likely, the guest bedroom as well – had not been used in some time. However, there were sufficient toiletries beneath the sink to allow me to clean up.
That shower was maybe the longest I have ever taken. I turned off the incandescent sconce on the wall, letting the light dim to the faint trickle of afternoon sunlight coming through the bedroom window beyond. There in that half-darkness, the hot water pounded over every inch of my body for maybe a half hour before I even addressed the matter of picking the scabs and tangles out of my hair. I’d incurred more minor wounds than I was formerly aware with all the excitement of the last few days. The soap stung into scrapes and abrasions all up and down my body. I could still feel the throbbing, muscle-deep bruise where the hypodermic needle had gone into my back.
Post washing, conducting as thorough a physical exam as I was capable of with only my own hands and a cloudy bathroom mirror to aid me, and combing my hair out to a length that could almost have been considered more preening than actual hygiene (it had, after all, been the first time that I’d been afforded any time to myself… since I could remember), I stepped back out into the cool air of my borrowed bedchamber.
My heart stalled against my breast; an inane, pounding fear rearing within my head. Several seconds later, as I stood with my fingers twisted white into the towel I held to my waist, I realized that something about the room was different. It was difficult to calm my breathing as I surveyed my surroundings, but I was ready for that bombshell to go off. My mind could almost construct the man standing in the shadow of the recessed doorway, the matte shape of an assault rifle crossing his broad body, conspicuously shiny black dress shoes casually spaced on the carpet. I stared at that shadow for a long time, realizing with difficulty that it was, indeed, empty. It might have been ten minutes that I tarried in that state, sure my death had come for me despite the best efforts of my newfound friend. Then, it hit me. Yes. The door was, in fact, ajar, but spread across the bench before the vanity was a dressing gown; below it, a pair of men’s slippers. I sighed, and nearly collapsed.
The slippers were too big, but comfortable on my feet. The robe could have wrapped around my waist four times, but I donned both items nonetheless. Padding out into the living room, I glanced around. My memory from the night before was only dim concerning the lay of the house, and I hadn’t seen the majority of it anyhow. Before I could really get to exploring, a cool voice behind me piped up.
“I heard you turn on the shower and thought you might want something to slip into afterward.” When I turned, Catcher’s smile met me as he emerged from the kitchen.
“Thank you.” I did my best to smile back, skin pulling tight around the split in my lip, making it sting. “I really appreciate you gentlemen offering your help with this, without knowing…” where I trailed off, he picked up.
“Trent and us have been very close since before high school. The four of us, we’d do anything for one another.” He lifted his hands and dropped them, his palms rustling in the folds of his loose chinos. I was angling him a hard kind of look, without really realizing it, and he cut the room to settle his hands on my shoulders. Catcher was older than the other boys by several years, by the look of him, closer to my age. “He wouldn’t put us in any danger that he didn’t think we’d weather, and that he didn’t think was worth it. We don’t know who you are, miss Poe, or why you need asylum from the likes of us, but obviously it’s something that Trent believes in, or he would not have driven like a bat out of hell from the next town over to get you here. A man just doesn’t do that when he just wants old buddies to meet a new girlfriend.” My lips parted, agape to protest, and I’m sure I blushed, but before I could get the word out, Catcher winked and released me.
“Are you hungry? I was just about to make a sandwich.” I laughed, sheepish that I’d almost been unable to take the joke he’d made, and nodded.
Rye toast, roast beef, swiss, lettuce, tomatoes. Catcher cut carrot coins and poured me a glass of milk, and we sat across from one another at a small, round table tucked in the kitchen’s corner. It was a quaint sort of place, despite its size. The table sat just beneath a window, beyond which lay a slightly unkempt lawn and more forest beyond that.
“Trent left me some money. He thought one of us could take you out and get you some clothes, any whatever else you needed. We don’t have women staying around here on a very regular basis.” Smiling slant-ways at me from over his lunch, he searched my face for the answer I had not yet given.
“Alright…” My voice dangled again.
“I thought I could take you out to dinner, too, so long as we were heading into town.”
At this, I must have flushed. It had come at me rather broadside – my mind was still roped into all business. There was the haste of my recent days, the confusion, the pain that lingered in my body… I had no time to think of friendships, of much courtesy, of the smaller details of my daily life.
“Sure, I guess.” That was a weak answer if I’d ever given one. Catcher’s smile broadened, but only slightly. “Alright. We can go in after we finish lunch.”
Conversation resumed after a few minutes, during which time I discovered that it was, in fact, Catcher who was the violinist of the house. The only musician, really… though Forrest had been known to handle a guitar now and again. He nursed me back into the rhythm of light chatter, picking me up as I stumbled through the initial phases of normal interaction, expressing as much sensitivity as he could to issues I seemed to be tender about.
“So, ah, Catcher… how much did Trent tell you guys this morning?”
“About you?”
“Well, yes…”
“Not a whole lot, really…” He ticked the points off on one hand, the other hovering on the bottom of the steering wheel. “There are people after you. They know you’re in with Trent. You don’t have… too many memories?” On this last statement, he arched a brow at me sidelong for verification, and I slowly nodded.
“Effectively none. My whole history starts the lesser portion of a week ago.”
Silence, and then, “Damn.”
“You’re telling me.” We both laughed, although with little real humor.
As it worked out, we did our shopping, I declined an offer for icecream, and we drove back up to the house after Catcher made reservations at an Indian restaurant he was familiar with. I’d chosen the simplest clothes I could find that fit me – largely black, and dark brown. Inconspicuous cuts and colors, clothing with utility, and a new pair of shoes. My companion did his best to keep me light throughout, but I couldn’t help looking at everything from a perspective of strategy and utility. How will this help me achieve my goal. How will this help me stay hidden. Would I be able to run in that, will blood stain the fabric badly, how will this hold up in a fight. I couldn’t blame him, really. Catcher had no idea the gravity of the situation that I was in, and that his friend Trent had followed me into. I owed it to him, at least for Trent’s sake. These boys deserved to know what was going on with their ‘brother’.
I would talk to him tonight, over dinner. Then he would understand. At least, I hoped he would. That was a tenuous path to walk, for the fact that I didn’t fully understand, myself.
Suddenly confronted with the thought of being out in public with another human being – in the act of normal, social interaction, nonetheless – I slipped into the guest bathroom for the second time and stood in front of the sink. Idly, I wondered if I ever dated, before. If I’d had boyfriends, had my heart broken, decided not to call when I should have. Even, if there had been someone in my life before I lost it. Was there, in fact, someone waiting for me? Someone, perhaps, that I had told of my suspicions – because I must have known something, to have instructed myself in the way that I did – or perhaps someone who didn’t know. Some man now worried or angry, for I’d been gone for days now without a word.
Somehow, I doubted it very much, but nonetheless, it was an interesting possibility to toy with. I had already resolved that I was going to be very straightforward with Catcher about my non-interest in the pursuit of a relationship with him, if that’s what he meant to initiate by our little ‘date’. I was sure he would understand; it didn’t trouble me much. Still, though, I wanted to be gracious in light of all that they were doing for me – opening their home, protecting me – without even knowing who I was. So, I would humor his request… and, (dare I admit this to myself), it might be a nice change, to do something unrelated to the reclamation of my former life. God forbid, a break from this warfare.
“Vindaloo…” Catcher was methodically constructing a precariously balanced sculpture out of both of our silverware. “They give you looks if you order food vindaloo in Britain.”
“Do they?”
“Absolutely.”
He and I had been sitting ten minutes. He’d ordered wine, and I iced tea, and I was having a hard time keeping my hands folded quietly in front of me. So, I reached out, set a pair of crossed forks swaying dangerously on the edge of an empty glass.
“Hey…” He turned his eyes up to me, and I withdrew. “You look worried.”
I tried to shrug that off, but my consciousness of danger was weighing on me. “This isn’t very easy for me. It’s… really strange, actually.” I’d been listening the whole while, to other conversations in the restaurant, which was largely populated by couples. Every last one, either talking about some recent event or another, or about one another. Telling stories, the likes of which I had none to tell. Where was my conversation? Where was my history, my day-at-work? Where were my aspirations?
The waiter brought our drinks, distracting Catcher from me for long enough for me to square my shoulders. I’d had quite enough of being strong for the week, of being untouchable and unsinkable. Necessity had taken all of that out of me, and now I felt a little lost; abruptly faced by a completely different kind of threat.
“What’s strange?” He returned his attention to me, sipping his wine as I stirred the lemon wedge down into my tea.
“Trying to have a normal conversation. I guess what I’m missing is normal conversation, it must be. Catcher… Why did you ask me to dinner?” Straight out with it. This is the better way. He folded his hands, surveying me with level eyes and a thoughtful smile.
“The same reason any man asks a woman out to dinner.” I sank in my chair slightly. “Because I wanted to get to know you more.” A long silence strung itself out between us, lengthening the table and making ever point of light that glistened off of Catcher’s silverware sculpture look like its own, small sword.
“However, I don’t want to get to know you better for the reason that most men take women out to dinner to get to know them.”
I blinked. I’d been all ready to shoot him down, gently, and he’d shattered my immaculate conversation. “I beg your pardon?”
“My father is a writer, Amber.”
After some length, I replied “That’s rather… non-sequiter, don’t you think?”
“Not at all. You see, he’s been a writer since long before I was born, and he taught me from my childhood to collect any good story that I can. Not necessarily to write them, even, but just to know. Good stories give a particular kind of meaning to life, that you wouldn’t otherwise really have…”
His palms lay open on the table, now, and I nodded him onward. It set a pang in my chest, however. I had no stories, mine or anyone else’s, and I was beginning to feel both self-conscious and self-pitying for it. Catcher, however, was giving me a story. It would be my first.
Despite having opened the conversation with an interest in knowing who I was, Catcher flowed seamlessly into himself. The food came, and we ate leisurely, chewing and laughing as his life unfolded in a hundred stories of his past. His youth had been riddled with moves around the country. His father – and the individual stories largely involved his father, Hunter – was a journalist of some temper and greatly unorthodox opinions. Catcher MacDonald himself had grown up speaking bits and pieces of a dozen languages.
I woke some time after noon, sore but feeling more energized than I had when Trent had woken me earlier that morning. I took a quarter hour to recount my evening and morning, recalling the names of Trent’s friends and what information I’d gathered concerning them, recalling the Trent and Forrest had gone back into the lion’s den to do business and gather belongings. Post this careful meditation, I hauled myself unsteadily to my feet and made my way into the bathroom. It was minimal, but clean and pleasantly spacious. There was a little bit of dust on the counter, indicating to me that the room – and likely, the guest bedroom as well – had not been used in some time. However, there were sufficient toiletries beneath the sink to allow me to clean up.
That shower was maybe the longest I have ever taken. I turned off the incandescent sconce on the wall, letting the light dim to the faint trickle of afternoon sunlight coming through the bedroom window beyond. There in that half-darkness, the hot water pounded over every inch of my body for maybe a half hour before I even addressed the matter of picking the scabs and tangles out of my hair. I’d incurred more minor wounds than I was formerly aware with all the excitement of the last few days. The soap stung into scrapes and abrasions all up and down my body. I could still feel the throbbing, muscle-deep bruise where the hypodermic needle had gone into my back.
Post washing, conducting as thorough a physical exam as I was capable of with only my own hands and a cloudy bathroom mirror to aid me, and combing my hair out to a length that could almost have been considered more preening than actual hygiene (it had, after all, been the first time that I’d been afforded any time to myself… since I could remember), I stepped back out into the cool air of my borrowed bedchamber.
My heart stalled against my breast; an inane, pounding fear rearing within my head. Several seconds later, as I stood with my fingers twisted white into the towel I held to my waist, I realized that something about the room was different. It was difficult to calm my breathing as I surveyed my surroundings, but I was ready for that bombshell to go off. My mind could almost construct the man standing in the shadow of the recessed doorway, the matte shape of an assault rifle crossing his broad body, conspicuously shiny black dress shoes casually spaced on the carpet. I stared at that shadow for a long time, realizing with difficulty that it was, indeed, empty. It might have been ten minutes that I tarried in that state, sure my death had come for me despite the best efforts of my newfound friend. Then, it hit me. Yes. The door was, in fact, ajar, but spread across the bench before the vanity was a dressing gown; below it, a pair of men’s slippers. I sighed, and nearly collapsed.
The slippers were too big, but comfortable on my feet. The robe could have wrapped around my waist four times, but I donned both items nonetheless. Padding out into the living room, I glanced around. My memory from the night before was only dim concerning the lay of the house, and I hadn’t seen the majority of it anyhow. Before I could really get to exploring, a cool voice behind me piped up.
“I heard you turn on the shower and thought you might want something to slip into afterward.” When I turned, Catcher’s smile met me as he emerged from the kitchen.
“Thank you.” I did my best to smile back, skin pulling tight around the split in my lip, making it sting. “I really appreciate you gentlemen offering your help with this, without knowing…” where I trailed off, he picked up.
“Trent and us have been very close since before high school. The four of us, we’d do anything for one another.” He lifted his hands and dropped them, his palms rustling in the folds of his loose chinos. I was angling him a hard kind of look, without really realizing it, and he cut the room to settle his hands on my shoulders. Catcher was older than the other boys by several years, by the look of him, closer to my age. “He wouldn’t put us in any danger that he didn’t think we’d weather, and that he didn’t think was worth it. We don’t know who you are, miss Poe, or why you need asylum from the likes of us, but obviously it’s something that Trent believes in, or he would not have driven like a bat out of hell from the next town over to get you here. A man just doesn’t do that when he just wants old buddies to meet a new girlfriend.” My lips parted, agape to protest, and I’m sure I blushed, but before I could get the word out, Catcher winked and released me.
“Are you hungry? I was just about to make a sandwich.” I laughed, sheepish that I’d almost been unable to take the joke he’d made, and nodded.
Rye toast, roast beef, swiss, lettuce, tomatoes. Catcher cut carrot coins and poured me a glass of milk, and we sat across from one another at a small, round table tucked in the kitchen’s corner. It was a quaint sort of place, despite its size. The table sat just beneath a window, beyond which lay a slightly unkempt lawn and more forest beyond that.
“Trent left me some money. He thought one of us could take you out and get you some clothes, any whatever else you needed. We don’t have women staying around here on a very regular basis.” Smiling slant-ways at me from over his lunch, he searched my face for the answer I had not yet given.
“Alright…” My voice dangled again.
“I thought I could take you out to dinner, too, so long as we were heading into town.”
At this, I must have flushed. It had come at me rather broadside – my mind was still roped into all business. There was the haste of my recent days, the confusion, the pain that lingered in my body… I had no time to think of friendships, of much courtesy, of the smaller details of my daily life.
“Sure, I guess.” That was a weak answer if I’d ever given one. Catcher’s smile broadened, but only slightly. “Alright. We can go in after we finish lunch.”
Conversation resumed after a few minutes, during which time I discovered that it was, in fact, Catcher who was the violinist of the house. The only musician, really… though Forrest had been known to handle a guitar now and again. He nursed me back into the rhythm of light chatter, picking me up as I stumbled through the initial phases of normal interaction, expressing as much sensitivity as he could to issues I seemed to be tender about.
“So, ah, Catcher… how much did Trent tell you guys this morning?”
“About you?”
“Well, yes…”
“Not a whole lot, really…” He ticked the points off on one hand, the other hovering on the bottom of the steering wheel. “There are people after you. They know you’re in with Trent. You don’t have… too many memories?” On this last statement, he arched a brow at me sidelong for verification, and I slowly nodded.
“Effectively none. My whole history starts the lesser portion of a week ago.”
Silence, and then, “Damn.”
“You’re telling me.” We both laughed, although with little real humor.
As it worked out, we did our shopping, I declined an offer for icecream, and we drove back up to the house after Catcher made reservations at an Indian restaurant he was familiar with. I’d chosen the simplest clothes I could find that fit me – largely black, and dark brown. Inconspicuous cuts and colors, clothing with utility, and a new pair of shoes. My companion did his best to keep me light throughout, but I couldn’t help looking at everything from a perspective of strategy and utility. How will this help me achieve my goal. How will this help me stay hidden. Would I be able to run in that, will blood stain the fabric badly, how will this hold up in a fight. I couldn’t blame him, really. Catcher had no idea the gravity of the situation that I was in, and that his friend Trent had followed me into. I owed it to him, at least for Trent’s sake. These boys deserved to know what was going on with their ‘brother’.
I would talk to him tonight, over dinner. Then he would understand. At least, I hoped he would. That was a tenuous path to walk, for the fact that I didn’t fully understand, myself.
Suddenly confronted with the thought of being out in public with another human being – in the act of normal, social interaction, nonetheless – I slipped into the guest bathroom for the second time and stood in front of the sink. Idly, I wondered if I ever dated, before. If I’d had boyfriends, had my heart broken, decided not to call when I should have. Even, if there had been someone in my life before I lost it. Was there, in fact, someone waiting for me? Someone, perhaps, that I had told of my suspicions – because I must have known something, to have instructed myself in the way that I did – or perhaps someone who didn’t know. Some man now worried or angry, for I’d been gone for days now without a word.
Somehow, I doubted it very much, but nonetheless, it was an interesting possibility to toy with. I had already resolved that I was going to be very straightforward with Catcher about my non-interest in the pursuit of a relationship with him, if that’s what he meant to initiate by our little ‘date’. I was sure he would understand; it didn’t trouble me much. Still, though, I wanted to be gracious in light of all that they were doing for me – opening their home, protecting me – without even knowing who I was. So, I would humor his request… and, (dare I admit this to myself), it might be a nice change, to do something unrelated to the reclamation of my former life. God forbid, a break from this warfare.
“Vindaloo…” Catcher was methodically constructing a precariously balanced sculpture out of both of our silverware. “They give you looks if you order food vindaloo in Britain.”
“Do they?”
“Absolutely.”
He and I had been sitting ten minutes. He’d ordered wine, and I iced tea, and I was having a hard time keeping my hands folded quietly in front of me. So, I reached out, set a pair of crossed forks swaying dangerously on the edge of an empty glass.
“Hey…” He turned his eyes up to me, and I withdrew. “You look worried.”
I tried to shrug that off, but my consciousness of danger was weighing on me. “This isn’t very easy for me. It’s… really strange, actually.” I’d been listening the whole while, to other conversations in the restaurant, which was largely populated by couples. Every last one, either talking about some recent event or another, or about one another. Telling stories, the likes of which I had none to tell. Where was my conversation? Where was my history, my day-at-work? Where were my aspirations?
The waiter brought our drinks, distracting Catcher from me for long enough for me to square my shoulders. I’d had quite enough of being strong for the week, of being untouchable and unsinkable. Necessity had taken all of that out of me, and now I felt a little lost; abruptly faced by a completely different kind of threat.
“What’s strange?” He returned his attention to me, sipping his wine as I stirred the lemon wedge down into my tea.
“Trying to have a normal conversation. I guess what I’m missing is normal conversation, it must be. Catcher… Why did you ask me to dinner?” Straight out with it. This is the better way. He folded his hands, surveying me with level eyes and a thoughtful smile.
“The same reason any man asks a woman out to dinner.” I sank in my chair slightly. “Because I wanted to get to know you more.” A long silence strung itself out between us, lengthening the table and making ever point of light that glistened off of Catcher’s silverware sculpture look like its own, small sword.
“However, I don’t want to get to know you better for the reason that most men take women out to dinner to get to know them.”
I blinked. I’d been all ready to shoot him down, gently, and he’d shattered my immaculate conversation. “I beg your pardon?”
“My father is a writer, Amber.”
After some length, I replied “That’s rather… non-sequiter, don’t you think?”
“Not at all. You see, he’s been a writer since long before I was born, and he taught me from my childhood to collect any good story that I can. Not necessarily to write them, even, but just to know. Good stories give a particular kind of meaning to life, that you wouldn’t otherwise really have…”
His palms lay open on the table, now, and I nodded him onward. It set a pang in my chest, however. I had no stories, mine or anyone else’s, and I was beginning to feel both self-conscious and self-pitying for it. Catcher, however, was giving me a story. It would be my first.
Despite having opened the conversation with an interest in knowing who I was, Catcher flowed seamlessly into himself. The food came, and we ate leisurely, chewing and laughing as his life unfolded in a hundred stories of his past. His youth had been riddled with moves around the country. His father – and the individual stories largely involved his father, Hunter – was a journalist of some temper and greatly unorthodox opinions. Catcher MacDonald himself had grown up speaking bits and pieces of a dozen languages.