Chapter 12: Bubblegum PopThe car was a nondescript grey Honda Civic, the kind you never remember seeing, a weather-beaten model decades beyond its best before date. We didn’t speak a word as we crossed the parking lot. A cool autumnal wind tugged at my hair. Tall mpposts dropped limpid pools of flickering light. It was only about seven o’clock, but the early-evening dark suddenly felt a lot more threatening than I’d ever remembered.

  I focused on crossing the hard asphalt without breaking an ankle. The patter of my heels against the ground rang unnaturally loud. It’s a good thing we were the only ones in sight; I was fighting down the urge to vomit. Another fug perv ogling the goods might’ve pushed me over the edge.

  It was a relief to finally slide into the car. Getting off my feet was a needed break, even if the seatbelt felt strange slidiween D-sized tits. Pulling the door shut behind me gave a moment’s sense of security--it felt good to be alone again. I struggled to remain in character as Auossed s in the bad smmed the hatchback shut. I rummaged through the purse and pulled out a pact as she slid io me. dy probably checked her makeup a lot and shit like that. I didn’t like the look in my eye, her the fear nor the disgust I saw there. It took all my willpower to keep my hand from shaking as I applied a quick dab of lipgloss, clicked the pact shut and stowed it ba purse. My left foot started to tremble.

  Only once K had us underway, slig through the darkereets of a bad neighbourhood, did I start to lose it. The sharp, acrid taste of bile flooded my mouth and I gagged, swallowing it babsp; There was no hiding the shakes anymore. I took several deep breaths. I sat on my hands. I closed my eyes and leaned babsp; Fubsp; Fuck!

  “You are doing well, David.” K’s voice cut through the pounding in my ears.

  “I know,” I muttered, and then: “I know, I know, I fug know!” I screamed, and smmed my fist into the ceiling, again and then again. “Fuck!” The Civic’s roof wobbled from the impad I left a spot of blood where my knuckle split. One of those fug bracelets snapped a spinning off into the back seat.

  “Now you are doing less well.”

  I gred at her. “Jesus, K, I ’t do this!”

  “You carried yourself remarkably well ba the elevator,” she said. Her eyes danced betweereet and my face as she drove. “I must say that I was . . . surprised.”

  “Yeah, well, it had to fug be done, didn’t it? But . . . goddamn it!” I wao pound at my own belly, I wao rea there and yank out that damn, queasy feeling ing in there. “Every fug step! Every goddamn move! Every word, for chrissake! I’ve got to think and pn and worry about every thing I do! The stress is gonna kill me, K!”

  She waited as I struggled to calm myself. She took a turn, w us towards the lights of the tral city. “There is o overdo it, Mr. Saunders,” she finally said. “You could have simply ridden the elevator down in silence.”

  “You think I don’t fug know that, K?” I snapped babsp; “You think I wao flirt with that punk? Yeah, I could’ve just stood there, that little prick was so fixated on my ass wasn’t gonna give a shit either way. Most girls in aor with their aunt, that’s what they would’ve done, right?

  “But this is cock-tease-fug-dy Belmy, yeah? She wouldn’t just stand there, would she? I mean, I damn well ride the elevator in silence, but dy, she doesn’t. The little bitch probably just likes the sound of her own voice.”

  “Is that who you think dy is, Mr. Saunders?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know! I just know she’s not me, K. I’m creating this bitch from the ground up, aren’t I? And with eaew thing that happens, I’m iing a new part of her--of me, and I swear, it’s gotta be one of the toughest things I’ve ever done because, frankly, I don’t like who I’m turning myself into.”

  K seemed to digest that for a few moments before responding. “Then why are imagining her in this way, Mr. Saunders?”

  “Because,” I answered ftly. “I pn on staying alive.”

  We rode for aen or fifteen minutes in sileer that. I slowly got my breathing under trol ahe stress bleed out of me, watg the streetlights glide across the windowpane. Now I felt mildly embarrassed by my outburst. I checked the rearview mirror from time to time. I khis wouldn’t happen again. The fear’s always the worst the first time.

  What I hadn’t told K was that I o flirt with that little shit in the elevator. I had to do it because it was the st thing that I wao do. Stepping into that elevator, I was fug terrified of that boy. I was afraid of talking to him. I was afraid of the way he looked me over like a pieeat, and when he popped a boner I almost lost it. I nearly snapped his goddamn neck I was so scared.

  And me, I don’t like being afraid. I’ve spent too muy life in fear. And I’ve learned how to deal with it. It’s the way I was trained, I guess. When I was younger, I was scared of so much shit. God, I athetibsp; Sakura, she taught me how to not be afraid. She taught me how to front my fears, how to overe them--how to make them a part of me, really. Giving in to fear is giving trol over to someone or something else; mastering that fear is keeping the trol within yourself. Because if something’s part of you, and you know who you are--well, then you see the fear for what it is.

  Like, for instance, I’m afraid of dogs. You wouldn’t know it to see me now. I’d had a couple bad run-ins when I was a kid with dogs. Really bad run-ins. But now? That fear’s part of me. It’s part of me but I know it’s not all of me; the whole of me is greater than that fear, and so I trol it instead of the other way around.

  So in that elevator, I knew I had to do the same goddamn thing. It was plicated this time, because I’m still not sure what it was I was afraid of, exactly. I suppose it doesn’t matter. That first time is over with now. ime dy has to chat to someone, she’ll be fine. I’d already grabbed that particur bull by the horns.

  Fuck, that’s the closest I ever want to get to anuy’s horn.

  “Was that a chuckle?” K asked.

  “Huh? Yeah, I guess so.”

  “Are you feelier?”

  “I think I am.” I reached forward and fiddled with the radio. “Hey Auntie, you mind if pop on some musibsp; The Killers, eh? Who would’ve thought? dy, she looks like she’s all bubblegum pop but really she’s into her vintage Indy rock se. Go figure.

  “Not at all, dy.” She smiled.

  When I looked up from finding a funky FM station, the smile was gone. I g the side-view mirror a my stomach sink.

  “We’re being followed,” K stated grimly.