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malcolmteller-blog · 8 years ago

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[HORROR] Love and Secrets

Love…well, love is a funny thing. It comes in all shapes and sizes, and it happens to be the best and to the worst of us - the greatest and the least. And it’s amazing. Being in love…well, there’s nothing like it.

I should start from the beginning. I’m Nate. I’m 25, and I work as an office worker at a major Internet Service Provider here in Vancouver, Canada. I won’t say which one, but…if you live in the Vancouver area, you’ve definitely heard of us. I’ll say that much. Now, about love - I’ve spent my entire adult life searching for ‘the one’. That special, one in a million girl who would just complete me. But for most of that time, it never worked. The women I’d connect with, I’d give them so much of myself, but in the end, they’d all leave. I still remember Rebecca - beautiful, lovely Rebecca, with her long auburn hair and sparkling blue eyes. Rebecca looking me in the eye in front of my apartment building, my hand in hers, telling me, “Nate, I can’t be what you need. And I’m sorry. I do care for you, but I can’t do this anymore.” And with that, she was gone. There were so many stories like that. Did I get bitter? No. No one owes anyone their love - that’s one of the reasons it’s so precious. But I do believe that love conquers all - that if you find that one, that special someone, that if it’s real, nothing can really be horrible or strong enough to break it. Call me a hopeless romantic - it’s what I believe.

But the One? That special girl, the one in a million person? Well, I found her. But when I first met her, I never comprehended the darkness she would bring into my life. That’s what I’m aiming to explain and understand, here and now.

It all started at the used camera show in a library in one of Vancouver’s suburbs. The library is situated in this sleepy, cozy little part of town, with a huge mall just across the street, and a set of apartment buildings and then townhouses down the road. The part of this area, if you ever make it down here, is green - there’s so many trees and shrubbery and grass that it’s like an odd cross between urban and rural. I’d come here often to think, to read, and to just enjoy nature while still being in a city. Now, every April, there’d be a camera show at this library, where used cameras would get showcased and sold. It was just by chance that I decided to go and just see if there’d be anything I’d want to buy.

I was in the downstairs recreation complex part of the building, in their gym area - this huge, open space packed with vendors and tables - looking over a used digital SLR camera, when I looked up and saw her.

There she was, standing and examining a digital SLR camera in her hands. She had long, dark brown hair, tied into a ponytail, and had a round, soft face. She was a bit shorter than me, and was wearing black jeans and a denim jacket. To be honest, I thought she was kind of beautiful. So, I decided to make smalltalk.

I walked up to her, and looked at her camera, then at her. “Hey, is that a good one?”

She looked up at me wide-eyed, kind of surprised, and then glanced at the camera then back at me. “The camera?” Then a smile. “Oh, yeah. This is one of the latest Canon models. But apparently this person here,” she said, motioning to the vendor, “is giving it away at half the market value!”

“Well, you can’t beat that!” I said, cracking a grin. I then continued - “It’s still pretty expensive, though - what’re you gonna use it for?”

Her eyes widened all excited, and she broke out in a river of energy. “Birdwatching! I swear, it’s one of my favorite things to do. I have, like, a bunch of albums filled with just photos of birds.” She paused before asking, “Are you into photography at all?”

I nodded, cracking a grin. “Yeah, but…well, to be honest, I’m not very good. I like taking photos of various spots downtown - just urban photography, that kind of thing.”

“I find urban photography to be beautiful,” she said, widening her smile. “What’s your favorite landmarks?”

“The Art Gallery, for one,” I said straight away, “and definitely the Central Branch of the Vancouver Public Library. Some of the most gorgeous architecture I’ve ever seen.”

“No doubt, given how many TV shows and movies that building shows up in,” she said before laughing a tiny bit.

Now, as I was talking to her, I found myself getting really interested in her. Now, please, understand me: this isn’t me getting lovesick about every woman I come across. Trust me, I’m not like that. But this person was just really interesting to me - everything she said was intriguing and made me want to get to know her more.

As I paused momentarily to gather my thoughts, she glanced back at the camera, before speaking again.

“What the hell, I’ll take it,” she said to the man, before pulling out her wallet and going through the transaction with her debit card. After the transaction was finished, she looked over at me, still smiling.

“So there it is! New camera!” She then paused, before raising her eyebrows in an expression of curiosity. “Look, I’m going to go get some lunch before running some errands, and I hate eating alone - you wanna come with?”

I paused. Was I being asked out by this person? I didn’t even know her name. But, what the hell, life is meant to be lived, right?

“Sure,” I shot back happily, a grin on my face, “but I do think we should know who we are first.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed, laughing in a kind of embarrassed fashion. “Of course! I’m Jessica. And you are…?”

“Nate!”

“Nate! There it is!” she said happily. And with that, we got out of the building and headed to get lunch.

We ended up spending forty minutes chatting over lunch at the mall’s food court. The conversation was enlightening. She was a librarian, and had been one since she graduated from the University of British Columbia a year or so back. She’d also moved here from Toronto, where she had grown up. At first, the conversation was mostly smalltalk, but somehow…well, we connected, and it got heavier.

“I mean, I just get lonely, you know?” she said, sipping at her Pepsi. “There’s so many couples out there, and they seem to have found it all, and I wonder if that’ll ever happen with me.”

My heart lit up at this. I was the same way!. I started to reply.

“It’s like…you know what love feels like, and it’s so intoxicating, and you just want to have more of it, but it keeps racing away from you.”

“Yeah!” she shot out, her eyes widening. “That’s exactly it!” As she smiled at me, and the look in our eyes, I could tell that we were connecting. I took it a step further.

“Have you had much success in the past? Relationship-wise, I mean.” She vigorously shook her head.

“No. Me and guys…well, let’s just say I haven’t found anyone who really mixes well with me.” Before I could respond, she quickly asked, “So, what do you do for work?” I took this as a hint that she didn’t want to go into the topic of her past relationships, so I let it go.

Eventually, we had to run our respective errands, but we agreed to meet again. The entire conversation we had then was thrilling, to me at least, and the entire time there never seemed to be anything ‘off’ or weird about her. I guess by that point she was just that good at hiding it all.

And we did meet again. And the more I met with her, the more I fell for her. The way she moved, the way her eyes lit up when she was excited, and the way she got so passionate about everything. And she fell for me just as much. The way she’d look at me and smile, or the way her eyes would light up when she saw me. See, this is what I loved about love. It lit up the world. This is what I aimed to find in my relationships, what I aimed to hold onto, because to me, this was what was most precious. This was what mattered and would last and would stand the test of time. What else could possibly be more important or significant?

I still remember a sensitive moment late one night at my place, about a month into us seeing each other. I like to think that this is the moment it got serious.

“Nate, you know what I love about you?” she asked quietly, staring at the movie playing on the TV with my arm wrapped around her.

I was surprised. She loved stuff about me. I mean, I’d gathered that much, but this was the first time she’d ever said that sort of thing out loud, and it left an impact on me. “Yeah?” I asked, looking over at her.

“You’re honest, sincere and really kindhearted. I think that’s important in a man.” After she said that, she went silent and stayed that way for the rest of the movie.

That was the first night we spent together, and it was wonderful. After that, we were pretty much an item.

And it was great. She was amazing. I still remember all the parts of our relationship that showed me what an amazing person she was. She was smart, and showed it in so many ways, like having an informed opinion on every major issue and blowing through non-fiction books like you wouldn’t believe; and she was funny, and fun! She always knew just what to do to brighten up the day, like the time we went urban exploring in an abandoned warehouse at 3am in a run-down part of town, and ended up having to run like hell to avoid getting arrested for trespassing.

But above all, she was deeply loving. Like the time I came home from work, and she had used my spare key to leave me a bouquet of roses.

But finally, I knew where things stood, because she told me. Seven months into the relationship, when we were spending time together at her place - we were always spending time together - and she opened up to me.

“Nate, I really think you complete me.” She was picking at some ice cream in front of her, and said this quietly. After a moment, she hesitantly looked up, trying to gauge my reaction. I smiled, my heart just exploding. Because, see, she completed me. I really felt like she was what I’d been looking for my whole life. So I told her as much.

“Well, I feel the same way about you,” I said back to her, happiness evident in my voice and a smile on my face.

This made her light up. “That’s amazing!” she practically shouted out. “I mean, I didn’t know how you’d feel about that, but…well, I was never that good with relationships in the past, and I…I think you’re what I needed in my life.” Looking into her deep, emerald green eyes, I knew — I knew this was the woman I wanted to spend my life with. I…well, that’s what influenced my decision-making later on, when everything came to light.

But you need to understand - all of this, together and individually, made my heart sing when I was with her. She wasn’t just a girlfriend, and she wasn’t just special - she was a one of a kind to me. Someone who was my soulmate. Someone I couldn’t bear to lose. Someone I couldn’t bear to be apart from. It pretty quickly got to the point where I was only really comfortable when I was around her. See, this was what had ruined all my other relationships, but with her, it was fine, because she was the same way. Most nights we stayed over at my place or her place and spent our whole day together. This went on for months. Like I said - a deeply loving and committed relationship.

But even though our relationship was going great, there were…well, oddities. For one, she was unreachable at random for large chunks of time. And, because of how much time we spent together, this was pretty jarring. I still remember asking her about it. She got…really upset, more than I’d ever seen her get.

“Look, it’s personal, alright?” she snapped at me.

“Jess, I’m just wondering, because it’s kind of weird, to be honest…” I tried to keep my tone neutral and calm, to avoid getting her more angry.

Jess looked up at the ceiling, facing away from me, then she took a deep breath, and exhaled, before turning around. “Nate…look. It’s not anything you’d ever be…upset about. Just trust me on that. I need to keep some things to myself, same as you do, you understand?”

What can I say? I let it go, because I loved her.

But there was something else. I mean, it didn’t seem odd at the time, but later on it all fit. She refused to move in with me, despite us having been together for a little over a year at that point and us being deeply in love with each other. She said she didn’t want to live with me until we were married.

“It’s just something I grew up with,” she explained. “You never live with each other until you’re married, right. So…that’s how I want to do things,” she said, sitting next to me in the car as we were driving to a movie.

I should have known something was up, but like I said - I was in love.

Eventually, though, it all got to me. I started…well, I started to find myself getting suspicious of her. I started to doubt that what she was telling me, day in day out, was true. I finally consciously recognized that this is what I was feeling, and I knew I had to do something about it.

I brought it up at her place. It was Christmas Night, and we had just finished dinner and were about to watch a Christmas movie - our new tradition. She was crouched in front of the Blu-ray player, getting the movie set up when I raised the issue.

“Jess…I wanna know why you’re so unreachable all the time.”

Jess stopped in her tracks, and looked up at me. “I thought we talked about this.”

“No, we didn’t talk about it,” I said, getting angry. “I brought it up and you shut me down, like you were my mother. I want to know what you’ve been doing when I can’t get ahold of you.”

“It’s not important,” she said very quickly.

“It is to me!” I shouted. Something inside of me snapped. That was the moment where I realized I didn’t trust her anymore. And if I didn’t trust her, how could I stay in this relationship? Maybe she could fix that - maybe. But it’d have to happen right here, right now.

“You’re out of contact for entire evenings, and I’ve been with you for a bloody year, and I still have no idea what’s going on,” I yelled, my voice thick with anger. She slowly stood up, staring at me, her eyes wide. “You know what I’m thinking?” I asked, my voice low and quick. “I think you’re running around on me.”

“I would never do that!” she shouted back at me, tears welling in her eyes.

“What the hell else am I supposed to think?!” I shouted back at her. “Put yourself in my shoes! What would you think!?”

She tried to speak, but ended up just stuttering. Finally, she managed to get some words out. “Nate, everything…everything I have done…everything I’ve kept from you…it’s been for you, for us! Can’t you see that? It’s better this way!” At this point she was flat out crying, tears running down her face.

I stepped forward toward her. “Jess, what’s going on? What are you hiding?”

She stared at me, a look of clear anguish on her tear-streaked face, as she slowly shook her head. “I…I can’t,” she whispered, “I can’t. Please, don’t make me. I’m begging you, don’t make me.” As she spoke, her eyes kept glancing past me to the door to her basement. That was weird, I thought. I looked over, and it hit me that for the entire time we were together, she never allowed me to go into her basement. Slowly looking back at her, and then at the basement door, I started to move toward it. She grabbed my arm, yelling at me to stop, to forget it all, to trust her and just watch the movie and we can have a great evening but please don’t go in there.

But I did. I shook her off, and stormed over to the basement door, swung it open, and walked in, leaving her standing there sobbing in the living room.

The basement stairs made creaking noises as I walked down them. Reaching the bottom, I felt around the wall for a light switch, finding one eventually. Flicking the light on, I saw what was down here. An empty, bare room. Some shelves with various tools and paint cans on them. This is what she wanted to hide from me so much? But then I spotted it. A small door, at the far end of the room, obscured by a stack of boxes. Moving over, I moved the boxes out of the way, and opened the door. What I saw…well, it…it shocked me.

It was a large room, covered completely, except for the far side of the room, in plastic sheet. The plastic was stained all over with blood - some of it recent. There were various bloody tools - drills, meat cleavers, knives - on a tray near the center of the room. On the floor, in the center of the room, was this gigantic, deep red and very wet patch of blood. My heart beating, I moved over to the part of the room not covered in plastic wrap. There, by the wall, was a bath tub. I peered inside, and inside…my God, inside was a human body, partially dissolved in a pool of acid. Before I knew it, I was staggering back, and then running up the stairs and into the living room, staring in horror into Jess’s tear-stained face.

“It started when I was nine,” she said later in the evening, sitting on the couch as I sat in a chair before her, trying to make sense of all this. She was still sobbing somewhat lightly, dabbing her eyes and face with a tissue. “My parents…well, they’d just divorced, right. And…I…I dunno. I dunno how it started, but I started killing animals. Rats, mice, then later the stray cats that’d come by our house. I’d…you know, cut them up, see how long they could stay alive with their organs ripped out, that kind of thing.” She spoke quietly, as if she was somewhat ashamed of it all. “And it was…oh my God,” she said, her voice lighting up, the way it did whenever she talked about something she was deeply passionate about. “It was amazing. The thrill, the rush from seeing them writhe around, and then finally die. I loved it.”

She paused, then continued. “Then when I was twenty, in university, I killed my first person. He was this homeless teenager. Couldn’t have been older than fifteen. Told him I’d pay him four hundred dollars if he went on a date with me, you know, that kind of thing.” Her voice went quiet at this point as she stared into space, reminiscing. “He was so terrified as I held the knife over his head. He kept begging me to let him go, how he’d never tell the police, how he had a mom and two sisters who he had been wanting to go home to, to make a fresh start with, if I’d just please let him go.” She paused. “It didn’t take me long to get his blood mopped up off my floor, and no one ever came looking for him.” She said this part matter-of-factly, as if she were discussing the weather.

She looked up at me, her eyes widening and her voice inflected with a pleading tone. “Please, Nate, understand, I never meant to hurt you. I didn’t know how to tell you? How could I!?” She started crying again as she spoke. “Please…please, please don’t leave. I’m begging you, I love you. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Please stay.”

I didn’t know what to think. How could I? How could anyone deal with learning this about the woman they loved? I…God, I still loved her, but what was down in that basement…everything she’d done. I felt like I wanted to throw up. Like I wanted to break down sobbing. On the one hand, all those people, and on the other, the woman I would die for, and then those two things, mixed together in some sick mess.

I told her I needed to think about it all, and I went home. For a week, I didn’t leave my place. And I slept. And I cried. And I hurt.

I thought long and hard. Long and hard. I remembered all the beautiful time we’d spent together, how beautiful she was - inside and out. But most of all, I missed her. I missed her so damned much. I couldn’t stop thinking about her. And no matter what, even considering all that she’d done, I couldn’t let her go. I just couldn’t. What can I say? Love conquers all.

I went to her place the day after I realized that. She opened the door and just stared at me, with this fearful look on her face, not knowing what to say.

“I love you, Jessica Norwich. I love you so, so much, and no matter what happens, we’ll work it out.” I basically let out the words in one big burst. She stood there for a second, taking it all in, then her face lit up and we embraced in a tight hug.

So, it’s a month later, and things are going pretty well. We spend all our time together, and then she has her alone time to go do her thing. And, let me tell you, every night when I go over to her place, when she’s taken care of her business, she is so energetic and so totally joyful. I think we’re gonna be alright.

Basically, that’s it. She did bring darkness into my life, but we worked past it. All I can say is this: if you find someone you love, and they love you back, it’ll work out. True love always wins out in the end.

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