To What Ends Revised [American Sweetheart snippet]

What had been twenty-three years to him? What had made him decide to reach out after all this time to message her, offering his time? She didn’t know.

Julie, I know we agreed to never see each other again, but I hope you’re doing alright. If you want to talk I’m here.

The words were concrete, hard to discern anything heinous from and sounded so foreign to her ears that she could hardly believe she hadn’t seen him in so long. She had left that night. She remembered that well enough.

‘Enjoy her. I left like promised. -Jules’ was scribbled on the small cut of paper. The edges shorn off messily and she had crumpled up a number of other notes, ones she had scribbled out, torn up and discarded in the trash.

‘Would it be ironic if I said I cared about you?’ the previous one had said. Torn to small pieces.

‘Do you hate me? I want to stay, but I said I’d go.’ The one before that read. Also torn to shreds in the trash.

‘I love you. I’m sorry I was terrible. I’d never ask you to forgive me.’ She had lit that one on fire over the stove. What a confession.

Her heart was racing, her hair was messily strewn about as she pushed it back out of her face, racking her brain, trying to understand what she felt. Why she felt this way and why it was all so terrible and terrifying all at once. She had done unspeakable acts! Terrible things to this man. This man whom she so deemed to barely call Dean, and had birthed his daughter out of her own sheer stupidity and momentary wanton. Sure, she had laid with men left and right spottily throughout time, then after a time she had staved off from any sexual interactions for long droughts, disgusted at the prospect of anyone touching her.

Then there was him. The smooth deep brown eyes, the rugged stubble over his strong jaw and messy mop of brown hair that cast shadows over his high cheekbones and well-sculpted face. Her heart ached at how naïve and stupid she had to have swooned over a man’s looks. Men were more than that. There had been paler ones, less tanned and more refined. Sharper. Maybe even wittier… or was that the cunning? She didn’t remember, but many moons ago she had sunk into the deep lust and allure of love, the type of love that she later realized Vincent professed to her sister when she was smart enough to remember it.

“Fucking fool,” she chastised herself. “You’re a fucking idiot!” Julie cursed herself silently, gritting her teeth. She had removed her card, her wallet and phone and placed them neatly on the counter. She wouldn’t be needing them. He would. Her stomach was in shambles, she was leaving without much of anything except her second card and ID. She stared at it, her eyes mulling over it. What if she lost it? No. She’d change her address. The paperwork was in order. The card she was leaving was set to be cleared out. A check would be mailed, made out to him here and soon enough when she was gone.

Her hands were working over the white leather wallet and she was suddenly so disgusted with herself, over her material possessions and everything she had that she found herself dumping it in the trash. The card remained in hand. She had a pair of cheap boots in mind for the journey. She imagined heeled kickers weren’t going to do well if she had to walk anymore and she was staring down at her white leather boots and suddenly she hated the reminder. She hated white. She hated how it reminded her of how unclean she was, how dirty her hands were and how much of a piece of shit she’d been for all too long.

Julianna looked up, startled at the sound of the waking baby. The baby she hadn’t named. The baby she wouldn’t name–

Flooding back to reality, she blinked, staring down at the bound journal. What was she doing here? Making excuses? Making up something. She’d been scribbling in the damn things for a few weeks, but it was hardly full. No, it was more just pieced together bullshit history on her family, pieces of her own experiences with maturing, and a few ’I’m sorry’s awkwardly placed around things she didn’t know. A couple entries about her thoughts here and there… Things she didn’t understand and worst of all, the family reputation that she had now added more red marks too. Great. Fan-fucking-tastic! Mother of the century! She could almost sarcastically clap at herself, feeling more than embarrassed that she was standing in front of his very door. The door she had looked up through Red Pages, the door she had meticulously double-checked and verified with a little compulsion at the local records office to procure. “I’m either doing this, or I’m not,” Julie muttered before she tucked the worn journal under her arm and rang the doorbell. She was rocking back on her heels, if you could even call them that, the worn and warped souls of her ragged sand-colored boots revealing just how much she’d cast aside her appearances.

She was wearing her white hair back in a low ponytail, sporting a comfortable but midriff and skin-tight cream t-shirt neatly tucked under a sky blue denim jacket and slimming, yet thick baby blue skinny jeans that she had tucked into the top of her ankle-high boots. The flaps of the ankle highs were peeled down, like the lapels of a dress shirt, and then tied tightly as if it was a fashion statement more than utility, but with how raggedy they were, that point could easily be disproven. “Fuck, he’s not answering.” Julie cursed herself. “Dammit. I knew I shouldn’t have come here.” She was putting her hands to her head, then knocking before pacing the door. After a moment, she crouched down, her back to the door as she grabbed her head, feeling like she was going to twist in on herself if she had to deal with the gut-wrenching anxiety any further. Leave! Just leave! What are you even doing back here in Washington? Don’t you have any sense? Her mind screamed at her. He doesn’t want you! Nobody wants you! She cringed at her own internal thoughts. Nobody wanted her. That’s right. Who in their right mind would ever want a Caecilian, cannibalistic nightmare of a woman like her? Certainly not the man I tortured.