May Exclusive - "Hum" - Part 1 (Patreon)

Mesa, Arizona

11:15 AM

98 degrees

Wake me up inside (save me)
Call my name and save me from the dark (wake me up)

It’s almost normal. It’s almost like before. Except, in actual fact, it’s barely the same at all. It must be the music that helps, Pop2K on Sirius, playing an Evanescence song that Bella has always loved.

Yeah, maybe it’s the music.

Charlie drives down South Westwood and sees the people playing pickleball. Seems like everyone but Charlie plays pickleball these days.

Of course, Charlie’s been busy. Right now, he’s really busy, driving quickly but not recklessly to the ER.

“Charlie?”

He checks the rearview, locks eyes with his passenger. “Yeah, honey?”

His girlfriend pouts. “Why I havta sit in the back?”

“Because you’re…” Charlie doesn’t have a good answer for that. He hadn’t expected the question. Little kids sit in the rear of the car, after all. And Bella thinks she’s a little kid.

Except, maybe not, if she’s going to whine about it. Or just maybe not as much.

They get onto Highway 60 and Charlie picks up the pace.

“Where are we going?” asks Bella. Banks the Squishmallow badger is lying discarded beside her. As if it doesn’t even belong to her. As if it wasn’t the biggest of deals, leaving the creep’s house, for Bella to take Banks as her ride-along stuffy.

We’re going for ice-cream, Charlie had told her back at the creep’s place. feeling just a little like a kidnapper. We’ll get enough for everyone. What flavor shall we get?

Bella had been easily, childishly persuaded. Chocolate. Daddy likes chocolate the best.

Daddy.

She had bounced lightly on the balls of her feet when she had said it. She had looked at Charlie with such an innocent, trusting expression, in that ridiculous outfit, Charlie had felt his hands bunch into fists, because he would like more than anything to beat the hell out of the guy who had taken his girlfriend, who had broken this independent woman and…

“Where are we going?” Bella asks again. A little less curious now, a little more concerned. She’s looking out the window as they get onto Stapley.

To the hospital. To fix your brain. Because a maniac took you, drugged you or hypnotized you or God knows did what to you, leaving you with the mind of a young child.

No. They can have that conversation later.

“Ice-cream, remember?”

Bella scrunches up her face. “But…I’m not s’posed ta…”

Charlie stops at the red light, waits his turn to make a left on Southern. His palms are sweating despite the blast of the Silverado’s AC on his knuckles. Bella is understanding that they’re not actually going for ice-cream. That a guy who pulls up outside your house and says he’s here to fix the leaky faucet, he’s not someone who should then ask you into his car. To go for a ride.

There will be more explaining to do, and Charlie’s foot is a little heavier on the gas, because he wants to just get to the ER and the doctors can fix his girlfriend.

That remains the plan, until Bella groans and says, not with panic but bewilderment, “Charlie, what am I wearing?”

Ah yes. The dress. Soft, pink knit, with bright appliqued flowers. The Peter Pan collar, the matching pink sandals, and then the over-sized bow in her hair. Not may twenty-five-year-olds can pull off a look like that, and pretty as Bella is, neither can she.

But Charlie had said, once he had seen her alone in the front yard of the creep’s house, once he had clocked that this was a perfect – maybe the only – chance to get Bella back – “What a pretty dress! You look adorable! We should go to Baskin Robbins and you can show it off.”

Breathe into me and make me real
Bring (bring) me (me) to life

“I look silly,” Bella complains. She whispers, “I look like a baby.”

“No, you don’t,” replies Charlie, although it’s the mentally confused woman (again, Charlie wonders, how the creep did this, imagining a dripping hypodermic and then a swinging gold watch) who has a better take on the outfit.

“Gonna be okay,” Charlie adds, which might be true, and might well be false.

He had felt, ridiculously, like one of those sex predators on Nightline or 20/20, trying to lure Bella into his car. Which wasn’t fair, because Bella’s a grown-up, even if she wasn’t dressed or acting like one. Bella’s been his girlfriend for two years. And besides, didn’t it say something, that she trusted him enough to do it? That part of Bella still remembered her boyfriend. Surely, it did.

“Almost there,” Charlie says. And he starts to consider what exactly he will say when they arrive at the ER. What exactly will he write on the intake form?

And as if Bella was reading his mind – My girlfriend thinks she’s a four-year-old – Bella cries out. When Charlie looks back, he sees that she must have caught her reflection in the mirror. She puts fingers to her hair. Shorter length, new color, Bella sports a blonde pageboy these days. Her mouth, in a face free from make-up, is a perfect ‘o’.

On the radio, the chorus crashes in. And Charlie wonders, is this all it takes? Just a song, to wake her up. He twists the volume dial to the right and Bella’s eyes wide to match her open mouth.

Wake me up inside (save me)
Call my name and save me from the dark (wake me up)

“Charlie?” Bella says. “What’s…” She reaches forward, grips the side of his seat. She shakes her head, threatening the shiny hairbow. “What happened, Charlie?”

“Do you remember?” he asks urgently.

“I’m…I’m not…” She blinks and shakes her head again. “There was a guy…” And now she looks horrified.

“It’s okay,” Charlie says. He wants to reach back, to hold her in his arms.

Bella folds her arms across her chest. “You found me,” she says quietly, almost inaudible over the music.

“I did,” replies Charlie. “I’ve been looking ever since you disappeared.” He looks in the rear-view, and his expression is fierce as he tries not to cry. “Wasn’t ever gonna give up, baby.”

Bella nods. She manages a smile. And then she grimaces. “He’ll be looking for me.”

Daddy.

They can’t go home. There’s no way they’re going back to the apartment. The creep will already know Bella is missing, and while he’s hardly about to call the cops, he must know Bella’s address.

But he thinks of the hospital, of all the questions.

And what if it just takes a song, a song or two, to break the hold that was put on Bella? Does she really need more trauma right now, doctors poking at her?

Before I come undone (save me)
Save me from the nothing I've become

Christ, maybe it just takes a song.

He lowers the volume, so he can think himself, so he can adjust the plan. They approach the hospital and Charlie makes a decision.

They drive past, and the Silverado makes it way back onto 60.

“We can’t go home,” says Bella.

Charlie nods. “Hotel,” he says. “We’ll hide out, until you’re feeling better. Until you’re clear.” And then Charlie will go to the cops. Or perhaps he won’t bother with cops. Maybe he’ll take care of the creep by himself.

“Hotel,” Bella echoes. She nods approvingly. She retrieves the Squishmallow, squeezes the blue and white striped plush to her chest, and she sighs, sounding relieved.

The radio station plays a sting and then Evanescence is replaced by Kelly Clarkson.

A little less serious. A lot perkier. And Charlie can agree that his life would indeed suck without Bella.

He smiles into the mirror. “Gonna be okay,” he says. He taps the steering wheel. “We got this.”

Bella nods. She hums along to the tune. And then she raises her eyebrows. “Is there a pool?”

Charlie starts to shrug because who cares if there’s a goddamn pool?  But whatever Bella has been through, if she wants a pool, she’s going to get one. “Big pool,” he confirms.

Bella’s face lights up. “Cool!” she says, and there’s something in her tone that makes Charlie look back at her.

Something in her eyes, too. Something in the way she’s holding her stuffy.

“You okay, baby?” asks Charlie.

Bella nods. “I’m a good swimmer,” she says. She pats the badger’s blue and white head. “Banks isn’t gonna swim, he doesn’t wanna get wet.”

And Charlie knows that this is far from over.

To be continued...