The Chosen

She simply got into her car and drove away.

— | — | —

^{CHAPTER FOUR}

Sunlight blared in her slitted eyes. Vera awoke shivering in the back of the parking lot at Mr. Donut. She’d slept in the car all night, in the bitter cold. Her lips felt like pieces of coral, her fingernails were blue. Frigid air circulated through the car: she’d left the motor running, to keep on the heat, but had run out of gas.

She stared into the sky.

No, she thought.

Several cars crawled by to the drive-in window. Faces peered at her. The sunlight felt like a mainline of memory, rekindling to her brain the disgusting scene she’d witnessed last night on her own bed.

No. No. No.

But it was no dream. It was all true, she knew it was. She could deny it forever and it would still be there. How many times had Paul promised his fidelity to her? How many times had he said I love you? None of that mattered now. Lies never mattered, did they? All his love, all that he’d said to her and promised her, was a lie. This truth terrified her: how you could love someone, live with someone that long, and then in a single, jagged moment realize that you never ever really knew that person at all?

Tears had dried to crust on her face. She leaned up.

How long had Paul been living this demented double life behind her back?

My God, she fully realized now. She brought her nearly frozen hands to her face, staring. How long had he been doing those things?

Drugs. Bondage. Transexuality.

He hadn’t even been using condoms, nor had that hideous redheaded she-male. Double life aside, how could Paul have been so thoughtless as to engage in such practices, with such people, and not even consider the risk to Vera’s health?

“Ma’am?”

Tap-tap-tap-tap.

“Ma’am?”

A face hovered in the glass—a city cop. It seemed to warp before her in the curved glass. He tapped his nightstick against the window incessantly as a bamboo drum.

“Are you all right?”

Vera got out of the car. She could imagine how she looked, nearly blue-lipped, shivering, and eyeliner streaked down her face. “I’m fine,” she said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes!”

She began to stomp away, toward West Street, her heels rapidly clicking against asphalt.

“Wait up, miss. You sure you’re—”

“Yes!” she almost screamed at him. “Is it against the law to run out of gas in a fucking donut-store parking lot!”

She hurried off, leaving the cop to scowl. She didn’t even know where she was going. Where could she go? She couldn’t go home. I don’t have a home, she said to herself. She couldn’t even fathom returning to that apartment. A glance to her watch showed her the time: 10