The Many Faces of Tully

“Shark tooth necklace was Jack’s, my first boyfriend. The first person I killed. He gave it to me when we were making out on my bed. I tried to refuse it. It was the last thing his dad had given him. I kept it. That was in Maine, when I was sixteen,” I tell him.

“I thought so. I noticed you touched it whenever you talked about it,” he admits. He is hanging on to my every word.

“The diamond earring was my second boyfriend’s. Carl was his name, and I was in Vermont then. I was seventeen and we got in a fight over something so stupid. I don’t really remember what it was. I think I smiled at a guy or something stupid like that. He started yelling at me. I started yelling back. I got so angry that I exploded. I took the earring to remember him by. I wanted to remember everyone that I hurt,” I admit, taking a large drink of my beer. Jace copies.

I touch my belly button ring then. “It was the day before my nineteenth birthday when I got the belly button ring. I got my belly pierced on my birthday so I could wear it. It belonged to a woman who pulled my hair. I was very beautiful that time, like super model material. I won the beauty contest I was entered in, and when we got off stage the runner up got pissed and attacked. I killed nine girls that time. I didn’t have the racing heart or anything. It just happened. I was protecting myself. Pennsylvania.

“Ouroboros snakes.” I hold up my wrists. My watch slides down my arm. Jace’s eyes follow it instead of looking at my tattoos. I suppress a shiver. “I got them in Ohio.”

“From the time you morphed into a snake?” he asks me. I nod. “How did that happen?”

“I was working in a normal office. I had befriended this guy and his wife thought he was having an affair with me. She came to confront me about it. She had dyed pink hair, piercings everywhere, tattoos everywhere, the whole nine yards. I noticed the ouroboros snake tattooed around her neck, and then she licked her lips and her tongue was split like a snakes.

“My heart was pounding, and I thought the word, 'snakes' and then everything started turning into a snake. All of the office utensils and all of the wires. It was creepy. And then my arms snapped to my sides and my legs snapped together. I started lengthening and curling around. It felt exactly how you would expect it to feel if you suddenly turned into a snake.

“I woke up in the office with snakes all over me. I injected my venom right into her neck. I didn’t change appearance like I normally do that time. My skin shed, just like a snake’s. It was creepy. Two years later and I met you guys,” I say. His eyes are wide with surprise as he stares at me.

“Is that the only time you’ve morphed?” he questions.

I drop my gaze. “No. I did it again today…” I admit.

“Into a snake again?” His eyebrows pull together. I shake my head. I lift up my arm and pull off the bandage to show him my tattoo. “A panther?” he gasps.

“Yeah,” I admit. His eyes are full of questions, so I tell him the story of what happened.

He grabs my hand and looks at the ring when I mention it. He examines it for a moment. I have no idea why he’s doing this.

After I finish telling him the story he just sits there and stares at me. I’m afraid he’ll notice I skipped one. Of course he’ll notice. He’s too smart. He sees too much. I can’t hide from him. He sees through me.

“You’ve told me before that you killed thirteen people. Plus the two more this afternoon, so that means fifteen. If my calculations are correct, which they are, you’ve only told me about fourteen of them. And I’m willing to bet my life that the missing one has to do with that watch. And, I also assume it’s the worst one that you refused to tell us about.” His eyes are cutting right through me, seeing everything.

“Eighteen and a half. Rhode Island. I’d been with him for a little over a year. We met at Ms. Anna’s Waffle House. We made the waffle sandwiches together all the time. That’s why I freaked out this morning. That was our routine. You did our routine, and I didn’t even realize-” My voice breaks. I take a deep breath. I let it out slowly, blinking away tears. I continue, staring at the table instead of Jace.

“We had been together for more than a year. I had lived with him for about eleven months. It was the best I felt since I was sixteen. He made me feel like I wasn’t a bad person. He made me feel like I could be good and not kill everyone I got close to. I loved him. And I was going to tell him that. I was going to tell him that I loved him, but I got too nervous. I couldn’t stop it.” I can’t hold back the tears anymore.

“I recognized the signs, but I couldn’t control it. I couldn’t hold it back. I tried. I tried so hard.” I sob slightly. I am going to cause a scene. “After it went silent, I held my breath. I thought if I held my breath for long enough, it wouldn’t happen. But I knew it was going to.” I look up at Jace. His eyes aren’t sharp, or excited with new information like I expected them to. They are sympathetic. He reaches forward and touches my hand.

“I killed the first man I loved,” I tell him. “He didn’t even know that I loved him. I killed someone so good, and pure. He treated me like a princess, and I repay him by killing him.” I’m not sobbing any more. Funny how talking about it is actually helping me. “Killing him is what truly makes me a monster. I will never be able to redeem myself. I will never be able to do enough good to this world to erase the evil I did to him.”

“What was his name?” Jace asks. Of course he would ask that. The one question I can’t answer. I shake my head.

“I can’t say it. I just can’t. It hurts too much.” I reach for my watch, his watch. I unclasp it and slide it off. I flip it around and put it in Jace’s hand so he can see the back of it.

Peter Green is carved neatly on the back of the watch. My heart squeezes painfully when I see his name. I sigh.

“Pe-”

“Don’t,” I cut him off. “Don’t say it, please.” I take the watch back from him and slip it back on. Pressure releases from my chest as soon as it’s clasped back on. It’s my anchor. It’s my life preserver. I need it.