Age Fourteen
Edie pulled the fat roll of packing tape across the top of a box.
Sweat dotted her temples and rolled down the column of her neck.
Nausea swelled.
A rush of dizziness swirled, and her hand shot out to hold herself up on the box to keep herself from swaying. She dropped her head and fought the bile that worked its way up her throat. She fought hardest against the awareness that hovered just out of reach.
Floating around her conscious and teasing at the periphery.
Six weeks ago, she’d come home from that party and forced herself into a scalding hot shower. She’d scrubbed herself until her skin was raw and red. Until she could no longer smell the sickening smell, the foul stench made up of sex and man and her own stupidity.
She’d stepped from the shower, a towel wrapped around her shivering body, and looked at her haunted reflection in the mirror.
She’d felt so stupid and naïve. Used and dirty.
Never again.
Standing there, she’d promised herself it would never happen again. She’d never allow another man to use her that way. No man’s touch would ever again be unwanted or fill her with fear and dread.
She’d promised herself a lesson learned, but an act forgotten.
One mistake.
One she was leaving in the past.
Now beads of sweat gathered like sickness and slicked her flesh.
Nausea swam.
She flew to her feet and slid onto her knees on the bathroom floor a second before she purged her despair into the toilet.
“No. No. No.” She clung to the seat and begged the prayer. “Please, no.”
On trembling feet, Edie exited the city bus. She stepped down into the neighborhood she’d never wanted to return to. The bus accelerated. She held her breath as a thick plume of black diesel fumes spun through the hot, stagnant air.
Butterflies tumbled in her belly.
But not the good kind.
These flapped and whipped and scattered in fear, and she swallowed hard, her hands in fists, balled up as she hugged her arms across her chest and forced herself to move in the direction of the house she’d snuck out of eight weeks before in the middle of the night.
She had no other options or choices but to come here.
You don’t have to be afraid. You can do this. You can do this.
It left her mouth on a whispered chant as she followed the street signs, heading north, deeper into a worn down neighborhood where the houses were dilapidated, as seedy as they were shoddy.
Someone honked as they flew by, obscenities cast into the air, and she cringed, shoulders drawn to her ears as if it could protect her from the unfound fate lurking in the distance.
She sucked a bolstering breath into her lungs when she stood at the gate of the house.
It looked so different in the day than it had that night when it’d been little more than a blur.
A short chain-link fence blocked off the property.
Within, a tiny weathered house was hidden in a mess of overgrown trees and shrubs. Garbage littered the unkempt yard, and a broken-down car sat in front with the hood removed, deteriorating off to the side.
You can do this.
She repeated the pep talk, really having no clue what she was truly doing or what result she was hoping for.
A ball of dread spun up her already unsettled stomach as she thought of who was waiting inside.
But she’d done this, and she needed help. She had nowhere else to turn.
So she marched up the walk, didn’t slow or pause before she pounded on the door.
That sudden burst of courage withered when the door jerked open.
He stood there with a salacious smirk lifting at one side of his mouth, shoulder leaned up on the jamb. “Well, well, well. Looks like someone’s back for more. Wasn’t so bad after all?”
She shook, twisted her fingers into knots. “No…that’s not…”
That smirk curled into a sneer. “Then what the fuck are you doing here? We had an agreement. I told your brother you were sick and you skated off without him ever having to know what a hot little slut you are. No harm. No foul. Now it’s on you to keep your end of the deal.”
No harm, no foul?
Her world tilted with all the foul.
“I need your help.”
Mocking laughter rumbled from his mouth. “How’s that?”
“I’m pregnant.”
He froze, before he shook his head. “And what’s that got to do with me?”
Her frown was unconscious, tight on her brow as she tried to process what he was implying. “I…we…”
His laughter went hard. “Little whores like you…always playing the same damned game. Pretending we got you in trouble to drain us of a dollar or two. Don’t think you’re the first one who’s come knocking at my door. How many other guys did you hit up?”
“Other guys?” Her head shook. “There was only you.”
He huffed toward the sky. “Right.”
“I swear to you.” It came out a pleading cry. “Please, I need you to help me.”
Disgust shook his head, and he swore beneath his breath, left the door open wide while he disappeared inside.
Her guts coiled too tight as she waited, apprehension lifting when he reappeared.
He grabbed her by the wrist, squeezed open her hand, forced a wadded-up ball of money into her palm.
“Three hundred dollars. Three hundred dollars more than you’re worth. But hey, sometimes you have to pay the bitch.”
Confusion clouded everything as the door was slammed in her face.
Edie lifted her hand, staring down at the payoff.
Three hundred dollars.
God.
She shook her head, fighting more of the tears she’d been fighting for days.
She was so stupid. It was only then she finally caught onto what he thought she wanted.
She squeezed her eyes, like it might block it out.
Then, just like the naïve little girl she knew she was, she turned and ran.
Rain pelted at the window, big fat drops that gathered and streaked in thick rivers down the pane. Edie stared out of it, at the green landscape of her new Ohio home, her hand on her belly that had barely begun to show.
Her secret.
Her life.
A tender smile threatened at her mouth, all wound up with the fear.
Fear of being completely out of control.
Fear of the future.
Fear of fate.
She knew it would come. She was a fool to think it wouldn’t come sooner.
Her mother’s gasp had her jerking her attention to the side. Her mother reached out and clung to both sides of the jamb to keep from falling. “Edie…baby…what did you do?”
Her mom held her on the floor while Edie sobbed, rocking her like the child she was. “It’s okay, baby, it’s for the best. It’s for the best. You have your whole life ahead of you. You’ll thank me later. I promise, you’ll thank me later.”
“No, momma, no.”
Her mother pressed a kiss to her forehead. “It’s so hard to see the future, Edie. We don’t realize how big it is, stretched out in front of us, when all we can see is the here and now. But I can see yours. I always have. The dreams I’ve had for you. All the opportunities you can attain. The amazing things you can achieve. Who you can become.”
But Edie.
She saw images of the future unfolded out in front of her. Like snapshots of what could be.
Only these frames. These frames looked so different than what her mother could ever imagine.
Edie curled into the tightest ball. Night pressed down from all sides. Her knees were tucked around her round belly, as tight as she could get them, but not nearly as tight as her arms.
She kicked, and tears slid free. Overwhelming emotion swamped Edie.
Joy and sorrow. Joy and sorrow.
It slammed her from all sides. Tripping her from below and burying her from above.
She wasn’t supposed to love. Not like this. But she did. God, she did.
Edie wailed, her head pressed into the pillow. Her face lifted toward the ceiling as she released a tortured cry, her mother’s hand squeezing hers almost as fiercely as she squeezed back.
“You’ve got it, Edie. One more push. One more push and you’re all done.”
Done.
Edie didn’t want to be.
She wanted to hold on. Keep her where she could hold her. Where she could protect her and love her.
“No.” It was a scream, a raspy, broken weep, her head frantic as she shook it back and forth.
But there was nothing she could do, her instincts alive, and she bore down, her teeth gritted.
She pushed.
And everything went silent.
Her heart stopped as the entire world froze.
A tiny shattered cry.
A tiny perfect body.
Edie’s heart took off at a sprint.
Love. Love. Love.
It engulfed and immersed and overthrew.
Quickly, Edie pushed up to sitting, hands reaching. Desperate as she fumbled for the child. “Please,” she whimpered.
And she was there, placed in Edie’s arms, swaddled in a small white blanket, a blue and pink cap on her head.
Lips red.
Eyes swollen.
She blinked the bluest gray.
Edie’s mother looked down, and tears were soaking her face. “It’s time.”
Edie locked her against her chest. “No…I changed my mind. I changed my mind.”
Her mom shook her head. “Don’t do this, Edie. Please don’t make it harder than it already is.”
A nurse reached for her child, and Edie held her closer.
“No…no…I changed my mind.”
No one listened. Hands ripped her away.
Her mother’s voice was at her temple, a hand in her hair as if it might soothe and ease. “You’ll thank me later. I promise, baby, I promise. Soon you’ll forget.”
Edie watched as the door fell shut behind them, her breaths gasped and strangled, her hair matted and stuck to her face.
Every inch of her ached.
Torn open wide.
Edie screamed.
Screamed toward the heavens.
“Wait. Please, wait.”
And this hollow space.
It just echoed back.
Loss. Loss. Loss.
“No,” she wailed. “No.”
And Edie promised.
Promised she would never again be left without a choice. Promised no man would ever touch her again.
Edie forced herself to stand. To move. To leave the house.
Each footstep felt as if it required the greatest effort, and her next breath felt as if it might never come.
Days and weeks and months were spent trying to convince herself that it’d been the right choice. That she was safe and loved and cared for the way she should be.
Edie’s head knew it.
She just didn’t know how to convince her heart.
It just hurt so bad. A crippling anguish that never seemed to abate.
So she searched for her, in the face of every baby that passed, with every cry that echoed through the air, through the years that didn’t erase the emptiness or grief.
Edie shut herself off. Locked down her heart and spirit. Let herself grow stagnant and stale.
Because she couldn’t do it again. Couldn’t risk the loss of that kind of love.
Not ever again.
She trudged through the days and years and allowed herself to grieve at night.
The door creaked open, letting in a wedge of muted light. She tensed as footsteps echoed. She gasped in a startled breath when soothing fingertips gentled through her hair. “Shh…I’ve got you.”
And for the first time, fear didn’t come, and when he crawled into bed next to her, she didn’t feel so hollow.
The boy with eyes like hers.
Haunted.
Lost.
He wrapped her in his arms. Tender arms that shook and a body that trembled. She breathed out and pressed her head against his chest where his heart thundered against his ribs.
He lifted a dream catcher above them. “See. You don’t have to be afraid. This…it will hold all your dreams. They have no power over you. They can’t hurt you. Keep it with you always, and it’ll give you peace and safety.”
It was the first time Edie had felt it since she let her go.
Peace.