Chapter fourteen:

 

 

I reach up to the windowsill, thankful that there’s a light on inside the house because it’s black as hell down here, the darkness only punctuated by the crack of lightning every once in a while.

I can hear music—a low steady beat, something soothing with bass, coming from inside. I don’t know what it is, but what I can hear makes me smile. I think on all the new things that she’ll show me and teach me.

She was always my teacher and I was the learner.

She was daring where I wasn’t, but she never minded; she always encouraged me to tag along with her and never made me feel like a baby. I was always a man in her eyes. Older and wiser, yet inexperienced when it came to everything Carrie.

I watch through the window for several minutes, hoping that she’s going to go past any minute now so I can be certain that this is her house. But she doesn’t go past the window, and I’m getting colder and wetter standing outside here. And I don’t like to be cold and wet. That’s all I seem to be this week. Cold and wet.

I hear water flowing down the pipe next to me and I look up, the rain splashing in my eyes, and I see a light on in a top window.

It must be the bathroom. She’s having a shower, or a bath. She wants to wash Mr. Fancy Asshole off her body.

I smile. Good girl.

I push on the window and it begins to slide up, so I start to climb inside and shake my head as I do this and think, You should lock that, Carrie. You need to be more careful because you never know who will try to come in through your windows.’

I notice this window is dirty as I slide through it on my hands and knees, not clean like the ones at the front of the house, which I think is strange. And then I fall onto the floor. Damn, I would make a terrible thief.

I stand up and knock into the side table next to me. A small vase of flowers topples over and rolls toward the edge. I catch it before it falls and smashes. I stand the vase back up, feeling the petals of the small peonies and realizing that they are fake.

Oh, Carrie. Fake flowers? Really? This isn’t like you at all.

I shake my head.

I do not smile.

I don’t like sneaking around in her house, even if it does give me a glimpse into her more private life. But it needs to be done and I’m certain that there will be a photo or something of her somewhere, and I’ll be out of here before she even knows I’ve been in.

I can hear the music better now, and it’s not as nice as I first thought, actually. I frown as I let the music wash over me. It’s too fast, the beat too hard; the singer is singing about how love will break you down and crush you. I shake my head again because this is all wrong.

I realize that I must have tainted her view on men. Broken her trust somehow and now she doesn’t know how to love.

She doesn’t understand it.

Probably thinks she doesn’t deserve it.

You do, I want to scream.

I’m in a strange room. It’s not a dining room, or a front room. It’s neither one or the other. There are books and a desk and shelving, and an old rusted bike leaning against the wall. There is mess and clutter, and dust as I run my finger along the top of the shelves. I tut; this is no good, no good at all.

Carrie, I want to say, you’re turning into your mother. You’ll end up with lice like you had as a little kid if you keep on like this. I turn around and walk to the door, knowing that I can still save her because at least most of her damned windows were clean.

It’s not all hopeless yet.

I open the door and go into the hall.

The flooring is dark wood—mahogany, I think. It’s polished but dirty. The walls are painted a burgundy, with mahogany wall panels on the lower half. It makes the space seem too small and too cramped. I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all. It makes me feel closed in and breathless. I thought she would have better taste. I thought she would have had more style. I thought the walls would be light and cream colored, with small floral prints to show off her delicate feminine side.

There’s a large mirror on the wall, but no photos anywhere.

Who are you hiding from? I think.

Yourself? I wonder.

I catch sight of myself as I pass the mirror and I shake my head. Small droplets of rainwater fall from my hair and sprinkle onto the floor. I tut and try to rearrange my hair. I run my hands down my face to get rid of the excess moisture. I look a mess, and I’m still cold. My sneakers are muddy, my clothes are soaked through. I shiver at the coldness pressing against my skin.

This isn’t good. This isn’t good at all.

A photo. I need to find a photo.

I hear her singing upstairs, her soft voice dancing down to me.

Is this proof enough? I wonder. I’d know her voice anywhere, wouldn’t I? Yet I know it’s not enough. I need to see her. I need to be certain. I need to be positive.

I know all too well what can happen when mistakes are made.

I hear the shower shut off, and the bathroom door opens. I look up and see her shadow dancing across the landing. I take the first step up.

Just a peep, I think.

I take another step up. She’s singing to herself, a song I don’t know. This is better than the music downstairs. It’s soothing and less angry. Her voice calms me. I hear her footsteps moving around her bedroom. I hear her laugh and the click of something, and I’m so curious I can’t stop myself from taking another step upwards.

I smile along with her laugh, excited by the wonder that is Carrie. I wonder what new thing she is doing as I hear another click and I hear another giggle.

A giggle, not a laugh. A giggle. Like she’s a child again, before all the bad stuff happened, when she knew how to smile and laugh and have fun. Fun that wasn’t getting drunk or making me touch her. Innocent fun like playing in the dirt and chopping worms in half.

Did you know if you chop a worm in half—wait, I think I already told you that.

When I’m almost at the top of the stairs, my sneakers slip because they’re wet.

Stupid rain.

They make a squeak sound.

Stupid sneakers.

She stops giggling.

Stupid world.

She comes to the doorway of her bedroom.

“Hello?” she says.

She’s naked, I see.

“Adam, is that you?” Her mouth pulls up into a smile, and she puts one hand on her hip.

Her body is beautiful.

I mean really fucking beautiful.

She was right; her breasts hadn’t finished growing, and neither had the rest of her.

She’s a goddess in my eyes. Her hips are perfect, her breasts full grown. Her stomach is flat and toned and her skin is golden, not gray like the prostitute upstairs in my apartment building.

“Adam?” she says his name again. Not my name because she hasn’t seen me yet. But I can’t wait to hear her say my name. For the letters to spill from her beautiful, seductive mouth. She’ll call my name as I fuck her. As I brand her insides with my cock. She’ll scream Ethan over and over as we come together in a tangle of sweat and limbs.

But I should go now. This isn’t the way it should be. I know it’s her now, so I should go before she does see me. Yet I can’t. I can’t seem to look away. She’s Medusa. She’s an angel. She’s a witch and I’m under her spell.

She’s mesmerizing.

She’s fascinating.

She’s beguiling.

And I can’t look away.

Carrie swallows and her eyes grow wary. She’s still naked, and wet. Water from her shower trails between her breasts and over her pert, pink nipples. Nipples I want to suck on and bite. The water trails down over her golden skin and pools into her belly button. It drips between her thighs, to the warm spot that I know is right there at the top.

I bet she tastes like candy, I think. Sweet and juicy.

I’m touching myself; my hand shoved down my pants as I slowly tug on my cock, and…No, no this is wrong. I can’t do that here, now. I need to go.

But I can’t move because she’ll see me.

I can’t go back.

No one can ever go back.

That’s what my counselor-slash-therapist-slash-Mr. Fucking Jeffrey-slash-know-it-all always says. You can’t go back, you can only go forward. What has been has been. Let the future be your beginning.

So I do.

I let the future be my beginning.

I take another step up, and I stop hiding in the shadows. This isn’t how it was supposed to go down, but I guess it doesn’t really matter. I guess all that matters is that we’re together now.

I smile as I stand. As I take another step upwards.

She doesn’t smile.

Her eyes grow wide. Her jaw opens and hangs there without words coming out. That’s not very attractive, I think, but don’t say. Because of course—manners.

Her hair is wet. It looks darker when it’s wet. Just like I remember. It hangs over her left shoulder, partially hiding one breast because her hair is so long.

Do you remember when your mom cut all your hair off? I want to say. But look at it now. Look how long and beautiful it is.

“How did you find me?” Carrie says. Her cell is in her hand, it’s flashing and playing music, but she doesn’t seem to realize.

And I think that’s not a very nice way to greet someone that you haven’t seen in so many years. But then I realize she doesn’t know all the things I’ve done to find her. She doesn’t know I was outside all day in the cold. Or that I had to pay so much money for a cab ride to follow Mr. Fancy Asshole here. Or that my sneakers are ruined because she didn’t put gravel down by the side of her house and instead let the mud and weeds grow seeping up the side of her home, strangling it, strangling her, and us and me. Her manners aren’t perfect, but I can forgive her that. It must be a shock to see me here, in her home. A surprise. A good one though, no doubt.

So I say, “Hi.”

She swallows again. “How did you get in here?”

And again, that’s quite rude to ask. She could at least say hi, but oh well. “Your window wasn’t locked,” I say. “You should lock it in future because it’s not safe. Anyone could have broken in.”

I smile again. My best smile. The one that my mom used to like. The one that normally makes women look at me differently. But Carrie doesn’t look impressed, and I know it’s because I don’t have her favorite flowers and I didn’t bring expensive wine, and of course because I’m soaked through and my hair doesn’t look nice.

“I’m sorry,” I say, hoping to appease her in some way.

She looks frightened. Her golden skin looks more like the prostitute’s now; gray and dead, like all the color has been washed out of it. Bumps have formed across her naked skin and I want to touch it, to rub away the goosebumps. The shivers of cold that have hardened her nipples.

“Are you cold?”

“What?” she says.

And even that sounds rude. The polite thing would be to say “pardon?” or “excuse me?” but she doesn’t say those things. She just says “what,” like a common whore would say.

“You’re naked, and wet,” I say. “Aren’t you cold?”

She looks down, as if she forgot that she was naked, and when she looks back up her eyes are even wider and she looks even more frightened. And I want to tell her that everything is going to be okay, and she doesn’t need to be frightened. Not even of me. Not ever.

But I don’t get time to say any of those things because she turns and runs into her bedroom screaming. She drops her cell as she runs and it skids across the landing.

Ain’t that always the way? I think with a frown.