Chapter seventeen:

 

 

Carrie reaches down and grabs the blanket. She wraps it around her shoulders and covers herself. I’m grateful because I can think better when she isn’t naked.

I soften in my pants.

“Thank you,” she says. “You’re right, I was cold.” She smiles, and my world lights up with that smile.

Her face is different now.

Her eyes don’t look as scared.

Her cheeks are pink.

I smile at Carrie, and she smiles again.

“This is great,” I say.

And I think I want to cry because I’m so happy. But I don’t because I’d look like a pussy. But I want to because I knew it was all going to work out. With that smile, I knew it was going to be perfect.

“Yeah, it is,” she says. And she’s coming around the bed.

My gaze slips to the bed and I see that the covers are disturbed, and I know that she fucked Adam in that bed, and that’s bad and makes me feel a little nauseous.

“Can we go downstairs?” I say, forcing my gaze back to her and away from that bed.

I’m going to burn that fucking bed in the yard, I decide.

“Sure we can, Ethan. Can I get dressed first?” She giggles, like she did when I was coming up the stairs. Only it sounds a little different, but it’s probably nothing. It’s probably just because she’s embarrassed. And I would be too, if I were her.

“Yeah, yeah, of course.” I smile again, and she goes to the wardrobe. It’s a big old thing, and I notice that none of her furniture matches. Not even her curtains. One is red and the other is green. And I’m glad nothing matches. It means that she’s not a total snob. It means that the Carrie I love is still in there, and this big fancy fucking house is just a fake like I knew it was.

Just like Adam is a big fucking fake—only holding my place for me. Me. Not him, but me: Carrie’s true love.

I watch, because I can’t not watch. She slips into some jeans and grabs a black tee to pull over her head and cover her breasts. She doesn’t put any underwear on, and I can see her nipples through her top and I know the jeans will be right up her snatch, but I guess she’s just nervous and we do have a lot to talk about. So I don’t say anything even though I think it’s a slutty thing to do.

I go to the doorway and she follows me. I hold out my hand but I don’t think she sees it because she doesn’t take it. And that’s okay, I guess. I mean, it’s not really rude if you don’t realize, is it? I hold the door open for her. And I apologize about breaking it and I promise to get the door fixed for her. She says it’s okay and she doesn’t mind, and then she steps past me onto the landing.

It takes only a second for her to notice her cell on the landing floor and make a run for it. It’s on the other side of the landing, near the bathroom she came out of, and she drops to her knees to grab it. At first I’m startled because I don’t understand what she’s doing, and then I realize she was just fucking with me again and she probably wants to call Mr. Fancy Asshole Adam.

I’m so angry at her. And I don’t understand any of this because I know that I’ve done everything right. But none of that matters right now. All that matters is that I know I’m not going to let her make that call.

So I dive for the cell too. I land next to her, but my arm is longer and heavier than hers and my forearm hits the back of her head as I grab the cell.

Her face smashes into the floor like mine did on the way up. Only worse.

Hurts, doesn’t it? I think.

But I don’t say it to her because of course I’m not a total asshole. I bet Adam would have said that to her though, because he is an asshole.

I have the cell in my hand and I get to my knees, holding my prize in my hand, and I look down at Carrie and see she’s not moving.

“Carrie?” I say, and I reach down for her. My fingers touch the back of her head. They run through her damp hair and push it to one side so I can see her face. Her eyes are closed. Blood trickles from her mouth, like it did with mine, and then she startles me because her eyes open and she jumps upwards with a scream, pushing me off her, and she makes a run for the stairs.

My heart jumps in my chest and I call out “shit” because she scared me. And then I laugh and run after her, and think how hilarious she is. She always had a good sense of humor. She knew what things to say to mess with my head and make me smile in confusion.

What do you mean you like that other boy, Carrie? You’re so funny, always messing with me.

Sometimes her sense of humor was a little mean, but she never meant to hurt me. I could see the worry that flashed across her face when she did. And then she would hug me and say she was sorry, and I would laugh and say it’s okay.

I catch up to her on the fifth step down.

There are only eleven steps but I hear every painful thump as I grab her ankle and she falls down the other six. She lies at the bottom of the stairs, her arm bent out awkwardly. Blood dribbles from her mouth. Her eyes are closed again.

I come down the stairs slowly, and now I really want to cry, because I hadn’t meant to hurt her and it looks like that would have really hurt.

“Carrie?” I say, my voice really quiet. “Carrie, are you okay?”

She doesn’t answer me.

I get to the bottom of the stairs and I bend down. I can see she’s still breathing, and I’m all like thank fuck for that! And I want to laugh and cry and cheer, all at the same time. Because I thought maybe I’d killed her.

Or, not me, but she’d killed herself by running and falling.

I didn’t do that.

I only wanted to talk to her.

She was the one who ran and fell.

She groans when I try to move her. But I have to try and move her. I can’t leave her here like this. I pick her up and take her to the living room and I see a long gray sofa with floral cushions on it, and I think you really have no taste, Carrie. Because she doesn’t. I mean, she was fucking Mr. Fancy Asshole after all, right?

I lay her on the sofa, and then I close the drapes. These ones match, even if they are brown and cheap looking, not heavy and expensive like I thought they were from the outside.

I see what you’re doing, I think. Matching drapes downstairs to help with the pretense, but upstairs is where the real you comes out.

I use the tiebacks on the drapes—one to tie her ankles together and the other on her wrists. I go out of the room and rummage around in the kitchen drawers for some masking tape to cover her mouth.

I feel like the worst person ever doing this to her. But it’s only temporary while we sort out the kinks of this mess. Because that’s what it is: a mess.

It was not supposed to go like this.

She’s still out cold, but she’s breathing.

She has a bruise forming on her cheekbone, and dried blood on her forehead, but she’s okay. It’s all just superficial stuff.

We can heal from the superficial stuff; it’s the really deep stuff that makes us suffer. The things that slip between our bones and creep into our veins. You can’t get rid of that sort of pain. But this? These cuts and bruises are nothing.

She’ll be okay.

I’ll be okay.

We’ll be okay.

I say to myself. And I know I’m right, because my mom said that same thing to me the last time she saw me.

“I can’t come to see you anymore, Ethan, but it’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay. I know you’re a good boy deep down. Just don’t forget that. Don’t forget who you are and not what she made you,” Mom said, and then she cried and blew her nose really loudly.

I had cried then, and I had looked like a pussy in front of everyone. And I got beat up for it too. The guards did nothing to stop them either. Fuckers.

“Please,” I begged her between tears. “Please, Mom, don’t do this.”

She cried then too, and she looked away from me. “It’s for the best.”

“Dad?” I asked.

She nodded but didn’t answer.

Dad hadn’t come to see me since all of this had happened. He had died inside when I had been arrested. That’s what my mom had said when she first came to see me. I had destroyed him with my actions. I didn’t understand until she explained.

“When something is destroyed,” she explained, “it’s never the same again. You shattered our life, and it can’t ever be put back together the same. Do you see, Ethan?”

My mom was a beautiful woman. She hadn’t aged much over the years, but at that moment she looked a thousand years old. So I nodded that I understood, even though I didn’t.

“You’ve shattered our lives and I need to let you go so I can move on.” And then she cried really hard and had to get another tissue out. “I need to let you go, because I can’t do this anymore. I can’t come here and pretend it’s okay, because it’s not. One day I’d like to be happy again, and one of my new neighbors says that I’m not too old for that to happen.”

“When I get out, can I come and see you?” I asked, my chin trembling.

“No, Ethan. We can’t ever see each other again.”

“But you’re my mom,” I wailed, reaching for her, my hand skimming the top of hers.

“NO TOUCHING!” a nurse shouted across.

“Not anymore,” she replied.

“You are! You’ll always be my mom!” I screamed, and I grabbed her hand tightly.

She tried to pull it away, but I wouldn’t let go.

“You’ll always be my mom!”

“You’ll be okay, Ethan. I promise.”

“I SAID NO TOUCHING!” the nurse yelled as she stormed over to us. She yanked my hand out of my mom’s and then Mom stood up to leave.

“Don’t leave me, Mom! Don’t leave me here!” I screamed and screamed.

And then people were laughing at me, and I knew I was going to get my ass kicked later. And I knew the nurses and the security guards would let it happen because I was making them do extra work and they always let it happen to the patients when they had to do extra work, or even when they were bored.

“I’m sorry, Ethan,” Mom said as she started to walk away, tears pouring down her cheeks like she was sad about all of this, but she couldn’t have been that sad or she wouldn’t have been doing it. “I promise, it’s all going to be okay. You’re going to be okay, Ethan.”

I screamed for her and I fought to get out of the nurse’s grip, and then another one came and another one, and then all three had me on the ground, and my face was pressed against the dirty floor. And I didn’t like that. And I didn’t like the knee in my back. And I didn’t like my mom leaving me. And all I wanted was Carrie to be there with me. And my dad to still love me. And my mom to still be my mom.