Chapter twenty-two:

 

 

I pull our clothes out of the washing machine and put them into the dryer. I throw in a scented dryer sheet, and I think it’s strange that she doesn’t clean anything, yet she has dryer sheets.

I think it’s strange how she has lots of bathroom products, but her dishes are never done.

I think it’s strange that she has so many sex toys and filthy whore underwear, but not a single picture on her wall of herself or her friends or even of Mr. Fancy Asshole Adam.

Carrie is turning out to be one big mystery to me, and I wonder how much of her I really know. How much could one person change in twenty years? I like to think that I’m still the same person I was back then. Though older and smarter, of course. And definitely more handsome. But my heart is still the same.

I still love her, and I still want to look after her. I made a promise, after all. And though some people would have turned their back on that promise, I haven’t.

I’m a good guy.

That’s what one of the male nurses used to say. ‘You’re a good guy, Ethan.’

And I would smile, because yes, I really was a good guy. This was all a misunderstanding.

I look back in on Carrie and I smile, because I know she’s awake now but she’s pretending not to be. She’s pretending to be asleep, and it’s cute. She used to do this years ago when she would fall asleep on my bed after we’d made love. She’d pretend to sleep because she didn’t want to go home. Because I made her feel safe. And it’s cute that she remembers that and is doing it again now.

I make her feel safe, I realize. And I feel so good.

I’m still wearing just a towel wrapped around my waist. I close the door behind me and when she thinks I’m not there she starts to fidget again. I creep right up to her without her knowing, and I’m dying to laugh, but I hold it in. I don’t know what she’s doing, but I decide to surprise her. So I wait in silence for several seconds, and when I can’t hold my laughter in anymore, I shout,

“Boo!”

She screams and starts to cry, and I rush to her side.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Carrie. I didn’t mean to scare you so much!” I brush her hair back from her face, and I wince because I see she has two black eyes and a big purple bruise along her cheekbone. The cut on her head is almost black.

“Oh, baby,” I say, and I kiss the bruise carefully, realizing that I hadn’t scared her at all, but that she was in pain. “I’ll go get you some ice. Wait right here.”

I stand and I go to the kitchen and I look in her freezer. The cold dances against my bare chest. And Jesus, Carrie! I think. The freezer is so full of ice that it’s all white. She’s clearly never thawed it out before, proving to me how lazy she has gotten over the years. She has almost no food in it either. Just some frozen burgers and a bottle of vodka. It reminds me of the vodka her mom used to drink. The vodka that then Carrie used to drink.

I think of the time she turned up drunk on my doorstep.

She called my name as she rang the bell.

“Ethaaaaaaaan.” Ding ding ding ding ding…

Me and Dad were doing a jigsaw of a train on the kitchen table. He loved trains. He said they were dangerous and wild, and he liked that about them. How they seemed so unassuming but really they were a deadly threat to everything and everyone that came near them. I couldn’t see that at first, but then he explained all about trains and how they worked, and I was floored because of course he was right. Trains seemed boring and unassuming but they were really dangerous.

Carrie continued to ring the doorbell over and over and over. I asked Dad if I could go answer it, and he said no, because Mom didn’t want me hanging around her anymore. And he didn’t either. He said she was trouble. That their whole family was trouble. And we all needed to stay away from them.

I didn’t want to make jigsaws with my dad then. It seemed so unfair. Carrie hadn’t done anything wrong. It was her dad that was the problem, not her. And now my dad was contributing to the problem. So, so unfair.

And I told him that too.

“Ethannnnn!” Ding ding ding ding ding…

Dad got tired of her ringing the bell and he said he would deal with her. He stood up and stormed out of the kitchen. The doorbell stopped ringing, and when I looked around, Carrie was at the back door and she was letting herself in.

“You can’t be here,” I said. And God how I hated to say that to her.

She had one of her mom’s bottles of vodka in her hand, and she was swaying. And I warned her that my dad would be pissed if he saw her here. She laughed, and then she smiled, and I didn’t like her smile.

“He’s here?” she asked. “Your dad.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Where’s your mom?”

“At the store, I think.”

She smiled just as my dad came back into the kitchen.

“She’s gone—” he started to say, but then he saw her standing there in our kitchen. His beard twitched and he ran a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair.

He walked toward her, and he looked angry. A type of angry I hadn’t ever seen on him before.

“Get out, now!” he yelled in her face.

I didn’t like him speaking to her like that, and I wanted to say something but I was so shocked. I always wanted to be like my dad when I grew up. He was polite and courteous. He used manners. But that man was nowhere to be seen right then.

He grabbed her arm tightly. She pulled away from him, almost dropping the vodka as she fell against the countertop.

“I said, get out!”

“Make me,” Carrie dared with a laugh.

I didn’t like drunk Carrie. She was cruel and hard. I didn’t like that she made my dad so angry either. I rarely saw my dad lose his temper. But most of all, I didn’t like that she wasn’t scared by my dad. She should have been, though, because he looked really scary right then, and though I wouldn’t ever tell her so, I was scared too.

He turned to me with a face I didn’t know. “Go to your room, Ethan. Your mom didn’t want you having anything to do with Carrie. We don’t want you to get in trouble, do we?”

I stood there, silent, confused, and unsure on what to do. My dad got impatient and he took my arm and led me away, and he said,

“She’s a little tart, Ethan. You can do better than her.”

I didn’t know what a tart was, and I had never heard my dad say anything like that before, but when I looked over his shoulder I saw the hurt on Carrie’s face. So I ran back to her and I threw my arms around her.

“I miss you,” I said, my face nestled into her neck.

“I miss you too,” she said.

“Get out, Ethan,” my dad said. “Get out and go to your room, now!”

And then I left the kitchen and I went upstairs like I was told, and I thought about how it sucked to be such a good boy sometimes.

I heard them talking some more, but quieter this time. Just mumbles, really. And then I heard Carrie crying loudly. I wanted to go to her, but I didn’t want to upset Mom or Dad. So I stayed upstairs, listening to the noises from the kitchen and wondering why I was such a coward.