Chapter thirty-three:

 

 

I stuff a different sock in her mouth, and I don’t even care if it’s clean or not.

Because I am bad, I think to myself.

I must be if I’m getting so mad at her.

My counselor-slash-therapist-slash-know-it-all-Mr. fucking Jeffrey always told me it was bad to lose your temper. ‘That it dirties the mind and the soul, and you should…’ What did he say?

‘You should always try to control your urges, because bad things happen when you don’t.’

I actually don’t think that he was even referring to me when he said that last part; it was a general statement, a sweeping comment, if you will. But he was right. And it fit me perfectly. Bad things do happen when I lose my temper, when I get mad and lose control.

That’s why I stuff the sock into her mouth and leave her tied up on the bed, the covers tight around her body. I turn the light out as I leave, and I close the door with a soft click behind me. Hopefully she’ll sleep and feel more like herself—more like the Carrie I used to know—when she wakes up. I still haven’t fed her, but I’ll make her something for when she wakes up.

I hear her choked screams behind the gag as I walk back down the stairs, and I breathe heavily as I try to control my temper. And I shake my head in bitter disappointment at her.

In the living room I see the stain of where she pissed herself, and that makes me mad. All my careful control almost goes out the window when I see that, because For fuck’s sake, Carrie, you’re not an animal. Surely you could have controlled yourself for a little longer?

I go to the kitchen and I get out her minimal cleaning products—just soap and water, really—and then I boil some water and fill a small bowl and I carry it back to the living room and get down on my hands and knees and I scrub and I scrub and I scrub, and I remember doing this same thing so very long ago.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her gaze soft on my face.

“It’s okay, it’s not your fault,” I said. “You can’t help being sick.”

She looked down into her lap. I watched her hands twist against each other over and over. She wanted to tell me something, but she wasn’t ready. And that was okay; I was patient. I could wait until she was ready to tell me.

When she looked up I smiled at her, to let her know I wasn’t mad at all. Her mouth quirked a little as she attempted a smile back.

I looked back down at the floor, and I dunked my sponge back into the soapy water before pulling it out and scrubbing the vomit stains again.

She’d only been there ten minutes. Complaining of not feeling well. She was hungry, I knew. So I made her some soup—leek and potato always made me feel better. I buttered her some bread, and I carried it all back upstairs to my room, where she was waiting. Carrie wasn’t supposed to be in our house anymore. Mom didn’t want her near any of us, but Carrie had climbed in my bedroom window anyway, like she did every night anyway. We would have sex, and I would hold her while she cried afterwards, and I knew she was crying because she loved me like I loved her and she wished that my mom would just let us be together.

I would sneak food to her before she left. Sometimes chips and chocolate. Sometimes bologna sandwiches. She was always really grateful for the food, because her dad wasn’t working anymore and her mom was a drunk so there was never enough money in the house for food.

I felt bad for her, especially when she stopped coming to school.

I didn’t blame her for not coming to school, though.

People were mean.

They called her names.

And her mother.

And her father.

They insulted every little thing about her. The names were mean, hard, cruel, and all lies, of course. Carrie said it didn’t bother her, but I saw that it did. The fire in her eyes was going out. I saw that too. That was the most painful thing of all.

That night I made her soup, because she had a tummy ache because she was hungry, but when I came upstairs she was on her knees vomiting on the floor. She said she was sorry over and over, and begged me not to make her leave. I smiled because of course I wouldn’t. Though I really wished she would have used the trash can to vomit in.

After I cleaned up, she ate the soup, even though it was almost cold. She asked if we could just lie together instead of having sex because she didn’t feel very well.

I was really hoping for us to have sex, I told her, but I understood. Because I was caring like that. So we lay together, on top of the covers, and I held her in my arms. She fell asleep eventually, and I touched myself while she slept, thinking about how much I wanted to put myself inside her.

Afterwards, I fell asleep too.

It was late when we woke up. The room was dark. I thought she had gone home at first, but then she moved and I knew she was still there, with me. In my bed.

My bedroom door opened and my mom walked in. She didn’t see Carrie at first, but when she did she got really angry and shouted. Carrie woke up. I thought she would apologize for breaking Mom’s rule; that’s what I was doing. But Carrie only sneered at my mom.

My mom called my dad upstairs; I didn’t know what to do as he gripped Carrie by the arm and dragged her out of my room. My mom told me to stay where I was, and then she shut the door to my room.

I put my hand on the doorknob and I wanted to go after Carrie.

I wanted to tell my dad to let go of her.

I wanted to tell my mom that I hated her.

But I didn’t do anything but go and sit back down on my bed.

The front door slammed and I heard my mom shouting, but I couldn’t hear my dad reply so I knew she was on the phone, and I had a horrible feeling she was shouting at Carrie’s mom. I went to the window; I could see Carrie’s house if I looked to the left.

Outside were my dad and Carrie. She was crying and he was holding her by the arm and pulling her. Her other arm was around her stomach because I think she still felt sick. She was crying and shouting at him. He slapped her hard across the cheek and I gasped because you should never hit a woman. My dad looked around to make sure no one had heard whatever it was she’d said, but he didn’t see me staring from my bedroom window. He dragged her into the back yard, and down the side of the shed. I wondered why he had taken her there. I opened my window a little and I could hear her crying and crying and crying and crying…

I should have gone to her, but I didn’t.

I was scared.

I was told to stay in my room.

My dad came out after a couple of minutes. He didn’t look back at her, or up at me; he just straightened his shirt and pants and went around the side of the house and to our front door. I heard it open and close, and then I saw Carrie stumble out from the side of the shed. She was still crying, soft, hiccupping sobs. She was limping and holding her stomach.

I placed my palm on the window, and when she looked up at me she raised her hand up to me. I smiled because Carrie made me happy. Even when she was sad she made me happy.

I didn’t see her for a long time after that. She stopped coming around, and I worried that she would starve so I would sneak to her house and leave food parcels under her bedroom window. I never saw if she got them or not, and we never spoke about them. Or that night.

The next time I saw Carrie, she asked me to help her and I promised that I would. But then when I heard what she wanted me to do, I wasn’t so sure. I was scared. Who could blame me? I was just a kid, after all, and what she had asked me to do was a grown-up thing. An illegal thing.

A really, really bad thing.