Chapter thirty-four:

 

 

I turn on the television again and I watch the news while I drink my bitter coffee.

There’s nothing about a man leaving the hospital with a stab wound, so that’s good, because it means that they aren’t looking for me. Or at least I’m not a priority to them. At least something is going right today.

I can hear Carrie upstairs, banging on the floor. There was a loud thump earlier as she rolled herself out of bed.

Idiot!

Then silence. Dead? Knocked out? Tired?

But she’s awake now, and she’s banging and banging and banging, to get my attention.

But I won’t give it to her.

She’s acting like a spoiled brat.

A child.

A toddler.

A baby.

A fucking princess who needs to learn her lesson.

She should learn how to control that wicked temper of hers. Control it like I learned to control mine. I’d teach her my calming technique but I don’t want to see her right now. I can’t see her right now.

I’m disappointed in the woman you turned out to be, Carrie.

She needs to learn to have patience, because the more she bangs the more I will ignore her. It’s as simple as that.

You can’t go through your life demanding to be heard, Carrie! Sometimes you have to wait for things to come to you. Sometimes it’s not always about you!

I take another mouthful of coffee and I grimace. I’m so sick of this shitty-tasting coffee. I want to go home. I want my own things. My own food. My own bed. My own coffee. I want the familiarity of the whore upstairs banging johns all night long, and the crying and arguing and the noise and the fighting from my apartment building and the filthy streets outside my window.

I want my hot shower with my own body wash. I want the peeling paint on my front door and the constant puzzle of what it says on it. I want to be at work—I was good at my job and I’ve probably lost it now. Even if the police aren’t looking for me, my parole officer will be. I’ve been gone too long, and Charlie will have called him. He only hired me as a favor. He told me that the day I started

‘I only hired you as a favor, kid. Don’t really like your type.’

By type, he meant murderers. Or mental heads. That’s what so-called normal people called the not-so-normal people like me. But I knew all that even though he didn’t say it, and I didn’t bother to try and correct him. I actually miss him, I realize. Good ol’ Charlie.

I wonder if he got the roof fixed.

I wonder if he gambled away everyone’s money last week.

I wonder what everyone is doing.

I miss the familiarity of my life. Of knowing what each day would bring and who would be in it.

I hate it here. I hate it here. I really, really hate it here!

I throw my mug across the floor. The coffee spills but the mug doesn’t break. And I’m glad, because she only has one mug and if that broke I’d be completely fucked, because even though the coffee tastes like shit, I need coffee to help me think straight because I’m tired.

I’ve been tired my whole life because of Carrie.

And if I broke her mug, the only mug in this shit-hole house, I wouldn’t be able to have any coffee.

Wait, she only has one mug…just one.

That means she lives here alone. Adam can’t spend that much time here if he doesn’t even stay for fucking coffee. She can’t like him that much if he doesn’t deserve his own mug.

I go to the kitchen and I check the drawers and cupboard more thoroughly now. One plate, one bowl. One spoon, one knife, one fork, one glass, one mug, one pan. (All clean now because I washed and dried and put them away earlier.)

One, one, one…one of everything.

Maybe she is sensible after all. She likes her space. She knows he is married but she doesn’t let him leave his wife for her. I shake my head because I realize that no, this isn’t about space. She just has no integrity at all. She’s stringing Mr. Fancy Asshole Adam along. And in turn damaging his family. And in turn damaging his kids. His life. Their life. Everyone’s lives.

And isn’t that what she did with my family?

She tore us apart.

Piece by piece.

She started with me, and then she turned my mom against me, and then my dad.

I have never stopped to think if she did it on purpose or not. I always assumed not. I always assumed it was chance and coincidence, that the cards landed where they fell, but now I’m not so sure at all. Perhaps she moved the cards to land the way they did. Perhaps she was jealous of my happy home. My mother who wasn’t a drunk. My father who had a good job. My house with its clean windows and a white porch with paint that wasn’t peeling.

I realize how sad and pathetic she really is. How sad and pathetic she has always been. I’ve fantasized about Carrie my entire life. I’ve loved her, cherished her, and wanted to be everything, just for her. But really she destroyed my family because of jealousy. Because her life was shit, but that’s not my fault, Carrie!

I didn’t align your stars.

I wasn’t the one who hurt you.

Don’t punish me because your mother never cared.

Don’t punish me because your father cared too much.

All I ever did was care.

All I ever did was as you asked. As you bid me to.

I was your slave. Your puppet. You were my master, and you called all the shots.

She’s still banging on the floor upstairs. You’re really going to hurt yourself if you’re not careful, Carrie, I think. I’m not even mad anymore. Not about the banging, or the traitorous things she has done. I can’t be. Not now that I see how pathetic she really is.

She may be beautiful, but she has a black fucking heart. A tainted soul, some might say. I would say. I bet Mr. fucking Jeffrey would say too.

I should leave now.

I should go.

I don’t belong here. I see that now. I see that you don’t deserve me, Carrie. I see that I deserve better than you. You destroy families and lives. You string people along. I see that now. I know my worth. I know I deserve more.

Better.

Better than you.

But will you tell? That’s the question, isn’t it, Carrie? Will you tell on me?

Will you make up stories and have me locked away? Again? Because it won’t be the first time, will it, Carrie? This is your thing. This is the way you live your life. And by hook or by crook you’ll do as you please. You’ll hurt whom you please.

I think you would tell on me, because you’re a spiteful bitch when you want to be, Carrie. You’re mean and cruel and hard, and selfish. You’d call the police as soon as I untied your wrists. You’d run for your life as soon as I untied your ankles. You’d call the cops and then they would come and you’d get me and arrested me and they’d take me to prison. And you would make up some crazy story about what really happened here this weekend. How I pushed you down the stairs—when really you tripped. How I hit you—when you were the one that stabbed me. How I touched you—when I did nothing but clean you and keep you warm. How I starved you—when really you just had no food in your house.

And then everything I’ve worked at for the past few months would all have been for nothing, because once again you would have destroyed my happy life. My happy existence. My mom and dad would definitely never speak to me again. I wouldn’t be able to win them around by being a good citizen and working and cooking and cleaning and by maybe meeting a good woman who would bear my children one day.

All of those things would never happen if you told, Carrie.

But this is my fault. I know it is. See, Benny? I did listen to you, even though most of what you said was bullshit. I still listened, and I’m putting what you said into practice. I’m being responsible. I’m accountable for my actions, my mistakes, I think to myself.

And you, Carrie. You were the biggest mistake of all.