Chapter thirty-five:

 

 

But I am not cruel.

Or hard.

Or bad.

Not like you, Carrie.

So I make you something to eat. Beans, because that’s pretty much all you seem to buy—except tomato soup, which is fucking gross.

Why would you buy that shit, Carrie? You know I don’t like it. Is that why you bought it? To spite me?

But see, I’m better than you. I even make you a shitty-tasting coffee. And I even remember to put three sugars in like you used to like it, because really you prefer tea, but you don’t have any tea, so coffee it is.

See, Carrie? I am thoughtful. And I remember.

I take the food (tipped into your only bowl) and the coffee up the stairs. I push open the door and find her on the floor. Her head is cut and bleeding, but it’s not really that bad.

I don’t rush as I put down the food and drink on the tall set of drawers. And I am still careful as I reach down and pick her up before carrying her to the bed. I lay her on it, staring for a second too long at her beautiful form, her nakedness plain for me to see.

Because I still find you attractive, Carrie. Even though I know you’re really a bitch inside. I still think you’re beautiful.

I help her sit up, and then I pull the duvet up to cover her body, and though I let my hand brush against her breasts as I pull the duvet tight around her, I don’t let her know it was on purpose. I make her think it was an accident.

I’m ashamed of myself. Not for touching her. But because she still has some power over me.

I sit on the edge of the bed and I pull out the sock, and she doesn’t say anything and neither do I, and then I spoon-feed her the beans. They are warm, and I bet they feel good in her stomach. It has been too long since she ate, and I’m sorry for that. I didn’t mean to be so forgetful.

It’s all gone wrong, though. Things got out of hand too quickly. The days have slipped by and now we’re almost out of time. I am a good boy, a good man, but I know how this will seem to others.

She is silent as she eats the beans. The only sounds are the rumbles from her stomach as I fill that empty hole, and the spoon against the cheap pottery of the bowl.

When the food is gone, I put the empty bowl down and I reach for her coffee. She slurps it down greedily, and she doesn’t even wince at the bitter taste of the coffee. And I can’t help it. I have to say something. I have to talk to her. Because like I said, she still has some sort of power over me.

“Is that better?” I ask.

She nods and continues to drink the coffee. When it is gone I put the empty mug inside the empty bowl. It’s sort of strange, I think as I stare at the two items. Both empty and nestled within one another.

“That’s how we used to be,” I say. And I nod toward the cup and the bowl.

She turns her head to look, a small frown puckering between her eyebrows.

“We were both empty, but we fit together somehow.”

It hurts to speak. To think of her as anything but perfect. But I have to be realistic now. I have to be here and present and I have to get her to understand.

“That was all I ever wanted. For you to be with me. For me to be inside of you, a part of you.” I look back at you. My eyes sting with unshed tears, but I mustn’t cry, because I’m not a pussy. Not anymore.

Carrie is staring at me blankly, coldly.

“Say something.”

She’s silent for a very long time. So long that I wonder if I spoke at all. And then when she speaks, her voice is so low and quiet that I wonder if she spoke at all.

“What do you want me to say?” she eventually says.

“My name,” I reply almost instantly, and with a little confusion. Because I do. I want to hear my name on her lips one last time.

She chuckles, her gaze falling to the mug and the bowl again. “Well, Ethan, all I ever wanted was to be free.”

“You were,” I say.

“I wasn’t,” she replies.

“But…”

Her eyes cut back to me. “But nothing. I was never free. Not while he was alive. Not while he did those things to me. Not while she allowed it to happen.”

Her expression is vicious and sharp, and the pity I had felt earlier for her is back. She went through so much; no wonder she is so damaged. She still carries that anger with her, and I can understand that. I really can. If I’m being truthful, I’m still angry too. I carry that rage around with me every day. But I try not to let it ruin everything. Not like she has.

“Carrie,” I say, and I reach for her hands. I clasp them in mine. Her wrists are still bound together, but she doesn’t even try to pull away. “She was sick, your mom. She wouldn’t have let it happen if she could help it.”

I am right, and she knows I’m right, but she’s still holding onto the anger, that rage, and that’s okay.

We’ll make it in the end, Carrie.

“I bet if she wouldn’t have been sick, she would have done something,” I say.

She shakes her head, but there’s no conviction in it.

“Moms love their kids. It’s their programming,” I say. “But your dad, Carrie, he was a scary dude.”

Her shoulders are what fall first. They shake and tremor, and then her head falls to her chin as she cries. I lean over and pull her to me, and I hold her tight while she cries. And she doesn’t even pull away. It’s wrong that I smile while she cries on my shoulder thinking about how her mom loved her but not enough to stop drinking. But I do it anyway because she can’t see my face.

“She never helped, Ethan,” she whispers through her sobs.

She said my name again! I think, my heart soaring.

“Not once. And she knew. She fucking knew, and she didn’t help. She made it worse and worse, so that he’d stay away from her. So that he’d leave her to drink. Leave her to her own oblivion while I succumbed to his.”

Her voice is high-pitched, verging on hysteria. I let her go, and I take her by the shoulders and I look into her face, and I tell her,

“It’s over now. He can’t hurt you now.”

She nods in agreement and turns her face to her arm to wipe away her tears.

“Here, let me,” I say, and I go to her bathroom to get some toilet paper to wipe up her tears with. I catch a glimpse of myself in her mirror and I don’t like what I see, so I look away. But I know it won’t always be like this.

We might not end up married, with children and a beautiful home. But I still want to help her. I still want to fix her. To make her life better.

I go back in the room and she’s exactly where I left her. She hasn’t tried to run away this time.

Her tears are still wet on her cheeks.

Her bruises are still prominent on her pale face.

Her sadness is still all-consuming. Just like it always was.

I sit down next to her and I reach over and I wipe the tears away from her face. I shush her and I tell her that everything is going to be okay, and I let go of my anger for her. As much as I can, anyway.

‘Anger isn’t good for anyone,’ Mr. fucking Jeffrey, my counselor-slash-therapist used to say. ‘It eats you up from the inside and destroys everything good.’

Better to be sorry than angry.

Better to be dead than mad.

Better to be sad than filled with hate.

I swear, the more I think about it, the more I realize how much sense he made.

“I’m sorry,” she says. And it’s so sincere that my heart aches for her. Literally fucking aches for her. I swear I can feel it swell and throb in my chest. “I’m really sorry, Ethan.” She reaches for me with her bound wrists, and she takes my hands in hers and she gives them a little squeeze. “I honestly never wanted to hurt you.”

“But you did,” I say. And I can’t help the sad tone in my voice. Because it’s true, she did hurt me. And she should know that, if nothing else. You have to own your mistakes, your actions.

“I know.” She looks away with shame on her pretty face.

“Why, Carrie?” I ask, my voice sounding desperate.

She doesn’t answer, and I wait a long time to see if she will.

“Carrie?” I say her name. And I honestly, truly love the sound of her name as it comes from my mouth, my lips perfectly forming around the letters. The way the word runs out of my mouth, like it was made for only me to say.

“Because it was the only way,” she finally says, and takes a shuddering breath.

“The only way?” I repeat.

She still isn’t looking at me, so I reach across and I put my fingers on the bottom of her chin like I’ve seen Cary Grant do in several movies. And I tug her chin, ‘lightly, Ethan, gently,’ until she is looking at me again.

“It was the only way to make it stop, to give myself half a chance to survive.” She looks so pitiful. “I would have died if I had stayed.”

A tear slips free and glides down her cheek. I watch it until it drips off the end of her face and vanishes as it’s absorbed into the duvet. Like it never even existed. Just a small blot on the cotton, almost invisible to the naked eye. But you can feel it if you touch it. It leaves its mark in the way it feels.

“You should have asked for help,” I say.

She shakes her head. “He was so convincing, and when he wasn’t convincing he was frightening. You’d be surprised how many people look away from the ugly things they see.”

I nod like I understand. And I guess I do.

It’s like my mom and dad not visiting me anymore. It was ugly there and they didn’t want to see it anymore. It hurt, but I got over it, sort of.

I’m glad we’re at this place, that we’re finally opening up and being truthful to one another.

And maybe there is a chance for us, I think. Maybe we can still make this work after all.

Hope.

You can’t help but have it, even when you don’t want to.

Even when you know it will probably kill you in the end.

Hope.

It lives on when everything else dies.

I am silly for having hope. But it’s there all the same.

I have hope for Carrie. And for us.

There is still time, I think happily. There is still time for us.