Chapter forty:

 

 

“No,” I say the word, but it means nothing because it’s full of yeses.

She looks down at the cell as it beeps twice, the battery charged enough to bring it back to life. It vibrates as a message comes through. Then another and another and another. As several days’ worth of messages begin to come through.

Fuck, I think.

“Give it to me,” I say.

“No,” she replies with a fervent shake of her head. And then she looks back down and starts to type in a number.

I stride forward and she scoots back, her bare ass dragging along her filthy, piss-stained carpet. I reach down and she lashes out and punches me. But it’s nothing; a fly could do more damage than her. And I laugh, and I don’t recognize the laugh because it’s all bitter and twisted up and it doesn’t sound like me, but there’s only me and her here so I guess it is me. Her hand swats at me as I reach for her, and now it’s my turn to hit her as she tries to dial a number on the cell.

I don’t punch her this time, but I slap her hard with the palm of my hand. I slap her so hard that her body lifts off the floor and her whole body flies backwards. She falls onto her back with an “oomph” as the air leaves her lungs. The cell falls from her grip but she’s up and she tries to grab it before I can stop her.

I kick her hand away but still she grabs for it. She’s desperate and ‘time is ticking, Carrie,’ I think as I stand on her small hand with my bare foot.

I am stronger than her.

I am a man, not a pussy, and I feel the delicate bones in her hand crunch as I put all of my weight onto it.

Her grip loosens and she cries out, a cry full of so much pain that it’s almost torturous to listen to. Almost. I reach down and I pry the cell phone from her broken hand. The numbers are still lit up and it shows who she was calling.

“Really, Carrie? Really?” I snarl out. Because I’m shocked, really fucking shocked at her. And then I press even harder on her hand because I want to hurt her.

I have never wanted to hurt someone as much as I want to hurt her right now.

Not the woman in the coffee shop.

Not Benny for being a pervert.

Not even my dad for not loving me anymore.

The pain inside me is a living, breathing monster and it is swarming my senses, begging for validation and revenge.

Carrie is sobbing, and she’s begging, and she’s saying something but I can’t understand a fucking word between her pathetic hiccupping sobs that remind me of the time her drunk mother turned up at the door asking for Carrie to come home before her dad finished work. But I have no idea why Carrie’s crying right now—other than I am crushing her hand, of course (I’m not stupid). She’s the one who has broken my heart. Broken me. My body, my soul. Again. Like she does every single time she is in my life.

My fucked-up life, which she fucked up.

Which she ruined.

Which she stole.

I reach back with my other foot and I kick her in the ribs as hard as I can. I know how much that hurts. I remember it from prison. I remember the searing pain as I desperately tried to suck air into my lungs. The tears that burned my eyes as each breath sent splinters of agony rippling through me. And the kicks that were never-ending as they rained down on my young teenage body over and over until I was coughing blood and blacking out. Until the guards were dragging me to the infirmary and telling me I was lucky that they were there because I could have died.

And then my lawyer spoke to a doctor, and then I spoke to a doctor for a really long time. And then I was back in court and then I was being transferred.

A hospital was supposed to be better, but it wasn’t—not really. But at least I got to speak to my-counselor-slash-therapist-slash-Mr.-fucking-Jeffrey every day about all the thoughts that were spinning around my head.

Carrie screams out as my foot hits her again, and then she curls up into a ball and I kick her again because Fuck you, Carrie. Fuck. You!

And maybe I should have listened to my counselor-slash-therapist-slash-Mr. fucking Jeffrey when he told me to leave the past alone, because no good ever came from looking to the past. Because I should definitely have left Carrie alone. I would have been better never knowing that she was alive, and thinking that she was dead and gone and that I just didn’t remember killing her, because,

‘Her blood was all over that crime scene. It was everywhere, son, so tell us what you did with her body.’ That’s what they’d said to me over and over. As if saying it to me would make it make any more sense.

So much blood.

So much that I must have killed her.

You were obsessed with her, right?

You wanted her, right?

You hated her dad, right?

Because he wouldn’t let you see her anymore, right?

So you killed him too, right?

You killed him for trying to come between you and Carrie Brown, even though there was nothing to come between, right?

You probably would have killed her mom too, right?

No, no, no…

That’s not what happened, but no one believed me, not even Mom and Dad, no matter how much I begged them to listen to me. They wouldn’t listen. No one listened. And Carrie was gone. Where the fuck had she gone? She had vanished, and they kept talking like she was dead. Kept asking where her body was. But I didn’t know. How could I know?

‘Tell us, and we can help you,’ they said. ‘Give her mother some peace. Let her bury her only daughter and her husband together.’

But I wasn’t their son, and I didn’t know where Carrie was, and her mom didn’t even really care, because she was a fraud too and she was just trying to cash in on the murder. And if I did kill her I wouldn’t tell them where her body was because she hated her dad, and wouldn’t want to be buried with him.

‘Do one good thing in your miserable life, son.’

But I wasn’t his son. And my life wasn’t miserable, at least not until then. It had been confusing and wonderful and full of love and hope, and the never-ending perhaps of a love that would last forever.

But it wasn’t real, I think. I see that now. (See? I’m not stupid) None of it was real. Carrie isn’t real. Just like her mother wasn’t real. Just like love isn’t real.

Like mother, like daughter, I think as I stare down at a sobbing, broken Carrie.