Chapter forty-one:

 

 

Carrie is crying quietly.

The sun is coming up.

It’s fucking Tuesday. Tuesday, when Mr. Fancy Asshole is supposed to come back.

With each passing minute I see more and more of her, and I’m more and more disgusted by her.

She’s not beautiful, or perfect. She’s skinny—too skinny, in fact. Her breasts are too big for her small frame. Her ass is flat. Her stomach is bloated. Her skin is pockmarked and pale. Not just pale white, but a pale gray. Her teeth are dirty and yellow. Her eyes are sunken on her face, shadowed by dark gray rings.

She’s a drinker, like her mom was. I now realize. That’s why she wasn’t hungry. It wasn’t food she needed, but alcohol to feed her body. I see it all now. And I’m more shocked at myself than her. How did I not see this before?

The illusion of love, I think, and I want to laugh at myself.

This woman has ruined my life from the moment she came into it. And I could possibly, probably, more than likely, forgive her for ruining my, and even my parents’ lives, because fuck them for not believing in me anyway, right?

But the fact that she’s wasted her entire life regardless of how many people she’s ruined, that’s what makes me so mad.

She ruined my life and wasted her own.

If she would have achieved anything with her pitiful existence after destroying me, I could probably, possibly, more than likely, forgive her. Because at least it wouldn’t all have been for nothing. Ya know? At least her actions would have held some purpose.

But there is no purpose to this. To her. To what she did to me.

She left me to rot in her mess.

She could have saved me, and she didn’t…because why? She was too drunk to give a shit? She was too slutty to care? Because she was too much of a user to ever really love?

That’s not good enough, Carrie.

She’s done nothing. Achieved nothing. She’s an empty shell of a woman. Barely a woman at all. Because women are supposed to be good, and motherly, and loving, and caring, and nurturing. Just like my mother used to be. Just like my life used to be before Carrie came into it and ruined everything. And Carrie, well, she’s none of those things. She’s rotten, and bad, and evil, and pointless.

Do you hear that, Carrie? You’re pointless. Your entire life is pointless!

She has her back to me, and I sit on the ugly sofa with the ugly cushions and I stare at her ugly bare back, and as the sun rises I see the bruises forming on her flesh. And I don’t even care. I feel no guilt, no shame, not an ounce of remorse. Because she doesn’t deserve my remorse. She doesn’t deserve anything from me.

I’m still naked, too, after our love-making, but my anger is keeping me warm. She’s naked and she’s shivering from the cold. I sneer, because I don’t care. And I know sneering is ugly and not nice, but I honestly, truly, don’t even care. Not anymore.

She could freeze to death for all I care.

I would sit and watch that happily.

I may fucking sit and watch that happily.

Because it would serve her right.

All of this is her own fault. Just like Benny said, ‘You have to accept responsibility for your own actions.’

And the same goes for Carrie right now.

This is her doing, not mine. And she needs to acknowledge that. No more blaming other people. Not her shitty pedophilic father or her alcoholic mother. Or the school system that let her slip through the cracks. Not my mom and dad who did nothing to help. Or any of the people that should have been there to protect her.

No, now is the time to admit that she was wrong and she is to blame.

I tried to help. I tried to save her.

But maybe, just maybe, there is no saving someone who doesn’t want to be saved.

I put my head in my hands and I think of all the times we have been intimate, and I wonder if any of it meant anything to her or if everything was bullshit.

Was it all a lie, Carrie?’

Surely not, I hope, I pray, I plead. Because it can’t all have been a lie. It can’t all have been fake. She must have cared once. But not now, and I see that. I see right through her. All she cares about is Adam. All she wants to do is ruin his family like she ruined mine. But I won’t let her. I’ll warn Adam what she’s like, and then he’ll hate her too. And then he’ll stay away from her. He’ll go back to his wife and kids and he won’t tell them about Carrie and the biggest mistake of his life. He won’t ever tell anyone. He’ll just be grateful that he got away from the walking train wreck that she is before she destroyed him like she destroyed me.

And now I’ve made a plan. Now I know what to do. And then…and then…

And then what?

What do I do then?

When Adam is out of the picture…when I can finally be free of her…what do I do then?

‘You eliminate the problem, kid.’

That’s what Benny used to say. Of course he was talking about the hospital, and when the beatings got so bad I thought I was going to die. And I did almost die. He was talking about the men that took me to their cells and told me that they would do things to me that shouldn’t be done to a young boy. It would be vengeance for the girl I killed because they had a daughter her age. They had a daughter just like Carrie. And prison was too good for me.

‘She deserved better,’ they said.

‘She did,’ I agreed.

But she’s not dead. She can’t be. I thought.

And all this time, she wasn’t.

She was just pretending. She was just hiding. She was just trying to escape…me?

See, I met Benny in the infirmary at the hospital.

He taught me how to not be a pussy anymore.

He taught me how to be strong, and how to play the system.

He helped convince the doctors that prison was wrong for me.

I don’t know why he helped; I never asked. Maybe he was just happy to have someone fucking listening to him for the few weeks that we were in there together. Happy that someone gave a shit about what he had to say.

And I did give a shit. I listened to what he had to say, and though most of it was bullshit, a lot of it wasn’t. He taught me so much. Helped shape the man I am today.

Much more than my own dad ever did.

A dad who doesn’t speak to me anymore.

Not since that fateful night.