Chapter forty-six:

 

 

I hold Carrie to my chest and I breathe her in. Her body bends with mine as we stand, wrapped up in each other and each other’s pain.

Her dad.

My dad.

Both tormentors.

Both traitors to their wives and their children.

Both cowards.

And liars.

And bad, bad men.

No wonder there’s so much anger inside her. So much grief. No wonder she looked so frightened when she saw me; she probably thought that we still talked—good ol’ Dad and I.

“I haven’t spoken to him since it happened,” I say. “I just want you to know. It’s important that you know.”

She doesn’t flinch at my words, her breath doesn’t change, but her sobs begin to dissipate.

“He won’t be coming here,” I say. “Having me in your life does not mean you’ll have him too. It’s just me, Carrie.”

She lets out a sound that is something like a wail of pain. And I hug her closer, I kiss her head, I squeeze her, and the need to be closer to her, to ease her pain is almost suffocating. I can’t breathe for wanting to make her feel better. I can’t see straight for needing her to know that she’s safe. I’m drowning on so much information that I need to let her know. And sometimes a touch is what’s needed to make you feel better, but I know that a touch here will only hurt her more. So I keep holding her and keep kissing her and I keep her safe and I keep her warm and I’ll protect her no matter what.

“You have to let me go,” she eventually says.

I give a little laugh and loosen my grip on her. “I know,” I say. And I do, I know. I’m holding her too tight; I’ll hurt her if I’m not careful. “And you have to let me go.”

“We’re not good for each other,” she says though she doesn’t try to pull away.

And I think that’s strange. She says I need to let her go, yet she doesn’t try to let go herself. She holds me like I hold her. We’re both damaged souls trying to put our pieces back together. Maybe we can do it together.

We could fix each other.

“You frighten me,” she says.

“Me?”

“Yes, you’ve always frightened me,” she says, and now I let go, and I stand back from her, and my eyes scan her face as I try to see the truth behind these lies. Because that’s what they are, what they have to be. Lies.

“No,” I say, and I shake my head to show her I mean it. “No, not me.”

“Yes, Ethan. You.” Her eyelashes are damp; they are stuck together in clumps. Her really bad eye has actually opened up a bit. I’m not sure if it’s a natural thing or if she’s forced it open, but it’s strange and it makes her face look misshapen.

She takes a step back and I let her, because a bit of space is good sometimes, and I am good. I’m not like my dad. She sits on the edge of the bed and one hand goes to her ribs, which must be hurting her, and I feel a flush of shame wash over my face. It’s like a hot blanket being draped over me. I don’t like it.

“You were always so insistent. I was scared that you would do something really bad if I didn’t come over. If we didn’t stay friends. You always acted like we were life or death. Do you understand?” Her eyes are beseeching and I think she might be crazy. I think she was the one who needed locking up, not me.

Her lips are moving and words are coming out, but they don’t make sense.

“Not like the situation was life or death, but we were. Like we could only be one or the other. We could be life but only together, or we could be death,” she says.

Her face is soft.

Her lies are hard.

“So I chose death,” she says.

Her words are brittle poison.

Her lips are flushed pink.

“I wanted a fresh start. I wanted to escape.” She looks down and then back up. “I wanted to escape you as much as I wanted to escape everyone else. I wanted to be away from everything so I could start again, an unknown girl from an unknown town. I could reinvent myself and become something better.”

Yes, I think. Yes, that’s what you should have done, but you didn’t. Look at where you live, Carrie. Look at all of your dirty, mismatched things.

Tears trail down her face. “I was drowning in people who were hurting me, and I needed to get away from you all.”

“I thought you loved me,” I say, needing to say something, anything to bust through the wall of lies she’s building. And it was my turn now after all. That’s how it worked, my attorney taught me that all those years ago. ‘They speak and then you speak afterwards.’

“I did, for a while. At least in my own way I did. But then you became suffocating.” She looks away, one hand going to her throat as if she could feel a noose around her neck.

She senses me looking and runs her hands through her hair. Her thin fingers snag on the knots. She touches the dried blood on her lip.

“I suffocated you? I never meant to,” I say, and I really mean it. It’s another thing I never knew I did.

I think of our times together, the way we played when we were little. I let her use my bike when hers was broken. I let her share my snack when she had none. I walked her home from the bus stop and I carried her bag when it was too heavy. I thought we were friends until we were something more. I didn’t know any of that was suffocating.

“Do you remember fighting with Cody Mathews on the Fourth of July?” Her voice is a whisper as she continues to try and work the knots out of her hair. But her hair is hopeless.

Like she is hopeless.

Like we are hopeless.

Like life is fucking hopeless.

“Do you remember?” she asks again, her hands falling to her lap.

I do remember that. I remember the sting of antiseptic as my mom bathed my wounds. I remember my dad staring out the window and I remember my stomach was grumbling because I was hungry because I hadn’t finished my burger.

“I do,” I say.

“Do you? Do you really?”

I nod and she shakes her head.

“Do you remember why you had a fight?”

I think back, and I see me outside with my mom and dad. We were having a barbeque. My dad had made a glaze for the chicken that was really sticky and tasted a little like whiskey smelled. Mom had made pecan pie and homemade slaw. My stomach gurgled in hunger as we said grace and Mom poured herself a glass of wine and me some soda.

Dad served up the burgers (the sauce on the chicken was really strong) and I was about to bite into mine when I saw Carrie.

She was walking and he was holding her hand. She was smiling like she liked him holding her hand, but I knew that it was a fake smile because she was my girlfriend and she said she didn’t like holding hands. I was an attentive boyfriend. I listened, but Cody wasn’t listening.

Her fake smile had changed and now she looked anxious. I could tell because her cheeks were flushed and she was pulling her hand out of his. He followed her a couple of steps; he was shouting something, but she was ignoring him. That’s what she did when she was done talking to someone—she turned and walked away. She ignored you. I knew this, but Cody didn’t.

“Ethan?” My mom was saying my name, but I was already walking away, my burger forgotten. I was already going toward Carrie, and I was already planning what I would say to Cody.

My dad was saying my name too now, but I ignored him because Cody and Carrie were shouting at each other now. And I didn’t like him shouting at her. I was not a coward, not anymore. I would say something this time. I wasn’t afraid of Cody the way I was afraid of her dad. Cody was my age, my size. Carrie’s dad was older than me and much bigger.

Carrie’s gaze flitted to me, and I could see she was worried, probably anxious that I would get hurt, but ‘it’s okay,’ I wanted to soothe. It’s really okay.

“Get away from her,” I said to Cody. No, I didn’t say, I shouted it as he pulled her arm to stop her from walking away from him, and me. “Leave her alone.”

He turned to look at me. His face was ugly. He had acne. It was gross. His hair was greasy too. ‘Doesn’t your mom ever tell you to wash it?’ I thought.

“What did you just say to me, freak?” he said. And I didn’t like the way he called me freak. I wasn’t a freak. I was loved. And I told him so.

“I am loved,” I said, and then Cody laughed, and I got angry, and I could hear my dad shouting for me to ‘get my ass back over here,’ but I wouldn’t leave Carrie like that. “I am loved and you are not.”

“Just go,” Carrie said. And her face was soft and so was her voice. And she was sweet and kind and beautiful, and I wanted to protect her.

“I’ll protect you,” I said to her.

She rolled her eyes at me. “It’s just an argument, Ethan. It’s no big deal.”

“He shouted at you.”

“Because she’s a cock-tease, that’s why!” Cody shouted, sneering at Carrie. He looked back at me. “‘I am loved,’” Cody mocked and laughed, and he had a horrible laugh. “Get the fuck outta here before I bust in your face, man.” He turned his back on me, and the world turned red. The trees, the skies, the sidewalk. All red.

I didn’t even try to stop myself when I reached out and hit him in the side of the head with my closed hand. ‘A fist. I made a fist and I hit someone with it,’ I think with shock.

“She doesn’t love you, she loves me,” I said as he held his hand to his head and turned back to look at me. He looked angry. Angry like Carrie’s dad does when he’s drank too much. But I wasn’t scared because I was protecting her. My Carrie.

“I don’t love you,” she said…’and wait, what did she just say?’

I kept my fist closed, ready to hit Cody again if he grabbed her.

“See that, freak? She doesn’t love you. Now I’m going to kick your ass,” Cody sneered. And then he did.

He kicked my ass. And my back. And my head. And my arms and my legs. And Carrie didn’t stop him. She just stood there watching him do it with her arms folded across her chest like she was impatient. But I knew it was really because she was scared. I could hear my mom screaming in the background. But ‘it’s okay,’ I thought. ‘I’m not scared, Mom. Carrie, you should go before he finishes and tries to hurt you too.’

But Carrie didn’t try to go. Not until Cody had had enough of hitting and kicking me. Then she took his hand in hers and they walked away together.

“Stay away,” one of them said.

Who said it? Was it Carrie or was it Cody?

“I’m sorry, I’ll make it up to you,” I said through the blood in my mouth, and then I watched them go down the side of her house. ‘I wonder if they’ll go down the side of her shed like she takes me sometimes, where I touch her and she touches me. I hope not,’ I thought as I tried to get up. I wanted her to know that she didn’t need to make it up to me. I’d take any beating for her.

And then my mom was suddenly there, and she was helping me to my feet, and she was taking me inside. And she was crying and yelling at my dad that he should have done something. But he was just standing at the window, looking out of it. I think he was looking for Carrie, to make sure she was okay. And Mom was still screaming and crying, and eventually Dad turned around and his cheeks were flushed and he looked at me, and I hardly recognized him when he said,

“It was the only way he was going to learn to stay away from that little whore.”

‘But I won’t stay away from her,’ I wanted to say. ‘Not ever.’

‘We love each other.

And she’s not a whore.’