Chapter fifty:

 

 

Carrie stands up. She takes a long time, and when she’s fully standing, she looks at her bloody hands for several moments in silence. Her tears still fall, but her expression is numb, not sad anymore.

“But where will we go?” she asks softly, her gaze still cast downwards toward her bloody palms.

“Anywhere you want,” I say. And I try so hard to keep the giddy excited feeling out of my voice, because it’s hope that makes me soar right now, and I don’t want to frighten her off with my hope. “That’s the beauty of being free.”

She looks up at me. “Free?”

I nod.

She blinks.

We stand in silence.

“I don’t know if I can,” she finally says.

“You can,” I say, and I take another step back into the room. “I’ll be with you.”

“I’m scared,” she says.

And I believe her when she says it, because her voice tremors on the words. And this isn’t another lie, another trick. This is the truth. This is the real Carrie. The broken, fucked-up, messed-up, screwed-up Carrie that I fell in love with all those years ago.

“I am too,” I lie. But I’m not scared—not now, not ever. Not after everything I’ve been through. I know that there’s nothing left to fear anymore. Only a life without Carrie. And I’ve survived that once before already. “Carrie, the world already thinks you’re dead, so let’s disappear together and actually start living.”

She swallows, and her eyes look big and wide. “Okay. Let’s go,” she says, and then she takes my hand in hers.

It’s warm, not like the last time. The last time it was cold. So icy cold it made my hand hurt.

*

“Thank you,” she says. And then I have to hold her up so she doesn’t fall over from the relief of hearing me say those words. And that makes me feel special; that my words can have such an effect on her. “Thank you, thank you, thank you, Ethan,” she sobs.

“It’s okay, I want to help you. I don’t want him to hurt you anymore. I don’t want you to be sad anymore,” I say, and I hold her in my arms and I kiss the top of her head, and her hair is soft on my lips but her fingers are still cold.

She cries and then she stops abruptly, pulling away from me. “Now? You’ll do it now?” she asks, and she touches my hand, the hand that shakes while it holds the knife.

“Yes, Carrie, I’ll do it now,” I reply. And I’m so confused, but I know that I have to do this. If I love her, then it’s what has to be done.

Because that’s what you do for love. You do everything you can to keep it alive. I remember hearing my dad say that to my mom a couple of weeks ago. They were arguing; they were always arguing these days. And I heard him tell her that you have to stand by the people that you love and do everything you can to help them.

My dad is an asshole, I know that now, but he’s also wise. I can’t take that away from him.

“Good,” Carrie says. And then she holds onto my wrist and pulls me to her back door. “He’s asleep now.”

“What if he wakes up?” I ask.

“He won’t, he’s drunk.”

“And your mom?”

“Drunk.” Carrie wipes her tears away from her cheeks.

“Okay,” I say as she steps to one side.

“Open the door, Ethan.”

I put my hand on the handle and I pull it open. It squeaks, not like my door at home. Mine doesn’t squeak because my mom and dad look after our house. We oil our hinges and clean our windows. I step inside and my nose crinkles at the smell. It smells of vinegar and alcohol. Rotten trash and cat piss. Dust and mildew.

I don’t like the smell of Carrie’s house, and I can understand why she never let me come in here before.

I look down as my foot rustles on something. It’s an old newspaper. I notice my footprint left on it as I move off the crinkled paper. I stepped in mud on the way in. I turn to her and say sorry, and she says it doesn’t matter.

She’s right behind me as I walk down the hallway. It’s dark; no light comes in through her dirty windows with the drapes pulled shut. My heart is hurting in my chest. I’m scared. I don’t want to do this, but he’s a bad man and he deserves it. That’s what she had said. And I agree, I do. He is a bad man. Not even a man at all. But I find it strange that the police wouldn’t help. That the schools wouldn’t help. That no one, no one but me would help.

I brace myself to go up the stairs, but they don’t creak when I put my weight on them. Carrie is right behind me, her breath on my neck. There are nine stairs, just like in my house. How strange it is that our lives are so similar yet equally not similar at all.

“That one,” she whispers, pointing to a brown wooden door. “He’s in there.”

“Okay, Carrie,” I reply.

“I can’t come in,” she says, and I spin to look at her with horror in my eyes.

“Please!” I beg, close to tears now.

She shakes her head. “I can’t. I don’t want to look at him breathing ever again. The next time I see him, I need him to be dead.”

My eyes fill with tears, because I’m a pussy. I don’t want to cry but I can’t stop myself from doing it. She reaches up on her tiptoes and presses her mouth to my lips. She kisses me softly, deeply. Her tongue is wrapped in my warmth, my hand is in her hair. She tastes like sadness and cinnamon.

When she pulls out of the kiss, I’m not crying anymore. And neither is she.

“Do it for me, Ethan,” she whispers. “If you really love me, then do it for me.”

I nod, because I do really love her. Then I turn back to the door, feeling more determined than before. I look down at the knife and I touch my finger to the tip of the blade. It pricks my finger and a drop of blood slips from the cut and drips on the floor.

“Go on. You can do it. And then we can be together.”

I put my hand on the door handle and I push it open. Because I want us to be together, I really do. More than anything else in the world.

I step into the black within, and the soft snores of her sleeping parents tremble back to me through the darkness.