Chapter fifty-one:

 

 

Down the stairs we walk together.

Together! I want to sing, still unsure, still excited and full of hope. Full of Carrie.

“I need to get some things,” she says, and I nod okay because I’m scared to speak. If I speak I might break the spell. If I break the spell, I’ll never have this moment ever again.

She tries to walk away, but we’re still holding hands. She jerks back, lightly, and looks down at our hands entwined.

I do too.

I can’t let go. I can’t let go!

“It’s okay, Ethan. Come with me.” And she finally seems so at peace.

And it’s her saying it now. It’s her leading me to the back room, the one filled with shelves of junk and trinkets. And I follow and she leads. And that’s how it’s always been!

I’ll go wherever she goes. I’ll do whatever she needs me to. I’ll be whoever she needs me to. She grabs a small black case from under a desk in the corner and she goes around the room filling the bag with different things. She opens drawers and pulls out money. Lots and lots of money, but I don’t say anything even though I want to know where she got it all from. She opens cupboards and pulls out pictures. Her small black bag is now filled with random objects of her life for the past fifteen years. It’s too much, yet not enough. I want her to leave it all, but I want her to bring it too. I’m a bundle of contradictions as I struggle to breathe and can’t stop panting.

She grabs a hoodie from one of the cupboards and she puts it on. I let go of her hand while she zips it up and pulls the hood over her head. Her face is encased in shadows that make her bruises look worse.

I reach out and touch my palm to the side of her cheek.

“It’s okay,” she says again. And Is it? I think. Is it really okay? She looks down, her gaze going to my bare feet. “Oh, wait here,” she says and goes back up the stairs.

I wait for her to scream. To freak out about Adam, but she doesn’t. she comes back down with some shoes in her hand, and I know that they’re his because they look expensive and why else would she have a pair of men’s shoes in her bedroom, right? I don’t want to wear them, but I’m barefoot and that’s just not practical. So, I drop them on the floor and slip my feet into the expensive Italian brogues. I tie the laces and stand back up and try not to think about the fact that I’m wearing a dead man’s shoes.

Then she leads me to the front door and she opens it slowly, sticking her head out and looking both ways. Carrie turns back to look at me and then she says,

“All clear.”

She looks back at me full of certainty and uncertainty, and I smile to reassure her, and me that this is right and good and perfect. I see Charlie’s keys on the shelf next to the wooden elephant statue and I pick them up and put them back into my pocket. Best not leave anything behind, eh? As an afterthought, I grab the elephant too. I hand it to Carrie and she smiles and puts it in her bag.

And then we’re out the door and we’re on our way to our new life.

The air is fresh and clean—pure, almost—with a crispness that reminds me that autumn is on its way. There’s a skip in my step as we walk, hand in hand, my face turned up to the trees that line her street, her face huddled beneath the hood of her zip-up and reminding me that she’s injured. But it’s okay, she won’t always be. The bruises will fade and vanish. The cuts will heal. The scars we’ll bear forever, but we can move past them.

We will move past them.

And by the time Halloween is here, we’ll be picking out fancy dress outfits and you’ll be taking me to parties to meet your friends. We’ll go as Batman and Batgirl, or Peter Pan and Wendy. We’ll be cute, and people will say so. Trick-or-treaters will knock on our door and we’ll give them candy. You’ll befriend the whore upstairs and tell her that life can be different. That life can be good. That you changed your life, thanks to me, and she can change hers too. She won’t change though, because she’s a true whore, through and through. But eventually she’ll move out because she can’t take seeing you so happy and knowing that she doesn’t have the courage to change her life like you did, like you do, right now with me.

You’re brave and I’m brave and together we can conquer the fucking world, Carrie!

I look down at our hands, our fingers entwined, and I think my heart might explode. I feel sick with excitement. Heavy with nerves. But we’re doing it, Carrie, we’re really doing it this time. This time, we’re running away together.

“Where do you live?” she asks, breaking the silence between us. I was enjoying thinking of our future and watching the birds flit from tree to tree. But of course it’s all okay; I’m glad she’s asking questions and talking to me.

“We,” I say.

“We?” she replies.

“Where do we live?” I smile as I say it.

She smiles too. It’s only small and I can see the hesitation on her face.

“Eventually we’ll find somewhere new, somewhere that we both choose. But for now, while we work through everything, we can stay there.”

I watch her face, the fleeting emotions washing over her like waves. She’s scared, and I get that, because I’m scared too and I’m a good boyfriend. I’m considerate and caring, and I squeeze her hand and say,

“It’s going to be okay, Carrie.”

She nods but her lips stay shut, as if she’s afraid of opening them and letting her fears spill out.

We lapse back into silence, and she looks down to hide her face. I see her watching our footsteps as we walk; mine are in sync with hers. I smile at people as they pass us. Some smile back, but most just frown, and God do I pity them. They haven’t known a love like ours. It transcends everything. They don’t know how our lives have been connected from that very first day so many years ago. They haven’t experienced the things we have. All these people are just rolling through life as if it isn’t worth living. As if their lives are meaningless, pointless existences. And they are, but they don’t have to be, I want to say. Your lives can be as wonderful as ours too. You just have to take that leap into the unknown.

I stop at a bus stop, and I check what time the next one is due, and I see that it’s only three minutes. And I smile again, because everything is going our way and everything is going to be perfect now.

The day is getting late and the bus is packed when it pulls up. How did those hours slip by us? I didn’t even notice. It was minutes, seconds, not a day. Not almost night. Yet people board the bus after their long days at work. Men with briefcase thinking they’re some hot shit with their ties and hats, and women with their heels that click down the center of the bus. Old people, young people, children and dogs. We all share the same air, the same space as we fight to get home. As we struggle to get to where we really belong. Behind those closed doors with our drapes pulled tight to blot out the rest of the world. To omit the boss we hate, the neighbors we despise, and the family we avoid.

She pays for us both because I have no money with me, and I say thank you but she doesn’t respond.

Carrie is leaning with her head against the window. It’s raining outside now, and the windows have steamed up. She’s tracing patterns on the glass, and I remember another time that she did that. When I found her hiding in my room, her face black and blue from the fist her dad hit her with.

*

“You’re back?” I say, but she doesn’t say anything. She’s been gone a week, but it felt like forever. “When did you get back?” I ask, but she still doesn’t reply.

I’m carrying my schoolbooks, so I come in and I put them on my desk neatly, and I have homework to do, but I’ll do it later because Carrie is back and that’s much more important than algebra. I go and sit next to her on the bed and I reach out for her arm, but she flinches and pulls away before my fingers touch her.

“Where did you go?” I ask. Still nothing. Just the dead air of silence between us.

I see her patterns in the steam on the window. Swirls and loops and curves. It’s pretty.

“I missed you,” I say.

Her hand stills on the glass, her finger poised above a curve, and then she looks at me.

“I was gone but he brought me back. I escaped but he’s trapped me again. I missed you too,” she sighs, answering all of my questions at once.

I swallow. “Are you hungry?” I ask, and she nods her head. “I’ll make you something to eat. Bologna sandwich? Coffee?”

She nods again.

I stand up and I go to my door. I look back in at her and she’s drawing on the glass again.

“I’m sorry he found you,” I say. “But I’m also not.”

She turns and looks at me again. “I know.”

“I am sorry about that.” I look down, feeling shame creep up my cheeks. I know what her dad does to her. I know he hits her and touches her where he shouldn’t. I know her mom doesn’t do anything to help and that she is a drunk. I know her situation is horrible and hopeless and that she’s hurting so much. “I really did miss you,” I say.

“I know you did,” she says.

Our gazes are connected for a few precious seconds. I see her world without me and without her dad and without her mom. I see how it could have been for her. And she sees my life, without her in it. Our situations are reversed if we are apart.

Mine is worse and hers is better, but still I cannot let her go.

If you love something, set it free. That’s what the poem says. But I don’t want to set her free, though I love her very much. I want to keep her trapped in a gilded cage. I want her to be with me always. No matter what the consequences.

That’s why I told her dad where she was going. That’s why I always tell him.

“I’m sorry, Carrie,” I say, and I leave the room.

I make her a sandwich and I put extra mayo on, just like she likes it. I make her coffee with two sugars and just a splash of milk, and then I carry both things upstairs.

I push the door open to my room and I find her with a knife in her hand and blood on her wrists. It drips onto my duvet and she slides down and lays her head on my pillow.

I drop the tray and her coffee spills and her sandwich falls, and everything comes crashing down on my bedroom floor. I run to the bed, I collapse by her head, and I press my hand to her wrist to stem the blood.

“No, no,” I say. “Mom!” I scream over and over. “Stay with me, Carrie!”

“I’m sorry too,” she says, and then she closes her eyes.