Chapter fifty-two:

 

 

“This is our stop,” I say, and I pull her up to standing. “Thanks,” I say to the driver as we get off.

“Onwards and onwards,” he retorts, and I smile at that. It’s funny how a couple of days can change your perspective on things.

“Yeah, onwards and onwards, buddy,” I say to him.

We walk down my street, hand in hand. Nothing has changed, yet everything has.

Music is blaring, tears are falling, and horns are beeping. Pain is still pouring from the windows and seeping from under the doors. I see the whore from upstairs come out the door. She looks both ways, and when she sees me I nod to her. She scowls at me and frowns at Carrie when she sees her messed-up face, but she doesn’t say anything, instead she gives me the middle finger and flounces away.

“You’ll get used to her,” I say to Carrie. “She’s just a piece-of-shit whore.” I laugh and shake my head. And even to me the words seem crude, but what can I say, I’m embarrassed by where I live. By the whore and the way she looked at me and Carrie like she knew what had gone on between us. When really she knows jack shit.

She looks up at me, her one good eye catching me and taking my breath away. Even like this, she is still beautiful. Light dances across her face, shining blue and red, and I smile as the colors flash across her face. I pull her hood tighter around her face and I turn to look at my front door.

A police car has pulled up, lights flashing. Two officers get out and the front door to my apartment opens and out steps my counselor-slash-therapist-slash-parole-officer-slash-Mr. fucking Jeffrey.

“Shit,” I say.

Carrie begins to pull on my hand, not away from them, but toward them. She opens her mouth to speak as the officers climb the steps and head inside my apartment building, and I slap a hand across her mouth to shut her up.

I stare down at her as I drag her into a nearby alleyway and throw her against the wall. The air leaves her in a whoosh, and it’s now that I see her fear is back. Gone is the doe-eyed Carrie wanting to start a new life with me, and back is the monster who keeps trying to fuck everything up.

“Why?” I grind out. “Why, Carrie?”

She blinks and raises her chin. “Because I can still get myself out of this mess.”

I shake my head. “This isn’t a mess.”

“It is!”

“It’s not,” I say, and I place my hands on her shoulders when she tries to move away from the wall. “I can fix this. I can fix it all.”

“You killed him,” she says.

And I laugh. “No, you killed him.”

She shakes her head, her tears spilling free. “But I didn’t mean to.”

“Doesn’t matter, and you know it.”

And I don’t know who we’re talking about anymore: Mr. Fancy Asshole Adam or her dad. It could be both, or neither. I don’t really care anymore. We’re beyond that—or at least I thought we were.

“I’ll tell them you made me,” she says between sobs.

“But I didn’t.”

“They’ll believe me over you, Ethan. They always do.”

And she’s right.

She’s got me there.

It’s true; they will believe her.

They always do.

Even when she’s not there to tell the lie.

Every story she’s ever told, every finger pointed and accusation my parents and I had to endure, was because of her. And she’ll do it again; I can see it on her face. She’ll throw me to the fucking wolves again, and this time I’ll never get out. This time I’ll rot in that prison until I am dead. And the little seed I placed in her belly when we made love will be born into her horrible world and will grow up without me. And perhaps Carrie will have dirty windows and peeling paint, and perhaps another fancy asshole will come along, and then what? Then what happens?

It’s red I see when I pull the gun from my pocket and smash it into the side of her temple to knock her out. Blood red, when I think of the misery she has caused me over the years, and continues to do, and will continue to do, forever and ever and ever and ever…

“Amen,” I say.

I’m not even angry when I hit her, despite the red I see. It’s just a reaction to the situation, to the sadness she made me feel. Besides, I truly feel justified in my actions.

I can’t let her do that. I can’t let her harm our unborn child, or our life that surely was, I think as I pick up her slumped body from the ground and I throw her over my shoulder. I’d rather us all die than let that happen.

I think back to that time she nearly died because she selfishly slit her own wrists, and how her almost death nearly made me die too. Because I couldn’t live without her. I didn’t want to.

But, like everything that happens around Carrie, there was a reason to her madness. It was the tipping point in my destruction. In the destruction of everything.

*

“We can’t keep doing this, Ethan.”

It was Mom. She was looking at me with her sad, sad eyes again. Touching my hand and trying to reassure me, but it wasn’t reassuring. Not even a little bit.

“Are you even listening to your mother?” Dad said. He was always so angry these days.

I shake my head. “No,” I say. “No, I’m not.”

I look up at him, and then I let my gaze stray to Mom. She’s been crying a lot recently, but especially right now. She’s really sad. She’s always sad these days.

“Well listen now, and listen good, boy,” my dad says. “I don’t want her anywhere near the house again. Not the house, not you, not any of us. We’re selling the house and moving away and then we can start fresh.” His sentence starts with anger but ends with sadness, guilt creeping into his cheeks as he reaches for my mom’s hand. He squeezes it and then lets it go when her hand stays limp in his.

Mom is crying again. She loves this house. Why would she move?

“I won’t go,” I say. And I won’t. I’m making a stand, and I’m doing it for Mom and for Carrie, because without me Carrie has nothing and no one. And without this house, my mom won’t be happy ever again. “I won’t go,” I say again.

“You’ll do as you—" my father starts, but we all stop arguing as Carrie’s father comes into the hospital.

Her mother follows closely behind.

She’s swaying, he’s sneering.

She’s drunk, he’s hateful.

He goes to the reception desk and gives Carrie’s name. The nurse nods and says something and then she points to us. At me. Carrie’s dad turns around and storms toward us, his eyes blazing like wildfire.

“I told her to stay away from you!” he bellows in my face.

I stand up. He’s tall, but I am almost taller. True to my word, I have continued to work out. Carrie’s dad is scary looking, but I am dangerous because I will protect her no matter what. I have nothing to lose but her.

“And I told you to keep your hands off her!” I yell back.

He’s shocked that I answered him back. His gaze moves to my dad, and for a split second they share a look. It’s a split second too long as I raise my fist and hit Carrie’s dad as hard as I can in the face. The sound is loud in the hospital waiting room, and Carrie’s dad staggers back from the force of it.

I step forward as he rights himself. I feel brave. He gives his head a little shake and then squares up to me with another of his trademark sneers, his stare washing over me.

“You’re going to be sorry you did that, boy,” he says.

“I’m going to kill you for hurting her,” I say back coldly.

His gaze moves back to my dad again. “You need to control your boy,” he says, “before I make you pay for it.” And I don’t know what he means, but it makes me angry that he’s dismissing my threat so much. So I say it again, louder this time, because I want the world to know, to bear witness to my threat.

“I am going to kill you, Mr. Brown, and then you can’t ever hurt her again.”

He shakes his head at me, and I’m blinded by so much rage that I don’t see it when his fist comes up and connects with my face.

And then the world is black.

When I wake up, I’m on a gurney in a small room and my mom is holding an ice pack against my face. My jaw hurts so much. It’s like I took a sledgehammer to it.

“What happened?” I ask, and I try to sit up but the world is still spinning so I lie back down. Dad isn’t in the room.

“Carrie’s dad hit you. You were unconscious, Ethan,” she says. “Hush now. Rest, son.”

I think of all the times that Mr. Brown has hit Carrie. And how much it must have hurt every single time he did that. I start to cry because I’m a pussy, and I let my mom hold me while I think of Carrie and her beautiful face that takes her father’s punches night after night, and I try not to think about all of the other things that he does to hurt her. And I know now why she wants to die—why she would rather be dead and without me than live another minute in this hell.

I force myself to sit up. My mom places a hand on my shoulder.

“Lie back, Ethan, you need to rest,” she says.

“I need to see her,” I reply sadly.

“No!” she snaps at me. And I’m shocked, because Mom almost never shouts—especially at me. “No, you need to let your dad and Mr. Brown handle it. Carrie is a troubled young girl. She needs professional help, and her dad is going to sort it out for her. You are banned from seeing her.”

I push her away and swing my legs over the side of the gurney. “You can’t stop me.” I glare. “We love each other, Mom,” I plead, and I hope that she’ll understand, but I can see it in her eyes that she’s done caring. She’s done letting Carrie’s trouble seep into our family life.

I stand up and push my mom’s hand off me and I walk away from her. I open the door and ignore my mom’s calls to come back as I go into the corridor and the world spins around and around and around. The white walls swim in and out of focus, and I do a little head-shake, just like Carrie’s dad had done.

The hospital is busy. I guess they always are. A constant hustle and bustle of life and death, shuffling from one place to the next.

To get better.

To get well.

Or to die.

Those are your only choices in a place like this. It’s so sad, I think as I search for Carrie’s room. It’s by chance that I find it.

Carrie’s dad is leaving it but he doesn’t see me. He’s too busy looking at his cell phone.

I wait until he turns a corner and then I open her door and go inside. Carrie is asleep on the bed. Her face is pale and her hair is plastered to the side of it.

I watch over her and I take her hand in mine. Her eyelids flutter, and she wakes with a start.

“Ethan,” she says my name, a caress to my ears.

“I’m here,” I say.

She tries to smile, but her face crumples in pain. An internal misery that you can’t escape from. I reach over and lift her body—I hadn’t realized how skinny she had become—and then I hold her to me while she cries.

“I can’t—" she starts to say, and I hush her and then she cries some more.

“I know,” I say. “I’ll fix this. I’m sorry, I promise I’ll fix this.”

And I feel awful, I really do. It’s my fault that she’s crying. I told him where she was and he brought her back here, to this horrible life, where he hurts her over and over. I’d never forgive me if I were her, yet here she is, holding my hand and trusting me to make this right.

“I can’t go back there,” she sobs quietly against my shoulder. My T-shirt sticks to my skin, damp with her tears.

“I know. I’ll fix it,” I say again.

“How?”

I pause because I know that once I say it, there’s no going back. I promised her once and I didn’t follow through, so she left. I can’t lose her again. I won’t. So this time, I’ll follow through. This time, I won’t be a pussy.

“I’ll kill him for you, Carrie,” I say. “I promise, I’ll kill him for you and then this will all stop.”

She sobs harder, her shoulders rising and falling with each great heave. When she stops crying, I promise I’ll meet her when she gets out and we will make plans. I can see the spark of hope in her eyes. I kiss her and promise her again. I tell her I won’t let him hurt her anymore.

“It’s going to be okay. I’ll make him pay, Carrie. I’ll make him pay and then he’ll be gone and you can be happy, and we can be together.” I kiss her hair and hold her even closer.

“Ethan?” she says.

“Yes?”

“But what about the others?”

I frown. “Others?”

She swallows and her eyes dart around the room like she’s trapped and looking for an escape.

“What others?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does. Tell me, Carrie.”

“What about your dad?” she says, and the dizzy, sick feeling from earlier returns. “Will you keep him away from me too?”

I nod, sickness bubbling up inside me. “I will. I’ll keep them all away from you.” And I don’t know what I’m agreeing to; I only know that I’m agreeing to it. That I’m going to make them all pay for hurting her like this.

She opens her mouth and lets out a sigh. It sounds aged. Like she’s been holding her breath for a really long time.

“Good, because he hurts me most of all,” she says and looks away. “The quiet ones always do.”

I don’t know what to say to that. The world is spinning, and I am standing on a tight rope on the tip of it. I can’t get off now that I’m on it. I can only wait for the cards to fall where they will.

“I’d rather die than live like this,” she whispers.

And I understand so much, I really do. “I’d rather you die too,” I say. And I feel awful for saying it. But it’s true. Because I’d rather die than let her live like this.

The door opens and a nurse comes in. She has a pinched mouth, small and crinkled, and her eyes go wide when she sees me here. She presses the alarm button by the door.

“You shouldn’t be in here,” she says, like I am a criminal. Like I am the bad person and not her dad—but no one ever listens to kids. Especially troubled kids that cause a fuss, and tell lies, and steal, and get into fights. No one ever listens to the promiscuous girl who cries wolf, do they?!

A security guard comes in at the same time as Carrie’s dad does. The security guard begins to drag me out. His grip is strong on my arms and it hurts.

“Promise me,” she screams, her eyes wide with fear.

“I promise, Carrie,” I yell, fighting to get the security guard off me. “I promise.”

Her dad looms over me. “You’ll never see her again.” He looks over his shoulder at Carrie and I watch her shrink back against the bed.

“She’d rather die than spend another minute in that house with you,” I growl out.

He sneers. “Is that a threat, boy?”

“It’s a promise,” I say.

“You all get that? He just threatened my baby girl,” he says.

I’m so angry that I’m dizzy. So angry that he would even suggest I might hurt her. “I’m going to kill you!” I growl, but he’s not scared by me.

He laughs in my face and waves as the security guard pulls me out of the room. I watch as Carrie’s dad smiles at me and closes the door behind him, and then I am being dragged away. I pass my dad, who’s been watching everything unfold.

He looks both angry and guilty.

It’s hard to tell the difference anymore.

Now that I know his dirty little secret.