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 Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 10:10 pm
I'll comment for you smile (even though I've already read all you have here)
I really do like your story and I'm sad you can't add onto it here. sad At least I know you're working on it, that makes me happy. I can't wait to read it...eventually. I am nearly finished reading Ametris though. I got hooked on this and stopped reading for a while, but now that this isn't being updated I'm reading again.
So what's the status of your computer? Did you ever get the product key?
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Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2008 2:04 pm
I still care! I just hope you can fix your dang comp as soon as possible! So i can see this famed ending!
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Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2008 6:17 pm
Well, I've got six new pages of the latest chap up. Then I have to add a few pages in the beginning, and about ten more to the end. Don't worry, it doesn't take long, I just have to be in the mood.
I can still read the old version to copy from, and once I can reach a point where I don't have anything written down, it'll get easier. Screw MSWord 2007. Screw it.
I'm gettin' MS 2003. ^(^-^)^
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Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2008 8:11 pm
KirbyVictorious Well, I've got six new pages of the latest chap up. Then I have to add a few pages in the beginning, and about ten more to the end. Don't worry, it doesn't take long, I just have to be in the mood. I can still read the old version to copy from, and once I can reach a point where I don't have anything written down, it'll get easier. Screw MSWord 2007. Screw it. I'm gettin' MS 2003. ^(^-^)^ mood schmood /poke work fasteeerrr!!! xp
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Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2008 8:42 pm
Buuuuuuut
every time I do somethign else, I wanna WRITE something else! *sobnez*
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Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2008 2:17 pm
Yay finally out!
17.
Halloween came and went. Kahme, once I explained the holiday to her, was practically hopping in her eagerness to go; she actually asked my permission, and I was so startled that I just stammered that I didn’t care what she did. But then I changed my mind and decided to help her out, give her some tips; she’d never even heard of Halloween before.
I taught her what to say when she approached each house, which houses to go to (the ones with plenty of lights on and/or other kids leaving), and warned her to stay close to groups of little kids but not to follow them into dark alleys or anything. Then I gave her a grocery bag for her candy, warned her to watch out for KitKats (apparently they’d been drugged a couple of years back, I wasn’t taking chances), and helped her find her costume.
Would anyone really be surprised if I told them what Kahme was for Halloween?
That’s right: an Indian.
It wasn’t too cold for October that day, so the kids wouldn’t be dressing up as snow explorers, Eskimos, professional snowboarders, or vampires, instead venturing into the range of piracy, princesses, and aliens. I was one of them once, I knew how it worked; you pieced your costume from bits and pieces the day of, carefully watching the weather channel to see what you should be…not much had changed, sometimes I watched the little kids parade past our dark house with their costumes and cute little singsong voices.
Of course, I hadn’t gone since before Mom died. But I could still help Kahme with her costume: a pair of my darkest jeans (which didn’t quite fit her, being for an entirely different gender) and a long-sleeved shirt of mine, stretched out at the neck and dropping over one shoulder, beneath her favorite blue dress. The outfit was complete with a borrowed pair of socks, her moccasins, her beaded ribbon and little shoulder bag (complete with knife for candy thieves and rapists), a braid and a feather she’d found, and “war paint” (it made me queasy, I was absolutely positive it was blood, no matter what she said). I thought she looked pretty good, not as patchy as most kids looked Halloween night in a small town.
I sent her on her way at six, warned her to be back by nine, rebutting her every protestation at my absence: candy made me sick, I’d only get terrorized and robbed anyway, and regardless I wasn’t allowed to go. My dad was going out drinking with some of his childless friends, God knew when he’d be back, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I wished Kahme luck and went back to cleaning the house.
The night proceeded as it usually did when I was alone--I cleaned at my leisure, a book hidden in my bucket, and took breaks whenever I desired to read and sip at a glass of chocolate milk. Everything went fine until I finished cleaning, called it a night, and retreated to my room with some plain milk this time (it helped me sleep when I was really sore), only to find Kahme laying on my floor, playing with her toys and catching M&Ms in her mouth.
I slopped milk all over myself and cursed loudly. “What are you doing in here?!”
“Trick or treat, Evan,” she said casually, pummeling Captain Hook with Spiderman’s head.
“Wha…what are you….” I stammered, staring in utter shock at her. “What are you doing in my ROOM?”
“Well, thought you’d be lonely,” she told me, still unconcerned. “And doncha wanna share some candy?”
“No.” I shook my head hard, as if to erase the Etch-a-Sketch in my brain with Kahme’s image on it. “I didn’t even HEAR you, how did you--?”
“Didn’t go that way, silly,” she giggled, pointing with her foot to the window.
I stared at the window, closed and innocently locked. “Not that ladder again.”
“Yep.” She beamed, her eyes scrunching happily shut.
“I thought I put that thing away.”
“Well I took it out again.”
“Kahme, you can’t just break into people’s houses….”
She frowned, her eyes wide and hurt. “You mean you don’t want me to?”
I sighed, running a hand through my hair. “You’re fine, I guess,” I sighed. Then I glanced at the milk glass, suddenly feeling a bit sick. “Brought you some milk,” I added.
“Thanks, Evan!” Kahme took it from me, gulping it down with both hands, smiling hugely when it was half gone. “I love milk,” she added unnecessarily. “But it tasted weird.”
“It’s not organic or anything,” I murmured as explanation, stretching out on my bed. “How was Halloween?”
Kahme gave me the full, exhausting story, and I let her go; she sounded so happy. When she was done, she caught her breath a moment, then offered her candy to me. I picked a KitKat out and tossed it into my trash can, then pushed the bag away. “I don’t like candy.”
Kahme stared at me as if I was nuts. “You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“But Evan…it’s candy! Americans have AWESOME candy!”
“Yeah, I know. It makes me sick.”
“You sure you don’t want any?”
I could see she was genuinely concerned for me, having missed out on all the fun she’d had. I smiled at her to put her mind at ease. “You can leave it under my bed,” I offered. No way it would melt now, when it was nearly winter. “If I want some, I’ll take some, okay?”
“Okay.” She beamed at me and sat at the foot of my bed, swinging her feet against the side. I puffed out a breath, ruffling my hair.
“Kahme, is this slumber party deal seriously going to become a regular thing?”
“No,” she said innocently, poking her tongue out at me. But it was.
With Halloween out of the way, I began planning for the next big event on my calendar: Dad’s birthday. It was not like either of us would do anything; Dad would go out after dinner and get drunk, and I would make him something tasty and get out of the way. I didn’t make him presents; I had no desire to have them chunked at my head. My present was giving him a day to himself, keeping out of the way and avoiding dealing out bad news.
Until then, everything proceeded as normal with Kahme and I. She continued to sleep under my bed every night, complaining from the cold; I realized that she could hardly be expected to survive out there anyway, and let her, bringing her a snack and hot chocolate whenever I could. She adored it, and I liked having someone to talk to every night if she wasn’t already asleep. Everything fell back into place, into my wobbly little system of checks and balances, and it would have stayed happy and peaceful and safe had it not been for one huge screw-up of mine.
By the very nature of the situation I was in, I was similar, in personality, to a small mouse: cautious, careful, ever alert, always skittering away from shadows that I could avoid and, if I could, sniffing out a crumb, small happiness here and there. My instincts were those of a mouse--when you’re in trouble or sense danger, run and hide--though I often fought them back with the sheer logic of, where was there to run to? I had nowhere to go, nowhere to stay for any length of time.
Like the mouse, I let nothing touch me, I let nothing see me. Like the mouse, I was as invisible as a ghost, as disregarded as a shadow. And like the mouse, I learned quickly that certain mistakes could cost me my life. I, with all the mental capacity of a human, took the lessons of a mouse to heart, applied them to my life, and memorized those mistakes I made so they would never happen again.
The “mistakes”--I use quotations now because they weren’t so much mistakes, or “accidents” as I called them at school, as much as they were disasters, attacks--replaced New Year’s Day, birthdays, or social events as the marking points of my life. Every time I made a “mistake”, something horrible happened to me, and I was forever changed because of it. Thus, a new era began after each one--a newer, more desperate, more miserable era filled with nothing but chaos and apocalyptic doom, growing ever closer.
If you had asked my dad, he would have told you that the first mistake I ever made was being born. That was true, in a way: there had never been anything wrong with me until Mom died, yes, but I was mostly the cause of my own suffering (or so I had thought at the time) so naturally, if I had not been born, I would never have been around to suffer. But at the thought of denying life in its entirety, the sweet memories of my mother, the wonderful freedom of books and sleep, hurt me to my core, as well as the thought that my dad would have preferred it that way; so when listing my mistakes to myself, I left that one out. I couldn’t help being born; all any baby wants is to live.
The first mistake: Mom dying. That was a class of its own, as the pain had not belonged solely to me, but still within the category; and though I would later question my reasoning behind calling it a “mistake,” I know now that it was no mistake at all. Just an accident, a disaster, that didn’t happen directly to me. After that, grayness, confusion, the disorientation of too many changes. Then the next mistake: Dad hitting me for the first time. From then on, and for the next two years, life had become nothing but rules, strictly enforced codes and boundaries that I was petrified to overstep. From then on, my life was a masquerade, putting on a new face for every place I went, forever trying to give everyone what they wanted so they would leave me alone.
Then, Dad sent me to the hospital for the first time. Being in there, in the same place my mother had died, changed my outlook on things; I acted just the same when I got out, back to the masquerade, the timid scurrying from shadow to shadow, but now it didn’t hurt me to remember. Mom had lived, Mom had loved me, Mom had protected me as long as I could; she deserved to be remembered, and I would not scorn her memory any longer. A little while after that, I started seeing my mother’s ghost, drifting silently, sadly through our house, lost in her own memories. That was all she was, I knew--concentrated memories--and to help her, I never shunned her, I never avoided her, and I never forgot her.
The next “mistake”--though I will never, ever consider it that again for as long as I live--was letting myself befriend Kahme. This was not so much a disaster as a life-changing event: Kahme was my guardian angel, my savior, and my world had automatically shifted to accompany her. In the years to come, I would ask myself whether it was truly a mistake or not, but now I see it for what it is: not a mistake, but a random occurrence of the purest nature, sheer destiny in the sweetest form God could put it in while abiding by the laws of the world He had created.
And after that, I was happier, but still as careful as ever. Nothing had changed in my world; you could shine all the light you wanted through the bars, but it was still a dank prison cell inside. And I knew that no balance in my life lasted forever; if I had learned anything from the night in the graveyard, it was that horrors beyond horrors could happen to me at any time, and though I couldn’t stop them, if I was ever going to survive this I had to know that the worst was yet to come, and it was coming soon.
This mistake in particular was, as usual, caused by my own idiocy. Later I noted it carefully in my mind, carving a new edict into the side of my skull so I would remember as long as I lived: Never, ever, ever try to hide things from Dad.
That semester, Dad had somehow found out when progress reports were distributed to each kid in the school. I hadn’t counted on this knowledge, nor had I expected any change from the norm that mid-November day; usually I stuffed the report in my backpack and assumed that he wouldn’t bother asking. But he seemed to suspect that something had gone wrong this quarter, and upon discovering that progress reports would be issued that day, seemed to have a premonition that they wouldn’t be exactly what he wanted. Perhaps he had known all along that my grades wouldn’t please him, and had found out the exact day I would possess proof to show him just to torment me with my own insufficiency. Perhaps he wanted to stalk me like a tiger in the wild stalks its prey, watch me sweat, see me suffer.
Whatever his reasoning, he hunkered down and sat in wait that day, the tip of his tiger-tail flicking back and forth throughout dinner, waiting, coy and malevolent and viciously fast. When I didn’t offer him the progress report, he affirmed that they would be substandard; he wouldn’t appear happy about it, but I could imagine the sadist in him grinning at the thought of my punishment.
He asked me, in his usual brusque tone, where the report was. I jumped; he repeated himself, a little sharper this time, and I stammered, “Wh-…wh-wh-what, s-s-s-s--?”
His hand shot out and grabbed my collar, twisted it tight, and he started shaking me hard, where was it, why was I hiding it from him, what right did I have to keep anything from him when I was living under HIS roof and eating HIS food and using up all HIS time and HIS money, what made me thing that I even had the brains to hide anything from him? He demanded to see it, and I had no choice; I handed it over with trembling fingers, waiting for the shouting and the beating I knew I was going to get.
Dad didn’t betray my expectations. He stared and stared at the little piece of paper while I shook like a leaf, then I saw his expression darken, his eyes light aflame; choking back a frightened sob, I backed away, knowing that I was screwed--knowing there was no way out of a huge amount of pain, not this time. If only he knew, if only I had the courage to tell him, if only he could understand how hard I’d worked, how longingly I’d dreamed of making him proud with a perfect line of A’s, how much I’d already tormented myself over that one grade, innocently, beguilingly feminine with its single curve, coy callous cryptic contemptuous calculative cataclysmic C…knowing what the consequences would be if he ever saw that letter associated with my name…. But it was too late now. He’d seen. He knew.
Dad spoke the fatal letter aloud. “A…a C.” I flinched. “A C…you got a C…in Algebra.” I could sense the danger building up behind his words; I shook with fear, with shame, with guilt, with despair--he hated me, he despised everything about me, because I was stupid, because I had thought that I could deceive him. There was nothing I could have done to prevent this event beforehand, I had truly done my best, but I felt like crying as I thought of what was to come and realized that I deserved it, I deserved every moment of it….
“A C in Algebra,” Dad repeated. “Algebra.” God, I hated that word. “F--ing Algebra,” he spat, his fury building up, breaking free. “The easiest subject in the f--ing world, you stupid child, you just find the goddamn x, and you get a f--ing C. You must be the most idiotic son of a b***h there’s ever been,” he hissed, “and I’ll tell you one goddamn thing, Evan, and you better get it through your thick head, this is UNNACEPTABLE, I am NOT PAYING for you to go to school and f-- around and bring--home--F--ING--C’S!”
The storm broke; I protected my head with my arms and wailed, begging for forgiveness, for mercy as he, to put it bluntly, beat the s**t out of me; I struggled, but he held me against the wall, pinned me down, he was too strong, I couldn’t stop him, all I could do was stand there, sobbing, and take it, knowing he was right, right about everything…. He shouted at a deafening volume as he struck me again and again, unacceptable, I was not allowed to make C’s, only retards, nobodies, and ignorant little f--ers made C’s, from then on there would be no C’s on any grade I got--no, f-- that, there would be nothing but A’s on every single scrap of paper handed to me in school; of course it would be too much to ask that I get anywhere near the top of the f--ing class, I was too stupid for that, I was just a brainless little retard who couldn’t even pass Algebra…. And I would never lie to him again, never try to trick him again or he’d make me wish I’d never been born, and he would never see another f--ing book in his house again, because look where reading had got me! I’d been getting progressively worse since kindergarten, and he wasn’t having it, no more, I would excel in school or I’d never see the light of day again….
That would be the censored version.
He was enraged, unstoppable, and trying to protect myself became too hard, too exhausting; all I could do was stand there and retreat into my mind, count and pray, try to breathe and count and pray to God that it would stop soon…please, please make it stop….
It was not like I’d never gotten beaten for a report card before--Dad was rarely pleased with my grades--and it was fairly common for me to reach the 3000’s before I was released. But what was not common was that as I was sucking in breath/sob number 3042, down on my hands and knees now with Dad shouting overhead and kicking me hard, again and again, I heard a frightening, ominous crack.
Time stood still for half a second. The breath left me in a gasp; in slow motion I felt another kick before pain exploded in my chest, a nuclear bomb inflaming everything in my body, a hollow abyss pulling my lungs away.
I must have collapsed, because when that moment came, the distinct, otherworldly instant when I registered everything clearly around me, knew exactly what was going on, I was looking at the carpet in the living room, the legs of the sofa, Dad’s feet. His roars echoed around me in the sudden ethereality, my eyes rolled back in my head, and everything faded away.
Humans, as the elite of the animals, are blessed--cursed--provided with several attributes and emotions that enable us to survive. Pain. Fear. Compassion. The stuff that saves lives.
Pain was not originally intended to be punishment, a torture device; it is merely an alarm bell of sorts in your nerves, telling your brain that something is wrong. Doctors ask you to define the pain--burning, twisting, icy, throbbing, stabbing?--and locate it; and thus, we can begin to locate the source and stop the pain for a time. Pain is not the body’s first line of defense, but it is the primary one, the greatest incentive and informer we have. Soreness means a bruise, tender muscles. Paralyzing pain means that you shouldn’t move. Unbearable pain means that you should be dead.
Fear is also a defense system, an alarm that goes off before something bad has a chance to happen. Fear quickens your heart and pumps oxygen into your lungs and makes you want to run, throws logic to the wind in favor of animal instinct, lets you know when a situation has become nasty and you should go far, far away. Fear and pain are at once friends, courtly lovers, and mortal enemies; one strikes before the other can, and one can appear just to spite the other, but in the end, they go together. We fear pain. We feel fear in the face of pain. We feel pain in fear.
And compassion. Nor for others in our time of need, but for others to feel for us. It is compassion that leads us to empathy, understanding pain; it is compassion that guides us to help end that pain; it is compassion that set up foundations such as the EMS, the fire department, the police department, help lines, laws against hurting others. People at one point felt enough compassion for mankind to establish an easy system: if you find yourself or someone else in agony, facedown on the floor, call their simple little number, and they’ll save your life ASAP.
Right now I was in agony facedown on the floor. I was in pain; I was afraid. Everything swam before me in a blurry, grayscale haze, nothing was clear, where was I, what had happened, where was Dad…where was he? Someone help me….
Someone should have. That’s what those instincts were for. That’s why 911 existed.
But there was no one to dial the phone for me. There was no one to help me.
“D-…D-….” My voice was weak, hoarse, almost nonexistent. “D-…Dad-…dy…?”
There was no one to answer me. I was alone.
I tried harder to focus, blinking, my brain sending confused underwater images to my brain. When it cleared, after ten frightening seconds of drifting in the haze, nothing was clear, everything had lost its sharp edges, as if I had suddenly become nearsighted. I saw the sofa’s legs, I saw the coffee table, I saw a fallen pillow, a desert of pale carpet, the cream-colored walls. I saw my arm, stretched out, curved slightly, the fingers blurred into one solid mass of hand. I tried to move it.
Pain seared across my chest, blossomed from my ribs, wrenched a choking sob from my mouth that was all I could substitute for a scream. For the first time, it was hard to breathe; I sucked in air, but every breath caused me pain like I’d never known before, and it felt terrifyingly futile; there was a heavy weight pressing down on my lungs, they could not rise, they would not suck in air. I started to feel dizzy; black edges like coffee rings appeared at the edges of my vision. Every breath sliced through my chest, past my heart, with white-hot knives, burning stakes, fiery needles. I whimpered, tried to sob, whimpered again with tears trickling silently down my bruised face. I couldn’t feel movement, even though my hand--no more than a skin-colored blob to me now--twitched slightly before me, sending more agony to my chest. I tried desperately to move, to run from the pain, but all that happened was a light tap of my fingers, a dull twitch of my toes in my socks.
The tears grew, sliding down the bridge of my nose, across my cheek. I had never felt this kind of pain, or so much of it, in my life…why, why wasn’t…why was this…someone help me, someone…come get me…please…need a hospital…someone, please just take me to a…to….
Daddy…Daddy, help me….
I slipped into darkness again.
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Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2008 2:19 pm
“Evan, Evan, please…wake up, Evan…don’t die, please don’t die, wake up….”
Ow, ow, ow ow ow owowowowowowow….
Something touched my shoulder, very softly, then started shaking me; I think I winced--inside my mind I was shrieking in pain.
“Evan?” inquired the spectral voice, which sounded strange to my ears, faraway. “Evan, please don’t die, don’t leave me here by myself, PLEASE, Evan….”
I recognized that voice…. But what in the world was Kahme doing in….
Where was I?
I tried to move, but then was reminded why I was on the floor in the first place. Pain shot through my chest this time, different pain; it was still hot, stabbing, burning, but duller, and there was a steady throbbing behind it that wouldn’t stop. I heard myself moan brokenly, cutting across Kahme‘s babbling.
“Evan! EVAN!”
Stupid, if she didn’t shut up she’d wake Dad, and then where would we be…?
Where were we now?
I let my eyes fall open; everything was dim, dark, blurry. I couldn’t focus. All the same, I saw that I hadn’t moved, I was still on my living room floor…and I couldn’t quite remember how I’d gotten there, but it must have been extremely painful.
Kahme--or I thought it was Kahme--rubbed my arm, gripped my hand so tightly that I couldn’t feel my fingers anymore. “Evan, what happened to you?” she wailed, and for the first time I realized that she was sobbing. “Evan…Evan….” Her fingers brushed frailly, uselessly at my hair, my collar, my cheek, my back. I felt tender spots throb at her touch. When I couldn’t answer her, she reached down and hugged me, tears splashing onto my shoulder and neck. I moaned pitifully again, and she drew back with a gasp.
“Sorry, sorry, Evan, please tell me what’s wrong, please talk to me, don’t die, please don’t die, Evan….”
I mumbled something unintelligible, my mouth separate from my brain; all I wanted was to go back to sleep, let my mind drift in peace for awhile without this pain….
“Evan…Evan, please….”
Even through the sharp agony I still had some common sense: nothing was ever going to get done if I didn’t answer her, and that wouldn’t be good--I had to get up, get out of here. Who knew when Dad….
I tried to move again; I managed to rise on my elbows an inch or two when my ribs started burning again and, with a gasp of pain followed by a cry on impact, I fell back to the floor.
“Don’t try to move!” Kahme squeaked, letting out another frightened sob. “Don’t, Evan, don’t, please….”
I felt dizzy; my vision, for a moment, went black. “Kahme….” I gasped, but didn’t have the breath for anything else.
Kahme, call 911. Kahme, please, please get me an ambulance. Kahme, for the love of God, go get my dad.
But I didn’t attempt to ask any of that. Every single one of those options was suicide. I let out a pained, frightened sob. Was it never going to end?
“What do I do, Evan?” Kahme cried. “What do I do, tell me what to do….”
I coughed agonizingly and tried to sit up again. This time I was careful, and got a little further before I collapsed. Kahme caught my shoulders, steadied me, supported me as I wobbled shakily on my knees. She looked desperately into my face, searching for a cure scrawled on my forehead. I rested for a moment as she held me up, then tried moving again, sitting back on my heels; but when I tried to straighten my back, I moaned again, hot knives again stabbing through my chest.
“Kahme,” I pleaded again. Please. Do something.
She cautiously moved my legs for me, tilting me toward her, letting my head rest on her shoulder. Pain flared in me again; I grasped her hand so hard that she whimpered in pain. Then I let go, but she didn’t let go of me.
“You’re shaking, Evan,” she said; she herself was shivering in fear. God, it was cold.
“’S cold,” I begged her. “Kahme….”
“Evan…Evan, I’ll…I’ll go get you a blanket….”
She shifted me, but stopped when I whined again, the pain stabbing me all the way up to my skull. She sat still, sobbing again; her quivering was making my chest ache.
My brain sluggishly tried to think. I couldn’t be caught on the floor, if Dad found me like that I’d never get up again. But I quailed at the thought of climbing the stairs in my condition. So….
I struggled to move again, biting my lip hard so I wouldn’t cry out in pain. Kahme tried to stop me.
“Don’t move, Evan, where’re you going…?”
“Couch,” I gasped, trying to push her hand away without killing myself. To my relief, she decided to help me, supporting me as I staggered onto my feet. She placed my arm carefully around her shoulder, pausing for a moment as I winced and gasped in pain, then helped me walk over to the couch--just a few steps, but it felt like a mile. She wouldn’t let me collapse; instead, she pushed me carefully down until I was sitting between two cushions, then helped me turn, lift up my legs, and rest my head on the armrest. I spasmed in pain as my ribs touched the cushion, but when I was finally settled, it felt wonderful. Just very cold, and painful.
“Don’t move,” Kahme warned me, her would-be-stern voice shaking. “Tell me where it hurts, Evan….”
“Ribs,” I gasped.
“Which ones?”
“Um….” I couldn’t really locate the source of the fire amid all the burning. Kahme understood. She laid her fingers gently on my collarbones and pressed down.
“Does that hurt?”
“Bit,” I replied weakly, knowing what she was doing. “Kahme, don’t….”
She ignored me, working her way down my chest, pressing softly every inch or so. “Tell me when it hurts.”
She worked her way from one side to the other, zigzagging down. I winced as she hit a sore spot, and she paused.
“Bruise,” I explained. She continued with her stupid painful healing method; I was powerless to stop her.
She reached the area that was burning, and I flinched with every touch; then she pressed somewhere else, and pain exploded from the spot.
“Ooooowwwwwwwwww!” I wailed, sobbing in pain. “Stop it, stop it….”
Pale beneath her copper skin, Kahme asked me queasily, “Is that the only place?”
“Yes,” I lied, “yes, yes, don’t do that anymore….”
“I won’t,” she promised me, sniffing and rubbing hard at her eyes. “Evan, it’s broken…your rib’s broken….”
I felt everything start spinning; I gripped her hand for support. Broken? It couldn’t be…how would I ever get it fixed again?
“I don’t know how to fix it,” she said in a small voice. “Evan….”
“No,” I gasped, but she said it anyway.
“Evan, I’ll call the hospital for you, they’ll fix it, won’t they?”
“NO,” I moaned; how could she torment me like that? Dangling what I needed most in front of my face, knowing if I took it there would be hell to pay. “Don’t…don’t tell ANYONE….”
“But Evan, you’re hurt, I can’t fix it, please….”
“No,” I repeated firmly. “If you tell…ANYONE, Kahme, then I’ll…never speak to you…ever again….”
She started crying again at that, and I regretted the words, but refused to take them back. “But Evan….”
“No.”
She rested her head on the couch by my stomach and cried for a minute or so, while I struggled not to pass out. Then she sniffed, recovered. “What do I do, Evan…?”
“It’s cold,” I repeated. “C-can I…get a….”
“Oh!“ She jumped up at once and disappeared.
Her abrupt departure scared me; did everybody leave like that, was I just slow now? Would I leave like that if I…? I didn’t know anything about ribs. What if one stabbed me in the heart? What if I died? Then what? Would there be a heaven and hell? What if my dad followed me and tortured me for all eternity because I died on him?
I started to cry, frightened and in pain and desperate for someone to help me. I needed relief from the pain…I needed sleep…I needed someone to hold me, make me feel strong, tell me it was all right….
But I couldn’t get any of that. Not now. Probably not ever.
Still, I could wish. Dad…Dad, please come downstairs, come check on me…please, please take me to the hospital…hug me like Mom used to…please, Dad, you’re all I’ve got left…Kahme went away, Mom’s dead, Daddy, please….
I was half-delirious by the time Kahme returned. She knelt down beside me and brushed away my tears.
“It’s okay, Evan, I’m back, it’ll be okay….”
I felt the heavy weight of my comforter on my legs; then Kahme paused, and I saw her draping part of the comforter over the back of the couch so it wouldn‘t be so heavy, tucking the rest around me. Warmth started to circulate, and after a minute, I could feel my toes again.
Kahme felt my forehead, bit her lip. It was hard to see her expression other than that; my vision kept fading and returning again, and I couldn’t focus. Her hand slid beneath my head and lifted it up.
“Here, Evan, drink this…careful now, it’s hot….”
She held a porcelain mug to my lips. I took a careful sip: some kind of bitter herb tea. “What is it?” I asked when she gave me a moment to swallow.
“Ginger and thyme tea. Helps with breathing ‘n‘ pain, it’ll let you sleep, Evan….”
“Don’t wanna sleep,” I murmured, though I did love pain medicine. “Gotta get up….”
“Evan, it’s past midnight…no one’ll expect you to be awake….”
Past midnight? “But….”
“Shhh…just drink….”
I was too tired to argue; I did as she said. Sip by sip, the tea disappeared; when it was halfway gone, I shook my head. “Don’t want any more,” I mumbled, my eyelids sinking.
“Do you feel better?”
There was a small coal of warmth in my stomach, easing the pressure in my ribs, and though I still felt pain, I could feel it slipping away. Or perhaps I was the one slipping. “Yeah,” I replied sleepily.
She softly rubbed my hair, leaned forward and kissed my cheek. The gesture surprised me. No one had kissed me since Mom…since….
My thoughts were drifting. Kahme was humming something to me, still stroking my hair, taking a strand between her fingers and gently pulling her hand away until the strand was free. Then doing it again. It felt wonderful….
“Just sleep for awhile,” Kahme’s faraway voice murmured, “it’ll be okay…I’ll get you to a hospital tomorrow, I promise….”
The unpleasant comment jolted me partway into reality again. “Wha? No, Kahme….”
“You’ve got to…it won’t fix by itself….”
“No…don’t do that, please don’t, Kahme….”
I heard her sniff and let out a little whimpering sob. Her arms encircled my shoulders, hugging me tight. “I’m scared, Evan…don’t leave me….”
“Don’t tell,” I countered, my ultimatum.
I felt her tears seep through my shirt. “It’s not fair, Evan…it’s not fair….”
Of course it wasn’t fair. But I couldn’t find the energy to speak anymore. I listened to her, suddenly edgy, but I couldn’t say why until….
“…why’d…why’d he have to do that to you? Why’d he have to hurt you, Evan, why…?”
I sucked in a breath with a soft hiss, but I could do no more than that. F--!
F--.
She’d seen. She knew.
I was screwed. I started to cry from pure fear, but by then I was already drifting off to sleep.
I awoke, as I often did, to Dad’s shouting.
“Evan! EVAN! WAKE UP, YOU USELESS CHILD, GET UP! /NOW!/”
My eyes fell open; in the midmorning daylight, I registered the green upholstery of the couch. A rough hand shook my shoulder again, and pain flashed through my chest. I winced and groaned; Dad shook me harder.
“Get up NOW, Evan, or I swear to God--”
I rolled over, my arms raised over my head, and carefully wormed my leg out of the comforter and reached for the floor--not quickly enough for Dad. He grabbed my collar and jerked me to my feet, let go; I stumbled and fell, managing to catch myself halfway down on the coffee table. When not directly interfered with, my broken rib (or ribs, I still wasn’t sure) did not stab or burn; they merely throbbed, hot and painful. I had trouble breathing, and I was sweating.
“--don’t know what the f-- makes you think you can sleep on the f--ing couch when you’ve got work to do, good God, Evan, must be a f--ing retard after all--are you still wearing the clothes from yesterday?” he demanded, a sneer audible in his voice. I didn’t answer, still trying to find my feet. “Disgusting little…no, no, unacceptable,” he snapped, grabbing me again and pulling me to my feet. He pushed me hard in the direction of the stairs, then contemptuously wiped his hand on his jeans. “Get your a** upstairs and try not to look like a pathetic little b***h, if that’s at ALL possible, then come back down here and do your f--ing chores!”
I nodded to show I had heard him, trying my feet for the first time. Now that the pain wasn’t so new and fresh, I could walk on my own, but I had to move carefully. I limped when I walked, and moved so slowly that Dad felt the need to push me and yell at me again. I sped out of his reach, pushing myself hard until I had turned the corner. “And quit walking like that,” he snarled after me.
When I had disappeared from sight, I slowed down to a pace a turtle would have laughed at, trying to be careful, not cause myself any more pain. I blinked away tears, disoriented; I still couldn’t figure out what had happened last night.
Stairs presented a tricky dilemma and had to be navigated very carefully indeed, but after a few nasty close calls, I found that they were not as insurmountable as I had thought. As I worked my way carefully up them, I thought hard. What could I remember? Progress reports were yesterday…they weren’t very good at all…and of course I’d gotten hit. That explained the pain…didn’t it? No, I’d never felt anything like this before….
Then suddenly I remembered the dim conversation Kahme and I had had. I stopped, leaning heavily on the banister; I felt myself pale, couldn’t breathe. Kahme knew. Kahme had seen Dad hit me.
How the hell did she know…? What would she do…? What if she told…? What would happen to me…?
Kahme knew. I’d failed. She knew. She knew. How much did she see? How much did she know?
Maybe she didn’t know anything. Maybe she hadn’t seen. I clung desperately to the idea. Yes, maybe she hadn’t, maybe she just suspected. I’d have to work to convince her otherwise, but I could do it. Otherwise….
If I couldn’t convince her, I could tell her the truth: if anyone ever found out, my dad would hurt me--he might even kill me. So if she didn’t want me to be permanently hospitalized, she’d better keep her mouth shut….
I started up the stairs again. What if she’d already told? Well, who would she tell…? Still, she could cause some serious damage…police investigations, more social workers…I winced. No matter what she did, I would be the one paying for it.
I’d have to hope that she hadn’t told….
I trudged into my room and made to collapse on my bed, but Kahme was already sitting on it. She jumped up, hugged me, and pulled me beside her; I, confused, registered only that she had clearly been crying. She hugged my shoulders again.
“What are you doing up here, you’re supposed to be resting--”
“What are YOU doing up here?” I murmured eloquently in return. She sensed how exhausted I was and let me rest on her shoulder.
“Couldn’t stay downstairs--your dad was up.”
Speaking of Dad…no, I had to be more subtle than that.
“I stayed all night though,” she added quietly, as if assuring me that I hadn’t been alone. I did feel a bit better at that; I’d had horrible nightmares last night, I wished I could have felt her presence.
“Thanks,” I said. “But I’m okay now.”
“No you’re not,” she said softly, hugging me again.
I couldn’t think of anything to say.
“You need to get back in bed,” she told me in the voice of an EMS technician. I shook my head.
“No. I just came up here to take a shower, I’ve gotta do my chores….”
“Your stupid chores,” Kahme muttered to herself. “You can’t, you have to sleep, Evan!”
“No. I’m fine.”
“No you aren’t, just look at you!” She pressed her hand to my forehead. “You’re burning up, and you’re all pale….”
“’M always pale….”
“Evan, please. Please. You clean the house every single day, one day can’t--”
“I’ve gotta make breakfast.”
“He can make his own breakfast. I’ll get you yours.”
“No. I’ve got stuff to do. It’s Saturday.” At least I thought it was Saturday.
“So?”
I couldn’t explain to her the significance of Saturday--the sooner I made breakfast and got out of Dad’s way, the sooner he would leave to do all his Saturday things. “I’ll get back in bed later, I promise.” Though I might never get up again. Every breath ached, I felt like I couldn’t get enough of them, and talking burned….
“You’ll hurt yourself.” Nonetheless, she didn’t stop me when I levered myself up, limping as inconspicuously toward my bathroom as I could.
“I’ll be fine.”
I sank gratefully into the tub as it filled with warm, soapy water. As the water rose, I floated, relieving the pressure of gravity on my aching ribs. The warm water eased them, relieved the tension in my muscles.
I turned on the shower then, remembering an incident a few years ago when Dad had heard the heavy sound of a running bath and shouted at me for being a baby. I didn’t know why it bothered him; maybe he just felt like yelling that day. In any case, his word was law. I sat up as the water drained away, shivering a bit again, and shifted so that the stinging drops fell on my head and back instead of my chest. I leaned against the wall and napped for a few minutes, too weary to bother with washing myself. When I started to feel…well, not better, but able to move again, I looked down at myself, and winced. Along with other, lesser bruises, a huge, blotchy purple mess covered the left side of my chest, stretching over the last four ribs arching across my lungs. I felt them tenderly, then bit back a cry of pain--more than one were broken. This was bad. Very bad. But I’d have to deal with it, wouldn’t I….
I couldn’t look at myself anymore; it made me sick. I grabbed at the faucet, the side of the tub, the towel rack outside, taking a full three minutes to drag myself out. The pain worsened unbearably whenever I moved in certain ways, as well as if something touched my ribs; I had to hunch over slightly when I walked to keep from stretching the tender muscles and bones. I grabbed a towel and, without bothering to rub myself down, wrapped it around my waist and limped back into my bedroom.
I had taken two steps into my room already when I saw that Kahme was still in there; I jumped, flushed, and backtracked, hiding behind the door. Only then did I allow my embarrassment to give way to compassion: Kahme had been crying some more.
She gave me a look of utter grief before covering her eyes with her tiny little hands. “’M not looking,” she murmured.
As quickly as I could, I stumbled into my room, holding the towel in place with one hand just in case, and pulled open my drawers. I grabbed the first clothes I saw and turned to go back into the bathroom again. Then I flushed harder and started painfully, hugging my clothes to my chest. Kahme had been watching.
“You said you weren’t looking,” I protested.
“That bruise, Evan,” she whispered.
I scowled, feeling waves of embarrassment roll over me. “What?” I said self-consciously.
She pointed. I followed her finger to the left side of my chest; I carefully shifted my clothes so that the bruise didn’t show. “You’re really hurt,” she murmured.
“That’s nothing,” I said stubbornly.
“You gotta see a doctor,” she insisted.
“No,” I snapped, then made my way back into the bathroom. I pulled on my clothes--I was still wet, but I didn’t care--and realized I’d forgotten a damn shirt, all I’d brought was the thin white undershirt that let every single bruise show right through. Cursing, I made my way back into my bedroom and rummaged through my drawer for a shirt with sleeves, and socks.
“Evan?” Kahme asked me in a tiny voice.
I ignored her, at the same time noticing a huge contrast; last night she had seemed so grown up, so caring, responsible, and calm. She had been a different person. Now she was trying to ruin my life.
“Evan?” she said again as I struggled to pull on the shirt; I winced in pain, and it seemed to make her bolder. “Evan, did your daddy do that to you?”
I swiveled around, feeling every muscle in me tense. “Do what?” I challenged, my voice hard.
She pointed at my chest again. “Did he hurt you?” She spoke quietly, but I could tell she knew the answer without my help.
“No,” I snapped. I had spoken too quickly, and her eyes narrowed. “Why the hell would you think that?”
I knew the answer before she told me. Ever since I met her, she began picking up puzzle pieces, things that didn’t quite make sense, and putting them together. More and more and more, each time something went wrong, until finally they started to connect…finally it started to make sense. All the pieces--my absences, my strict rules and curfews and chores, my dad’s callous behavior toward me, my fear, my bruises, and now my too-quick denial--had finally come together, and like a sick game of Wheel of Fortune, all she had to do was guess the missing letters.
“I just…” she said slowly; her hands shook, and I could tell she was nervous, but still determined, “I just thought…’cause he’s always mean to you…and you’re always….”
She hesitated. “What?” I demanded. “Always what?”
“Always hurt,” she said quietly.
“You try going to a public school,” I said sharply; I was being too mean, too angry, but I couldn’t help it. How dare she jeopardize everything, how dare she interfere with the fine balance of my life, how dare she even think of taking my dad away from me…! “My dad hasn’t ever touched me,” I lied, daring her with my eyes to argue.
She rose slowly to her feet, small, but fierce. “He hasn’t?” Her voice was still soft, trembling a bit.
“No.” I gave her the coolest glare I could manage. “What’s wrong with you, Kahme?” I demanded, trying to worm my way into her self-confidence, make her unsure. Sometimes I could be as manipulative as my father; it was a genetic curse. “You can’t just assume things like that! Do you know what would happen if you told anyone, you’d get us all into trouble, do you have any idea what they’d do to us?”
“N-no,” Kahme said shakily; it was working, I could tell.
“They’d take my dad away from me and I’d never see him again, that’s what they’d do,” I informed her with a brutal scowl. “And they’d ship you off to an orphanage and I’d go to a foster home in the middle of freaking nowhere and you’d never see your mom again, is that what you want?”
“N-n-n-no,” she stammered again, about to cry now.
“Then don’t do stupid stuff like threatening to call ambulances, Jesus, Kahme! When you call 911 they don’t just bring you to a hospital, they do all this stuff like drug tests and searches and they dig up everything you ever did and they arrest people for stupid reasons, or no reason at all, 911 is only for when you’re in serious trouble!”
“You’re in trouble,” Kahme insisted, though she didn’t sound so sure.
“I’m fine! And that’s not even the kind of trouble I mean, you only call them if you’re about to die, Kahme, if you have like ten minutes to live or if someone’s trying to shoot you or your house is on fire. If you need a hospital, you GO to a hospital, you get it?”
“Then go,” she begged me, reminding me for a guilty moment that she wasn’t trying to win the argument, she just wanted me to be safe. “Please just go, Evan, please….”
“I can’t drive,” I reminded her. “I’ll go if Dad decides I need to go. If I need to, he’ll take me.”
“What if he won’t?” she insisted, tears pouring down her cheeks at last. “What if he doesn’t want to, what then?”
“Honestly!” I exploded angrily, my chest throbbing and making me unnecessarily crabby. “My dad doesn’t just sit there and watch me suffer!” I hoped not anyway. “How long have you been thinking stuff like that?” I was worried, wondering how long she had been collecting pieces, wondering how much information she actually had.
“I dunno,” Kahme sniffed, twirling a lock of hair awkwardly around her fingers. “I…I just…you’re always hurt….”
“I told you. Public school. Jesus….”
“And you’ve always got…so much to do….”
“Kahme, every normal kid in America has stuff to do,” I informed her coolly. “Everyone has chores. I just take a long time ‘cause I’m slow, and I have to do a bit more because my mom isn’t around.”
She didn’t give up. “And…and when you were painting, before….”
My stomach clenched. “So?”
“He was so mean to you,” she said, and to my alarm, her voice got a little stronger with each word. “He could see you were afraid….”
“He was just MESSING with me, Kahme!” I insisted, exasperated. How long would it take her to give up? Since when was she so stubborn? “Just teasing me, don’t you understand that? He was about to come get me, he was going to….”
“And,” she pressed, “and remember, in summer, when you came home all….”
She didn’t need to finish; I shuddered at the memory. “I told you,” I snapped. “I went to see my Nana.”
“But then what?” she said loudly, the tears drying on her cheeks. “Then what, Evan?”
“I got lost, okay?” I bristled.
“How’d you get lost, what happened?”
I’d never told her any detailed story; I had to think on my feet. “Look,” I told her, “I went for a walk at Nana’s, but I got lost. I couldn’t find my way back, or home.” I didn’t mention that Nana lived in a nursing home in Gardnerville, miles away. “So I just drifted around. I got really scared, and I ran into a bunch of drug dealers and people like that, they always punch you around if you don’t give them money. It wasn’t a big deal, I was just freaked out, was all. Dad probably thought I’d be home, and then he wouldn’t come looking for me in case I came back, would he?” I said aggressively; I didn’t want to be reminded.
Kahme looked away; she didn’t want to remind me either. She didn’t want any of this to happen. For some reason, that made me angry. “Evan, I just….”
“You’re just screwing things up for my family,” I said roughly. “Dad’s all I’ve got left, and you’re here jumping to conclusions, don’t you DARE tell anyone ANYTHING, do you understand me, Kahme?”
“I won’t,” she promised, her eyes shining as she glanced back at me. “But Evan….”
“You better not,” I cut across her. “Or I swear I’ll never speak to you again, Kahme.”
“I won’t tell!” she insisted, blinking back tears again. “But Evan--!”
“But what?”
“Last night,” she said shakily, crying once more, “I…I heard yelling….”
I paled. She’d heard? “So what?” I snapped. “Parents yell all the time. Big deal.”
“But I don’t understand!” she wailed, flopping back onto my bed. “Mama’s never like that to me, never, it scared me…all the things he said to you….”
“Oh, what would you know?” I sneered, turning away. “You need to stop eavesdropping; if you’re gonna sneak into people’s houses, at least stay out of their lives….”
My words hurt her, I could tell. She rested her face in her hands, crying quietly. “Why’d he do that to you?” she moaned. “Why’d he have to hurt you, why…?”
“He didn’t hurt me!” I practically screamed; my voice was too strained, it broke halfway through. “What is wrong with you?”
“Spirits, Evan!” she hissed back, suddenly angry again. “Do you think I’m STUPID?” She jumped up, her fists clenched, glaring at me with deep sorrow and pain behind her eyes. “Do you think I WANTED this to happen, I don’t, but I can’t let you get hurt--”
“No one’s hurting me, I’m fine!”
“DON’T LIE TO ME!” she shrieked. “I heard you, I heard everything last night, you were SCREAMING, I heard everything, I saw it too--”
“You were watching?” I couldn’t decide to be angry about this, or sick.
“Yeah,” she sniffed, her anger pushed aside to give way to tears. “Yeah. I saw him hit you. I saw everything…from the stairs….”
I stared at her in complete incredulity, my mouth open, my eyes wide. She’d seen it all. My God.
Our eyes locked for a long time, hers sad and filled with empathy, mine utterly shocked, combating between anger, fear, and the insane urge to take her compassion and let it envelop me, tell her everything…until I remembered where I was supposed to be.
“You’re delusional,” I muttered, pulling on my remaining sock and cursing under my breath. I turned and made to leave, but Kahme put her hand on mine.
“Where are you going?” she asked me breathlessly, her eyes wide, afraid.
“I have to make breakfast,” I sighed, quietly, so my voice wouldn’t carry downstairs.
“But Evan,” she whispered, pulling me painfully back, “what if he hits you again…?”
The combination of pain, stress, and fear was grating on my nerves. My teeth clenched together. Pulling away at last, I stormed off, hissing over my shoulder:
“For the love of God, Kahme!”
It was all I could think to say.
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Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2008 2:23 pm
RAWR. domokun Yeah. I went there.
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Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2008 3:38 pm
oooooowwww!!! that made me hurt all over sad
and Evan shouldn't treat Kahme like that he should know when to accept defeat when she actually saw ....man its hard to imagine where this situation will go.... and how will he get his ribs fixed?? eek this is insanely exciting!
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Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2008 3:42 pm
Why thank you.
Jeez. You feel worse about it than I do. But then, sadist. arrow
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Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2008 5:40 pm
jeez and you were callin me a sadist! razz
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Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 10:36 am
I was?
Well, I am. See my whip? Rawr.
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Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 12:57 pm
That whip looks dangerous... eek
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Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 5:39 pm
It's not just dangerous, it's kinky! mwahahaha.
Almost done with the next chapter! 4laugh its gonna be rather sad.
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Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 6:00 pm
hmmmm kinky...
:looks kirby down:
I could agree to that! razz
and new chapter yay!
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