|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 6:08 pm
EEEEEEEK! *covers naked Kirby butt* I am changing back to a frog ASAP!
Jeez, MD. Go find someone who isn't underage. Krawwwwwr.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 6:23 pm
KirbyVictorious EEEEEEEK! *covers naked Kirby butt* I am changing back to a frog ASAP! Jeez, MD. Go find someone who isn't underage. Krawwwwwr. aww.... all I said was I agreed to your kinkyness confused at least keep the person mode. stare /sulk
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 6:24 pm
yay next chap!
18
I resisted the urge to say or do something nasty, instead making my slow, careful way downstairs.
“About f--ing time,” my dad snapped at me, but he didn’t feel like getting up to hit me. He napped against the wall, wincing at the light, suffering from an enormous hangover no doubt. “Coffee.”
I made it just the way he liked it, trying to avoid conflict, still mixed up about the argument with Kahme and in pain with every step.
“What the f-- is your problem?” Dad demanded when I limped cautiously over to him.
“Nothing” would be a direct lie, so I tried to blow off the truth as insignificant. “My ribs hurt is all, Dad,” I said humbly, moving away to make eggs.
“Oh no,” he said sarcastically, jumping at the chance to belittle me. “Your ribs hurt. How awfully tragic.”
My teeth ground together in the back of my mouth.
“Goddamn, Evan,” Dad snapped, returning to his usual brusqueness. “You are such a f--ing girl. Your ribs are just a little sore and you go moaning around the house all day, Good Lord….”
I ignored him, busying myself with omelets.
“Pathetic. Just a couple of bruises…when veteran soldiers live just down the street. Absolutely disgraceful. You wouldn’t last ten seconds in the war. That’s where the real men in this world are,” he said reflectively. “In Iraq, on the front lines. Jesus Christ, Evan, people get their whole f--ing legs blown off and never notice a thing, and here you are in the best f--ing country in the world whining about getting a few little punches.”
A few little…! Had he even SEEN--?
I ignored him, my hands shaking; too many emotions at once tugged at me, and any second now I might start to cry. I sprinkled cheese and poured chili from a can in the center of the omelet I was cooking, folding it in on itself. I slid it onto a plate next to the other one and poked a few slices of bacon and toast alongside them. This I set carefully in front of my dad as he kept lecturing me. Then I moved away.
“Evan!” Dad said sharply. “Answer me when I’m talking to you!”
“Yessir?” I said quietly, turning to face him again. He scowled.
“I said, isn’t that right?”
“Absolutely, sir,” I replied, sighing softly as I reached for the counter for support.
Dad grabbed my wrist, pulling me swiftly around; I gasped in pain, choking back a cry as he slapped me hard, eyes narrowed. “Don’t you ever f--ing talk to me like that again,” he growled at me. “Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir,” I said fervently, tears lingering in my eyes. He twisted me forcibly away; I stumbled, and he kicked the back of my knee so that I fell heavily to the floor. I cried out in pain, then stuffed my knuckles in my mouth; Dad gave one short, nasty laugh before beginning to eat his breakfast.
It was even harder to get up than it had been last night, knowing that there was worse pain to come if I screwed up right in front of my dad. I pulled myself up as quickly as I could, grabbing the counter so hard I thought my fingers might snap, then retreated to the sink to clean the breakfast dishes.
“And what the f-- are you doing?” Dad demanded.
“Dishes, Dad,” I replied softly.
“What, are you too good for breakfast now?” he taunted. “Get over here.”
Wary of another slap, I returned, staying just outside easy arm reach. “Sit,” Dad ordered me, pointing to my usual chair. I sat. Dad, muttering to himself about me being too arrogant for “family breakfast”, returned to his food. I sat quietly, relieved to be off my feet, and stared out the window.
“Sit up straight,” Dad snapped at me. I did so.
“Yessir.”
It hurt, but if I angled my body in a certain way, it didn’t hurt quite as badly as it could have. I watched a few birds, late in flying south, as they pecked around our lawn in vain.
Dad was annoyed; I was too placid and not confrontational enough, and he wanted to have a chance to torment me. He picked up a slice of bacon and grimaced. “Ugh.” He threw it at me, startling me out of my daze. “Disgusting. Can’t you do anything right, you useless child?”
I carefully rose from my chair, poked the bacon down the sink, wiped off my face, and returned. “No one said you could get up,” Dad snarled.
“I’m sorry, Dad.”
He snorted. “Why the f-- can’t you just talk like a normal person? Speak up, you stupid child….”
“I’m sorry,” I said, a little louder.
“I’m sorry, SIR,” he spat.
“I’m sorry, sir,” I repeated obediently.
Dad glared at me and continued to eat. This game was tiresome, but it happened almost every day, and it was almost over; Dad would either get bored or, if I made a mistake, beat the s**t out of me. Again.
Sure enough, he grew bored, abandoning his plate and heading for the door. “Clean the f--ing house,” were his departing words. He shoved me roughly out of his way, took a moment to notice my wince of pain, then slammed the door behind him.
I sighed in relief when his car was gone and began to do as he said, moving slower now, wincing with every step; there’d been further damage to my wounds when he’d knocked me over. They throbbed painfully whether I moved or breathed or not, and I gripped everything around me for support so hard that my fingers were numb before long, my fingernails sore.
When I moved out of the kitchen, I froze, feeling another presence; in a swift glance around, I saw two eyes and a tail of black curls peeking at me from the top of the stairs before Kahme squeaked and disappeared.
“KAHME!”
I stumbled up the stairs so quickly that it brought tears to my eyes; ignoring the pain, I scrambled, sometimes on all fours, up the stairs and to my bedroom door. It wasn’t locked, no doorknobs in the inside of our house had locks, but someone was holding it shut.
“GODDAMN IT, KAHME, GET OUT HERE!” I screamed. What the f-- was she DOING? She shrieked in panic as I kicked hard at the door, pushing against her; with one last heave, I shoved her and the door back, grabbed her wrist, and kicked the door shut again.
“WHAT THE F-- IS WRONG WITH YOU?” I shouted at her. “HOW LONG WERE YOU UP THERE?”
“Let go, let go of me,” she sobbed, fighting against my iron grip on her wrist. I pulled hard on her arm, drawing her closer so I could yell right in her face.
“What did you see? KAHME! WHAT DID YOU SEE?”
She started to cry, stammering, “I…I…I didn’t….”
“That’s f--ing right,” I snarled, an insane rage gripping me. “You didn’t see anything, d’you hear me?”
Kahme was suddenly as possessed as I, but not by a demon; rather, by a warrior spirit. She jerked hard, pulling herself free. “No!” she shouted, rising to her toes to gain some height. “I saw EVERYTHING, I saw your dad hit you and yell at you, I saw him do it--!”
Kahme froze, her numb legs taking an unsteady step back. I felt my fingers curl into a fist and rise of their own accord. But something--God?--stopped me. Instead of hitting her, like I’ll admit I would loved to have done, I jerked the door open and pushed her out.
“Get out,” I hissed, pointing viciously toward the stairs.
Her eyes went wide; she felt betrayed. “B-but…but Evan….”
“GET OUT OF MY F--ING HOUSE!” I shouted, and slammed my door in her face. I waited, but all I heard was a muffled sob, not a single footstep.
I seethed for one unbearable moment, then all my anger exploded out of me; with a wordless yell of frustration, I kicked my door so hard that my shoe left a dent.
Then all the anger drained out of me, and I sank to the floor, hugging myself in a tiny ball, pressing my legs against my flaming ribs. I started to sob from pure fear and anguish. Kahme was gone. What had I done? I’d shouted at her…I’d almost hit her…she’d hate me, she’d run away and tell everyone she could about Dad to get revenge on me…or she wouldn’t tell at all, leave me here to suffer…no, no, I’d ruined everything…what had I done?
How could this have happened? Why did it have to turn out like this?
As I started sobbing harder and harder, so hard that it was almost impossible to breathe, I finally heard the sound I’d expected only moments ago, the sound I’d brought upon myself: tiny footsteps, running away from my door, down the stairs, and into the night.
I slept badly that night; I had horrible nightmares of unspeakable things, and Dad came in twice to shake and slap me awake; I’d been screaming in my sleep. He swore he was going to kick my a** to Canada and back, but he had been drinking and didn’t remember later. The day commenced as usual, only more hopeless than ever before.
Dad got pissed at my inattention and endless mistakes and attempted to beat the s**t out of me again, but I screamed so loudly when he hit the injured ribs that he backed off--neighbors, after all--and assumed that I had learned my lesson. He slapped me once for crying but then left me alone to finish my chores.
After that, the entire day was hell. I couldn’t straighten up; tasks like cleaning windows or dusting high shelves were impossible. I stayed out of the living room, and Dad stayed in it; we avoided each other--or rather, I avoided him. He, as usual, ignored my existence.
When Dad moved into the kitchen to get a drink or something, I crept into the living room and began cleaning everything that was within my reach. It took me awhile, but Dad didn’t come back in; I guess he didn’t want to bother with me at the moment. I saw him leaning against the counter, downing a tumbler of whiskey like a shot. He’d been drinking steadily all morning.
Something inside me had been tense, expectant, ever since I woke up this morning; it stifled my breathing so much that I had to practically hyperventilate to get enough air, and a new pain entered my ribs, a sort of scratching; it felt like I was slicing myself open every time I moved the wrong way. I kept bent over, scrubbing as hard as I was able to at the wall, trying my very, very best not to cry….
But then, suddenly, I felt an alien sickness claw its way up my throat…I felt like I was about to vomit, only the usual sickness rising from my chest tasted metallic, and was in the wrong place…my throat burned…I bent over, trying to moan, but the air stuck in my windpipe, and I felt an irrepressible urge to cough; I did, my hands pressed over my mouth, coughed so hard that I felt like my throat was tearing itself apart….
Long before I stopped coughing, I was crying; I couldn’t breathe, I felt like I was suffocating…and then I could finally stop, and I took my hands away from my face to steady myself on the ground….
But I froze when I caught sight of my palms, gasping for breath, feeling a nameless terror build in my throat.
My palms were stained red, dripping blood. I’d just coughed up blood.
My scream echoed in our cheerless house; Dad yelled, “EVAN!” from the kitchen, but didn’t come. I screamed again, this time forming words.
“DADDY! DADDY!”
“What?” Dad appeared at the doorway, looking grumpy--but then he saw me kneeling over, bent double, with blood on my hands and my mouth.
“Daddy, please,” I begged him, sobbing shamelessly now. “Please….”
Dad stared at me for a very long sixty seconds, then drained his glass in one gulp, needing to be fully drunk before he made any rash decisions. “Get in the car,” he snapped at me, sighing heavily and reaching for his car keys.
I stared in dizzy shock at my hands, the words not yet registering. I was coughing up blood. My God. Was I going to die? I could feel my lungs filling up with blood…was I going to drown, would it stop in time, or would I just--
“EVAN, GET IN THE CAR!”
I jumped and pulled myself painfully up, limping to where my dad was waiting by the door, bent almost double. He grabbed me by the collar, muttering about hospital expenses and stupid children and the price of gas, and pulled me forcibly along with him to the car. It was hard to keep up with him, but I was crying with relief; I felt like hugging him; Dad was taking me to the hospital.
He dumped me in the backseat and climbed in himself, starting up the car. I lay stretched out on the seat; I had to cough again, and again I gagged and blood dripped out of my mouth. I started to panic. “Daddy….”
“Shut up,” he snapped from the front seat. He was muttering to himself, working himself into a temper; I could tell that he was pissed. He backed out too fast; I clung to the outstretched seatbelt and whimpered.
Dad was wasted, and he drove like it; but he did half of it on purpose. I was having a silent panic attack in the backseat; I coughed blood again and let out a hoarse little cry, and Dad purposely stamped on the brake. I would have been sent flying if I hadn’t been clinging to the seatbelt. When I gasped in pain, he started the car again, driving much too fast, taking too many fast turns.
“Daddy, slow down,” I begged him in my quiet little voice. “Daddy….”
“Shut the f-- up,” he commanded, skidding to a stop at a red light. “This is all your f--ing fault and I swear to God you’re paying me back for every cent of this goddamn excursion to hell, do you understand me?”
I paled at the very thought. In paying him back for this hospital trip, how many more would we have to take? Perhaps only one trip, to the morgue. I whimpered again; Dad took that as understanding.
He drove like a maniac just to scare me, taking the long route to the hospital on purpose, and by the time we arrived at the emergency room, I was nearly screaming in fear. Maybe that was his original purpose; I looked like I’d just gotten attacked by a pack of lions, just from my expression. Dad broke my clinging grip on the seatbelt and dragged me out of the car. “Don’t you say a f--ing word,” he hissed in my ear as he pulled me along the sidewalk. I nodded in meek consent, still crying from the traumatic car trip.
“MOVE,” Dad snapped, jerking my arm hard; I stumbled, he twisted my wrist so hard that I moaned in pain and forced me to follow at his pace. I was sobbing when I entered the emergency room, my hands still dripping blood.
The emergency room was a very commercial affair, with checkered tiles, generic wallpaper, subzero temperatures, and not enough room. It was connected indiscriminately to the rest of the hospital; down the halls and up the elevator one could find victims of all sorts of ailments, between dog bites and leukemia and heart attacks. It was just a small, local hospital, all mixed into one building, with rather outdated equipment and over-sterility issues.
Dad marched me up to the front desk, now the very picture of fatherly concern, and spoke calmly to the receptionist. We, being locals, had our own file in the computer, which the woman pulled up.
“And what’s the matter with him?” she inquired; she was one of those kindly, empathetic souls that are so hard to find nowadays. I liked her immediately; I hoped she would save me from whatever inevitable doom happened to people who coughed up blood.
“He’s been spitting up blood for the past twenty minutes,” Dad explained to her, making a worried face.
“I think I broke some ribs,” I added softly. Dad reached a hand behind me and dug his nails into my back; I winced but said nothing. He had warned me after all.
“Poor thing,” the receptionist murmured, seeming like she might genuinely cry for my plight. “How did THAT happen?”
“I think some kids at school beat him up too hard,” Dad told her, a careful edge of anger in his voice. “He just came stumbling in Friday night, wouldn’t talk to anyone.”
“Poor thing,” repeated the woman. Mrs. Collins, I noticed blearily. “We’ll get him as soon as we can. You’ll only have to wait a little while…thirty minutes maybe. Here, sweetheart,” she added to me, handing me a wet napkin. I wiped my hands on it, thanking her quietly as my Dad filled out papers.
A nurse took me aside and measured my blood pressure, temperature, and various other measurements, asking me polite, stiff questions and writing on a clipboard. Then she sat me in a wheelchair that dwarfed me as much as Nana’s did and directed me to the waiting room. Dad pushed me carelessly with one hand, making the wheels turn crazily out of control. He sat me in a corner and took a seat not too close to me, picking up a magazine and flipping absently through it. I could tell his eyes couldn’t focus on the tiny words.
Another nurse brought me to a tiny room, where a doctor took a sample of my blood. He was a kindly man; he could see that I was nervous and made it fast, giving me a little stress ball to hold onto. I couldn’t look at the crimson-filled vial, nor the tiny, hard plastic tube sticking out of me, no more than an inch long, that the IV needle would go into. He asked me a couple other questions, writing them down on the same clipboard, then asked me very politely to get him a urine sample. I’d done all this before by myself, I knew what to do…but still. Total invasion of privacy.
After that the nurse gave me a warm blanket that I tucked gratefully around myself. Then she wheeled me back over to my dad, a bit too close to him. I carefully edged away, out of arm and leg range. After ten unbearable minutes of shivering, doubled over, trying not to start crying again, and coughing more blood into my napkin, then another one a compassionate nurse gave me, my name was called. Dad rolled me, alert this time, to the desk again, and an assistant took me back to a place Dad couldn’t follow. I felt a strange unease; Dad wasn’t doing anything helpful, quite the opposite, but being alone….
I wished I hadn’t forced Kahme away. I wished she was right next to me, sharing the wheelchair, feeding me more tea and hugging me until I forgot why I was even there. Tears seeped under my closed eyelids as regret and guilt washed over me.
“Hey now, don’t cry,” a cheerful doctor, or nurse, or something told me cheerfully. “Everything’ll be fine.”
I opened my eyes. The nurse had left me in a small room with a smaller glass cubicle in a corner and a huge machine dominating the center. MRI. The technician gingerly shook my hand.
“Hi! I’m Mike.”
“Evan,” I said quietly, wondering if the don’t-say-a-f--ing-word rule was still in place when Dad was gone.
“How’re you feeling?”
“My ribs hurt,” I told him. He smiled at me.
“Not for long. Don’t worry, Evan.”
They hadn’t done this; when my appendix had ruptured, they’d used an Ultrasound, the kind used on pregnant women and, apparently, very skinny people. I was scared of the machine, it looked ready to swallow me whole.
Mike the technician explained how the MRI worked, then helped me up onto the table. He pulled a blanket over me, then told me to slide my jeans down so the metal buttons wouldn’t interfere with the machine and lay very still. The machine would tell me when to hold my breath and when to breathe freely. I did everything he said, shaking from head to foot, wishing I wasn’t alone.
The stupid machine scanned me three or four times, then I could get back into the wheelchair. When they wheeled me back out, there was a room ready for me upstairs. A nurse pushed me down the hall, Dad walking behind me, exuding sheer exasperation at his presence here. He hated this part as much as I did.
I tried not to have a panic attack as the elevator doors closed; it was a nightmare--being trapped in a small metal box with my dad and a fragile, easily-disposed-of woman. I shivered uncontrollably even after we got out, the frigid air creeping under my bones.
My room was basic hospital-issue, with an armchair, a table, a bed, a bathroom, and a tiny portable machine in place of a bedside table. The nurse handed me a hospital gown and pointed me into the bathroom. I sighed and put the stupid thing on, then hovered behind the bathroom door, waiting. I chanced a peek out; sure enough, Dad had disappeared. I crept out and crawled into bed, burying my face in the pillow and wishing I would suffocate. The blankets were thin and useless, I was still freezing. I took my warm white blanket from downstairs and wrapped it around myself.
A new nurse came in, tried to engage me in cheery conversation while she set up my IV; I told her I’d been in here once for appendicitis, but didn’t say much more than that. On her way out, she asked if I needed anything; I replied yes, blankets and pain medicine, and she laughed.
But I got them anyway. I let out a sigh of relief as I felt the pain medicine kick in. The nurse informed me that my surgery would be in a few hours, but I couldn’t hear him anymore; I burrowed beneath the covers and drifted off too sleep.
I was shaken awake, and someone helped me onto a flat metal bed on wheels. They let me have my blanket. I was rolled down a few hallways, still half-asleep, seeing flashes of fluorescent lights through my eyelashes. Going in to surgery.
“What’re they gonna do?” I asked sleepily.
“They’ll tell you in a minute,” the roller replied.
“Where’s my daddy?”
“I don’t know, honey.”
Of course he wouldn’t be here. He’d done this before. My wife died in this hospital, he’d tell them. I’d rather not stay here much longer. And then he’d be gone. I was alone again….
They didn’t lead me into the OR; instead, I found myself in a short hallway with curtains separating each side of the room into tiny cubicles. The nurse wheeled me into one and went away. I was alone again; I started to cry without even knowing the exact stimulus. It hurt, and I was alone, and I was still coughing up blood, and they were about to cut me open….
A doctor came in; thankfully, I got someone who had a heart. He tried to make friends with me, asking me about small things before moving onto the true subject. He asked me where all the bruises came from; I replied, avoiding my eyes, that I got picked on a lot at school. He asked me to tell him how I came to have broken ribs, and I told him I didn’t remember much, someone had just hit me too hard. He asked me why I had waited two days to tell my dad something was wrong; I answered that I had slept most of the first day, and tried to ignore it the second, I didn’t want to cause any trouble. He didn’t seem suspicious, and I was relieved when he changed the subject.
The doctor told me the diagnosis: a broken piece of a certain rib had rubbed against the side of my lung until it punctured, making a tiny pinpoint hole, and blood had slowly dripped into the injured lung. In the surgery, they’d fix my ribs up with screws and glue and stuff, then sew up the hole in my lung and remove the blood, and I’d be good as new.
I denied that I was nervous, but despite the doctor’s protestations I couldn’t help crying, wishing that someone would hold my hand as the gas mask pumped sedative into my brain.
I woke up hours later, I guessed, in the very early morning. No one was with me. I was alone again. My ribs still hurt, they were very, very sore this time, and my entire body throbbed. I immediately reached for the little remote connected to the bed, pressing the red button.
A voice in a speaker crackled tiredly to life. “Can I help you?”
“Pain medicine, please,” I rasped as loudly as I could, then fell back onto the covers. They brought the medicine too late, I was already sobbing in pain; but like a baby bird that sees its mother, I thrust my IV’d wrist out, too eager to accept the drug that would send me back to the twilight realm between natural sleep and unconsciousness.
Pain meds were my only comfort in the hospital. Everything was chaos to me; nurses came and went as they pleased, taking my temperature, blood oxidation level, and blood pressure five times a day, taking blood, offering me gifts of pain medication like slaves with Aztec gold. I was at first served no food, then ice cubes, then tasteless broth and Jell-o, then chicken that tasted like cardboard. I could watch movies or TV, but Dad never brought me any books from home, so entertainment held no interest to me; I merely slept most of the time, or lay flat in a lump of misery and pain that no medication could relieve, and thought of Kahme.
What was she doing now? Was she safe somewhere? Was she heading back home? Did she know how much I missed her? Did she know that I was sorry?
When I couldn’t bear it anymore, I pressed the red button; a nurse came in with more pain medicine, and I fell asleep without thought.
Nights were the worst; I couldn’t sleep without being drugged first, preoccupied with thoughts about Kahme and plagued by nightmares of the darkness outside creeping in, the tiny flickering lamp burning out, the cries of children in pain down the hall. Dad beating the nurse in the elevator until she slumped to the floor, pressing the little red STOP button, turning to me, his hands circling my neck as I tried to crawl away: You’re paying for every cent of this goddamn excursion to hell….
Days and nights passed, four of each. I was missing school, falling behind on homework. The house was collecting infinitesimal amounts of dust in my absence. Dad didn’t care where I was, really, at the moment I was simply a little annoying mosquito who refused to be squashed to death, but was temporarily biting someone else and therefore not his problem. In his strange, twisted mind, he was taking a holiday; putting me in the hospital was the equivalent of handing me over to a babysitter with the added bonus of me not dying so the feds couldn’t come and investigate. So, no, he wasn’t coming, I knew exactly where he’d be: sitting home alone or out with friends, drinking, watching a game. Life would continue on pretty much the same, even if I stayed here forever. Not even Kahme would be affected, now. It was a sobering, frightening thought: there was not much difference between a world with Evan in it and a world without.
On the fifth day of my freedom in captivity, I awoke in the middle of the afternoon and found Dad sitting at the desk, filling in paperwork. I watched him awhile. He was sober; he seemed tired, weary. I knew he wouldn’t hit me in this place, even though it was just the place to hit someone in, but I didn’t want to upset him today--I’d missed him. He was still my dad.
“Hi, Daddy,” I said quietly, rolling over in his direction. The plastic sides of the bed hid our faces from each other. My ribs didn’t hurt anymore; they were mostly fixed, a bandage wrapped around my chest and shoulders to relieve the pressure of gravity from them. I had been allowed to wear my jeans again. All that ached now were the old bruises.
The scratch of the pen froze. Then resumed. “What?”
“Just saying hi,” I sighed, curling up around my pillow and resting on it.
He kept writing, saying nothing, his movements jerky and violent. The atmosphere tensed.
“What’re you doing?”
“Paperwork,” he said shortly.
“What for?”
“You’re out of here tomorrow.”
“Oh…oh, that’s--”
“Shut up.”
I shut up, nesting tiredly in my blankets. Something nagged at me; the date. Five days, so…God, it was….
“Happy birthday, Daddy,” I said softly, and when he looked at me, I gave him a smile.
Dad stood up so fast that he knocked the chair backward; I started in surprise. His hand swung back and he slapped me, hard; my head knocked against the plastic siding, and my breath left me in a gasp.
“Don’t you f--ing give me that!” he hissed at me, fully aware that he couldn’t shout in a place like this. “All that ‘Daddy’ s**t after all you’ve…Jesus Christ, you stupid child….”
He seemed too angry to articulate; I cowered, trapped by the IV, utterly stunned by the stinging blow he’d given me. He didn’t bother yelling at me or hitting me again. “Just go back to f--ing sleep.“
Without another word, he slammed the chair back into place and sat down, stabbing furiously at the papers again. I did as he said, rolling over and hiding beneath the covers, my cheek throbbing. Tears sprang unbidden to my eyes. What had I done?
The pain of rejection, guilt, whatever it was built up in intensity, turning into real, physical pain that jabbed cruelly at my ribs; I lay very still, unable to stop myself from crying and unable to move to wipe my face, get a tissue, even sniff, in case I was found out and punished for being pathetic. But after an unbearable three-and-a-half minutes I couldn’t take it anymore; I carefully lifted myself up, grabbing the plastic siding for support, and reached for the remote with the miracle button on it.
Dad saw what I was doing and took the remote before I could reach it. “What are you doing?”
“Calling the nurse, Daddy,” I replied, begging him silently to give it to me, or better yet, press the button himself. I was in a hospital, he couldn’t refuse this to me….
“What in God’s name do you need a nurse for?” he sneered. “Need someone to tuck you in?”
I drew back, lowering my eyes, the mockery stinging me until I was humbled. “Medicine, sir,” I said softly.
“Pain medicine,” Dad scoffed. But he held out the remote to me. I smiled in relief, reaching for it, but I couldn’t get it; I tried again, wincing from the pain in my ribs, but it was still too far.
Dad stopped tormenting me then, growing bored, and set the remote down on the desk, out of my reach but well in his. “p***y,” he spat at me, then returned to his work as if I, in pain, in a hospital bed, in the very position he’d stuck me in himself, did not exist.
I lay down, rolled over, and, no longer caring what he thought, started to cry. He ignored me, and after a little while, he left.
I was sobbing myself into hysterics by then, unable to understand why all of this was happening to me, lacking my usual lucidity and concision in blaming myself for everything. Luckily a nurse came in to check my blood pressure and such, arriving in time to prevent me from having some kind of psychotic breakdown.
“Oh, what’s the matter?” she cried, immediately coming to my side and stroking my hair. She was one of the generous nurses, the ones who cared. There were more than I had ever thought in the world. “What happened…?” However, she didn’t know my name, nor had she bothered to check the clipboard before coming in. To be fair, I didn’t bother to learn hers, either.
“Can I get some pain medicine?” I asked her in a small voice.
“Of COURSE,” she told me empathetically. “Poor thing, if you were hurting why didn’t you call someone?”
“’Cause….” I didn’t know how to explain, so I pointed mutely at the desk. The nurse peeked around and saw the remote lying innocently on its surface.
“Oh, who in the world put it over there?” she asked the room in general, moving it to its place above my head. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, I’ll be right back.”
She returned in a moment with a syringe of clear medicine, I’d forgotten the name of it, and shot it into my IV tube. I felt it begin to work almost immediately. She started checking everything, and I sleepily did as she said, but I don’t remember her leaving; by the time she was finished, I was already out, sweet blissful drugged dreamless sleep washing me away.
I was released the next day, as Dad had said; he came to get me in the morning to fill out more paperwork and stuff. Then I was given my shirt, washed and neatly folded, and my IV was removed. All that remained of it were six needle marks (six! That goddamn motherf--ing a*****e of a nurse screwed up my IV and had to start all over again five f--ing times!) with a Band-aid over the newest one. I still bore the bandage and the hospital bracelets, along with a small roll of more bandages so I could do it myself for the next week or so (they’d taught me a couple of days earlier), a new book as a gift from the staff for “being so brave” (Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, it was weird but I liked it all the same), and a handful of Safe-T-Pops that hospitals are so fond of.
They wheeled me to Dad’s car, then waved goodbye as I got in. Finally I could walk without hunching over, though my ribs still ached no matter what I did. I didn’t feel happy or elated like the staff did for me; I felt a numb dread creep into my stomach that had quite a lot to do with being alone in a car with Dad, but for once was not entirely his fault. When I’d passed the rooms in my hallway, leaving the place in the wheelchair of triumph that all hospital patients left in, I’d seen through open doors dozens of little eyes, unfamiliar faces, pale skin glowing in dark rooms illuminated only by the television, showing the same repetitive kid’s shows over and over and over again. There were children in those rooms much younger than I, children suffering from God-knows-what, children that would not leave today, might not ever leave.
They haunted me, their little faces swimming behind my eyelids in dreams. God, those poor little kids…I was so lucky…how could I ever think that I was cursed? How could I ever complain? How could I ever even dream of a better life when there were kids like that ten feet away from me…suffering, crying…their parents sleeping in the armchairs, the bone-weary, anguished parents of cancer patients and children with other long-term diseases…at least I didn’t have that over my head, at least I knew that I had a chance of living past tomorrow…poor kids….
Dad interrupted my reverie by snatching my new book from my hands. I flinched and shut my eyes, certain that his reaction was going to be violent. Sure enough--
“A book,” he snarled, tapping it angrily against the dashboard. “A f--ing book is what started all this trouble in the first place, you stupid child. Or didn’t you remember?”
“Yes, sir,” I said quietly, waiting for him to get it over with.
But he surprised me this time; he rolled down my window, making me jump--my elbow had been resting on it--and chunked the book hard; it narrowly missed me, flying outside the window until it was caught by the breeze and thrown viciously into the street. Someone behind us honked and skidded to a stop. I mourned the book and its fate, but was secretly relieved that it had missed; I was still weary and sore.
Dad rolled up the window again, muttering under his breath, and continued to drive. I wondered when, exactly, he was going to start hitting me as payback for the hospital bill. I supposed that he’d get around to it eventually.
We stopped at the pharmacy on the way back home; Dad returned with a little paper bag that sounded as if it was full of pills, inwardly seething, then continued to drive home. He jerked to a stop in our driveway, snapped, “Get out,” and slammed the door; I followed, tired but wary.
The minute we were back into the privacy of our own home, Dad grabbed me by the back of my collar and pulled. The neck of my shirt encircled my neck like a noose; I winced, struggling to breathe.
“I am not,” Dad hissed to me, his face very close to mine, “paying another f--ing hospital bill for you when you could have just gotten these--” he grabbed the bandages from me, shook them in my face before tossing them aside-- “at home. Do you understand me?”
“Yessir,” I said softly, avoiding his eyes, waiting for him to start hitting me.
He didn’t, to my surprise; he merely released me and pointed firmly to the kitchen. “Clean this f--ing house,” he ordered me. “Don’t ever think you can slack off for a whole f--ing week again, you hear me, Evan? You will not eat, sleep, or READ,” he sneered the word, “until the whole house is shining like the f--ing Chrysler Building.”
“Yessir,” I sighed.
He made a revolted face at my servility, reaching for the whiskey and a cup of ice. He took a long, slow drink while I battled the mountainous piles of plates, forks, glasses, and bags of discarded take-out thrown in the sink. I tried not to make any faces myself; I never let the kitchen get this filthy, and for God’s sakes, garbage in the sink?
Behind me, Dad slammed something on the counter; I glanced over my shoulder and saw with a pang three little medicine bottles rolling onto the marble surface, each printed with my name. “Made me, FORCED me to get this f--ing s**t,” Dad muttered under his breath. “Pain meds, antibiotics, vitamins--you hear that, Evan?” he snarled at me, and I swiftly turned around again. “Had to buy you f--ing medicine because you’re undernourished.” He mimicked the doctor’s voice as he said it. “Little p***y.”
His muttering faded to background noise; wondering what he was doing, I chanced another look behind me. Dad was staring at the bottles just as I was staring at the pain medicine; he threw me a nasty look and gathered all of them up in one hand. “Medicine,” he hissed under his breath, turning away. “See if you ever see all of this s**t again.”
My heart sank; he was denying me medicine? Pain medicine, the best thing in the world…. “B-but Dad,” I stammered, my voice still quiet and hoarse from disuse, “I need that….”
He stopped and gave me a look that made me flinch beneath its power. “You can have it when you learn the f--ing combination,” he snapped, and was gone.
I turned back to the sink, sniffing and wiping my eyes on my sleeve. No food, water, or sleep, fine; working until midnight after a week in the hospital, great, no problem. But no medicine? When the doctor SAID I was undernourished…I was undernourished?
No pain medicine. My ribs throbbed viciously, just to spite me. How was I ever going to survive at school?
At least Dad hadn’t started hitting me yet. At least I wasn’t still stuck in the hospital. At least I wasn’t dying of cancer, at least I wasn’t one of those pale, desperate faces shining from the dark, filled with sorrow and despair…yes, I was lucky, why was I complaining? Better to be out of the hospital and back home without pain medicine than locked in a hospital room with it. Right?
I finished the dishes, got to work on the counters, then the fridge, then the floor. God, this place was a mess. Did Dad do nothing around here when I was gone?
The living room was worse. There was a pizza box stuffed with napkins laying on the coffee table, with a ridiculous amount of little whiskey glasses sitting everywhere, devoid of coasters. The OCD hypochondriac in me shuddered. I got right to work, feeling a pleasant contentment regardless of the duress I was under when everything was finally clean. For some reason, it made me happy to know that I mattered in the house. I cleaned. I kept everyone who came within fifty yards of it from catching ringworms, or some other kind of disease spread from filth.
The contentment started to wear off once I got upstairs. My ribs started throbbing all over again; I had to be careful, like I had when I had first broken them. I could move everywhere and every way I pleased, but my entire body ached. I wanted a hot shower, and bed, and a nice fat book…and a shot of pain medicine. I sighed at the thought, kept working.
By the time I was finished, I was fighting tears; it was eleven at night, and I hadn’t eaten for over a week. I knew I wasn’t going to starve, but I still felt hunger pains clawing at my stomach as I stumbled downstairs. I was feeling too sick with pain to eat, so I just swallowed three glasses of water. Then I drifted back upstairs and into a nice, warm shower, refusing to move until the hot water was completely gone. I shivered, wrapped myself in a towel, and stumbled blearily into my room to get dressed.
Sometime during the shower, I had started to cry. I wasn’t sure exactly what was bothering me until I was dressed and in bed; then I remembered Kahme, how my window was unlocked for her, how she would by now be asleep beneath my bed, or awake if I wanted to talk. I cried quietly into my pillow, overwhelmed. She knew. She knew what had happened. What would she do? What wouldn’t she do? Why had I driven her away?
I missed her…I couldn’t face tomorrow without her….
In the darkness, before my sore body could manage to drift off, I heard a familiar sound: a soft sniff, a quiet shuffling. I wasn’t as scared as I usually was when I heard noises at night; I knew who it was, and what she was doing. I kept my back turned to her as Kahme wriggled out from under my bed, still crying helplessly, and stood up. Then she just stood there, waiting for me to move, I guess.
I supposed that she’d been sleeping in my room in my absence, lacking any other place to go. The relief at her presence quickly turned to fear of what she might do or say, dread at the thought of her leaving again in a moment.
But we couldn’t just sit here all night. So I spoke up.
“You don’t have to go anywhere, Kahme,” I whispered into the darkness. “I’ll leave.”
I sat up, my bare toes meshing into the carpet; it had once bothered me to have my feet dangling in front of the darkness beneath my bed, but not with Kahme here.
“H-h-how’d you know I was there?” she stammered, her voice hoarse and soft from crying.
I ignored her question, wishing to get what I needed to say out in the open as soon as possible. “I’m sorry, Kahme,” I told her, and I meant it. “I…I’m really sorry,” I repeated weakly. “I didn’t mean it….”
She let out a sob, then before I knew it the bed creaked and she was hugging me tightly, crying into my shoulder. “Oh, Evan,” she wailed, pain raw and pure in her voice, “I was so worried…I was so worried about you….”
Completely stunned by her reaction, I felt my arms rise automatically, wrapping around her and giving back the hug I’d been wanting for days. We didn’t say anything; we didn’t have to. I sighed in relief as something painful unknotted in my chest, close to my heart, and light filled me up again.
She hugged me for a long, long time, and I felt peace seep through me…but the danger was still there, and I couldn’t forget.
She knew. She knew everything.
The dark tendrils of nameless monsters, embodiments of Dad’s curses upon me, my own blackness from the depths of the past, wrapped silently around us in the darkness.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 7:13 pm
Yeah, peeps, I went there. I so went there.
MD: rofl But seriously.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 7:30 pm
aye, but as for the latest chapter I love it, drama, suspense, and anger you put everything in here nice work and fast at that! eek I still can't get over the fact of how fast you can write these chapters out o.O. Hah! Mike the doctor.... how quaint xp
PS: I love the similes smile
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 8:20 pm
heart
New chapter coming along nicely, except I don't know what should be in it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 9:01 pm
thanksgiving and christmas you say? how original! xd
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 4:04 pm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 6:15 pm
Well they are original, you'll see.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 7:10 pm
KirbyVictorious Well they are original, you'll see. Well of course YOU Wrote them! blaugh
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008 7:20 pm
redface I meant, the other stuff is original. Not the holidays. Stuff happens in between.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Apr 13, 2008 6:09 am
hahaha kirbs snuck a fast one on meh last night razz but I was wondering if this was completely finished... meh she'll log on soon enough wink
19
“You’re not mad at me?” I asked Kahme quietly after awhile.
“No, I…it’s okay, Evan, it’s okay…” she whispered. “I’m so glad you’re all right, I thought…I thought…I didn’t know where you were, where were you, Evan?”
“Dad took me to the hospital when I started coughing up blood,” I told her dully. She sucked in a frightened breath.
“Coughing up blood? Oh no, Evan, that’s not good, you coulda drowned--!”
“I’m okay now. Why aren‘t you mad at me? I treated you like s**t….”
“Why aren’t you mad at ME?” she moaned, burying her face in my shirt for warmth and comfort. “I wasn’t gonna tell, Evan, honest, I’m not gonna hurt you….”
My stomach lurched. “You didn’t see anything, Kahme,” I insisted, but with no vigor this time. What was the use?
“No, no, I’ll never ever say that…I saw him,” she whispered, a sob catching on her words, “but I won’t tell….”
I swallowed hard, sweat prickling on my forehead. “There’s nothing to tell,” I insisted desperately. It wasn’t enough to have a promise, she couldn’t be a witness, she couldn’t….
“Spirits, Evan,” she hissed, exasperated, “will you stop denying everything?”
“I can’t,” I replied, tears flowing down my face anew. “I have to….”
She hugged me harder, softly petting my hair. “It’ll be okay, I swear it’ll be okay….”
“It’s already okay,” I told her desperately. “Please don’t interfere, Kahme, please…please, I’m fine, I’m lucky, don’t ruin it for me….”
She stiffened, pulled away. “LUCKY?”
“Yeah, Kahme,” I begged her, my eyes wide and pleading even though she couldn’t see them. “I’m so lucky, you should’ve seen all those kids in the hospital, they looked so sad and sick and some of ‘em cried an’ screamed all night, I’m so lucky I’m out of there, I could have cancer or…or no legs, or no parents at all,” I insisted, reasoning with her, trying to convince her that I really was lucky. “It could be so much worse, really, Kahme, I mean…look at all the kids in the books!” I spread my arms wide; frustrated that she couldn’t see my meaningful gestures in the darkness, I flipped on the lamp. We blinked in the sudden light.
“What d’you mean?” she demanded, not seeing where I was going.
“You know,” I hedged, “all the kids in the books.” I didn’t want to tell her the horrific tales I’ve read about. West Side Story, where runaway girls were raped and murdered or forced to work for a pimp or as prostitutes to survive. Stories of little kids being kidnapped and shipped to workhouses in the earlier decades of the nineteenth century. Stories of kids who had parents who were drug addicts, or were drug addicts themselves. The story of a girl who told her mother she didn’t want to do heroin anymore; her mother chained her to a toilet and abandoned her. The story of a small boy whose alcoholic mother kept him locked in a cellar and tortured him day and night. Girls and boys alike whose dads sexually abused them. Runaways picking pockets. Slaves in the late 1800’s, forced to work all day and whipped brutally if they weren’t. God, I was lucky.
For Kahme, I abridged, “There’re tons of kids like me who don’t have parents at all, or they don’t have a home, or they don’t have enough money to feed themselves. I’ve got everything, look at our house, some people would give their souls to have half of what I have. Look at Africa.”
“Africa?” I rightly suspected that the only thing she knew about Africa was Swahili.
“Yeah, Africa!” I enthused deliriously, glad to get her distracted. “They can’t even IMAGINE all the stuff I have! I’m so lucky, Kahme,” I insisted. “So lucky. I’ve…I’ve got it a lot better than you, even….”
“No you don’t,” Kahme said, her voice shaking with anger. “My mama loves me, she’d never hurt me, she’d never treat me like that--”
“Don’t talk about him that way!” I bristled. Then I inwardly slapped myself; stupid, I’d just admitted it.
But Kahme didn’t seem to notice; she was crying again, burying her face in a pillow. “Why’d he do that to you?” she wailed, reaching out and grabbing my hand tightly in hers. “Why’d he have to hurt you, Evan?”
“He didn’t,” I hissed, reluctantly tugging at my hand; she wouldn’t let go of me. “For God’s sake, Kahme….”
“He did,” she sniffled, grabbing me in a hug again. “He did.”
“He didn’t do anything,” I said desperately. “PLEASE, Kahme, just forget about it--”
“No, he can’t do that,” she told me. “He can’t, he won’t, I won’t let him--”
“NO!” I practically screamed, then realized my mistake and dropped my voice. I grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her up to my eye level, whispering, “No, Kahme, you WILL NOT interfere with any of this, do you understand me? You don’t know anything, please, please just forget about it--”
“I’m not forgetting anything!” she said shrilly, pulling away from me. “You can’t make me forget!”
“PLEASE, Kahme,” I begged her, grabbing her hands in my own and shaking them in utter sincerity. “Please just forget about it, I could get in so much trouble, you have no idea….”
“You’re already in trouble!”
“No, I mean it!” I insisted, my voice dropping even lower; I breathed my worst fears into the half-light. “You don’t know what they’ll do if someone find out, Kahme, you don’t know…they’ll take Daddy away from me--”
“Daddy?” she repeated in revulsion. I ignored her.
“--or they’ll take ME away, and even if they can’t do anything, Kahme, Daddy will, he’ll…he’ll hurt me, Kahme,” I pleaded, crying again, “he’ll do something awful, he’ll give me away, please, Kahme, I don’t want to go anywhere, please just forget about it….”
Kahme sat back, numb. “He threatened you.”
I didn’t say anything, looking away.
“He…he hits you…and he insults you…and he THREATENS you.”
“Please don’t do that, Kahme,” I requested; she was making me sick.
“He coulda killed you,” she whispered, and I heard the pain in her voice; she’d been suffering alone these past few days, worrying about me, not knowing where I’d gone or if I was alive or dead. The pain had changed her; she was different now. Like the night she’d found me on the floor, acting so calm and smooth and kind…. “Evan…Evan, he coulda killed you!”
“Worse things,” I muttered.
“He hurts you, all those bruises came from him, didn’t they? Didn’t they?” I didn’t answer. “And…and he…that b*****d!” she hissed under her breath, starting to sob.
“Don’t talk about him that way!” I warned her again.
“Why are you sticking up for him?” she demanded. “Why, Evan, why, after he hurt you so much--?”
“He’s all I’ve got, okay?” I snapped, fear making me edgy and sharp. “Daddy’s all I’ve got and I’m not letting anyone take me away, I don’t want to go….”
“He’ll just keep doing it,” she breathed, curling up against me for comfort again. I hugged her, but was still afraid. “You know he will….”
“Kahme, you’ve got to understand,” I begged her. “My dad…well, I’m all he’s got, too, and he wants me to take over the family business for him when I grow up, he wants me to get a good job and know how to do stuff and I screw up all the time, Kahme, I’m not that smart and I’m really clumsy and he has to punish me somehow--”
“Don’t defend him!” she sobbed. “Don’t, Evan! He can’t hurt you, he CAN’T!”
“He can,” I argued. “But he only does it because I make mistakes, seriously Kahme, and his dad did the same thing and it worked for him--”
“No it didn’t,” she muttered. “It didn’t. You’re all sick.”
I pretended that the comment didn’t hurt me. “Please, Kahme, Dad needs me to do everything and…and he’s just…he’s just doing what he knows how,” I pleaded on his behalf. “That’s just how you’re supposed to do it--”
“My mama never hurt me,” Kahme said stubbornly. “My mama loves me.”
“My…my dad….” I couldn’t object. Did “dad” and “love” always go together like that?
“How long’s he been doing that to you?” Kahme whimpered in the silence. “How long’s he been hurting you?”
“Stop calling it that,” I said uneasily. “Not long.”
“HOW long.”
“S-…since Mom died.”
“When was that?”
“I was eight,” I muttered reluctantly.
Even Kahme could do that math. “FIVE YEARS?”
“For the love of God, Kahme, keep your voice down,” I begged her, tears choking my voice. She recognized my meaning and immediately hushed, only to whisper again:
“Evan…Evan, is that why…you’re all….”
“No, I’m just like that normally,” I insisted, not knowing what she meant but assuming it was my personality.
“Not that,” she sighed. “I mean….” She sounded apologetic to me. “Is that why you don’t have any friends?”
“I’ve got you,” I said belligerently.
“I mean, before me.”
I bit my lip, struggling for a way to avoid the truth, but finally was forced to admit: “Yeah, that’s why.”
“He wouldn’t let you have any friends….” she said sadly.
“No, he wanted me to,” I insisted. “I just…I’m not that good at making friends….”
“Because you listen to HIM all the time,” she said bitterly.
I didn’t deny it. “And you have to let ‘em come over, Kahme, or else they get fed up, and…and I was scared,” I confessed.
“Scared of what?” Her eyes were wide in the lamplight.
“I don’t know.”
Her lip started trembling. “Evan?”
“Hmm?”
“Is…is that why I…I can’t come over all the time?”
“Yes,” I said gently.
She started to cry in earnest. “Evan, did I…did he ever…hit you, ‘cause of me?”
I could see how that might upset her. I didn’t want to lie, but I didn’t want to tell the truth either; “N-no,” I stammered, “I mean…I dunno, sometimes, I….”
“Sometimes?” she whimpered, sobbing brokenly into my pillow.
“Kahme, it has nothing to do with you. He only hits me if I deserve it, like if I do something stupid to make him mad. It doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“You don’t deserve that,” she sobbed. “You don’t deserve any of that….”
“Yeah I do,” I said wearily. “I deserve all of it. I’m a disappointment.”
“But how can he be disappointed in YOU?” she demanded, sitting up and looking straight at me, begging for an answer.
I didn’t know what to say to that question. I didn’t even know what that was even supposed to mean. Suddenly exhausted, both physically and mentally, I turned off the light and lay down, presenting my back to her.
“Forget about it, all of it. Please, Kahme.”
“No,” she said stubbornly through her tears. I sighed.
“I wanna go to bed.”
She stretched out beside me, burrowing under the covers with me and hugging my waist; my stomach twisted and lurched again. “I didn’t know,” she whispered. “All that time….”
“That’s just life,” I murmured, my eyelids too heavy, falling shut of their own accord. “Everything sucks….”
“Evan, just ‘cause some people’ve got it worse than you doesn’t mean you don’t need help,” she told me, petting my hair again. I won’t lie, it felt wonderful.
“I don’t need help. I’m alive, aren’t I? Perfectly fine.”
Her voice trembled as she replied, “You could’ve died last week…you could’ve died….”
“But I didn’t. Daddy would never let me die…he needs me…did you see the house when I was gone?”
“Yeah,” she sighed. “I waited and waited for you in here, Evan…I didn’t know where you were….”
“It’s okay. I was in the hospital. Daddy took me, everything was fine.”
“Did they cut you open?”
“Yep.”
“Did it hurt?”
“No, I was knocked out.”
“Did that hurt?”
“Nah, they have medicine…pain medicine is awesome….” I sighed heavily. “I brought some home, but it’s locked up….”
“He won’t let you have it.” Kahme was sharper than I remembered.
“No.”
“That’s just mean. Cruel,” she added, her voice breaking again.
“Leave ‘im alone,” I protested sleepily.
Kahme was silent for a long time. Then she said softly, “I know you wanna talk about it, Evan…. You can talk to me. It’s okay.”
“I don’t wanna talk about anything,” I objected.
“Yeah you do. Maybe not now, but….”
“No, never.” But I thought about it, and the sudden urge to spill my guts possessed me, I didn’t want to bear this burden alone anymore…. And for some reason or another, just the thought that I could tell Kahme everything now made me burst into tears.
Kahme hugged me close to her as I cried, rubbing my back and petting my hair, as I sobbed my secrets to her, just snatches here and there, unable to articulate properly to tell her everything….
“…Kahme…Kahme, I’m so scared, all the time, it’s just…and….”
“Shh, I know…it’s okay, Evan, I’m here….”
“…and he doesn’t even care, he gets drunk and he doesn’t even know what he’s doing, he doesn’t give a damn…he stabbed me, Kahme, look, with a knife, and he just kept eating, he didn’t care….”
“I’m here, Evan…I’m not leaving…tell me all about it, I’m right here.”
I did my best to; however, after ten minutes or so of this, exhaustion overcame me and I fell asleep, still wrapped up, safe, in her arms.
The next week of school was, luckily, a short one, with a half-day Wednesday for Thanksgiving. I hadn’t realized it was so close. The school was decorated with little paper turkeys and Pilgrims and an air of loose, lazy pre-festivity lay over the place, as if no one, teacher or student, felt like working with break right around the corner.
A couple of my teachers had sent me cards, but I hadn’t gotten them; they inquired with some concern about my hospital excursion. I tried to blow it off, blushing under the pressure of making up a lie, and eventually wriggled away with talk of homework. Those teachers and most of the other ones told me not to worry about it, there weren’t that many grades anyway. I insisted with a couple of them, whose grades I really needed to pick up, but was glad for the reduced workload from the others. One or two bitchy teachers made me make everything up, hospital trip or not, and one hag even took points off of a test I had missed before making me take it after school.
I managed to finish all my homework before school ended; then it was time to concentrate on Thanksgiving dinner. I found that the best way to get into my dad’s good graces was with food.
On Tuesday night I asked Dad if he wanted anything special for Thanksgiving dinner; he replied amiably enough that some edible food would be nice, and I agreed. He didn’t really specify, but donated a ten to my shopping funds for the turkey after I explained my method of payment: use all my lunch money from the week I had missed, if it was okay with him--which it surprisingly was.
To my satisfaction, I wasn’t punished--or I was punished very little--for the entire extravaganza. The only time he ever hit me on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday combined was when I asked him very politely if Kahme could eat Thanksgiving dinner with us. At this he smacked me across the head and replied no, Thanksgiving was a family affair. I didn’t think it wise to mention that Kahme didn’t have any family in this state; I backed off, devoid of pride but also of bruises.
Thanksgiving with Dad was always the same: He’d go over to a friend’s and watch the game, I’d struggle with dinner out of cans and boxes and microwaves, and he’d come home, we’d eat together, then go our separate ways. Nana had a huge, mouthwatering feast at Merrill Gardens; Mom’s side of the family, whom I’d never met, kept to themselves. They hadn’t talked to Mom or any of us since Mom married Dad; they didn’t know I existed, and from what I had learned over the years, they hated Dad and blamed him for Mom’s death. Which was stupid, really; Mom just died, no one did anything to her.
Keeping to tradition, I prepared to make dinner on Thursday, Kahme helping me out; but this time I did it for real. We even stuffed the turkey, which was slightly awkward I’ll admit. Aside from the tiny little bird, Kahme made wonderful mashed potatoes and rolls and gravy and pumpkin pie and beans and sweet potatoes, while I helped her out and opened cans of green beans, cranberries, and creamed corn for the cornbread, and made broccoli, macaroni and cheese, and salad. It was a feast fit for a king. I knew Dad would be pleased.
I set the dining room table, laid everything out, and wrote down Kahme’s final instructions very, very carefully before letting her head up to my room. Before I put anything into a bowl or onto a plate, I set aside a dish piled high with food for Kahme and stuck it in the microwave. Then I put everything into a pretty dish and set it all on the tablecloth, waiting for Dad to arrive.
He didn’t do anything unusual or mean that day; he came home on time, he didn’t want to bother with grace, he enjoyed everything in silence, he didn’t find fault in anything. It was a quiet meal, but a happy one, I thought. At least I hadn’t been hit since I’d come home from the hospital. It was a freaking miracle to me.
Then he went to the living room to watch TV, and I said goodnight and disappeared upstairs with my loaded plate. Kahme dug into her own Thanksgiving dinner, and together we did what Dad and I would never do: we gave thanks for everything we had, back and forth. She could sum hers up in about three different sentences; mine were all depressing, so I shortened them to thanking God for everything. We had two different religions, we believed in two entirely different credos, but for a little while it didn’t matter what we called God.
We were doing what everyone was supposed to do on that day, which few people actually did in the society I dwelt in, with its easy-button, touch-and-go, harder-better-faster-stronger attitudes. For one day out of the entire year, on this one holiday untainted by commercialism and cheesy childish symbols and idols, everyone in America had the chance to sit back, relax, spend time with the ones they loved, and do something they would never do otherwise in the depths of their hearts: admit that they needed God.
When I said softly that I was thankful for not being hit for five whole days in a row, not including the hospital, Kahme threw me an odd glance and squeezed my hand. We hadn’t talked about anything since that night; neither of us wanted to ruin the cheerfulness of a school holiday. I also thanked God for getting me out of the hospital without any huge ordeals, and Kahme smiled and thanked Spirit for that, too. She gave me a hug, and we commenced. She’d been hugging me a lot for the past few days. I guessed that she was just glad to have me back, which was, admittedly, nice to know.
She’d also been acting different in a more subtle, much stranger way. I noticed immediately, though I couldn’t describe it; she treated me like something fragile, breakable, always on the lookout for any signs of cracking, shattering, breaking down. And she greeted me each day with immeasurable concern, giving my entire body a once-over with her eyes before she discerned that I had not been hurt; only then would she hug me tightly, welcoming me back into the safety of her presence, where she could protect me from harm. This behavior did not go away, and at the time I didn’t think it ever would; now that Kahme knew everything, even though I had never specifically told her and could not be held directly responsible for her knowledge.
But I was responsible for her, and I would be if she was hurt. I had so many things I wanted to, needed to tell her, so many things for which she needed to push aside the skepticism and single-mindedness that plagued the entire world and let me convince her that they were true…so many things I tried to tell her but failed, lacking the words and persuasive power. Kahme, listen to me: don’t worry about anything. I can take care of myself, I have been for years and years, please just let this go, I’ll be fine. Kahme, don’t think you can protect me, nothing and no one can except me, he’s unpredictable, Kahme, he could kill you, please don’t get involved. Kahme, I’m begging you, just forget you ever knew me and go back to your mom, you can’t always be worried about me, bad things are going to happen no matter what you do, please just go home and find someone else who isn’t so broken to be your new best friend….
Every time I even came close to trying to tell her all of this, she wouldn’t listen. She wasn’t abandoning me. She was going to help me. Protect me. I felt faint at the very thought. She didn’t know what the hell she was getting into. What was she thinking? Who did she think she was, such a tiny, sweet, breakable little thing, to even imagine facing my dad? He would crush her. No one could stop him, no one and nothing could help me but a change of heart or God Himself.
Sometimes I grew so desperate that I thought I might drive myself insane, trying to convince Kahme to forget all she had heard and seen. I was scared for her, for me…but I also felt a tiny bit of pity, and unbearable hopelessness. Kahme might not tell, she might not ever go near my dad, she might do everything I asked her to….
But she wouldn’t forget.
It only took me a few moments of empathy, standing in her shoes. Watching from the top of the stairs, sitting there, helpless, as she watched her best friend get yelled at, beaten brutally until he fell, thinking he was dead, his own father, the man who had been so polite and detached to her whenever she came over, had killed him. And even though he wasn’t dead, having to see his pain, hear the suffering in his voice when he begged her not to tell, leave him at his demand to face it all alone, see him forced into a car and carried away, never seeing him for five long days.
She had been scarred. A huge chunk of the innocence surrounding her heart had been ripped away by the unfeeling hands of fate, coincidence, and a terrible case of wrong-place-wrong-time. It had hurt her, and though her heart would heal, that innocence would never return. When all of it was gone, she would be grown up, and it wouldn’t hurt so much; but I could tell that though this wasn’t the first time someone had hurt her, it had been the worst blow she had ever suffered. Sweet, naïve Kahme, forced to witness something like that…. It must have tortured her.
I tried to be extra-nice to her after that, keeping that brief epiphany in mind. I took her every possible afternoon that week to the candy store and let her pick something, anything she wanted. Instead of her usual hyperactivity, I was dismayed to see her act calmer, laughing and smiling but keeping a thoughtful silence in between. She was by no means a thoughtful person in general, she still chatted and smiled enough to balance that out, but she didn’t skip or sing or bounce around like she had just two weeks ago. She had changed, just like I had changed five years ago; both of us had been forced to grow up by things beyond our control.
I had planned to take her to that store every day, using every cent of my lunch money if I had to, (the owner and cashier would have loved it, he invited me to return every day and didn‘t try to cheat me like he did other little kids, sometimes), but it stopped on Saturday when Kahme, quietly chewing like a rabbit on a Twizzler, asked me politely where I was getting all of the quarters to pay for it every day. (To her, quarters, not dollars, were still the American currency.)
I considered lying to her, but instead I utilized a common tactic of mine, and skimmed around, beneath, and across the surface of The Truth. “My dad.”
Her expression darkened in an instant. She looked away. “What for? Is it an allowance?”
“Sorta,” I hedged, not wanting to lie to her.
“What do you mean, sorta?” She’d become sharper overnight, it seemed to me, though really she had started becoming more and more articulate after months of making me read to her, and now talked somewhat like me. Friends often adopt each other’s vernacular after a long time together. “What does he give it to you for?”
The rapid crossfire was not something she had picked up from me. I looked away as well, uncomfortable. “Lunch,” I said truthfully.
Her eyes went wide. “That’s your lunch money?” She looked about ready to throw her candy back onto the store counter and demand the dollar fifty back.
“Kahme, I never eat lunch,” I told her softly.
“Why not?”
“If I bring money, people take it from me. And if I bring food, they ruin it. They don’t like me, so they take everything I’ve got. It’s just easier to wait and get a snack when I get home.”
“But you don’t get a snack,” she reminded me. We had frozen to a halt on the sidewalk at this point.
“I don’t eat a lot,” I sighed. “It’s okay, don’t worry about it, Kahme,” I added as she opened her mouth to, no doubt, ask why. “I just keep the money for later, and I eat when I get hungry. I’m fine.”
She changed tack. “Why’s your dad still give you money, then?”
“He doesn’t know.”
“Why don’t you tell him?”
She’d been doing that for the past few days; it was as if she was trying to make me admit it. I sighed.
“Do you want the lie, or the truth?”
“The truth,” she said immediately, frowning.
“Fine, then. He….” I hesitated. “He would make a huge deal about it…if he found out that I didn’t eat lunch. And if he found out that I can’t stand up to the bullies at school. And if he knew that I’d been stealing. It’s just better to take it every month than--”
“He hits you for needing LUNCH MONEY?” she said incredulously. “But that’s--”
In half a step I had gotten behind her and covered her mouth. “Don’t say that,” I hissed. “Goddamn it, Kahme, I keep telling you not to say things like that!”
She pulled my hand away. “It’s not fair,” she insisted, her voice shaking just a little; and I could tell from the look in her eyes that she thought every time I got hit was like the beating she had witnessed. “It’s not fair, Evan….”
“Of course not,” I said, raising my eyebrows, but my voice was softer now. “But it’s not so bad.”
“Still.” She reached out and took my hand, turning it over in hers, looking down so I wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes.
“It’s okay. This way’s better, I get paid.” Getting beaten for $35 a month? Sounded suspiciously like a cheap, violent version of prostitution, only less fun.
Kahme shuffled her feet, staring at the package of Twizzlers. She offered it to me. “Here, take ‘em.”
“No way, they’re for you.”
“You paid for ‘em. You…you paid for ‘em,” she amended quietly. “Take just one, please, Evan?”
“I don’t want any,” I sighed, starting to walk again. “Let’s go.”
“Evan?” her voice called quietly. I stopped, turned around again. She ran up to me and threw her arms around my waist. I blushed.
“Kahme, what…?”
“I’m sorry, Evan,” she whimpered, tears seeping from beneath her closed eyelids. “’M really sorry….”
“Don’t be,” I said automatically, completely nonplussed. “They’re just Twizzlers.”
“Not that.” She hugged me tighter, the top of her head barely grazing my chin.
“Well what then?” I demanded; emotional outbursts made me uncomfortable and embarrassed, especially my own or any that involved me.
“I…I wanted to, I really did!” she sobbed, burying her face in my too-big shirt. “I just couldn’t move…Evan, I’m sorry….”
“What are you even talking about?”
“If…if I’d been…down there,” she choked, “w-…would he have…stopped?”
My heart sank. I grabbed her shoulders and looked her fiercely in the eyes. “No! Don’t even THINK about things like that, are you insane? You couldn’t have just waltzed down there…and….” I shuddered at the very thought. “You can’t go NEAR him, Kahme, not ever, what if he’d hurt you too…?”
“If…if I was brave,” she insisted miserably. “If I was brave, I would’ve…I coulda helped you….”
“No, you idiot,” I moaned; then my arms reached out impulsively and hugged her to me again. “Don’t ever think that,” I told her softly, so only she could hear. “You’re helping me enough, that’s the most you can do.”
“What is?” she asked me tiredly.
“Being here. Being safe. Don’t get hurt, please just don’t get hurt, Kahme…don’t interfere….”
She couldn’t think of anything to say; she started crying again. I sighed heavily, awkwardly taking her hand.
“Let’s go home, Kahme….”
She followed me, grasping my hand like a lost thing. “Evan?” she asked me quietly after a few blocks of silent sniffling and contemplation.
“Yeah?” I waited for the only crossing signal in town to turn green.
She was silent as we jaywalked across, silent for another hundred feet. “Nothin’,” she finally sighed, and we walked home without another word to the other.
There was one last bright, clear day before the annual snow hit. The weather channel had been blaring the news for three days straight, and it’s all people felt like talking about at school, at least for the first few minutes when quite frankly they could think of nothing else. I scowled at the thought of the return of snow; I absolutely hated the cold. I didn’t like heat much either--I had no problem with it, really, except that every time it got too hot I was in danger of passing out. Still, I lived in the foothills Nevada. What else could I have expected but snow every winter?
The day I heard about it, after I’d finished all my chores and homework, I commenced with my despised winter-time ritual. First, permission, usually the most nerve-grating part of the entire experience.
I decided not to try anything loquacious, just keep it simple. I poked my head into the living room and said to Dad, who was watching some game with little interest in the score, “Hey, Dad, can I go up into the attic?”
He ignored me, like usual.
“Dad?”
He rolled his eyes and heaved a martyred sigh, rubbing his temples with one hand. The other, I noted warily, was wrapped around a glass of whiskey. “What in the hell for?” He was slightly drunk, and couldn’t be expected to remember the obvious; he also acted as if my mere presence gave him a migraine. Maybe he was allergic to me, and if he touched me he would swell up and back off. But I couldn’t be too hopeful.
“It’s gonna snow on Thursday, I’ve gotta get my stuff.”
“F--in’ snow,” was his eloquent and completely unpredictable reply. He hated winter too, for different and more practical reasons. I noticed that I hadn’t gotten permission and decided not to take that gamble.
“Do you mind if I go get it?”
“p***y,” he snapped. “Can’t go two f--in’ months at the first sign of cold weather….”
That I took as permission. “Yessir. I’ll put your mittens with your socks, and your snow boots in the closet,” I added to him. “All your stuff’ll be where it belongs when you need it.”
“What the f-- is wrong with you?” he demanded testily. “Good God….”
“Well, I wouldn’t want you to catch pneumonia, Dad,” I said innocently, then went up to the attic to find the plastic container that held our snow gear. It was sitting beneath the circle of light, to one side; I opened it and took out everything inside.
Two pairs of snow boots, one pair huge and brutal-looking--Dad’s--the other very small indeed. They had been uncomfortable last year, and when I held them against my socked feet, I knew that this year they’d be nothing short of painful. But less painful than what would happen if I asked for a new pair.
A small red parka with soft insides for me, a large dull green one for Dad. I tried the parka on, saw again that it would be too small, groaned aloud. I was going to look so incredibly stupid. But as long as Dad didn’t notice…as long as I kept it on the hook until he’d left….
Then, pants. Ours were identical, I could tell them apart only by their immense size difference. They were black and crinkled and soft cloth on the inside, waterproof plastic-like material on the outside. They scrunched together at the ankles and waist to ensure that no snow got through. I made sure the trapdoor was shut firmly before trying the pants on, then groaned again; they were two inches too short. My boots would cover it, maybe….and if not, long socks.
There they were, speak of the devil: long, black socks for each of us. Very warm. Thinner white ones were supposed to go on beneath them; I located those pairs as well. Beneath that, underclothes, long snug cotton pants and shirts that kept it pretty hot beneath your clothes when it was freezing outside. Usually the pants and parka were enough, though, with a long t-shirt underneath.
Then there was a small shoebox that held our mittens, waterproof gloves, my hat, earmuffs, Dad’s scarf (mine was always in my drawer for windy days). I took all of these out and separated them into the two piles, Pile One and Pile Two, Dad and Evan.
In their own flat box at the bottom lay Mom’s gear, and though I had never touched them unless she had been wearing them, I knew exactly what they’d look like--I held a clear and very special memory of Mom in my mind for as long as time could preserve it. Her in the backyard, making snow creatures with me. Her in her dark blue coat, the girl kind that accentuated her figure, the blue making her eyes shine vivid and clear. Soft blue mittens that wiped my tears away when I had fallen. The black turtleneck beneath that I pressed my cheek against when I hugged her, soft and smelling of lavender soap and powder.
I sighed and put the empty box away.
I puffed an exasperated sigh when I woke up on Thursday morning and saw a fine layer of snow drifting lightly in the wind over the grass in my backyard. I opened my window to survey the damage--then slammed it shut as a gust of dry, icy wind cut through my pajamas.
Kahme mumbled something beneath my bed, wrapped up like a pig-in-a-blanket to ward against the cold. After I emerged from the bathroom, half-dressed in my snow clothes, she crawled out and claimed my bed for herself. She did this every morning; sometimes when she was feeling up to conversation, we chatted a bit, a refreshing morning mental-stamina build-up for the exhausting day ahead.
This was suck a morning. “Wha’ w’s all th’ noise ‘bout?” she said thickly, rubbing her eyes as she curled up on my bed. She had come into the habit of stealing my pajamas whenever possible. I would have been more annoyed if the sight of her virtually drowning in my clothes wasn’t so damn cute.
“Ugh,” was all I felt like commenting.
“It’s cold,” she complained, burying herself in my comforter.
“Go figure, it’s frikkin’ snowing outside,” I muttered.
“Snowin‘?” she repeated blearily, wrapping the comforter around her like a cloak and peeking through the window to check it out. Then she shrieked so loudly that I had to tackle her to make her shut up. I lost my balance and fell on top of her; then, blushing, I quickly pulled away and stood again.
“Shut up, will you?” I hissed.
She sobered up at once, murmuring a soft “Sorry” before pushing the comforter off of her and scrambling back to the window. “What is it?” she asked me in silent awe and, if I wasn’t delusional with sleep deprivation, fear.
“Snow,” I answered, standing beside her. Everything outside was coated in white. The world was quiet, and had a soft, dreamlike quality to it. It must have been about an inch and a half by then.
“It’s beautiful….” She pressed her nose against the frosted glass. “What is it?”
“Water frozen into mini ice crystals,” I explained. “We get a lot of it during January…. Goddammit,” I added under my breath. “Gonna have to start shoveling the frikkin’ driveway before long….”
“You have to do that too?” She turned to me, eyes wide with disbelief.
“Yeah,” I said glumly.
“Or what?” she asked me softly.
Suddenly fed up, I turned away, grabbing my freshly laundered jacket and heading for my door. “I’ve gotta go to school.”
“Bye, Evan!” she told me perkily, but I had already shut the door.
Dad didn’t notice my too-small clothes that morning, too busy chewing his breakfast I supposed. I lingered as long as possible in the relative warmth of the kitchen, but before too long it was the absolute latest time I could leave and still get to school on time, so I said goodbye to Dad (he ignored me), put on my parka, mittens, scarf, and boots, and left.
The morning was quiet, the snow pristine, untouched. Despite my hatred for it, I took great pleasure in making the first crunching footprints in the backyard. Then I sighed, sending a cloud of mist into the still air, and headed for school, tightening my scarf around my nose and mouth. Doubtless, I would end up with a cold before the end of the week, no matter how many layers I put on. I could be a freaking onion and still get sick when the seasons changed.
By the time I got to school, I had decided that living with the stupid too-small clothes was going to be unbearable. But by the time school ended, I recalled that I didn’t have much of a choice. One more year, I told myself, just like I had last year. Just one more year, then I’ll ask.
That’s not exactly how it turned out, though. A new set of snow gear, for at least one person, seemed absolutely necessary when I got home and found a puddle in the kitchen around a very wet pair of moccasins, then a trail of squishy wet sock-prints leading up to my room. Following it, I discovered Kahme still sleeping in my bed, her hair damp, shivering beneath every blanket I had. She rolled over when the door opened and, upon recognizing me, said, “H-…h-h-hi E-…Ev-….” She sneezed.
I groaned. “You went outside and played in the snow, didn’t you?”
She nodded miserably. “Didn’t know it’d be so cold, Evan….”
“I told you it was water, and it’s like twenty degrees! Good God, Kahme!”
“But I wanted to play with it,” she objected in a tiny voice, pushing her hair out of the way--her fingers were pink from the cold.
I sighed. “Good God,” I repeated. “Why don’t you go make some tea or take a bath or something? Why didn’t you do it before?”
“I can?” she said sleepily.
I muttered under my breath and went into the bathroom, running warm water with, like, three cups of bubble soap and setting a fresh towel and some of my pajamas on the counter. Then I went back into my room and took her freezing hand, helping her up and pointing her to the bathtub. “Go on, or you’ll get gangrene or something.”
“Wha?” she inquired, but she went anyway. I sighed and sat on my bed, peeling off my coat and exchanging the stupid pants for jeans. I kicked at the clothes, annoyed by them. Would it be so hard for someone to buy their kid new clothes every three years or so? But no….
Then a brilliant--brilliantly stupid--plan entered my brain uninvited and so completely unwanted, but enter it did all the same. And I tried to brush it away, but it didn’t quite work. Because when I went downstairs and started cleaning as I waited for Kahme, the idea was still nagging at me, no matter how much chicken-hearted Evan rebelled against the very idea of the idea. And when Kahme, still sneezing and sick but better after a bath and soup and tea, and I prepared dinner, it stopped nagging and started poking, hard. So it went, as ideas tend to do, until Kahme was gone, hiding under my bed again; and I found, to my utter dismay, that when Dad drove up I had already made up my mind.
It was one of the stupidest and noblest things I had ever done, and would ever do--at least while I was a teenager. Right there, right then, not even waiting until we were done with dinner, I told Dad, very politely, that my coat, my pants, and my boots were all too small, could he please take me to get some more?
Yes, you’re probably thinking that’s a very retarded thing to do. Definitely not worth getting beaten up over. Why didn’t I just buy it myself? you ask. Because my Dad wasn’t stupid, he’d notice, I knew, and anyway, that was where the noble part came in.
Dad was already pissed off about the snow; it piled on his windshield, slowed his car despite all the antifreeze, created traffic and confusion, and was slippery, wet, and obnoxious. He’d already greeted me with a punch to the jaw, venting his anger on me. And he’d had a bad day even without the snow, and was dying for a few glasses of whiskey. All of that, and me annoying him on top of it all, made him very unremorseful of beating the s**t out of me without further ado.
And he did. And it wasn’t actually that bad. He was too hungry to fight long, I guess, or maybe he got bored.
I felt sick, and my nose was bleeding, but at the risk of being yelled at, I choked down a few spoonfuls of the weird casserole thing we’d made and drank a bunch of water. I made my escape as soon as possible, running up to my room and tugging Kahme out from under the bed. While she wriggled out, I grabbed my winter clothes excitedly--coat, pants, shoes--and shoved them in her face.
“I got these for you!” I said cheerfully. Why I was so triumphant, I had no idea; I guess I just felt useful for once.
“Huh?” she said dazedly, rubbing her eyes and taking the clothes in her arms. “Wha’ are they?”
“Winter clothes, snow stuff. And this weekend I’ll get you a hat and gloves and you can play in the snow all you like…. What?”
She was staring in horror at my face. “What?” I demanded again, my elation too strong to let me realize exactly what was wrong.
“Your nose is bleeding,” she said numbly.
“Oh….” I dabbed the back of my hand at my nose and, sure enough, it was dripping blood. I impatiently grabbed a Kleenex from my nightstand and held it to the offending orifice. “Anyway,” I continued with a slight nasal inflection, “we’ll go Saturday--”
“Evan,” Kahme whispered, her eyes widening as she realized what I hadn’t, “what happened to your face?”
“What about it?” I said distractedly.
She reached up her hand and touched her fingers very, very lightly to a sore spot on my cheek. I winced--not from her touch--and drew back.
“Nothing,” I said defensively.
But she’d already made the connection. She stared at me, then gazed disbelievingly at the clothes in her arms, then again stared at me in utter horror and revulsion. “You didn’t,” she choked, dropping the clothes on the floor.
“Didn’t what?” I demanded, picking the clothes back up again and tossing them onto the bed. “What’s wrong?” I impulsively grabbed her hands; they were cold and shaking.
“You DIDN’T!” she shouted hoarsely, and burst into tears. I blinked, utterly shocked, as she gasped, “You--can’t’ve…you--can’t--ever--get--hurt--b-b-because--of--me--Evan--”
I sat her down on my bed, grabbing her shoulders firmly. “Kahme, stop that,” I told her sternly. “Look at me.”
She did…then she sobbed harder, upset all over again. I puffed out a sigh.
“Okay, don’t look at me. Don’t start freaking on me, no one got hurt because of you….”
“B-b-but your face,” she whined.
“Kahme, it’s okay. I know what you mean. Look, these clothes are too small for me, I had to ask Dad for some new ones anyway, I’m givin’ ‘em to you so you won’t freeze out there…don’t cry, God, Kahme, please don’t cry….”
She leaned forward, resting her cheek against my chest and closing her eyes. “He hurt you for that,” she murmured, then convulsed as a sob shook her tiny frame. “For something as stupid as that….”
I sighed, hugged her; she needed comfort more than I did, all this was so new to her. “It’s nothing for you to worry about,” I consoled her. “Don’t worry about it. It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay,” she argued fervently, “it’s not, hitting you like that…for something stupid…and…you’ve already got so many rules….”
“There’s really only one rule,” I told her quietly.
She sobbed harder at that. I think there was just something about my attitude about the situation I was in, rather than the situation itself. It bothered her so much that she couldn’t express it, and then it just built into a nameless, hopeless ball of frustration, the kind we all feel at times, the kind that chokes you and builds an unbearable pressure in your chest, the urge to scream and start crying. I knew the feeling well.
I let her sob herself out, it took only a few minutes, then I convinced her to go try the clothes on, see if they fit. She took some persuading, but finally she did as I asked; and emerged from the bathroom in full winter gear.
For forty-five seconds my heart fibrillated uncontrollably. They were a perfect fit, said my mind to the rest of me, despite being for two different sexes; but I don’t think the rest of me was listening.
“They fit all right,” I managed to say.
She nodded, tugging at the coat that must have seemed so awkward and bulky to her. “What?” she added defensively, seeing that I was still inspecting her. I shook myself.
“Nothing.” I smiled lopsidedly, which I did even without the bruises. “You look pretty.”
I wasn’t familiar with the dynamics of dark skin, but as Kahme smiled shyly and avoided my eyes, I was certain that the sudden darkness on her copper cheeks meant that she was blushing.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Apr 13, 2008 6:10 am
That Saturday my dad shoved me into the car and took me to the nearest winter outfitter’s. We didn’t linger long; I told him my sizes, he picked out pants and a blue coat with lighter sleeves and a hood (it was cheap, but didn’t look it), and I tried on a couple of pairs of boots before finding some that were plain, sturdy, and gave me room to grow. All of this was done with extremely bad grace on Dad’s part, and nervous enthusiasm on mine--it was very, very rare that I got to go shopping like this, and therefore it was something of an adventure, to put it in Kahme’s terms.
Then we went home, and after Dad had kicked me around a bit and ordered me to clean the house, he left to go grocery shopping, and to the bank and other boring grown-up places. Instead of cleaning, I took Kahme to a different outfitter’s and bought her long socks, a hat, waterproof gloves, and a set of long, warm cotton underclothes. Kahme threw me a guilty look as I handed over the money, eyeing a new bruise on my face, but had the sense not to say anything; at least, not until we got outside.
Then she objected vehemently to the purchase, and I objected in return, saying I was only trying to keep her safe and warm; but then her voice became suddenly very small; I sighed and hugged her, and she said nothing more about the cost of it all, whether listed on the store receipt or not.
December passed in a haze of normalcy mixed with a bit of spice now and then. Such as Kahme and I playing snowball fight in the backyard, once we got her winter stuff, such as the baby rabbit snowman she made in one corner and the intricate snow designs in another. Such as fewer beatings from Dad--he seemed very tired, the drag of a long year, and if I didn’t provoke him he didn’t purposely antagonize me. Such as the buzz of Christmas cheer and anticipation hovering in the air.
If Mom was alive right now, I caught myself thinking often, I knew exactly what she’d be doing. She’d be drifting in her own dreamy way through the streets, content to stand in lines and follow crowds indiscriminately, me clinging to her hand as she poked through every store she thought was “right,” looking for the perfect present for me, Dad, Nana. She would never tell me when she found it; she would just talk quietly to the person behind the counter of a store, point out something, write a check, all business for the moment. Then she’d drift again.
I’d help her pick out a present for Dad, though secretly muttering silent, fervent truths in my heart, telling Dad that his present didn’t matter as much, I didn’t love him like I loved Mom. Then she’d smile and tell me to go pick something out for her, she wouldn’t look, and she’d cover her eyes and let me lead her around the stores until I found something. Then when I’d found it, she’d tell me to ask the clerk very nicely if he could wrap it for me. Once the gift was wrapped, Mom could open her eyes and pay for it, hugging me fondly for my generosity and telling me she couldn’t wait for Christmas morning.
Then she’d do her drifting at home, wandering around with tinsel strands and popcorn chains singing Christmas carols in her lovely, sweet, nondescript voice. I’d follow her around adoringly like a lost puppy, and she’d tell me she couldn’t decorate the house without my help, and we’d work on it together. Tree-trimming took us hours, but we were always sad when there was no more room on the tree for even the smallest ornament.
Then, the outside of the house. This, the entire family did together. Mom and I would watch in amazement as Dad used the ladder to hang things from the gutters on the front of the house, hang tinsel from the windowsills, set up the electrical complications involved in glowing reindeer skeletons. Mom thought it looked pretty, and it did; with her, Christmas was a holiday of beauty and meaning, with thoughtful care as well as happiness, and our house became a snowy Eden, filled with carols and the smell of gingerbread.
I tore myself out of the memories and back into reality. Things weren’t like that anymore. This year, though, it wasn’t just me and Dad; it was Kahme, and all the excitement and energy that came with the package.
I had to explain Christmas to Kahme, from the beginning; would you believe, she had had no clue what it was before then. She found the entire thing so confusing that I had had to start over a couple of times; but once she understood the general idea--general happiness, peace, love, and joy all around combined with decorations of green fake stuff and fat little old men--she fell in love with it and threw herself into the holiday. It was almost impossible to rein her in; the only things that ever stopped her were lack of decorations and lack of space to put them in. She wore me out just by watching her.
Dad hated Christmas. Or at least I think the feeling was hatred. He’d become very quiet and subdued, drinking a lot and leaving the house at random intervals, to return completely wasted hours later. However, he was like a land mine for the entire season; the tiniest disturbance would make him explode. I had no desire to be hospitalized again, and I was good. Apart from report cards, I skimmed through December with nary a scratch… well, that’s exaggerating it a bit. Even I couldn’t avoid getting hit at least once a week.
His hatred kept him out of our way, and allowed Kahme near-free reign over the house. Our usual Christmas decorations--a fake tree with the side facing the street unenthusiastically decorated--were immediately vetoed, the tree dragged to the most prominent corner of the dining room and virtually attacked with the box of Christmas ornaments in the attic. I hovered about and made sure nothing broke, watching with a mixture of trepidation and complete shock as she flew around our house, her Christmas spirit unable to be contained, decorating everything in the kitchen, hallway, dining room, upstairs hall, and my room. Our house was practically wallpapered with Christmas cheer.
I found that I could have fun, I could relax and enjoy the season as best as one in my position could; the house was so bedecked with garland and ornaments and red-and-green s**t that the only rooms I really had to clean were the living room, which Dad had forbidden me to touch, and the bathrooms and bedrooms. And cooking was no trouble; Kahme was always busy doing something for Christmas, and half of that included food. It could easily be heated up for Dad whenever he chose to come back home.
I had explained presents to Kahme as well, and this worried her; I told her not to get me anything, but she had insisted. I myself, when I took her out to Zephyr Cove one day, searched the stores carefully for her own present. I owed her something; she was my guardian angel. Hell, I owed her everything.
When I finally found the right present, I casually slid into the store, looked leisurely around until Kahme got bored and drifted away, then snuck to the counter and inquired about the gift. It was a bit expensive, but within my budget--my budget being every cent I had. Well within my budget. I asked her to keep it for me, and she did so. The following day, I returned, had it gift-wrapped, and took it home alone.
I repeated the entire process for Dad, only this time Kahme helped me. With bad grace, she murmured an opinion on a watch, a shirt, a set of office supplies. The truth was, I didn’t know what you got boys or men for Christmas. I didn’t even know what /I/ wanted, as far as material goods were concerned. I tried to figure out what he liked to do best, then go from there, but the only thing I was absolutely certain he enjoyed doing was beating the s**t out of me, and I quailed away from tough gloves, heavy accessories, and belts especially; I wasn’t helping him do that. I had rules with presents for Dad: it couldn’t be anything he could throw at me, hit me with, or use in some way to harm me. It also couldn’t look too expensive, or else he’d get suspicious.
The only thing I found that was even close to being appropriate, in my opinion, made Kahme stamp her foot and burst into tears. Luckily we were on the second floor of a department store, surrounded by home appliances, furniture, dinnerware, and silence.
“For Spirit’s sake, Evan!” she shrieked at me. “What is the MATTER with you?”
“I always get him a present,” I objected, troubled by her attitude. What had happened to the presents were another story entirely. They were all, eventually, thrown SOMEWHERE--at me, away, into a corner of his closet.
She pointed with a trembling and very accusing finger at the prospective present. “That’s just not right, Evan,” she murmured, shaking her head hard, tears dripping down her cheeks. “No, no, no, don’t you dare give him that….”
I sighed, touching my fingers to the tumbler sitting on the shelf, among several of its kind. It was a plain, good-looking thing, with a colorful insignia for some fancy whiskey on its side. Genuine crystal. Six dollars for one, twenty-five for the whole set.
“It’s something he likes to do,” I said heavily. “I want to get him a good present.”
“He doesn’t deserve a present at all,” Kahme cried.
My eyes narrowed. “Don’t talk about him that way,” I snapped.
“Evan….” She grabbed my wrists, pulling me until I was facing her. I turned my eyes away. “Evan, you can’t…you can’t LET him do that to you…. You can’t….” She shoked on a sob, and when she spoke again, her voice was soft, hoarse, almost inaudible. “You can’t ENCOURAGE him….”
“I’m not.” I pulled away from her. “I…you wouldn’t understand.”
“Then tell me!” she pleaded. “I don’t understand at all! Why would you give something to him, why, what did he ever do to deserve anything from you?”
“He’s my dad,” I said stubbornly. “I’m getting him something.”
“He doesn’t deserve it.”
“He could be a lot worse to me.”
“He could be a lot better.”
“Just leave him alone.”
She sighed, looking away for a minute as I contemplated the glass. Yes, it would encourage Dad to drink, which would in turn lead to something more painful on my part, and quite a few problems on his, but he was going to drink anyway, and he was running out of glasses--he only had four of his original twelve, he kept throwing them at me when he lost his temper, and I’d broken a couple in the dishwasher and the sink. Maybe he’d think twice about being so awful to me if I broke another one--after all, hadn’t I bought him a replacement? But that was just wishful thinking.
“Evan?” Kahme finally asked me in a timid little voice. “Is he…is he gonna give YOU a present?”
“’Course not.” I shrugged. “Why should he?”
“You said friends ‘n’ family give each other presents….”
I could have replied that Dad was neither friend nor family, he was a slaver, an overseer, a master of the guard…but I didn’t. Instead, I replied, “He’s already given me enough.”
“Evan,” she told me, very slowly, “all the stuff he gives you, clothes and food and a house and stuff, that’s what he’s SUPPOSED to give you. He HAS to.” I couldn’t argue with that; it was actually the law.
“Dad gives me more than that,” I said thoughtfully. “He gives me second chances….”
“That doesn’t count, Evan,” she said testily. “He’s not allowed to do that. You know he isn’t….”
I skimmed away from the subject. “Well, anyway, he’s never given me anything before. That was always Mom.”
“That isn’t fair.”
“I don’t mind. I told you I don’t want anything.”
“But if he even cared ab--”
“Shut up, Kahme.”
She did so, looking hurt. I touched my fingers to the glass again, leaving two small fingerprints on the side. “You’re right,” I eventually said. “This isn’t the right present.”
In the end, I chose a dark blue polo, very nice, and he’d been needing a new one; and Kahme said nothing more about the forbidden subject until after the holidays were done.
Christmas came and went. Kahme and I worked for two days straight on the food, ready to heat it up and serve it at a minute’s notice. I had thought we wouldn’t need it; Dad was gone on Christmas Eve, while Kahme and I watched the Christmas Story rerun on TV and ate all of Santa’s food, and only came back very, very late--or rather early. I remained in the shadows lest I be called down, but Dad went straight to the couch and slept; relieved that he had returned in time for Christmas, I went to bed myself. As I climbed beneath the covers, Kahme murmured to me, “Evan, didja see Santa…?”
For her, it was her first Christmas. She believed in the magic, the mystery, the complete idiocy of a Catholic saint wearing red furs and stuffing himself down a chimney. Good Lord.
“Yeah,” I replied quietly. “He was scarfing all our cookies.”
“Oh good,” she replied, near delirious by then, and we both drifted off to sleep.
Kahme bounced me awake at the a** crack of dawn, only a couple of hours after Dad had returned, and shoved my present in my face, grabbing mine from my hiding place as soon as I pointed it out. She ripped hers open first, then squealed with delight. It was a small music box, cherry wood with gold trim on the outside, soft white velvet on the inside. A little couple, a boy in a white shirt and a girl with flowers in her hair, twirled around inside when it was wound, and a slow, tinkling, classical tune drifted through the air around the little box.
“Oh spirits, Evan,” she whispered when the music wound to an end. “What was that? Was it magic?”
“No, mechanics,” I said, with blunt and graceless honesty. I took it gently from her and turned it over, reading the sticker on the bottom. “Debussy,” I told her. “Must be the song.” (It wasn’t.)
“Ooooohhhh….” Her eyes were huge and bright and full of wonder. I showed her how to turn the key, and I swear she didn’t leave it alone all day. That poor little music box never got a rest.
After she was done hugging and tackling me amid plenty of thanks on her part and blushing on mine, she prodded me to open hers. I did so; it was a small, thin package wrapped in newspaper and Scotch tape. I brushed the paper away from a dramatic landscape in soft white and deep black; an inked drawing of my snowy backyard, the playhouse dead center, looking bedraggled but mysterious and adventurous and daring. “Wow,” I muttered, impressed. “Did you do this?”
“Uh-huh.” She seemed ashamed of herself. “I took some paper…and a pen from…backpack…are you mad?”
“Mad? This is incredible!” I picked it up to look closer and found that there was another picture underneath. This one was of the park in summertime. It was ghostly, without people but with a swing still swaying through the air as if its owner had only just disappeared. This one was even better. I stared at it for a long time before I could look at the last one: a drawing of our boughs-of-holly-(and-tons-of-other-s**t)-bedecked dining room from outside the window. You could see the kitchen too, bright and clean, and snow was piled onto the windowsill, frost glazing the sides of the view.
I didn’t like that one as much. It made me wonder…if someone was watching through the window, what would they see? What would they understand? What would they do? The answers were never good. Every house had its secrets that no outsider could understand. I carefully put it aside, looking at the one of the park again. “This one’s my favorite.”
“Do you like ‘em, Evan, really?” Kahme insisted, biting her lip with worry. For answer, I hugged her tightly, unable to find the words. She understood.
We enjoyed our presents until the light outside was a bit stronger, then I went back to sleep; Kahme curled up next to me to share the blankets, and she genuinely slept while I just closed my eyes and let my thoughts drift. What a nice day it was already. And it might be even better….
At a bit before noon I left Kahme in my bed and brought Dad’s present downstairs, setting it carefully on the coffee table by the couch, where he was still asleep. I began to make lunch; when I looked for the fifth time, I saw that it was waking him up.
“Merry Christmas, Dad!” I told him happily, pointing. “There’s your present.”
He gave me a look of confused annoyance before turning to the neat little package. He rubbed his temples with one hand, pulled the wrapping paper off with the other--I watched from just behind the doorway. He wrenched open the box, pulled out the shirt, stared at it, then threw it aside with an expression of one ailing from food poisoning. He muttered something under his breath that I didn’t hear. I never saw that shirt again, it disappeared in the back of his closet and never reemerged.
I tried not to be disappointed; this happened every year. But still. Why did it have to be like this?
Christmas lunch was rather nice, and dinner even better; and in between and after every meal, Dad sat on the sofa with a glass of eggnog he kept making me refill and stared at the tree in the next room, deep in thought. This, as well, was tradition; as long as I was quick and silent, I would be fine. In a way, it was a sort of present…but I hated to see Dad so thoughtful and sad and lost every time he looked at decorations that Mom, despite Christmas being her favorite of holidays, had neglected to put up, instead leaving them to the girl he didn’t know existed, and the son he had never wanted.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Apr 13, 2008 8:03 am
ROMANTIC TENSION!!!!!
heart
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Apr 13, 2008 1:44 pm
This chapter was sad yet fun and sweet cause Evan is starting to show affection toward Kahme but at the same time being extra careful that she doesn't tell anyone of how Evans dad abuses him thats the sad part... she has the power but its how she uses it to help Evan ...I like the dramatic turn of events... I think I can see where this is going but I might be missing a strong point here or there as to what may occur. I can't wait for the next chapter xd this is getting intense. xd
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
