Razorblade Kisses

by R. L. Griffin

  “I…”

  Realization washed over Rachel’s features and she sighed. “At least put the shorts on, crazy, it’s like 90 degrees.” Rachel’s eyes, full of pity, fell on Emery’s long sleeves.

  “Fine.” Emery smiled even though she was disgusted with herself. She didn’t want pity. She pulled on the shorts under her skirt and then shimmied the skirt down her legs. “Don’t look at me like that, Rachel. I didn’t tell you because I wanted your pity.”

  “Em…” Rachel started.

  “I don’t know why I told you, but I did and I don’t want to know how much you pity me. It makes me…”

  “I don’t pity you, Em. You’re super strong just standing there. I just wish I could help.”

  “Well you can’t, so just forget I told you,” Emery spat.

  Rachel grabbed Emery’s arm as they walked toward the entrance of the park. “Emery. I can’t forget that you told me, but I promise you that I don’t pity you. Okay?”

  Emery nodded.

  After the rocky start to the day, she now found herself laughing and crying with a joy she hadn’t felt in many years. Rachel and Emery screamed at the top of their lungs as they fell from the very top of the ride called Free Fall.

  The joy and every other emotion that came with being around Rachel was disheartening for Emery because she knew if she allowed herself to feel it, she’d feel everything. You couldn’t pick and choose the emotions you felt—you either felt nothing or felt it all. She knew with Rachel opening the door for Emery to feel elation, grief would follow. Emery knew the utter sorrow she felt when she thought about how no one would help her would usurp all the happiness and she would drown in it. She hadn’t seen the lightness of life in three years; she viewed everything through the veil of evil. She found that when your vision is hazy in that way, you can’t see the possibilities, opportunities, or even have hope that they exist. Her veil slipped a little around Rachel.

  Rachel grabbed Emery’s hand and they walked off the ride together.

  “That was awesome.” Emery laughed.

  “Let’s go again,” Rachel urged, pulling her back to get in the same line.

  Emery took in Rachel’s racerback tank top that read Where words fail, music speaks and her short shorts, paired with black Chuck Taylors. They were so opposite from each other; Rachel seeking the attention she didn’t get from her father and Emery trying to hide from everything, especially at home.

  As they stood in line, Rachel chatted about school, books she was reading, and the fact that Chandler had apologized a million times. Emery immersed herself in the normal that she didn’t have—the boy, books, and school. The friend. Emery really didn’t care about any of those things, but she was fascinated by how she should be acting and how different she really was from normal.

  When they got to the ride again, Rachel took a seat next to Emery and grabbed her hand as the ride slowly rose to the top.

  “You know, Em, you can always leave.”

  Just then, the bottom dropped out from under them both. It was the scariest, most amazing feeling, and it was just what Emery needed.

  A few weeks later, when she and Rachel were splayed across Rachel’s bed doing homework and listening to music, her new friend broached the subject again.

  “You know,” Rachel let her pencil fall to the side, “I think we can work it so you can run away, Em. Just leave it all.”

  Silence.

  “I mean, don’t you want it to stop?”

  What a stupid fucking question.

  “Once, when I was fourteen, I’d worked up the courage to tell my mother about what he was doing to me.” Emery fiddled with her pen, not looking at Rachel. “It was like he knew...he knew that I was on the verge of telling.” She took a deep breath. “I’d asked my mom to take me to the Nordstrom café because he would think we were shopping, which wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Do you know what he did?”

  Rachel shook her head, her braid that wrapped around her shoulder shaking furiously.

  “That morning, when we were getting ready to go…he brought Ashley down to the kitchen in a shirt and no underwear. She was seven. To my mother, it meant nothing. She just told Ashley to go finish getting dressed. But the look in his eyes…it was clear what he was doing. He was daring me to tell her, warning me that he would take my seven-year-old sister the same way he did me if I told.”

  “What do you mean?” Rachel’s voice was barely a whisper.

  “That’s what he told me to do, never wear underwear to bed because he didn’t want to have to bother with taking them off.”

  Rachel made a choking sound.

  “So, no, Rachel. I don’t think I can just run away.”

  “Em…” Rachel was trying to compose herself.

  “Look, this is why I don’t talk about it. It’s so fucking…”

  Rachel cleared her throat. “How does your mom not know?”

  “I…” Emotion threatened to close Emery’s throat. “I have no idea. I’m unrecognizable from who I was at thirteen.”

  A tear fell down Rachel’s cheek. “Thirteen?”

  Emery nodded. “Every time,” she began, her voice now full of steel, “I mark on a piece of paper I hide in my Bible.”

  “Oh, Em…” Rachel crawled to where Emery was and wrapped her arms around her friend. Rachel’s long bangs fell from behind her ear and tickled Emery’s cheek. They were quiet; Emery let Rachel comfort her.

  “One hundred and fifty-six,” she whispered in the quiet room. The words floated through the air and disappeared.

  Rachel choked on a sob.

  “One hundred and fifty-six,” Emery said louder this time, making it real. It was the first time she’d really thought about how many times. Before it had just been marks on a page.

  The silence threatened to combust and take them with the flames.

  “One hundred and fifty-six,” Emery repeated, letting the number sink into her skin and her brain.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Inception

  A few weeks later, Rachel lay on her back, her iPad held arms length over her face. “I just don’t get what he sees in her.” Rachel was examining her crush’s Facebook page. He’d just posted pictures of him and his latest girlfriend.

  “It’s probably not what he sees…” Emery commented, looking at the pictures of a girl with the biggest fake boobs she’d seen. At Rachel’s reaction, she cringed. “Sorry.”

  “No, you’re right. I know you are. I want him to want to ‘see’ that in me.” Rachel smiled as she did air quotes. “I mean, all he’d have to do is ask and I’d throw my panties at him.”

  “Well, maybe he’s scared to ask because of your dad.”

  “I doubt he’s scared of anything, Em.” Rachel turned her iPad so that Emery could take in the guy that commandeered Rachel’s mind from where she lay on the bed. His dark hair was cropped, almost shaved, and he had cerulean eyes that looked as if they were staring at Emery from the pages of Facebook. “He’s so confident, it’s like nothing rattles him. Oh, and look at those eyes. I mean, don’t your panties just melt?” Rachel laughed.

  “He looks older than you.” Emery squinted her eyes at the picture to see the details of his face.

  “He’s twenty.” Rachel tapped the screen and the picture got bigger.

  “Four years is a lot,” Emery commented. He looked older than twenty, but sort of like he should be on the CW network.

  “It’s not really,” Rachel refuted. “When I’m eighteen, he’ll be twenty-two. Stop ignoring my panty melting question.”

  Jealousy wormed its way through her brain. She wanted to have a crush. She wanted something normal. Anything normal. “I’ve never had a crush on anyone.” Emery looked down at the book in front of her and leafed through to the right page to start her chemistry homework. “Unless you count Scott Rinehart when I was twelve.”

  “Any crush counts,” Rachel confirmed. “Why don’t you like anyone at your school?”

 
“Because I don’t…” Emery didn’t want to get into this with Rachel. They hadn’t talked about it since she’d told Rachel how many times Phil had raped her.

  Rachel put the iPad down and looked at Emery. “Why?”

  “Don’t make me talk about this, please.” Emery rolled on her stomach and studied her notes, ignoring Rachel.

  “Emery, you are worthy of everything. You should have crushes and boys chasing you. You should wear cuter clothes and not try to hide from everyone…from life.”

  Emery rolled to her side and faced her naïve friend. “Rachel, I know you don’t understand, but I can’t even imagine trying to have those things. I don’t want to wear clothes that invite attention I don’t want. I don’t want anyone to see me; I don’t have emotions to even warrant a crush. I wish I did.”

  “Well, tell me about the boys in your class.”

  She rolled back to her stomach and continued her homework. “No.”

  “Come oooon, there must be soooomeone,” Rachel teased, dragging her words out.

  “No, there’s not, because I’m dead inside.” Emery held her eyes on the pages in front of her, not believing she was actually telling Rachel how she felt. Again. This girl was like truth serum. “I walk around and don’t experience anything. I don’t have anything I want to do because I can’t imagine feeling anything. If I let myself feel anything, I’m afraid I’ll…”

  “Emery,” Rachel’s voice broke with emotion, but stopped Emery from finishing, “let’s get your shit together and leave. I have a plan.”

  Later that night, the silence of her house weighed on her as she waited. Emery felt like every night, that’s what she did. Wait. She couldn’t fall asleep because the fear of what would happen took over. Her body would jerk once the fall began, as if it was panicking and trying to keep her awake. Every night the fall into the abyss of sleep was a blessing and a curse. It haunted her. Rachel had made her plea for Emery’s sanity, for her life, tonight. Emery didn’t know if she would do it or not, but it was nice that someone wanted her to live without the horror that filled her days and nights.

  “Mom, I’m going to Rachel’s!” Emery yelled as she closed the front door and rushed to her car. She’d made a habit every night to be gone by seven so that she wouldn’t have to be in the same room as Phil. It’d been working for the last few weeks. She heard the door open again just as she made it to her car. She stopped and closed her eyes.

  “Emery?” Ashley was walking down the front stairs with something in her hand. She was wearing the same dress she went to school in and Emery shook her head, smiling at her. Ashley refused to wear anything but dresses.

  Emery sat in her car and waited for Ashley to get in. The passenger door opened and Ashley slid in, smiling. “I brought you something.” Ashley held her hand out for Emery to see the friendship bracelet in her palm.

  “Oh, Ash, I love it.” Emery leaned over and kissed Ashley’s forehead, grabbing the bracelet. “Oh and look, it’s your favorite colors. Tie it on me.” She held her right wrist out for Ashley to secure the braided pink and teal bracelet.

  “Are you mad at me?” Ashley’s blonde curls bounced in her high ponytail as she tied. Emery couldn’t help but see herself in Ashley’s innocent face, those cheeks that were naturally pink and her blue eyes so full of life. That’s what I used to look like.

  “Of course not. Why?” Emery’s eyes went back to her wrist where the bracelet peeked out of her long sleeves.

  “Because you haven’t been around at all lately. I haven’t seen you in a week.”

  “Oh, Ash. I’m just hanging out with my friend. You know I love you.”

  “I know, I just…”

  After a closer inspection, something in Ashley’s eyes didn’t seem right to Emery. She pulled the key out of the ignition and really looked at her sister. She appeared the same. Her eyes didn’t mirror Emery’s dead ones. Ashley traveled around with a glow. She was always talking, telling a story about something and making everyone love her. Her blue eyes were clear and happy. She was a good, smart girl and Emery felt lucky to be her sister.

  “You want to talk?” Emery asked, glancing at the clock. Phil usually got home right after 7:00. It was 6:58.

  “No, I just miss you is all.” Ashley smiled again and this time it lit up her face.

  That smile allowed Emery to sigh in relief. “If you ever need someone to talk to, Ash, you can tell me anything,” Emery pressed a little. “You know that, right?”

  “I know.” Ashley nodded and then looked toward the house. “I’m glad you found someone you can talk to.” With that, she opened the passenger door and walked back toward the house. She turned back and waved, but her smile looked sad. It’s like Ashley knew her better than her mother. Her mother had never even asked Emery if she was okay, even when she’d seen her arm.

  Emery exhaled audibly. She didn’t know if she could leave Ashley. She knew she needed to go, to save herself, to leave this house, but she felt guilty. Maybe she could make sure Rachel would keep tabs on Ashley. The first time she acted differently, Emery would be back to save Ashley like she’d wanted someone to save her for the last three years.

  A few days later, Emery was in her usual spot on Rachel’s bed. “Okay, let’s go over this again,” Emery said, going through her iPad. “You have his address at work, you know his car. The first contact will be…”

  “Putting a note on his car and giving him a number to call,” Rachel finished, exasperated. They’d been over this plan at least a dozen times. “Then I’ll do the first transaction with the first burner phone, but get a new one every few months.”

  “And you’ll get cash from the pickup, but someone else will pick it up. The first being $10,000. Derrick said he’d help us?”

  Rachel’s faced cracked in two with a sly grin. Her crush had turned into quite the fount of knowledge for them. “Yes, he’s going to help. He said he can send someone to pick up the money and that Phil would have no way to trace him or us.”

  “Okay, then you’ll come back to Nashville and give me the cash.” Emery closed the cover on her iPad. “And you’ll check on Ashley all the time, right?”

  “Yes.” Rachel nodded emphatically. “Any sign of anything, I get in touch with you and we’ll handle it.”

  “I’m leaving this here so you can get Derrick’s friend to wipe it clean,” Emery said, getting up and placing the iPad on Rachel’s desk, which was covered in so many papers and books you couldn’t tell what it looked like underneath. “Also, I have about $7,500 to start after paying your dad for helping me get out of jail.”

  “That’s a lot of change, sister. Where’d you get all that money?”

  “My birthday.”

  “Are you shitting me?” Rachel said, her eyebrows showing her disbelief.

  “No, my mom’s friends are rich and too busy to buy presents, so cash is the gift of choice.”

  Rachel shoved herself off her bed and walked to the desk, searching through the piles of paper. “I think our last day of community service is this weekend, and then you can go.”

  Emery nodded. “Your dad kicked ass getting us only two months of community service.”

  “Yeah, like I said he’s like a rock star at his job.”

  Emery scrolled through her iPad looking at the calendar.

  “Are you…” Rachel didn’t look at her. “Are you okay to stay through then?”

  Emery’s eyes clouded with tears, Rachel’s black and white printed comforter swirling together into a blob of gray. She nodded. She could do it. There was light at the end of her never ending tunnel. It was unexpected and it was named Rachel.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Start with One Step

  Nine weeks after she met Rachel, she was writing a note to her sister to put under her pillow before she left. Ashley was spending the night with one of her friends, so it would be easy to sneak out. Emery’s bag was packed; her mother and Phil were out with friends at some sort of charity event her mother�
�s best friend had put together. She and Rachel had everything planned.

  Ashley,

  I’m so sorry to leave, but I have to go. I’m losing myself here. I know you probably don’t understand and I’m not sure I ever want you to. If you need anything or need to get in touch with me, call Rachel. I put the number in a place only you will be able to find. Also, she’ll find you. I hope you forgive me for leaving you here, but I won’t survive if I stay. I’m not sure I can forgive myself. I love you. My love is unbreakable and I will get back to you, it may just take a while.

  Em

  P.S. Do me a favor and lock your door at night, okay?

  The emotions that swirled in her brain threatened to hold her there, in this prison. The only reason she was leaving was because Rachel had made her see she deserved a life. A life without rape, hate, and pain. She couldn’t remember a day when she woke and didn’t ache with the knowledge of what was happening to her. Emery tiptoed into her sister’s room and put the note under Ashley’s pink pillow. A lump formed in her throat, cutting off her ability to swallow, and she thought for a minute that she couldn’t do it. The bundle of nerves that sat in her gut flipped and she felt bile rise in her throat, hot and acrid. She couldn’t bear to leave her nine-year-old sister alone in this house. That was cruel. But Rachel’s words formed behind her closed eyes.

  She wouldn’t survive if she stayed.

  She swallowed her sorrow, regret, and any misgivings she had. Quietly closing Ashley’s door, she padded back to her room and grabbed her bags. This was surreal. She was actually running away from home. She had to; he would never stop. She heard the chimes that meant a door opened in the house. Panic set in as she glanced down at her watch—they were home two hours early! It was do or die for her. She didn’t have time to think or change her mind. Her heart pounded in her chest so hard it reverberated in her throat. Her eyes throbbed in time with her heartbeat and she made it down the back staircase and into the basement. She hadn’t heard the chime again, meaning a door closed, so she threw open the door, hoping her timing was right, and ran. She sprinted away from the house holding her bags, full of the only things she had left in the world. Emery never looked back as she navigated her way through the backyard.