Kisscut

by Karin Slaughter

  Lena clipped the handcuffs onto the back of her belt. “Ten minutes,” she said, wondering if this was how Hank had felt this morning, ordering her around. She walked over to the couch and picked up a magazine before sitting down. Mark stood in the kitchen, watching her for what seemed like a full minute before he went back to his room. A couple of minutes later, she heard water running in the shower. Lena closed the magazine, feeling an overwhelming sense of relief.

  She stood from the couch, holding on to the mantel as she stretched out her quads. Her legs hurting this much after what a year ago would have amounted to a light run was beginning to piss her off. She was stronger than this. There was no way she could be so out of shape.

  Lena picked up a framed photograph of Mark and Lacey standing in front of a nondescript roller coaster. Both children were smiling, and Mark’s arm was thrown around Lacey’s shoulders. In turn, she had her hand around his waist. They looked about three years younger than they were now. They looked happy.

  “That was at Six Flags,” Mark said.

  Lena tried not to show he had startled her. Mark was standing about three feet away from her, wearing nothing but a towel around his waist.

  “Get dressed,” she said.

  He pressed his lips together in a lazy smile, and she felt like an idiot for not checking his room first for contraband.

  “What are you on?” she asked him.

  “Cloud nine,” he smiled, dropping onto the couch.

  “Mark,” Lena said, “Get up. Get dressed.”

  He stared at her, his lips slightly parted.

  She asked, “What?”

  He kept staring for just a second more, then asked, “What did it feel like?”

  “What did what feel like?”

  He looked down at her hands, and she crossed her arms so that he could not see the scars. She shook her head. “No.”

  “My dad told me what happened.”

  “I’m sure he took great pleasure in it.”

  Mark frowned. “He didn’t, actually. Teddy doesn’t get off on that kind of thing.” He must have noticed Lena’s surprise, because he said, “Old Ted’s a straight arrow, now. Very vanilla.”

  Lena turned back to the photograph. “Go get dressed, Mark. We don’t have time for this.”

  “You tell me your secrets and I’ll tell you mine.”

  Lena laughed. “You watch too many movies.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “I don’t think so, Mark.”

  She heard a lighter click several times, and turned around to see Mark lighting a joint.

  “Put that out,” she told him.

  He inhaled deeply, not obeying.

  He said, “Don’t you want to know what happened?”

  “I want you to get dressed so that you can go see your mother.”

  He smiled, making himself comfortable on the couch. “I really thought you were going to pull that trigger the other night.”

  Without thinking, Lena sat at the opposite end of the couch. “You were watching me?” she asked, not feeling violated so much as caught.

  He nodded, taking a long hit off the joint.

  “Where were you?”

  “By the shed,” he told her. “I thought you were going to run right over it.”

  Lena felt a flush of shame.

  “That man was beside the house. I thought he saw me, but he was watching you.” Mark blew on the tip of the joint. “He’s your father?”

  “Uncle,” she told him.

  Mark took another hit on the joint, holding in the smoke for a few beats. He exhaled slowly, then asked, “How’d it feel, holding that gun in your mouth?”

  “Wrong,” she said, trying to recover. “That’s why I didn’t do it.”

  “No. Being raped,” he said. “How’d it feel?”

  Lena looked around the room, wondering why she was having this conversation with this kid.

  “Bad,” she said, then shrugged. “Just…not good.”

  He choked on a laugh. “I guess so.”

  “No,” Lena said, then, wanting to get back in charge of the conversation, she said, “Why don’t you tell me what happened, Mark?”

  “Have you had sex yet?”

  She didn’t like the way he said “yet” as if it was something inevitable. “That’s not really any of your business,” she told him, amazed that she was able to talk about it so casually. For the first time in a while, Lena felt in control of herself and her emotions. She felt strong, and capable of handling this kid. In light of the fact that just a day ago she had tried to kill herself, this came as somewhat of a shock to her.

  Lena said, “Tell me what’s going on.”

  “My mom’s gonna die,” he said. “You know that, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” she told him, looking down at her hands because she did not want him to read the truth in her face. “Is that what you want to talk about, your mom?”

  He did not respond.

  “Mark,” Lena said. “Do you know where your sister is?”

  He stared at her, his eyes watering. She was struck again by how much of a child he still was.

  He said, “We’re a lot alike, you know?”

  “In what way?”

  “In here,” he said, putting his hand over his chest. “How did it feel being raped?”

  She shook her head, not letting him distract her. “How are we alike, Mark? Has somebody hurt you?”

  Something flashed in his eyes, and for just a moment she could see that he was in a tremendous amount of pain. Lena’s heart went out to him, and she felt something akin to a maternal urge to take care of Mark Patterson, even if she could not completely take care of herself.

  She asked, “Who hurt you, Mark?”

  He propped his foot up on the coffee table. “Why are you a cop?”

  “Because I want to help people,” she told him, though that was no longer entirely true. “Let me help you. Tell me what happened.”

  He shook his head over this. “How did it feel?” he asked again. “When you were being raped. What did that feel like?”

  “Tell me why you want to know and I’ll tell you.”

  He sucked on the joint, finishing it. He looked around for somewhere to put the butt, and Lena slid a plate across the coffee table for him.

  He sat up, putting his elbows on his knees. “I wonder sometimes why people do things.”

  “I do, too,” she said. “For instance, why would Jenny want to kill you?”

  He waved this off. “She wasn’t going to kill me.”

  “Is that why you pissed yourself?”

  He laughed. “Hindsight is twenty-twenty.”

  “Why’d she do it, Mark?”

  “She thought she could stop it.”

  “Stop what?”

  “Stop me?” he asked, as if Lena might actually know the answer.

  “Stop you from what?” She waited for him to answer, and when he didn’t she tried, “Tell me about that party with Carson and the other boys.”

  He scowled. “Carson’s a pussy.”

  “Why’d you make Jenny sleep with them?”

  “I didn’t make her do shit,” he spat out. “She wanted to do that. She was trying to make me jealous, showing me it didn’t mean anything.”

  “Didn’t hurt you got her drunk, either.”

  “Yeah, well,” he said, waving her off.

  “What did Jenny think she could stop, Mark?” Lena asked. “That night at Skatie’s. What did she think she could stop?”

  Mark twisted his lips to the side, as if he might tell her, then seemed to change his mind. He asked, “You think you’ll find my sister?”

  “Do you know where she is?”

  He looked down, and she wondered if he knew where Lacey was or if he was feeling guilty for not knowing.

  Lena sat back, her arms crossed, waiting for him to say what he needed to say.

  “I feel like sometimes I’m not even real,” he said. “Like maybe I’m in
the room, and maybe I’m breathing the air, but nobody really sees me.” He rubbed his eyes. “Then I think maybe if I’m not really here, that I need to be someplace else. Like, maybe I should just go ahead and pull the trigger, you know?”

  Lena nodded, because she did know.

  “What made you stop?” he asked her. “Why didn’t you pull the trigger?”

  She told him the truth about the gun, but not about the pills. “I thought about my partner finding me in the morning, and I couldn’t do that to him.”

  “Do you believe in God?”

  “I’m not sure,” she answered. “Do you?”

  He shook his head no.

  “Is that why you stopped going to church?”

  He looked at her, angry. “Don’t be a cop with me.”

  “I am a cop, Mark.” Lena kept her tone even, not matching his anger. She reached out and put her hand on his arm. “I want to know what happened. Why did Jenny want to kill you?”

  He sighed, slouching against the pillows. “She was such a sweet kid,” he said. “I really cared about her.”

  “I know you did.”

  “Do you?” he asked. “I mean, do you really understand what it means to care about somebody?”

  Lena thought of Sibyl when she said, “Yes, I do.”

  “Not me,” he said. “I mean, before Jenny. I just didn’t know what it meant to care like that.”

  “You love your mother.”

  He laughed, a hollow sound that vibrated in his chest. “She’s going to die soon, isn’t she?”

  Lena pressed her lips together.

  “I feel it,” he said, putting his hand over his heart. “I felt it this morning, somehow, like she wasn’t going to last much longer, like she wanted to let go.” He started to cry. “It’s this connection, you know? Like, I can feel what she feels.” He turned to her suddenly, a bit of desperation in his tone. “Did you know when your sister died?”

  “Yes,” Lena lied. At the time, she had been on her way back from Macon and had no idea that something bad had happened. “I could feel it here,” she said, putting her hand to her chest.

  “Then you know,” he said. “You know what that emptiness feels like.”

  Lena nodded, not saying more.

  Mark looked away, then closed his eyes. She studied his profile, his sharp nose and squared jaw. Tears rolled down his cheeks and fell onto his chest.

  “The first time,” Mark began, his voice low, “I guess it was at Thanksgiving.”

  Lena kept her mouth closed, letting him take his time.

  “Lacey and Jenny were down the hall in Lacey’s room, and I wanted to borrow one of her CDs.” He sighed, his chest rising and falling with the sound. “She started yelling at me, all mad and shit. I dunno. I guess Mama heard her yelling and came in and told us to stop.”

  Lena felt her heart rate accelerate, and said a small prayer to whoever was listening that Brad would not pick now to come back into the trailer. She tried to do the math and figure out how much time had passed since he left, but since she dared not look at her watch, Lena wasn’t sure.

  “Lacey turned up the radio in her room really loud,” he said. “Mama let her. It’s always been like that. She was always the favorite.” He shook his head. “Lacey’s sweet underneath, you know? Maybe she’s spoiled, but she’s sweet underneath. She has a good heart, just like Mama.”

  Lena waited, counting to twenty-five before Mark started speaking again.

  “She came into my room a little later,” he said. “I guess she knew I was still pissed off. Wanted to smooth things over. She was always like that, trying to make peace. I guess that’s why so many people liked her, because she was good like that.” A slight smile came to his lips, but he kept his eyes closed. “She just put her hand around the back of my neck, and then we started kissing for some reason. I mean, just kissing real deep for a long time.”

  Lena tried to remember what Jeffrey had said about not letting her personal feelings ruin a confession, but the thought of Mark Patterson kissing his baby sister made her stomach roll. She wanted to say something, to stop him so that she would not go through the rest of her life knowing this story, but she knew that she could not.

  “I don’t know how the rest of it happened,” Mark said. “You know, we were kissing, and then she started rubbing me, and it felt so good.” He looked at her, asking for her approval. “I know it was wrong, okay? It just felt so good. I didn’t want to stop.”

  Lena nodded, trying to control her expression. She doubted very seriously that Lacey Patterson had seduced her brother. Saying the victim had “asked for it” was a common theme among sexual predators.

  “I can tell you don’t understand,” he said. “But you don’t know what it’s like. My dad is so fucking hard on me.” He slammed his fist into his leg. “He just never lets up on me. Ever.”

  “I know,” Lena told him, reaching out, making herself touch his arm. “I understand that part, Mark. I really do.”

  His expression softened, and he said, “I didn’t make her do it.”

  “I believe you.”

  “She came on to me first,” he said. “She was the one who came into my room. She was the one who started kissing me, who started touching me.”

  Lena nodded because that was all that she could do.

  “She was so wet for me. I just…” He shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut, as if to bring back the memory. “It felt so right being inside of her. And she wanted me. I could tell she wanted me. The way she put her hand on the back of my neck, and pulled me closer to her, deeper.”

  Lena swallowed back bile.

  “Touching her and being with her and inside of her,” Mark said. “I just felt complete, you know? Like things were finally right.” He put his hand over his eyes. “She was so good at it. I mean, where did she learn to be so damn good at it?”

  He seemed to want an honest answer, but Lena could not give him one.

  “I mean, I look at my dad,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s not like he knows anything.”

  Lena spoke without thinking. “Your dad was sleeping with her, too?”

  “Well, duh,” he said, as if she were stupid.

  Lena put her hand to her stomach, thinking about poor Lacey Patterson, and what hell she must have been through.

  She said, “Tell me about Jenny.”

  Mark gave a humorless laugh. “Yeah, Jenny,” he said. “I had been with her a couple of times before, like I told you.” He paused. “She was sweet. She was all those things I told you.”

  “She seemed like a good friend.”

  “Yeah, well,” he said, a bit of derision slipping into his tone. “She was a good friend until she caught us.”

  “Is that why she pointed the gun at you?”

  “I guess part of it was that,” he said. “Then, you know, maybe she just wanted it to stop. She said that a lot, that she just wanted it to stop.”

  “Was she jealous?”

  He nodded slowly. “It hurt her to see it.”

  “She saw you together?”

  He nodded again, the same slow movement. “We were in my bed, and she and Lacey came home from school.”

  Lena felt her heart stop midbeat. She opened her mouth to ask for a clarification, then closed it. She did not want to know. If she could have moved her body, she would have run from the room, covering her ears so that she could not hear any more. She couldn’t move, though, and she sat motionless on the couch, watching Mark the way she would watch a car wreck. “We were together, you know? I guess this was around Christmastime, right before they went on that stupid retreat.” He threw his hand into the air. “Mama let me stay home from school. We had the whole day together.” He smiled. “She lit some candles, and we took a long bath, and then we made love.”

  Lena was aware that she had stopped breathing.

  “I guess we lost track of time,” Mark said, giving a pitiful laugh. “Lacey and Jenny walked right into my room, and that was
it.”

  Lena put her hand to her mouth to keep herself from speaking.

  “Jenny loved my mom. I mean, it was complicated. Maybe it’s better that Jenny’s not around to watch Mama die. I think that would’ve killed her.”

  “Right,” Lena managed.

  “I know what you think, but she loved me, man. It felt so good to know that she loved me. It was like Lacey was always the favorite, but then she came to me, and I was the one. I was the one she loved most.” Mark started to cry again. Before Lena knew what was happening, he had buried his face in her neck.

  Lena forced the word, “Mark,” out of her mouth, trying to push him away from her.

  “Don’t,” he whispered, and his wet lips against her flesh made her want to vomit.

  “Mark, no,” she said. When he didn’t move, Lena pushed him away as hard as she could. “Get away from me!” she yelled.

  From the way he was looking at her, she imagined that every ounce of disgust she was feeling was written all over her face.

  “Mark—”

  “Bitch,” he said, standing. “You fucking bitch!”

  “Mark—”

  The door popped open, and Brad stood there, his hand on the butt of his gun. Lena motioned him back as Mark stepped toward her.

  Mark said, “I thought you would understand.”

  “I do,” she told him, feeling panicked. “I do understand, Mark.”

  “Fucking bitch,” he hissed. “You don’t understand shit.”

  “Mark—”

  He closed the distance between them in two steps, grabbing her hand and holding it up between them. “I thought you understood,” he said, and she knew he meant her scars. “I thought you knew because you’d been there, man. You know what it’s like. I know you do. You just won’t fucking admit it because you’re a coward.”

  Lena opened her mouth, but could not speak.

  “Hey,” Brad said, taking Mark’s arm.

  “Get away from me, faggot,” Mark screamed, yanking his arm out of Brad’s grasp. He pointed an accusatory finger at Lena, saying through clenched teeth, “You tricked me. You’re all alike, goddamn it. She was right. You’re all so weak. You never do the right thing.”

  Lena cleared her throat, trying, “Mark—”

  Mark walked toward the hallway, his footsteps so heavy that the trailer shook.