I did all the chores in the house, and I did them every day. But that didn’t matter, of course. I was told I did a half-assed job and that I did it on purpose.
My mother didn’t give me the chance to defend myself. “It’s such a slap in the face after everything your father and I have done for you. I don’t know what I did to deserve such an ungrateful little bastard for a son.”
I shook her words off because there was nothing else I could do. I needed to apologize, and it would be a lot less horrible for me. “I’ll do the dishes now. I’m sorry. I just didn’t want to leave Layla all alone.”
She scoffed at me. “So, she’s more important? I was right.”
I shook my head. “No, I—”
Mom cut me off when she picked up a glass from the counter and chucked it at my head. My reflexes were fast enough to save me, and I ducked out of the way. The glass shattered into a billion pieces at the wall.
I couldn’t breathe as I looked from the mess to my mother. Her eyes were wide with rage directed at me for my betrayal. It was always so much worse when I didn’t let her hurt me. I knew better than to dodge it.
She came at me, and I let it happen because it hurt less that way. Her nails dug into my shoulders when she grabbed me and slammed me into the tile wall of the kitchen. My ears rang when my head made contact.
There was no time at all before she had the tennis racket in her hands. She brought it down on my shoulder, and I squeezed my eyes shut as I sank onto the floor. Over and over again, she hit me. The metal slammed into my arms, and legs, and stomach, but I didn’t yell, and I didn’t cry. It was worse when I was a coward.
The racket came down on the side of my head, making black spots flicker all over my vision. She did it again, and I fell onto my side where she threw her foot into my stomach. I rolled and landed on my arm, coughing onto the ground until muck from inside of me came out and onto the floor. I gagged on it, and hot tears fell from my eyes to drip onto the floor.
My head spun, and my stomach turned before I was struck again. I landed on my back this time, and I stared up at the blurry ceiling. Mom hit my body with the racket again, and again, and I waited for it to be over so I could sleep.
I heard it clatter to the ground before she kicked me in the chest, calling me ungrateful as I wheezed and gasped. She left me there, and I continued gasping until air started filling my lungs. The act of my chest rising and falling was like being hit with a brick, but I couldn’t very well let myself suffocate. As much as I wanted to. And God, did I want to. To just close my eyes and fade into blackness. I wished for it a hundred times, but wishes didn’t come true for me.
Once I was stable, I forced myself onto my knees, and stared down at the blood and bile that I had retched up. If I didn’t clean it, I would be in even more trouble. So I got to my feet and found a rag to fix what I did. Then I did the sink full of dishes that I’d neglected. I held the counter for balance when my legs threatened to give out. I didn’t fall, and I was very happy about that.
The dishes were done, and the blood was cleaned from the floor, so I dragged my aching body to my bathroom to fix myself up. I managed a shower, and I stared at the drain because I liked watching the water turn from red, to pink, to clear. It felt like it was being erased. Like I was being erased.
I stood in place for so long that my feet stuck to the bottom of the shower while hot water made my forming bruises throb even more. I earned the pain I felt; so why should I have tried to make it less? It hurt either way.
After the shower, I dressed in clean clothes and threw away the bloody ones so that my mom wouldn’t find them. They would only upset her if she saw, so I shoved them to the bottom of the trash can in my bathroom. Like it never happened.
I sat at my desk, worn out from the walk. But I still grabbed a pen, and a fresh piece of paper from my drawer. I needed this gone. I needed my shout into the void, so I put pen to paper and wrote out every single detail of what happened tonight. I left nothing out. Not a line of how I felt then or how I felt now. The pen glided along the paper smoothly, and the sound was pleasant.
When my letter was finished, I folded it up, and tucked it into an envelope, which I promptly sealed, and put into a drawer with the others. None of them were labeled with anything but a date in the top corner. I didn’t know why I did it. I didn’t know why I wrote them or why I kept them or why sometimes I would stare at the drawer and the deep row of envelopes. Because I didn’t want to know, I shut the drawer again.
I crawled into my bed and lay on the edge, facing the rest of it. I lined up my pillows from top to bottom, and I pulled the blanket over them and me. My arm went around the pillows, and I closed my eyes. I pretended that I held someone because I slept better when it felt like I wasn’t all alone. In my mind, it was Layla I held. She was soft, and she smelled like rain. I didn’t know why.
I told her about the story I was working on, and my brain came up with her responses. I smiled when she asked me questions and gave me ideas. I accidentally spoke out loud a couple times, but she didn’t laugh at me. I saw her nose wrinkle, and she would tell me to keep talking.
My brain kept trying to break the daydreams because I knew it was wrong and I was wrong for trying to think of her. I was a freak, and Layla would hate me if she knew I thought about her. I hardly knew her at all, but she somehow meant so much to me. She answered the phone when I called, and she ran to me. And she looked so scared that I would hurt myself. She cared, and I didn’t know what that looked like before I stared into her eyes.
Because I didn’t want to disrespect her, I stopped thinking about her. I stopped picturing her face in my head or her voice that sounded like heaven itself. Her eyes that felt like they could really see me… But they didn’t see me. There was nothing for them to see.
I lay in my bed and stared at the wall, trying so hard to think of anything else. I stared without blinking, letting my eyes sting until I had to close them from pure pain. I’d been crying, so that helped. It always made me sleepy. So I drifted off and prayed that I would stay asleep forever.
I was so sore in the morning that I threw up into the trash can by my bed. My head spun again, and I lay on my stomach until the feeling passed over me. I panted, but eventually it started hurting less.
The house sounded empty, so I dragged myself to the bathroom to brush the sick out of my mouth. I spit out more blood, but it wasn’t enough to worry me. I kept going until all I could taste was mint.
I changed into fresh clothes and shuffled back to my bedroom to work on a few things. I had that story to write, and I had an empty day to fill. Just like all the others. One endless day after another, all like the one before. What was the point of any of it? The sun would rise and set if I were here or not. Nothing in this world would change if one less heart beat.
I stared intently at the pen sitting on my desk. The one worth a nickel and with the ballpoint filled with blue ink. It appeared in my hand, and I pressed it into my forearm. It started out as a smiley face. I drew the circle, and then I drew the mouth. I put a dot for one eye, and I pressed another dot for the other… and I didn’t stop pressing. I kept going, even when the skin broke, and blood gushed over the smiley face, making him look gruesome. It stung, so I pulled the pen out, and dragged the tip over to a clean part of my skin. I made an x, and then I dropped the pen on my desk without looking away from the wound.
It bled more than I thought it would, and I stared while it dripped onto the arm of my chair.
The doorbell rang, and my heart slammed into my ribs as I jolted in my seat. In a panic, I rubbed the blood on my dark sweater. I got on my feet, and rushed to the door to answer it. My skin felt clammy when I turned the doorknob, and I swallowed hard.
I blinked at the image in front of me. Layla. She wore a deep blue dress and a coat to protect her from the cold. Her hair was tied in pigtails, and the look was completed with earmuffs that had little snowflakes on them. She looked so perfect standing at my porch. Lik
e a goddess in this wretched world.
“Bennett,” she said, her voice distressed as she stepped to me.
It made me take a step backward as she reached her hand out to my face. My cheek rested on her palm, and she swept a thumb under the shadow blooming on my face.
“What happened?”
I didn’t know I had a lie for her until it began to flow smoothly from my lips. “Car accident.” My voice was raspy from misuse, and the roughness I’d put it through the night before.
Layla made a sad sound that caused my chest to ache as a punishment. “Oh, honey. When? How did it happen?”
God, she sounded so scared. That was my fault. I did that to her.
I shook my head. “I was stupid and didn’t do what I was supposed to do. It’s not that bad.”
She looked down at my arm and gasped again. “You’re bleeding!”
Dammit. I should have pulled my sleeve down. “I opened up the cut again. Really, I’m—”
She tugged me by the hand, and I followed helplessly behind her to my bathroom. Layla was careful as she dabbed the wound clean. My drawing was completely taken over by blood until she started scrubbing. The blood left with ease, but the ink left a shadow of itself behind. Layla squinted at it. I think trying to make out the picture. Could she see the eye was the point of impact? If she could, she didn’t say anything.
She tossed the bloody toilet paper in the trash, and I was happy she didn’t see the pajamas inside. She went for a bandage and applied it to the still bleeding cut. “All better,” she said.
I nodded numbly. “Why are you here?”
Oh, that sounded like I didn’t want her here. Not the case. Even with what happened, I was glad she came for me. I ignored the feelings that were telling me I was disgusting for having thought of her the night before.
“I wanted to see you,” she answered as if it were the simplest thing in the world. “Thank God I showed up. We’re going to my house.”
I got no further explanation before she dragged me out of my home and put me into her car. She reassured me that she would drive very carefully and that she would go slow. So worried about me, and I was nothing but a liar. Not worth the trouble she was going to. I wasn’t worth anything.
When we got to Layla’s house, she brought me into the empty space, passed the dog, and brought me up to her room. She carefully sat me on the bed, and pulled my legs up to rest them when I didn’t do it on my own. She proceeded to take my shoes off, and put them aside, much to my protest.
“Stop,” she ordered, pointing to me. Her deep blue eyes were serious. “You were in a traumatic situation, and I am going to make it all better. We’re going to be here. I’m staying by your side the whole day, and we’re gonna eat junk food and watch stupid TV, and you will not complain.”
What I said sounded stupid. “You wanna spend the day with me? But you spent the whole day with me yesterday.”
Layla stopped where she stood to stare at me with that crease stuck between her eyebrows. “So?”
“So… it’s a lot of Bennett time… I don’t want to put you out.”
She didn’t look like she understood what I was saying. “I like spending time with you, Benny. It’s not putting me out if I want to be here. And I do. Rest there, and I’ll take care of you today.”
She started pulling junk food from her drawer and setting it on the bed, going on and on about how I wasn’t allowed to get up, and I better not try and make it seem like I was less hurt than I was. Everything she said sounded like a threat but the kindest threat in the world.
So… kind. Every touch from her was like velvet, and the way she looked at me, it was with such concern, and fear, and affection. I couldn’t understand why she would waste that on me. This creature so divine and soft, and she cared about me.
When Layla sat on the edge of the bed and right beside me, I moved to adjust myself and winced.
She made a face and held out my wounded arm. Everything hurt, but she focused on what bled. “Aww, is it bad?”
I nodded.
“I can make it all better. Something I learned from my mother. A kiss makes all the pain go away.”
She leaned her head down and pressed her lips to the bandage over the wound I gave myself. They lingered before she moved back and looked up at me. Her smile… it was so warm and pure and just for me. Everything about her was pure, and she wanted me to be happy. For no other reason than she cared about me.
I made a pitiful whimpering sound, and all that joy faded from her face like the expression melted. I covered my mouth with my hand to muffle the sounds that wouldn’t stop. I didn’t want her to know how pathetic I was. I couldn’t lose her.
“Oh,” she said in a cry as she moved to me. “Shh. Don’t cry, baby.” She was at my side, and she pulled my head to her chest. “Shh,” she said softly. “You’re safe right here, Bennett. I promise you.” She brushed my cheek gently with her fingernails, spreading my tears that I didn’t have the strength to keep in. “It’s okay, sweetheart.” Her lips were at my ear, and she started singing to me. I didn’t know the song, but the words were sad. They still sounded hopeful coming from her.
She thought this was about a made-up accident, that this was fear of something that was gone and done with. I couldn’t tell her the awful truth: that I was overwhelmed by her. She would think she did something wrong. The only sin committed by Layla Hall was her wasted affections on me.
ventually, Bennett stopped crying and took to lying with his head over my heart as I sang to him. He was so scared, and it killed me that I didn’t know how to fix it. I looked into his eyes, and all I could see were shattered pieces of a soul.
“I can hear your heartbeat,” he whispered.
I smiled and brushed the back of his neck. I thought it calmed me more than it calmed him. “Really?”
He nodded, and his hand wrapped around my hip. The corner of his lips touched my skin as he pressed his ear harder to me. He tapped on my hip in time with my heart as his eyes closed. “It’s so calm. I can listen, and I feel like it’ll spread to me. Like everything is all right as long as I can hear you like this.”
I kissed the top of his head and didn’t stop touching his neck. “We can stay like this as long as you need, baby.”
Bennett swallowed, and his breath caught. “I don’t understand…”
“What don’t you understand?”
His eyes opened, and he turned his head up to meet my eyes. “I don’t understand how there can be so many beautiful things in this world, and I still don’t want to be part of it. I don’t feel like I belong here, and nothing is meant for me. Like I was a factory defective toy that should have been incinerated.”
My answer was immediate. “Nothing broken can’t be fixed, Bennett.”
He blinked at me. “I don’t believe that.”
“I do.”
Bennett sat up, wincing. When I started fussing, he waved me off, and sat against the backboard. He held a pillow on his lap and looked everywhere but at me. “I can leave,” he offered. “I don’t need to be taken care of.”
As if there was a chance I could let him go home. His parents didn’t seem the type who would take time out of their day to nurse him back to health. Thankfully, I was.
I handed Bennett a snack cake and a soda that he took. “Don’t leave. I want you here, and not because I feel bad for you or anything. Because I like spending time with you, and you’re hurt. I would rather you be here so I can keep an eye on you. You may have a concussion.”
He stopped fighting me after that, and I put a movie on. We got under the covers and stuffed our faces with junk I kept stashed for bad nights. That seemed to be happening a lot lately, but I didn’t know why. I didn’t pay much attention to it. I woke up around four in the morning every night. Then I would start crying and then fall back asleep. Strangest thing.
Bennett stayed for most of the day, but I couldn’t get him to tell me about the accident. Admittedly, I didn’t know him ve
ry well, but I knew this couldn’t have been about an accident. This boy barely wanted to be alive, and I could feel that that still remained. An accident would have made him feel like he could have died, in theory. It seemed off to me. This whole damn thing.
But still, I didn’t pry. If he wanted me to know, then he would have told me.
Once I knew he didn’t have to worry about falling asleep and slipping into a coma, I brought him back to his house. He stared at the door for so long before he went to get out. I kissed his cheek and told him to call me if he needed. At least when he lied about saying he would, he smiled at me.
“Paint me like one of your French girls,” I said, heavy on the accent, and sprawled out on the couch.
Riley snorted at me. “I think you got that line wrong.” She squinted as she thought. “I’ve never actually seen that movie. Tragic love stories seem like a bit much for me…”
She went back to the coloring book Wilson had gotten her, and she worked on the intricate pattern. She had a day off, and I was to keep her company while Adalyn and Wilson took care of some stuff at the shop.
Riley was only with me and not stalking Wilson because she had an endgame in mind. Adalyn had a lot of issues she didn’t want to deal with. One of which was being around men. She was fine for the most part with her father and Wilson. Wilson was the only man she wasn’t related to that she could be alone with, and even that made her uncomfortable. He was very nonthreatening for her, and she was starting to see that. We were hoping that eventually she would be able to go out into crowds again. Till then, we were limited with where we could take her. Every big man that even glanced at her made her afraid.
“We should go see a movie,” Riley said as she worked on her picture. “Maybe something with a love story.”
The Dreamhouse Page 5
