She had so much anger in her that I didn’t think she was aware of yet. When she felt too much, I thought that was when it took over. She was so stubborn that her body rejected fear and forced it into another box. Her dresser already fell prey to it, and I worried for other things and people. She’s not the kind of person who would have the control to not hurt another person if the mood struck her. Layla even told me that the woman at the hospital almost got hit as well as the nurse. What would she do if she lost me? One more body to add to the pile.
I wouldn’t let her find out.
From the floor, I looked up in hopes that my father would try and make Mom stop. He could say her name, and she would look over at him too. He knew how she worked, and he knew how to calm her down from most anything. But he didn’t say anything. He looked at me, downcast and tired.
Then he walked out of the room.
cannot believe he kicked me out of his house. He knew what was about to happen, and he was going to let it. What the fuck was wrong with him?! I wanted him to be safe and happy, and he was sabotaging it at every turn. This one… it was on me. I opened my big mouth and made it way too clear that I knew what was going on. Was it worth nothing that I didn’t call the police? Would it be enough to avoid Bennett’s inevitable beating?
My hand reached for the phone in my pocket, but what would I tell the police? That I thought she might hurt Bennett? I had no proof, and Bennett was still unable to see his mother as the monster she was. Calling the police would only get him a worse beating, and even the bruises wouldn’t mean anything if Bennett lied about how he got them. Three against one, and I had a history of instability thanks to my time at The Dollhouse. I wasn’t on pills like Riley, but I doubted anyone could trust what I had to say anyway.
I pressed my ear to the door, listening for any sign of distress. All I needed was one little thing, and I would have a reason to call. But minutes went by, and I didn’t hear a thing that I could use. Maybe he was right after all. I mean, it was doubtful, but I could hope, couldn’t I?
Forcing my feet to move, I left the door and went to my car. If Bennett really needed me, I trusted him to come and find me. He knew I would do anything I could to protect him. All he had to do was ask. Fuck, he could blink a bunch, and I could interpret that as a code, telling me to stab his mom.
I drove home, regretting every choice I made today. I shouldn’t have gone to Bennett. My sisters should be my number one choice to go see, but I didn’t feel the pull to them like I did for Bennett when the time came. There was no thinking at all. I went where I felt like I needed to be.
And it probably was going to end in hell for him.
When I got to my house, I sat in the driveway with the car turned off. The cold from outside leaked into the car, making my fingers go numb on the steering wheel. It stung when I moved them under my arm to get some of the warmth back.
My body felt jittery as I sat, tapping my foot on the car floor. It was like the fucking nerves in my body tried to scream instructions at me that I wouldn’t listen to. All of my instincts told me that I made a huge mistake in letting him kick me out of the house, and that he was suffering right now. Because of me.
Funny that they called me a doll when all I did was cause cracks in other people’s skin. Like spider webs, they spread and consumed before me, but all I could do was watch as I ruined everything.
I didn’t notice my hands going back to the wheel, but I felt them burn as I gripped it until my knuckles turned white. The burn spread to my throat when I started screaming at the top of my lungs. I didn’t even know why I was doing it, but I couldn’t stop. My eyes squeezed shut, and I let out everything I had been keeping inside of me for… I supposed almost a decade.
I was fucking furious at the entire world. It failed me time and time again. My childhood was destroyed, along with the childhoods of my sisters. My family and theirs. That day was the start of the misery that was my life. One bad thing after another. It was supposed to get better once we were free. We’d talked about it so much. How wonderful it would be to have our families back, to see the sun, to be free. The sadness was supposed to end once we were back. It didn’t even slow down. Immediately, Adalyn’s mother was dead, and then people started harassing us, making us want to stay inside when we should have been in the sun, and Kylie… We lost our sister. Mary, Zelda. So much death and rot. And I met Bennett. Even that was hard to look back at. I met him because he was so hopeless that he wanted to die, and he came so close to doing it. It frightened me when I thought about all the million things that had to happen for me to get that call, and to say the right things on the phone and in person. Even one of them not happening, and it would have been someone else. Bennett could be dead, and I would never have known the most important person in my new world. So fucking close. And I found out that the sweetest, most brilliant boy in the world was being put through hell on a daily basis. Living in fear and stuck with parents that didn’t know how to love him the right way. I was the only one that did, and it hurt so much because he didn’t even know. He didn’t know how terrible his parents were, and he didn’t know how much I loved him.
I felt stuck.
My throat felt like someone had taken sandpaper to it, but I kept screaming. I opened my eyes, and people stood on their porches, watching me, but I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t stop when my parents ran out the front door and banged on my window, shouting, and asking what was happening.
I only stopped when I ran out of air.
My car door opened, and I remembered my mom had a key. Someone pulled at my seatbelt, undoing it, and putting their hands on me, checking me over. I remained hardly aware, staring at the steering wheel, feeling deflated.
“Is she okay?” I heard my mother ask. So I guessed it was my dad that crouched down and looked me over.
“I don’t know,” he said in a sigh. “She doesn’t look hurt. Layla.” He put his hand on my shoulder and gently shook me. “Can you hear me right now?”
I couldn’t move my arms or legs. They felt heavy, and the rest of my body was hollow. That scream held everything inside of me, and now there was nothing left. What was I without the scream?
“Nothing is bleeding,” Mom said. “I think… I think it’s something else.”
I almost missed the look that my parents exchanged. Without all that anger in me, I could see more clearly. Everything in my head was all fucked up. I thought Riley was the unstable one, but it was me. All the things I destroyed by failing to be better, and the way I saw the world. It was tilted.
“Do we need to take her to the hospital?” Mom asked.
“I don’t know yet.”
Dad put an arm under my legs and carefully picked me up out of the car to carry me into the house. I caught sight of my mother glaring at the neighbors who came to see what all the fuss was about.
Dad set me on the recliner and knelt in front of me. Mom stood at my side and checked my temperature. I wasn’t sick like that, but they would figure it out soon enough.
My parents both stood in front of me, watching each other as I sat there in my shell.
I found my voice again. “Everything is broken.”
Mom bent, taking my hand and my face. “What are you talking about, sweetheart?” she asked softly. “Did something happen?”
I nodded.
“To you?”
I shook my head.
Dad sighed, and his hands went to his sides. “What do we do here, Jules? She’s not talking.”
Mom batted at him with her hand. “Hush, give her a minute.” She looked back at me. “Did someone hurt you, Layla?”
I blinked a few times and pulled away from her to rub my face. I was so tired all the damn time. I wanted to lay my head back and sleep. “Not me. Bennett.”
My dad cursed. “I thought he said those bruises were from a car accident. Do you mean someone hurt him today or someone hurt him before?”
“Both.” I closed my eyes and shook my head again. “Well…
I don’t know if he was hurt today.”
“Did something happen?” Mom asked. “You were supposed to be back an hour ago.”
I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about Bennett. I decided that after I found out because it was the smarter thing to do. Or it at least felt like it at the time. I couldn’t really trust my choices anymore. I was supposed to be able to figure out a way to make Bennett see the truth without getting anyone else involved. I told Dr. Hastings because I couldn’t know this alone anymore, and I knew he wasn’t allowed to tell a soul. But I didn’t feel like keeping my mouth shut anymore. I needed to save Bennett, and I needed help.
“I went to his house,” I said. “I was feeling… miserable. I love him, and he was what I needed.”
Neither of my parents seemed too surprised by what I said. No one really was, so I guess I was that obvious. The thought almost made me have a glimmer of happiness. I loved him so much that people could tell.
“And someone hurt him?” Dad asked.
“It’s…” I stopped. It felt too wrong to be telling them this huge secret that Bennett and I had. I hadn’t even told my sisters yet. They were everything to me, and I kept them in the dark about the most important thing happening to me. It felt so wrong. “I need Riley and Adalyn. Please.”
Mom stood up straight and spoke in a hushed tone to my father. “You wanna go get them?”
He shrugged. “I think Adalyn would prefer you, honey.”
Mom nodded and looked back at me with severe eyes. “I’ll be back in twenty minutes. Then I expect you to tell me everything. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” I said in a small voice.
Riley and Adalyn sat together on the couch, and my parents stood across from me while I told them the truth. I told them everything I knew about Bennett’s house and what he went through, not leaving out my worries about telling people and about Bennett not defending himself. I was at a loss.
Riley stared at the cast on her leg, and she looked a million miles away as she chewed her fingernail. “She hits him,” she said. “His own mom hurts him, and she keeps doing it.”
“She’s a monster,” Adalyn hissed. “She should be in a prison cell.”
My dad started pacing, and that wasn’t good at all. Mom watched him with concern as he walked the length of the couch and back. “We can’t let this go on,” he said. “What the fuck do people do in these situations?” He looked to my mom like she knew.
My mother looked just as lost. “I really don’t know. But he can’t stay there. We can’t prove anything is happening if he lies for that bitch.” Her heat would have made me smile if I were less afraid. I appreciated that she cared as much as she did.
“We should call the police,” Riley said. “Can’t they do something, even if Bennett and his parents lie?” The hope in her eyes as they brimmed with tears stabbed me in the chest. “This isn’t fair…”
“No, it’s not,” Dad said, shaking his head. “This is so delicate. I’m worried that if we call, things are going to get a lot worse. Then Bennett is in a house with a woman even angrier with him than she seems to be now.”
Someone whimpered in the room, and I thought it was Adalyn, but all eyes turned to me. I covered my mouth with my hands when I made the sound again and couldn’t control the quiver in my bottom lip. My sobs were muffled, and Mom put her hands on my shoulders, trying and failing to comfort me.
“I’m really scared,” I told her. I tilted my head up, locking my eyes with hers. “He could be getting beaten right now, and we’re sitting here, not doing anything.”
Ugly images haunted my mind, refusing to go away. I saw Bennett on the floor, bleeding and begging, only to be ignored as his mother attacked him. He was bigger than her, so he could have defended himself if he wanted to, but he would rather let her get away with it. He thought there was something redeemable in her. Even if she could blame everything she did on her mental state, it didn’t make up for the fact that she hurt him. She abused more than his body. I saw the look on his face when she cut him down, and he looked an odd mix of devastation and numbness. How could he care so much and so little at the same time? I cared enough for the both of us, and I hoped he knew that.
“We have to get him out of that house,” I said. “Right now.”
I moved to get up, and Mom pushed me back into the recliner. “Wait, wait.” She let go of me and moved to the corner of my seat. “We can’t go stealing a person from his family.”
“Did you not hear a thing I said?” I snapped. “He’s going to die there!”
Mom kept perfectly calm when I wasn’t able. “Layla,” she said softly. “You need to stop and think. We can’t force him to leave his parents, and I don’t think they’re going to give him up. This could turn even messier, and Bennett doesn’t need that right now. Frankly, neither do you. I don’t think that you should invite more stress into your life.”
My eyes narrowed, and I actually felt fury at my mother. It was the first time in my life I could remember something like this. She was one of my favorite people almost all of the time, but she was telling me to ignore Bennett because I was going through some stuff.
“I love him,” I said between my teeth. “I’m not going to let this keep happening to him, and I don’t give a fuck what his mother thinks or if I’m not stable enough to be adding more to my plate. He deserves to be somewhere where he won’t wake up to beatings or be afraid to leave his room. I know what that feels like. Did you forget that? Did you forget that I spent seven years getting beaten like he’s being beaten? Because no matter how hard I try, I can’t forget.”
I turned to look at my sisters, who wouldn’t meet my eye. Adalyn watched her lap, and Riley bit her lip while she crossed her arms and tried not to twitch. They hadn’t escaped the violence, so they knew what I was talking about.
“I’m never going to forget. What happened to us and Bennett can’t be undone. We have to keep those scars. But we don’t need to let it keep happening. I don’t care how much of a mess I make. I’m saving him.”
Dad nodded, taking a look at each of us girls. “You’re right. I don’t know what to do if Bennett isn’t on board for this.”
“Get him on board,” Adalyn said, surprising me. She almost never talked directly to my father or Riley’s. She was barely able to talk to our moms. But right now, she stared directly at him like she wasn’t scared at all. “She’s his mom,” Adalyn went on. “That’s not supposed to be what a mom is. My mom…” Her eyelids fell halfway down, and she swallowed. “My mom was an angel. Like… like the most perfect person in the world. She read me stories when I went to bed, and when I fell, she picked me up and comforted me until I wasn’t crying anymore. There wasn’t a day she didn’t tell me she loved me, and not once in my life did she lay a hand on me. No matter how bratty I was or anything I did. That. That is what a mother is. The woman living with Bennett isn’t a mother.”
“Honey,” Mom said, putting her hand back on my shoulder while she talked to my sister. “I agree with you. I really do, but I don’t know what can be done to make Bennett get on our side.”
Adalyn’s gaze turned to me, and her blonde eyebrow arched over her left eye. “I do.”
Everyone stared at me, expecting me to have some kind of magical answer to this. If I did, I would have used it long ago. “What? What can I do?”
It was Riley who answered. “He’s in love with you, Layla. He’ll listen to you.”
I shook my head, sighing at her. “I’ve been trying to get him to do something.”
“Have you?”
My anger turned on her instead of my mother, like before. “Are you accusing me of not trying? Because I have been.”
“Not enough,” she said, tilting her hands sideways on her legs. “You can pull every one of his strings. So use what you have. You don’t have a choice anymore.”
Did I have the power she suggested I did? I couldn’t know that, but Bennett was in love with me. Riley was right when she said
I didn’t have the right to say how authentic that feeling was. If it lasted forever or another hour, Bennett was in love with me.
Let’s hope he loves me enough to listen to me.
Bennett
didn’t see Layla. I didn’t deserve to see her, so I held off on the more extensive daydreams. Instead, I lost myself in my own head, replaying memories that actually happened. Like when we had our picnic in the snow, and when she’d given me that hat. She’d looked so happy when she had presented it to me, like her whole day had relied on my reaction to it. I loved it, and I loved her, so it went well. I also went over, in vivid detail, those other moments we had. Our first kiss, even though the circumstances had been sad, it was still such a happy day for me. I thought I was going to die, and I was given my reason for living. How could I look back on it with sadness? And I thought about the night we first slept together. It had been beautiful and perfect and the most powerful moment in my life. I wanted a lifetime of those moments, but I was losing my hope that Layla would come around. She was so adamant about not making it real.
I couldn’t lose her.
The freezer felt smaller somehow as I wiggled around, trying to get comfortable. No matter what I did, I couldn’t fit right. I was too tall now. I folded my legs up so that I could turn better onto my side; that should help a little.
I wasn’t bleeding anymore, and I was very happy about that. It slowed since I was locked up, so now I didn’t lie in a pool of wet blood. It all stuck to my skin and shirt, sticky and cold. I could live with that.
It was easy to lose track of how long I had been in here. It all started to blur together after a while. If I had to guess, I’d say it had been a few hours. I briefly wished I had a watch, and then I remembered that I wouldn’t be able to read it in the dark anyway. I would have to wait for someone to let me out.
The Dreamhouse Page 25
