Take Me With You

by Melyssa Winchester

  “I started doing this to myself when I was eleven. When the memories were too much, the nightmares turning me inside out, the only relief I found was burning myself. The pain from it was worse than what he did to me so I just kept doing it.”

  I flash back to the day outside the office when she pulled the lighter from her pocket, telling me that this was how she coped with things. At the time I wondered if it had something to do with her burns and now I know the truth. In order to push down everything that her dad did, she put the pain back on herself.

  “It’s only recently that I started doing it to my legs too. I’ve been doing it more lately, so my arms, there aren’t many spots left and I don’t wanna put another burn on top of one that hasn’t even healed. You asked me the other day if it helped doing it to other people and I said yes and Eric, I meant it. When I’m burning someone, myself or someone at school, it relieves everything else.”

  “I know it’s not right. I’ve always known that, which makes me horrible. A monster. Someone even worse than my dad, but I can’t stop. I want people to hurt as much as I do so that I don’t have to be alone.”

  I want to hate her for what she’s admitting, but I don’t. It makes sense to me even if she’s right and it is wrong. Keeping this in, not telling anyone because of the fear she has of something worse happening, it’s completely turned her inside out. She’s not the monster I made her out to be, not entirely anyway. She’s just trying to cope in the wrong way.

  “There’s more.”

  “Okay.”

  “Over the years, I stopped fighting him when he does things to me, but what you don’t know is that I enjoy it. When he’s inside of me, my body reacts to it even though I really don’t want it too. It’s like I enjoy it. It’s another reason I do this to myself. I can’t stand that I like it. It’s like I’m asking for it. I want it, crave it. I’m disgusting.”

  “You’re not disgusting.”

  “How can you say that? After everything I just told you, how can you not see the truth?”

  “Because it’s not the truth.”

  “Yes it is!”

  Her voice is raising now, my denial of her truth obviously upsetting her. I do the only thing I can and I look up at her, this time determined not to look away the way I always do because this time she needs me to look at her, prove to her that what she thinks isn’t right.

  It’s dead wrong.

  “Amelia, it’s not true. He’s been doing this to you for years. If you didn’t react in some way it would be weird. You just told me that eventually you let him have his way because it was easier and made it end faster. You did the only thing you could do. That doesn’t make you disgusting.”

  “Then what exactly does it make me?”

  “Human.”

  “That’s bullshit, Eric. It makes me weak, it makes me no better than he is, and it makes me sickening, gross and wrong. How can you not see that?”

  “I can’t see it because none of it is real.”

  The way she’s looking at me, she’s in shock. I can tell and it’s not just because her eyes are wide. It’s because she decided before she even told me everything that my reaction was going to be a bad one. Now that she sees that it’s not, it’s shocking. She’s made herself believe for so long that she’s at fault, she’s the reason all of this happened, hating on herself so much that she hurts herself as penance that anyone believing otherwise isn’t right.

  “You don’t think I’m gross?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You’re not supposed to because you aren’t me.”

  I’m not sure what I said, but finally unable to control my eyes anymore, I look away and it’s then that I hear the quiet cry escape from across the table. Another one follows until I make out her hands moving to her face and she’s crying into them. Hearing her cry, it hurts me.

  The way she is, it reminds me of the way I was that day in the hallway with Tim even though the situations aren’t the same. The loss of control, feeling that I was about to break, it’s another reminder of how similar we really are. It also reminds me of last fall when I reached my breaking point and wanted to end it all. I hated going through it then and I hate it even more now, but not just for myself. For her too.

  I need to do something, stop her from crying. Get her away from this place and the darkness it reminds her of. I need to change things, give her different memories so that what I see on her arms now, never has to happen again. And I know just how to do it.

  “Amelia, will you do something for me?”

  Looking up as I ask the question, her head lifts until our eyes meet and she nods her head.

  “In a week, will you come back here with me and release the butterflies?”

  “You still want to do that with me?”

  “Yeah, why wouldn’t I?”

  “I thought…”

  Here it is. Here’s where she tells me that she thought that when she told me all her secrets that I would be like everyone else in her life and bail on her. The thing is, with as much as I told her about myself, I didn’t tell her the way I am with people I care about.

  If there’s one thing I know for sure, I care about Amy—Amelia. It’s time for me to show her that despite everything I heard today, the things she’s so scared will make me think less of her, it doesn’t change anything. I’m not going anywhere.

  As long as she trusts me, she’s got me. She has a friend, even if it’s the last thing she wants.

  “What did you think?”

  “Hearing all of this, it would gross you out and you’d leave.”

  “I’m not going anywhere, at least not until you tell me.”

  “You really mean that, don’t you? What you heard, what you know about me and everything we’ve been through before, it doesn’t change anything?”

  “It does change things, but not in the way you think it does.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Amy,” I say, catching my mistake and immediately trying to fix it. “Amelia, I don’t have a lot of friends. It’s pretty much just Belle and because of her, Kayden. I don’t know how to hang out with people like everyone else does. It’s awkward for me, but I do know how to be a friend.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “I think you already know the answer to that.”

  “Ignoring the fact that you sound a lot like Thompson right now, I need to ask for your help with something.”

  “What?”

  “You said you know how to be a friend right? Do you think you can teach me?”

  “Yeah, I think I can. You want to understand what I mean by everything changing but not in the way you think?”

  “Yes.”

  “What you told me, it didn’t change things the way you expected because everything you admitted didn’t scare me away, but it did change things because before and especially now after, we’re not the same as we were.”

  “How so?”

  “We’re friends now.”

  Amelia

  There was this picture that Charlotte stupidly put on my Facebook wall a few months ago. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but after what Eric said to me last night, it’s making me remember it.

  It was just a blank background picture with a quote on it, but it’s the quote that I’m thinking about now because for the first time since she did it, it makes sense and it’s got nothing at all to do with her.

  It’s got to do with Eric.

  A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.

  I’m not saying that Eric loves me, I think that’s a little much and I’m not worthy of love even if he did, but it’s the rest of it that has to do with him. He knows everything about me and knowing it, he still wants to be around me, going so far as to make plans with me for a week from now.

  I used to think that Tim, Charlotte and Eve were real friends, but the more time I spend with Eric, the ease that comes with spending any
amount of time with him, whether I’m laying my entire life story out or not, it’s showing me that they weren’t really my friends at all.

  They’re just people that are too scared to stand up for themselves and go against me. They used to be that same way with Kayden and Dillon. I’m their leader, the person they look to in order to know what they’re supposed to do next and it doesn’t make them friends. It makes them victims, just like every person I’ve dragged into the bathroom and burned.

  Eric Carmen, he’s a real friend. He’s not hanging out with me at our appointments or even like we did at the bluffs because he’s following along with me, needing me to guide him or because he’s afraid of me. He’s doing it because he genuinely wants to spend time with me.

  What he has with Belle, the friendship. I want that. It’s why I asked him to teach me how to be a friend because I don’t think I’ve ever known how. It was never something I was taught. I just glided into this spot at school with people following my every move and labeled it as friendship, but now, I want more.

  I want the real deal and I know he’s gonna be the one to give it to me.

  Eric is going to be my first friend.

  After leaving together and now being home again, I know that the peaceful feeling I’ve been experiencing since I told him everything is going to be shattered because no sooner do I get through the door than my mother stops me to talk.

  I haven’t given her an answer about my next visit and because it would just be another black mark on her reputation, she’s not going to let it go until I do.

  “Have you called your father back?”

  “No and I’m not planning on it.”

  “He has a legal right to see you.”

  “No, Mom. He doesn’t. Not anymore. I’m legally an adult now. The custody agreement is over.”

  “That may be so, but he still has a right to see you.”

  No he doesn’t!!! I scream at her, but it remains locked away inside my head so that I’m the only one that can hear it. I’m an adult now. The visits, they’re going to stop. The control I let him have with me, it’s time I took it back.

  If I can control a bunch of mindless drones at school, then it shouldn’t be too hard to take control back from a pervert.

  “I don’t owe him anything and considering how you feel about him, I thought you would agree.”

  “My feelings for your father have nothing to do with your relationship.”

  “They have everything to do with it, Mom. You hate him and I want nothing to do with him. Seems to me that we’re in agreement, so we don’t even need to bring him up.”

  “Amy,” she sighs. “The way you’re acting; did something happen with you and your dad at the last visit?”

  Fourteen years, things have been happening during my “visits” with my dad and it’s only now that the forced visitation is over that she’s asking me this question. Unbelievable.

  “No. It’s the same as it’s always been.”

  “Then call him. You’re right. I can’t make you see him anymore, but he’s your dad and the two of you, you’ve always been close. I would hate to see that change now. Every girl deserves to have her father in her life.”

  The urge I had when I was at the bluffs with Eric, when I was telling him everything, it’s back again now. It started small the minute she asked me if I called him, but with what she’s just said, it’s worse now. I don’t think I’m gonna be able to hold it back for much longer.

  I need to get out of here before I upchuck all over her brand new shoes.

  “Well that’s where you’re wrong Mom, because I don’t.”

  Turning from her and bolting for the stairs, feeling the acid rising in my throat, knowing it’s only a matter of seconds before I lose it all together, I take them two at a time until I’m safely locked away in the bathroom, my knees lined up with the bowl in front of me.

  It’s only as I’m bending over and my lunch is spilling out that I realize I didn’t tell Eric everything after all. He doesn’t know about this. My other coping mechanism and why it’s just as important, if not more so than what I do with the cigarettes.

  How doing it cleanses me, not only of the memories, but of the dirtiness and shame I feel too.

  Chapter Twelve

  Eric

  “Hey Eric! You got a sec?”

  The last thing I’m expecting when Ms. Taylor lets us out of class is for the two people that are leaning against the lockers to be there and wanting to talk to me.

  Kayden being here makes sense since I know he’s here to pick up Belle, but standing with Dillon and him being the one to call out to me, it’s weird.

  I’ve got nothing to say to Dillon. I don’t have a problem with him or anything, but after what happened at prom, it’s not like I’m actively gonna search the guy out.

  “I guess. What’s up?”

  Dillon shoots Kayden a look and if I didn’t know the both of them had changed, the look would scare me. It wasn’t all that long ago that the both of them teamed up to hurt me. With them hanging out again, it’s not a stretch of the imagination to see how easily they could fall back into old routines.

  “Dillon saw something the other day that worried him and he brought it to me. He was going to come talk to you himself, but I figured it might be better if I was here.”

  Well, if it wasn’t freaky before, it definitely is now. Kayden’s doing the same thing he’s been doing for months, attempting to protect me, but I have no idea this time what from.

  “I’m lost.”

  “Were you at the bluffs a couple days ago?” Dillon asks and that’s when everything becomes clear. Someone must have seen Amelia and me and told him about it. Another reason people hate small towns. Nothing is private.

  “Yeah. I found some caterpillars there and brought them home. Why?”

  “You were alone?” Dillon asks again and I feel sick.

  Yep, someone definitely saw us together and while she’s been a completely different person when we’re together, I’m not sure how she’s gonna react to knowing that we’ve been spotted together. I’m still a freak to a lot of these people and I’m pretty sure that’s the last thing she wants to be attached to.

  “What is this about? Why do either of you care what I do after school?”

  Kayden steps forward and reacting purely on instinct, I take a step back toward the classroom door. A move he catches because it stops him in his tracks.

  “Eric, we care because of who you were with.”

  I’m not gonna give these guys a thing. It’s obvious they know everything anyway. I promised her I would keep her secrets and I’m gonna do that and protect her in the process. I know how these two feel about her, how I felt about her up until a few days ago, so I know how they’re gonna react and it’s not good.

  “Can you just spit it out? I still gotta grab my lunch from my locker.”

  “Did Amy do something to you?” Kayden asks and I shake my head. She didn’t do anything in the way he means so I’m not exactly lying.

  “What were you doing with her?” Dillon chimes in and same as I did with Kayden, I use my body to respond as I shrug.

  “Eric, you can tell us. If she threatened you or did anything, we can deal with it. I know she’s not here anymore, but we can send a message through Tim so that she stays away from you.”

  No. I can’t let them do that. If she’s gonna find out that someone saw us at the bluffs, I need to be the one to tell her. We’ve got appointments with Thompson after school so as long as I can head these two off, I’ll be able to let her know instead of having her find out through a threat to Tim or the other girls.

  “She didn’t do anything.”

  “You sure?”

  Kayden’s worried. He knows how I deal with this stuff. I keep it inside and don’t make a big deal out of it. The only time I’ve ever said anything was when I went to Ms. Taylor a few months ago because I was worried about what was happening with her daughter. Up until that point
, I kept my mouth shut and still planned on doing it.

  “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  “Eric, I know you don’t exactly trust me yet, but I’m gonna level with you. I’ve been with Amy, hell, so has Kayden. We know how she operates. How her mind works. She might not have said or done anything to you this time, but she will. She can’t be trusted.”

  “You couldn’t be trusted either.”

  I wasn’t planning on saying anything, but now that it’s out there, I’m not taking it back. It’s the truth. There was a time not all that long ago where Dillon was the one calling the shots and the one I had to fear. Sure, he might know her better than me but that doesn’t mean I have to listen to him.

  “You’re right. I’m a first class asshole. It’s not exactly a secret, but I’m not right now.”

  “Is this where you tell me that you care about what happens to me and you don’t wanna see me get hurt?” I laugh before rolling my eyes. This is a joke. Kayden saying that to me, I would believe it, it would be authentic but with Dillon, I don’t feel that way at all even if he has changed since prom.

  He’s got a lot of work to do with me before I can completely trust him.

  “Eric, he’s telling you the truth. He saw you with Amy at the bluffs because he was there with Cadence. We’re just looking out for you. There’s always an ulterior motive with her and with her gone, the last thing any of us want is you being her next target, especially outside of school where we can’t protect you.”

  Now that I can believe. Kayden is sincere even though him and Dillon are a lot alike. He’s proven himself to me since the stuff last fall. It doesn’t change anything though. They don’t know the same person that I do.

  “I don’t need protecting.”

  Dillon runs his hands through his hair, frustration evident before throwing another look at Kayden.

  “Man, we give a shit about you. We don’t want you hurt but if you don’t want our help, I don’t know what else to do. Maybe Kayden will have better luck talking sense into you.” He says to me before turning back to Kayden. “I’ll meet you out front.”