Hurt Me: A 'Me' Novel

by Jeri Williams

  “He was here, but now he’s gone, and I don’t think Deklan knows where.” I confessed, wanting her to not ask me to elaborate further.

  She was silent for a beat then, in a voice unlike Ember, asked, “So he’s actually there, in Atlanta?” I nodded, even though she couldn’t see me, confirming what she voiced. She didn’t need me to respond, her voice told me she knew, and she was feeling the feeling too.

  “Hang on, I got another call.” As I waited, I analyzed our conversation. It was something that I recently took up doing, going over every facet, making sure I hadn’t said anything stupid or something that could be misconstrued. I didn’t want people mad at me, especially Deklan, and I over analyzed all of our conversations.

  Ember hadn’t known where Matt was; she had assumed he was still in town and the fact that he had left town and she hadn’t known spoke volumes to us both. I guess Deklan and his brother had more in common than I thought. Matt didn’t tell Ember goodbye either, just like his brother. I hope that was where the similarities ended.

  “Harley…” Ember came back on the line, only this time, she sounded different, and that feeling, that feeling that something bad was going to happen exploded in my veins on her next words.

  Deklan

  (GreenDay “Blvd of Broken Dreams”)

  I drew long and hard on the cigarette, letting the familiar burn of the first pull sting the back of my throat. I hadn’t smoked in almost a fucking month, but that hadn’t slowed my ass down from going straight to the nearest fucking gas station, getting a pack of menthols, and lighting the fuck up. I was never a heavy smoker anyway, only picking up the habit for whatever fucked up reason I had when I left home.

  Maybe I wanted to see what the hype was. Shit, I don’t know; I was on my own and rebelling against everything Royce had ever taught me, regardless that my mother had just been diagnosed with lung cancer a few months earlier. At the time, I didn’t give a fuck; I just wanted to feel like I had control over my fucking life finally and doing the one thing I knew he’d hate was top on my list. I tried not to do it often, but over the years, it had gotten to be more out of habit than necessity, until today.

  Today, I needed that sting, that bite and release it gave me because what I just said, fuck, what I just did to Harley was a Royce Kane move straight up. There was nothing I fought against more, than doing anything that sounded remotely like his ass. It was why I was the way I was.

  Hard, honest and loyal to any fucking body that earned it. Royce was hard, true, but he was also a fucking liar, and the only thing he was loyal to was his business and my mother, thank Christ for that. It seemed as though Matty had inherited all of daddy dearest’s charming traits though and added cheating too. His punk ass.

  I knew saying that shit would do one of two things to Har: piss her off or hurt her, and fuck, I was rooting for piss her off, I really was. I didn’t want to hurt her I just wanted her to shut the fuck up about being a burden and shit and carrying her own. It pissed me off because she assumed I was like her bitch ass mother who made her feel that if she was taking up space, she had to earn her keep.

  Nah, not how I rolled. If I didn’t want you in my space, in my life, trust you wouldn’t be. I thought Harley understood that, but I guess not. I should have gone in the bathroom and forced her to talk to me, but I didn’t. I took the pussy way out, choosing to deal with that shit later.

  Fuck, when did I avoid shit?

  I don’t avoid, I go hard at anything that comes my way, but with Harley, I hesitate. Why?

  Deep down, in the pit of my stomach, I knew why, but I refused to even give it another thought because there was no fucking way.

  I flicked the cigarette out the window and set about on finding out why my brother was in my area. No way was he just visiting, and I’d like to have his ass gone super quick so I could get back to my life, pretending he and Royce didn’t fucking exist. I rode up the street nearest the bar where it was lined with seedy motels and saw his car parked at the motel I used to frequent back in the day. Huh, funny he’d choose this one out of all the others, but whatever, brothers and shit right?

  I didn’t know which room he was in, but I was sure he was sporting one hell of a hangover along with his fucked up nose so I did what any dickhead big brother would do. I parked next to his car, got out, and slammed my fist on the hood, causing the alarm to make that annoying fucking sound and sure enough, Matty came stumbling out of the room to my right.

  “What the fuck?” He saw it was me, silencing his alarm. Several other people opened their door to investigate, but quickly shut it when they saw the tension between us two. That was the good part about being in this shitty ass side of town; people minded their own fucking business.

  “You hit my car, asshole.” Matt grumbled, gingerly touching his nose. I smirked, admiring my handiwork; my aim was on point.

  “And I’ll do it again unless you tell me why the fuck you’re here,” I growled. I was still pissed about earlier and the bullshit he said to Harley, add in the fact I was still pissed at myself, and I was ready to knuckle up.

  “I missed you too,” he said and walked back into his room, leaving the door open, expecting me to follow like a bitch begging for a fuck. I walked to the door and stood my ground in the opening, taking in the rumpled bedspread he was laid out on and tried really fucking hard not to finish what I started.

  I posted up and waited, watching him eye me up and down like he was going to do something as he held a rag with ice over his nose. Matty knew from the many times we used to wrestle for fun and then later for real that I always came out on top. Sure, he would get a few licks in, but I had something he didn’t that allowed me to prevail: experience.

  I studied my little brother, really studied him, and I never understood why it was me, and me alone that our father decided was the bad fucking seed, the one that needed reminders and lessons on how to be a good son. At times, I resented Matty for not being treated like me, but then I took on the role of protective big brother and allowed Royce to beat the shit out of me so he wouldn’t do it to Matty. What a fucking fool I was, as if he would ever do it to Matty, the perfect son, the golden boy. Matty was surfer boy status with his hard jawline and blond hair he got from Royce, where I was the dark moody asshole with dark hair that I got from my mother. We were your basic night and day siblings.

  When I shifted on my feet, determined to wait this muthafucker out, he sighed heavily and got up, grabbing a bottled water from the bedside table and downing it.

  “You asked me to let you know if Harley’s mom resurfaced. Why do you care?” he questioned, removing the ice pack revealing his swelling nose.

  “Why? Did she?” My anger started anew. That bitch had better stay far away from Harley if she knew what was up.

  “Why do you care? Does it have something to do with what happened the night mom died or why you took off with her? Ember told me she was in the hospital for a few days, but didn’t say why.” Did he really think I was just going to open up to him and start gossiping about shit like bitches? Negative. When I only stared at him, he took that as an opening to ask more fucking questions I wasn’t going to answer.

  “And what the fuck was that back at your place? She freak out like that all the time? Man, you sure know how to pick them, huh? She must really be good at suc…”

  “One more.” I cut him off, standing to my full height so he knew this was real. “One more fucking word and I will drop you.” I clenched my fists at my side, willing myself not to swell him up now for even almost saying shit about Harley. The irony that what he said would hurt her no more than what I had said wasn’t lost on me. Fuck, it was why I was extra pissed. I hardly liked me saying that shit; it was necessary, but I still didn’t like it.

  Someone else, especially my little brother, saying some disparaging shit about Harley? Not gonna fucking happen.

  “Since when do you give shit about some girl? I’m not being an asshole, I’m serious,” he added, and I coul
d tell he was being legit. Still didn’t mean I was going to open up to him. Harley meant too much to me to talk about her to anyone.

  I advanced in the room, intent on showing him that I indeed gave a shit when he held his hands up in a hold up kind of way. Smart move.

  “All right, all right, be all tight lipped. I know you said to call with any news, but I needed to get the fuck out of Dacula. Dad’s been… Well, he hasn’t been himself since mom died, and the whole fucking town is talking about it. And Ember wants to know what I’m fucking feeling all the time and to talk about shit, and I just need a break, so I came here.”

  “Can you get to the part where this shit starts to matter to me?” I asked, annoyed at his fucking rambling. Sometimes, my brother was worse than a chick with his mouth, shit.

  “Damn, bro it’s like that? You don’t even give a shit about me, about dad?”

  “Do you really want me to answer that?” I asked with a raised eyebrow. What the fuck had he expected when he came here? Some big family reunion where we apologized for all his wrongdoing and I go back and help him with our father? Not this fucking story.

  “Fine, you want to be an asshole all your life, that’s on you. I’ll say this and them I’m out,” he spat. Finally.

  “Carol Reynolds is dead, murdered looks like, and the police are looking for Harley.”

  I stared at him, waiting for him to clarify. Was I supposed to know who that was? “Why should I care about this and what’s it got to do with Harley?” I was losing my fucking patience with him; I didn’t have time for his games.

  “Really? You don’t even know your girlfriend’s mom’s name?” he asked with a look of disgust. He’d said girlfriend like it was supposed to have air quotes around it and shit, and I while I hadn’t put a label on what me and Harley were, I damn sure didn’t like him mocking it.

  Hold up; back up. Did he say Harley’s mom was murdered?

  “Say that shit again,” I demanded, crossing the threshold, gearing up to hear this again.

  “Yeah, you heard it right, asshole. Harley’s mom is dead, and the police want to question your girlfriend.”

  Shiiiiit.

  Harley

  (Icon for Hire “The Grey”)

  I don’t remember hanging up with Ember. I don’t remember walking into the bedroom and sitting down. I don’t remember anything past Ember’s whispered words that my mom was dead. I wasn’t sure how to process this, I felt…weird.

  I thought that everything would be okay once she was gone, the clouds would clear, and I would feel lighter, safer. But I don’t know how I felt. As crazy as it sounds, part of me was scared that this was some trick to lull me into false sense of security, like she spread this rumor only to get me to come home so she could kill me once and for all. The other part of me was hopeful that this was the truth. I couldn’t help but harbor a feeling of guilt though at the fact that she is dead and I was happy because she was dead.

  It’s funny; I used to fantasize about her death and what that would mean for me. Freedom. The guilt was tearing at me because she was murdered, and I shouldn’t feel that way because she was my mother, she was a human being, and she died horribly; no one should be happy about another person dying. But I was, and the guilt and shame that bought was insurmountable.

  If we were back home, and I was living with Deklan, as awful as this is to think, he would be my first suspect. He hated my monster, and if he allowed himself to hit women, he would have beaten her to death a long time ago. But it couldn’t be him, he’s been with me and my mother could have pissed off any number of people to cause this to happen.

  Maybe when I go home for the funeral, wait…was I going home?

  I had always thought I was a horrible person, that I was being punished somehow for my horribleness by having to live with my mother and her rage. These thoughts just proved that I am that horrible person. I should be crying, or sad, or angry, something other than what I am feeling, which is too much.

  Too fucking much.

  I feel too much and none of what I am feeling is the right thing to feel. Grief? Nope. Sadness? Definitely not. Anger? Yes, but only because I wasn’t there to see her die, and that thought alone sends me spiraling into self-hatred and believing I deserved everything I had ever endured in life.

  I needed to be punished for my thoughts.

  I should be punished.

  This is where that lifelong abuse takes hold and won’t let go because I feel…I feel…it all. All emotions and thoughts jumble in my head, causing a chaos so loud I grabbed the sides of my head and screamed, and screamed and screamed. Only the chaos just got louder and louder and no matter how loud I screamed it wouldn’t go away. I broke off and looked around wildly for something, anything to make it stop. I just wanted it to stop.

  I grabbed the closest thing to me, not even seeing what it was and threw it across the room, and then another and another, and I didn’t stop until I was breathing heavy and the room was destroyed.

  I didn’t care. I didn’t care what Deklan would do or say when he saw what I’d done. I didn’t give a shit how I was going to clean this up. I didn’t have it in me to give a shit about anything except the chaos. I glanced up at the mirror and saw the same girl from just yesterday who had decided she was fine. I was fucking fine and then this had to happen.

  It’s like she is still ruining my life, and no matter how much I try and leave her in the past, she will always have a hold on me. Every new person I meet, every medical form I fill out, they all ask about your mother and every time I am asked about her, I’m going to think of her and how I felt at this moment about her death. You know people can say all they want about someone only having a hold on your life if you let them, but that was complete bullshit. I didn’t want this, I didn’t!

  I repeated this in my head and tried to drown out the noise. I repeated it until I took the bat that sat by the bed and smashed the girl in the mirror staring back at me to pieces. She shattered into big jagged pieces, reflecting what I felt on the inside, and we both fell to the floor. It wasn’t fair, it was such a childish thing to think, but fuck it.

  It wasn’t fair. I was good!

  Yes, Deklan was mad, but I knew that wouldn’t have lasted and we would have been fine. I had Deklan and a new life, and hope and now I didn’t know what I had. The only thing I knew, the only thing I felt was this loudness. I picked up a jagged piece of broken mirror, cursing the weak girl reflected back at me. She was so weak and pathetic, and I hated her.

  I thought I had buried her, but there she was, gazing back at me. I gripped the mirror hard, not caring about the pain the sharp edges were causing. The pain made the loudness fade. Squeezing a little harder made the chaos clear, and seeing that little drop of red, helped me breathe again.

  Pain

  I needed pain

  I looked down at the small cut the mirror had made in the palm of my hand, the blood flow slowing as it coagulated, and I wanted more. More pain. I needed to feel this pain so that everything else would stop. I didn’t think twice about taking the mirror and making a deeper cut until after it was already done, and I was…good again.

  No more loudness and chaos.

  Instinctively, I knew what I had done wasn’t normal, was wrong, and I felt guilty. I knew no one would understand, no one would get it. I’ve read enough books to know that people who purposely hurt themselves are viewed as weird and unhealthy, and I didn’t know if I was either of those things but I knew that for the moment I was okay. Until I thought about reactions.

  Their reactions.

  Deklan’s reaction.

  That thought alone got me up and moving, trying to make something of the mess I’d made of the bedroom. I didn’t know if he would come back before he had to go to work or not, but I didn’t want to take that chance. I hastily picked up the broken mirror pieces and tossed them in the trashcan and picked up the other stuff that wasn’t too badly broken and returned it to where it was. It didn’t look bad, but it
wasn’t great either and he would definitely know I had lost my shit.

  I cleaned the cut on my hand, enjoying the sting I got when it hit the water and put a Band-Aid on it, contemplating what I would tell Deklan when he asked about it, and I was one hundred percent positive he would. He knew every inch of my body down to my hair follicles and there was no way he wouldn’t notice the big ass Band-Aid in the middle of my palm.

  I sat in the living room in a daze and waited for him to come home, I didn’t answer when he’d called and had sent a text on autopilot not even sure what I had said in it. The silence in the apartment was suffocating me, swallowing me up in the nothingness of it all.

  Did I have to attend her funeral? Did I have to bury her myself? I remember asking myself these same questions what seemed like ages ago as I sat in Deklan’s car as he watched his mother being carried away by the coroner after dying. I had never thought I’d actually have to give legit answers to these questions. I couldn’t. How could I? My mother hated me, she wasn’t shy in letting me know that, and I hated her right?