by N. K. Smith
He stopped when he finally looked at me. “Christ, Sophie.”
“I need a ride.”
My body shook as I wrapped my arms around my belly.
“Should I call your boyfriend? You look –”
I knew how I looked. “I need a ride.”
His eyes widened. He could tell from the sound of my voice something was up. “All right. I’m off in like fifteen, can you chill ’til then?”
I nodded and then just followed him around the store as he put away the bread trays and clocked out.
When he’d started the engine, I asked, “You don’t happen to have a joint, do you?” before I even really thought about it.
Brody shot me a look, half concern, half “of-course-I’ve-got-a-joint,” and reached underneath his seat. He handed me a red metal toolbox and I opened the creaking lid.
Before I could feel bad about it, I pulled out the bag and rolling papers and rolled a fat one while he drove. I didn’t bother pretending like I was going to let him toke first. I fired it up and took two big pulls before passing it to him.
Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster for weed.
I savored that shit, but my lungs weren’t used to the smoke, so I coughed and sputtered like a little pot virgin. But I hit it again. And again. And again.
One hit probably would have done it, but now I was stoned.
“I love pot.”
Brody didn’t say anything, but he rolled down his window and flicked the roach from the cab when he was done.
“Thanks.”
“So are you going to tell me where I’m driving you?”
I laughed because I’d totally forgotten that I needed a ride to somewhere specific. After I finished acting like a stupid, giggling girl, I gave him directions. It didn’t take very long to get there.
Brody dropped me off and I knocked loudly on the door, which was in serious need of some paint. Jace’s dad opened the door. With minimal discussion, I was invited into the house, but Jerry backed up quite a bit to avoid me brushing against him. I found Jason watching TV in his room.
He looked up in surprise and then went back to watching TV. “Trouble in paradise?”
I didn’t quite know why I came here. Did I want to buy some pot or did I want to have sex with him? He didn’t even want to be my friend because Elliott was my boyfriend.
A little of my high went away when I thought of Elliott and the term “boyfriend.” I walked over to Jace without so much as saying “hello” and crawled up onto his bed as if it was something familiar. He stiffened and sat up. I was on my knees and I sort of just leaned in close to him. I wasn’t sure what I was doing or what I needed.
I didn’t need a stupid hug or anything, but Jason could make me warm. I felt like I was frozen.
He smelled nice.
Different than Elli...
Different.
Jason smelled spicy, like dark rum with hints of coconut.
Somehow within a matter of seconds, I went from smelling him to sucking on his neck and then I was having sex with him. There was a momentary feeling of victory.
Then I just felt dead.
I didn’t want to feel dead.
I wanted to feel something.
He said something, but who cared what it was? His mouth, his words, his thoughts were of no consequence to me right now.
He rolled us over. He was kissing me, his hands in my hair and then trailing down my shoulders and arms. His lips moved over my collarbone.
It was wrong. It was all fucking wrong. He was being sweet and I hated it.
It wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t like the way this was happening. He didn’t love me. No one loved me.
“Can’t you just... just...?” I pushed at him, I smacked him. I did whatever I could to get him to be anything other than sweet.
Jace stopped and grabbed my wrists. “You want me to treat you like a whore, Sophie, and I’m not down for that.”
My energy was renewed and I tried to hit him again, but he was strong. He kissed the top of my head.
“Let go.”
His fingers loosened and I pushed him away and pulled on my pants. Without looking at him, I said, “I want an eighth.”
“I’m out.”
“Bullshit. I want an eighth.”
Sighing, Jason pulled up his pants and resumed his position on his bed, looking bored, and grabbed the remote. I wondered how many times he practiced his “stay cool” tactics before this.
“I’m out, but even if I was on, I wouldn’t sell to you.”
“I have money.”
“I’ll be sent to prison, Sophie.”
That stopped me cold.
“Yeah. Complete with orange jumpsuit, white socks and black sandals. Thanks for noticing that I don’t sell to anyone anymore, friend. Thanks for noticing how bare the refrigerator is or how my fucking car won’t run because I don’t have any money to fix it.”
I turned to leave because it was obvious he didn’t have what I wanted.
“So great of you to stop by, Sophie. I’ll see you in a few months, you know, the next time you decide you give a shit about me or you need a fuck.”
Now my high was completely gone and I felt like shit.
Without saying anything else, I turned, left his house and went to the bus stop.
I had totally screwed this night up.
I thought about going to Aiden for sex, for drugs, but I didn’t.
The minute I got home, Tom accosted me. “Your friend Jane called... uh... about six times. She sounded upset.”
I wondered if she was upset because I hurt Elliott or because she was concerned for me as her “friend.” Who was I kidding? Of course she was upset because I hurt poor Rusty Dalton. The old distancing name I called him felt wrong, but I didn’t want to keep calling him Elliott. I wanted things to go back to the way they were when I didn’t feel anything for anyone.
I said nothing as I went to the kitchen, and Tom followed like a puppy.
“She said you and Elliott had a fight.”
I grabbed the leftover spaghetti and threw it in the microwave. I was powerless as I regressed back into the bitch I’d been only months ago. “I didn’t realize you were so interested in high school gossip. Do you want to hear some or do you want to be a grown-up now?”
“Whoa, I didn’t...”
His hands were held up in a mock surrender, but my mind turned the sound of his voice way down. I grabbed a fork and popped the microwave open, not caring that the spaghetti was still cold or that it was absolutely the wrong food choice for me. I ate as much as I could without throwing up, washing it down with a few gulps of water.
I was climbing the stairs to my room when Tom asked, “Sophie, are you even listening?”
I stopped on the third step and looked down at him. “No, I’m not, so feel free to shut up.”
He looked bewildered. He looked like he was a blade of grass trampled by an elephant, all smashed and wrinkled. It felt good to see someone who felt like I did. I wanted to yell at him. I wanted to throw his disappointment in his face. Of course he was disappointed; he’d put his faith, trust and hope in me.
I was no better than when I first got here last fall.
I was empty. I was dead. I was dirty.
I hated myself.
I hated this life.
I hated the people who’d made me care.
I hated Tom’s little house where dirt seemed to gravitate.
I hated that ridiculous spot on the floor.
So I began to clean it all.
By the time Tom got up to get ready for work, the entire downstairs was sparkling. Now I was on my hands and knees, scrubbing the shit out of that little purple spot on the floor next to th
e oven.
I didn’t look up. Tom and his stupid voice wasn’t a threat right now. “Why are you cleaning? I thought kids your age hated that kind of stuff.”
“You obviously don’t know a kid like me.”
“Well, that’s a given. So why are you cleaning at four in the morning? You just did it the other day.”
I scrubbed harder. “Because your house is dirty and I can’t live in the filth anymore.”
He was silent for a full minute. I could feel him watching me scrub the linoleum. I had half a mind to just grab a knife and pull the shit up.
“Sophie, that stain’s been there since before your mom and I moved in.”
That was all the more reason to get the fucking thing out. My arms ached as I moved the brush faster, pressing it to the floor harder.
Damn Lady Macbeth and her need to get the damn spot out.
I stopped paying attention to anything other than getting the area to come clean, but when my arms refused to do any more, I got the vacuum, disassembling it all and spraying the whole thing down with all-purpose cleaner.
“Why are you cleaning the vacuum?”
That was Wallace’s voice. I wondered when the hell she got here, but in the grand scheme of things, it didn’t matter.
“How can you have a clean house when the thing you use to clean it is dirtier than sin?”
“Sophie, I need to know why you’re so agitated.” I wish people around here would stop using my name. “What happened? You told me just last week how good you felt. What’s going on? Is this about your memory of...?”
I remained silent, focusing only on removing all of the hairs and threads that were wound tight around the spinning brush. I wasn’t going to be tricked into her shit. There was nothing anyone needed to know about how I felt, what I thought, or what happened in the distant past or just yesterday.
No one needed to know shit about me.
She kept talking, so I went back to the spot near the oven. She went on and on saying something about needing to express things and that she knew something happened and that Elliott was quite upset, too, but her primary concern was for me now.
She needed to shut up. Couldn’t she see that I was cleaning? The floor was dirty and I needed to fucking clean it.
I didn’t care what Tom said. That spot was going to come up, even if I had to bleach the shit out of it to do it.
Tom and Wallace wouldn’t give up and, finally, I succumbed to what I’d kept at bay all night. Sobs wracked my body as my tears were endless. I let her hold me. I let Tom hold my hand. I wished I was with Elliott, but I knew I shouldn’t be. I was too messed up for even a messed-up boy.
I wondered what he was doing and if he was terribly upset.
Fights between two people happened, she told me. Sometimes they seemed like the biggest thing in the world, but really it was a misunderstanding. She knew we cared for each other. Didn’t I owe it to him, to myself to at least try to figure it all out?
I hated what I’d said and done to Elliott of all people, but I couldn’t take any of it back now. Once you hit someone, once you’ve brought that kind of shit into their lives, you couldn’t pretend it didn’t happen. Elliott was the kind of dude that would just accept it, accept me and I couldn’t keep allowing that.
I would continue to screw up his life until it was destroyed. I would taint Faramir to the very core of his being because I was Gollum and the only thing I wanted was everything. I would eventually make him just like me and he wouldn’t even be aware of it until one day he would wake up and realized that everything had gone to shit. He’d look over and see me at the heart of it all.
Faramir was too good for that life, and Gollum couldn’t change.
Just like Gollum, I’d tried for a quick minute to go back to who I was before. Unfortunately, there was no more little girl left in me. There was no more innocence. Thieving and lying and screwing had blotted out anything good and I was just a fool for thinking I could ever be anything other than a corrupted wretch.
The only thing I could do was try to save the last piece of goodness I saw in the world. Elliott, Faramir, Rusty Dalton needed to sever ties with my dead weight. I needed to stop caring and get away before the vortex of my existence sucked the life out of him.
But despite wanting him to have a way to be rid of me, I agreed to see him in the hope of working it out. Wallace wanted to take me over there right away.
Tears pricked at my eyes as I rode to the Daltons. I had nothing with which to shield myself. I felt bare and open. I felt exposed and raw.
I hated it.
I hated this.
He looked pitiful perched on the edge of his bed. He didn’t look like he owned that bed again and I wanted to make him sit on it like he owned it.
I looked at the raw, opened wounds on his hands. He shoved them under his thighs as if I wouldn’t be able to see the new marks. I tried to be emotionless, but my body shook with it. All I wanted to do was wrap myself in Elliott and breathe, but I didn’t know if it was allowed anymore.
He blinked and then narrowed his eyes, his head cocking to the right.
“B-b-b-b-b...” He shook his head. His hands wrung together, the skin being pulled taut and twisted. “W-w-we c-c-c-can’t k-k-keep this up.”
The pain in his eyes just about crippled me. The hurt in his voice was nearly unbearable. “Keep what up?”
He looked down, his face reddened. “Hhhhhurting e-each other. I-I-I can’t b-be your b-b-b-b-boyf-f-friend.”
My heart hurt, but I nodded. Now that he’d broken out of his shell of solitude for me, and now that he was over the shit that surrounded his association with me, he’d find someone better. I was just a stepping stone to someone who deserved him. He’d go to college and find someone better, someone worthy.
He’d find a girl who didn’t hit him. She’d be the kind of girl who could take care of him and would never break him. He needed that girl.
Not me.
He would hurt, but I would hurt more.
“I-I-I’m sssssssorry, SSSoph-phie. I-I-I w-w-w-w-was...”
He was apologizing. It was like a fist to my stomach.
I gathered my courage to let this happen. I knew eventually it would. I needed to let him off the hook. “It’s okay.” The words were out before I could stop them. “I’m... broken. I’m not good enough, or whole enough for you.”
He shook his head and took a step toward me.
His head was cocked again and his eyes cut into me, ripping little pieces of my heart out.
“I-I-I’m nnnnnnot m-mad, SSSSophie.”
My hands fisted, and I wanted to cry some more.
“Then why are you breaking up with me?” I shook my head as soon as I said it. It didn’t matter. He was finally making a good decision when it came to me and I wasn’t going to begrudge him that.
My chest ached.
I could die right now from nothing more than the despair etched on his face. I didn’t want to lose him. Screw letting this happen! “I’m your Sophie,” I tried. Slowly I moved toward him until I was hugging him. His breath against my ear made my knees weak.
I wanted us to be okay, but then he said, “I w-w-w-wish I c-c-could still b-be your E-Elliott.”
I pulled away, hot tears pricking at my eyes. “Don’t.”
He moved away from me. “I c-c-can’t do this an-anymore.”
I nodded fiercely. “Yes, you can. I’ll be different, I promise.”
He sighed and shoved his hands in his pockets and looked away. “I d-d-don’t w-w-want you t-to b-be d-different. I-I-I’m flawed.”
“No,” I said, trying to keep trying. “You’re Faramir and I can be your Éowyn.” I wasn’t going to let him do this! “I’ll fight for you.”
Again, he shook his head. �
��Ssssshe f-f-fights for A-A-Aragorn. F-F-F-Faramir’s her sssssecond choice. B-but it d-doesn’t m-m-mmmatter, S-S-Sophie. B-Bad things hhhhhappened t-to you. They hhhhhappened t-to me, t-t-too.”
Defeat sank into me. All of my energy fled.
“We c-c-can’t m-make it w-w-work.”
Through the fatigue, my voice sounded, “But Faramir and Éowyn—”
“I c-c-can’t b-be w-with you like that. I-I c-c-can’t be with anyone like that. I’m sssssorry.”
I started thinking about what Wallace had told me once. Don’t use Elliott as a crutch, and that’s exactly what I’d been doing. There was no fighting this. He wouldn’t look at me, so I nodded to myself and walked out of the comfort of Elliott’s room.
The next day, Tom drove me back. I left a box with everything he’d ever given me on his doorstep.
We were over.
I walked around aimlessly at work, pulling product from displays to put to the shelf. I filled shit up because apparently customers liked full shelves. Heaven forbid they take the last can of baked beans. The last item on any table or shelf was tainted, apparently.
It was all an illusion. An illusion of choice.
When it was quitting time, I sat out on the rock salt and waited for Tom to pick me up. It was only after I’d been sitting out there for an hour that I realized he was at the station until morning.
No one was here to pick me up. No one was coming for me.
I wished I still had my license. I wished I had a car. I could just drive away.
I wanted to still try for sobriety and celibacy. I wanted to change my life, but I didn’t have much faith in myself. I already felt like I was going to fail. Since the breakup, depression and loneliness claimed me. I spoke to no one but Andrea at school and only Tom and Wallace outside of school.
I felt nothing anymore, but I wanted to feel something.
My need to feel anything other than numb was overriding my want to do the right thing, so I sat on Brody’s front bumper until he came out.
“Need a ride, Young?”
I nodded and he opened the passenger-side door.
When he slipped in, I asked, “Do you want to smoke? I have money.”
As he started the truck, he studied me for a second before reaching between his legs and pulling out the red metal toolbox. “Knock yourself out.”
