I push her up to sitting and I try to untie her hands. The knots are very tight and I can’t get them undone.
“One minute,” I say, and I lean her against the sofa so that she’s sitting up. I walk to the doorway and I hesitate at leaving her. She’s acting strange and I don’t like it.
I realize that I don’t trust her.
She’s watching me watching her. Her eyes are like an owl’s—big like saucers, curious, wary, wide, and watchful. I swallow and leave the room. I click the door shut after me and I go back to the kitchen and I get the scissors from the drawer. I saw them earlier when I was tidying up. They’re big and clunky, like dressmaker’s scissors, not typical kitchen scissors.
I close the drawer and go back to the living room. Carrie is sitting where I left her, her head resting on the back of the sofa with her eyes closed, but she opens her eyes and looks up abruptly when I come back in.
Her eyes widen even further, if that were possible, when she sees the scissors in my hand.
“For the ropes,” I say, and I smile but she doesn’t smile back.
I want to tell her that she’s being really fucking unfair with me. I haven’t even gotten angry at her, not even once. I haven’t hurt her—all of her physical injuries are down to her own stupid actions, not mine. And I haven’t even told her how sad she made me when she vanished. Or all the things that I was accused of because she left. But she’s acting like I’m a dangerous criminal, like I’m in the wrong here.
And I’m not. She is.
I sit next to her on the sofa, our bodies so close together that I can feel the heat coming from her. I use the scissors to cut the ropes from her wrist. It takes a lot of time because they’re not very sharp and they’re big and clunky. But eventually her wrists are free.
She acts as if they’re not though, so I put the scissors down and I take her wrists in my hands and I rub the life back into them. Her arm is bruised and she winces when I touch it, but I don’t think it’s broken. I don’t think.
Her cheek looks really bad though, and the cut on her head probably needs cleaning out so it doesn’t get infected.
“Look what you’ve done to yourself,” I mutter.
I shouldn’t mutter—it’s rude to talk in whispers—but I can’t help it, and the words slip out before I can stop them.
“You did this, Ethan. You do know that, don’t you?” she says. And she looks like she might cry again.
I look up from her arms and wrists and I stare into her face. Her sweet, beautiful, tortured face. I take her chin in my hand, and I can feel the tremors of fear running through her.
I don’t like that.
I don’t like that she’s afraid of me.
I’m a good guy. I’m not bad. But she’s acting like I am.
“No, Carrie, you did this to yourself, my love.”
She pulls her chin free of my grip. “This is all your fault. But you can stop it all. You can untie me and go and we can forget this ever happened. I won’t tell anyone, you don’t have to worry about that.” Her voice shakes, yet she sounds strong and confident. That’s the Carrie I used to know. That’s how she always sounded.
Even when she was afraid, she was strong.
Even when she felt weak, she carried herself like she wasn’t.
Determined and unwavering. That’s how I would have described Carrie, my old Carrie. The Carrie that I loved. I haven’t seen much of her since I got here, but I see her now, and it makes my heart soar. I smile, and she takes that for a good thing and she forces a smile back, which makes my smile grow even wider. And this is better. This is going much better.
“It’s all got a bit out of hand, hasn’t it?” she says.
And she reaches up and touches my cheek and smiles. My hand falls from her face and touches her hand. And I want to kiss her right now. Her touch is so gentle and caring. I feel safe and loved and wanted here with her. And it’s all going to be all right. I just know it. I knew she’d come around. I fucking knew it!
I lean forward, holding her gaze, and now I’m the one who’s shaking. I’m the one who’s afraid. And it’s perfect. It really is. Because that’s what we should be afraid of, isn’t it? Love. Love is scary and wondrous. It’s imperfect and perfect all at the same time. And Carrie is love. And I love her. And she loves me. And she encompasses everything that love is about.
Our faces are close together and I press my lips to hers. And at first she hesitates, but I’m not mad because I get it. And it’s good that she’s a little afraid of our love. And I tell her that.
“It’s okay to be scared. I’m scared too. It’s been so long, it will be like our first time.” I lean across and kiss her again, and this time there is only a little resistance from her. “I’ll make you forget you ever fucked him, I promise. You don’t need to be ashamed.”
Our lips are touching.
My lips are hot against her cold.
Soft.
Gentle.
I groan against her mouth, and I think she groans too.
My tongue reaches out for her, wanting to move against hers. I want to taste her. To be with her in every way. I groan again, and this time I know that she does too.
She pulls back, and I’m breathless and I’m smiling and I’m excited and nervous, and it’s like our first time all over again. Her hand isn’t on my face anymore, it’s on my chest, holding me back as if she doesn’t trust herself. As if she can’t contain her longing for me.
“It’s okay,” I say. “It’s all going to be okay.”
“It is,” she says, and I smile, and God she’s perfect. Even with her face all fucked up, she’s perfect. Inside and outside and everything in between. And I can forgive the mess, and her whoring ways. I can forgive anything and everything when she looks at me like that.
Her arm reaches back and I see it too late.
The scissors are in her hand and she stabs them into me.
And thank God they’re the bluntest fucking scissors ever, I think as I move my hand to block the scissors from gutting me.
They slash into my hand, and blunt or not it hurts like hell. I cry out and she screams as she reaches back to stab me again. Or maybe she’s in shock by her own actions. I know I sure am. Either way, I’m quicker than her, even when I’m in pain, and I turn my hand into a fist and I smash my fist into the side of her face. The side that’s already black and bruised.
And that’s not going to come out in the wash, I think grimly.
She doesn’t cry out as she falls back against the sofa and her body goes slack, and I’m panting and gasping. I’m in pain and I’m in shock, and I’m angry and I’m furious and I have so much energy moving around my body that I don’t know what to do with it.
And my counselor-slash-therapist-slash-Mr. fucking Jeffrey was right all along.
Sometimes we do lose control when we don’t mean to. Sometimes we hurt the ones we love, even when we don’t want to. But sometimes, the ones we love the most hurt us the most, and we can’t control ourselves.
And though we might not remember doing it, that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
Chapter twenty-four:
She’s out cold, again, and I feel like total shit.
I obviously didn’t mean to hurt her.
But I can’t deny she didn’t deserve it.
I find a pair of socks in a forgotten laundry pile by the window, and I screw one of them up and shove it in her slack mouth in case she wakes up and freaks out. I don’t want her screaming for help, only to realize it’s me, and then feel stupid.
See? I’m a thoughtful man, Carrie. Even now, after everything you’ve done, I’m thinking about your feelings, not my own.
I go to the kitchen and turn the faucet on, and then I let the water run over my bloody arm. It hurts and I grit my teeth against the pain. At least it’s not your stomach, Ethan, I think. Now that would have been a lot worse. And I’m grateful for that small thing, at least.
I grab the bloody dishtowel and wr
ap it back around my hand. I search all of her cupboards three times over but can’t find any Band-Aids or bandages or painkillers. And I think, come on, Carrie, what the hell is wrong with you? Everyone has fucking Band-Aids!
But apparently not Carrie, because she’s a useless whore.
I take a steady breath and apologize to her, even though she can’t hear me, because that wasn’t a nice thing to think. Even if it is true.
And I am starting to believe that it’s true. She is useless. She is dirty and untidy, she has terrible taste in men, terrible taste in décor. She doesn’t even own a first-aid kit. Her cupboards have hardly any food in them, and her coffee is shit.
I swallow down my anger, because I really do feel very angry now. Thoughts of all the things Carrie is doing wrong, and has done wrong, are surfacing, and those thoughts make me mad because she shouldn’t be like that. She should be like the version of her that I’ve had in my head for the past twenty years.
She is almost perfect in my head.
But, I sigh, in real life she is far from it.
I go back to the living room and check on her. I’ve tied her back up. And I didn’t like doing it, but I can’t risk her doing that again. She’s a danger to me and herself. It’s just how she’s always been. She was always a ticking time-bomb. That’s how Mom described it.
‘It’s only a matter of time,’ she said so many times to me.
I didn’t understand at the time, but I do now.
I get it now.
You’re a ticking time-bomb, Carrie, I think. You’re dangerous.
I look at my hand, the blood starting to seep through the dishtowel already, and I shake my head. Now I have no choice but to go out. To leave her here all alone.
I swipe my arm across the filthy kitchen surface, swiping her mail and old newspapers onto the floor.
And then I feel bad again. Not that I should feel bad, because she stabbed me, not the other way around.
She fucking stabbed me!
Anger spreads through my insides and my vision turns red. I’m shaking with the anger, with the need to lose control. I don’t like the feeling. And I hate the fact that Carrie has made me feel this way.
I close my eyes and begin to slowly count to ten like I was taught.
One African Elephant Walking Very Nicely. Two Australian Coyotes Prowling Through The Night. Three Jungle Cats Slinking Through The Dark. Four Busy Beavers Building Their…
The anger subsides and I feel more in control. The red rage slinks away like the jungle cats and I can breathe again.
“Okay, think, Ethan. Think,” I say to myself.
Carrie is knocked out. She’s tied up. What trouble can she get in? I decide. I check the time on my watch. It’s early, eight thirty. Stores will be opening now. A pharmacy will be around here somewhere.
I find her purse by the front door and look inside. There’s a set of keys with a troll keyring attached to it. It has green hair. It’s an ugly keyring and I wonder why the hell she has it on her keys, but whatever.
I try the keys in the front door, and they work. I check her purse and see she has a lot of cash inside it. I’m going to borrow some of it, because I used all my cash on the fucking cab ride here, and well, this is all her fault anyway so she should pay to fix it.
I check on her one more time and then I close the living room door behind me, and I go to the front door and then I realize that I’m still only wearing a damn towel, and that’s covered in my own blood! Gross.
What are you doing, Ethan? I think with a maniacal laugh. Put some fucking clothes on!
I go back through to the kitchen and I check the dryer, and our clothes are mostly dry. They could do with another twenty minutes if I’m being totally truthful, but I don’t have time. So I take my clothes out and I pull on my slightly damp jeans and my T-shirt and my hoodie and I shudder at the feel of them. Then I go back to the front door and I get Carries house keys and shove them in my pocket. When I do, I feel my apartment keys and Charlie’s keys are in there. I’d forgotten about them. There really isn’t enough room for three sets of keys in my pocket, so I take Charlie’s out and put them on the small shelf with the wooden elephant statue on it by the door. Then I leave Carrie’s house, locking the door behind me.
The day is sunnier than yesterday. The clouds are gone, hiding somewhere new. The air is chilly, but that could be because my clothes are still damp, of course.
I stand on the leaves that have fallen from the trees. They don’t crunch because they’re still damp from yesterday’s rain. And that sucks, because there’s nothing more satisfying than standing on crunchy leaves. Watching their beauty obliterate underfoot.
I’m walking down the street, passing the other houses, listening to the happy voices coming from within. And I’m smelling Carrie all over my body and trying not to bleed to death. But it all feels okay, even bleeding to death, because I’m surrounded by Carrie. She’s on me, she’s in me, and I forgive her for stabbing me.
She’s in a lot of pain, and I get that because I’m understanding. That’s the kind of man I am. That’s the kind of husband I’ll be. And when we’re in pain, we lash out. I get that too. I’ve done that too. Not just today. That’s how a marriage works. That’s how loving someone works. You understand and you forgive.
I bet she’ll wake up and feel awful about what she did, because she’s a good girl.
No matter what other people said. And they said a lot.
Especially my lawyer.
I actually liked the guy, even though he thought I was guilty, and he kept talking shit about Carrie so I shouldn’t have liked him at all, really. But he was a good guy and he was just trying to do a good job. Protect society from me and all that bullshit. He had short brown hair and pale gray eyes. He had a wife and a kid and he wasn’t some over-privileged, middle-class white guy like most lawyers are. He put himself through law school. He worked two jobs and helped his sister when she got into trouble.
He said he understood girls like Carrie. And that he also understood the allure of them. They’re vulnerable. They need loving. Too many people are too damn quick to turn their backs on them. Too many people are ready to take advantage of their fast love and their desperate situation.
I know he thought I had done that—taken advantage of Carrie’s desperation—and I wanted to be mad at him for thinking so poorly of me. But I couldn’t. Because the sad part of me turned happy that someone was finally looking out for her. Someone wanted to protect her. I mean, it was stupid that he was trying to protect her from me, but at least he was fucking trying, right?
It was more than anyone else ever did for her.
So I’d nodded and agreed with what he was saying, all the while protecting her. Besides, he wasn’t saying anything that I didn’t know or didn’t believe, if I was being totally honest. Of course my nodding gave him license to keep talking, to keep telling me all the things I already knew. About Carrie. My Carrie, who I knew better than anyone else in the world.
‘People take advantage of girls like Carrie,’ he said. And I nodded at that too, thinking about her dad, and the bruises he left on her skin and in her mind.
Thinking about the blood that stained my fingers that time.
Thinking about her promiscuous ways, and the way men leered when she rode my bike, her skirt bunched up around her velvet thighs.
And the way her dad called her back into the house, and then the crying I could hear as I huddled below her bedroom window, wishing and praying for God to make it so that I wasn’t such a coward.
Chapter twenty-five:
It takes a long while to find the pharmacy. It’s funny, but it’s not, because I walk past it twice before I finally see it. And how could I miss it with its big glass windows and large green sign? My mind is in such a muddle. My hand hurts. I’m hungry too. But mostly, my heart aches that Carrie did this to me.
I know she didn’t mean to. It was an accident. She was confused. I’m certain she apologized at som
e point too. I’m certain she didn’t scream at me in fear and anger. I still feel bad that I hit her. Made her bruises even worse.
I did that.
Not the stairs.
Not the floor.
Not herself as she tripped. But me.
My fist as it connected with her face.
I feel bad. I am a bad person for doing that.
A man should never hit a woman. Even if she does stab him first.
My hand throbs in pain, reminding me that it’s still there. That the stab wound…no, the defensive wound is still there. But I don’t blame her. I won’t.
I need some painkillers, and I need some bandages and something to clean the stab wound with because I don’t want it to get infected. That would suck. Really suck. I bet the pain would be incredible. Worse than it is now, and right now it hurts a whole lot.
Come to think of it, I feel a little sick. A dizziness has taken over me. The world zooms in and out of focus, and a shiver runs down my spine. I feel hot and cold and everything in between. I push the door to the pharmacy open, and a small bell above rings faintly. It smells of medicine and cleanliness in here, and I like it because medicine means health and cleanliness means no germs. This place is safe for me and my open wound.
Defensive wound, I correct myself. It’s not an open wound, or a scrape or a cut. It’s a defensive wound. I shudder.
I go through the aisles, looking for what I need and mentally crossing them off my list as I put them into the basket that hangs in my uninjured hand. Bandages, gauze, tape, disinfectant, painkillers. I see condoms and decide to get a box while I’m here. I’m thoughtful and considerate like that.
I don’t know if Carrie has any at home. I hope so, because she’s been sleeping with Mr. Fancy Asshole Adam and the thought of her having unprotected sex, of him being inside her beautiful body without a condom, makes me want to throw up.
Beautiful Victim Page 11
