Beautiful Victim

by Claire C. Riley

  So much blood.

  So much that I must have killed her.

  You were obsessed with her, right?

  You wanted her, right?

  You hated her dad, right?

  Because he wouldn’t let you see her anymore, right?

  So you killed him too, right?

  You killed him for trying to come between you and Carrie Brown, even though there was nothing to come between, right?

  You probably would have killed her mom too, right?

  No, no, no…

  That’s not what happened, but no one believed me, not even Mom and Dad, no matter how much I begged them to listen to me. They wouldn’t listen. No one listened. And Carrie was gone. Where the fuck had she gone? She had vanished, and they kept talking like she was dead. Kept asking where her body was. But I didn’t know. How could I know?

  ‘Tell us, and we can help you,’ they said. ‘Give her mother some peace. Let her bury her only daughter and her husband together.’

  But I wasn’t their son, and I didn’t know where Carrie was, and her mom didn’t even really care, because she was a fraud too and she was just trying to cash in on the murder. And if I did kill her I wouldn’t tell them where her body was because she hated her dad, and wouldn’t want to be buried with him.

  ‘Do one good thing in your miserable life, son.’

  But I wasn’t his son. And my life wasn’t miserable, at least not until then. It had been confusing and wonderful and full of love and hope, and the never-ending perhaps of a love that would last forever.

  But it wasn’t real, I think. I see that now. (See? I’m not stupid) None of it was real. Carrie isn’t real. Just like her mother wasn’t real. Just like love isn’t real.

  Like mother, like daughter, I think as I stare down at a sobbing, broken Carrie.

  Chapter forty-one:

  Carrie is crying quietly.

  The sun is coming up.

  It’s fucking Tuesday. Tuesday, when Mr. Fancy Asshole is supposed to come back.

  With each passing minute I see more and more of her, and I’m more and more disgusted by her.

  She’s not beautiful, or perfect. She’s skinny—too skinny, in fact. Her breasts are too big for her small frame. Her ass is flat. Her stomach is bloated. Her skin is pockmarked and pale. Not just pale white, but a pale gray. Her teeth are dirty and yellow. Her eyes are sunken on her face, shadowed by dark gray rings.

  She’s a drinker, like her mom was. I now realize. That’s why she wasn’t hungry. It wasn’t food she needed, but alcohol to feed her body. I see it all now. And I’m more shocked at myself than her. How did I not see this before?

  The illusion of love, I think, and I want to laugh at myself.

  This woman has ruined my life from the moment she came into it. And I could possibly, probably, more than likely, forgive her for ruining my, and even my parents’ lives, because fuck them for not believing in me anyway, right?

  But the fact that she’s wasted her entire life regardless of how many people she’s ruined, that’s what makes me so mad.

  She ruined my life and wasted her own.

  If she would have achieved anything with her pitiful existence after destroying me, I could probably, possibly, more than likely, forgive her. Because at least it wouldn’t all have been for nothing. Ya know? At least her actions would have held some purpose.

  But there is no purpose to this. To her. To what she did to me.

  She left me to rot in her mess.

  She could have saved me, and she didn’t…because why? She was too drunk to give a shit? She was too slutty to care? Because she was too much of a user to ever really love?

  That’s not good enough, Carrie.

  She’s done nothing. Achieved nothing. She’s an empty shell of a woman. Barely a woman at all. Because women are supposed to be good, and motherly, and loving, and caring, and nurturing. Just like my mother used to be. Just like my life used to be before Carrie came into it and ruined everything. And Carrie, well, she’s none of those things. She’s rotten, and bad, and evil, and pointless.

  Do you hear that, Carrie? You’re pointless. Your entire life is pointless!

  She has her back to me, and I sit on the ugly sofa with the ugly cushions and I stare at her ugly bare back, and as the sun rises I see the bruises forming on her flesh. And I don’t even care. I feel no guilt, no shame, not an ounce of remorse. Because she doesn’t deserve my remorse. She doesn’t deserve anything from me.

  I’m still naked, too, after our love-making, but my anger is keeping me warm. She’s naked and she’s shivering from the cold. I sneer, because I don’t care. And I know sneering is ugly and not nice, but I honestly, truly, don’t even care. Not anymore.

  She could freeze to death for all I care.

  I would sit and watch that happily.

  I may fucking sit and watch that happily.

  Because it would serve her right.

  All of this is her own fault. Just like Benny said, ‘You have to accept responsibility for your own actions.’

  And the same goes for Carrie right now.

  This is her doing, not mine. And she needs to acknowledge that. No more blaming other people. Not her shitty pedophilic father or her alcoholic mother. Or the school system that let her slip through the cracks. Not my mom and dad who did nothing to help. Or any of the people that should have been there to protect her.

  No, now is the time to admit that she was wrong and she is to blame.

  I tried to help. I tried to save her.

  But maybe, just maybe, there is no saving someone who doesn’t want to be saved.

  I put my head in my hands and I think of all the times we have been intimate, and I wonder if any of it meant anything to her or if everything was bullshit.

  Was it all a lie, Carrie?’

  Surely not, I hope, I pray, I plead. Because it can’t all have been a lie. It can’t all have been fake. She must have cared once. But not now, and I see that. I see right through her. All she cares about is Adam. All she wants to do is ruin his family like she ruined mine. But I won’t let her. I’ll warn Adam what she’s like, and then he’ll hate her too. And then he’ll stay away from her. He’ll go back to his wife and kids and he won’t tell them about Carrie and the biggest mistake of his life. He won’t ever tell anyone. He’ll just be grateful that he got away from the walking train wreck that she is before she destroyed him like she destroyed me.

  And now I’ve made a plan. Now I know what to do. And then…and then…

  And then what?

  What do I do then?

  When Adam is out of the picture…when I can finally be free of her…what do I do then?

  ‘You eliminate the problem, kid.’

  That’s what Benny used to say. Of course he was talking about the hospital, and when the beatings got so bad I thought I was going to die. And I did almost die. He was talking about the men that took me to their cells and told me that they would do things to me that shouldn’t be done to a young boy. It would be vengeance for the girl I killed because they had a daughter her age. They had a daughter just like Carrie. And prison was too good for me.

  ‘She deserved better,’ they said.

  ‘She did,’ I agreed.

  But she’s not dead. She can’t be. I thought.

  And all this time, she wasn’t.

  She was just pretending. She was just hiding. She was just trying to escape…me?

  See, I met Benny in the infirmary at the hospital.

  He taught me how to not be a pussy anymore.

  He taught me how to be strong, and how to play the system.

  He helped convince the doctors that prison was wrong for me.

  I don’t know why he helped; I never asked. Maybe he was just happy to have someone fucking listening to him for the few weeks that we were in there together. Happy that someone gave a shit about what he had to say.

  And I did give a shit. I listened to what he had to say, and though most of it was
bullshit, a lot of it wasn’t. He taught me so much. Helped shape the man I am today.

  Much more than my own dad ever did.

  A dad who doesn’t speak to me anymore.

  Not since that fateful night.

  Chapter forty-two:

  “You can’t keep me here,” Carrie says quietly. Her back is still turned to me, and I can hear her wheezing with every breath she takes. I think I broke something inside her, but I don’t feel any remorse.

  “I don’t intend to,” I reply.

  “Someone will notice I’m not around,” she says as she turns to look at me.

  I snort out a laugh. “Like one of your friends?”

  “Yes,” she replies, her chin lifted in defiance.

  I shake my head. “Oh, Carrie,” I say, but I don’t say anything else, because she knows, and I know, that she’s talking bullshit. A girl like Carrie doesn’t have friends. And I know she hasn’t got any family.

  Her dad is dead, and so is her mom.

  Alcohol is a deadly poison, Mrs. Brown. You really shouldn’t have drunk so much.

  A knife is a deadly weapon, Mr. Brown. You really should be careful who you piss off.

  “You only have Adam,” I say. “Mr. Fancy Asshole Adam who won’t even leave his wife and kids for you. And I’m going to talk to him. I’m going to set the record straight with him so he knows exactly what you’re really about, exactly who you really are, Carrie fucking Brown. Besides, he doesn’t really care about you. I saw his texts. I saw your pictures. He’s using you. You’re just his whore. He has a wife and kids and he loves them, not you.”

  Carrie laughs. It’s quiet and slow at first, and I can tell by her wheezing that it hurts to laugh almost as much as it hurts to breathe. Her laughter gets louder as she gets used to the pain, and then she’s full-on laughing. And I know she’s laughing at me. And ‘Fuck you, Carrie.’

  “He won’t go near you again once I’ve told him all about you,” I say, feeling my anger rise.

  (One African Elephant Walking Very Nicely. Two Australian Coyotes Prowling Through The Night.)

  “He won’t leave his pretty wife and his beautiful kids—not for you. And you’ll have no one. Just like I had no one.”

  (Three Jungle Cats Slinking Through The Dark. Four Busy Beavers Building Their Bustling Brushes)

  She’s laughing and laughing, and no amount of counting is helping me to get through this. I feel the anger in my fingertips. In my feet and my hands and my arms and my legs. It’s red hot as she laughs and laughs and laughs. It’s a volcano inside me and I see the tears of laughter trailing down her gray-white cheeks.

  “Stop it,” I say through gritted teeth.

  ‘Control it, Ethan. You must learn to control it.’

  Shut up, Mr. fucking Jeffrey. No one cares what you think anyway!

  I stand up and take a step toward her. I am looming over her skinny body, leering down at her. And I am not hard for her now, even though I can see her breasts moving with every laugh. There is rage in my body, filling my legs and my arms my head and my heart. I can’t stop it. There is no counting to escape this.

  “I said shut up!” I scream at her.

  And the world is black.

  The world is dark and rich and filled with velvety fluid rage. The world welcomes me back to it with open arms. The world has missed me, and I have missed it. I am there now, at the point of no control. No turning back from this, or that. No denying what must happen.

  Until, until, until…

  “Of course he won’t care!” she laughs and screams all at the same time, her voice sounding panicked and terrified and frozen in fear. “He won’t care, Ethan, because no one ever fucking cares! Not one single person ever fucking cared.”

  And then I’m sinking, slowly, dripping back down to earth like rain down a dirty window.

  “Why doesn’t your mom ever clean the windows, Carrie?”

  “She doesn’t want people looking in.”

  “But why?”

  “She doesn’t want people to see the evil things that happen inside.”

  I am opening my lungs and taking a deep breath of clean air.

  Carrie is crying and she is laughing too. She is shaking but she is still. She is sad but she is happy. She cares, yet she does not.

  And I am so confused by her.

  And it.

  And us.

  Mostly us.

  Because we always made sense. Until we didn’t. And now…Now what? Now what are we? I don’t know.

  “I cared,” I say. My heart is in a vise and someone is squeezing it. It hurts. It always hurts when Carrie is around. “I cared, Carrie.”

  My voice is that of a little boy again.

  A child comforting another child.

  A young boy consoling a girl.

  A teenager consoling a friend.

  An almost-man soothing his almost-girlfriend.

  “I always cared,” I whisper, and I stagger backwards, drunk with the pain of it all. With the pain of Carrie. Of knowing her, and living her. My steps are clunky and slow. I sit back down on the ugly sofa, and I put my head in my hands and I close my eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispers.

  “Don’t.”

  “I am.”

  “I said don’t.”

  “But—”

  I look up. “Stop it. I can’t do this anymore, Carrie. You can’t do this to me anymore. You can’t keep lying and using and faking your way through life. You just can’t keep doing that to me. It’s not fair.”

  Her face crumples and she looks away.

  “You keep saying that you’re sorry, and then you go and hurt me again. You’re just as bad as your dad, Carrie. You’re a fraud just like he was.”

  And then we are in silence with neither knowing what else to say. What can be said? What is left to be said? We’ve both hurt each other so much. Too much? Can you ever hurt someone too much that it makes everything else end?

  I want to say yes. My heart begs me to.

  “You have to let me go,” I say. Because she does. I can already feel myself weakening. I can’t let her go. I’ll never be able to let her go. She’ll always have a part of me. She’ll always have control. I’ll always want her, no matter how much she hurts me.

  Because love is eternal.

  Love is everlasting.

  Love doesn’t let go.

  And neither will I.

  “I can’t,” she whispers back, and I watch her begin to sob again. “I have no one if I don’t have you.”

  “You didn’t have me before,” I say.

  Carrie smiles and looks at me, our gazes colliding. “Of course I did. You just didn’t know it. You belong to me, Ethan. You always have. You always will.”

  “I don’t want to anymore. You hurt me.” I should feel anger, but I don’t.

  I just feel pity.

  Pity for her and for me.

  But mostly for the children we should have been.

  And she’s right. It’s probably the most truthful thing she’s said in three days. “I want to be free,” I say, and I sound pitiful. I want to cry.

  “So did I,” she replies. “But I’m still not.”

  Finally you decide to be honest with me, Carrie.

  “Adam doesn’t want me—not like that. I’m not his other woman,” she says, shame flooding her bruised and broken features. “I really am his whore, Ethan. I traded my dad for Adam. I’m not stupid. I’m not just his mistress, I’m his paycheck too. Hell, I’m whatever he wants me to be. He’s never going to leave me for her. I know that and so does he. And I’ve never asked him to.”

  “But then why?”

  Because I don’t understand why anyone would do that. Why would you fuck someone that doesn’t want to be with you? Why would she belittle herself like that, and allow him to do the same? How can she ever be okay with that? With coming second and knowing that she’ll never be his number one?

  You were always my number one, Carrie.
<
br />   “I need to pay the rent,” she replies coldly. “He pays me. They all pay me.”

  “They?” I ask. But inside I’m begging her not to speak, because I know what’s coming before I hear it. And I don’t want to hear it.

  She’s too good for that. Or so I thought.

  She’s worth more than that. Or so I thought.

  She deserves better than that. Or so I believed.

  But I guess I really am the fool in this. I know nothing about this woman in front of me. I know nothing about her at all.

  Chapter forty-three:

  The world keeps turning, no matter what we throw at it.

  Throw bombs. Throw disease. Throw famine. Throw hate and love and war and peace. Throw your swords and your vermin. Throw your everything and it will still stand. It will still turn and be and move and live.

  It will always continue, whether it wants to or not.

  But I am not the world.

  I am a man.

  I am Ethan Cowells.

  And I will fall if you break me.

  I will crumble if you hurt me.

  I am only human.

  The clock always seemed to tick louder when I was waiting for Carrie. As if the clock was mocking me, and my impatience.

  Today was no different.

  Mom was going out to the grocery store. Dad had gone to work.

  Carrie had said she would come over to see me. I was excited to see her.

  I liked Carrie. She let me touch her. She had pretty eyes. She made me feel special, like I was the only one. More special than my mom made me feel. More special than my dad made me feel.

  It was a different type of special I felt when I was with Carrie.

  She knocked three times on the back door.

  Knock, knock, knock…

  I almost knocked my stool over when I stood up.

  I opened it, my heart full. But she looked different today. She’d been looking more and more different every time I saw her, but today was really bad.

  Her lip was bruised—no change there—but this time the blood was still wet. She forced a smile, and I saw the blood on her teeth.