by Rick Wood
The Death Club
Rick Wood
1
@LuvvaGirl99
I lay upside down on my bed so peacefully that, if it weren’t for the blood, you wouldn’t know I’m dead.
Some of the pills I swallowed are in a lump of sick on my red satin sheets.
Soon it will crust.
Or maybe it won’t.
I don’t know quite how long it will be until Mum finds me. My body might be stiff by then, it might not. It doesn’t really matter. At least not to me. There is no heaven welcoming me home, such a thing is made up to comfort the weak — I didn’t exist fourteen years ago, and now I don’t exist again.
The webcam light on my laptop still shines, but he doesn’t watch anymore.
He’s done what he needed to.
The worst part? I wasn’t even the main event. Their only purpose to my death was practice — a dress rehearsal for the girl he really wanted, and it didn’t take him as long as you’d have thought.
You will read my story in the newspaper tomorrow, or the day after that, or the day after that — but not next week; I will be old news by then.
You will read it and they will think — how could a girl be so easily manipulated? That would never happen to me.
In which case, you are an idiot. Of course this could happen to you.
Psychologists say victims are exploited because of vulnerabilities, as that’s what makes them the best targets — but aren’t we all vulnerable? Don’t we all have weaknesses that can be exploited?
I bet you’ll also say I was stupid to send pictures, and that you’d never do that; like you’re oh so perfect. But it doesn’t just happen, does it?
It starts slowly. Begins with flattery. Begins by filling the hole in your life you didn’t know was there.
He made me feel good about myself. He knew what my insecurities were and he knew how to quell them, knew how to have me walking around with a smile where there never was one before. Confides in me about things he has never confided in anyone else; or so he says. Like that that time he cried or that time he felt sad or that time he threw his chair across the room in anger.
He never cried or felt sad or threw a chair. Don’t be so stupidly naïve. He’s just filling a need.
You aren’t even aware you needed him, but soon you can’t imagine going a day without messaging. You feel loved. Appreciated. Like you’re worth something.
Then he isolates you.
He uses all that trust and all that emotional reliance to force his truth into your thoughts — until it is your truth too, and you are doing what he wants without even knowing it.
You’ll never know his real name, but you don’t need to. Give him anyone’s.
My body starts to smell as his last message disappears from the screen. On his side of the webcam, he is already wiping away the evidence. He is already creating a clean slate that will have everyone believe I succumbed to weakness. That this life was too much for me and I couldn’t survive.
It was an overdose, but that only tells a small part of the story.
My empty body is evidence of a troubled girl, but evidence skews perceptions, it does not support it.
It’s time for somebody else’s story now. My part is done. I set the scene. I let you know what happened to me so you know what will happen to the next girl.
I gave you an insight to my life long after I took it away.
But don’t be fooled.
Don’t think this is what it looks like.
See, you may think this is suicide, but you’re wrong — make no mistake my friends, this was murder.
Nothing more.
And nothing less.
2
Will
It’s 8:30p.m. and I’m already in bed, listening to Harper’s footsteps in the kitchen. You know you’re pathetic when you go to bed before your teenage daughter.
The bed is king size, and it feels empty without Natalie, but I’m listening out for her. Waiting until she stumbles through the door, swearing as she searches for a light switch, so I can rush down and hold her hair back as she throws up in the toilet.
It’s safe to say that I failed at marriage fairly epically. We were twenty when we met. Second year of university. Teacher training. Only I went on to qualify, and she…
Even back then, the problems started, yet I couldn’t see them.
I close my eyes and the house descends into silence. Harper’s bedroom door closes and her steps no longer patter around. The house remains peaceful until I’m woken up shortly after 1.00a.m. by a clatter against the front door. I leap from the bed, rush out the room, and take the steps two at a time, hoping I can avoid Harper being woken up by the commotion.
When I open the door, Natalie has already thrown up on the porch. She has half a kebab in one hand and clutches onto a ripped clutch bag in the other. Her mascara is smeared across her eyes and the strap of her dress falls low enough down her arm that her bright pink bra is exposed.
“Are you okay?” I ask. She pushes me out the way and stumbles in, falling to the floor, and what do I sort out first, the vomit or my wife?
Sometimes I wonder if she regrets this in the morning, but I’m never around to find out as I’m at work, ready to teach, ready to convince myself I’m inspiring the next generation while a group of disinterested adolescents determine that I am the exact kind of person they do not wish to grow up to be.
With my arm around her, gripping onto her sweaty shoulder, I help her up the stairs, one at a time, keeping her steady as she wobbles. I cover her mouth when we pass Harper’s room and she just smacks it away.
“Who were you with?” I ask, once I’ve closed the bedroom door behind us. “Was it Brian?”
She says nothing.
“It was, wasn’t it? It was Brian.”
She mumbles something and, despite its incoherence, I take it as confirmation.
“I’m sick of that guy,” I say, under my breath.
She falls over. I steady her and help her on the bed. Take off her dress. Notice something on her neck. It looks like a hickey. Hell, it could just be a rash.
I place the duvet over her like I used to do with Harper when she was younger. Back when my daughter respected me. Back when she would be happy to call me Dad. Now, she hardly calls me anything. She doesn’t even get angry with me. I hate it. Nothing’s more painful than indifference.
I stroke Natalie’s hair as she falls asleep and try to see the woman I met when we were young. She was always wild, but wild is okay in your youth. Your twenties are about self-exploration. But it gets to a point in your life when wild is no longer fun. Being a party animal becomes being an alcoholic. I always thought that, once I outgrew the night life, so would she.
Being a mother changed her initially. But not for long.
Then again, did it change her? Or was I just seeing what I wanted to see?
I would see her reading the parenting books when she was pregnant and smile, then convince myself I was mistaken when she snuck herself sips of vodka from the fridge. She would make my friends laugh during games night, then refill another glass of wine and make inappropriate, vulgar comments. She would look me in the eyes and tell me she loved me, and I would use those three words to cover up any evidence that showed otherwise.
So how did she become this? At what point did it go from bad to worse, and could I have done something to stop it?
Or was it always this bad, and I just couldn’t face up to it?
I leave the bedroom. Trudge down the stairs. The bleach is in the front of the cupboard for easy access. I take it, enter the porch, get on my hands and knees and scrub.
It’s beginning to rain, and I could probably leave it to the elements to clean the sick away — but I want to
be sure it’s gone. Harper can’t see this. I can’t let her.
Maybe things would be different if I’d been a better husband. Spent more time talking to Natalie instead of marking books. I always tried, but maybe I didn’t try hard enough.
Once I’m done, I hide the cleaning equipment away, and I squeeze handwash into my palms and hold them under the tap, watching the water cascade between the cracks of my fingers, turning them over and over. I do this four times. Always four, never more, never less. Four has always comforted me. I’m not sure why. When I was a child, there was me, my sister and my parents — four of us. It felt like a solid unit. Like we were impenetrable.
But now I’m in a family of three.
I make my way back upstairs and pause outside Harper’s room. There is no movement.
She hasn’t heard any of it.
I return to bed, and allow myself a few hours of light sleep.
3
Harper
I don’t move from beneath the duvet. It’s a double quilt on a single bed, and it’s the warmest thing in the house, and I’m safe in here.
Mum’s drunk again. I know it.
We never talk about it, but I know it.
I hear Dad shushing her, but he can do nothing to hide the chaotic steps up the stairs, pounding the ground like misplaced notes in a poorly written symphony. There is no rhythm to Mum’s steps when she’s drunk, only disorder.
It gets cooler when he goes outside. He seems to stay there for a while. I don’t know what he’s doing. I don’t hear the car leave, and I don’t hear the front door close, but I feel the cold it lets in.
Sometimes I pretend to have a normal family. We could still be dysfunctional, but in an endearing way, like families you see in sitcoms, like Malcolm in the Middle or The Simpsons, where their dysfunctionality makes them normal.
But our dysfunctionality is not normal. I never see anyone in these sitcoms with a mother who’s an alcoholic.
Never.
Sometimes I wonder what my friend’s families would be like, should I have any friends. I see other mums and dads on parent’s evening, sitting with their child. Sometimes I even see a dad with a notepad, writing stuff the teachers say down.
The only thing Dad ever brought to my parent’s evening was shame.
Eventually, I hear him plodding up the stairs, keeping his footsteps light, but unable to hide the sadness from the way he walks. I always know who’s coming up or down the stairs from the sound of their walk. Mum’s used to be with the clip clop of her slippers, and Dad’s used to be with a spritely bounce.
Now they are ominous, foreboding stamps, only Dad tries to lighten the impact of his.
He pauses outside my room. I don’t know what he’s doing, maybe checking if I’m awake, and I stay as still as I can.
Not that he’d hear me anyway, but I don’t take any chances.
Then the steps disappear, his bedroom door shuts, and the house is peaceful again.
This is the only time when the house is peaceful, and I often lay awake, relishing it. I get tired at school and my teachers get annoyed when they have to wake me up in class, but I’m not really bothered. There’s nothing that any of them can teach me that would make home more bearable.
At least I’m ignored, I suppose. It would be worse if Mum or Dad pretended to give a shit. I’d rather be left alone in my room, silent in our agreement that we don’t interfere with each other’s lives.
I think I’m better off alone. Sometimes I picture my future, and I have my own house, and I work alone at my own business, and I spend my weekends walking alone in a forest, maybe with a dog.
It’s a beautiful image.
It’s silent in this image, too.
And silence is something I often dread, yet am all too grateful for when it arrives.
4
Will
When my alarm goes, I’m already awake. To be honest, I’ve been awake for an hour, listening to my wife’s gentle snoring, appreciating the calmness. I’m tempted to put an arm around her, but I don’t; she is on her side, facing away from me, so I stay on my side of the bed like there’s an invisible wall between us.
I sit up and turn off the alarm.
“Honey,” I say with a hushed voice. “Honey, are you awake?”
She gives a slight groan.
“It’s morning. I’m going to make breakfast; would you like any?”
She ignores me.
“Honey?”
She still ignores me.
“I said, I’m going to make—”
“Fuck off.”
I wait for her to say something else. Sometimes she opens her eyes and complains about her hangover. A few years ago she even apologised. Now, however, she does nothing. Her eyes stay closed and she doesn’t move.
I’d like to say her reaction surprises me, but I’m not even phased by it.
I get up, walk quietly downstairs and into the kitchen. When Natalie’s hangovers are really bad, she doesn’t like to eat too much. No bacon or sausages or waffles; just toast. So that’s what I make her. Lightly browned, not too burnt, and with a thin layer of margarine. I return to the bedroom with said toast and a cup of black coffee, and set them on the table beside her.
“There’s some toast for you here,” I say, still with a hushed voice.
After waiting for a reaction that doesn’t come, I make my way into the ensuite, close the door, and masturbate silently in the shower. I think of Natalie on top of me, riding away, screaming with pleasure. The image is old and grainy now, and I’m not sure I can remember the contours of her body quite like I used to, but it’s enough to see me through to orgasm. Then I stand still until I’m limp and wash myself with soap. I used to use shower gel, but Natalie’s allergic.
My brown suit is hanging lifelessly in the cupboard. I put it on with a grey shirt and survey my ties. Each one is comical in some way; like the tie covered in hearts or the one with characters from Family Guy or the one covered in footballs. People always seem to buy me ties. Barely a birthday or Christmas goes by without it. It’s always my sister or my mum. It’s the present you get a man when you don’t know what else to get him.
Natalie used to give me a tie on anniversaries, but not so much anymore.
I choose a black one with red dots and glance back at Natalie. Her toast must have gone cold by now.
When I return to the kitchen, I find Harper sat at the counter making her way through a small bowl of Coco Pops.
“Good morning,” I say.
She glances up at me and grunts.
In a way, she is the ideal daughter. Unlike so many of the teenage girls I teach, she is happy to wear a skirt that goes down to her ankles, to carry around a big backpack, and to wear large glasses like the kind my dad used to wear in the nineties.
Then again, sometimes I wish she would rebel a bit more. Would be a bit more normal.
No, I don’t mean normal. That’s a horrible thing to say.
Just more…
Someone who fits in. Not for my sake, I don’t care that she’s an outcast — I just worry that she’s never going to make any friends. And I don’t mean the friends she makes online, when she sits on the computer for hours on those message boards; I mean real friends. She has never asked to go to a sleepover, or for me to drop her into town to meet someone, or if she could go to a party. If she came home drunk one night, I’d probably be grateful she had someone to get drunk with.
Then again, maybe I should be grateful she has so little of her mother in her.
“Would you like a lift to school?” I ask.
“No thanks.”
“Are you sure? I don’t mind, you don’t have to walk—”
“I said no thanks.”
Sometimes I wonder where I went wrong. When did I mess up my marriage so badly, and what did I do to make my daughter hate me?
At least I’m trying.
“Would you like me to pick you up at least?”
“I said no.”
/>
“I really don’t mind.”
She doesn’t look up.
“Okay. Right, well, have a good day. I will see you this evening.”
I smile at her, though she won’t see it, and I take the box of books I was supposed to mark and make my way to my plain grey Mitsubishi Mirage. The gear stick gets stuck as I try to move into reverse, but a little force helps, and I back down the drive of a house I bought ten years ago with all the love and aspiration a family man could ask for, and ignore the overgrown weeds that surround it.
5
Harper
A lift.
He offers me a lift.
Like a dad would.
Like it makes up for anything.
I want to say to him, “Why are you so pathetic? Why do you pretend that you can lift your head up high? Why don’t you admit what you are?”
But I don’t.
Mum already tells him. I hear her, sometimes. When they think I’m asleep, or not listening, or when I have my headphones in but my music off.
They think I hear nothing, but I hear everything.
When I’m around, they don’t talk, like they think the silence spares me the arguments, but the silence is even worse. At least when they are arguing there’s passion behind it; when they are silent, it’s like they are dead.
He finally leaves and he finally stops talking to me, and I drag myself to the front door, hoisting a bag full of books and folders over my shoulders, and make my way out. I see my reflection in the window, and the weight of my bag is making me hunch over. I don’t know how everyone else at school manages with their little handbags or tiny rucksacks.
Then again, they are the ones who always ask to borrow a pen, because they don’t bring anything with them in those tiny bags. And it’s always me they ask.
I approach the school and it’s full of eyes and full of faces and I try not to look at any of them. Some people laugh and I don’t understand how they can enjoy being here so much. As soon as I am among the crowds of students wearing the same school uniform, I feel like I’m in the middle of a zoo and surrounded by predators.
