What Unbreakable Looks Like

by Kate McLaughlin

  Is she judging me? “Because I wanted to.” I lean back against the bench. We’re at a neighborhood park with the dogs, who are lying in the sun after exhausting themselves. A slight breeze drifts through my hair and cools the back of my neck.

  “Was it any good?”

  I laugh. “It was okay.”

  She turns her head toward me. “He didn’t force you, did he?”

  “No.” I shrug. “I wanted to. It felt right.” Now I wonder if it was wrong.

  “Okay.”

  “What’s the problem?” I demand.

  “Nothing.” She shakes her head. “I’m surprised, that’s all. I assumed you didn’t like sex after what happened to you.”

  “It’s just sex,” I say. “Sometimes it’s nice.”

  She looks at me, but I can’t read her expression. “Yeah, well, what do I know? I don’t do penises.”

  I laugh. “He wants to hang out Friday night.”

  “You’re on the pill, right?”

  She sounds concerned. “Yeah. Don’t worry, Mom. He used a rubber.”

  “I don’t want you to be taken advantage of.”

  “I can take care of myself.” I sigh. “That was bitchy. Sorry.”

  “I know you can take care of yourself, but you’re my friend, and I’m allowed to worry about you, so fuck off.” She smiles.

  I smile back, but I seem to have developed a habit of losing friends. First Ivy and then Sarah …

  “You okay?” Elsa asks.

  “Yeah. But we should probably get home. Krys will have dinner ready soon.” As we stand, so do the dogs. The adults get up quicker than the puppies, who look at us with sleepy eyes.

  Elsa gives me a hug when we reach my house. My house. That seems so weird. I hug her back. I’m getting better at it.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she says. I watch her and the dogs as they walk back down the drive. She is my friend. My only friend. Mike is just a boy. There will always be boys and men. I need to remember that.

  After dinner, the phone rings. I hear Krys say, “She’s not here. Can I take a message?” Jamal and I exchange glances.

  “Who was that?” he asks when she returns to the table.

  A small frown puckers the skin between her eyebrows. “Do you know someone named Ivy?” she asks me.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I used to. Why?”

  “That was her. She said she got the phone number from your mom and the two of you are friends?”

  “That was her at the hospital,” I explain, heart pounding. “The one who left.”

  Krys nods. She’s still frowning. “She left her number.”

  “Can I call her?” Why is she still using the name Ivy? Why not her real name? Unless she’s back in the life?

  Her gaze locks with mine. “Is it safe for you to be in contact with her?”

  “Yeah. Ivy wouldn’t do anything to hurt me.” She doesn’t look convinced. “I won’t tell her where I am.” We both know how easy it would be for her to find the address anyway.

  “Okay.” Krys slides a small piece of paper across the table to me. “I trust you, but I don’t trust her, so be careful, all right? And call her from the house phone. I don’t want her to have your cell.”

  I nod, snatching up the paper like it’s gold, or pills.

  After dinner, I grab the cordless and take it up to my room. I punch in the number on the paper and wait, like, forever as it rings.

  “Yeah?”

  “Ivy?”

  “Poppy! My favorite bitch. How the fuck you doin’?”

  “Who you callin’ bitch?” I grin. “I’m good. You?”

  “Hangin’ in. Look, we need to get together.”

  We do? Doesn’t she want to know what I’ve been doing? I want to know what she’s been doing, how she is. Where she is.

  “Can you meet me tomorrow?” she asks. “There’s a park by the high school. You know it?”

  “Yeah.” How does she?

  “Meet me there at three.”

  “Iv—” But she’s already hung up.

  I sit there, on my bed, staring at the phone. A worm of uncertainty—dread—coils in my stomach. I dial another number. The worm squirms.

  “Detective Willis.”

  “It’s Lex,” I say.

  “Honey, is everything okay?”

  “Ivy called me. I’m not sure how she got the number, but she wants to meet tomorrow.” Actually, I’m pretty sure she got the number from Mitch, who I’m sure got it from my mother. “I think she might be setting me up.”

  “Tell me when and where.” After I do, she says, “I’ll be close by, okay? I’ll be there with you.”

  “Okay.”

  Krys knocks on my door. I tell Detective Willis I need to go and hang up.

  “Everything all right?” my aunt asks.

  I tell her what Ivy wanted, and that Detective Willis is going to be there.

  She shakes her head. “No. I don’t want you to do this. It could be dangerous. What if he’s there?”

  She means Mitch. “Then they can arrest him.”

  “You’re not going. Give me the phone. I’m going to call Marianne and tell her you’re not doing it.”

  I hold the phone tight in my hand. “No. I’m going to do it.”

  Her eyes are damp and wide. “If he hurts you…”

  “He won’t.” I can’t promise that, obviously, but what’s another lie on top of all the others I’ve told? “I want to do this. I want to stop him from doing what he did to me to someone else.” And if I talk about it or think about it too much I’ll change my mind. I’ll chicken out, I know I will. Because as much as I want revenge, I don’t want to hurt him.

  That’s how I win her over—I can see it in her eyes and how her shoulders sag. “Fine. But I’m going to be there too.”

  I don’t want her anywhere near Mitch, but I can’t tell her no, not after convincing her to let me go. “Please stay out of sight.”

  She nods, and I give her the phone.

  “It’s just me meeting a friend in the park,” I tell her. “Not a firing squad. It’ll be okay.”

  She smiles and touches my hair. “Brave girl.”

  Stupid girl, more like it. It doesn’t matter how many times or how many people tell me it’s not my fault, I’m the one who made the decisions that got me here. Ivy and I both got ourselves into the life. But maybe—just maybe—I can get Ivy out.

  * * *

  He came at me slowly, gently. It wasn’t like I met him one day and was working for him the next. No, Mitch slithered into my life like a snake with an apple, offering me the most delicious bite.

  And I was dumb enough to take it.

  “I got you something,” he said to me one night, and handed me a small box. Inside were the prettiest earrings I’d ever seen. They sparkled under the light.

  “Diamond,” he said. “You deserve to shine.”

  “Mitch,” my mother said. “You’re too generous.”

  He smiled at her and handed her a bottle of Southern Comfort.

  His gifts weren’t always this expensive—sometimes he showed up with iTunes gift cards. Once he came by with a pair of sneakers I’d been drooling over. Said a friend of his had a connection. They were expensive, but I didn’t care because I’d wanted them.

  It never occurred to me he was setting me up. Never occurred to me he had any reason to be nice to me other than being nice.

  It didn’t take long for me to start crushing.

  One night, he showed up at the apartment while Mom was passed out and Frank was gone. “Have you eaten?” he asked.

  I shook my head. I didn’t tell him we didn’t have any food. Mom and Frank drank their calories when they were on a binge.

  “Come on. I’m taking you out.”

  I expected McDonald’s, not a nice place like the one he took me to.

  “Get whatever you want,” he said. “Price doesn’t matter.”

  I got steak, and dessert after. We walked aroun
d town. He held my hand.

  It was after ten when he dropped me off at the apartment. “I had a really nice time,” he said.

  “Me too.”

  He leaned over and kissed me. My heart jumped into my throat. I’d never been kissed like that before.

  I didn’t see him for a few days after that, then he stopped by and told me he’d gotten tickets for a concert that coming weekend.

  “Want to go?” he asked.

  I looked at Mom. She sat slouched in a chair, a glass cradled in her lap. “I don’t fucking care,” she slurred.

  The concert was in New York. Madison Square Garden. Mitch got us hotel rooms for the night. It was amazing.

  I was in my room getting ready for bed when he knocked on the connecting door. He came in with a bottle of wine and two glasses. I got tipsy. Hell, I was pretty drunk. When he kissed me, I didn’t stop him. When he touched me, I didn’t stop him. I didn’t want him to stop. He made me feel things I’d never felt before.

  It was him who taught me how to give blowjobs. He taught me that night. Only he didn’t pull my hair or push on the back of my head. Not that time, anyway.

  “You’re so good at that, sweetheart,” he said. “You make me feel so good.”

  His mouth was all over me. His hands too. By the time he slipped between my legs, I was practically begging him for it. It hurt, but just for a bit. He kept doing things to make it better, kept whispering in my ear. Things like, “Sweet baby girl. You’re so beautiful. So perfect.”

  We showered together afterward. He went down on me to make up for the fact that I hadn’t come during sex. We spent the night in my hotel room bed, and the next morning we had sex again before going to breakfast and driving home.

  By then, I was in love with him.

  I’m not sure my mother even noticed when I started spending more time at Mitch’s house than I did at home. She certainly didn’t care I was missing school. Meanwhile, he kept buying me gifts and treating me like his queen.

  A month or two into our “relationship” he turned to me. “Baby girl, you’d do anything for me, wouldn’t you?”

  “You know I would,” I told him. “I love you.”

  He looked away. “No. I can’t do it.”

  My heart skipped a terrified beat. “Do what?” Was he going to leave me?

  There was pain in his gaze. “I can’t ask you to help me.”

  “Mitch, I’ll do anything.” The words he’d been waiting to hear.

  “I owe money, baby girl. To a guy who isn’t very nice. He’s threatening to hurt me.”

  I was so scared, I started shaking. “What can I do?”

  “He says he’ll forget the debt if you…” He turned his head. “If you have sex with him.”

  Oh my God. “What?”

  “He’s seen how sexy and beautiful you are and he wants you. Just once.” He took my hands in his. “I hate asking you. I don’t want to share you, but you’d be saving my life, sweetheart.”

  That’s all it took—at least that’s how I remember it. Mitch gave me some pills to make it easier, before he presented me to the man. He was a big guy with a gut and a unibrow. His breath smelled like garlic as he panted on top of me, drops of sweat dripping onto my chest and stomach. It was horrible, but it was over fast, and Mitch was so thankful that it was worth it.

  A week later it happened again with another guy, another life-threatening reason. More pills. It wasn’t long after that he took me to the motel and told me I needed to repay him for all he’d done for me.

  “No,” I said. “I’m not doing it anymore.”

  That was the first time he hit me. “You’re breaking my heart,” he said. “Why are you doing this to me?” It was all my fault. So, I did it. He took photos and put them on Stall313.com. He changed my name. After that it was a fairly steady stream of men in and out of my bed. A steady stream of pills and E and whatever else he made us take. A steady stream of humiliation and violence and being treated like I wasn’t a person.

  There was one guy who was amazed that I could speak because I asked him to get off me.

  I guess by then Frank had told my mother I was living with Mitch. I don’t know if she even cared. It didn’t really matter. I had already discovered the escape hatch in my mind. Still, I was proud when Mitch complimented me, when he told me I was a good girl—that I was his favorite. I believed the lies, until one day I didn’t believe them anymore. I knew what they were.

  I do have to thank Mitch for one thing, though. He taught me a valuable lesson: What people say doesn’t mean shit. It’s what they do that counts.

  * * *

  I leave the house first just in case anyone’s watching. I leave Isis at home. It feels weird to walk and not have her leash, or Cleo’s, in my hand. Vulnerable. But I don’t want my sweet dog anywhere near the life I used to have. She’s better than that.

  It’s an overcast day, humid and sticky. My T-shirt clings to my back and my scalp is damp. Gross, but fairly typical for Connecticut.

  School’s let out for the day, and small groups of kids around my age walk together, backpacks jostling. They talk and laugh as though they don’t have any problems, except for the one guy who shuffles along a few feet behind one of the groups. He looks like he has a lot of problems. Is that going to be me come September? The sad loser walking by herself?

  “Hey.”

  I turn my head just in time to avoid walking right into Zack. Fuck me. What if he’d been Mitch? My heart starts to panic just thinking about it.

  “Hey.”

  “You okay?” he asks with a frown.

  I focus on his chest and how his T-shirt pulls across it. He’s big for a seventeen-year-old, isn’t he? He seems big to me. Was his father a giant? “Yep. You?”

  “Sure.” He drawls it out way longer than it needs to be. “Where you off to?”

  I gesture up the street. “The park.”

  “Want company?”

  “No.” He looks hurt. “I’m meeting someone.”

  “Right.” His lips twist a little—it’s not quite a smile, but not really a smirk. “Mike?”

  “Uh, no. Look, I gotta go.” I start to walk by him.

  “Your dealer?”

  I turn. “What?”

  His hands are in his shorts pockets as he shrugs. “Are you buying drugs?”

  “What the fuck business is it of yours if I am?” I demand, stepping closer—right in his face. “Do I look like a fucking junkie to you?”

  “No, you look scared.”

  I am scared. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.” I brush past him and keep walking, and I don’t look back even though I want to. He doesn’t say anything else, and he doesn’t try to stop me. I’m a little disappointed even as I’m relieved.

  The park isn’t much. It’s the same one Elsa and I bring the dogs to sometimes. It’s small with a couple of walking paths through it, a few benches, picnic tables, and a small playground. A woman and a toddler are at the swings as I walk toward the girl sitting on top of one of the tables. Her hair is stringy, her roots dark. She’s thinner than the last time I saw her, and puffing on a vape pod. She’s got fresh scars on her right arm, I notice as I get closer.

  “Bitch, that’s my table,” I say in a gruff voice.

  Ivy’s head whips around. She’s wearing huge sunglasses that almost cover her black eye, but there’s no concealing her grin. “Poppy!”

  It feels like a code name now—not real. Like I’m a spy or something. A secret me. She jumps off the table and throws herself on me in a fierce, tight hug. Funny, I don’t hesitate to hug her back, even though she smells like dirty laundry and BO.

  “Bitch, I missed you!” she cries when she pulls back. She puts the pod in her pocket.

  “I missed you too. Nice kicks.” The Nikes had to have cost a few hundred. She can’t afford shampoo, but she can afford those?

  “Thanks. They were a present.” She lifts her eyebrows, and I know exactly what kind of present they
were. Probably stolen, as if that matters. Ivy doesn’t care.

  “Someone needs to gift you with some deodorant,” I tell her before I can stop myself. We were always brutally honest with each other at the motel.

  She lifts her arm and sniffs. “Fuck me,” she gasps, making a face. “I smell like ass!” She laughs. I don’t.

  I used to be this. Strung out, dirty, thinking I’m all bougie and shit, despite stinking and looking like hell.

  “Who hit you?” I ask.

  Ivy takes off her sunglasses so I get a good look at the purple puffiness that is her eye. “Who do you think?” she asks.

  “The same guy who bought you those sneakers.” Mitch always likes to make grand apologies.

  She grins. “You look good, Pop. I wouldn’t have known you at first.”

  “Thanks. What’s going on, Ivy? Where’ve you been?”

  “With friends. You know. Rosie says hi.”

  Bitterness spreads across my tongue, even though I expected it. There’s only one way she could be hanging out with Rose, his most obedient of girls. “Where is he?”

  “He who?” comes a new voice. I stiffen, but I can’t just stand there with my back to him. I turn slowly.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” I demand. I would have preferred Mitch, I really would.

  Frank smiles. He’s got a gold tooth in front that he loves showing off. “Why, I brought Ivy here to see you, doll.”

  He might have been good looking once, but he’s heroin-ripped and tanned like leather. His brown hair is slicked back, or maybe just greasy. He’s so skinny, I can see the muscles under his cheek move when he talks.

  “Come with us,” Ivy pleads. “Mitch wants to see you. He wants you back.”

  I knew it was a setup, but the fact that she’s trying to play me still hurts. She let him use her against me. “No.”

  Frank’s smile fades. He really is a mean son of a bitch. I wish I had Cleo with me—I’d let her use him as a chew toy. “It wasn’t a request, girl. Mitch’s got a lot of money invested in you, and you ain’t earned out yet.” That’s a lie and we both know it. I never owed Mitch anything. You don’t pay back “gifts.”

  “Fuck you.” My voice is strong despite how I’m trembling. I shake my head. “I’m out of here.”