Because I'm Disposable (3 page)

Chapter Five

All weekend.
I waited the entire weekend for Link to show up to ‘hang out’. I tried to pretend I was keeping busy, reading, or cleaning, or anything else that might keep my mother and Corrine from noticing how much I was anticipating spending time with Link. And how disappointed I was that he didn’t call or come over.

By Sunday afternoon, I’d given up pretending and had confined myself to the bean bag chair under my bedroom window. I wasn’t trying to stare out at Link’s house; it was just a coincidence that the window faced that way. At least that’s what I told myself while I sat there with the saddest playlist I could find streaming on the computer.

I should have known he wouldn’t come over, wouldn’t even bother to call. I was foolish to think he was being anything other than polite when he implied he wanted to spend time with me.

Despite my certainty that he wasn’t coming over, I still got a little thrill in the pit of my stomach when he stepped out of his house late in the afternoon. The moment was short-lived, though, as he headed for the side of his house and disappeared around the corner, only to reappear a minute later with a push lawn mower. He wasn’t on his way over, because apparently, even cutting the grass was preferable to being around me.

I felt a little voyeuristic, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away as he steered the mower to the edge of his lawn. My gaze was absolutely glued to him when he shrugged out of his shirt and tossed it toward the driveway. It fluttered gracefully down onto the concrete slab, the white cotton contrasting with the grey surface.

Link shirtless was a sight to behold. He was tan and toned, muscular in all the right places, lean in all the rest. His denim shorts hung low on his hips, revealing a hint of black boxer briefs. Muscles flexed and rippled as he bent to pull the starter on the mower. It took him a few tries to get it started, but once he did, he took off, clearing a strip of grass the length of his yard and swinging around to make a pass the other direction.

With the afternoon sun beating down on him, that delicious tan was only going to improve. In no time, his skin was glistening with sweat. I knew I shouldn’t be watching him mow the lawn, or at least I shouldn’t be enjoying it so much. Especially not after he’d blown me off. But there was no denying Link was nice to look at. I really had been missing out not paying attention to him all these years.

Link made short work of cutting the lawn, and then proceeded to do the best thing I’d ever seen. He jogged over to the garden hose, turned the knob, and held the stream of water directly over his head. I got up on my knees, practically pressing my face against the glass to get a better look. Water sluiced over him like a dream, soaking his hair and streaming down over his shoulders, his chest, turning the light denim of his shorts dark. As he used his free hand to spread the water, rubbing it into his skin and washing the dirt and sweat away, I was so glad I’d ignored my instincts to not watch him.

I made a slow perusal of his body, taking in the sinew, the musculature, the shadows and peaks of his abs and chest. Then I moved up: up to his full lips, open to capture some of the liquid pouring down his face; up to his eyes, closed in rapture. His eyes opened. And speared me.

I couldn’t move for a moment, just stayed pinned to the spot, locked in a staring contest with him. I’d been caught spying. My stomach tumbled in mortification, and my heart raced into oblivion. What must have been a hundred years later, I recovered control over my limbs and ducked down below the windowsill. Ugh
… I would never be able to face Link again.

* * * * *

I had trouble sleeping that night. My dreams were extreme and disjointed, and I tossed and turned most of the night away. Sleep was unpleasant from the outset, with my very first dream being a half-memory, half-imagination quasi-nightmare that started with me walking into English class my first day back at school after attempting to quit life.

I slid into the room unnoticed and took the seat in the far back corner, next to Link. The room was darker than usual, like half the fluorescents bulbs overhead were out, and the air had a murky quality, like I was seeing through stagnant lake water. He didn’t spare me a glance, just stared with intent at a notebook open on his desk. The bell rang, and Mrs. Fields clapped her hands to gain the students’ attention.

“Today, class, we’re going to read from one anothers’ journals. Mr. Devaux will read first, from Callista Tanner’s writings. Lincoln …” The hand she held out in invitation to Link was knobby-knuckled and little more than wrinkled skin and bone.

Link moved with purpose to the podium. He had that notebook clutched tightly under one arm. I couldn’t tell for sure, but there might have been a paisle
y design on the dark blue cover, almost like Corrine’s diary. When he set it on the wood stand, he looked in my direction, but it was like he was looking over me, around me, through me. Then he read.

“Daddy clocked me with Mom’s favorite vase tonight. The green one with the hand-painted roses on the front. He threw it at me because I forgot to vacuum the living room rug today. It didn’t break when it hit me, but it shattered into a thousand pieces when it fell to the floor.”

Dear God. That had actually happened. Why were my words, my story, in Corrine’s diary? How did Link know? And now he was telling the entire class.

Link continued, “I knew I was in for it the second the porcelain cracked against the oak floor. Why couldn’t we have had carpeting instead? Daddy’s face swelled with anger and turned an almost-shade of purple. I didn’t need to wait around to find out what he was going to do next. I already knew. So, I took off through the house as though the devil himself was after me. In a way, he was.”

Every word that Link read from that horrible book, that journal I didn’t write—wouldn’t write in a million years—it all tore through my mind, cutting into me the way the pieces of that broken vase had cut into my bare feet when I’d stepped on them trying to get away.

I wanted Link to stop, wanted to leap from my seat, rip that notebook away from him, and tear it to shreds with my bare hands. But I couldn’t move. Some invisible force was holding me immobile in my seat, forcing me to relive that terrifying night.

He read on. “I don’t know why I thought I could hide from him in the basement. He was right behind me on the stairs, and the minute I was back on solid ground, he slammed into me, knocking me into the washing machine.”

Pain sliced through my shoulder, where it had connected with the washer that night, and radiated out into my neck and down my spine.

“Then, he was even angrier that I’d dented the metal. He backhanded me, knocking me into the dryer. Thank God I didn’t dent that too …”

A phantom blow slammed into my cheek, the same way my father’s slap had caught me. Twice more, Link read about the abuse my father had inflicted on me that night
—and twice more, I physically felt it, as if it were being inflicted right at that moment.

Finally, I found my voice. “Stop! Please, stop!” I cried at the top of my lungs, but the sound was barely more than a faraway squeal, an echo of sound.

That tiny voice was all that was needed, apparently, because Link immediately stopped reading, and everyone in the classroom except us disappeared, fading into nothingness. The room shrank to a fraction of its true size, until Link was standing a few feet in front of me. He skirted the podium to kneel at my side. I wasn’t paralyzed anymore, was able to turn to him.

Link swept his thumb over the corner of my lip, and when he pulled his hand back, it was streaked with crimson. I stuck my tongue out, pressing it to the crease where my top lip met my bottom. The taste was tangy, metallic. My phantom injury was bleeding. Tears welled in my eyes, and I couldn’t hold them back.

“Shhh,” Link whispered as he wrapped gentle arms around me and pressed my face against his shoulder. “It’s okay, Callie. I’m here.”

Yes, he was here. But was he reopening old wounds I’
d thought were healed?

I woke in a cold sweat, hoping morning was near enough that I wouldn’t have to go back to sleep. But it was
only 12:43. From that point on until morning, the clock became my arch nemesis.

Chapter Six

Somewhere around four a.m. I gave up on sleep.
If I had to lay in that bed for one minute longer, with nothing but the sound of Corrine’s soft snores and my own hard thoughts for company, I was going to come undone. As if I wasn’t unravelling already.

I slipped off the bed and crept down to the living room. I settled into the corner of our threadbare couch and reached for the TV remote. A few minutes of channel-surfing proved that the only thing on at this hour were infomercials and reruns of westerns from when my grandmother was a kid. I didn’t last more than three minutes watching Gunsmoke before I scrambled for the remote and switched over to the shopping network.

I must have nodded off, into blissfully dreamless sleep, because one minute I was watching the Jewelry Extravaganza and the next, Corrine was standing over me, the first dawning rays of sunlight peeking through the blinds to play in the chestnut waves of hair hanging over her shoulders.

“Hey Cal, I’m off to school. I left you some cinnamon toast and O.J. here.” She motioned toward the coffee table, then patted my shoulder affectionately. “Love you.” And she was gone, the front door clicking shut behind her.

I sat up and rubbed stiff fingers over bleary eyes. The insides of my eyelids scratched like sandpaper. Sleep—what little I’d managed to get—had fogged my mind, and I was having trouble shaking off the vestiges of cloudy lethargy.

The small bit of light seeping in the window was momentarily blocked out by Corrine’s shadow as she passed in front of the house on her way to the bus stop. I reached up, pried two of the vertical blinds apart with gentle fingers, and watched my sister jog to the corner where a handful of other teens loitered, waiting for the bus. I felt a twinge of something I didn’t want to define. Part of me really wanted to be out there with the other kids, acting like a normal teenager, pretending I wasn’t the walking catastrophe I’d become.

Link was there, with Sylvie Moss. They were talking, laughing; she was touching his arm with her perfectly manicured French tips. And I was ticked. I shouldn’t be, but I was. I tried to tell myself that it was about Sylvie—perfect, pixie-petite and fashionably-blue-eyed, brunette Sylvie—and not about Link talking to another girl. I didn’t have a claim on him; he’d made that clear when he stood me up this weekend. Would he have shown up if I was a girly-girl like Sylvie? Would he show more interest in me if I wore short skirts and tall heels like her?

I lowered my gaze to my tattered, used-to-be-black sweats. I bet Sylvie would never be caught dead in something so horrific. Suddenly, I wasn’t sleepy anymore. I was practically manic, ruled by the need for change, to cast off my literal and proverbial rags and become something fresh and new. I didn’t need a makeover. I needed a reinvention.

I nabbed a piece of the toast Corrine had left for me, stuffing it into my mouth in two bites and chasing it with the entire glass of orange juice. Then, I practically flew up the stairs, into my room, directly to the closet.

Screw this. Screw being pretty. I wasn’t pretty, not inside or outside. Even my clothes were plain-Jane boring. I’d always valued comfort over aesthetics, but at some point, I’d stopped trying to even try to look decent.
Covering the bruises was more important than keeping up with fashion. I ripped my closet doors open, nearly tearing the flimsy bi-folds right off the track, and stood back to survey my wardrobe. Baggy tees and a whole lot of denim.

Before I even registered what I was doing, I began pulling hanger after hanger out of the closet and tossing my clothes into a pile on the floor. In minutes, I was through all the clothes I actually wore and had reached the ones I never touched. I pulled out a small, black tank with a skull and crossbones etched across the front in red rhinestones. I’d forgotten all about this top, the one Corrine had given me as a joke for my sixteenth birthday. Because she knew Dad would hate it.

Now, I was actually considering wearing it. To spite my father, to spite myself for not being as brave as Corrine—to break every mold I’d tried so desperately to fit myself into my entire life. I reached an arm up over my shoulder and tugged my two-sizes-too-large, smoke-grey T-shirt over my head, dropping it onto the mountain of clothes at my feet. I slipped the skull tank on in its place.

Next, I traded my faded sweat pants for a pair of skin-tight skinny jeans from Corrine’s side of the closet. She probably wouldn’t notice they were missing, since she had at least three more pairs just like them.

I took three steps toward the door to survey myself in the full-length mirror hanging behind it. Disappointment set in the instant my reflection was visible. I’d been expecting something momentous, but I looked the same. My clothes might have been a far cry from my norm, but the person underneath hadn’t changed a bit. I still had the same flat, blonde hair, the same pale skin and sparse collection of tiny freckles. I still had my father’s slate-grey eyes with their tear-drop shape and pale lashes. My legs were still too long, my breasts too small. I didn’t want to be this person anymore, this reflection of a person I couldn’t stand.

I went to my desk for a pair of scissors and took them with me to sit on the floor in front of t
hat mirror. All that pale hair—long enough to brush my waistband in the back--had to go. Before I could lose my nerve, I lifted the scissors next to my chin and snipped off a sizable chunk. The severed strands fluttered to the ground next to me, and I barely spared a glance for the hair I’d spent the last four years growing. Instead, I turned the scissors over and over in my hands. My furniture, walls, and ceiling reflected off the metal at sharp angles, and I wondered if the edges of the blades would be just as sharp. Would they cut me as easily as they had sliced through my hair?

I opened them wide and set the business side against the soft flesh on the underside of my forearm
, just a few inches from the narrow scab peeling away to reveal a shiny, blush-colored scar. The skin around the blade turned white from the pressure. I let up just the tiniest bit and dragged the scissors toward my wrist.

The skin didn’t break.

I started over, pressed harder, tried again. This time, my skin split in jagged, layers of epithelial flakes, and it stung like a bitch. But I still hadn’t managed to draw more than a few pinpricks of blood—so little that as soon as I wiped it away, the evidence was gone. I gave up and returned my attention to my hair.

* * * * *

Half an hour later, my hair was boy-short and as jagged-edged as that pseudo-cut on my arm. I surveyed my new look for a few minutes, trying to get used to it, but I had a gnawing feeling that it was still lacking. The color had to go. I checked the clock.

7:06 am. Mom wouldn’t be home for at least an hour.

I slipped into a pair of sandals and trudged across the landing and into my mother’s room. She’d go straight to bed when she got home from work, so probably wouldn’t notice money was missing from her sock drawer until this evening, at the earliest. But it didn’t matter; she wouldn’t confront me about it even if she had undeniable proof. Dad had trained her well to avoid confrontation of any kind.

Her top dresser drawer creaked when I opened it, and I froze for a minute before it occurred to me that there was no one around to catch me stealing her sock money. I dug behind the precisely-folded socks, to the very back, unt
il my hand closed around an old pill bottle. Mom had been quite an amateur photographer in her day. Before Dad.

My eyes bugged when I opened the tube and poured the roll o
f bills out into my hand—there had to be at least a thousand bucks there. It’s a good thing Dad hadn’t known about Mom’s little stash.

I pulled out a wad of twenties and slid the rest of the money back in. Then I slipped the container back into position behind the socks and eased the drawer shut. Counting the bills proved I’d managed to swipe one hundred, twenty dollars. I folded my pilfered money and slipped it into my back pocket. That would see me through for a while.

As I left the room, a picture on the dresser caught my eye—my mother, pregnant with Corrine, was holding one-year-old me. My father was behind her with his arms wrapped lovingly around her waist. He was adoring, and she and I were grinning. Fifteen years later, our happy little family was a giant cluster-bomb of dysfunction. Funny how things turn out.