Bleed (12 page)

“Sadie!” she yells again. I can tell she’s right outside the closet door now. “I know you’re in there. Come out NOW! Or I’ll make you come out.”

I don’t do anything. I can’t. My chest is going in and out so fast it’s hard to breathe.

“Fine!” She slides the door open so that it slams into the pocket like one of Dad’s eight balls. She grabs my arm, covered in armor. “Take your thumb out of your mouth. You’re not a baby anymore.”

I think I’m going to faint, but then I cry out—one long, loud wail.

She pulls me to my feet. I hold the armor to my face for as long as I can before she tugs it away. But still I don’t look at her. I’m just crying and my foot starts hurting. She pulled too hard.

“You are grounded!”
she shouts. I can hear the clench of her venomous teeth. “No playing with friends. No going to the park. No
TV.
No snacks.”

“NO!” I cry back.

“I want
you
to go into the kitchen NOW and put the freezer back the way you found it. Did you eat anything?”

“No!”

“Are you lying to me?”

“No!”

“If you’re lying to me, I’ll know. Everyone will know tonight when you go weigh in. They’re going to be so disappointed in you.”

I feel sick. I feel like I can’t breathe, like there’s glass stuck in my chest, like all the doors are slamming in my head. And my ankle and foot are aching, all the way up my leg. “I don’t feel good,” I say. “My achilles tendon hurts.” I bend my leg to get the weight off it.

“Too bad.”

“No,” I cry. “You hurt it.”

Mom grabs me by the arm and pinches my skin. “Pick up the junk food. NOW!” she shouts.

I do, but it’s hard to fit it all in my arms. I keep dropping bags of Doritos. There’s a Twinkie behind the door. Mom doesn’t see it and I don’t point it out.

She drags me down the hallway, past Hideous Ginger and her point-taking clone, Cheryl, and into the kitchen.

“Thanks for stealing my key, thief,” Ginger says. She opens the Pringles, takes out a three-stack, inserts them into her smiley mouth, and chews and chews and chews. “Yummy, yummy. Want one, Cheryl?” Ginger holds the container out to Cheryl, but Cheryl just looks at me and shakes her head.

I hate Ginger
so
much. So much I want to just rip her eyes out and feed them to one of Dracula’s pet rats.

The kitchen’s too bright. The light stings my eyes. I try to keep them shut, but Mom grabs my face and makes me look. The freezer door is open: a bunch of frozen stuff is lying on the ground. It must have toppled out.

She pulls me by the arm over to the sink and makes me open up all the Twinkies and Doritos. I stand on the step stool and collect it all into a nice little mound, the Twinkies at the bottom, across the hole so they don’t fall in, the Doritos on the top and sides like a sandcastle.

“Now turn the faucet on.”

I choose the hot water and watch it drill down into my snacks, making them fall apart and plop into the hole. Mom turns on the garbage disposal and it eats everything up, even lets out a burp in the end.

“Not so appetizing now, is it?” she says.

I shake my head, and the steam from the burp rises up through the hole to kiss my face. What a waste!

“Now I want you to rearrange the freezer—put everything back exactly the way you found it. Hear me?”

“Can I help her?” Nina asks. She’s peeking at me from the hallway.

“NO!” Mom says. “Go play in your room. Tell Douglas to call his mother to pick him up.”

“How come Cheryl gets to stay?” Nina asks.

But Mom doesn’t answer. She grabs a picture off the fridge, a heart that Nina drew, flips it over, grabs the dry-erase marker from the board, and writes—
PLEASE DO NOT FEED SADIE. SHE IS A BAD GIRL WHO CHEATS ON HER DIET
. Then she staples it to my front, over Tinker Bell’s face. I’m crying now, so hard I wish I was dead. I wish I would just die.

Mom ignores my crying and heads to her room—I’m sure—to change into her stupid red-and-white candy-cane aerobics leotard. Nina stomps down the hallway and slams her door shut, leaving Douglas to sit by himself in the living room.

And now I’m all alone in the kitchen. I pause to pluck out a nub of lashes, but when I look down, see a smear of watery blood on my fingertips. I touch the lid to be sure. More blood. And the skin feels sore and puffy. At first I feel myself shaking. Feel my heart break up into bits of splintery glass. But then I close my eyes and tell myself to relax, to be strong. There’s bound to be bloodshed at this level. What’s important is that I finish the game.

I grab a couple Reynolds Wrapped packages and throw them into the garbage. Then I remember Mom and Dad’s cake sitting at the back of the freezer. It goes next.

Feeling a little better, I blot at my eye with a napkin, grab my magic whip, and sneak down the stairs. I open the front door as quietly as I can, careful not to disturb any of the wakeful beasts of the lair. I scooch myself through the crack and out the screen door.

And now I’m out. I’m free. I’ve won this level.

I run across the driveway and down the street as fast as I can. Away. I know I’ll get in trouble later. I know I’ve probably used up all my magic meter. That I’ll probably be grounded for a month and have to wear this stupid sign pinned to my clothes for the next year, but at least it’s not the pig nose, and at least I got that ice cream.

S
ATURDAY
, A
UGUST
12, 11:20
A.M
. W
EST
C
OAST TIME
, 2:20
P.M
. E
AST
C
OAST TIME

This is just a little too real for me.

I
did
love you. Just not anymore.

I’m sorry, Robby.

I
can see her running down the sidewalk, that yellow sundress whipping up in the back with each stride. But I can’t chase after her. I won’t. Even if it kills me. I will sit here and count as high as it takes, will picture a boy and his dad flying kites by the seashore, but I will not go after her. Will not beg her forgiveness for whatever I did wrong:
Should I have brought flowers? A poem? Maybe I shouldn’t have hugged her like that right away.
I will not force her to listen to my side. I clench my fingernails into the vinyl booth seat and promise myself this over and over. And over. Until I can finally take normal breaths.

With a glass of ice water, I swallow down the image of Kelly running away from the diner, away from me, and I’m able to unclench my fingernails. I think I’m sweating, that it’s visible all over my face. I take a napkin from the dispenser and wipe at my forehead and the back of my neck. The waitress, a pudgy, pimply, straight-out-of-band-practice misfit, is looking at me weird, like she’s scared for me.

Maybe I’m scared for me, too.

She holds one side of her tangerine-colored hair back and reinserts a red silk flower, smiling at me the whole time, like she wants to come over. I take another sip of ice water to ward her off, like maybe she’ll leave me alone if she sees me eating and drinking. I pick up my fork and poke at the sausage links.

“How are you doing?” she chirps, standing over me now, head to knee in pink-and-white waitress garb.

“Fine.” I fork-slice off the butt-end of the sausage link.

“More coffee?”

“No thanks.”

“Are you sure? You look like you could use a little perking from the percolator.” She laughs at her ridiculous pun, flings the rag she’s holding over her shoulder, and heads toward the counter to get a fresh pot.

I puncture my fork into the sausage and put it up to my mouth, feel it on my lips—pickled with grease, hot and bumpy. The spicy steam—a blend of fried pork, black pepper, cumin, and garlic—hits against my upper lip, reminding me of Sunday brunches after church five and a half years ago, the way my mother used to make them.

Five and a half years since homemade sausages. Five and a half years of thinking about them, pretending it was them in my mouth, on my tongue, and between my teeth, instead of lukewarm cereal, undercooked toast, and still-frozen-in-the-middle, sorry-excuse-for sausages. And yet, I can’t even take a bite. Don’t even want them now.

“Are you from around here?” The waitress is back. She fills my mug up with steaming black coffee and then reaches into her apron pocket to throw down four or five of those mini plastic creamers.

I nod, tearing the lid off one of them and adding it to my mug.

“Oh, yeah? Where?” She’s one of those girls who wears her lipstick bright Christmas-bow red and too big on her lips, as though she’s not looking in a mirror when she applies it, or she wants to give the illusion of a bigger mouth, or I don’t know what. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe that’s the new rage and I’ve just been away for too long.

And yet, Kelly looked perfect. In that yellow sundress. With, I’m sure, underneath, the pink bra and panties I asked her to wear.

“I
used
to live around here,” I say, hearing a twinge of annoyance in my own voice. I take the spoon and stir the cream, keeping my eye on the swirl, counting the number of stirs until the two liquids become one.

“Oh,” she says, deadpan, as though she hears the annoyance, too. But instead of moving away, she simply stands there, coffeepot in hand.

I fork off a corner of my omelet and rake through the melted orange cheese inside.

“Was that your girlfriend who left? Bummer, huh? She looked pretty peeved.”

I glance over at Kelly’s place setting, at the pale-pink lipstick stain she left on her coffee cup, and feel the urge to put my mouth over it.

“I hate it when me and my boyfriend get in a fight,” she continues. “Actually, he’s not really my boyfriend anymore. We sort of broke up. He says I’m too young for him, but he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. A soon-to-be sophomore in high school who already knows what she wants out of life is
way
more mature than a senior who doesn’t, don’t you think?” She looks down at the plate of untouched pancakes Kelly left and presses her lips together in a scowl. “He’d do something like that—-just stomp out in the middle of breakfast—without even talking it out.”

I make a checked pattern with the melted cheese and start counting up the blocks I’ve created within its grid. Twenty-six.

“At least that means more breakfast for you, right?” She laughs. “That is, if you like peanut-butter pancakes.”

I detest this girl.

“I hate peanut butter,” she continues. “It’s so icky; the smell …”

I look up at her, at her foolish little face, the spray of orange freckles across the bridge of her nose, and those rosy fucking cheeks. “I’m really hungry,” I say. I take a giant bite of sausage to show enthusiasm for my food, and chew nice and big and happy so she gets the message. I think she does. Her sloppy red lips melt down at the corners like a sad clown face, and for just a millisecond she looks almost scared. Her eyes still pressed on my chewing, she takes a couple steps back and then turns around to leave me be. Finally.

I finish up what’s left in my mouth, but I really want nothing more than to spit it out. I reach over to take Kelly’s cup. I place my mouth over the lipstick spot and imagine her kiss. Soft and warm and slow. I feel my tongue edge out against the ceramic and have to stop myself, have to open my eyes. Luckily nobody’s watching.

I look out the window once more, to see if maybe she changed her mind and came back. But she isn’t there. Isn’t spying at me from behind a parked car or street pole; isn’t hoping that maybe I’m still here, waiting for her to come back. I grab a fresh napkin and pull a pen from the front pocket of my shirt.

I read the note a couple times, trying to decide if it sounds too harsh, if it covers everything. I lean back against the vinyl seat and review my intentions, what I want her to understand in my words. I want her to know that I’m hurt, that I love her, that she’s all I’ve been thinking about—that what’s gotten me through the past five and a half years of prison without killing someone else or even myself is the faith that one of her letters would be coming. The thought of reading her words, imagining her whispering them into my ear, feeling the heat of her breath on my neck like hot, steamy tea.