Little Battles (17 page)

I kept drinking until I felt sick. This alcohol was going to mess with my blood sugar.

I tried to find my way to the bathroom, but I couldn’t find it.

I felt sick as my head swished this way and that and I leaned against the wall as I kept propelling myself forward. I took a deep breath and then it felt like I was sleeping.

I awoke, and I was moving. Not much, just up and down. When I opened my eyes, I realized that I wasn’t moving up and down, I was moving back and forth. I was heavy; something was weighing me down.

I felt warm, moist air against
my
cheek.

I moved my hands up to my chest and pressed the weight away, but it wouldn’t budge. It moved back and forth with me.

I blinked, my brain clogged and sluggish. The weight on top of me moaned low and deep.

Shit.

I was fucking someone.

No, someone was fucking me.

I felt sick again.

The weight was a body. I looked down to where hips were between my parted thighs, and up the shirted torso.

Then I saw Chris Anderson.

I closed my eyes, knowing that I should’ve tried to push him off of me, but my body wouldn’t respond to my brain. From the sound of it, he would be done soon anyway. I turned my head and tried to focus on breathing. Then I opened my eyes again and stared at the corner of the wall next to the toilet. There were cobwebs, but no spider.

I wondered if the spider was out spinning more webs or if it was stalking its food. Maybe it had left that web for a new home.

Maybe it was dead.

The cobweb looked old, and sort of frayed. One of Cierra’s blonde hairs lay across it.

She needed to clean.

Her bathroom was clean-ish, but it had a cobweb and hair, and I was sure if I really looked, there’d be soap scum in the tub that everyone in the house just ignored and eventually didn’t even see.

“Fuck me.”

I expelled a breath and involuntarily turned my head to look at Chris, and swallowed hard. Thankful that he was almost done, I stared at him blankly. His face contorted and his hips thrust at me in an irregular, quick rhythm.

When he pulled out, I rose up onto my elbows, scooted to a semi-sitting position and pressed my legs together. I watched as he pulled the condom off and threw it in the trash. He stood over me, pulling up his boxers and jeans.

Bile rose up in my throat.

“I told you,” he said, leaning down and licking my top lip.

Finally I had no choice but to move into action. I scrambled to the toilet and lifted the lid just as the bile and alcohol overflowed.

As I emptied my stomach, I felt my hair being pulled back and felt his breath on my neck as one of his hands rested on my shoulder.

I wanted him off of me.

When I finally stopped heaving, I pushed him away as I stood up. I wished I knew what the hell just happened, because I was pretty sure Chris’s dick had just been inside of me.

I felt sick again, so as I rinsed out my mouth and splashed water on my face.

What just happened?

I froze again when I felt him come up behind me, pressing against me, his hands on my hips as if we were lovers. I spun around quickly and pushed him back. “Quit fucking touching me.”

I pulled on my pants and pulled down my shirt and left the bathroom quickly, trying to ignore the fact that I was sharing space with him, and then located Jason. “Will you take me home?”

He was looking up at me from his spot on the floor. The stoned smile faded and he stood up. “Are you okay?”

I shifted on my feet, thinking how much I really, really just wanted to go home. I shook my head. “Can we go?”

We left after Jason collected his bong and lighter, and I smoked out of his one hitter on the way home. The ride was silent and he kept looking at me, and I kept ignoring it. When we pulled up to my house, he finally said something. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” I said quietly, not looking at him. “Thanks for the smoke and the ride home, Jace.”

“I looked for you for a while, but I couldn’t find you. Where were you?”

I shook my head and wished that he had found me. “I don’t know.”

“No?”

I sighed and let my head fall back. “I must have passed out in the bathroom.”

“Yeah?”

“I hate alcohol.”

“So why’d you drink it?”

I pulled my hair back. “I don’t know,” I said, then unbuckled my seatbelt. “See you Monday.” I got out of the car and snuck around back of the house. My body was heavy and slow as I climbed up the tree that was next to my window.

Tom had never given me a curfew, but I had snuck out anyway without even asking if he minded if I went to the party. He might have said that I could go, but I hadn’t even explored that option.

My room was dark as I pressed the window open and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I should have left a light on for myself. I crawled through and as soon as I stood, I froze, because the wooden desk chair I had used to barricade the door lay in pieces, and the door was open, the light of the hallway illuminating my room.

There was a creak to my left and a figure rose out of the rocking chair. “I knocked several times.” Tom’s voice was low and I couldn’t breathe. “I was worried and I…”

The floorboards creaked as he moved toward me. I followed my first instinct to go back out of the window, but as I turned, he caught my arm. I went limp, and I couldn’t hear or feel anything.

My vision was beautifully blurred as a low buzz rang in my ears. My body wouldn’t move, but I knew I was moving.

I had no idea how much time had passed, but it felt like forever. When I was alert and could focus again, I looked around and found myself inside Dr. Dalton’s home office. My legs were drawn up tightly to my chest and my arms were securely wrapped around them as I sat in the overstuffed chair.

My breathing was normal, but it felt as though my blood was pounding in my ears. “Your father gave you some insulin. You’ll need to tell me if it’s too much or not enough. Stephen gave you a cursory exam, but it’s important you let me know how you’re feeling.”

I jumped, turning toward the voice. It was Wallace. I felt completely out of sorts. I had no idea how I’d gotten here. The last thing I actively remembered was trying to get out the window because someone was in my room.

“Your blood sugar was elevated quite a bit, and your blood alcohol level was incredibly high. Were you drinking last night?”

I glanced at the clock and saw that it was half past four in the morning. My mind was dusty and filled with fluff, and I didn’t want to clean or clear it. I was happier when it was soft and fuzzy. I didn’t want to remember the details. But Wallace had already said that they knew my blood alcohol was high, so I couldn’t really lie about it. “Yes.”

“Your father’s very frightened.”

I exhaled a deep breath and turned my head, laying it on my knees as I hugged my legs tighter. My father was the one in my room. He’d broken through the door. My desk chair had been wedged under the knob and he broke through that too. The amount of force I imagined it would take to do that scared me. He’d been waiting for me. My lungs seized.

“He thinks he did something wrong.”

Well, he did. He shouldn’t have been in my room. “Good.”

“Good?”

“It’s my room.”

“It’s his house. You snuck out to drink and when you came back…”

“He was there,” I whispered.

“You do know that he wasn’t there to hurt you, right? It’s his job to protect you, and that means having rules. He was concerned when you didn’t answer when he knocked and called to you. He found your room empty, Sophie. Do you know what it’s like to worry like that?”

“Can I go see Elliott?” I didn’t want to be here in this room with her. I felt like shit and I wanted to see him.

“Of course you may, but not right now.”

“Why not?”

“Because we need to talk.”

I rocked slowly from side to side as I thought about all of the shit she’d want to talk about. I didn’t want to tell her about Cierra’s dirty bathroom, or Anderson’s heavy weight. “I don’t want to talk, I’m tired.”

“Sophie…” She said my name slowly and I raised my head to look at her. “Who was waiting for you in your bedroom back in Tampa?”

My breathing increased and my empty stomach tightened. “Shut up,” was all I could muster. I wasn’t going to talk to her about this shit. Definitely not right now of all times! The day had been a disaster as it was, and I was not going to talk about the man with the fucking skull tattoo.

“Sophie?”

I felt like I was going to pass out as my chest rose and fell too quickly. Before I even knew I was going to speak, I was saying, “He shouldn’t have been there.”

Wallace was quiet and I wished I could have forced my mouth shut, to have just remained silent, but the shit was spilled and I couldn’t stuff it back into the tiny little box right now. “I got up to go to the bathroom. When I got back, he was…” I fought hard with the urge to run and to vomit again.

“How old were you?”

“Eleven,” I whispered, more to myself than to her.

“What was his name?”

I bit the inside of my cheek hard as the anger inside bubbled and boiled and ate at me. “What the fuck does it matter what his fucking name was?”

“What did he look like?”

“Like a fucking guy,” I answered shortly. She didn’t need to know how short his brown hair was or where he had a skull tattoo, or how his teeth were unnaturally white. “Like every fucking guy on the goddamn planet.”

“Okay,” Wallace said softly. “Was he your mother’s boyfriend?”

I sank back further in the chair and whispered, “Yes.”

“What did he do when you came back from the bathroom?”

I pressed my lips together as my eyes watered. I wasn’t going to cry because I had no tears left. Or so I thought. I couldn’t help it as they spilled over, leaving wet trails down my cheeks. “I want to see Elliott.”

“You can see him soon, but right now we need to stick with this. What did he do when you came back from the bathroom?” she repeated.

I turned away again and closed my eyes. It was going to come out. I felt it, I knew it, but I didn’t want it to. I didn’t want to hear myself say this shit. I didn’t want to hear the words hang in the air. I didn’t want to see her face after she knew.

“He just…did it. There was no warm-up to the action. He held me down and broke me open, and he knew it was going to hurt because he covered my mouth with his hand long before he…”

I couldn’t believe that these things were being given life after so long, and that I was the one doing it. These thoughts, the words I was using, had been dead for so long, just like the tears that were flowing from me like a river.

“I knew about sex. With a mother like Helen, of course I did, but I had no idea it would hurt so much,” I whispered. “I was small and he was…” I paused, swallowing against the rising bile as I thought of that night and the pain that had come.

“What else do you remember, Sophie?”

I wanted to go to Elliott’s room and feel comfortable again. I wanted to look at his books and touch the spines. I wanted to hold that rock I had replaced on his shelf a few days ago. I wanted to see him. “Can I go to Elliott’s room now?”

“In a minute, but you need to tell me what you remember.”

Fine. If that was the condition, I could meet it. “It was…violent. There was blood. I felt like I was…like I…and I tried to scream because it fucking hurt, but he wouldn’t let me. I had to be quiet because my mother was sleeping.” I felt so sick. I wanted someone else’s life. I wanted to not exist.

“How long did your mother see this man?”

I knew this was her roundabout way of asking me how long he’d fucked me. “I don’t know. Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

“Well, how the hell should I know? I was a fucking kid, and days were like years then.” Well, that was a lie. I knew exactly how long he was in my life. “I want to go see Elliott now.”

“In a minute, Sophie,” she said again, sounding as if she was a hostage negotiator, or maybe calming a hyper child. “Will you sit back down for a minute? We need to stick with this.”

I hadn’t realized that I had stood at some point. I was beginning to feel numb. Thankfully, the body was nothing more than one big chemical factory, so I was currently experiencing the post-fear and freak-out rush.

I finally complied and when I sat down, I whispered again, “He shouldn’t have been there.”

“No, he shouldn’t have, but in regards to your father, you understand that he had no way of knowing that his presence in your room would be a trigger for you. You know that he wasn’t in your room to hurt you, right?”

I knew that Tom posed little threat to me. For as much as I wanted to hate him, he wasn’t the one who made me like this.

When I nodded, she asked another question, making me wish again that I was somewhere else. “How long did he hurt you?”