Swell (14 page)

In the stillness of his slumbering house, Christian carried me to the couch and brought me a glass of water. The feeling in my limbs had almost returned, and a searing pain radiated from my pelvis down my thighs. My face felt like it had been impaled by hundreds of needles, and I brought my trembling hand to my cheek at the same time Christian did.

“I took care of him. Hopefully for good.” He jumped off the couch and returned with an ice pack.

“Here, this will help.”

I wanted to say something, but my throat was parched and paralyzed from shock, in spite of the water Christian had given me.

The familiar sound of clocks in the dark emanated around us. The rhythmic tick tock brought soothing comfort to my soul.

Christian brought me close and rocked my body back and forth. I felt his hot tears streaming into my scalp.
There was no way I could tear away from him, nor did I want to. I had dreamt of this reconciliation, but not under these circumstances.

I slept on the couch with Christian’s arms wrapped around me. It was the only place I’d wanted to be after the long, dark night and although I suspected that my parents had reported me missing, I didn’t expect the police to come calling at Christian’s door.

“Christian, get your butt over here,” commanded Dr. Rusch, raising an eyebrow when he saw me on the couch. For a moment I forgot about how I must have looked —  purple, bruised, and shaken.

Christian placed a long, soft kiss on my mouth that melded with my soul — the kind of kiss that girls dream of. He released me and went around the corner. I heard police radios on the officers’ shoulders spouting field calls. They asked Christian his whereabouts last night and what had happened. I sat there, motionless on the couch, my body writhing with even the slightest of movements.

What did eventually get me to move was when they started reading Christian his rights.

“You have the right to remain silent.” I stumbled around the corner and saw Christian in handcuffs. He looked at me with a longing, sad face deep with crevices.

Dr. Rusch was still in his pajamas, his wife standing in the hall, gasping in horror with her hand over her mouth.

Christian was taken away in a squad car, Dr. Rusch following, a jacket over his jammies and a phone glued to his ear. I stood in the doorway with Mrs. Rusch as we watched in disbelief.

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” she cried, her hand still covering her mouth. Then she woke up to the fact that I was there. “What are you doing here, Rebecca?”

We talked at the kitchen table over orange juice, coffee and Advil, her eyes growing wider and more shocked with every minute I recounted the night, ending with Christian saving me and crushing Hillman’s face.

Mrs. Rusch called my parents, who showed up at lightning speed, also in their pajamas. My mother sucked-in her breath and started crying when she saw me.

“We’re calling the police. And a doctor,” said my dad. Within minutes of his call, the police returned to the Rusch house. This time it was a single female officer.

She interviewed me in the living room, asking me about Hillman and what I’d been doing the night before. Things were fuzzy. I remembered the party and placing my drink on a coffee table. The sound of the loud car resonated in my head, and I could still feel Hillman’s body pressing up tight against me, his hands grabbing and tearing at my clothes.

I finished telling the officer about waking up in the lawn mower car, the sound of male voices and their intentions, and the fact that I was taken to Hillman’s house. I made sure she knew it was Christian who had saved me. He’d protected me, and that was why Hillman would probably need a plastic surgeon.

The officer talked to my dad about where to go for documented medical care. When she had what she needed, I burst into tears and collapsed in my mom’s arms.

/////

The hospital took p
hotos of my
face and body. I was also X-rayed to make sure nothing was broken, and blood was drawn for analysis. To help me with pain, I was prescribed Vicodin, and I hoped it would also take the pain away from my head caused by whatever I’d drunk.

My mom helped me settle in bed while my dad got the prescription filled.

“You’re lucky, Rebecca.” She touched my forehead with her cool hand, and I felt like a little girl who needed her mama more than ever

“I’m stupid.” I tried to curl into a ball but it hurt too much. Instead, I kept my legs out like sticks and prayed my dad would hurry home with the meds.

“Honey, do you drink every day?”

I gave my mom a queer look.

“Your father and I have noticed some of our wine missing. We figured we drank it without paying attention. And our collection of liquor decanters… some of them are dry.”

Oh shit! She knew about the emergency stash. I’d probably done a lot of damage to my liver with those bottles.

She straightened my quilt and stood up.
“Honey, we want to help you.”

“I don’t have a problem,” I said. Problems were for people who drank from paper bags in alleys. People who beat their kids. And those who left the bar at 2 a.m., only to return at 6.

I was just trying to have a good time. But it seemed that whenever I went out with this intention, I ended up in situations that grew more dire. I was usually lucky. This time was different because I was around people I knew and trusted. Well, most of them, anyway. I never trusted Hillman, and now I knew why.

/////

Sleep, if it could be called that, ended in the middle of the night when my pain awoke with a vengeance. I heard a screech, realized it was me, and went in search of the Vicodin. In the bathroom, I saw the bruises had fully developed. My cheek was shiny, red, and puffy, and my groin was dotted with purple bruises from the force of Hillman’s prying fingers. And my nose was twice as big as it should’ve been.

“Enough,” I said, popping two more pills and drinking water from the tap. Back in bed, I lay awake wondering what had happened to Christian. I didn’t know much about getting arrested and going to jail, except for what I saw on TV. M
aybe
Christian would get out on bail.

The medication put me down until morning, when the sun streamed through the curtains and into my eyes. They felt almost as puffy as my face.

“Allison called to check on you,” said my mom, placing a bowl of Cheerios and a glass of juice on my nightstand.

“How did she know what happened?”

“She says you went to the bathroom and never came back. When she couldn’t find you, she got Christian and they went looking.

“They found one of your sandals in the hall and the front door open. They thought you’d either run away or gone with someone.”

“I disappeared?” I didn’t remember anything between the bathroom intrusion and waking in the lawn mower car.

“Christian noticed right away that… that boy and his friends were missing.”

She put her head down and started to cry. It was hard enough with what had happened to me, but almost as hard to see my mom that upset.

“Did Christian go to jail?”

She nodded. “His father posted bail.” She grabbed a clean towel from my pile of laundry and wiped her eyes.

“What happened to—“

“That boy… that vile boy… was arrested, too. Then they sent him to the hospital because Christian broke his nose, dislocated his jaw, and gave him a concussion.”

“Christian’s going to be okay, right? The police know why he did that.” I worried that there was something Hillman could press on Christian to put him in jail for good.

My heart glowed with the thought of Christian smashing his face in.

“We need to make sure
you’re
okay first, Rebecca. But the police have the story, and they know what to do.”

She looked me in the eye, and took the juice glass from my hand when I finished.

“I’m going to let you rest. I’ll check on you in an hour.” She stopped at the door. “Let me know if you need anything, honey.”

My mouth opened. I did need anything – anything to drink, but now my parents knew, or
thought
they knew, about my drinking. It would be hard. I’d gone overboard at that party, and someone took advantage of it — but I was no alcoholic. I was only 15 years old!

Chapter 16

My doctor had excused me from classes with a full-force permit that no teacher, principal, or decent human being could deny. I stayed home for a week and a half, and watched my puffy face deflate and red skin give way to fresh pinkness. The dollops of purple on my belly faded into the distance.

The only link I had to Christian was through his mom. He wasn’t talking to anyone. Instead, he stayed in his room, no doubt pondering how his actions would affect his future.

“It’s really shaken him,” she’d told me. “But I’ll make sure he calls you when he’s ready.” Was I not the one who was the most shaken of all? Certainly, I was ready, but decided to let it go because I had other things to deal with.

I tried to cover the remaining signs of Hillman’s brutality with makeup. My mom had bought me some super-spackle foundation, the kind designed to hide age spots and leg veins. It made me look like a plastic surgery failure. It was better to use my regular makeup and let my hair fall around my face.

Jenna stopped by after school every day to bring me a treat. Monday it was a mocha drink. Tuesday it was a Snicker’s bar. Wednesday it was
Cosmopolitan
. I wished she’d bring me a six-pack.

I pouted upon opening my Thursday treat — a packet of Swedish fish.
“Bring me some beer.”

“No.” She crossed her arms over her chest, her eyes burning a hole in me.

“It would make a great Friday treat. Really, I could use it.”

“No is
no
. And no, you don’t need it.” She shook her head and hurled Thursday’s treat across the room.

“I’m not trying to make you feel bad, Jenna. I just really, really want something.” These days of dryness made it feel like someone was shooting a nail gun at the back of my eyes. And it was only a matter of time before my parents shipped me off to a 12-step program.

She grabbed her jacket and went for the door.

“If that’s the most important thing to you, Beck, then I don’t want to be a part of it. Don’t you see what drinking’s done to you?”

I thought for a moment about what it had done for me. Quite a lot, and not all of it bad. Drinking had helped me conquer feeling socially awkward. It had made having sex the one and only time with Christian more tolerable. And it was my soothing savior when he abandoned me. Yeah, being drunk didn’t help me in the canyon, and I didn’t even want to think about Hillman….

“I’m not going to stop, Jenna,” I said with all the truth my lungs had to offer. Jenna pursed her lips and gave me a long, sad look before she left without saying goodbye.

Screw her. I would just have to get my own beer.

/////

Almost two weeks and a few hours after Hillman, I was standing at Tony’s market with a 10-spot. I’d put the spackle on my face because at this point, I didn’t care what I looked like.

It was slow. Where were all the drinkers and lottery ticket buyers? The Mexican guys were there, giving me the usual odd look, but even more so because I looked like a
hooker with my makeup.

After 45 minutes of assessing the shoppers, I approached a man with gray hair slicked back into a ponytail. He had a smoke hanging out of his craggy lips, and his eyes smiled with crinkles at the edges when I walked up to him.

“I need some beer.” I gave him a poor-me look, hoping my eyes looked like pools of sadness.

“You
think
you need beer, young lady, but what you probably need is some help,” he said, taking my money and going into the store. I stood there, stunned. Did I look that desperate?

I knew where the local A.A. meeting was held — an old strip mall around the corner from Wal-mart. The dry-drunks would hang in front, drinking coffee from Styrofoam cups and chain-smoking. Guys like the one who was buying me beer seemed to fit the A.A. stereotype.

He came out with a bag full of cans. After he handed them to me, he put his hand on my arm.

“Just a moment.” He pulled a card from his pocket and handed it to me.

“Think about it. It helps some people,” he said, smiling before getting back into his truck. I noticed that he’d only bought himself a bag of chips and a soda.

The plain, white card was crumpled, but the green letters boldly shouted A.A. in my face.

“Ah, shit.” I tossed the card over my shoulder and then stopped to pick it up. Maybe, someday, I would need to give the card to someone, so I put it in my purse, on top of the beer.

In the private stillness of my room, I opened a beer, and then another. The froth filled my stomach and soul, like a drink of water after a long walk in the hot sun. The Vicodin, while it had taken away most of my pain, didn’t do anything to dull the ache in my heart to be with Christian again, but this did. It was like an old friend.