Twisted (6 page)

CHAPTER 10

M
y shift ends, and I plunk myself on a stool. My back aches. I'm not used to being on my feet for so long.

“Do you want a coffee or something?” Molly asks. “You're allowed. It's free.” She came in for her shift early to finish supervising me. Liam had to leave to meet a prof. “You deserve it. You did awesome,” she continues.

She wasn't here for my little outburst, so for now she thinks I'm just regular folk. “No,” I sigh. “I'm good, thanks.” I pull on my coat and get ready for the walk home.

As soon as I push open the front door, my breath catches in my throat like a hiccup. Kyle. He's on the other side of the street, leaning against a telephone pole, waiting for me. For a second I think about backing up through the door — it hasn't even closed yet, I can still smell the coffee. But we've already made eye contact. And he'd probably just follow me in. I sigh and drop my chin to my chest. Might as well get this over with.

He waits for a car to pass then runs across the crosswalk.

Folding my arms, I stand with my feet slightly apart. Bring it on.

“Hey,” he says. “Thanks for not taking off.”

I don't say anything.

“I'm completely frozen, you know.” He rubs his hands together. “But I knew you'd have to come out sooner or later. Can we go inside, grab a coffee?”

I raise my eyebrows. “What do you want, Kyle?”

“Lyssa, please,” he says. “Give me a chance to explain.”

“No.”

“Look. I'm sorry about what I said, you know, about you owing me, about you hanging me out to dry. That was out of line. I wasn't thinking.”

“Really?
That's
what you want to apologize for?”

“Well, no, I mean, yes, but there's more.” He stumbles over his words. “Of course there's more.”

“Kyle,” I say calmly. “Just turn around and go.”

“So you need more time to cool down. I get it.”

“I don't think you do. I don't need time. We're done.” I pull my gloves on and start walking.

Behind me I hear his footsteps crunching in the frozen slush. “Are you staying with Aidan?” he suddenly asks.

I keep my back to him and say nothing.

“He's here in town,” he says, still following me. “I've seen him.”

I pick up my pace.

He picks up his pace too. “You are, aren't you?”

“None of your damn business!” I say over my shoulder.

“The guy's insane!” he shouts.

Stopping, I spin around. “Why would you say that?”

“Trust me. He is. You don't know how lucky you are that he left town.”

“And how do you figure that? Because I had to take care of my mom by myself while her brain got eaten away by cancer and Vince was busy drinking the town dry?”

He doesn't say anything.

I shoot him a final glare of disgust and start off, back on my way.

“I know it was Aidan who did that to Mark and Todd!” he calls out to me.

I feel my feet slow, feel the
thump, thump
in my chest. He doesn't know anything. He's bluffing.

“I know you know!”

I just keep going.

Kyle catches up and grabs my sleeve. “Why do you protect him?”

“Go to hell!” I snatch my arm away, turn, and break into a run.

“Lyssa!”

I don't look back.

MY LUNGS FEEL LIKE
they're on fire. When I finally stop, I have to bend over to hack up a gob of phlegm. Then I see I'm only a half block away from the stone wall, the one I sat on in the rain that night — right after I found Rosalyn in Kyle's apartment.

I trudge toward the wall, my legs full of tingles. As soon as I sit, the cold from the stone turns my butt numb, but I don't mind. I feel oddly comfortable here.

It's been over three years, but just hearing their names,
Mark and Todd
… it's as if it happened yesterday.

We were so cool, the chosen ones. Caroline and I had been invited to this giant party thrown by the captain of the high school hockey team. We were only in grade nine, so yeah, it was a big deal. The place was swarming with hockey players. And about four times as many girls, all vying to be the special make-out partner of some random Sidney Crosby wannabe.

My mistake was leaving the security of the cluster of people I knew. But I'd had two coolers and needed to pee. I made my way through the crowds and headed down the hall to the bathroom. And there they were, Mark and Todd, two star hockey players, lying in wait. For me? Or for anyone?

I gave them a nervous smile and stayed focused on getting to the bathroom.

When I came out, they were still there.

There was something about the way they looked at me. I swallowed and started walking, but they blocked my way.

“I've had my eye on you ever since you got here,” Mark said.

Todd pinned me against the wall with his arms. “You don't look like you're in junior high.”

They were drunk. I could hear it in their voices, the way they slurred their words.

I shoved Todd's arm away and tried to walk past. Whichever side
of the hall I went to, they went too. I laughed so they wouldn't guess I was scared. I gave them both another shove, but then they shoved me back and into an empty room.

Next thing I knew I was on a bed, flat on my back. I screamed, but the music was so loud, no one could have heard. I thrashed, twisted, and kicked, but Todd was twice my weight and size and easily held me down, while Mark pushed up my top, hauled up my skirt, and clawed at my panties. All I smelled was his breath — beer. Then I felt the burn of Mark's stubble scraping along my face, neck, and chest. I must have tried screaming again because Todd slapped his hand over my mouth. I opened wider, found his thumb, and bit. He swore and smacked me back, above the ear, hard enough I could hear ringing. Then he held me down using even more strength.

Play dead. It'll end quicker.
I closed my eyes and made my body limp, made my body numb.

And then it was over.

Mark rolled off me.

I heard him zip up his jeans.

Guess Todd wimped out.

Mark gave me a wink as he left, like he just did me a favour.

I edged off the bed and straightened my clothes. Every move I made hurt.

After I threw up in the garbage can, I checked my face in the mirror. Dry. No tears. There was a brush on the dresser, and I used it to fix my hair.

Like a ghost, invisible, I floated down the hall and slipped out the back door. I don't remember the walk home except for the part where I stopped behind the Co-op, tugged off my torn underwear, and stuffed them into a dumpster.

For two days I stayed in bed. “Flat out with the flu,” Mom told the school. I was an amazing actress when I had to be.

And that was what I was, for a while anyway. I didn't tell anyone, not Caroline, not Mom, not Aidan. Kyle and I weren't going out yet. I just went on like nothing had ever happened.

It must have built up or something, because one day I just sort of snapped. Aidan found me bawling my eyes out down on the beach. He wouldn't let up until I told him what was wrong.

I didn't want to. It was still all so raw, and embarrassing, and … disgusting. But I did.

He listened without saying a word. Then he hugged me tight and left.

It wasn't until almost midnight that I saw the light from his bike coming down the lane. I waited for him to come inside. When he didn't, I went to look for him. Once outside, I circled around the house. He was sitting on the back porch step, staring off into space holding a rag, the nozzle of the hose resting by his foot.

The light coming from the porch lamp was enough for me to see the blood on his hands, under his fingernails and in the creases of his knuckles.

Not saying a word, I picked up the hose, gently squeezed the trigger, and ran some water over his hands as he scrubbed them with the rag.

All he said was, “I only did what needed to be done.”

I nodded.

The next day at school, it was all everyone was talking about. Mark and Todd had been beaten to a pulp and were both in the hospital. No more hockey for them, not for a long time, maybe forever. No one had a clue who did it. Not even Mark or Todd. “It was dark,” they said. “We were jumped from behind. We didn't see.”

There were rumours, of course. Some thought it was drunken townies, or guys from the Northumberland High hockey team. There were the wild theories as well. Everyone under the sun
could
have done it. It was actually Kyle's brother who said he'd seen Aidan in the village that night, talking to Mark and Todd, and told the police. Aidan was questioned, said Mark and Todd stopped him to ask if he knew where to get some weed, and that was the extent of their conversation.

This all happened almost two weeks after the fateful party. There was no connection to me.

At the end of that summer, Mark and Todd went away to university. Mark had a permanent limp and never played hockey again. I never heard what happened to Todd.

Why did Kyle throw that at me now? In all the time I went out with him, he never once brought it up. I know Kyle's brother, and I guess Kyle, too, had suspicions about the beating, but that's all they would ever be. No charges were ever laid.

I hug my arms around my middle and rock back and forth on the wall until the rolling in my stomach settles.

Lock it back up. Put it all away
.

There's a horrible taste in my mouth. I wonder if bad memories produce some kind of chemical reaction in your body.

CHAPTER 11

A
single strand of spaghetti hangs from Aidan's fork. He watches the sauce drip back onto his plate. “Is this from a can?”

“Yeah,” I say, shaking some parmesan onto my pile of pasta. “But it's the good kind — thick and rich, that's what the label said.”

Looking doubtful, he puts down his fork. “So why the fancy dinner?”

It's impossible to ignore the sarcasm in his voice. I sigh and lean back in my chair. He's all bent out of shape because I took the job at the coffee shop. He's barely said a word to me in two days.

“I thought it'd be nice to cook for
you
for a change.” I shrug. “I made good tips today. Stopped at the grocery store on the way home.”

“I could have gotten you a job at the bar, you know,” he says for the hundredth time.

“Thanks, but I think the coffee shop's more my style.”

He pushes the plate away. “You'd make more tips in one night at the bar than you would in a
week
at that coffee shop.”

“How? I'm only eighteen. I can't serve liquor.”

“You can bus, or hostess.”

“I don't want to have to work late nights, especially once I start school.”

“I'm the manager. I could have fixed your schedule,” he argues.

There's no point continuing the conversation, so I don't. I can't figure out why he's so against the coffee shop. What difference does it make to him where I work?

I study him while he glares at the spaghetti. I've been doing that every chance I get — studying, searching for some kind of sign. What do people who've been in a psych ward look like? Act like?

He catches me staring, and I scramble to say something. “Remember when Mom used to cut up salami and put it in our spaghetti?”

“Yeah,” he says, finally smiling. “She was an awful cook. No amount of salami could save her sauce.”

“I'll never forget that time she made it in the pressure cooker.”

He sucks in a breath. “Yes! Holy shit. She forgot about it and it exploded all over the kitchen. The cast iron lid was embedded in the ceiling.”

I nod. “Yup. Then she had us on chairs with paint scrapers, scraping it off the walls.”

“I couldn't move my arms for a week.”

We both burst out laughing. It feels good.

I pick up a napkin and wipe my eyes. “Baking was more her thing, I guess.”

He's quiet for a second. “You must miss her.”

“I feel like she was gone way before she died. She wasn't herself … wasn't all there … for a long time.”

“And I bet Vince wasn't much help.”

“No.” I stab my fork into a clump of noodles and twist. “No, he wasn't.”

“I'm sorry,” he says. “About Vince. And for not being there for you. I mean, I remember what it was like when my mom died. I could have helped maybe. Like with what you were going through.”

My eyebrows shoot up. Aidan never talks about his mom. All I know is that she died in a house fire, in Vancouver, when Aidan was thirteen. I keep twisting my spaghetti, hoping he'll say something more about her.

But he doesn't. “Your mom was a nice lady. She deserved better than Vince.”

I twist and twist, staring at the growing ball of pasta. “I can't understand how she ended up with him. How she couldn't see what he was.”

“You mean a nasty drunk?”

I don't answer.

“It's okay,” he says. “You don't have to watch what you say around me.”

“He's still your father.”

“And because of that, I know better than anyone.”

The ticking of the kitty-cat clock echoes through the kitchen.

“I'm not sure if I'll ever understand. Or if I can ever forgive her …” I whisper.

“For dying?”

“No, for marrying Vince.”

Aidan gets up and carries his dish to the sink. On the way he stops and puts a hand on my shoulder. “Love. It can make people do some pretty fucked-up stuff.”

“IF JANET DOESN'T GET
this oven fixed soon, I swear I'm going to punch a hole in the kitchen wall!” Erin exclaims, loudly slamming down a tray of muffins.

The noise makes me jump. The fact is, she terrifies me, but I force myself to go over and see. “They don't look so bad,” I offer weakly.

“Are you freakin' kidding me?” She picks up the tray and slams it down again, louder. “They're hard as rock!” One bounces out and lands on the floor. She kicks it across the kitchen, where it ricochets off the side of the fridge and hits the broom handle, causing it to topple across the recycling bin.

I've got to get her out of here before she trashes the place. “Erin. Your shift is over. I can totally do this. Go home.”

Ignoring me, she whips open cupboards and drawers, assembling what she needs to mix up a new batch of batter.

“Erin!”

She looks up. “What?” She's gripping the spatula so tight, her knuckles are white.

“It's okay. I really do know what I'm doing.” I say it in a low, soothing voice, like I'm trying to talk a jumper in off the ledge. “My mom owned a bakery.” I carefully tug the spatula from her grasp. “I know how to make muffins.”

Her shoulders sag, and she leans back against the counter. “Yeah, okay, maybe … I've been here since seven a.m., you know. I was up till two working on a paper.”

I nod. She doesn't fight me when I lift the apron off over her head.

“I think I'm having some kind of breakdown,” she whispers.

I smile and pass her her jacket. “It's dead in here. Go home and get some sleep. I've got this.”

Like a zombie, she slowly drags herself out the door.

The rest of my shift passes uneventfully. It's my third time working by myself, and I actually know what I'm doing now. My attempt at blueberry muffins is a success. I even tweak the recipe a bit — sour cream, a dash of cinnamon and nutmeg, just like Mom used to do.

And thank God there's been no sign of Kyle. That entire next shift, every time the door opened, I held my breath, thinking he was back to stir things up. Hopefully he got the message and is staying away on purpose.

But no sign of Liam either. He's been off for a couple of days. Not that he has to check in with me or anything. It's just, I've gotten used to seeing him. I think I … sort of miss him. Not
him
, him, more like
talking
to him. He makes me laugh — something I haven't done a lot of lately.

The door opens. My eyes scan the group coming in, hoping Liam's in there somewhere. I know he works later tonight. No, it's Anna, here early to relieve me, and a couple of random students.

“I just wanna grab a bite before my shift starts, okay?” Anna says.

“Sure.”

She takes one of my muffins from the display case, hesitates for a second, then reaches in and takes another. “I gotta bulk up. I'm working a double. Liam so owes me.”

“Liam's not coming in?”

Anna shakes her head. “It's the girlfriend's birthday. He's taking her out for dinner or something.”

“Oh, right …” There's a burning feeling in my stomach. “The girlfriend.”

AIDAN'S CAR IS IN
the driveway when I get home. I hope he didn't eat all the leftover spaghetti.

Once inside, any thoughts of spaghetti leave my head.

Aidan is standing in front of my bedroom door, a screwdriver in one hand, a hammer hanging from his belt loop. He turns and says, “Hey.” Then goes back to whatever it is he's working on.

“What are you doing?” I ask slowly.

“Putting” — he cranks the screwdriver a couple of times into the door frame — “a lock on your door.” He stops and flexes his fingers. “The way it's mounted, it's not flush. I had to drill a hole in the casing. Got a blister.”

I feel my eyes stretch wide. I rush over and smack the screwdriver out of his hand, sending it flying down the hall.

“What the hell?!” Aidan shouts.

“Why would you put a lock on my door!? Are you out of your mind?!”

“What is your problem? Jesus!” He stomps off to get the screwdriver that's still spinning on the floor.

“It's on the outside!” I cry. “Why would you put a lock on the outside?”

“
Because
…” — he looks at me like I'm crazy, then disappears into my room — “… of this.” When he returns he's holding up my course calendar. The cover's all shredded. “It's that goddamn cat. He was having a field day in there.”

“Cat?” I blink a couple of times, trying to make sense of his words.

“Yeah, look.” He closes my bedroom door, then, using one finger, pushes it open again. “I'm trying to do you a favour. The lock thing doesn't click. Didn't you notice?”

“No. Um. Maybe.” The door. It's always open in the mornings.

Aidan pulls the door tight and shoves the deadbolt over. “Now you can lock the door when you go out and the cat can't get in. See?”

I slide down the wall until I'm sitting on the floor, my knees tucked up under my chin.

“Lyssa, what's going on?”

I look up at him. Does he really not remember? “Um,
Vince
?”

“Huh …?” Then his jaw drops. “Shit.” He drops the screwdriver and kneels beside me. “I'm so sorry. I totally forgot.” He shakes his head, then looks up at the lock. “I can't believe I did that.”

“I can't believe it either.” I glance at the top of the door. “It's even the same kind.”

“You know I never actually saw it — the lock. Once I moved to the shed, he never let me back in the house.” He closes his eyes. “Not that it mattered. I swore I'd never darken his door again.”

I stare down the hall at nothing. “That feeling of being trapped in my room … I hated it.”

After a moment, he says, “Vince was one twisted motherfucker. Damned if I know what he was thinking.”

“He caught me sneaking home in the middle of the night.” I lean my head against the wall. “I'm pretty sure he thought I was off drink- ing or screwing around with some guy.”

“But you were really hanging out with me.”

I nod. “It was the only chance I ever got to see you. Then he put that lock up the next day. And every night from then on, on his way to bed, I'd hear it slide into place.”

“No more visits for me.”

I spin sideways to face him and narrow my eyes. “You should have remembered,” I snap. “I told you all this. Told you why I couldn't come anymore.”

“I know you did,” he says, scratching his forehead. “There was so much going on back then.” He looks me right in the eye. “I find there's some stuff I don't remember.”

“Oh.” What if he was already suffering from … whatever it was that landed him in the psych ward?

His hand reaches for mine and gives it a squeeze.

“It was awful in that house,” I say. “I really missed you.”

“I could spend the rest of my life apologizing for Vince and it would never be enough, but for what it's worth, I'm sorry. And I'm sorry
about the lock. I'll take it down.” He starts to get up. “I'll do my best to keep Bingley out.”

“No, it's fine. I overreacted.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I'm sure.”