Old Wounds: Little Battles Part 16

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 s.h.i.+t 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 s.h.i.+t 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 s.h.i.+t. 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 f.u.c.king skull tattoo.

"Sophie?"

I felt like I was going to pa.s.s 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 s.h.i.+t 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 f.u.c.k does it matter what his f.u.c.king name was?"

"What did he look like?"

"Like a f.u.c.king 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 f.u.c.king guy on the G.o.dd.a.m.n 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 s.h.i.+t. 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 s.e.x. 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 f.u.c.king 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 f.u.c.ked me. "I don't know. Does it matter?"

"Yes."

"Well, how the h.e.l.l should I know? I was a f.u.c.king 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?"

Whether she was asking about that first time or how long he was in my life, the answer was the same, "Too long."

"Do you remember..." she said, but I covered my ears, unwilling to listen to her finish her questions.

I didn't want to remember any of it.

I rocked back and forth, squeezing my eyes shut as I tried to block out the s.h.i.+t that was cras.h.i.+ng down around me. I could hear his voice and smell the metallic, sweet smell of my own blood. I could taste his hand and feel the fiery bolts of pain as it shot through my scared little body.

I was convulsing and I wished that I was dead.

I awoke with a groan to the loud knocking. My head hurt as usual, and I wanted to tell David to stop. Then I realized it was Sunday. I glanced at my clock and saw that it was also incredibly early on Sunday. Why was someone knocking on my door? Not even David would get up at this hour on the weekend.

I slipped out of bed and grabbed my t-s.h.i.+rt, pulling it over my head. When I unlocked and opened my door, I was extremely surprised to find Sophie standing out there, arm raised to knock again.

As I took her in, the smile that automatically came to my face at the sight of her faded quickly.

She looked strange.

I glanced down the hallway and saw Robin standing at the end of it, her eyes steadfast and fixed on Sophie. "W-w-w..." was all I could get out.

She had her arms wrapped around her mid-section, her shoulders hunched over. Instinctively I reached out for her hand, wanting to draw her to me, but she stepped back.

I was confused.

She was here, in my house, at my door before six in the morning looking like she'd had the longest day known to man, and she wouldn't let me touch her. Then I remembered she'd gone to Cierra's party. Her normal sweet smell was overshadowed by the stench of cigarettes and alcohol.

Had she come here straight from the party?

"SSSSophie?"

Her eyes danced around for a moment, never actually fixing on me. Then she extended her hand, pointing behind me, and I recognized that she was asking to come in. I stepped aside and she walked past me. At the same time, I glanced back out to the hall, but Robin was gone.

I turned around and found Sophie looking at my books as she reclaimed the green rock she'd just brought back. I didn't know why she'd taken it or why she liked it. One day I looked up at the shelf, and it was gone; then she'd pulled it out of her pocket Friday night and replaced it on the shelf. She fisted her hand tightly around it, then brought her closed hand against her thigh and pressed it there.

"W-w-what's w-w-wrong, SSSSSSophie?"

She hesitated before turning around. Her eyes were glued to the carpet and I wished that she'd just look at me. Maybe I could make her sadness go away.

She quickly rambled off a long string of words, but I could only catch "Anderson" and "Tom."

"W-w-what?"

"I f.u.c.ked Chris."

A knife plunged into my heart.

She looked up at me, worrying her lower lip with her teeth.

"W-w-w-w-w-what?" I said again.

She shook her head and ran a hand through her hair, wincing when it got stuck for a moment. "Or he f.u.c.ked me or whatever, and then Tom was in my room and I-"

Perhaps it wasn't what I should have done, but I interrupted her. She'd just said that she'd had s.e.x with Chris. I didn't want to believe that. I didn't want to know that.

"W-w-what d-d-d-do you m-m-mm-mmmean, you f-f-f-f-f..."

I stopped when she shook her head. The action caused tears to roll down her cheeks. I took a step forward, but she took a step back, and I stopped. Then she held out her hand. "Please stay there," she demanded softly.

I planted my feet as my chest tightened. Sophie was acting strange. She was worried and nervous, and quite on edge.

"W-w-w-what d-d-d-d..." I tried repeating my question, but couldn't get past the second word, since my mind was preoccupied with all of the thoughts Chris had put in my head over the past few weeks.

"I don't f.u.c.king know, Elliott. I was drinking and I blacked out or something." The agitation in her voice and the way she kept fidgeting told me that something was really wrong. Her tears fell quickly, her face nothing but a showcase of pain and shame. "And I'm f.u.c.king sorry. I don't know. I just know...I mean, who the f.u.c.k knows? Maybe I-"

"You w-w-were unc-c-c-conscious?" My mind was reeling. Not only did she indicate that she'd had s.e.x with Chris Anderson, the guy who'd made it his fun-time activity to pick on me since I'd moved to this town, but she was telling me that she'd drunk herself into unconsciousness before it happened.

If she was unconscious when they had s.e.x, then...

"I don't remember. When I...I don't know how long I was out or whatever, but all I know is that he was..." she let that hang for a moment as she looked down at her feet, squeezing the rock tighter, and I worried that she'd cut herself on it. "He was...on me when I...but s.h.i.+t, with me, you can never tell. Who f.u.c.king knows what happened? I'm f.u.c.king sorry, Elliott."

I didn't know what to do. I was trying really hard not to hyperventilate, but I was having difficulty getting my mind to do anything slowly. My thoughts came in a rush and were all over the place, and I couldn't focus. How was it that I could handle Jane's b.l.o.o.d.y meltdowns, but now I was on the verge of pa.s.sing out? I felt like dirt because she was waiting for me to say or do something, but my body was just as frozen as my throat always seemed to be. I had no way of comforting her when she was completely in need of it, and I felt completely inadequate because I couldn't get a handle on everything going on inside of me.

I had to focus or I risked getting lost in all of the thousands of thoughts swimming and pus.h.i.+ng around in my brain. "A-a-are you o-o-o-okay?" It was all I could think to ask.

Sophie didn't respond. Instead she brought her arms up and wrapped them around her torso again. One of her legs was bouncing. She sighed and looked away from me.

"Sorry about waking you up," she said. Her voice was not as agitated as before, but still held an edge.

I took a step toward her, but even though she didn't step away, she couldn't stop moving. She unwrapped her arms from around her waist and brought them up to protect her chest, before covering her head, and then bringing them back down to cross over her again. Her leg continued to bounce, moving quicker, her breathing entirely too fast.

"SSSSSSophie..." I suddenly remembered something else she said. "W-w-what hhhhappened w-with your fffather?" My hope was that he'd caught her with drugs. I didn't want her to be in trouble but I wanted her to stop, and I was sure Mr. Young could make that happen.

"He was..." She stopped to breathe, "nothing." I narrowed my eyes as she quickly looked up at me. Then she began again. "He was...in my room and I didn't..." She shook her head, clearly becoming agitated. "I mean, it's my room. Mine. He shouldn't have..." As she took a sharp intake of breath, I became aware that I was holding mine, which was never a good thing, and was usually followed by a panic attack.

I focused on breathing. My muscles stiffened and my heart raced.

"Elliott, don't." I watched her, feeling powerless as she shook her head, her eyes widening. "I'm fine, okay? Don't...don't panic or anything. I'm...you know, I'm...fine."

She came over, her hand already extended. I closed my eyes as she reached up and ran her fingers through my hair, and I breathed deeply, thanking G.o.d for being able to breathe at all. My heart rate slowed and I swallowed hard. After a few moments, it was better.

Now she was close to me.

I reached out and encircled her fisted hand. "W-w-what hhhhappened?"

She shook and I inched just a little closer.

"He was in my room and...and it just...scared me."

"B-b-but you're o-okay?"

Sophie sighed and her hand fell away from my hair. Then she went back to wrapping her arm around herself again. "Yeah. I mean, apart from having f.u.c.ked Anderson."

The knife was back, twisting agonizingly slowly into my heart.

She shook her head and stepped around me. "I'm...I'll be right back." She unlocked the door and opened it, then disappeared across the hall and into the bathroom.

If I had ever hated Anderson before, the emotion paled in comparison to the hatred I felt for him now. She was gone a long time and I sat down on my bed, waiting for her. I figured that she would like to have some normalcy. I would sit on my bed, and she would sit on the couch, the way we had that first Friday night and every one following.

When Sophie came back, her eyes were glazed and I wished that I had taken the pills out of the cabinet when I had thought about it Friday night. I would have to move them today.