"I just need a friend... not a knight in shining armor."
Misguided: Mistaken, heedless, or inappropriate
Ghost: A faint, weak, or greatly reduced appearance, trace, or possibility of something
I know, I should totally stop starting new stories, but I couldn't help it. Enjoy =]
1. Characters. by lykeoilnwater
2. Combustible. by lykeoilnwater
3. Immobile. by lykeoilnwater
4. Shattered. by lykeoilnwater
5. Condonation. by lykeoilnwater
Justin
Rhys
Isaac
Chloe
Trace
Gabe
[Justin]
I want to hold her, stop her from crying, nurse the swellings that are already blackish blue, but the moment I reach out my hand to comfort her she is backing away, shaking her head, rejecting me. Sigh. What else can I do but gesture for her to come inside, hoping she won‘t take it wrong & run away?
She doesn’t. Just gazes briefly into my eyes apologetically. Walking slowly, dismally until finally she is sitting on the couch, a saggy silhouette in the candlelight. She makes a sort of hiccup sound, her body jerking from it’s force. Once, twice, three times she does this until she is panting, her breaths quick and short… exposed, bruised arms wrapped around her.
No shoes? No jacket? No purse. Just this:
this deep, unbearable-to-watch pain.
I‘m going to kill that bitch.
[Rhys]
I don’t know, I don’t know why I did it, I don’t know why I ran like that… without my shoes? I don’t know, I just had to get away, I had to do anything, anything that would make it stop, make him stop, make me stop… screaming, bleeding, wanting to die.
Yeah, it was a long way to run, a long way to walk, with no money, no cell phone, no shoes.
He’s looking at me now as if wondering what to do, and I want to speak, I want to tell him that it’s okay, that I’m okay because I’m here now… but I can’t. Because I can’t stop crying, first panting (I’m trying to catch my breath), then these awful, God-awful wails. I’ll wake his neighbors with this awful crying, I sound like a dying animal.
I should have let him hold me. He tried. But it’s too much right now. I feel combustible. I just want to let the storm pass, get it out of my system, and then forget.
It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.
[Justin]
Finally, she’s found peace.
I let her bathe, gave her clothes to sleep in, changed the sheets on my bed. I offered to wash her feet even after her bath; they’re blistered; she traveled about ten miles without shoes, though they’re clean they must still feel dirty. She declined with a slight smile; a split lip, he punched her in the mouth. My stomach turns just thinking about it. Why didn’t she call me? There’s pay phones, she could’ve called ‘collect.’ I would’ve driven anywhere to pick her up… keep trying to convince myself that in spite of it all, everything’s okay because she’s here now. But it’s not. It’s not okay.
She’s…
my baby.
[Rhys]
“No!” I wake up, arms flailing. Get off! Get off me!
No matter how hard I swing he doesn’t get off, he doesn’t disappear; he was a dream, dreams disappear, why doesn’t he disappear? I keep swinging, swinging as hard as I can but he’s still here, in my mind, in the air that I gasp trying to inhale, in my veins, he’s here. Why didn’t I leave him for good like I said I would?
His lies, those beautiful lies ringing in my ears. That’s why. That’s why I didn’t leave. Because his lies were like rainbows and butterflies, lace and silk and all those pretty things that make you feel like life is divine.
Because his lies are captivating, and I’m weak. Susceptible to temptation.
[Justin]
When I get to her she’s not calling out anymore, just whimpering. Curled up in a ball beneath the blankets like a child who hides under the bed, trying to disappear… or make someone else disappear. He’s hit her before, but never like this. I’ve never seen her like this.
“Baby?”
Silence.
[Rhys]
He’ll stay at the door… or maybe he’ll sit on the window seat; he did that before, the night Gabriel died. He brought me here, let me bathe, gave me clothes, kept me company for the day that it took for my parents to fly in from Memphis. Said I could go to my apartment if I wanted to but that he didn’t really want to be alone and that he was pretty sure that I didn’t want to be alone either. For the longest time he was curled on the window seat until I gave up trying to sleep and asked him to join me in the bed.
I was Gabe’s little sister so it was never ‘like that.’ We were just friends then, buddies.
But so much shit has happened since then that I couldn’t possibly ask him to join me now.
Even though… I’d really like to.
So I just stay. Immobile. And wait for the blackout: sleep.
She’s sitting on the island, legs dangling, eating the last of my cereal. Drowning in my plain white T, tousled hair falling haphazardly, shaggy bangs in her eyes. I can still see the shiner, her scabbed lip, and those fucking bruises trailing both of her arms. Her poor feet.
“Good morning.” She always did have the sweetest sounding voice.
I just stare at her, unsure of what to say back. It’s not so much that I want to have a conversation, I just want her tell me everything so that after I’m done listening I can go and break that asshole’s neck.
[Rhys]
“Blue…” I have that apprehensive whine going on. With the name alone I’m begging him to drop what he’s just suggested.
It’s been years since I called him that. The nicknames stopped after Gabe died and I met Isaac. From then on it was always ‘Justin.’ Hi Justin, How are you Justin, Please stop giving me money Justin.
But he‘s furious. “Don’t!” It’s only ten in the morning, he’s just woken up and in five minutes tops I’ve managed to make him furious. It’s an annoying tendency that I have, this tendency to thoroughly piss off guys.
I want to say something else, but the truth is I don’t need him to defend me. I just needed a shoulder to cry on and now I’m good.
He’s pacing. “Don’t call me that, don’t act like this shit is about to slide again… because it’s not. I can’t live with myself. Have you looked in the fucking mirror? He fucked you up. It hurts to look at you… you’re so fucking gorgeous, it hurts Rhys. Your brother would have my fucking balls if he saw you right now.” Rambling, muttering, he’s ranting more to himself than he is to me.
And it’s wrong to interject; clearly, he‘s not just angry, he’s trying to sort out some deep-seated issues, but I can’t help it. In this moment I really don’t want to think about what Gabe would or wouldn‘t have. “Please, don’t bring Gabe into this.”
“Don’t bring Gabe into this? If one of my best friends was the only one left to look after my baby sister I would cut his fucking dick off if he ever let things get so bad that she actually looked the way you do right now.”
Scoff. Roll eyes. Here we go with the morning-after-lecture.
“Are you seriously rolling your eyes at me? Are you being serious right now? Why do you always protect this motherfucker, Rhys?”
“I’m not protecting him!” But I am.
“You are! I tell you, ‘Stay here, don’t go back, Trace and I will handle this.’ I begged you last time. And what do you always do? You go back! You make me promise to ‘stay out of it’ and then go running back like a dumbass! But you‘re not dumb, Baby. You‘re not dumb, you‘re my baby, you‘re Gabe‘s baby sister.”
I can’t look at him, the tears are searing my vision. I limp over to the sink and try distracting myself by washing out my bowl, but I have to say it. “If I can’t call you Blue, you can’t call me Baby. I’m not kid anymore, Justin. I don’t need you and Trace to ‘handle’ anything, I just need a friend. Okay? I just… need… a friend, not a fucking knight in shining armor.”
A deafening shatter.
Running water.
Pieces of porcelain scattered in the sink.
[Justin]
Enter Chloe. “Am I interrupting something?” Eyebrow arched. “Little Rhysie looks upset.”
“Don’t call her that.”
A scoff. (Women and their scoffs.) “I’m sorry, but there’s a little girl sitting out there all black and blue, the same little girl that you’re constantly giving money to, buying expensive gifts, having sleepovers with when she has a boyfriend of her own… albeit an abusive cokehead.”
“Chloe…,” don’t start…
“What is she doing here, Justin?”
And so begins what I already know is going to be a fucked up day.
[Rhys]
Jealous. That’s always been Justin’s type. Intelligent, ambitious, beautiful women that are excessively jealous. Maybe I don’t have the right to be insulted because he does give me money and really nice gifts, and a place to stay whenever Isaac acts up, but I’m twenty-two. I work, I pay bills, and I know how the real world works… nothing about my life is juvenile; I’m extremely far from being a “little girl.” And Isaac sniffs sometimes but it’s only ever a line or two, his anger… that’s something else, that’s completely separate from the drugs. Something an ice-bitch princess like her could never understand.
Glance at the clock. It’s a quarter to eleven now. He’s still sleeping, big man in charge of a job that starts whenever he wants it to. Junkies never sleep, that’s why Moe and Larenz and all the rest of them slang for him; but it’s his empire… junkie, dealer, it doesn’t matter… they all come to him when he tells them to, and eleven is way too early to be bothered with any of it.
I have to go back and I need Justin to take me there, but that’s such a doomed inevitability.
[Justin]
Fuck, I’m going to be late. Trace is always on my ass when it comes to punctuality. And I’m still not dressed, I had maybe thirty minutes of solid sleep, Rhys is going to make me take her back the way she always does, Chloe’s still bitching, and ow! Shit! I just cut myself.
I should be mad that she broke this bowl… but I’m not.
“I sound like a bitch, but I don’t understand, Justin… if she’s so grown why does she keep depending on you like you’re her dad or something? You think you’re doing what’s right because you think it’s what Gabriel would’ve wanted, but I think Gabriel would’ve wanted her to learn how to take care of herself, defend herself, instead of acting like a child, allowing this dude to beat her. What does she owe him? Absolutely nothing, but she lets this asshole stay in her apartment? He’s almost a decade older than her and he’s just as immature as she is, but even worse, and what’s really sad is your condonation of this behavior… both his and hers…”
I’m bleeding. Her voice begins to ‘wah-wah’ as if she’s a Charles Schulz cartoon character. I try to ignore that her mentioning of Gabe really pisses me off. She didn’t know him, she can never know what he would or wouldn’t have wanted. And telling me I’m condoning both Rhys and Isaac’s behavior…? It’s fucked up and it’s total bullshit; it just goes to show that after a year she doesn’t really know me either.
“Is that the bowl I bought you? What happened?”
I look down at the pieces and shrug. If I say anything right now we might be here for another hour.
[Rhys]
I need a cup of coffee. Without it my nerves are shot. I can’t believe she just brought up Gabe.
[Justin]
Chloe looks at her watch. “Ugh, I’m going to be late.” And with that she leaves.
We usually have breakfast together when she starts at noon, that’s why she came over, but fuck it.
“Justin…” Here we go... From the corner of my eye I see Rhys in the doorway. “I need you to take me home.”