35. CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 35
ARI
A nother shirt comes hurling over the partition and lands on my head. I drag it off and hold it up at arm’s length.
“What’s wrong with this one?” I ask Sophie, who’s on the other side of the little accordion wall I have in my apartment. She’s been trying on clothes for the past hour and, apparently, nothing is speaking to her.
“I just feel like they all make me look fat which, I know I am, but I would really like to find a shirt that makes me look a little more pear and a little less apple, if you’re picking up what I’m putting down.”
Before I can start in on Sophie’s poor self-esteem, she beats me to the punch. “Don’t!” she shouts over the partition as a pair of leggings go flying. “Don’t start in on one of those beauty comes from the inside speeches because I don’t want to hear it. For once, I want my beauty to be skin deep, OK? Is that too much to ask?”
I wait a minute before I answer. “No. It’s not too much. But can I ask you something?”
“No.”
“OK, well I’m going to ask it anyway.”
“Knew you would.”
“If you don’t care about Gino and you still won’t call him back, and you honestly have zero interest in what he may think about you, then why are you trying on seventy-five different outfit choices for tomorrow’s bar night?”
“Uh, hello! It’s a bar. Guys go out to bars. Meaning there will be other guys there. Maybe one of them will intrigue me.”
I roll my eyes even though she can’t see me.
“Don’t roll your eyes!” she shouts over the accordion wall, and I cower.
Deciding to let up on her for now, I change the subject. “How has substitute teaching been this week?”
“Lucrative … Hey, have you thought any more about it?” Sophie comes out from around the partition in her normal leggings and T-shirt, fanning herself before plopping down on the couch beside me.
“I think I’m going to apply in the winter, after the holidays,” I answer. “By then I should be done with the daily PT.”
Sophie twists her hair up and fastens it with a clip. “You’re going to love it. And you’re going to be great at it.”
Now that I can walk again, I let Sophie talk me into trying my hand at substitute teaching. Since all you need is a college degree and a clean background check to be a sub, I am more than qualified. However, I’m a little nervous about being back in a school environment. Lord knows I didn’t thrive there.
“So, have you seen Ethan much this week?” Sophie leans forward to pick up her soda from the table in front of us.
I instantly smile just thinking about him. Ethan and I have fallen into a little habit of spending our weekends together. Since I have my work-from-home gig during the day, as well as PT and occasional therapy sessions, and he works into the night designing and sending the newspaper to press, we don’t see each other much during the week.
When I do stay over at his place, I’m getting used to his restless nights, which I can’t figure out. I know a lot of veterans have nightmares, but that’s usually from experiences in active duty, which Ethan never had. Last weekend I had to wake him up to get him to snap out of it, and when he did, he wrapped himself around me and wouldn’t let go.
But we also bicker. He wants to dote on me hand and foot and I’m just not used to it. I don’t want him cooking me dinner, drawing me a bath, or washing my clothes. In fact, I want to do that for him and I’m at the point that I can do all those things now. DeShawn has amped up my training sessions, and Ethan doesn’t know it, yet, but I’ve been walking around on my own all week. I even went up the stairs the other day. DeShawn says I’m on my way to being able to drive again, which will be such a relief.
Ethan wanted to drive me to PT today, but I told him I already asked Sophie to take me and that we were having lunch beforehand.
It wasn’t a complete lie; I do have plans with Sophie today, but she isn’t taking me to therapy.
“So, uh, I guess we better get going?” Soph says from beside me, pulling me from my thoughts.
I nod, reaching for my sweatshirt. “Let’s go.”
***
“So, as usual, I just want to go on the record and say I think this is a bad idea and I wish you would stop coming here and forget about this wretched place altogether,” Sophie says from the driver’s seat as her car tires chew up the broken gravel in the dilapidated driveway.
“Noted,” I give my usual response.
I keep waiting for this place to feel smaller somehow. For the big picture window on the side of the house to have curtains covering it, for the old car parts to be removed from the driveway and front yard, or for my bike to be moved from the spot where it’s lain on its side since I left. But that never happens.
“I’m setting the timer.” Sophie refuses to come inside, but also hates that I go in by myself. So, she gives me fifteen minutes to go in and make my peace, and says if I’m not out by the time the alarm goes off, she’ll call the police. She hates aiding and abetting me in this endeavor at all, but I manipulated her into driving me here.
It started a few months after the accident. I didn’t want him to know I couldn’t walk, so those first few trips we just drove by. But since I started walking, they’ve become visits.
And Sophie is the only one who knows. She’s the only one I could trust to help me and to keep it a secret—because she’s as broken as I am.
I close the car door behind me and walk across the driveway, feeling my shoes teeter on big pebbles of gravel under my feet. I slowly ascend the crooked steps, and when I get to the top, I don’t knock. I walk in with my head down and hear the door slowly swing closed and click shut behind me before lifting my head.
I see him sitting there on the faded, torn couch, elbows resting on his knees, work boots unlaced over dark shop pants, and his filthy hands clasped. His greasy hair is thinning but still a little too long, and falls in his face—only partly shielding his dark, cold eyes.
Eyes that bore into mine as he speaks. “You’re late, girl.”
I swallow. “Hello, Axel.”
Here’s the thing … My relationship with Axel is totally fucked. I know this.
I had many therapy sessions when I first moved in with the Millers, way before the accident, where we evaluated my perception of parent-child relationships—from nature versus nurture, to assumed and reversed roles, to manipulation and abuse, and the convoluted idea I have of maternal and paternal love equating to loyalty.
You name it, I’ve discussed it with someone ad nauseam.
Nothing “cured” me.
Hence, me standing in my childhood home staring at the monster who tormented and broke me.
But he’s also the man who raised me. Who kept a roof over my head and food in my stomach. He may have shown his affection the wrong way—with his fists and his belt—but at least I had someone who was pissed that I left him wondering where I was if I was late to make dinner. Lena never gave a shit. Sure, she may have been kinder to me, but she could go four days without laying eyes on me and not one shit did she give.
Axel gave a shit.
“Why are you late?” His gravelly voice breaks the silence as I look around the dingy house.
In a small voice, I answer. “I told you, I’m not always sure when I can make it here.” I take a breath and slowly move toward the kitchen where I see dishes piled in the sink. “Where’s Lena?”
“Working. Shaking her ass at the bar like you used to do.” Opening a cupboard and rummaging around, I find something I can make quick. “At least you got the hell out of there. Maybe you aren’t as retarded as your momma. At least you got some more brains than Lena.”
I fill a pot with water and put it on the stove, firing up the burner as I hear footsteps behind me. “You still doing that computer job, or whatever the hell you told me last time?”
“Yep,” I answer, knowing what’s coming next.
“Well?” He’s right behind me now. “You going to pony up, or what? After all I’ve done for you.”
Before he can continue, I reach into my back pocket, pull out a small wad of folded up bills, and hold it out, not turning around to look at him. He takes it and I hear him flipping through the cash. “Not too shabby.”
The water starts to boil, so I open the box of pasta and dump it into the pot, then grab a wooden spoon off the counter—I have no idea if it’s clean, nor do I care—and stir the noodles around.
Sophie beeps the horn outside, letting me know I’m halfway through my allotted time.
I turn to the sink, pushing the stopper down and turning on the water before taking the dish soap and dribbling the liquid all over the mountain of dishes, then watch bubbles accumulate as the water rises.
“You should soak your dishes, that way you won’t have to scrub them,” I say.
I hear the thud of Axel’s work boots hitting the door as he discards them. “What are you, the fucking queen? You live in that fancy house now with those goody-two-shoes, and you think you know how to keep a clean house? Is that it?”
When I don’t answer, his voice booms through the house. “Answer me!”
I jump, adrenaline rushing through me, and I bask in its high.
There it is. That , right there, is what I can’t reason: the familiar fear incited by Axel’s booming voice that is often followed by physical pain—and the craving I have for it. The anticipation of it, wondering what he’s going to dish out next and whether I’ll be able to take it. And the pride in knowing that I can. The strength I find in it.
I shut off the water once I see the sink is full, and turn and look into his eyes, trying to decide how far I can push before it goes too far. I pick up the wooden spoon and stir the pasta.
“Yes,” I say softly.
“What’s that?” he barks behind me.
“I said, ‘Yes.’” I turn to look over my shoulder at him. “Yes, I know how to keep a nice house. Because the Millers don’t live in filth like this.” I wave my hand around at the surroundings and fury clouds Axel’s eyes, causing a sense of satisfaction to wash over me. And then I make a rookie mistake. I turn my back to him and continue stirring the pot.
I hear something smash behind me, and then his footsteps as he stomps over and presses himself against my back. But I don’t turn around. I don’t back down. I just keep stirring with a shaky hand. “Listen here,” he growls in my ear. “You think you’re so much better than me? You’re not. You’re still the girl nobody wanted, who I took in because I felt pity for. So, you think about that before you insult me in my house again. Got it?”
I don’t answer, instead lifting the spoon out of the pot and placing it on the counter.
Axel roars behind me. “GOT IT?” Despite my best efforts not to, I flinch, and Axel chuckles.
“Yeah, I thought so.” His finger skates across the side of my neck as he pulls some hair away from my shoulder. I shudder because this is the first time he’s touched me since I started visiting him, and I don’t like it. “You’re still a scared little girl, aren’t you?”
Just as I go to shut the burner off, Axel turns to retreat, but not before shoulder-checking me, and when he does, it’s just enough force that I shoot my hand out to brace myself and it lands right on the flame of the burner. I cry out in pain and quickly run to the sink and turn on the cold water, holding my throbbing hand under the running faucet. Axel chuckles as he goes to the fridge and opens it, then bends down and pulls an apple out of the crisper. He shuts the fridge and leans against it as he shines the apple on his filthy undershirt, before taking a bite and crunching loudly as he chews and swallows.
“What’s wrong, girl? Can’t take it like you used to?”
I turn the water off when I hear Sophie’s double-beep, knowing my time is up. But as soon as the cold water is gone, my hand erupts in pain, so I turn it back on and grab a nearby dishrag and soak it, then hold it over my burning flesh.
Shit, this hurts. But I’m soothed by the familiar mantra from my childhood that resurfaces in my mind. Don’t cry. Don’t you dare cry.
Sophie beeps again and I know she’s going to call the cops if I don’t go out there now. I make eye contact with Axel before pushing away from the counter and heading toward the door, cradling my hand in the towel.
As I walk past him, he says, “See you next time, Arlene.”