Seventeen
Jace
Lying on the ice-covered grass, I trace the clouds with my fingers and pop another chip into my mouth. The cold sharp shards prick at my skin and I press my arms harder against them. I need to feel something other than the hurt in my heart today. I need to focus on something other than the emptiness and guilt I feel. I left him alone. He hasn’t stopped messaging me and I haven’t stopped reading everything he sends.
His words are what help me get through the days easier. Sometimes they’re random thoughts or jokes he’s heard. Sometimes they’re book recommendations and new flavors of coke he thinks I should try. Others are “I love you” and “I can’t wait until you get here.”
Doesn’t he get that I’m not coming? I thought he would after all this time. My mom called the other day telling me how good they were all doing and how I should come down for Thanksgiving. The wavering in her voice told me she was still unsure of me being there, that she doesn’t trust me. I don’t trust myself either. If I go, I won’t be able to stop him if he decides to crawl into my bed or join me in the shower. I won’t be able to stop my lips from finding his and my fingers from tracing the beauty marks around his nipples. I also won’t be able to stop hurting him in my sleep.
The nightmares have gotten worse. I wake up to torn sheets and feathers everywhere. I’ve broken my headboard and scratched up my face so badly blood was everywhere. I don’t know if it’s the loneliness or sadness lodged deep inside me, or if it’s because I’m not sleeping as much as I should. Maybe they’d come regardless. Maybe they were always meant to take over my dreams. Does that mean they’ll take over my life too?
Either way, I won’t let them reach him, and in order to ensure that, I have to continue staying away. What if not wanting to be like my dad isn’t enough? What if the anger and disgust I feel for people like him will fade over time? My dad was once a good person, wasn’t he? My mom wouldn’t have married him otherwise, or had a child with him. I don’t remember the good side of him but that doesn’t mean he never had one.
How old was he when he lost his fight to the darkness? When did his morals and compassion fade? When did the monster take over? Did he not see it coming, like maybe I don’t?
My mom got tangled in his loose threads, and when they finally broke it was too late for her to come out untangled. He made it all worse by subjecting me to the mess he made of all the unraveled pieces.
I won’t risk doing the same to anyone I love. I won’t risk Nate. And that’s why I must sacrifice what makes me happy . . . So that he always has a chance to be.
This is his third semester without me and he still won’t give up. He’s met some new friends and I couldn’t help but smile at his horrible choice in bedroom curtains.
I need you to come help me pick better ones. You always had a better eye than me.
His last few messages all started with I need you. I lift up my shirt, pressing more of my bare skin to the frigid ice, and close my eyes. My heart hurts every time he begins his messages that way. I want to be there. I’ve stopped myself from getting into the old pickup truck I bought with my savings, many times. When he got stood up on a blind date. When he got his car broken into. When some guy tried to rob him in the school parking lot, and when he came down with a bad case of the flu.
I wanted to be there so bad. But he has others now. Better options. Safer people in his life who won’t corrupt his mind like I did. No, my mom didn’t say those exact words, but she implied them. She didn’t think I was a good influence on him and she was right. I’m no better now than I was then. I’m still broken and bruised inside with too many inner demons to battle. I’m still in love with my brother. I still want way more with him than I should. I still want him. I still need him too.
Pushing myself up with my hands, I take my phone out of my pocket to do the second hardest thing I’ve ever done. Sucking in my breath, every muscle tenses inside me as I click on his name, and after reminding myself how much more he needs this than me, I hit the block button.
No more new messages. No updates about his life. No more “I miss you” and “I need you.” No more him.
I debate deleting all his messages and pictures as I stride back to the house. I think about it some more when I’m in the shower and putting on fresh clothes for supper. I think about it while I’m eating my aunt’s famous roast beef and reading one of the books he told me about out on the back deck under the stars.
Then, when it’s time to turn in and I’m lying in bed unable to shake my dad’s words and all the men’s faces from the basement, I pick up the phone and read Nate’s messages. I distract my mind with something good and read them out loud until my thoughts are spinning with him instead of everything else.
That’s when I realize I’m not ready to let everything between us go yet. As I’m setting my phone down on the dresser, a loud thud downstairs has me sitting up on high alert. Glass shatters and I get to my feet, with my finger ready to call 911.
“Aunt Rachel? Uncle Judd?”
No one answers. Trying to steady my breathing, I grab a baseball bat from my closet and peek outside my bedroom door. The hallway is dark and quiet. Only my own breathing and soft footsteps surround me. Then there’s a high-pitched scream, and when I rush toward it I see a person in a black mask, with their back to me, pointing a knife at my aunt. My uncle is on the ground, passed out with a head wound. With trembling fingers, I quickly hit 911 on my phone, turning the volume all the way down and shoving it back in my pocket.
“Tell me who else is in the house?” the guy with the mask demands.
“No one,” she squeaks.
Another guy walks around the living room, tossing everything he assumes is valuable into a black bag. Fear licks at the back of my neck when he looks my way, and I press myself to the wall, trying to hide myself in the dark.
“Did you hear that?” the guy with the bag asks, searching around some more.
“Hear what?”
“I don’t know. I thought I heard a noise coming from the hallway.”
“Well, don’t just stand there like a dang idiot. Go check it out,” the first guy says, and I’m assuming he’s the one in charge.
“Please don’t hurt us,” my aunt begs. “Tell me what you’re looking for and I’ll get it for you. You’ll be able to leave a lot quicker if you let me.”
“Shut up. Did I ask you? No.” His hand cracks across her face and I clench my jaw, tightening my grip on the bat. They weren’t expecting me to be here. Do they know my aunt and uncle somehow? I didn’t leave the house a lot, and my uncle hasn’t been able to talk me into going to church with them yet. He picks up the groceries and everything else in town while I wait in the car.
My aunt falls to the floor, sobbing into her arm as she lands against the cabinets. I wait until the second guy looks away before slipping into the laundry room across the way. As I close the door, I leave a small crack and wait until he walks into the first room he reaches. He’s going through the drawers, opening them and slamming them shut when he doesn’t find what he’s looking for. Knowing he’ll be busy in there for a while once he stumbles upon my aunt’s jewelry and the cash she hides under the bed, I sneak back out to the hallway.
The first guy is looking down at my aunt, pointing the knife at her necklace. “Take it off or I’ll cut your neck to get it.”
My heart shoots up into my throat as my aunt reaches for the gold chain with shaky hands. As she turns it around and unclasps the back, the diamond on her engagement ring shines under the light.
“Well ain’t that a pretty ring you got there. I was just thinking about proposing to my girl. I think that’ll look a lot better on her finger than yours, don’t you?”
“Fuck you,” I scream, coming at him quickly and striking him in the back of the head with the bat. The wood slams against his cheek first as he attempts to turn around, and I swing again, hitting him so hard in the head I swear I hear a crack. As a scream crawls up his throat and he swings his fists my way, I slam the bat into his knees making him buckle. His body hits the floor like a sack of potatoes, and when he drops his knife I kick it away.
Face covered in blood, his words come out scrambled and he spits out a tooth. He reaches for my aunt and more rage fills me, my hands having a mind of their own as I hit him some more, unable to hear my aunt’s pleas for me to stop until the man lies lifeless on the floor. His friend comes rushing out, tugging off his mask. I’ve seen him before. He’s helped load my uncle’s groceries before.
“Where the fuck did you come from? What did you do to my brother?” His footsteps toward me come to a halt when sirens blare outside. Backing up, he looks around with panic in his face. “I told him we needed to stop. He didn’t listen. Said this was the last one.” Muscles tense in his jaw, tears streaming down his eyes, and when cops barge through the front door, he holds his hands up.
My aunt crawls to my uncle as he comes to, coughing up blood. They’ve never been through anything like this before. Those assholes weren’t wrong about this being their last fucking house. With heavy breathing and heart still beating fast, I drop the bat, and when the cop tries to cuff me, my aunt stops him.
“No. He’s our nephew. He lives here and he saved our lives. That man on the floor threatened to slit my throat and could have killed my husband with how badly he beat him. They’re the ones you want.” She points to the lifeless body on the floor and the man slumping to the ground placing his hands behind his back with large regretful eyes.
He’ll be out in a few months, I’m sure. And once he’s out, I’ll be watching and making sure he doesn’t find himself in another similar situation. No telling what they would have done to my aunt and uncle if I wasn’t here. I might not be able to stop myself from doing the wrong thing in my dreams, but today I was able to stop others from doing it in real life.
Weeks go by and I find myself in a dark parking lot, stopping a man from forcing a woman into his car against her will. And it doesn’t stop there. I start wandering into random bars, and get invites to parties where men try to slip drugs into peoples drinks or get too handsy in some dark corner. It’s almost as if the universe is sending these people my way on purpose, or drawing me to the places where they are. Sending them to jail just isn’t enough.
I find where they work and get them fired from their jobs. I break up their relationships. Make their lives difficult, forcing them to always watch their backs like they’ve done to others—wanting them to know what it’s like to live their lives in constant fear.
And when I no longer accidentally stumble upon them, I go looking for them, needing more. Needing to teach worse people a lesson. People who deserve the pain and suffering I used to think I did. People who are like my dad. Because if I stop them, they can’t hurt anyone. If I stop them, I’m not the monster in my dreams. The more of them I stop, the further I get away from being my dad.
I play his words— “Make me proud” —in my head, right before doing the opposite.