Three
I ’ m on my hands and knees scrubbing the toilets, but I don’t mind because I’ll be gone tomorrow.
Aldo said three days.
days isn’t a long time, but for me, each hour, each minute, has felt like ten thousand years. But I know my time has finally come.
So I persevere because I have hope.
The sisters have ensured my last days here are far from easy. But I’ll happily scrub every toilet in this place because I know it’s soon to be my last. I’m humming softly as I clean the boys’ bathroom. The place is always a disgusting mess, so I’ll be here for a while.
As I’m using the brush to clean around the toilet bowl, I hear the door open.
“Occupied!” I call out, not bothering to stop scrubbing. “Use the bathroom down the hall.”
Rushed footsteps echo from behind, but I don’t have time to turn around before someone grips my hair and slams my face into the ceramic bowl. I use my hands to stop from connecting with the toilet a second time, but my attacker pulls my head back hard, allowing me to see him.
“Nice eye patch,” I mock, trying to remain composed because Hugo, my attacker, is intent on revenge.
“I lost my eye because of you!” he snarls, inches from my face.
“Too bad I didn’t cut out your tongue.”
Hugo snarls and attempts to drag me out of the stall. But I grip the bowl using my arms and legs. If I don’t fight, I’m scared I will be leaving the orphanage in a body bag.
Revenge makes Hugo strong and brave. He punches me in the temple, and my vision instantly blurs.
My grip slackens, and Hugo drags me along the floor by my hair. I try to grab onto something, but the floor is slippery thanks to it being recently mopped. I kick my legs out and attempt to pry myself free from Hugo’s grip, but he only pulls my hair harder.
“Help!” I scream, hating that I can’t defend myself.
But Hugo silences me when he reaches for the mop and shoves it into my mouth.
Instantly, I taste detergent and dry retch because that is beyond disgusting. I cleaned the entire bathroom with this mop. I know what revolting things I mopped up. He removes it, only to snap the handle in half as he brings it over his knee.
I wonder what he intends to do with it.
Things happen so fast, and Hugo has the advantage because he knows what he wants. He is the predator. I am his prey.
When he lets go of my hair, I scramble frantically, but Hugo jumps on top of me, pinning me to the floor. I reach out with my free hand and slap his cheek.
This only enrages him further.
He punches me in the face, resulting in the back of my head slamming against the hard floor. My nose begins to bleed. I’m not sure if it’s broken. I can’t feel pain anymore.
Hugo won’t be happy until I’m dead. But when he yanks up the hem of my dress, it’s apparent he would prefer another outcome over my death.
Fight or flight takes over, and ignoring my injuries, I begin to fight with every ounce of strength I have. I kick my legs. I rear up and bite Hugo’s neck. But it’s all in vain when I feel his fingers penetrate me crudely.
He doesn’t care that it hurts so badly I can taste blood from biting down on my tongue. He just continues to violently assault me, keeping me pinned down with his forearm over my throat, watching me with his one eye.
He’s getting off on this. He’s just as sick as all the other men who have violated me. Every part of my body hurts. As does my soul. How many times can this happen to me before I drift away and am never found?
I detach from my body, just as I always do, but Hugo won’t allow it.
“No, bitch, look at me!” He spits in my face and slaps my cheek. “You’re wet. You like it. You’re nothing but a filthy whore. I would fuck you, but my cock is too good for your diseased cunt. But you need to be taught a lesson.”
He reaches for the broken mop handle, and my question as to why he snapped it in half is answered as he removes his fingers from me, intending to replace them with something else.
“No!” I wheeze, flailing with the last shred of fight I have left.
But it’s fruitless when I feel the most grotesque pain splitting my body into two, followed by Hugo’s elated, victorious screams.
I stop fighting because I am robbed of life.
Robbed of breath.
I can’t feel any part of my body any longer. It stops hurting, but I know that’s not because Hugo has stopped raping me with a household item that is supposed to represent cleanliness.
I will never be clean ever again.
Hugo bites my neck, whispering into my ear what a good girl I am as he continues violating me with that handle, and just as I close my eyes, surrendering to defeat, fate reveals it’s not done with me just yet.
The only reason I know this is really happening is Hugo’s pained screams for help are a salve to my blistering soul. I realize the pain between my legs is an echo because I’m no longer being assaulted. But my attacker didn’t stop of his own accord.
He stopped because someone was delivering to him what he did to me.
All I can hear is fists connecting with bone and flesh, but instead of recoiling, I rejoice because it’s music to my soul.
Opening my eyes, I slowly lift myself onto one elbow and focus on the scene before me.
Who I see has me realizing I made the right choice when Aldo asked who I wanted to come with me.
Lenny punches and kicks Hugo on the floor while he’s curled into a ball, begging him to stop. But Lenny doesn’t stop. In fact, he only seems to grow more incensed as he continues to beat the living hell out of Hugo.
“I’m sorry!”
Punch.
“I didn’t mean—”
Kick.
However, Lenny isn’t listening, and when Hugo begins crying, he kicks him in the ribs until he collapses onto his stomach. What he does next, I take complete delight in because an eye for an eye…figuratively speaking, of course.
He yanks down Hugo’s trousers and reaches for the handle that was used on me in the most brutal of ways.
He doesn’t speak.
He doesn’t hesitate.
He drives the handle into Hugo’s ass and inflicts the same treatment on him as he did to me.
Hugo’s pained screams excite me, and the deeper Lenny shoves that handle into Hugo’s ass, the nervous energy inside me explodes, and I am breathless with exhilaration. Something must be very wrong with me because this doesn’t disgust me. On the contrary, I want to see Hugo’s blood.
Pushing past my pain, I come to a shaky stand, and when Lenny meets my eyes, he nods.
“Finish it,” he orders, knowing this is my fight.
Hugo has passed out from shock, but that won’t do.
I look down at the pathetic boy who has been reduced to nothing but a crybaby and wonder what I ever did for him to hate me so much. But at this moment, I realize that sometimes there isn’t a reason.
Bad things happen because there are bad people in this world, and…I think I’m one of them.
Hugo’s tears stain his cheeks, but I don’t feel a slither of remorse for what I’m about to do. I yank out the mop handle, which has Hugo coming back to life as his entire body jolts. I toss it away and kick him onto his back.
He winces as I straddle him.
He doesn’t fight. He simply looks at me, begging I show mercy.
“You picked on the wrong girl,” I state calmly because, for the first time ever, I’m the one in control. “Let this be a lesson learned.”
Reaching for the container of bleach, I unscrew the cap, and when Hugo clamps his lips shut, I pull up his eye patch and drive my thumb into his empty eye socket.
His screams are pained.
My laughs are elated.
I pour the bleach down Hugo’s throat and cackle maniacally when he begins to gag on the poisonous fluid.
“And that lesson is…be nice.”
I hold his mouth closed by placing my hand over it, forcing him to swallow as I pinch his nose and slap his cheek. When he does, I release him and come to a stand. “Good boy.”
I watch as he clutches his throat, convulsing on the floor as foam spills from his mouth.
Lennon stands by me, arms folded as he too watches Hugo squirming on the floor.
We’re both unmoved.
Turning to look at Lenny, I see he has flecks of Hugo’s blood on his face, and on instinct, I stand on tippy-toes and run my thumb along the blood trail, smudging it so it stains down his eye and onto his cheek. A single red line mars his face, and he’s never looked more heroic and beautiful than he does right now.
Warpaint on a warrior who saved my life.
“Let’s go.” He links our fingers and leads us from the bathroom.
The hallway is quiet because everyone is in Mass. We quickly walk to the attic. Once we climb the stairs, I realize Lennon is the first guest I’ve had up here. When he sees the state of my “room,” my cheeks blush. I’m embarrassed he has seen where I live.
I attempt to tidy things up, but he grips my forearm, stopping me. “Are you all right?”
No one has ever asked me that before. I’m not okay. I haven’t been for my entire life. But I nod.
“You probably need to see the nurse.”
“I’m fine.” Pain radiates in my belly and backside, but I quash it down because there is no way I’m going to the infirmary. “We’re getting out of here. Tomorrow.”
“We are?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know that?”
How can I disclose what I know without divulging to Lennon what happened? I don’t want him looking at me differently. I don’t want him to know what Father Merry has done to me over the years. What if he sees me as weak?
What if he sees me as a victim?
“I just do.” I settle for that reply, making it clear I don’t want to talk about it.
He doesn’t press, but I can see by the tight purse of his lips that he finds it hard to believe. I don’t blame him. It feels as if we’re never going to leave this place. And we’re doomed to remain here until the end of time.
Lenny looks at me, and I suddenly realize what a mess I must look. I wipe my bloody nose with the back of my hand. But it just smudges across my face.
“Here.”
Before I can object, Lennon removes his T-shirt and wipes my face. I shrink away, not wanting to be tended to this way, but he grips my upper arm to stop me from moving. My scrawny arm doesn’t stand a chance against his big hands.
I allow him to tend to me, and although I’m not accustomed to such kindness, I don’t mind it coming from Lennon. He isn’t gentle, but I can feel the tenderness behind his touch. I don’t understand why he’s come into my life or why I feel this pull toward him, but I’m glad he is here.
“What secrets are you hiding, little girl?”
“Why do you think I’m hiding anything? And I’m not a little girl.” I pull out of his grip, not wishing to be treated like a baby.
He has the audacity to laugh. “Yes, you are. But you’re far braver than a hundred men, which is why I think your secrets made you this courageous. You were forced to be brave. It’s either kill or be killed. But here you are. I want to know everything about you.”
I hold my breath.
No one has ever shown interest in me before. I’m used to blending into the background and not existing. But Lenny is different. I want him to know about me because I want to know about him.
He does something that forever ties us—he wipes the blood from my wounds with two fingers and smudges them across his lips, leaving behind a smear of red. Before I can ask what he’s doing, he then runs his fingers along his bloody knuckles and glides them across my mouth so I’m coated in his blood.
“This is my body. This is my blood,” he says, reciting something I’ve heard in Mass many times. But spoken from Lenny’s bloody lips, it takes on a whole different meaning.
Our blood has forever linked us and sealed our destiny in a bloodstained kiss.
I suddenly feel tired, and I realize it’s because I feel safe. I know Lenny won’t hurt me. A yawn slips past my lips.
“Go to sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
I want to argue, but my eyelids grow heavy of their own accord. I force them open, but Lenny gently cups my cheek.
“Sleep.”
It’s evident Lenny doesn’t take no for an answer, so I do as he says. I lay on my dirty mattress and turn on my side to look at him. He stands watch between me and the door. And he doesn’t waver from his post just as he promised he wouldn’t.
This is the first night I sleep and don’t dream.