Four
H e took me back home after that. The way back was silent again, but this time we were both lost in our own thoughts. When we got to my trailer, I waved goodbye to him as we parted ways. I sat down on the porch, unable to resist watching him. He glanced at me several times before he disappeared inside his trailer, leaving a mess of teenage hormones (well, almost) behind. I mulled over the events, creepily humming random tunes that popped into my head, all while smiling like a goofy idiot to myself.
All I kept hearing in my mind was the soulful sound of his voice; it gave me chills.
One wouldn’t have to look at him to like his voice. It had nothing to do with attraction. Truly, for a thirteen-year-old, he was unusually gifted.
And remember that, Leah. My mind reiterated over and over again. He’s thirteen, popular, and gorgeous as hell. You’re twelve, hated by everyone, and awkward as hell. You stand no chance.
What a bittersweet mess life was, filled with boundaries and never-ending disappointments. The blaringly obvious truth was punching me in the face. Carter was never going to want me, and yet I was Mohamed Ali, rounding my shoulders, raising my fists up to fight and mentally hardening myself through every punch reality had in store.
I wondered about his mother, and what she meant to him. I was afraid to ask him about her, only because of the sad look in his eyes. Had she died around the time he moved next door to me? It killed me to think he was bottling up his sadness. If I could just get close enough to him to let me in…
Sometime later the front door behind me opened, and a broad figure burst out, zipping up his pants and running both hands over his long black hair. I redirected my gaze and kept it firmly planted to the ground as the stranger walked past me, slowing down for a moment to look down at me.
“She’s off limits,” Uncle Russell suddenly said from behind me. “Only twelve.”
I could still feel the man’s heavy gaze on me while he backed away. I heard the sounds of keys jingling, and when he was a safe distance away, I looked up at him and watched him unlock his car door. Just another seedy looking man. Nothing new.
Right before he climbed in, his face turned once more in my direction. It was only a brief second, but I felt uncomfortable by it. Then he disappeared inside his car and took off.
I breathed a sigh of relief.
I’d grown tired of the attention men had given me whenever they came and went. Sometimes they were regulars, but I’d rather that than strangers like the one that’d just gone. At least with the regulars I knew they’d respect the off-limits reminder Uncle Russell had given them.
Strangers, on the other hand, were entirely unpredictable.
“What are we in the mood for tonight, darling?” Uncle Russell asked as he stepped out and took a seat next to me.
He was a large man, not in a muscular way whatsoever. Just big and meaty, mostly due to genetics than anything else. Glancing at his gut, I hoped I wouldn’t turn into him. He was my mother’s brother, and if you looked at Russell hard enough, you could see the similarities between us. Like the light coloured hair and hazel eyes, or the thin red lips on a heart shaped face. Other than that, we were nothing alike, both physically and mentally.
“Fish and chips,” I suggested with a shrug. I wasn’t all that hungry. My stomach was still swirling with butterflies after being so near to Carter.
Uncle Russell smiled down at me, and it looked friendly and kind, but I knew better than to trust him. I’d seen how he treated people. He was a hard man, even to Aunt Cheryl.
Sometimes he frightened me when they argued. He wasn’t physical with her. But I quickly learned mental abuse was equivalent to words with pointy daggers at the end.
Fortunately for me, he’d never treated me badly. I know now it was all a ruse. That he was patient with me only because he had a lot in store for me. At the time, though, I thought I was his soft spot.
“Anything for you,” he said with an unsettling wink.
He pushed back a few strands of my hair behind my ear, and I resisted cringing at the simple gesture. I hated when he touched me in any way. I felt slimy on the inside. Then he was up and on his way out to get fish and chips, using the money Aunt Cheryl just earned getting screwed by multiple men. Weekends were always the busiest, and she’d recuperate Monday to Wednesday before opening up for business again.
When he was long gone, I was able to step inside and tiptoe past the bedroom where Cheryl was in a foetal position, nursing a cigarette with a trembling hand. It was always hard to witness her like this. I knew she hated it. She was so beautiful, too. I always thought she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. She had the softest mahogany hair, green sad eyes, large full lips and a body that was naturally slim. She could steal the shine wherever she went. It was no wonder all the women here wanted to cut her eyes out. Didn’t help their men were probably sneaking in here and getting a bit of the action.
There was a reason I was loathed by everybody. I was the offspring of a dysfunctional family whose Aunt whored herself to all the men that weren’t getting laid enough at home. Pretty much the niece to a home wrecker, and suddenly Graeme’s attack wasn’t all that random.
“Leah, is that you?” she called out, her voice shaky and high.
I froze and stared longingly at my small bedroom. With a sigh, I turned back around and slowly entered hers. She didn’t move her head to look at me, but her glazed eyes did. I stood in front of her, and her gaze moved up and down my body, no emotion on her face. She was probably high already.
“Why are you dressed like that?” she managed out.
I stared down at my clothes before looking back at her. “How do you mean?”
“You look like a whore. You look… like me.”
I blinked at her, and suddenly I felt awkward as hell standing here. My eyes skimmed the room briefly, taking in the disheveled sheets and stained carpet. I resisted wrinkling my nose, that inescapable smell of alcohol, smoke and…sweat heavy in the air.
“Leah,” she continued, capturing my attention. “Why are you dressed like that?”
“I’m not dressed in anything different.”
“I don’t like it.”
“I’ll change.”
She coughed lightly. “Russell won’t let you.”
Well, what did she want me to do? I almost rolled my eyes at her. It wasn’t like I had a choice in the matter. I dressed in what I was given. She knew that.
She let out a shaky breath. “Don’t be like me, Leah. Y’promise?”
I nodded slowly. “Yeah.”
“Don’t… be like me.”
“Okay.”
Then she repeated it a third time, but the words died off and her eyes closed. She passed out, and I had to remove the lit cigarette from in-between her fingers and put it out on the ashtray on the night able.
I turned around and hurried out of there. Shut inside my room, I spent the rest of the day eating my fish and chips and reading out of my shelf of ninety-nine cent books I bought from the local used bookstore around the corner. I was smitten for raunchy romance, even if I was too young to fully grasp the concept of love. I’d have bought other genres, or books from acclaimed authors, if I wasn’t so strict with what I spent. But when you’re given a fifteen dollar a month allowance, making every dollar stretch as far as it can go is pretty important.
It was actually a small hobby of mine, counting coins and recording what I had, hoping to hit a hundred just for the sake of actually having a hundred dollars in my hands. Money had always been a beautiful thing to me, and I loved numbers.
In a world that had gone to shit, numbers made sense.
I also liked that I was actually good at something.
It was around midnight when I was finally dozing off, with the smutty novel spread open across my chest, that I heard a tapping sound coming from the window. For a couple minutes I stirred only slightly, thinking I was just half-dreaming the sound. But the more rapping there was, the more I stirred, until finally I opened my eyes in the darkness and slowly moved to the window. Pulling aside the bed sheet I used as a curtain, I looked out.
My bedroom faced the side of Carter’s trailer, and I saw nothing out of the ordinary. All the lights in his trailer were off. Confused by the noise, I rubbed my eyes thinking I’d just made it up in my head, but when I opened them again, I finally noticed the small gift bag on the windowsill.
Cautiously, I unlocked the window and pulled it up just enough to grab it. Once in my hands, I hurriedly opened it and looked inside. There wasn’t any gift bag paper. In fact, the actual bag itself still had its fifty-cent price tag on it, and I instantly knew this was done in the hands of a male. I knew who that male was straight away when I saw the contents.
I raced to the bed and tipped the bag upside down. Five bottles of nail polish fell out, and I grabbed at each of them hastily. Turning on the lamp next to my small bed, I stared at them individually. They were all different colours, but one of them stood out. I grabbed it and spun it under the light, smiling like a fool.
This was the exact one Graeme had thrown on the ground. Carter had returned for it, and he had replaced it for me. And in the process, he’d bought me more.
Nobody had ever done this.
I’d never been treated to gifts in my life, not even from Uncle Russell on my birthday. That’s why I cherished the nail polish Cheryl had given me so much. I always felt like an intruder. An unwanted entity that survived without love. Like a wilting flower deprived of sun, I was wasting away alone most of my childhood.
Until this.
Until Carter.
Until he showed me a tender and giving piece of his soul I wanted to keep all to myself.
I never wanted someone more than I wanted him in that moment.