Chapter 3 Ivan #2
Jay laughs, but it's not a happy laugh. It's bitter and knowing.
"Social workers means we get moved, Ivan.
You go one place, I go another place. We never see each other again.
They don't keep siblings together, and we're not even siblings, so they definitely won't keep us together. Is that what you want?"
"No," I say, and the word comes out fast, almost desperate. I've only known Jay three weeks but the thought of being taken away from him, of losing the only person who's ever protected me, makes me panic. "No, I don't want that at all."
"Then we deal with this," Jay says firmly. "We deal with the Hendersons, we keep our heads down, we survive whatever they throw at us. Together. One day at a time. That's the only way this works. That's the only way we both make it through."
I nod slowly, understanding the terrible mathematics of our situation now. The awful equation we're forced to solve. Bruises and belts and fear, or losing Jay. Those are the options.
"I can do it," I say, and I'm not sure if I'm telling him or telling myself, trying to convince one of us that it's true. "When it happens, I can do it. I won't cry."
"I know you can," Jay says, and he puts his arm around my shoulders, pulls me close against his side. "And when it happens—and it will happen, probably sooner rather than later, you come find me after. No matter what. You come find me and I'll be there. We'll take care of each other. Okay?"
"Okay," I agree. Somewhere in the distance, a dog is barking, the sound carrying across the fields. The wind moves through the tall grass, making it whisper and sway, creating patterns I can almost see in the darkness.
"Jay?" I say after a while. "What's your place?" I ask. "The place you go to in your head when it's happening?"
"My place?" he repeats, like he's not sure he heard me right.
"The place you go. In your head. When it's happening. You said you go somewhere else."
He's quiet for so long I think maybe he won't answer, maybe it's too personal to share.
"There's this beach I saw in a magazine once," he finally says.
"When I was at a different placement. White sand, blue water stretching out forever.
Nobody else there, just me. Just waves and sun and peace. I go there."
"That sounds nice," I say, trying to picture it.
"It is," he agrees. "You should find your own. A place that's just yours. Safe. Somewhere you can go when things get bad, when you need to escape inside your own mind."
I close my eyes and try to think of a place, searching through my memories for something good and safe.
I don't have many good memories to choose from.
Not even a picture. Most of my life has been old rooms and temporary beds and people who don't want me, people who see me as a burden or a paycheck.
But then I think of right now. This barn, this loft with its dusty hay. Jay's arm around me, warm and solid. The cold outside and the warmth of having someone next to me who actually cares if I live or die, who sees me as a person worth protecting.
Maybe this is my place. Maybe my safe place is just wherever Jay is, whatever location we happen to be in together.
I don't tell him that, though. It feels too big to say out loud, too vulnerable. Too much like admitting that I need him more than he needs me.
Later, when the lights in the farmhouse have been off for over an hour and we're reasonably sure Henderson has passed out in his chair, we sneak back inside as quietly as possible.
The floorboards creak beneath our feet but we've learned which ones to avoid, which boards are loose and which are silent.
We slip into our room like ghosts, close the door soft behind us, turning the handle so it doesn't click.
I change into the T-shirt I sleep in, the one that's too big and has a hole near the hem. Climb into bed carefully. The springs poke into my back but I've gotten used to it over the past three weeks, learned to shift my weight to avoid the worst of them.
"Jay?" I whisper into the darkness.
"Mm?" he responds sleepily.
"Thanks," I say, not sure how to put everything I'm feeling into words. "For explaining. For preparing me. For..." I don't know how to finish. For everything. For being the only person in my whole life who's made me feel like I matter, like I'm worth something.
"Get some sleep, Ivan," Jay says gently. "Tomorrow's a school day. We've got to be up early."
I close my eyes and try to find the beach Jay talked about with the white sand, blue water, peace but it's not mine. It doesn't work for me. The image won't stick in my mind.
Instead, I picture the barn. The loft with its dusty hay. The two of us sitting there together, Jay's arm around me, watching the sky turn dark.
That's where I go in my mind as I drift off to sleep.
That's my safe place.
***
The thing I was most scared of happens four days later, on a Thursday afternoon.
I don't even know what I did wrong. I was carrying firewood from the pile behind the barn to the porch, just like Mr. Henderson had told me to do, moving as fast as I could with the heavy logs in my arms.
Maybe I wasn't carrying enough pieces at once, or maybe I wasn't moving fast enough for his liking.
Or maybe he was just drunk and mean and looking for someone to hurt, looking for an outlet for whatever rage was burning inside him.
It doesn't really matter what the reason was.
The reason never really matters with men like him.
"Get over here, boy," he says from the porch where he's standing with a beer in one hand, the words slurring together.
I walk toward him on legs that feel like they belong to someone else, like I'm controlling my body from a great distance. My heart is pounding so hard I can hear it in my ears, a drumbeat that drowns out everything else, and I already know what's coming.
I know because I watched it happen to Jay. I know because Jay warned me this day would come.
"Take your shirt off," Henderson commands, his eyes cold and flat.
My hands shake as I pull my T-shirt over my head, trembling so badly I can barely grip the fabric.
The cold autumn air hits my bare skin and makes me shiver, goosebumps rising on my arms and chest. I stand there holding my shirt in a ball against my chest, not knowing what to do with it, not knowing what to do with myself.
Then I hear the sound—leather sliding through belt loops, a hiss and a whisper that makes my whole body go tight with fear. I know that sound. The clink of the buckle as he doubles the belt over in his hand, snapping it once to test it.
"Turn around," he orders.
I turn around slowly and stare at the firewood I dropped on the ground when he called me over. I start counting the logs because I need something to focus on, something to hold onto to keep from falling apart. One, two, three, four, five—
The first crack of the belt against my bare back is like nothing I've ever felt before, white-hot and electric, pain that explodes across my skin and radiates through my whole body. My body jerks forward before I can stop it, before I can control the instinctive reaction.
"Don't you move, boy," Henderson growls from behind me. "You better stand still."
I don't move. I plant my feet and squeeze my eyes shut tight and dig my fingernails into my palms hard enough to draw blood, and I do what Jay told me to do. I go somewhere else in my mind.
The barn. The loft. The smell of old hay gone yellow and dusty, scratchy against my jeans.
Jay is sitting next to me with his arm around my shoulders, warm and solid and real and safe.
The sky is turning dark through the loft door and I can hear the wind moving through the fields outside, the grass whispering.
His voice is in my ear, steady and calm.
The pain is temporary. You survive today so you can survive tomorrow. That's the whole game. That's the only game. We'll get through this together.
I hold onto that picture in my mind as hard as I can, gripping it like a lifeline, making it as real as I can possibly make it. The scratch of hay through my jeans. The feeling of Jay's heartbeat against my shoulder, steady and strong.
The belt keeps falling—four times, five times, six times, maybe more, I lose count somewhere in there as the pain blurs together, but I'm far away now. I'm in the barn with Jay. I'm safe in my mind even as my body suffers.
I don't cry. I don't make a sound. I bite down on my lip so hard I taste blood.
When it's finally over, Mr. Henderson shoves me hard between the shoulder blades with his palm, and I stumble forward, barely catching myself on the porch railing before I fall.
He goes back inside without another word, muttering under his breath about ungrateful fucking kids and wasted money and how the state doesn't pay him enough to deal with this shit.
The screen door slams shut behind him with a bang that makes me flinch.
I stand there for a long time, gripping the railing with both hands so tight my knuckles turn white, feeling the cold air against my back where the skin is burning and screaming.
I wait for my body to start working again, for my legs to feel like mine instead of someone else's, for the ringing in my ears to stop, for my vision to clear from the edges where it's gone dark and spotty.
Then, slowly, painfully, I pick up the firewood piece by piece, and I carry it to the porch even though every step sends pain shooting through my back like lightning.
I finish the job because not finishing it will only make things worse later.
I go inside when all the wood is stacked neatly, and I find Jay.
He's in our room doing homework at the small desk in the corner, and when he sees my face his whole expression changes in an instant. He crosses the room fast, closes the door behind me and locks it, and puts his hands on my shoulders so gently it almost makes me want to cry more than the belt did.
"Where?"
"Back," I manage to say. "Side of my head too, I think. One hit landed there."
He turns me around carefully, like I'm made of glass that might shatter, and lifts my shirt. I hear him breathe in sharp through his teeth, a hissing sound of sympathetic pain.
"It's not bad." I know he's lying to make me feel better. "I've seen worse. You'll heal clean."
"It feels bad," I say, because it does. My whole back feels like it's on fire.
"Sit down on your bed," he instructs gently. "I'll get a wet cloth and some ice if we have any."
He leaves the room and comes back a minute later with a wet washcloth and a plastic bag with ice cubes in it wrapped in a thin towel. When he presses the cool cloth against my back, I can't help but hiss at the sting, my body jerking away from the contact before I can stop it.
"You didn't cry," Jay says almost reverently, as he dabs gently at my wounds.
"You told me not to."
"You did good, Ivan," he says, and his voice cracks a little when he says it, emotion breaking through his usual calm. Just a little crack, but I hear it. "You did so good. I'm proud of you."
I close my eyes and let him take care of me, let him be gentle when nothing else in this world is gentle. The cloth is cold against my burning skin and my back is throbbing with every heartbeat, but I didn't cry. I went to my place like he taught me. I survived my first beating from Henderson.
"Jay?" I say after a few minutes of silence.
"Yeah?" he responds, still working on my back.
"Can we go to the barn tonight?" I ask. "After dinner? I need... I just need to go there."
His hand comes to rest on my shoulder, warm and steady and reassuring. "Yeah," he says softly. "Sure, we can go to the barn. We'll stay as long as you want."
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, feeling it shake in my chest.
The pain is temporary. Another day of being alive.
Another day with Jay, who cares about me, who protects me, who sees me as someone worth saving.
That's enough to keep going.