Chapter 12 #2
We strolled across the back lawn toward the beach and walked along the water's edge just out of reach of the lapping wavelets.
I sensed she was putting her thoughts together, so I let the silence stand. She stopped after a quarter mile or so and sat down in the grass on a bluff overlooking the Passage. I sat beside her and waited.
"I have a brother, Larry," she said, eventually. "He's ten years older than me, and he's technically my half-brother. He's also a piece of shit."
I barked a laugh. "Wow, okay."
"No, for real. He was always a fucking hooligan. Always in trouble for stupid shit. He didn't get arrested for dealing drugs; he got arrested for trying to sell drugs to a uniformed officer."
I spluttered. "No. No fucking way."
"No, for real. He knew the guy and thought they were buddies. He offered him a dime bag of heroin."
I stared at her. "You aren't for real. No one is that stupid."
"Larry is." I shook my head. "He pulled shit like that all the time. He also had an uncanny knack for getting himself out of trouble. He never saw charges for that stunt with the cop, somehow. Never went to jail at all, actually, despite all the terribly illegal shit he pulled."
"You're saying 'had.' Is he dead?"
"No, just in the Navy, apparently."
"I take it you're not close to him."
She snorted. "Not even a little, for reasons that will be obvious shortly." She inhaled, held it, and let it out slowly. "Larry was an obnoxiously, shockingly stupid person, but we generally got along okay. If Mom was gone at work, he'd make sure I at least had a PB-and-J or something."
I frowned. "Don't much like the sound of that."
Lindsey shrugged. "Mom wasn't exactly the most attentive mother.
Not the point. My problem with Larry wasn't really so much Larry as it was his friends.
They were all uniformly fucking awful. Just jerks and assholes.
I always hated it when he brought his friends around because they were just the worst assholes in the world.
" She paused, sighing. "And then there was his friend Danny.
Daniel Cohen. I hated him from the moment I met him.
He was greasy, smelly, and unwashed. He was mean.
Not just an asshole or obnoxious, he was flat-out mean. And the way he'd look at me?"
My stomach lurched, sank. "Shit."
She stared out at the water, painted silver by the bright curve of the waning moon, just a few days past full, and the numberless stars. "I was twelve when Larry started bringing Danny around. It was always at night when Mom was reliably going to be out getting wasted."
"Your mom left you at home alone with a drug dealer brother?" I asked.
I actually laughed. "Dane, she left me alone without my drug dealer brother when I was eight.
It was better when Larry wasn't there, honestly.
I was safe when I was alone. By twelve, I knew how to take care of myself.
I already did my own laundry, made most of my own meals, got myself to school, all that shit.
Mom had already gone to work by the time I had to get up for school. "
I feel my heart shred. "Jesus, Linz."
She shook her head. "Don't. Not for that. It taught me independence."
"No, it taught you that you can't trust anyone,” I said. “That you can't rely on anyone but yourself."
She nodded. "True enough, I guess. Anyway.
Danny Cohen. He and Larry would come over and watch TV, play video games, get wasted, the usual twenty-year-old boy bullshit.
School was an escape for me, so I actually liked going.
It was safe. There was food. Sometimes Mom would forget to pay a bill and we'd be in the dark until she got paid, or the gas was out so our showers were cold and the stove didn't work, or we didn't have water so I had to shower at school.
Didn't happen all the time, but it happened. "
Another long pause; I got the feeling she was delaying getting to the hard stuff.
"April 5th, four months from my thirteenth birthday, I went to bed early because I had a math test the next morning, and I really wanted to do well on it.
I'd studied my butt off for it, and I was excited to show my teacher how hard I'd worked.
" Her eyes watered, shimmering, and she dropped her gaze, head hanging. "Fuck."
I took her hand. "I'm here."
"I know," she sniffled. "It's just hard to talk about.
" Another long pause. "I woke up to the sound of my door opening.
It was Danny. He closed the door and locked it.
He was drunk. He…I had a nightlight that was just bright enough to let me see his face clearly, and the look on his face?
Dane, it made my blood run cold. I started crying before I knew what he was gonna do, because I just knew nothing good was about to happen.
It was this…evil expression. Not just evil, but, at the risk of sounding Biblical, delighting in evil.
He knelt on the bed and covered my mouth with his hand.
He carried this pocket knife, one of those fancy box cutters.
Not the cheap plastic ones. It looked like a folding pocket knife, but it was a razor blade. "
"I know what you mean."
"He opened it and pricked my lip with it. He told me if I made a sound, he'd cut my tongue out. And the look in his eye, Dane? I believed him."
"Linz," I whispered.
She shook her head. "He also told me that if I cooperated, he wouldn't hurt me.
But if I gave him trouble, he would. And I…
" she blinked hard, looked away, yanked her hand away, and dashed at her eyes with the back of her wrist. "I didn't want to be hurt.
And I didn't really understand what he was going to do.
I loosely understood what sex was, but only vaguely.
" She sniffled as tears began to fall. “He showed me.
It hurt so bad. I bled. Not just because I was a virgin, but because I was only twelve and he was twenty-two. And because he was violent about it."
Hate burned inside me, seared my eyes, and stained my cheeks. "I don't know what to say."
She looked at me, sniffling a sad laugh as she wiped at my face.
"You can't do that, Dane, or I won't be able to get through this.
" She brushed a thumb under my eye. "You don't need to say anything.
There's nothing to say." She collected herself and began again.
"That was the first time. It wasn't every day after that—he and Larry were too busy being hoodlums to waste every day playing Call of Duty, because despite their many, many faults, they were hard-working—they were just hard-working fuckhead criminals.
" She sighed. "Sometimes he'd just come in and fuck me and leave. Other times he…he wanted to….to play."
"Ahhhh god, fuck," I snarled. "Play?"
She nodded. "His favorite game was to play tonsil hockey with his dick. He thought it was hysterical to shove his dick so far down my throat that I would retch. I barfed a lot before I learned to control my gag reflex."
I felt sick to my stomach, especially thinking about the day she freaked out. "Linz—fuck. No wonder you had a panic attack. I would never, ever—"
She clapped a hand over my mouth. "Hush, Dane. I know. Just let me talk."
I nodded.
She removed her hand and gazed back out at the water. The wind picked up, tossing her blonde locks this way and that. A strand of hair stuck to her lips, and she scraped it behind her ear. "The question everyone asks is, Why didn't I say anything?”
"He threatened to kill you."
"He threatened to cut out my tongue, actually.
Threatening to kill me came later." She paused, started again.
"He convinced me that if I told anyone, I'd get in trouble.
Sounds dumb to an adult who's never been molested as a kid, but when you're twelve, scared, alone, being brutally sexually assaulted multiple times a week by a strong, violent 22-year-old, it's hard to think rationally.
And you can't see what's right and wrong from there.
You know that what's happening is very, very wrong, but you can't stop it.
You know it's wrong because it makes you feel so fucking awful.
You wonder why it's happening to you. And he's telling you that you'll get in trouble, you'll go to jail, and it hurts, and you want it to stop, but it doesn't ever stop, and you wonder what you did wrong, why you deserve to have that done to you.
You start to believe that it is your fault. That you do deserve it."
I couldn't summon a single syllable. What was there to say? I'm sorry? That sucks? Words are useless, sometimes.
She searched my face for a moment, gave me a sympathetic smile—tearful, but understanding. "Don't look at me like that, Dane. I'm okay, now. Or, I'm getting there."
"I just…" I swallowed hard. "How could anyone do that to a little girl? To anyone, let alone a twelve-year-old?”
"Predators and pedophiles," she answered with a shrug.
"Dudes with no soul. I dunno." She cupped her chest. "I developed early. I got my period at ten and had C-cup boobs by twelve. I figured it was that—that if I hadn’t had such big tits, maybe Danny wouldn't want to rape me.
I tried taping them down. Wore too-small bras.
All sorts of dumb shit in an attempt to be less…
whatever, to him and guys like him. I got nasty comments from more than one male staff member at school.
I knew no one would believe me, though, so I didn't bother telling anyone. "
“Jesus,” I breathed. "Disgusting. Men like that oughta have their dicks chopped off, sauteed, and fed to the hogs."
"I don't disagree," she said. "I did tell my mother about Danny, also. But her only response was to ask what I'd done to ask for it."
“Your own mother said that?" I asked, incredulous. "I can see sexist old men saying shit like that, but a woman, and your own mother?"