4. - – Mackenzie
CHAPTER FOUR
-
MACKENZIE
“That’s it, fucking take it. Fuck, your mother taught you well, beautiful.” His deep, growling voice makes my whole body tremble.
I tried to hide again. I went to work because I couldn’t take the day off. Mom was behind on the rent again, and we needed food. The bar I work in offered me double time if I could stay all night.
I said yes. If I worked all night, it meant that my mom’s new man couldn’t get to me.
So I worked the shift and arrived home at about one AM to find I had never been so wrong in my whole life.
He waited up for me.
Drunk.
Walking into the house, I kept my head down, my feet carrying me so fast to my bedroom that for a moment, when I closed the door, I thought he wasn’t coming.
Then the knock came. As much as I didn’t want to open it, I knew nothing was going to stop him.
So I opened it and let him in.
“Shit, Maccy, your cunt was made for me,” he says as he shoves his cock into me, pushing so hard that it makes the bed smash against the bedroom wall.
His hands are holding onto my hips tightly; the weight of his body pinning me to the bed. I stopped fighting a long time ago; I learned that the more I struggled and pushed them away, the harder they were with me.
This way, he will cum fast, and I can be left alone until tomorrow.
He lowers his body into mine, his head buried in my neck. His foul, beer-smelling breath hits my neck. Turning my head to the side, my eyes lock with my clock, the second hand spinning slowly
Tick tick tick...
I’m reminded that I have a while to go before he empties himself in me. Then I will have a few hours to get the morning-after pill. Again.
A loud groan hits my ears, my body jerking harder on the bed with force now.
I stopped feeling a long time ago.
My soul left my body when I was only a child.
Now I am numb.
Tick tick tick…
It’s only a low sound, but why is it so annoying? I’ve heard clicks before, sounds that were an anchor to me in a darkness I wish to never go back to.
This dull sound is something else.
Why does this one feel more disturbing?
Why do I feel like it’s taunting me, reminding me that each second that passes is another day here, but also a day closer to leaving?
Why am I so scared to leave here?
In my mind, for days now, all I’ve been thinking about is getting out of here, to go home and try to live again.
Those thoughts are happy, and I can’t wait to buy some chocolate bars or a bagel with cream cheese.
To sit back on the sofa and watch a show on the TV that isn’t a repeated film from the nineties, or have someone screaming in the background.
I want peace.
My stomach bubbles with nerves, the twisting and the little flutters make the air rush in and out of my chest. My anxiety builds, hard and fast. I want to leave, but part of me is terrified of what that is truly going to mean.
I’ve been here before, in some kind of recovery for most of my life, and each time, I dream of that peace.
It lasts all of a few days before darkness creeps in.
The thoughts I have that make me reach for my razor, or that bottle of pills, always slither back in.
It’s like something inside of me has taken over, and no matter how hard I try to push it down or tell myself that it’s okay, something always whispers back at me, screaming at me that it’s not.
Telling me that the world doesn’t need me, and that I won’t be missed.
My mind drifts to my mother and the men she had. I see why they didn’t want me, why they did such evil things to me.
They didn’t love me.
My mother never wanted me.
The only time she needed me was for money, and also for the men brought to our home.
She locked me in a room with them.
That was the only care that anyone gave me.
“Why did you let him touch you like that?” Elijah grumbles next to me.
My eyes twitch, aching from stopping them from rolling so far in the back of my head. “Like you even care. You just sat there and watched.”
My arms fold over my chest as I stand and make my way through the morning room, towards the little hole in the wall that holds my so-called sanity in the form of multi-colored little pills.
This room is always full in the mornings; it’s a white room, much like the rest of the hospital. The only colors I ever really see are when I go to counseling or for a doctor’s appointment.
The rest of the place is so clinical, it’s like they want us to drown in our misery here.
There are plastic chairs scattered around the room, a TV high on the wall, and long windows with white metal bars on them, framing us in a huge square.
To the far right is a small nurse station with an open window where one of the day nurses is sitting, giving out little empty plastic cups of water and a clear cup full of pills to each patient.
I keep to myself most of the time. EJ has been the only real friend I’ve had in this place, the only one who understands what it’s like to have the kind of darkness I have. He is also here because he has tried to take his life so many times.
I guess the world wants us to stay here for some awful reason.
The scent of brugmansia surrounds me, teasing me with the sweet smell and making my mouth water.
Elijah’s cold hand curls around the top of mine; he pulls me backward toward him.
My feet stumble, my heart wishes that he would pull me close and wrap me in his arms. He is the only person who makes me feel safest.
“I only watched because what else would you have me do? You practically begged him,” he growls, then lets go of my arm and steps back as Maggi pushes roughly past him.
She giggles. “Have you seen what we are doing this afternoon?”
Her excitement pulls my lips up into a little smile; I’m not sure why she is in hospital.
She won’t talk about it. She has a scar curling around her neck, though, giving me an idea as to why she landed in this place.
The puckered skin is always red in anger, as if she can’t leave it alone.
She was here before I arrived, but she never speaks of the trauma she has gone through—none of us do, really.
I feel like we have locked it all away tightly, that none of us want it to creep out of our souls, scared it’s going to consume us.
“No, I’m not going. I have a session with Dr. Miller.” My voice trembles a little when his name leaves my lips.
When he left me last night, still tied to the bed with no way of getting out, I was scared for a moment, wondering who was going to find me and see the mess he had left on my stomach. But I fell asleep at some point, and when I woke up, I was tucked into my bed. Safe.
He must have come back.
Killian acts like he doesn’t care about me, but I know he does. Why would he come all the way back, untie me, and then place me in bed, making sure I was covered?
Killian cares about me.
“Dr. Miller scares me; I don’t see him anymore.
No one does.” She looks around the room as if someone is going to overhear us.
Half the people in this room are drugged, the other half are talking to their darkness.
Maggi shuffles closer to me, lowering her voice to barely a whisper.
“They say he is getting fired. He is a naughty doctor,” she giggles, then skips to the front of the line.
Maggi lifts the cup of pills to her lips, then tosses it back, followed by the water.
She bows, almost toppling forward, and when she stands up straight, she giggles again.
This time, though, it sounds less joyful and more manic.
She snaps her head fast toward me and grins before she skips off towards the door leading to the garden.
EJ is by my side, sniggering. “Maybe you should take your meds.”
I laugh and bump his chest slightly; he chuckles, then steps up with me to the little window.
I reach in and grab the little white container.
I lift it, tip it backwards, and the pills shoot out.
My tongue shifts to one side as I push them as far back as they will go under.
I then take the cup of water and swallow it.
“Open and show me,” the nurse says in a dull, bored tone.
I smile, open my mouth, showing her my throat, then under my tongue. She nods, and I move off to make my way out of the room. EJ knows the score. I need to get rid of these, so he will find me after I’ve been to the girls’ bathroom.
My feet carry me towards the gray door. I walk at a normal pace, trying not to alert anyone to what I am about to do. I only have a few weeks, and if they find out I have been throwing these pills down the toilet, there is no way they are going to let me out anytime soon.
I don’t know if the pills work or if they’re some kind of placebo that is trying to fool us into thinking that we are okay, so that even when they let us go, we will end up coming back here because we again found out that we are the fucked up ones in this world.
I place my palm on the bathroom door and shove it open. The room is empty as normal. I walk to the closest white stall and lean over to the watery hole, spitting the pills into the water, then flush.
The water swirls around for a second before a huge hole opens in the middle, and my pills disappear forever. My eyes stay transfixed on the water, watching as it fills up again.
I’ve stood here many times before, watching this water, wondering how long it would take for me to drown. They take everything away from us in here. No sharp objects, nothing that can be ripped and made into a rope. When I first got here, this toilet was the only thing I thought could help me.
It turns out that was a lie. Elijah happened to come in and find me trying to fit my head down the hole—this man always comes to my rescue.
He laughed, telling me they make them so a head can’t fit down there. No one can die from drowning here.
“Don’t even bother,” the humor in Elijah’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts.
I smile. “I wasn’t going to.”
“Yes, you were.” Pressure makes my head turn to the side to find Elijah’s hand on my upper arm, guiding me away from the toilet and back out into the hall. “I would have to end it all with you, and I’m not playing that game again. I lost last time.”
“I’m not sure what winning or losing in this kind of game means,” I confess, and I don’t. Does it mean you win if you end up going to sleep forever? Or is that a loss?
Elijah pauses before he turns and looks down at me, his eyes lowering to my lips.
“As long as I am with you, it doesn't matter. We just win.” His voice has some kind of wanting laced in his dark tone. I’m not sure if it's the endless sleep or his words that make my stomach flutter.
If he ever said he wanted me, I know it would make my soul happy.
Elijah lifts his hand to softly stroke my cheek.
“You are so beautiful.” He smiles sadly then wraps his arms around my shoulder and tucks me closer to him.
He leads me down the hall towards Killian’s office. “Are you going to wait outside for me?” My eyes flick up to his; I already know the answer.
He hates when I go to Dr Miller. Elijah has even gone so far as trying to distract me so that I’m late or miss the appointment altogether. The last time I ended up with a double session. I did kind of win, though, as Killian spent it fucking me.
“Don’t go, come and hang with me.” Elijah takes my hands in his and holds them tightly between us. “He doesn’t care about you, Mac; the man is only using you.”
I sigh. Part of me knows Killian is only using me, that as soon as I leave this place, I’m never going to see him again. Whenever I see him, I tell myself that repeatedly, then he touches me, and all those thoughts go out the window because he makes me feel free.
“He does, EJ. In his own way, he does.” I can taste the lie on my tongue. It’s bitter, but I swallow it down, anyway.
Elijah tugs at my hands again.
“Mac, please? Just come with me. Pick me.” His voice sounds desperate, as if I don’t go with him, he might break.
My eyes flick to Killian’s office, where voices float from behind the door.
Whoever is in there is going to come out soon.
I’m already a little late, so they are taking up some of my time.
Elijah pulls my hands again, making me take another step away from the door.
He wiggles his eyebrows at me, then winks.
“I’m much better looking than he is…come on. ”
He pulls my hands, making me stumble forward and laugh, then in a rush of giggles and loud footsteps, we run down the hall towards the sunroom.