5. Enmeshments & Flushing
Enmeshments none of them did.
I tried to be casual, gathering up my things and telling him I was ready to go home.
Of course, he saw straight through it. Gideon knows I never want to be home.
Not when their screaming keeps me up at night, keeps them up.
Both of them, with dark circles under their eyes, avoiding each other’s stares and barely concealed scowls the next morning.
The tension is so thick that every bite of cereal tastes like ash.
He just kept asking me questions, but all I could feel was the discomfort between my legs.
Was I bleeding through? Could he tell? What if it smelled bad?
I laughed, telling him I just wanted to go home, before turning to walk back down our trail so fast my ponytail slapped me in the face.
He jerked my colored pencils from my hands, the ones Uncle Rodney had given me. He knew I wouldn’t leave without them. Tears welled in my eyes when he took Krissy next. He’s fifteen now, so much bigger than me. There was no point in fighting for them back.
“What the fuck is wrong, Audrey?” he nearly yelled. “Where are you trying to go? Why don’t you want to stay with me?”
I’d never heard him fire off so many questions in a row, had never seen that panicked, nearly crazed look in his eyes. All I felt was another leak between my legs.
I did exactly what he didn’t think I’d do.
He was being a jerk, but I knew my pencils and Krissy doll were safe with him.
I ran.
Gideon didn’t like that.
I watch as my mom nears him across the road, my heart pounding in my chest as she tells him I don’t want company today.
He doesn’t even look at her. My hand accidentally brushes the lacy curtain, making it move, and somewhere, even from behind it, those frigid blue eyes meet mine.
I want to go out to explain to him I’m not mad at him. He didn’t do anything wrong.
Ask for my Krissy and pencils back, but I don’t.
Mama said it’s normal, that there’s nothing to be embarrassed about, but I am, and I had bled through my very pale denim skort by the time I scrambled up the steps of our porch, sobbing wildly. Did he see?
Will he think I’m gross?
When I hear the car door shut, my mom’s tires on the gravel drive, I ease away from the window, curling up on the couch to watch The Smurfs, hoping the medicine she gave me kicks in soon so my stomach will stop feeling like it’s being ripped to shreds.
Wondering how I’m supposed to do this for the rest of my life, one week out of every single month.
It seems miserable and really freaking unnecessary.
Babies seem objectively pretty loud, sticky, and terrible, so why should I be punished for not getting pregnant with one?
Soon enough, under the blankets, with the warm sun baking the living room, my eyes are heavy. Any attempt to keep them open is washed away, the TV lulling me deeper into sleep. I don’t budge again until the sound of the side door creaking open jolts me awake.
Mom never uses the side door. She just left, right?
It’s locked, always.
How long have I been asleep?
My heart picks up in my chest as I lift my head, tracking the sound of boots on the hardwood before slamming it back down to the pillow, when they get duller as they meet the shag rug in front of me. I don’t look at him, embarrassment keeping my eyes closed, pretending to be asleep.
Gideon, leave.
Please.
Just go.
He takes another step forward, closer to me, and I fight to keep my breathing steady.
His clothes brush together, sending a waft of clean linen and woods into my nose as he squats in front of me.
He doesn’t move, not for so long, there are a few seconds where I wonder if he’s left.
He doesn’t speak, just watches. I swear I stop breathing when his ever-deepening voice towers over the sound of the Big Red commercial in the background.
“Your mom said you were sick. You don’t look sick, Audrey. ”
There’s something in his voice that makes the hairs on my arms stand up, a sudden chill to the room that wasn’t there seconds before.
“You suck at pretending to sleep,” he offers again.
My eyes slam open as his cool hand grips my chin harshly, his fingers digging in for a moment before they ease up.
A gasp so ragged ripping from my throat, I nearly choke on it.
His ocean-colored eyes are heavy, incensed.
A cold, bitter, scary kind of anger I’ve never seen on a human before.
“You scared of me now?” he asks, his voice calm, so calm, but his chest is heaving.
His warm, minty breath rustling my bangs.
“I didn’t hurt you,” he says the last bit to himself as much as to me, like he’s reminding us both.
My chest tightens at the feeling of him tripping me in the woods, the way I’d hit the ground so hard my teeth had gnashed together.
Hard enough, the long sleeves of my shirt hide the nasty dark bruise on my elbow.
How he could’ve softened the blow, but he chose not to.
He’d gotten in front of me so fast, posted up…
ready to make me fall. Like that day on the bus with Jeremy, there was no hesitation, no remorse as he sent me careening onto the forest floor.
I swallow hard, lost in his stare.
I can still feel his knee digging into me as he got on top of me, the tenderness of the bruise there too.
His hand finding my jaw just like this, except harsher, meaner.
How badly I wanted to cry, not because it hurt, which it certainly did.
Not even because I was scared, but because he was.
I’d never seen Gideon look so… undone. He was terrified, worried, in his own way.
I should’ve said something, anything. He just kept demanding…
getting rougher and rougher. Asking over and over where I was going, why I was leaving. I was so overwhelmed…
His cheek is dusted with a light bruise from where I’d hit him.
I’d hit Gideon.
My best friend in the entire world, I’d hit him in the face as he held me down in the dirt.
He’s still staring at me, watching it all build on my face.
He doesn’t so much as blink when I erupt, a harsh wailing sob leaving my throat.
I don’t fight him as he lets go of my face, sitting calmly on the couch before pulling me into his lap.
When I fight him, he tenses, his grip hardening, but I don’t move away.
Only adjust my body to keep my bottom part off him so he doesn’t feel the bulky pad that feels like a diaper between my legs.
I sob as he holds me, telling him I’m sorry at least half a dozen times in a matter of seconds.
His hand makes soft passes in my hair while I cry, leaning down and inhaling the scent of my shampoo, but still, Gideon says nothing. And he won’t, not until I do.
“I-I’m not scared of you. You didn’t scare me, I just… I was embarrassed.”
“Why?” he asks, ignoring me as I fight to keep my face hidden in his chest. He uses my hair to steer it toward his anyway; it tugs at my baby hairs, but I don’t mind much.
His eyes are warmer than before, by Gideon standards at least. If pulling my hair a little makes Gideon feel better, I really don’t mind.
“I-ugh, Gideon, stop. I don’t want to talk about it.” I sniffle, trying to force snot back into my nose and failing. Pamela would never snot in front of a boy like this. The mere thought of the effortlessly pretty, popular new girl at school is enough to make me break out in another round of sobs.
He waits until those quiet down, oh so patient now that he has me how he wants. Stubborn jerk. “We tell each other everything,” he reminds me.
I pause for a moment, my lip wobbling. “You don’t tell me about your work with your dad.”
“That’s different, Audrey. You think it's gross and it creeps you out. You wouldn’t—"
“Understand, whatever. Just give me back my Krissy and pencils and go! I’ll see you at school tomorrow,” I snap.
He doesn’t move, and god, I hate it when he does this.
This silence imploding in the space like a grenade until it forces whatever he wants from my throat.
I struggle in his arms, trying to get up, but he isn’t budging.
“You’re a stupid, mean, selfish jerk, Gideon Bell, and I hope it hurt when I hit you.
” I don’t mean that, and immediately I regret the words just as much as I regretted it the moment I did it.
The way I hated seeing the shocked look on his face as I scrambled up and ran the rest of the way home.
“Were you scared?” he asks again, ignoring everything else.
“No! I already said that!” I glare up at him.
“Your eyes look pretty when you cry.”
I go still, all the anger and well… pretty much anything else blipping out of my mind like it was never there. I’m still gawking, cheeks flushed, heart racing when he continues. “I’m sorry for knocking you down in the woods, for grabbing you like that. I was worried when you started running.”
“Why?” I whisper. Fully expecting him to stop elaborating.
He doesn’t.
“You’re mine, Audrey. You shouldn’t run from me, or make me doubt that you’re not scared. If you’re mine, you’ll never run from me. Never be scared.”
This time when I try to sit up, he lets me, watching silently as I wipe my puffy eyes. Keeping my legs squeezed together tightly. “I…” I sigh. “I wasn’t scared. I got my period. I didn’t want you to see.”
He doesn’t say anything and my mind is swirling too much for me to look at him for a response.
Gideon thinks my eyes are pretty.
I’m his.
My stomach blares to life with something lighter and more ticklish than cramps. Flutterflies.
I don’t move a muscle when he stands, picking up the blanket that fell on the floor, settling it over my lap before giving me a quick kiss on the top of my head. His fingers finding a strand of my hair to play with. “I made Krissy another dress. I’ll bring it to you tomorrow.”
I sniffle, my cheeks burning red. Trying and failing to avoid his eyes. “Okay.”