11. My Very First Time
My Very First Time
My hands are trembling. I should be screaming, crying, and wailing, but no sounds escape, aside from my breath.
I try, I really do, but there’s just... nothing there to pull from.
No regret, but shockingly a mild amount of anxiety because logically I know what I’ve done is wrong.
There will be consequences. When I think of them, being taken from Audrey is among the worst. The only thing that matters, really.
The rest is greeted with the usual detachment.
I twist her silky hair around the curling iron, rolling and releasing at the right time, just like Dad taught me.
Mom never wore her hair down. I often wondered if she’d look any less miserable if she did.
If she applied blush to her cheeks, if she tried to be pretty like Audrey’s mom.
Although I think the dedicated vanity of Audrey’s mom is almost exclusively to keep the revolving door of affairs spinning in her favor.
My eyes slip to the garment bag hanging on the wire rack in the corner, wondering if I made the right choice.
Wondering how hard it’ll be to dress her alone.
Stepping back, I stare at my mom's nude body dispassionately. As we speak, her joints are stiffening, lividity settling around her feet. I got her upright as quickly as I could; that will be important later. Women rarely hang themselves, but there’s no time for much else, and I thought Audrey might appreciate the callback to her uncle.
The back of her head is caved in, but perhaps that happened when the rope snapped.
I’d considered posing her at the bottom of the stairs, but they’re far too short and wide to explain the amount of damage there.
“I warned you to leave Audrey alone. Do you have any idea how freaked out she would’ve been if she saw you crying and sniffling like you were?
” I ask as I kneel in front of her in the foyer, making her body sway from the banister.
“It would’ve been cute, though. She’s always cute when she’s scared. ”
The chair is noisy as I scoot it into a better position to reach her from where she’s hanging, the garment bag tossed over my shoulder. Everything seems louder than usual, even the sound of the zipper.
“She’s the only thing that makes me… feel, Abigail.
You weren’t wrong to try to warn her. It's just—" I give her gaunt face a quick glance, the deteriorated shape of it having nothing to do with her being dead. “I can’t control it. The way I feel about her, that is. She asked me if I loved her. My first thought was yes, but I don’t think love is supposed to feel like this. I didn’t want to lie.
It’s supposed to be sparkles and songbirds and rainbows.
Like those chick flicks she swears she doesn’t like.
That’s not what I feel. It’s like I’m drowning if I’m not beside her.
My mind feels like it's filled with fucking hornets if I don’t know where she is, what she’s doing, how she’s feeling.
I’ve never cared about how someone felt before.
I thought that as we grew up, I’d lose interest and go back to being blank.
Instead, it’s only gotten worse. I don’t want that to change.
I don’t want to hurt Audrey, but if she tried to leave me…
I think I would. That doesn’t sound like love.
Not the patient and forgiving thing you and Dad have, had. ”
By the time I wrestle her cooling body into her dress, my own is aching.
From dragging her all the way out of the woods, and everything that came next.
She’s clean; I made sure of it, scrubbing every nook and cranny.
It certainly doesn’t look like she died in the forest. My head tilts to the side as I study her, admiring how much she looks like Audrey’s Krissy doll, but more like a puppet, really, thanks to the rope.
She’s much prettier like this, all dolled up, just a miserable, stupid little puppet.
I take my time putting everything back, talking to her more than I think I ever have.
By the time I close the distance to the walkway at the top of the stairs, it only takes a few passes of the scalpel to fray the rope, a hard tug to make it snap.
She hits the ground with an oddly hollow thud.
I sit there with her for a good long while, remembering the puppet shows she used to put on for me from behind the kitchen counter.
How disappointed she’d look every time I wouldn’t break into peals of laughter at the puppets' antics. My grandmother had liked to make the things she’d told me once, not too soon after she’d tucked her puppets away and stopped trying.
It had annoyed me at the time because I’d enjoyed them well enough.
I had enjoyed, to some degree, when she’d put me to bed at night.
Her fingernails felt good on my back, making sleep come quicker.
I was six when she stopped interacting with me at all, save for what you had to in order to keep a child alive.
I’d been annoyed then too. I hurt her a few times because she was terrible and deserved it.
I would’ve hurt her more, again and again, until she got back out her stupid puppets, until dad told me to stop. I was his problem after that.
When the sound of Dad’s voice drifts between the doors, I realize time must’ve slipped at some point, that the first rays of the sun are now cresting over the wood line.
He calls Mom’s name, then mine, not bothering to look up from the mail in his hand.
I pull air through my lungs, my thoughts on my sweet Audrey.
That it was worth it, because I’d do absolutely fucking anything for her.
His footsteps are unhurried, heavy with the exhaustion of the day, of the life he was slammed into.
A kind, understanding, peaceful man. A simple man who wants simple things.
A kind, stable wife to stand by his side and offer tissues to grieving families while they work out if they can afford the caskets he sells them.
A well-mannered son to take his place in the funeral home his grandfather opened before him.
He got us instead.
I step back so he can better see what I’ve done to his wife, what I warned him I’d do. Perhaps this time, I’ll be taken seriously.
Audrey is off-limits… to everyone but me.
When he finally bothers to look up, it’s with that familiar warm look first. It doesn’t last long after his eyes flick to the ground beside me, then a few rapidly fluttering emotions that seem to blend together, followed by horror and bleak acceptance.
He doesn’t scream, doesn’t freak out like I thought he would.
“Why?” his voice cracks, strained, like he’s forcing it out. Like he doesn’t even really want to know, but it seems like the right thing to ask, anyway. Like at funerals where everyone tells the grieving family how sorry they are, how the decedent lit up a room with their smile.
No, they fucking didn’t.
Most of them were just as shitty as the rest of the world.
Death has a funny way of turning everyone into liars.
I don’t bother trying to look remorseful, dragging my eyes from his heaving chest to my mom. “She was struggling with her mental health. She—"
“The truth, Gideon,” his voice breaks, sounding more strained with every lungful of air.
Does he smell it? I used the perfume he bought her for their anniversary last year.
She never wore perfume, but I thought it was a thoughtful touch.
I wonder if he’ll cry. I hope not; there are more important things to do than that.
“I told her to leave us alone. She decided not to.”
“Did Audrey see?”
“No.”
Should I have let her see? Would she have understood why I didn’t answer her question then? Would she have understood that I don’t think I love her, not the way she wants? Not in the way I think anyone would want.
His next words are barely a whisper as he approaches, bending to stroke her cold cheek with shaky fingers. Frowning down at her admittedly haphazardly dressed body. When his eyes land on me, his first question is baffling. “Did you… violate her?”
I frown. The idea hadn’t even occurred to me, not with Mom, not with anyone but Audrey, and certainly not dead. “No.”
I take him through it slowly with detail, just as he asked, and by the time she’s sorted and staged to his liking, his hands grip the receiver of the telephone.
His shock has worn off, leaving him frazzled and trembling after his call to the police.
His dress shoes squeak on the hardwood as he paces in the foyer hall before rounding on me.
I’ve been up for nearly twenty-four hours at this point. I wish he’d just get on with it.
Dad’s hands are cold and clammy as he grips my face, the smell of death and the perfume clinging to his dress shirt. “Once we leave, you will never come back here. Give me your word.”
I don’t answer him, not at first, studying the dark bags under his eyes instead of meeting them because he taught me not to stare too hard.
Limit eye contact. To adapt. Now he’s asking me to adapt again, but this one doesn’t leave me curious, ready for another challenge to pick apart until I’ve perfected it.
This one makes me feel like I need to vomit.
He’s been rambling all morning about leaving.
About running away. I guess I hadn’t actually listened until now.
“Gideon, listen to me! You cannot see her again. We cannot come back here, ever. She was in the woods with you! Do you understand that alone is enough to implicate that poor girl in this!? For God’s sake, you can’t help it, son.
I know you can’t help it, but you’re sick.
You can’t… Oh God, help us. Gideon, you can’t do these things without thinking!
They’ll take you, lock you away somewhere like you’re some goddamn animal. ”