39. Ambrose—age nine
Ambrose—age nine
T he groggy feeling overpowering every sense, doesn’t subside as I blink my eyes.
I’m alone in an unfamiliar place.
A soft bed cushions my back, and for a second, I’m crazy enough to believe in Christmas miracles.
But the room looks nothing like mine, and miracles do not fucking exist. I realize that, as I stare around, I recognize the dark and dated furniture in the room. It matches the carpet.
Recognition hits me. The room I’m in belongs to Colin. The bed I’m in, with its dirty sheets that smell like him, belongs to Colin.
I belong to Colin.
I try to sit up, but the pain holds me back. My hands find my throat again, and with a feather-light touch, I finger thick stitches holding my skin together.
Colin appears in the bedroom doorway, his makeup smudged from the center of his face, revealing all his ugly features—a big nose, lines around his lips, bloodshot eyes. Those details are embedded into my brain now, there to stay forever.
He steps inside a cloud of smoke around him.
Maybe it’s something they’ve given me, but he appears more like a demon than a clown right now. A demon who appeared in a cloud of smoke, not a man in costume, puffing on a cigarette.
I cough, and my throat screams in agony.
His wife steps in from the bathroom and comes over to check on me. She asks pointless questions I can’t answer, telling me what a close call I had.
I allow my eyes to roll closed because I can do little else.
What led me up here?
What happened to my throat?
Memories rush in, Colin behind me. The pain he left behind is gone from my body, but not my mind. That might be the reason my energy is low, or it may be down to my throat. He’d slit it, ear to ear, and told me I’d never talk again.
Fucking monster.
And my parents know him… had planned this.
It makes me want to scream, but I don’t dare try it.
“Thank fuck, you’re awake.” Colin puffs again. “I thought you’d never open your eyes. Say, thank you, Mrs. Bannadosi. Oh, that’s right, you can’t talk anymore. Peace at fucking last.”
He’s wrong. There is no peace. My voice has been replaced by a pressure in my throat that torments me so much that I wish he’d kept sawing until my head came off.
“How are you feeling?” He sits on the bed, his touch lingering on my leg. His words echo in the room.
My attempt to block him out only works to some extent, and now the thought of Colin doing more horrendous things to my body burns in my brain.
“He isn’t well enough for that.”
“He’s awake. That’s enough. Get the fuck out if you have objections.”
His touch rises higher, and it’s crazy, but the second that happens, I’m not in my body anymore.
I’m standing somewhere else in the room, looking over at what happens on the bed. Watching from my soul’s perspective as my body gets touched beneath the sheets.
It lasts seven minutes exactly.
He gets no reaction from me. He repulses me.
“Enough. He’s still at risk. He could die.”
I want to die.
I hope it happens in the next fucking minute, and I hope starvation has already gotten to Dollie so that she won’t be left here without me.
“He won’t, though, will he? It’s funny how you managed to save this kid.
You couldn’t save my mother. Was that because you didn’t like her?
Do you have a soft spot for this boy, too?
” Colin sneers. “Remember, you can’t touch another man, or I’ll chop your fucking hands off.
You’ll have to take the girl. Remember those nice pictures I got of her. ”
“Don’t talk about those. I never wanted to see them, and I wouldn’t touch either of them. He isn’t a man. He is a boy, and he is recovering. He needs to do that in fucking peace.”
“He’s had seven fucking days to heal.”
“And he needs a few more.”
“Well, he isn’t doing it in my fucking bed if I’m getting nothing in return.
I guess you want to see your sister anyway.
Have her dirty little hands all over your throat, risking an infection.
” He laughs cruelly as I settle back into my body.
“Get up. If you can walk down there, you can return to her.”
My hands quake as I tuck myself into a pair of boxers that are too big for me—his.
Mrs. Bannadosi moves around to the other side of the bed, unhooking me from machines that have likely kept me alive and fed over the last week.
I take the first step as she steps away, and my weak leg almost gives way.
But I have to do this.
Blurred vision doesn’t stop me as I take the stairs.
A mirror in the living room catches my attention, and tears fill my eyes. My legs lock on the ground, allowing me to take myself in.
I’m fucking hideous, with scars all over my face and body.
“Do you like the new you? My little masterpiece.” Colin laughs behind me, and I turn away from my reflection, not allowing him to see me cry again.
I continue to the kitchen, ignoring the smell of homemade food to welcome the new year.
The brass knob of the basement door feels like a reprieve.
Dollie’s head hangs forward. Her tiny body curled in on itself in her sitting position. I wanna call her as I hurry down the last step, trembling in the water as I try to keep my head high without pulling my stitches.
Relief stands between Colin and me as he lingers at the top of the stairs, not following me down.
Gently sliding my knuckles over Dollie’s face, her bloodshot eyes open. “Ambrose…”
Taking her in my arms, I move with her back to the dresser. Whispers about the crocodile are in my ear, and her legs are tight around me until we make it to the sturdy wood. The water will reach the top of it any day now, and I worry about that as I place her on it.
“Are you okay?” Dollie whispers, but I can’t answer.
The door slams as I climb on top of the dresser, alerting me that we’re alone down here.
I listen as flappy shoes pound above, and his shrill voice screams something about draining the water down here.
“I missed you. I thought you died again.” Dollie stares up at me from my lap, her lips trembling like my body and almost blue.
Blue eyes squint in the dark, trying to get a good look at me.
I missed you, too, I mouth silently.
Gentle fingers move to my throat, and I stiffen, waiting for the voice in my head to come and threaten me with thoughts of an infection.
But all stays silent in Dollie’s presence.