Chapter Twenty-Three
Scarlett
Thirteen Years Ago
It got really bad around Halloween.
Emory’s foster parents were out of town for a wedding, and Emory, who hated crowds, opted for staying home. She told them she’d be crashing with me. Of course, they didn’t know my situation.
They’d take a tire iron to the neck before they let her step foot on my lawn. Dead grass, more like.
“But Sinead and Flack aren’t home, right?” She’d said on our walk back from school. “We really can’t get ready at yours?”
I cringed as we approached my turn of the neighbourhood. “The remnants of them are there.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Em. Needles, drugs, nails, codeine.”
Her brow quirked. “Codeine?”
“This’ll get you through the days, Violet! These, right here!” I mimicked Flack.
She shrugged, unbothered. That’s what I loved most about Emory, her ability to hear the most fucked up shit and love me the same. I was never the mistake, only the product of a poor decision. I could live with that. As long as she could.
“Let’s get ready at Ryden’s,” I suggested.
“Are you sure?” she asked, biting her lip. “Isn’t his family life a little…”
I waved her off. “His mom’s nice, I met her once.”
And it was just once.
Seven months ago, I’d been clapping pans in his room while Ryden played guitar – to irritate him or to potentially explore a drumming career, I could not tell you – and she came upstairs.
“I thought you said she wasn’t home,” I sneered, throwing his plaid quilt over my head. I hated people, interactions with strangers.
I hated knowing she was being abused, and neither me or Ryden could do a thing about it.
But all that hatred became quiet when she entered the room.
“You can lift the blanket, honey.” Her voice was precisely that – honey. Smooth like silk, no smoker’s cough, no throaty lungs, no sign of danger.
But you never knew a person until you did.
I poked my head out, holding the blanket over my body like I was naked from the neck down.
“Hello,” she smiled, hand on the doorknob. Her hair looked soft, blonde. Not real blonde; her roots were brown. I glanced at Ryden’s hair, a midnight black. Must’ve been his dad’s.
I would’ve liked to talk to him.
I’m sure Ryden would’ve too.
“I dye my hair, just like you,” was what came out of my mouth.
Ryden threw a pillow at my face. “Scarlett, c’mon!”
But his mom only laughed. “The grey came out early.”
“But you look so young,” I looked to Ryden as I spoke to her. I caught sight of a bruise ringing the outer corner of her neck.
It was too much of a memory.
Too much of a mirror.
“You’re very sweet, Scarlett.” She rounded her shoulders, throwing a slouchy handbag over her elbow. The bruise was now hidden by her hair.
The hair she dyed.
Not her real colour. Not the real her.
What was she hiding?
[If not everything.]
“I have to pick up some groceries and beer for –”
As if the breath got sucked out of her lungs, she stopped speaking. Ryden tensed, I hiked the blanket higher.
We both knew who she was buying beer for.
We weren’t old enough to drink.
“Bye.” And he resumed playing his guitar.
His mom stood at the door for a few more minutes before waving apologetically at me, and ducking out of the room.
I stared at Ryden playing until I couldn’t take it anymore, slapping my palm over the strings of the neck.
“Hey!” He lashed. “Why did you do that?”
“Why aren’t you nice to her?”
He tried to pull his guitar away, but I held it firm in my grip. “No, answer me.”
“It’s none of your business, Scar.”
“It is my business!”
“How?”
“Because you’re my business,” I fully yanked Harley away and leaned her against the wall. “Why aren’t you nice to your mom?”
His chest rose, up and down, up and down. For a good while, he looked at me with wrath, as if he wanted to take out his anger in the form of fury and curse words. And then his eyes softened.
I wasn’t the enemy.
Neither was his mom.
“She lets him beat her,” he whispered, holding back his words as if they could somehow take the damage away. “If I can’t do anything to help her, I can’t watch it happen.”
“You fought back,” I said, “you had a black eye.”
“Yeah, and who do you think she tended to, huh, Scar?” He stood up now, fists clenched. “I got a good punch in, and she sat by his chair all night.”
I swallowed, looking down at the floor. “I didn’t know that.”
He scoffed, running stressed fingers through his hair. “How would you know that? I didn’t tell you.”
“Why? You tell me everything.”
“I can’t tell you this stuff, Scarlett,” he released a breath, resting his forehead against the wall. “It’s too…”
“Too close to home?” I finished for him.
Before he could say anything, I picked up my backpack and headed for the door. “Be nice to your mom, Ryden,” I said, “I would’ve killed to have a parent that loved me in the only way she knew how.”
As I walked down his driveway, I saw his mom in the car. Her dyed, blonde hair was pulled back, and she was applying makeup to the bruise on her neck. Our eyes locked, and she shut the compact, wiping away obvious tears, waving goodbye.
I let mine flow the entire way back to Sinead and Flack’s.
Because all I could see when I saw Ryden’s mother’s face was a reflection of my own, twenty years from now, unable to escape the abuse of a loveless human…
Convincing myself it was home.
***
We were all going to Rebecca Crayfish’s house for Halloween.
Yeah, Crayfish.
“Do you think it’s her real last name?” Emory mused, using Ryden’s soccer ball as a makeup palette.
“Em, can you not put that stuff on my stuff?”
“Oh, come on Ryden. I’m just painting your past life.”
“I could’ve been a good soccer player, you know.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt it,” I rubbed my finger into some of Sinead’s old eyeshadow. “With those giraffe legs.”
“You could be a model,” Emory flirted, and I threw a death stare. I don’t know why, it was a pure instinctual reaction.
Ryden caught it.
Ryden smiled.
I glared at him, digging my finger into the half empty pot of expired makeup, and threw out the rest.
“What even are you for Halloween?” Ryden asked me, lacing up his combat boots. He was cosplaying as a pirate. Argh? I guess?
“I’m going as myself,” I said, painting on some red lipstick that Emory let me borrow.
“You can’t go as yourself,” he laughed. “The whole point of Halloween is to dress up, to be whoever you want to be.”
“My imagination doesn’t stretch that far,” I jibed.
“You’d be surprised,” he walked closer, “what a little wonder thinking outside the box can do.”
Now I blushed, turning away. “Fuck your wonder.”
“Scarlett discovered swear words last year and now it’s every other sentence,” Emory teased, pinning up her brown hair. She was dressing up as some Disney princess. I’d never watched any of them growing up.
Something about a beast and a magic library. Or a rose. Or talking candlestick. I don’t know.
“I look like the ugly stepsister,” I said to our reflections, standing behind her. “That’s part of Disney, right?”
“Yeah,” she laughed, “wrong movie though.”
“Not much of a childhood, that one,” Ryden added.
“I’m way more mature than you idiots!” I clapped back.
“Says the girl who uses coffee creamer as a milk replacement for cereal.” Ryden ducked behind a pillow, knowing fully well I’d tackle his pirate ass to the ground.
“I told you that in confidence!”
I swatted at him with his rubber sword, Emory joining in behind me with her toy crown.
“Emory!” He yelled, face bubbling with laughter. “What did I do to you!”
“We’re a team, me and Scar!” She giggled, nudging my arm. “En garde!”
And we remained giddy like this, a trio of immortal beings – one pirate, one princess, and one…
person, wrapped up in a cloak of invisibility.
The music was too loud, the vibe too high that none of us heard the heavy steps bolting up the stairs, the silent pleas of Ryden’s mother chasing after the wolf who smelled blood.
The music was too loud.
We didn’t hear the click of the lock, see the turn of the knob until the door whipped right open –
“What the –”
And Corban’s fist collided with Ryden’s cheek.
***
“Oh my God!” Emory yelled, “stop! Stop!”
I watched as Ryden flew against the wall, hiked a few inches off the ground.
Blood. Blood spraying from his nose.
Blood on the floor.
Blood on his clothes, Corban’s – that must be Corban – and his mother, I looked at her, she was standing there, horrified, in shock – shock, that’s what it was – because if it wasn’t shock then it was complete neglect for her son – her son being pounded, over and over again by a man twice his size.
It had to be shock.
If it wasn’t, I didn’t know who to go after first.
I opted for the behemoth, grabbing Ryden’s guitar, ready to pelt the back of his fucking head.
“No!” His mom screamed from the doorway, “not Harley! Ryden loves Harley!”
I saw red.
“WELL MAYBE YOU SHOULD LOVE YOUR SON!”
She froze in place, fingers shaking.
“SAVE YOUR FUCKING SON!” I shouted back, tossing Harley to the side and grabbing something – anything heavy – to hit this monster with – to stop him from hurting my –
My –
“GET THE FUCK OFF MY EAGLE!”
I didn’t know when Emory placed Ryden’s old soccer cleat in my hand, didn’t feel the blow when it connected with the base of his skull.
Over and over again, I whacked him, blinded by rage and fear – so much fear that I could kill him – but so much power that I could stop this – end this torment, end Ryden’s suffering, his mom’s suffering –
My suffering.
There was this… quiet numbness when Corban collapsed to the ground.
Ryden slumped against the wall, lip busted and bruised, eye barely functioning. His breaths were ragged, eyes landing on me, then Emory, then his mother.
“Ryden… baby,” she rushed to him, crouching by his side, grabbing his face in her hands. “Baby, oh my sweet baby boy.”
Oh, so now you do something. NOW?!
“Talk to me, baby, please…” But he swatted her hand away.
“You…” he rasped, “you let him.”
“I didn’t! I didn’t, he just came home and ran up the stairs, baby he was… he was so angry, I don’t know why –”
Ryden’s voice was barely audible when he moaned, “Does he ever need a reason?”
Then his eyes shut, body swaying lightly.
“Oh my God, baby, wake up!” His mother was frantic, grabbing his face, hitting his arm.
Not a twitch.
Emory behind me had already pulled out her phone, dialing the ambulance.
I couldn’t…
I couldn’t move.
I just looked at Ryden, my whole world on the ground in a heap of pounded flesh, thinking of his smile not even ten minutes ago.
The man in front of him, unconscious on the ground, had a cleat mark dented to his skull.
That could have been Ryden.
Sirens were heard in the distance – luckily the emergency services were close by. Our part of town was no Beverly Hills, they knew that.
His mom ran out to the front lawn, I saw her waving them down. Emory knelt down beside Corban, checking for a pulse. She said it was there.
I didn’t care.
I knelt beside Ryden, my Eagle and anchor, shaking him gently. He made a sound, a gruff or a pant, but he was here –
He was alive.
And while the paramedics crossed the front lawn, I curled into Ryden’s lap, cradling his blood soaked tee, holding his neck, feeling his heartbeat against my own.
My hands found his fingers, wrapping tightly.
And before he got taken away, I felt his fingers latch onto mine too.