by NB Baker
Justin sits for a moment then stands up and starts pacing back and forth in front of me. His fists are clenched so hard that his knuckles are pure white and his face is beet red. He’s so mad it’s scaring me. My heart is racing as fight or flight kicks in.
I don’t want to do this. He obviously has some phobia of any sexual connection with me. The only thing he seems to want to fuck is my head, and now he knows my dirty little secret. I get up off the couch, he comes over and towers over me. Why would he give a fuck if it were my dad or some stranger that did this? Why does it matter?
He’s shaking as he stands there. “Please, sit back down.”
“I don’t think so, Justin. I’m leaving. I’m done with this… I don’t even know how to describe what the fuck this is right here between us. Just get out of my way and let me get my stuff.”
I hear him take a deep breath then he places his hands on my shoulders. In a calm voice. “Sarah. Sit down, please.”
Crossing my arms I spout out with anger. “Why, what’s the fucking point? Haven’t you humiliated me enough? You act all concerned and caring one second, and then if I touch you you’re all ‘Noooo, you shouldn’t have done that.' You want to humiliate me some more? Well, I don’t think that’s possible. But, yeah, okay, let’s go ahead and do this.”
He’s still holding onto my shoulders. I guess I don’t have a choice, so I sit back down. Bruce jumps up on the couch laying right next to me. I begin to pet him turning all my focus on him. I’m shocked when Justin gets down on his knees in front of me.
Placing his hand under my chin forcing me to look up at him. “I’m sorry I got so mad. Okay, I’m not sorry, but that’s my problem. Not yours. I’m not mad at you. I’m fucking beyond livid at him. I don’t understand how he could do this to his daughter. I get why you didn’t want anyone to know, but I wish you would have at least told me. You didn’t have to hide that from me. You don’t ever have to hide anything from me. You never have to be ashamed or embarrassed with me.”
He takes my hands in his and rubs his thumb softly across the top of my hand. “Now this shit about you being a charity case or some kind of game to me. That’s fucking bullshit and couldn’t be further from the truth. I hope the day comes that I can show you in a way that you believe me. Without a question of a shadow of a doubt, you believe me.”
I couldn’t be more confused than I am right now. I want to believe him so bad. I really do, but, how can I? Is it even possible that he’s telling me the truth? Or am I falling for some warped game again? Am I so fucking desperate for real love and affection that I’ll just continue to fall for the same song and dance? I don’t see why I’m even wondering that. Look at my entire life. Holding on to the past. Hoping that things will change. They never have, so why would this situation be any different?
I watch as his thumb continues to caress my hand. “What about the sex, Justin? You wish I hadn’t done what I did? Why? What in the hell does that mean?”
He rubs his palms across his temples. “I don’t know how to explain it to you. It’s just something that means a lot to me.”
“Okay, fine, it’s something that means a lot to you, but it confuses the fuck out of me. Is it me? Is there something wrong with me? Am I repulsive to you?”
Justin chuckles. “Um, I think my rock hard cock and me coming in an embarrassing amount of time should tell you that I do not find you repulsive in the slightest. Look, I’ve asked you before if you trusted me. You said you did, is that still true?”
Shrugging my shoulders I tell him. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Well, that’s not super convincing, but I guess it will have to do for now. Does that mean you’ll stay?”
Pressing the heels of my hands into my forehead as if the pressure will help clear my thoughts. My frustration shows in my voice. “Shit, I don’t know.”
“Please, Sarah. You have to give us a chance.”
There’s nothing I want more than for this all to be on the up and up. “Okay, I guess so. Are you positive you want me to stay?”
“Damn straight I do. No question about it.”
Justin gets to his feet. He’s trying to appear calm, but I can tell he’s far from it. I hope that I’m not making a mistake by agreeing to stay.
Rubbing his hands together vigorously. “Okay, now that’s settled. I umm… I got a call from work when I was cleaning up the kitchen. There’s some kind of problem, I’ve got to go take care of.”
He’s pacing around as if he’s looking for something or trying to figure something out. “Is there anything you need?”
“No, thank you, I’m good. Are you okay?”
Justin starts heading toward the hallway. “Oh yeah, everything will be fine once I get shit taken care of.”
He’s only gone for a few minutes, but when he comes back into the living room, his entire demeanor has changed. He doesn’t seem pissed or distracted anymore. He is focused and all business. He grabs his truck keys off the counter and heads for the door.
He walks back to me. “You good? Are we good? And you’ll be here when I get back?”
I can’t help but smile at him. He acts like he truly wants me to stay. “Yeah, I’ll be here.”
He gives me a kiss then heads out. Before he steps out the door, he looks at Bruce. “You got this?”
Bruce lets out a bark, then he snuggles back into my side as if nothing special was going on. I hear the sound of Justin’s truck start, then the sound quickly fades away.
As I watch Justin’s fight a couple more times, I’m still in awe at the skill and power this man has. The very same man who was down on his knees a while ago wanting me to stay. Bruce starts snoring, and it makes me realize that a nap doesn’t sound like too bad of an idea. I make myself as comfortable as possible without disturbing Bruce and close my eyes.
Pain shoot’s though my body as it makes contact with a concrete wall. He grabs a handful of my hair. I swear I can hear my skull cracking as my head is repeatedly slammed into the wall. “You worthless fucking cunt. Do you really think that he cares about you? That anyone could care about a piece of trash like you. You are so fucking delusional it’s not even funny. God, you are one stupid bitch!”
“Please, Dad. Stop! You’re hurting me,” I cry.
He continues to slam my head into the concrete. “I don’t give a fuck if I’m hurting you. You deserve to be hurt. You deserve to be fucking dead,” he says, sneering at me.
I hear a knocking in the background. I try to scream for help, but the words won’t leave my body. Someone is covering my mouth. I try to cry out again, but nothing happens. I can’t see what’s going on around me. What the fuck is going on? My clothes are being ripped from my body, and my legs are being pulled apart. That’s when I hear the laughter and feel the pulling and biting on my skin. Oh, God, no! This can’t be happening again. The banging is getting louder, and I hear someone calling my name again and again. Suddenly, I’m able to open my eyes and standing directly in front of me is a faceless man. Looking to the left of me I see a Jeep crashed into a wall with smoke rolling from the engine. Just a few feet away from that is the mangled bodies of my mom and sister. The sound of sirens blaring in the background is deafening, but even over the top of it, I can still hear my name being called.
“Sarah.” Someone’s calling for me, but I don’t know who.
“Sarah.”
I look back at the man standing in front of me, but now he’s pointing a gun at my head. He turns the gun on himself and pulls the trigger. Blood and chunks of brain matter cover my face.
“Sarah, are you home?”
My eyes shoot open, and I take a gasp of air as if I were drowning. I’m covered in sweat. My heart feels like it’s going to explode right out of my chest and I can barely breathe. There’s a knock at the door, and someone is calling my name. Holy shit, I’m okay. It was only a nightmare. Fuck, I’m okay. I’m safe. Everything’s alright.
“Sarah. It’s Darla. Are you home?”
I have no idea who Darla is but by Bruce’s reaction I guess he does. I make my way to the door, and when I open it, Bruce goes running out to a cute little girl who instantly starts petting him. I would guess she’s probably about ten year’s old, having long brown hair, and the most beautiful blue eyes. There’s so much life and light in them that they dance and sparkle. They remind me a lot of Stella’s.
“Hi, I’m Darla!” She exclaims. “I live next door. If Justin’s not home, I take Bruce for a walk before and after school.” She holds out a leash, then snaps it to Bruce’s collar.
“Hi, Darla. I’m Sarah, Justin’s friend.”
“Yeah, I know who you are. I was outside playing when Justin left, and he told me he had someone very special staying with him. That I was to check in on you.”
The expression on her face is one of those like she just let the cat out of the bag. Very quickly she says, “I’ll have him back in about in a couple of hours if that’s alright. He loves to go to the dog park and play with all his friends. Personally, I think he has a crush on the Dawson’s poodle.”
“Okay, sounds good. Umm…I think, you two have fun?” I say it as more of a question.
As Bruce and Darla head down the sidewalk, she calls back. “Don’t worry. We do this all the time.”
I look at the clock and see that it’s already five. Man, I can’t believe I slept that long. However, my body feels like I slept that long, everything is stiff and sore. It’s obvious that my pain meds have worn off. I grab some of the ibuprofen and a bottle of water that Justin left on the end table and head back to the bathroom. I think that a hot, relaxing bath is exactly what I need right now.
The hot water feels so good against my aching body that I stay in the tub long after my skin has turned wrinkly. Opening the bathroom door, I stick my head out to see if Justin’s home yet. I’m a little surprised that I’m still alone. I find my clothes, get dressed, and return to the living room. I wander around a little bit, finding myself back at the beautiful wedding picture. I stand there for the longest time, imagining what it was like at that very moment. All the guests gathered around the happy couple. Throwing rice as they walk down the church sidewalk. Then all the single ladies gathering around, hoping that they are the lucky person to catch the bride’s bouquet with all the magic that it holds. The happy couple gets into a sleek, black stretch limo that takes them to a destination where they’re the only two people in the world.
I jump when I hear someone calling my name from the living room. “Ms. Sarah.”
“Yeah, I’m back here.”
Bruce comes running down the hallway leash still attached and jumps up on me. He’s panting and wiggling his butt acting so happy to see me.
Darla comes running down the hall behind him. “Bruce! Don’t jump on Ms. Sarah, she’s hurt.”
“It’s okay, Darla. It’s kind of nice to be missed.”
Darla grabs my hand and leads me back to the living room. “I saw that Justin wasn’t home yet. When I told my grandma, she said that I had better bring you over some dinner. I hope it’s okay. I said that I would eat dinner over here with you and Bruce.”
I’m not sure how to deal with young people. I don’t have anything to offer them. I’m sure that if her parents knew what kind of mess I was, they would keep Darla as far away from me as possible. But they don’t and what am I going to say to this little blue-eyed wonder. No, she can’t stay. Even though I would only like to curl up and watch TV until Justin comes home.
Nervously looking around the room, I tell her, “Well, sure. I guess you can stay.”
Darla instructs me to have a seat on the couch. I feel like that couch has a permanent indentation of my ass. She’s so excited that I don’t want to hurt her feelings by asking if we could go in the kitchen, so I do as she asks and have a seat on the couch. Bruce makes his way up and sits at my side like he too is waiting to be served. Darla opens the basket and starts taking out huge containers of food. When she opens the large plastic container, and the aroma of homemade lasagna and garlic bread fills my nose, my mouth instantly waters. I had no idea that I was even hungry. My stomach growls so loud that Darla starts laughing and Bruce looks at me with wonder.
I feel my face turning red. “Sorry, Darla. Guess I’m a little hungrier than I thought.”
She lets out a girly giggle. “Oh Ms. Sarah, that’s okay. I do the same thing when I come home from school and smell grandma making this. It’s so yummy,” she beams.
Darla goes over to a closet right inside the door and brings out two TV trays. It’s obvious that she’s done this before. When I ask her if I can help she insists that I just stay put, that she’s got it. She puts the trays side by side in front of the couch. I find it a little odd how she knows her way around Justin’s apartment so well. Once she has the food dished out on paper plates, napkins and plastic-ware set out, she stands back to admire her work.
`She looks very proud of herself.
“This looks wonderful Darla. Thank you so much.”
Darla makes her way around the tables. “Come on, Bruce, you big lug head. Get down. You gotta make some room for me.”
He doesn’t act like he’s going to move, so she lures him down off the couch with a piece of garlic bread. He reluctantly gives up his spot and gobbles down the bread. Darla and I sit in awkward silence for a while until I make the mistake of breaking it.
“This is so delicious. Be sure to tell your grandma I said thank you!”
That was all it took to open the chatterbox floodgates. “I know, right? It’s one of Justin’s favorites. That’s why grandma put some extra in there so that he can have some when he gets home.”
I don’t want to seem to pry into too much of Darla’s life, but I’m curious as to why she lives with her grandma. “So how do you know Justin?”
“Oh, my grandma used to run a grocery store, and Justin worked there. She would always take me to the store with her, and if I’d get crabby, Justin would hold me. He would carry me around with him while he worked. She said he was magical because I would always stop crying whenever he held me. ‘Oh, what a good kid he is.’ She always says. It’s so funny because Justin’s not a kid.”
“Where’s he at anyway? Man, he sure did leave in a hurry!”
I do my best to talk even though I have just shoved an oversized bite into my mouth. “Work. He said there was a problem that he had to deal with.”
“Hmm.” Is her only response before she starts asking a shit ton of random questions. Most of them are harmless. Things like where I met Justin, which leads to where I work. Then she wants to know all about being a waitress and if I get to eat and drink anything I want for free. I get the biggest response out of her when I answer what my favorite cartoon is in my best Scooby Doo voice. She laughs so hard. It's a fabulous sound.
We have been finished with our meal for quite a while, but I am having fun playing this twenty questions game. Then with my best Goofy impression, I tell her it’s my turn. She starts to laugh again. I do love that sound. It makes me think of Stella, wondering if that is what she would have sounded like if she would have lived. I feel my eyes start to get watery.
“Ms. Sarah, why do you look like you’re going to cry? Are you okay?”
I wipe a tear that strayed away with the palm of my hand. “Oh, yeah. I’m fine. Just ghosts from the past.”
She gets a wild look in her eyes. “Ghosts?”
“Oh no, honey, there’s not really ghosts. It’s just an old saying that means you are thinking about something that happened a long time ago.”
I make the quick decision to change the subject. “Can I ask you a question, Darla?”
“Sure. Only if I can ask you one.”
I guess that she likes our little game as much as I do. “Why do you always refer to me as Ms. Sarah?”
“Oh, that was something that we did in preschool, and it kinda stuck. Grandma says it sho
ws respect, but I think it just sounds cool.” She grins.
Nodding my head, I agree with her. “Yeah, it does sound pretty cool. Okay, now it’s your turn.”
Darla looks down at the couch hesitating. I figure she’s trying to come up with a whopper of a trivia question. Then she looks me right in the eye. “Who beat you up, and why did they do that to you?”
Bam! Sledgehammer right to the forehead. I sure wasn’t expecting that. How in the fuck do I answer that question? It’s not like I have any experience talking to a ten-year-old, let alone serious talk with one.
I sit here searching for something to say to her that won’t traumatize the fuck out of her. “Well, I guess someone was just really, really upset with me and didn’t know any other way to deal with it.”
Her little face looks so concerned. “So, do you know the person or was it a stranger? One time I heard grandma say she ought to kick someone’s butt when they cut her off when she was driving. Was it like that? Did you cut someone off and they kicked your butt?”
I hold my arms out, and she scoots in next to me. “Yeah, Sweetie. It was something like that.”
She looks up at me. “You’ll never have to worry about that happening again if Justin’s with you.”
She lets out a long yawn. “Me and you, we’re his girls, ya know? He won’t ever let anything bad happen to us.”
I sit there running my fingers through her hair. The words that she said keep repeating through my head. ‘Me and you, we’re his girls, ya know? He won’t ever let anything bad happen to us.’
The sound of the door clicking shut wakes me up. The room is dark, only the light from the clock on the DVR shines a path of light across the room. I look over to make sure that it’s Justin and not some crazy coming into the house. I have no idea what I would do if it weren't him. It’s not like I can move all that well to begin with let alone protect us. Add Darla laying in front of Bruce and me laying on my feet. I’m not going anywhere. Yeah, we’d be goners.
“Sorry, Kitten. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“That’s okay. What time is it?” I try to wiggle my way out of the conglomeration of arms and legs.