I Found You

by Lark, Jane

  Mom just stared at me, and her gaze seemed to say, for the moment. Then she dropped the cloth on the drainer and walked back into the living room.

  Rach turned into me and hugged me properly.

  I stroked her hair.

  She wasn’t crying, but her head was down and her face pressed into my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Rach. Perhaps we shouldn’t have come.”

  Her head came up. “No, we should’ve. They’re your family. You can’t just ignore them. I’ll suffer their hatred. I’m used to it anyway. I’m good at making enemies.”

  What trash was she talking now? She was slipping back into self-condemnation and I’d spent the last few weeks dragging her out of that every time she’d said she wasn’t good enough for me. But she’d been quiet all week since I’d suggested coming here and I guess things had been playing around in her head. It was all connected to the thoughts that let her throw herself at men, and I had a feeling those were tied up with the way her mom had treated her. I just kept making sure she knew how I felt about her.

  “What enemies, Rach?” The green in her eyes shone, misty with saline.

  “Oh everyone, everyone turns against me in the end. I just hope you don’t. You won’t will you?”

  She knew just how to make my heart bleed. “I’m not going to ever turn against you, Rach.” I held her close again and thought of the cut on her hand, and the guy who’d chased her away from home at fifteen, trying to do things he shouldn’t.

  She just needed love and a little understanding. I wish my Mom would get that.

  Chapter Fourteen

  When the house was quiet I got out of bed to creep downstairs. Jason had insisted I had his room. He said the bed was more comfortable.

  He was sleeping in the den.

  I was wearing one of his tees, ‘cause I wanted his smell to keep me company, and I relished the scent of his aftershave lingering in the cotton. But I really didn’t wanna sleep alone.

  I tiptoed along the landing, barefoot, trying to be real quiet.

  “Jason?” His Mom called from their room which was just above the stairs.

  She knew it was me. She was just saying Jason because she was too uncomfortable to accuse a stranger who was visiting her home.

  I diverted to the bathroom and sat on the toilet. I didn’t really need to go. I rested my elbows on my knees, as loneliness rolled over me and looked at the scar on my palm that Jason had bandaged a few weeks ago. It brought memories back. I could feel Jason’s hands touching mine. It was healed now, but still red raw, and if I pressed my thumb on it, it hurt.

  Images of my old life, of all the mad, stupid things I’d done before I met Jason flashed through my mind. I was building a new life now, and this was it. It meant being with people who judged right from wrong. I had to accept this. I’d lived most of my life on the wrong side, and Jason may have ignored that, but he didn’t really know half the stuff I’d done. I had been very bad. I guess I couldn’t just cross the bridge now and walk on the good side, without some challenge over what I’d done. I was going to have to win these people over.

  I sighed, while my thumb rubbed over the scar, remembering what I still hadn’t told Jason, as the night I’d broken the mirror and walked away from that life filled my mind, like I was there again…

  Declan’s hands were pressing mine down on the bed and all his weight pressured me to participate. He felt like stone, heavy, cold and hard, as he drove into me.

  Stop! The word rang in my head, but I didn’t say it, and he didn’t stop. I wanted to cry and scream all at once. I didn’t want to do it anymore. Not with him.

  Just stop! I didn’t know if it was the drugs or the depression that trapped the words inside me. But they were buried, like me, somewhere in the black, hollow hole, I’d fallen into.

  Declan’s hard, sharp thrusts jolted my body, making me feel sick, not aroused, not pleasant, and not happy. I wanted him to leave me alone now.

  l wasn’t even in my body anymore. I was detached from it. Someone had switched off my senses, turning the lights out inside me, leaving me in the dark.

  Stop please!

  He knew I wasn’t responding, he was probably thinking I felt like stone too. It only made him more violent.

  My fingers curled, they’d curl into fist if he didn’t have his hands on mine holding them open.

  His hair had fallen forward and it rocked with his movement, as he looked down at where we joined, watching himself invade me.

  Shit. Can’t we stop this? I didn’t want him in me anymore. I was so tired of this groundless, meaningless thing we had going. All we had ever got from one another was sexual gratification. The words bounced about in my head but they still didn’t leave my mouth, yet my response was brewing. I could feel it, the viciousness bubbling up inside me. I wanted to scratch him, hit him, scream at him and kick him. The void in my soul was filling up with anger. It was bubbling from a simmer to a boil. I was going to kill him if he carried on.

  Stop it now! Still the cry rang in my head, but my stupid fucked up brain, wouldn’t spit the words out.

  Every muscle in my body was taut, and the air felt sticky in my lungs, I couldn’t breathe right, and I wanted to weep and yell. If he didn’t stop…

  His fingers closed tighter about my hands and the muscle in his cheek formed a little bump as he clenched his teeth, then three of his thrusts hit me even harder, like they were blows of a fist not a sexual act.

  There was a lump in my throat.

  We’d done it this way so often when I was in a dark place, he’d force me into anger to stir me from my morose state, ‘cause then I’d fight, and he liked me fighting. Violent sex did have a thrill to it. Sometimes it would even throw me out of the darkness.

  Today we’d only shouted, and I couldn’t even remember the stages that got me into being naked on the bed again. The only thing that had broken through my dulled senses was the discomfort of his invasion. It felt all wrong. I couldn’t keep doing this. We couldn’t. I wanted out. I’d had enough. I couldn’t carry on living this way. I couldn’t breathe.

  “Get off me.” I forced the words from my mouth, and tried to rise even though there was no hope. He was too heavy.

  His head came up and his blue eyes looked right into me, as cold as the stone he felt like. “Fucking hell, Rachel, do something, it’s like shagging a rag doll.”

  Then stop, if you don’t like it, stop! The words echoed about my messed up head, and got lost in the darkness. It had been hours since I’d taken the cocaine, but it still buzzed in my veins, confusing me even more than the darkness alone did.

  He was still moving. I swallowed then forced the words from my mouth. “Just, get off me. Please. Leave me alone. I don’t want to.”

  He simply looked down at my breasts rocking, and moved faster. “Fucking come, will you.”

  The anger simmering inside me suddenly boiled over. It was like lava and fume spewing from a volcano, flying out of me, erupting with a strength I didn’t even know I was capable of. I wasn’t gonna let this continue. I wasn’t gonna put up with it anymore. This whole thing had lost its novelty. Fuck it… Why had I ever let him touch me?

  “Ahhh.” My cry was like an animal’s as I shoved him off me. He fell sideways, falling from the bed onto the floor.

  I scrabbled off the other side. Then just stood there, feeling the trickle of tears on my face. Naked. Breathless. My lungs fighting to grasp some air. What could I do? My fingers curled into fists like I was clutching at something, but there was nothing to clutch, I had nothing but the stuff in this room. The stuff he’d given me. I didn’t want any of it anymore, and I didn’t want him.

  “Rachel?” He was standing now, and coming about the bed toward me, holding out his hand. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Just sort yourself out.”

  “Leave me alone.” I lifted a hand, as he got nearer, palm out, warning him to stay back.

  “Rachel?” His voice had dropped, it wasn’t threatening, but he was
still moving, and I didn’t want him near me.

  “Stay away!”

  “No, for fuck sake, Rachel. This is ridiculous. I just wanted sex. You like sex…”

  Not with you. Not like this. Not anymore. I’m gonna go… The words whispered through my head as though I’d only just made the decision to leave, but surely I’d made that when I pushed him off me. But where was I gonna go? Oh, I wish my brain wasn’t so clouded by thick black fog.

  “Rachel?” He was right in front of me, his hand reaching for me. I felt sick. Shaking my head, I backed away. I couldn’t.

  “Just calm down…”

  “No.”

  “Look, if you don’t want to…”

  It was only a reprieve, in a few hours he’d try and cajole me, and force me into it again. I kept moving.

  He kept following.

  The anger inside me mixed up with fear, swirling one in between the other. My hands were trembling. “Leave me alone.”

  The bathroom was behind me, a few feet away. If I… I turned and ran for it as he reached out for me, and I made it but he was right behind me, grabbing my arm and trying to pull me back as he blocked the door from shutting.

  I shoved it at him, hitting him with it, but he was too tough. We’d fought enough times. I knew I’d never win. He was much too strong for me.

  “Let me go!”

  “No. Don’t be fucking stupid, Rachel. Just calm down.”

  “Leave me alone!” As I screamed at him, I reached for the mirror which stood beside the sink, without thought, it was just suddenly in my hand, and then in the next moment I’d smashed it on the edge of the sink. The shattering sound rang from the marble lined walls, echoing about the space and shards clattered to the floor.

  It was like someone pressed pause on time, like Declan and I were held in limbo waiting. His hand still gripped my arm, his fingers a pressure on my skin, but he wasn’t trying to pull me back anymore, I think he knew what I was going to do. I didn’t. Not even when I grasped one long shard of splintered glass from the sink, not even when my hand lifted and swung it in an arc––not even when I thrust it into him, felt the pressure, and pressed harder.

  My hand let go. The shard of glass was buried deep in his flesh, just above his hip.

  Oh my God.

  My hands shook harder.

  “Fucking hell, Rachel. What the…”

  He looked in shock as he touched it, then gripped it and pulled it out. God, there was so much blood.

  I turned to the toilet and vomited in the bowl, then grabbed the towel and wiped my mouth as I heard him back in the bedroom, moving around.

  At the sink I washed my hands and my face.

  Scarlet ribbons of blood swirled about the white porcelain sink, disappearing with the water.

  When I looked at myself in the mirror to put up my hair in a band, the image I faced was naked. Still naked. I needed to get dressed.

  “Get up here!” Shit, Declan was calling someone on his phone. “Yeah. Now! I said get up here! I need some help.”

  I needed to get out.

  I didn’t look at him when I went back into the bedroom. I didn’t speak to him. He was sitting on his side of the bed. But I sensed from his position in the periphery of my vision, he had one hand pressed over the wound, while his other gripped his phone.

  I grabbed a pair of jeans out my wardrobe, only an old pair, a pair I’d had when I met him. I snatched a t-shirt out too, and slipped it over my head. Then I put on my jeans. My hands were shaking so much it took ages to get the buttons done up. I took a deep breath when the last one finally slipped into place.

  I pulled out some sneakers, not looking at the eight pairs I had to choose from. I just wanted anything that would help me walk out of his life.

  He didn’t turn as I left the room, and I didn’t look back. I wasn’t ever gonna look back. I wasn’t gonna regret leaving, and I wasn’t gonna think about what I’d done.

  He never said a word. Nor did I. Our goodbye was the sound of the door slamming shut behind me…

  Tears ran down my cheeks. I had to tell Jason I was ill. But I didn’t think of myself as ill, my illness was just me.

  I got off the toilet, flushed it and went back to bed, feeling lonely, and awful.

  I wanted to hug Jason, to ground myself by being with him again. I wanted to have sex with him. I’d feel normal then––alive. I felt trapped now, and isolated, not just by the staircase separating us, but by the chasm my stupid brain was busy opening up between me, him and this odd world he came from. If it kept getting wider, I wouldn’t be able to reach Jason across it. When I shut my eyes, I could see my hand stretching out to his in my mind, and not being able to reach him.

  But he was downstairs, alone too, probably thinking of me, and wishing I was there as much as I wished he was here. I desperately wanted to go to him, but I didn’t. Instead I touched myself when I was back in bed, and thought of him, and wished his parents to hell, my bad side screaming back to life.

  I didn’t really wish them to hell; it was just a moment’s feeling. But I knew I was going to struggle to get through this Christmas if I couldn’t be near Jason.

  ~

  When I came downstairs in the morning, Jason was waiting in the hall. He handed me my coat and said in a low voice, “I’m taking you out. I’m giving you the tour of the town.” He smiled when I met his gaze, but then his smile dropped and he looked serious as he took a breath. “I told Mom and Dad you’re pregnant this morning.”

  “Oh.” I didn’t know what else to say. He looked angry, and when he closed his mouth the muscle in his jaw ticked with a little jerk, like his teeth were gritted, and he was holding back frustration.

  “I didn’t want to tell them yesterday when everyone was here, but they had to know.” His voice sounded hard edged with restraint too.

  I nodded. Of course they had to know, they’d know eventually anyway; a child was pretty hard to hide. He could have waited, but if a miracle happened and they got to like me and then they found out…

  “I didn’t tell them I’m not the father…”

  My eyes said oh again, I was sure, although no sound left my mouth. I couldn’t imagine the conversation. They must truly hate me now. The implication was I’d trapped him. He should’ve said the baby wasn’t his, but then if he had done, their reaction would probably have been worse.

  “We’ll come back before the party, but we’ll get lunch out and spend the day together.”

  “Your mom doesn’t mind you going out?” I asked quietly, concerned he’d offended his parents and they were now angry at him too. Was he taking me out to get me away from his mom, run away himself, or had they asked him to take me away? Whatever the reason, there must have been some heated words flying between him and his parents this morning.

  “Hi, Helen…” His mother’s voice seeped through the closed door which led to the living room.

  “I don’t think she cares at the moment, Rach … ” Jason said, but I was only half listening to him, my hearing was tuned to his mother’s voice beyond the door.

  “It’s worse,” I heard his mother say in a low voice. “Jason told us this morning that that girl has gone and let herself get pregnant…”

  “…Perhaps she’ll work her temper out of her system by the time we get back,” Jason continued. I doubted that. He wasn’t listening to his mom. “But at the minute I think she would rather we weren’t here.” Jason’s eyebrows lifted then, and he whispered, “Sorry, Rach, you shouldn’t have to listen to her condemning you to Aunt Helen.” So he had heard.

  I smiled weakly, feeling guilty. “No, I’m sorry. I’ve caused a rift between you and them.”

  “Don’t be stupid. This is my fault, not yours. I made my own choices. You didn’t twist my arm behind my back to make me fall for you, did you?”

  I shook my head, intensely glad we were going out. I just wanted him to myself for a while. Then maybe when we got back I could deal with this better.

&
nbsp; He turned and picked up his dad’s keys. “We’re taking the truck. Dad said we can have it. Then I can run you out to the lake, too, once you’ve seen the town.”

  Pride rippled through me, when he held the door for me to pass. He looked so… Oh I don’t know… Sensible, grown up, and gorgeous, with the keys dangling from his hand and a look of determination on his face. This was the guy I’d fallen for––the guy who’d taken me in and was helping me change my life––the guy who loved me.

  A smile lifted his features, when I glanced at him, and his eyes shone.

  My smile came from somewhere deep inside me, and I brushed my hand across the front of his jeans as I passed, forgetting his parents and this town which disliked me. My bad girl was growling again. I just wanted to tell them all to fuck off.

  He laughed.

  My heart swelled when he clicked the button to open the truck, and I climbed in one side while he took the driver’s seat. It felt good to be alone with him again. Just as good as it would have done if a guy had ever driven me in a car to a prom. This was my special guy, and this Christmas was going to be special, just because I had him. I didn’t give a damn about the rest of them judging me anymore. Let them judge.

  The surrealism of his world suddenly swept over me though. This whitewashed winter wonderland was like a dream to me. It was a way of life I’d only ever seen in films. But it was his life; he’d lived it for twenty-two years.

  Through the window of the truck, beyond Jason, there were the icicles, real and fake, dangling from the snow coated roof. And the carpet of snow still covering the ground, was mottled by animal tracks, cats and birds. The jolly Santa, sitting in his sleigh, held his hand high as if he hailed us as we pulled out of the drive.

  It really was like living in a film set.

  I looked back at Jason, pulling my belt across me. “Where are we going to first then?”

  He glanced sideward at me. “I thought I’d start by showing you the school I went to.”

  “Ah, the height of excitement in a small town.”