Back to Yesterday (Bleeding Hearts Book 2)

by Whitney Barbetti

  “You know you want some,” Doug said when I looked across the paraphernalia littering the coffee table.

  Without looking at him, I said, “I definitely don’t. All I want is my keys.”

  He sighed and the couch creaked under him as he settled deeper in it. “Well, that can wait. Your mom says you haven’t been around in a while. Don’t be an ungrateful bitch, and try to spend some time with her before you flit off again.”

  That got me to look at him, which I did with a burr under my skin. “I’m an ungrateful bitch?” I asked, knowing my voice sounded shrill and angry. “I bought her groceries and dinner, and you stole my money and my keys. How does that make me ‘ungrateful’ in your eyes?”

  There was a glint in Doug’s eyes. He was entertained by seeing how he successfully weaseled under my skin. “Your mother hasn’t heard from you in a month. She’s been worried.”

  “Funny.” I crossed my arms and sat back in the chair. “She hasn’t said any of that to me.”

  Doug picked up a joint off the coffee table and held it out to me. There was dirt under his nails and his cuticles were overgrown. When I shook my head, he shrugged as if to say, “Suit yourself,” before he lit it and sucked on it. He had a grocery store of drugs he carried with him everywhere, so seeing the coke, pills, and marijuana didn’t surprise me. But it did surprise me that he let my mom snort the coke without taking some himself.

  I looked back up at him. “What did you give her?” I asked with a nod to my mom.

  He smiled, the lines around his mouth deepening. But he didn’t answer me, just rolled the joint in his fingers.

  That was possibly the most infuriating thing about him—he kept his words to himself, knowing I wanted an answer. He was baiting me, trying to get me to talk. I was just another person to prey on, another one to torment.

  “She’s been talking to me the last few weeks,” he said after a loud exhale. “This is some good shit. Sure you don’t want some?” He held it up again and I shook my head adamantly. “And she’s told me that you went chasing your boyfriend. How’d that work out for you?”

  I wouldn’t give in, I told myself. Not to him, not about Colin. Doug hadn’t been around when I’d started dating Colin, not that it would’ve mattered because I’d never have brought Colin around anyway. “Can I just have my goddamn keys?”

  He patted his package and smiled with the side of his mouth, revealing his yellowing teeth. “They’re all yours.”

  No matter how many times I told myself to calm down around him, to not let him see that he was affecting me, the longer I was in the house the more I wanted to scour my skin with a copper scrubber. I knew I’d reek of smoke and dirt long after I left.

  I needed to get out of this fucking house.

  In a split second, I grabbed the bag of buds and held it up. “Give me my keys or I’ll flush these.”

  Doug’s mouth set in a line and fear made my resolve waver at the way his eyes darkened. “You flush those and I’ll be finding other ways to get more money—” his eyes slid down my body “—or use out of you.”

  I was going to call his bluff. It was probably stupid. Okay, it was definitely stupid. But I backed up toward the bathroom anyway.

  I hadn’t gone more than a few feet when he was on his feet and advancing on me. Before I could turn around and run into the bathroom, he’d grabbed me and slammed me against the wall that separated the living area from the bathroom. My shoulder blades had twin bursts of pain and I exhaled from the shock of hitting the wall.

  My head bounced off of a frame before it fell behind me, the sharp corner landing on my ankle bone.

  “Stupid, worthless, fat bitch,” he spat in my face as he wrenched the baggie from my hands. I slapped his hand away from where he held me firmly against the wall, but his hand moved up to my neck and he wrapped his calloused fingers around it. “Don’t,” he hissed, flecks of saliva hitting me in the face, “tempt me, girl.”

  The thing that made the guys my mom hung around scary was how unpredictable they were. But Doug was another story—I knew he meant what he said. I knew he could inflict pain upon me if I pushed him further.

  Over Doug’s shoulder, my mom was slowly moving each shoulder up and down to a silent beat, one only she heard. Her yellow, frizzy hair looked like she’d spent time shoving forks into outlets and her shirt was slipping over her shoulder.

  “Let me go, Doug,” I said, realizing I had to play this safe. My mom wasn’t in any shape to shield me from Doug’s violent side, and Doug had my means to escape shoved down his pants. I could run, sure, but then I’d leave behind my entire life in my car.

  He leaned in, his face inches from me. Body odor and something sour engulfed my nostrils. “Don’t fuck with me,” he said, giving me a squeeze strong enough to show me he was serious about inflicting pain on me before he let go and stalked away.

  I sunk down the wall until I was crouched and let my knees splay out in front of me. Doug poured vodka as I tried to figure out how to get my keys from him without actually touching him. My phone was locked in my car, and over and over, I cursed myself for not running sooner. For not dropping off the food and taking off. I was stuck, in this stale room with my mom and her drug pusher.

  Not for the first time, I clenched my fist and thought of Jude. If I closed my eyes, I could almost imagine him holding my hand.

  So I did.

  Chapter Three

  I opened my eyes and sucked in a breath at the same moment. Something loud had woken me. The room was dark and I blinked several times, adjusting my sight. That’s when I heard it.

  A grunt, a slap of skin, the sound of things rolling off of the coffee table and their soft thud when they fell to the carpet. I curled my fingers into the carpet underneath me, feeling its fibers in my nails. I wanted to remain quiet, but I didn’t want to be in the same room as my mother when she was having sex with Doug. I knew, without sight, that’s what was happening. I could’ve placed those sounds anywhere.

  Quietly, I rolled to my side so I could push myself off the floor. Over the coffee table, I saw them. There was low light washing across the crusty carpet, stopping when it reflected on my mom’s face. Her eyelids were half open, but all you could see were the whites of her eyes and the splash of purple that circled one of them—a souvenir from Doug. The way her body moved against the carpet despite the lack of movement in her face was eerie, and a tingle prickled my skin as I moved my gaze down her body. My mother was lying on her stomach, and her pants were pulled down. Doug was slamming into her, over and over.

  I blinked several times, trying to comprehend what I was seeing. I’d assumed my mom had been awake, an active participant, but she looked completely unconscious. Her mouth was open, but her face was still.

  Her hands were lying, lifeless, on the carpet at her sides. She wasn’t awake. She barely looked alive.

  My mouth tasted of vomit when it hit me: Doug was raping my mother. Stunned, I stepped back, bumping into the loveseat so hard that I fell into it. The room bounced in my vision. My gaze shot to Doug, but he was still moving as if he hadn’t seen me. I was in the dark corner of the room, a place that suddenly felt safe. I’d never felt safe in my mother’s house, and right now was no exception.

  Beside Doug, I saw my keys. I could grab them. I could run.

  I was a coward, I knew.

  It made me ill to even think it—because I was witnessing Doug violating my mother while she was unconscious. I couldn’t run from this—not a chance in hell. Who did it make me, if I left my mother at his mercy?

  Over and over, he slammed into her, his stringy hair stuck to his face with sweat dripping down his neck. His greasy hair was shiny from the light that shone on it from behind him. He looked like he hadn’t bathed in weeks. And he was violating my mother.

  If I could rewrite the dictionary, I’d put his photo next to the definition for “repulsive.” Frantically, I searched for something to stop him. Words with Doug would not do. If I spoke,
if I alerted him to my presence, I didn’t know what he’d do. I’d have to stoop to his level.

  I saw the bottle of vodka on the floor and scooted down to the other end of the couch slowly, hoping the movement wouldn’t alert him to me.

  Fear made my throat thick and my chest tight as I slid off the couch to the floor and crawled to the bottle directly in front of me. When my fingers curled around its neck, I let the coolness of it ground me. Fear may have made me quiet, but it wouldn’t make me placid. I moved farther to the side so that Doug’s back was to me before I stood, my bony knees wobbling like I was a child taking her first steps. But I took them. One, and then another, and another, until I was directly behind Doug.

  I lifted the bottle, intending to hit the back of his head. But just as I brought the bottle up, I saw the shadow I was casting over his back, spilling to my mother’s. I froze in fear, felt sweat slide down my spine.

  He turned just as I brought the bottle down and instinctively reached a hand up to block me.

  “What the fuck?” he growled, hitting my forearm hard enough to knock me off balance and to knock the bottle from my grip. I fell forward but reached a hand out to break my fall as my knees hit the carpet.

  “What the fuck, Trista?” he repeated louder as I frantically reached for the dropped bottle.

  Everything from that point happened quickly.

  He grabbed my hair and pulled me forward to him. Unwillingly, my hands moved quickly toward him as I crawled across the carpet, trying to relieve the sharp bite of pain in my scalp from where he pulled my hair taut. He twisted his arm, causing me to roll over to my back beneath him. His jeans were open, and he reeked of sweat and sex. My stomach rolled but I couldn’t lose focus, so I fought against his grip as he was upside down in my vision.

  “Let go,” I yelled, clawing at his hands with my nails. I dug in, hard enough to feel the pressure in my nail beds, and his hold on me relaxed enough that I moved my head completely away from him. The bottle glinted just inches from me. I quickly turned around and crawled to it before I felt his hand wrap around my leg and pull me back.

  Raw, hot desperation snaked through me as I watched the bottle get smaller in my focus. Doug was strong, much stronger than I was. And he was pissed.

  “You thought you’d hit me with that?” he asked behind me as I tried in vain to shake my leg from his grip. He yanked hard and my stomach slid across the carpet with a burn as my shirt lifted beneath me, exposing my skin to the fibers. I winced from the pain but didn’t give in to it.

  I felt myself being flipped to my back, where I came face to face with him. I refused to look away from his face, because out of my periphery I could see his undone pants and the blur of skin that hung there. The way he pinned me scared me, and I felt the shake in my bones.

  His hands clamped on my shins as he climbed over me, his weight pushing me in the ground. I watched his eyes slide over me, resting on the exposed skin of my stomach, and I quickly tugged my shirt down.

  “You think I’m going to fuck you?” he asked, his voice raspy and his hands clamped on my hips. I bucked, trying to get away, but he was too strong. Saliva pooled in my mouth and my stomach revolted. His fingers were inches from the edge of my jeans. “You’re too fat for me.”

  I wouldn’t give him power, I told myself. I reached my hands out, in search of something to hit him with. My fingers clawed the carpet, my nails filling with all the gunk that had never seen the inside of a vacuum. I realized how an insect caught in a spider’s web might feel, watching a predator advance upon them.

  He was straddling me, his knees on either side of my thighs. He leaned over me, bringing his face close. A drop of his sweat dripped on my neck at the same time as my hands grasped something heavy and I lifted it, successfully hitting him over the head this time. Whatever it was, it was made of glass, and as it broke in my hand, pieces rained all down me. I turned my head to keep it from my eyes and mouth as I dropped the shards I held in my palm.

  A grunt came from him before he slumped forward, his head landing hard on my chest. But he wasn’t out cold, and his fingers dug painfully hard into my hips. I wrestled under him, trying to free myself, but he lifted his head and his hands at the same time, grabbing my shoulders even as I writhed desperately for escape. His fingers brushed my neck in my thrashing, but landed on my shoulders, pressing right into the space above my collarbone.

  The entire time, I’d been fighting him away from me, but I hadn’t felt true fear for my life until his thumbs pressed hard, right down onto bone. I knew it was seconds away from snapping.

  Suddenly, everything started hitting me: his weight on my waist, his rancid breath as he let out shudders above me, his smell, and the way I kicked my legs in vain. The way the broken glass between us pressed against my skin from the pressure of him on top of me.

  I forced myself to think, even as I considered giving up. But I’d pissed him off enough that I knew giving up would mean something devastating for me.

  “Stop!” I screamed, but it came out of a voice box that felt broken. “Stop!” I screamed it over and over until my voice lost its power. I started beating on his chest, his neck, his face—anywhere I could touch. My movements were fueled by panic and frustration, hitting, scratching, pulling. I did everything I could think of in that space of just a few seconds to free myself.

  Pain bloomed from my knuckles, but I kept hitting. Blow by blow, I felt the impact knock back in through my hands, the jarring of it all vibrating up my arm and into my elbows. I felt myself growing weaker, and bit down to keep from giving up.

  When my fists weren’t doing what I wanted, I grabbed his hands on my collarbone and used my fingers to pull his thumb back in a direction it wasn’t meant to bend. It relieved a little pressure from the force he was applying and I breathed in as the pain replaced his hands on my shoulders, but then he gripped my jaw, squeezing tight enough that I saw white spots in my vision. I reached out, clawing whatever skin I came in contact with, and choked on the air that filled my lungs.

  Holding my jaw, he lifted my head and then slammed it back to the floor. The white spots in my vision grew into stars, large stars, as I was completely stunned by it.

  Again and again, he lifted my head and slammed it to the floor. I knew I was seconds away from blacking out. Each time he lifted my head, I could feel myself losing my grip on reality. When he delivered a punch right to my face, I heard a crack by my inner eyelid and then his weight was off of me.

  I sucked in a breath, but it wasn’t complete—it came out in a stutter and I choked on it. Tears pooled in the eye he’d hit, so thick that it blurred my vision entirely. Pain spread through my face and I struggled to breathe one deep breath without wanting to die from the pain in my collarbone, my jaw, and my eye. It felt like my eye was being repeatedly pricked by a needle, over and over, like the entire area had fallen asleep.

  In the background, I heard him moving around and coughing. I knew I should move, but I was so frozen by the pain that I couldn’t.

  I was still seeing spots when my head dropped to the side, and I blinked with my good eye at what I saw. Doug was in the kitchen, leaning over the sink, splashing water onto his head. As my eyes moved down, I caught the glint of something shiny on the carpet.

  My keys.

  He turned off the faucet and I made my move, rolling to my stomach and crawling to the keys. I blinked over and over, realizing that I couldn’t see out of one eye, and the one eye I could see out of was still registering spots all over the place.

  I wrapped my fingers around the key ring just as I saw his steps meet the spot where carpet changed to vinyl. Pulling myself to standing, I kept my eye on him the whole time as he watched me.

  I opened my mouth to make noise, but nothing came. Coughing seemed to produce some sound, and I held up my keys. “Don’t come near me,” I said, wishing my voice sounded less shaky, less raspy. I curled my fingers around the ring, feeling—for the first time since I woke up on the floor�
�safe.

  He ignored me, taking one step forward. I looked out to my side at the door before looking back at him.

  “I’m not fucking kidding,” I said, spit flying out of my mouth.

  “Why? So you can run to the cops?” He shook his head and stalked toward me.

  His gait was fast, but freedom was within reach, so I lifted my hand and brought the sharp side of the keys down across his face when he grabbed my forearm.

  And then I ran, wrenching the front door open and stumbling down the steps like I was drunk, to my car.

  My hands were shaking, but I managed to shove the key into the lock and slide into the seat.

  When I looked up, he was standing in the doorway of the trailer. His eyes were blazing as I slammed the car door and he staggered down the steps.

  I did the only thing I could think to do: I pressed hard on the car’s horn. He stopped moving and looked around.

  That was the thing about my mom’s trailer park—it may have been full of convicts and questionable characters, but all of them loved a good show.

  I laid on the horn, over and over, knowing that people would be woken up by the noise and look out their windows or come outside. And then I started the car.

  He made a move toward me again, but the car was locked. I was safe.

  So I peeled out of the drive and drove out of the trailer park, not even slowing down for all the potholes.

  I debated doing it, but knowing the mood I’d left Doug in, I knew I couldn’t leave my mom alone. So I called the local dispatch and informed them of drug activity and violence at her address before hanging up.

  And then I pulled over and screamed. A tsunami of emotion overcame me, and I pressed my hands to my head as tears flowed from my eyes and sobs wracked my throat. A ballad roared on the radio, somehow louder than my cries, and I wailed along to my own lyrics, creating a mashup with the female singer’s lament about losing her lover.