Scars

by Cheryl Rainfield

  A door, snapping shut behind me. His hand, pressing my fingers around a knife. His breath against my cheek, against my ear.

  “You will cut to keep silent. You will cut to forget. And if you tell, you will cut to kill yourself.”

  Then the shadows, the words are gone.

  I lean back against the wall, shaken.

  “It’s okay.” I breathe out, my lungs quivering. “He was trying to scare me, to keep me quiet. That’s all.”

  What if you’re wrong? a voice whispers inside me. What if he tries to rape you again? Wouldn’t it be better to die now, than to let that happen?

  I stare at the wet blade. It would be so easy to cut a little deeper—

  “No!”

  I throw the blade down. “I want to live.”

  Another flash.

  Blinding light in my eyes. A handkerchief, falling to the floor. A large hand, gripping my wrist. A hand I think I recognize.

  “Stop it, just stop it!” I scream. I slam the door of my mind on the image, shut my mind against the pain.

  Carolyn. I’ve got to call Carolyn.

  I fumble for my cell and pull it out of my pocket. My hands are shaking so much that I can barely flip open the phone. I speed dial Carolyn, not knowing what I’m going to say. I just know I need to hear her voice.

  “Hello—”

  “Carolyn!” I cry.

  “You have reached the voicemail of Carolyn Fairchild. Please leave a message at the sound of the tone—”

  I almost hang up, but I wait until the beep sounds, then clear my throat, trying not to sound as desperate as I feel. “Carolyn? It’s Kendra. Something happened, and I really need to talk to you. He sent me another message—” My voice chokes off.

  I hang up before I start sobbing. God, I’m a mess.

  “Kendra! Kendra? Are you in there?” It’s Meghan. She’s pounding on the door. “Kendra, let me in!”

  “Just a minute!” I stand up shakily, then wipe my blade and tuck it away.

  “Open up the door—now!” Her voice grows fainter, like she’s turned her head away. “Hey! Could I get some help over here? My friend’s in trouble!”

  “No, just hang on!” I yell. Hot blood curls down my arm in long, thin streams. I can’t let her see me like this. I won’t put her through that. I grab more toilet paper off the roll and press it tight against my arm.

  “Kendra, open the door now! Or I’ll get somebody to open it up!”

  I can tell she means it.

  I punch my thigh. I don’t know what to do.

  “Kendra!”

  I turn the handle and open the door a crack, peeking out.

  Meghan shoves her way past me, knocking my arm, and slams the door behind her. Then she notices the blood: “Oh, my God. Oh, my God!” It’s everywhere—spattered on the floor and on the sink, wads of reddened toilet paper clumped on the tiles. Blood trickles down my arm.

  “I didn’t want you to see this,” I say. My teeth are chattering again.

  “But I did. I have. And you know what, Kendra? I’m not running away.”

  I don’t know how she knows exactly the right thing to say, but it calms me and lets me take a breath.

  “We’ve got to get you to a doctor,” Meghan says.

  I shake my head. “No doctor.” There’d be no way I could hide my cutting if a doctor saw it.

  “But you can’t leave your arm like this! You need stitches!”

  I step back. “I’ve cut this deep before. It always heals just fine.”

  “God, Kendra—”

  “No doctor!”

  “All right, all right. Where’s your bandages?”

  I point to the clump of grey bandage on the floor with the scab-encrusted pads.

  “You don’t have anything else?”

  “No. I didn’t think I was going to cut. It was just going to be a lovely day—with you.”And now I’ve ruined it all.

  “Okay. Hold on. I’ll go get something.” She grips my shoulder. “Stay here. You promise?”

  “Promise,” I whisper. There’s no way I’m leaving the bathroom with my arm like this. No way I’m going to let anyone else see it.

  “Fine. I’ll be right back—five minutes, ten at the most. There’s a drugstore around the corner. Just don’t move. And hold your arm up. I think that’s supposed to help slow down the bleeding.”

  I feel silly, but I do it anyway.

  Meghan reaches for the door handle, then turns back to look at me. “It was from him, wasn’t it? The package?”

  I nod.

  “I’ll kill him,” she says, and leaves.

  27

  I lock the door behind her.

  “No, you don’t want to go in there,” I hear Meghan say. “My friend’s vomiting. She’s got diarrhea, too. Everything. Try the men’s bathroom.”

  I freeze until the voices move away, then grab some clean toilet paper and start wiping the blood off the floor and sink. It smears over the tiles and drips from my arm as I clean. I scrub harder. My stomach feels queasy, like I might really vomit. I can’t believe I did this. Can’t believe how out of control I got.

  “You will cut to keep silent—”

  I can’t believe what I remembered, either. It can’t be true. It just can’t. Cutting is my thing. Not his.

  Acid rises up in my throat. Cutting is what’s kept me alive. What helped me when I couldn’t take it any more … .

  It’s what helped me forget.

  No! I stagger upright, stare at my wide, frightened eyes in the mirror. I can’t be doing what he wants me to. I can’t be!

  There’s a knock on the door. I tighten up, watching it like someone’s going to burst right through.

  “Kendra? It’s me,” Meghan calls.

  I let her in, and she locks the door behind her. Then she puts my arm under the faucet and turns the water on. I flinch as the cold water hits my skin.

  “Does that hurt?”

  Yes. I shake my head no.

  The blood washes from my chaotic slashes, revealing how deep they are before the blood pools up again. Meghan sucks in her breath sharply. She grabs a paper towel and hands it to me. “You’d better dry it. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  I gingerly pat my arm. It’s aching fiercely now.

  Meghan sits me down on the lid of the toilet seat and starts taking things out of her shopping bag: a roll of gauze bandage, a box of sterile nonstick pads, and some nail scissors. She rips open the packages and gently bandages my arm, wrapping it up tight with the clean, white gauze. I know I should be thanking her, but I just sit there and shiver, feeling sick.

  “You okay?” Meghan asks gently—so gently.

  “You will cut to forget.”

  I nod. I’m so sorry. I never meant for you to see this. But I don’t say it. I can’t get my voice to work.

  Meghan reaches for my arm, the one that’s not hurt, and pulls me up. “Come on. Let’s get you out of here.”

  I nod again and pull my sleeve down over the bandage. I take a step, then another, out of the bathroom.

  It’s too big a betrayal to be true. He can’t have taught me to cut. I can’t just be doing what he wants me to. That would mean I’m letting him win. That would mean I’m still letting him hurt me.

  I stumble, and Meghan catches me.

  “You okay?” she asks again.

  No words. Just shadows fluttering inside me, tearing away my voice. I manage to nod.

  She leads me out of the Java Cup, past the staring customers and into the park. We walk back to where we sat earlier and ease down on the grass. Meghan wraps her arms around me and holds me, rocking me gently. A leaf floats down, brushing against my face.

  “It’s okay. It’ll all be okay,” she whispers.

  But it won’t be. How can it?

  “Hey! Whatchu starin’at?” Meghan yells over my shoulder, her arm moving sharply against my back. I know she’s just given someone the bird.

  “Sorry. Look, he got away this time.
But he’s getting desperate. He’ll make a mistake—and then we’ll catch him.”

  I’m the one who made a mistake—by remembering.

  No. I shudder. It was right to remember. I needed to remember. But I need to be able to cut, too.

  “You will cut to forget.”

  “What’s happening, Kendra?” Meghan asks, stroking my sweaty hair.

  I clear my tight throat. Move my lips. Form the words. “I think a memory’s coming. A big one.”The rest of the memory I don’t want to see.

  “You want to call Carolyn?”

  “Already did. She’s not in.” My teeth chatter. “I just want it to go away.”

  “But it won’t, will it? Why don’t you just let it come? I’ll stay with you.”

  “I’m afraid to!”

  “I know.”

  Meghan holds me tighter. I shudder as the shadows slice their way through my mind. His hand closing on my wrist. His breath hot on my cheek. The bathroom door snapping shut behind me—locking.

  I rock against the fear, teeth clenched, trying to hold it all back.

  “Let it come, Kendra. Let it come.”

  Cold floor tiles bite into the bottoms of my feet, making my ankles ache as the cold moves up my legs. The light flickers. The man roughly pushes up my sleeve, chaffing my skin.

  “You will learn to keep silent,” he says, his voice echoing in the small room.

  “No!” I cry, and clutch Meghan’s hand.

  “I’m right here. Right here with you.”

  The man pulls a utility knife out of his pocket and pushes the blade up until an inch shows through the handle. The tip of the blade is dull in the light.

  “You will cut to keep silent. You will cut to forget. You will cut not to tell. And if you tell, you will cut to kill yourself. You will use your own knife to end your life.”

  The words are familiar, like I’ve heard them many times, in many different places. But the voice is the same. His voice. It’s always his voice.

  “And if you fail, I will kill you myself. I will kill you if you tell.”

  He grabs my arm, fingers bruising my wrist, and forces the utility knife into my hand. I want to drop it, want to let it go, but his hand closes tightly over mine, crushing my fingers into the handle.

  Fear bursts through me, harsh and bright, and I swim up to the top of my head. I shut myself off from my body and mind, shut myself down and go to sleep.

  Another part of me steps forward. A part that can follow directions, without reacting. A part that can see the world in shapes and shadows. A part that’s a robot.

  The man-shape pushes her hand down, fast and hard, making the blade slash into her flesh. The robot is fascinated by the sight of the skin parting open to reveal a bubbly white interior. There is no pain, no feeling. Just parted skin, like an open mouth, and blood rushing up to fill it.

  The man-shape hands her a square of white cloth and makes her press it against the wound.

  “Now you,” he commands.

  The robot had watched carefully. The command is clear. Still, her mouth is oddly dry and she feels a strange sensation. But robots don’t feel. She knows that.

  She brings the blade down to her arm, judging carefully. For some reason, her ears are ringing and her perfectly controlled hand is trembling. She slashes once, twice, at his command.

  “If you ever talk about me again, you will slit your own neck. You will do it because you will be sorry that you talked.”

  He tells her that she can go.

  I walk out of the bathroom, not knowing what I am doing there. My arm is screaming with pain. I look down and am terrified. I don’t know what’s happened, how I got hurt.

  I try to remember, but my mind is blank, a thick grey fog filling my head. My mind stretches and twists itself, trying to understand, but nothing makes sense. I start to pull back from the world. And then a voice tells me that I did it to myself, to keep myself from remembering.

  I believe the voice. And I remember how to cut.

  The shadow lifts slowly. I lie there, exhausted.

  Meghan’s worried face comes into focus. I can feel her arms around me again, can smell the amber-like honey on her skin. I push myself away.

  “It was bad, huh?” she says.

  “Oh, yeah.”

  I shudder; another wave is coming. Meghan holds me tight.

  I’m five, maybe six, curled up, naked, shivering, in the bathroom.

  The man holds a life–sized plastic arm in front of me, its surface flesh-colored. He forces the utility knife into my hand.

  “This is your arm. Your body,” he says. “What will you do if you talk?”

  “Cut it,” the robot part of me answers automatically, her voice toneless.

  “Show me,” the man says.

  And I do. Over and over, until it becomes a muscle memory, something I can do without thinking. Without looking. Until it’s a part of me.

  I retch. He was preparing me for it, even then. He was making sure I wouldn’t talk.

  But I did talk. He didn’t manage to stop me. Not completely.

  I blink my eyes, forcing myself to focus on the trees, on the grass, on Meghan.

  Meghan’s watching me, her face tight and pale, and I know this was hard for her. Maybe too hard.

  “I’m sorry.” I push myself away.

  Her hands pull me back. “No. Tell me.”

  My lips feel cemented together.

  “I’ve been through shit, too, Kendra,” Meghan says. “Maybe not as bad as you, but—I can take it. I want to know.”

  I tell her what I remembered, in slow, halting words.

  Meghan rakes her fingers through her hair. “God, he’s sick. Just sick.”

  “I guess.”

  “You guess? Come on, Kendra, that’s pretty scary shit.”

  “I know, but—” A thought skitters just outside my reach. I grab for it; it’s gone.

  “But what? And don’t tell me it wasn’t so bad. I saw your face.”

  The thought hovers again, darting around my consciousness. I close my eyes, and it comes, chilling my skin.

  “Palette knives aren’t sharp. They’re to spread paint, create texture on the canvas, mix colors. They couldn’t cut through cheese. But the one in that package, it had sharp edges like a blade. I took one look at it and cut worse than I ever have before. It was almost like I couldn’t stop.” I take a shaky breath. “I think that’s what he was trying to get me to do. I think he wanted me to kill myself because I’ve talked about the abuse. Because I’ve tried to remember who he is. And because I’ve been using my art to tell.”

  “Goddamn bastard.” Meghan looks like she wants to punch something to keep from crying.

  “Hey, it’s okay,” I say, and it is.

  “How can you say that?”

  “I know it sounds weird, but I almost feel stronger. Figuring out what he wanted me to do—remembering what he taught me—has made everything clearer. It’s like I was painting with only two primary colors before, and now I have the third.”

  I pull her to me, and we sit there together, listening to each other breathe.

  Something blocks out the sun. The stench of alcohol is overpowering. I look up to see a guy leering down at us.

  Meghan snaps open her eyes and jerks upright. “Get lost, you pervert.”

  “You two together?” the man asks, tapping his forefingers together and grinning.

  “Just leave us alone, okay?” I say.

  “And go screw yourself!” Meghan yells, giving him the bird.

  The man holds his hands up mockingly in surrender, then staggers off.

  I shiver. “I don’t feel like hanging around here any more. You want to go to my place?”

  “Yeah. Let’s get out of here.”

  28

  When Meghan and I walk in together, Mom sucks in her lips so far they almost disappear. Then she straightens up, puts on her politician smile, and reaches out to shake Meghan’s hand. Meghan awkwardly r
esponds.

  I don’t think I can hold it together much longer; I feel like shit. Taking Meghan’s arm, I point her toward the hall. “We’re going to my room,” I say.

  “To do some studying,” Meghan adds. Funny girl.

  We walk down the hall together, Meghan supporting me without making it look like that’s what she’s doing, and I close the door behind us.

  Meghan looks around slowly. I can see her taking it all in—the organized jumble of paints and brushes, pastels and charcoal on my desk, half covered by rags; the clothes hanging over the back of my chair; the crooked pottery on my windowsill. She doesn’t comment on the framed Escher drawings on my walls; the rows and rows of books and CDs on my shelves; my laptop sitting open on the floor; or the tangled sheets on my bed, with my childhood stuffed bunny poking out beneath the covers.

  “Sorry about the mess,” I say, flinging the sheets over the top of the bunny.

  “You kiddin’? This is neat, compared to my room.” She keeps looking around, as if my room fascinates her.

  My legs start to tremble again, and I sink down onto my bed.

  Meghan turns to me, as if she can sense how I’m feeling. “I’m not leaving you alone with this. You don’t look so hot.”

  “I’m all right.”

  Meghan sits down next to me and puts her hand on my thigh. “No, you’re not.” She blows out her breath. “Damn it!”

  “What?”

  “I’m just so angry at what he did to you—at what he’s still doing to you—”

  “He’s not hurting me any more!”

  Meghan’s eyes fill with tears. “Yes, he is. You know he is. Through what he taught you. And it’s driving me crazy to see you hurting this bad. I like you a lot—but I don’t know if I’m strong enough for this.”

  I draw back. “Sarah wasn’t.”

  “I used to see the two of you together all the time. You were so wrapped up in each other, there wasn’t room for anyone else.”

  “She was my first girlfriend.”

  Meghan waggles her eyebrows up and down. “So the rumors are true.”

  “I don’t know. It depends on what you heard.”

  Meghan reaches for my hand, strokes my skin. “That you and Sarah were an item. That someone caught the two of you kissing … ”