by Lana Sky
“Hello, Uncle James!” Mustering up a cheerful smile, I fold my hands primly over my lap. “Where’s Elaine?”
He says nothing. But he doesn’t move, either. No. Some other emotion has him rooted here, breathing in the same air I am. His eyes gleam, electrified.
Uh-oh. Thorny’s angry.
“So much for the fucking bet. How long have you known?” he wonders through clenched teeth. “Was that one of the first things you sussed out, huh? Did you go through her phone?” He snatches my wrist and I wince. Too tight.
“Ow!”
The second I resist, his fingers latch onto my wrist bone like a vise. “Was it her messages? How?”
“You’re hurting me!” I try to pull away.
He tugs right back, dragging me a step toward him. Up this close, I realize that he’s not cold, callous Thorny now. He’s serious, spiteful Uncle James.
“I bet you couldn’t wait to rub my nose in it, could you?”
Elaine. He’s talking about Elaine. Their hushed conversation wasn’t a dream after all. Naughty girls shouldn’t eavesdrop though, so I school my face into a mask.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about—”
“Don’t play dumb with me!” He’s shouting. “You want to know the truth? Everyone told me to just keep you locked in the fucking psych ward. Refuse to take you back. Let the state have you. Everyone.”
“So, why didn’t you listen, then?” Heat sinks into my skin, creeping through every nerve and pore. I yank my arm and he lets go only to snatch my forearm in an even tighter grasp. I stagger, forced to brace my hand over an end table for balance. “Stop!”
“You’ve been nothing but a burden on this entire fucking family since day one—”
“Get off me!” I dig my feet into the carpet and wrench on my wrist, leaning away from him. “Let me go!”
“I should,” he agrees. “Everyone else is done with you. Lily won’t even welcome you into her home. Caroline’s kids haven’t seen their father in three months. But I took you in anyway—”
“Why?” I stop resisting. Turn to face him. Smile. “Because you’re such a good uncle?”
“You have no fucking idea, do you?” He looks shocked, old Thorny. I’m so stupid that he just can’t deal. “You want to ruin my marriage like you did Caroline’s? Do your worst. That’s the only way someone like you can feel joy, isn’t it?”
“Someone like me?” My throat feels too tight and the words come out wrong. Too soft. Hoarse.
“You heard me. Oh, that’s right. We aren’t supposed to say it out loud. What you really are.” He looks me over and scoffs. “A selfish, spoiled little psychopath.”
He lets me go and stalks toward the archway, probably to hunt for more wine. Halfway there, he pauses to snatch something from his pocket. He throws it at me. A wad of paper bounces off my chest, landing in front of my toes.
It’s my crumbled-up assignment. I hate James Thorne.
“You just can’t get over it, can you?” He shakes his head, overwhelmed with my stupidity. “People die every damn day, and you don’t see everyone else holding on to grudges. Festering over childish little fantasies—”
“But I’m a psychopath,” I parrot tonelessly. “Remember? And do you know what psychopaths do?” I swear we turn at the same time, honing in on a porcelain vase sitting prettily on the mantel. I lunge for it, sensing him right on my heels.
“Don’t you dare!”
He’s too late. I snatch the vase by the neck and pitch it toward the beautiful view of the ocean. Smash! It shatters into pieces.
So much for being a good girl.
“That’s enough!” He grabs my shoulder again, dragging me toward the couch at the opposite end of the room.
I scream. Scratch. Dig my heels in. He’s relentless, yanking me across the carpet when I lose my balance.
“You want me to be your fucking father?” he asks, shoving me onto the couch cushions. “Fine. I’ll do what he should have fucking done a long time ago!”
I kick at his arm as his fingers come for me, latching onto the hem of my skirt.
And then I freeze. My mind goes blank. Poof.
Uncontested, Thorny wrenches my skirt up to my lower back, allowing the cool air to tickle me through my cotton undies. They’re too thin. The baby-pink frilly kind no one was ever supposed to see.
When a hard palm lands against my ass, I feel it all. My teeth clatter as my hands grip a pillow in shock.
“Is this what you fucking wanted?” he shouts, striking again. Thwack.
Thwack.
Thwack.
Each sting jolts through my veins, merciless. One. Five. Ten. The exertion has him cursing every time his hand meets my ass.
“Damn it! Maybe if Charles beat your ass, you wouldn’t be such a little—”
He stops suddenly. Steps back, letting me slump forward. I watch him stare down at his hand, his mouth open, his eyes like slits as he looks at me. Really looks at me.
Then I hear it. Soft, little footsteps creeping up the walkway outside, crunching over the path. Elaine. Mommy has returned. Mustn’t let her see the mess.
Thorny is panting, his chest heaving, his face reddened and splotchy. “Get—”
I don’t listen. I’m on my feet, shoving away from him. To the stairs. Up. Into my room, slamming the door in my wake. Twisting the lock.
Screaming.
Screaming.
Just as a door opens downstairs, I break off, biting so hard at the back of my hand to keep quiet that I taste salt. Elaine calls out words I can’t decipher, and someone gruffly barks a response. Two sets of footsteps drift toward opposite parts of the house.
And then there’s just silence. So loud that I can’t hear anything but the lack of noise. No honking horns to block out my ragged breathing. No distant shouting to obscure the scratching hiss my hair makes as I twist it around. Around. Around.
No Thorny spitting in my face all those means words everyone else thinks but never says.
You’re a selfish, spoiled little psychopath.
The joke’s on him; antisocial personality disorder is rarely diagnosed in someone below the age of eighteen. It’s a stigma, you see. Can’t call them sociopaths. What about borderline? Sure. They can slap that term on your medical file and use it as an excuse to psycho-splain away all of your problems, fears, and anger.
You’re the broken one. It doesn’t matter why you scream. Or shout. Or throw things when people refuse to fucking listen.
I’m the only one with a diagnosis.
And the truly manipulative, selfish, psychopathic thing to do would be to yank my skirt off and shove it onto the floor. With one hand, I tug my panties down while grabbing my cell phone in the other. I have to stand awkwardly and hold it at an angle to get the right shot.
Redness paints my right buttock. And it still hurts. I try to sit on the mattress and wince.
All I have to do is send this picture to Mr. Lawyer or the police. He hit me, I’d wail. Like an animal. It was so, so, so scary…
My fingers dance over the right buttons, but I don’t press them. Yet. My brain skips ahead, imagining how this scenario will unfold. Thorny will get investigated. Maybe even charged. He’ll lose his job. His reputation will take a ding.
But voices would whisper: Oh, that little bitch? She deserved it.
I drop the phone, lying back across the bed. A spanking scandal might affect him for a year or two, but then everyone would forget the whiny little psychopath who called “wolf.” No…
James Thorne deserves a much worse punishment.
I brought that stupid red journal upstairs, I realize. I pick it up and drop it so that it falls open to a clean page. Then I hunt for a pen. Pressing the nib into the paper, I hesitate.
Tell a story, Jane suggested.
The best ones start with once upon a time—like mine. Once upon a time, something terrible happened to a young girl named Maryanne. Only one person in the world could comfort h
er.
And he did.
Until he realized she was tainted. Dirty. Broken.
So he threw her away.
Adjusting my grip on the pen, I start writing.
Dear diary,
He lifted my skirt. Told me not to tell.
Should I?
I don’t go down for dinner. Instead, I take my sleeping aid cocktail, and I don’t dream, either. When I wake up, sunlight sears through the drapes with a vengeance.
I get dressed in a shirt and a pair of jeans. As I drag the waistband over my hips, I wince. Rather than fixate on why, I grab my diary and head downstairs.
It’s a brand-new day.
“Maryanne?” Elaine sticks her head into the hall from the living room as I descend the bottom step. She’s wearing gray. A dress that doesn’t swish when she walks but remains stiff, with a hem reaching just above her knees. Her hair is slicked back, her makeup minimal. Pale skin enhances the redness in her eyes.
But even still. She wears her trademark smile.
“Can we talk?” she asks.
My first thought is that she knows. Old Thorny came clean about his naughty behavior. Then they reconciled, even about the mysterious friend luring her away on business trips. Together, they reached the obvious conclusion as to the catalyst for all their problems: me.
They fought, but eventually, Elaine decided it would be best if I left.
Though, in that case, Thorny would be the one to gloat…
Curious, I follow Elaine into the living room and spot the suitcase leaning against the couch. Hers not mine.
“I…I’ve decided to go away on my business trip a little early. I’ll be back before your birthday though.” She lifts her lips, baring her pearly white teeth. Then she sighs, letting the expression fall. “Can I have a hug before I go?”
A hug. Two arms extended. Closeness maintained for exactly five seconds. Supposedly, they make people feel something. Safe? Loved?
Or, in Elaine’s case, less guilt. I don’t think it works. She draws back, turning away from me.
“I’ll leave my number,” she says. “Call me if anything—”
“You mean…I’m staying?”
Of course not. I wait for her to say as much, doing Thorny’s dirty work for him. The lawyer will be here in an hour. I’m sorry, Maryanne.
“Y-yes.” Elaine blinks. “It’s just for a few weeks. James… He’ll look after you.” She stoops for the handle of her suitcase and starts for the door. Before opening it, she looks back, hunting for a figure who doesn’t appear to send her off. “Goodbye…”
I watch her leave, but it isn’t until the door slams shut that it sinks in.
Mommy left the nest, leaving me alone with Daddy.
Leaving me alone.
A surreal feeling washes over me. This hazy, sleepy sensation like I’m not really awake. This isn’t really happening. I felt it only a handful of times before.
The first time I woke up in a hospital to some stern-faced psychiatrist informing me I’d tried to kill myself.
Before that. At the funeral all those years ago, maybe in this very spot, when everything inside me came to a boiling point and all I could do was scream.
Oh. And that one time I wandered into a closet and found my father hanging from a necktie.
Those times felt a lot like this.
“It’s called dissociating,” one of my many therapists explained. “Whenever you feel that way, try to resist it. Ground yourself, Maryanne.”
Apparently, dissociating can make one impulsive.
It doesn’t really hit home until I enter the entryway, hearing my footsteps echo. From a distance, I catch the sound of a car driving away. Just for a few weeks, she said. But her eyes told differently.
All isn’t what it seemed in paradise.
Someone broke the rules.
Was it him?
I march into their bedroom as if the furniture might talk and give me an answer. The bed is still made. A stale scent taints the air. They haven’t slept in here in days.
The door to the balcony is open. Thorny glowers at the skyline, drinking wine straight from the bottle. The harder the wind blows off the ocean, the more he drinks. Sip. Sip. Sip. The liquid dribbles shamelessly down his chin. It’s barely nine in the morning but, as the sun struggles to climb to its midmorning perch, he continues to drink.
And read. There’s something clutched in his other hand. A tiny, red book opened to the first page.
“You think this—” He cocks his head in my direction, his eyes bloodshot, his smile crooked. He lifts my journal and gives it a shake, making the pages strain against the breeze. “You think this will work?” he wonders. “Framing me as some kind of pervert? Nice try.”
He sets the wine bottle down and rips my page clean from the book. After balling it in a fist, he feeds it to the wind, letting it carry the white ball over into a field.
“But not good enough. If you’re going to use my name, you might as well put some fucking flair into it. Here.” He whips the book at me and I barely manage to catch it. Stinging fingers clutch it to my chest. “Get a pen. No, wait.” He snatches a black one from his pocket and throws it to me as well. “He lifted my skirt,” he parrots, “Told me not to tell. No one would believe that. Describe it. Now.” He jerks his chin to a lounger positioned to face the view. “Sit.”
Nerves go haywire beneath my skin. He’s a different Thorny altogether today. Someone I don’t recognize, with a mangy five-o’clock shadow and unkempt hair. He reeks of wine and is wearing the same clothes from the other day, but his suit jacket is unbuttoned to reveal the shirt underneath. It’s wrinkled.
“I told you to sit.”
He advances a step and my knees contort, pitching me onto the lounger.
“Write,” he snaps. “But not in pathetic little sentences. Describe it. How I touched you. What you felt.” He laughs as my cheeks catch fire, unbearably hot. “You can’t, can you? You want to play the little girl who cried molestation, but you can’t even describe what it fucking feels like.” He shakes his head and snatches up the wine bottle, taking a sip right from the rim. “And this is the same girl who what? Got kicked out of boarding school for fucking some kid in the principal’s office?”
He throws the bottle so hard that it ricochets off the siding of the house but doesn’t break. It rolls across the balcony instead and slips between gaps in the railing. A second later, there’s a smash.
“Jane couldn’t make it today,” Thorny tells me as he lumbers into the bedroom. “So consider that your fucking assignment. Make up a lie worthy of being told.”
He slams the door after him. In fact, I think he locks it, trapping me on the balcony. The same way my mother used to lock me out of her room when she grew bored of me.
It’s what adults do.
Barricade themselves against annoying things.
Ignore them.
Then leave them behind.
He touched me, even though I told him to stop. He could feel me shiver. I know he could. His fingers sank into the pleats of my skirt anyway, winding up the fabric despite how I flinched.
Uncles aren’t supposed to be like this. They shouldn’t breathe heavily against your ear as they ram their hands against your thigh. They shouldn’t linger there, letting their heat sink through your—
No. I break off, slashing through the entire sentence. Gritting my teeth, I try again. Tell a lie worth telling. How did I feel, preyed upon by my big, scary uncle Thorny?
Well, like a psychopath.
You’re a liar, he told me. No one will believe it, even if I—
Ugh! I tear the page out and rip it into thirds. Fourths. Slivers. Confetti. I watch as the white dots sprinkle the wood at my feet, dancing in the wind. Within seconds, they’re in every which direction and there’s no way to ever put them back together again.
Screw Thorny. He thinks he has the upper hand. Maybe he does. But hands are made for slapping—and I know firsthand what it feels
like to do so. When the flat of your palm strikes flesh, the blow hurts you just as much as it does them. You merely pretend not to show it.
It’s all a part of the game.
He wants me to be convincing. But to whom? One naughty word in his headmaster’s ear and Thorny’s job is forfeit. I tell myself that over and over as I watch the door, daring myself to see if he really did leave it unlocked. So what if he didn’t?
I could climb down from here, even if he did sink so low. In fact, I will. I’m not afraid. Upon standing, I approach the railing and survey the lower level. It’s the same layout as this one, just larger. There are loungers perfect for landing on if I lower myself far enough.
Setting my sights on the nearest one, I throw my journal onto it. Then I climb over the railing, dangling my legs above the lounge chair.
Piece of cake.
Inhaling raggedly, I close my eyes and prepare to jump. I should count to ten or something. One. Two…
My fingers slip. Gravity grabs me by the ankles, yanking hard. Bang! I hear the thud before I feel the pain. Blinding. Splitting.
Black.
The sun is spitting in my eyes when I finally peel them open. Taunting me. I start to roll onto my side but wind up staring at my arm. My hands.
They’re painted red. Merry Christmas. It’s mistletoe red. On my skirt. The wood of the deck. Dripping down my nose, onto my tongue. It has a taste: yummy salty flavor. Uh-oh. My fingers fly to my forehead as if knowing something I don’t.
Ow. Pain, pain, pain no matter where I touch.
“Maryanne!”
Thudding footsteps make me look up. Thorny’s racing toward me, stopping short when he sees my face.
His eyes go bug-wide, his mouth dropping open. “What the hell…” Something makes him pause, an eyebrow raised. Then the alarm disappears, and he scoffs. “I see you improved the makeup this time.”
Makeup? Bright, cherry-red makeup, pooling in puddles as I try to stand. The sun starts stabbing me, making me wince as the house becomes a tilt-a-whirl, rocking left to right.
“I preferred the bruises,” Thorny adds, staring down at me from his Romanesque nose. “They looked way more realistic.”