N K Smith - [Old Wounds 03]

by Weight of the World (epub)

  First published by The Writer’s Coffee Shop, 2011

  Copyright © N.K. Smith, 2011

  The right of N.K. Smith to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000

  This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The Writer’s Coffee Shop

  (Australia) PO Box 2013 Hornsby Westfield NSW 1635

  (USA) PO Box 2116 Waxahachie TX 75168

  Paperback ISBN- 978-1-61213-056-9

  E-book ISBN- 978-1-61213-057-6

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the US Congress Library.

  Cover image by: Maksym Gorpenyuk

  Cover design by: Jennifer McGuire

  www.thewriterscoffeeshop.com/nsmith

  N.K. Smith has been writing in some fashion since the early age of ten. Her first short story, written in fifth grade, was a summer camp mystery. N.K. is realizing her childhood dreams with the continuation of the Old Wounds series.

  Having lived several places throughout the northeast United States, N.K. has returned to her native Indiana where she lives with her husband, two children, and three cats. N.K. has an avid interest in natural, organic, and sustainable living and lives a vegan lifestyle.

  To the people who help me most when I’m struggling to find peace: my family. Thank you for being.

  Thursday marked something like nine days since I’d gotten high and it wasn’t getting any easier. I threw up at least once a day and I slept only an hour or two at night. I obtained most of my sleep at school and oddly enough, on Elliott. I stopped getting high because Elliott told me his world wouldn’t be the same without me in it. I’d never considered myself a “good person,” but I knew that hurting Elliott was the wrong thing to do.

  I’d never cared for anyone in my whole life the way I cared for the awkward and shy boy I met last fall when I moved in with my father. Elliott was gorgeous but he let his stutter define his existence. I wished he could see how much more he was. He was kind and compassionate, and really calm when the people he loved were in trouble. He was a musical genius as well as being one of the most intelligent people I’d ever known. I hated that his self-esteem was barely there, but I knew he hated that my self-worth was almost nonexistent. That was probably why we worked so well together.

  We’d entered the stage of boyfriend/girlfriend now. There was a point

  when I had to stop fighting the fact that there was just something about him that connected with me. It felt very natural to reveal secrets to him that I’d never spoken of before. He knew more about me than anyone else did. I’d told him stories about my mother’s abuse and now he knew what her boyfriend had done, too. He knew about what happened with Chris Anderson, the school bully, at that party, and despite it all, Elliott was still by my side, helping me be a better person.

  He was amazing and made me actually want to be free of my deepening dependence on the things that numbed me. Mainly meaningless sex and drugs.

  Tuesday was just strange. I spent the whole day with Elliott out in the snow, eating soup and sleeping on my bed. Then I went overboard as usual with groping him, and he got weird and I said I was sorry, and then it was better until I asked him about his brother. That was when he practically seized and had to leave. Elliott had never been a casual talker. Odd things set him off. He didn’t like to be put in sexual situations, although I knew for sure he’s had sex. He rarely spoke, mostly because of his stutter, but also because there were some topics that he just didn’t want to talk about. His brother was one of those topics, but I’d asked him how he felt about Christmas and I’ve yet to get a reply. The rest of his family was likewise off limits, except when he was telling me how wonderful his heroin-addicted mother was. She blew her brains out in front of him when he was just seven.

  I didn’t get the wonderful part, but since he didn’t expand upon it, I left it alone. I never wanted to push him too far. He always seemed on the verge of breaking under the weight of the world that was pressing down on him. Usually he looked like he was going to faint or throw up or something, so I didn’t push it. I just let him go after he panicked over his brother. That’s what I would have wanted if I was him. I wished that whatever it was that bothered him so much, didn’t. Or that he’d at least tell me about it. I could help him like he helped me. I knew there was so much he kept hidden. I was either too selfish or too scared to push him into revealing the horrors that plagued him.

  On Wednesday morning my father, Tom, cooked me breakfast again. He made me pancakes and they were pretty good. He was trying and I could tell that feeding me was his way of connecting. He wasn’t exactly a skilled chef, but I ate the food anyway. If he was trying, I should probably, too. I didn’t bother telling him that I couldn’t have the maple syrup because of my diabetes. I opted for the agave nectar instead. He noticed and said something about it and we had a discussion about the glycemic index. It was annoying, but I didn’t say anything. Being a better person meant changing old thought patterns. I didn’t want to make people feel bad anymore, especially Tom for caring about my diabetes.

  Just before he put on his coat to head out to the fire station, I remembered that Jason had gotten into a fight at school and I hadn’t seen him since. Jason and I had a little thing going before I realized that I wanted to give being Elliott’s girlfriend a shot. There was nothing romantic, it was purely physical, but I was pretty sure he wanted more. He was also my weed connection and now that I wasn’t doing all that, I didn’t know how it would play out between us. Jace and I had some shared history. Every time I visited Maryland, his father, Jerry, and mine would drag us out rock climbing or hiking. His dad used to be a firefighter like Tom, but now couldn’t leave the house due to a few debilitating psychological disorders. He had major phobias coupled with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

  Tom had helped keep Jace out of trouble for years and when I asked where he’d been lately, he told me that Jace wouldn’t be back until next week. He got suspended and was removed to a detention center.

  His words shocked me. Surely beating the snot out of Chris, the boy who’d been on top of me when I woke up after a blacking out at a party, didn’t warrant a detention center. Elliott had done it and all he got was a suspension.

  When I asked him why, Tom said, “He put the Anderson kid in the hospital. From what everyone says, Chris did nothing …”

  I cut him off. “Elliott didn’t get sent to …”

  “Elliott’s not a drug dealer, Soph.”

  Jason only sold pot; he wasn’t a kingpin or anything. “Really, Tom? Jason’s your friend’s son and you …”

  It seemed neither one of us was ready to let the other one finish. “I had no say in it. The sheriff’s given that boy enough chances and he just doesn’t learn.”

  I thought about Jerry and how Jason had to practically do everything for him. He had to clean all the stuff that his father couldn’t. He had to make sure he took the medication that made his mental issues more manageable. “What about his dad?”

  “Friends are helping out,” he said with a sigh. “No one says it’ll be easy, but the law is black and whit
e.”

  “And the world is a messed-up shade of gray.”

  His eyebrows rose for a moment before he shrugged and said, “Make sure you finish eating and take your blood sugar.”

  The best thing that happened on Thursday was Elliott’s smile. He hadn’t smiled since I’d asked about his brother. The thing that took the most energy out of me was my therapy session with Wallace, my nosey counselor, and Tom. It seemed like they were going to be weekly occurrences and the thought of it nearly drained any stores of energy I had. In the last one, we’d covered my drug use and my personal history of being sexually abused by my mother’s boyfriend. I didn’t think Tom quite knew how to handle it. We hadn’t spoken of it since.

  Robin Wallace was my annoying therapist who ran a little group for the screwed up youth of Damascus, Maryland. I called it the “Friday Night Screw-Up Club.” She was okay, but she pushed me beyond my bounds of comfort. Just like Elliott. Apparently now she was openly dating his adopted father. Doctor Dalton was nice looking for an older man and I didn’t see anything wrong with the two of them getting their jollies out of each other, but everyone else seemed upset by it.

  “First,” Wallace said, before I’d even gotten comfortable, “I take it, based on what your father has told me, that you have chosen to deal with your drug use on your own, and that you do not wish to go to a treatment center.”

  Of course I didn’t want to go to rehab. “Yes.”

  Her tone was light. “That’s good, but should you need help, please let someone know. There are other options besides rehab, and you’ll need support.”

  I was sure that a sleepy little town like Damascus had several alcoholics and a thriving 12-step business, but I wasn’t interested in any of that, so I stayed quiet.

  “We covered a lot of ground last time, so let’s slow down and dig just a little deeper into some of the things that came up last week. Tom, what do you have to say in response to Sophie’s concern about where you were all those years? Do you have an answer for her about why you didn’t know what was happening to her in Tampa?”

  I hated this and wanted to be high. It felt like everyone fucking knew now.

  Tom cleared his throat, looking away from me. He shifted, his entire body conveying his discomfort with the questions, with the situation, and with the fact that he would actually have to give voice to some of these things.

  “I called every day for a while.”

  “No, you didn’t,” I replied quickly.

  “Yes, I did,” he answered right back, voice tight like he was really stressed. “Helen,” he said, then paused, sighed, and started over. “Your mother would always say that you were at your swim class or the doctor or gymnastics.”

  “I’ve never been to swim class.”

  “Yeah,” he said, nodding, still not looking at me. “Yeah, I sort of figured that out here not too long ago.”

  “Why did you so readily believe your ex-wife that Sophie was never home? And were there any other indications that perhaps Sophie wasn’t being cared for and was being outright abused?”

  Internally, I smiled at Wallace’s questions. It seemed as though she was going to focus on my father this time, and that meant I was off the hook. As much as I hated to admit it, I was also more than a little anxious to hear what he had to say about it all.

  “Look, I wish I could go back and do everything different, but I…”

  “You didn’t want to know,” I cut him off quietly. “It was much easier for you to just have a daughter that lived out-of-state, right? It was a relief when you sent me back every summer.”

  Wallace asked another question, deflecting my soft anger. “Tom, have you asked Sophie exactly what Helen did to her?”

  Tom finally looked at something other than the large quartz crystal on Dr. Dalton’s bookshelf as he focused directly on her. “No.”

  “Do you not want to know?”

  He was quiet and then he bent his neck to one side and then another, cracking it. “No, I don’t want to know. I’m sure that makes me a horrible parent, but I don’t think I want to know the evils that my ex-wife inflicted upon my own daughter while I was dozens of states away thinking that Sophie was happier there. Sorry, but I don’t want to know.”

  “What if Sophie needs to tell you?”

  Tom sighed and looked at me. “Do you want me to know?”

  It was my turn to look away. “No.”

  Wallace chuckled lightly. “I hope the two of you can see your similarities.” Shaking her head, the small smile drifted from her face as she regarded me once more. “Would you tell your dad something if he asked about it?”

  I folded my arms over my chest, but answered, “Yes.”

  “Ask her something.”

  It took him a moment and he looked incredibly uncomfortable. I noticed that how he sat in the chair mirrored my own posture, so I unfolded my hands and brought my legs up to sit cross-legged.

  Finally, after running a hand down his face, he asked, “Did your mother help at all with your diabetes?”

  Again, I smiled to myself, finding the whole question utterly ridiculous. It took a lot of energy to keep my voice and tone calm. “No. Helen would barely take me to the doctor when she had to.”

  “Please go on,” Wallace urged.

  “Helen wouldn’t buy my test strips, my lancets, or my insulin. There were a couple of agencies where I could get free supplies but they started asking questions after I went a few times in a row. I had to go after school because if I went during school hours, they called the Department of Children and Families and …”

  When I let myself trail off, he asked, “Why didn’t you ever tell them?”

  I laughed out loud at his question, but didn’t answer it, choosing to finish my earlier statement, because telling them would’ve only caused me more pain. No one helped me and the DCF would’ve only made it worse. “I took the tips off of tables at restaurants to buy the supplies. The pharmacy kept all that behind the counter, so I couldn’t just take what I needed.”

  “Do you feel bad about doing that?”

  I looked at Wallace to find her scribbling something on her yellow legal pad. “Yes.”

  “But you had no other choice?”

  “Right.” To be honest, I was pretty numb about the whole thing at this point. It wasn’t that I was proud to have stolen money from people, usually women, who all worked very hard. My numbness stemmed more from the fact that if I hadn’t done it, I would have never gotten the medicine or supplies I needed.

  I remembered being young and accidentally giving myself too much or not enough insulin. It wasn’t fun and I worked very hard to avoid it. Helen was never very comforting and usually just walked out of the room. She wouldn’t come back until my blood sugar returned to normal and I could function again, and then she pretty much expected me to get on with whatever I was supposed to be doing before I felt sick.

  “Tom,” Wallace started, folding her hands over the notebook, “what do you think about Sophie having to steal in order to manage her diabetes?”

  “I wish I would have known.”

  “If you had known, what would you have done?”

  “I would have sent the pharmacy money for her.”

  She sat back in her chair and I looked away. Even though there hadn’t been an onslaught of emotions during this conversation, I still felt emotionally wiped.

  “Did you send money for Sophie?”

  I snorted. Of course he didn’t.

  “I sent money to Helen every month. Hell, my wages are still being garnished even though she’s living with me. But I always sent a check for Sophie above and beyond what the court garnished directly.”

  That was news to me.

  “Did your mother ever use the money from your father for your benefit?”

/>   I shrugged. How the hell would I know? I didn’t even know there was money until just now. “I’m sure that maybe she used some for rent or whatever.”

  “Sophie, do you wish your relationship with your father was different?”

  I rolled my eyes and focused them on something else while I shrugged. “Whatever.”

  “It’s not really a ‘whatever’ question,” Wallace said, her voice taking on an edge.

  “I don’t really give a shit about my relationship with Tom.”

  She glanced at Tom. I would not. “We both know that’s a lie.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Yes, it is. You care deeply about your father, as he does for you, but you have an issue respecting him. You’re very angry at …”

  I sat up straight, my legs uncurling as my fingers dug into the armrests. “Why should I respect him? He basically knows nothing about me. He’s never once cared enough to find out anything. He knows my name and my birthday. I’m supposed to respect him because he’s the ‘bare-minimum’ father?”

  Tom sat up straight now, too, his head turned in my direction, his eyes hard as they danced about. “You were seven pounds, two ounces and twenty-one inches long when you were born. You had a full head of hair and the brightest blue eyes anyone at the hospital had ever seen. When you were six months, you had this Glowworm thing that you loved. You liked anything that was …”

  “Shut up,” I whispered as my eyes watered.

  I pushed back the ridiculous tears and went for something else, although it seemed the only thing I was able to do tonight was roll my eyes. “What was my favorite movie when I was ten? Or my favorite subject in Junior High? Or hell, even now? Do you know any of that? Do you even give a shit what my opinion is on … anything?”

  He slumped back down in his chair and dragged a hand down his face, then focused on Wallace. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I can’t ever make up for not knowing. I can’t ever take away anything that happened. She’ll always feel like I wasn’t there for her.”