N K Smith - [Old Wounds 03]

by Weight of the World (epub)

  He bit his lip and the only sound he made was a soft grunt of pain.

  Joseph was so strong.

  My father moved and before I could stop myself, I looked into his eyes. I instantly regretted it. The fire in them was surely what Hell looked like. I turned back to the chair and tears leaked from my eyes. I had made him angry as well as having sinned.

  These would hurt.

  The heel of my hand found its way into my mouth and I tasted blood, but it helped take my mind off of the searing pain in my back.

  There was no telling how long it went on. My mind typically wandered during punishments when it could. There were times when my father would test me, so I had to be in the moment, but then there were other times when he was so intent on driving the Devil and his demons out of me that my thoughts could go anywhere.

  I thought of my mother and her voice that sang to me when no one was listening. I felt her arms around me.

  Sometime later, I stood with my hands flat on the vanity in the bathroom. I tried not to see myself in the mirror and to be strong like Joseph as he cleaned the open cuts on my back.

  “Why don’t you pay attention, Elliott?” he asked as he intentionally jabbed the washcloth into a sore spot. He was angry. I gasped at the pain.

  I felt bad that he received what should have been mine alone.

  My eyes filled with tears again. “I-I-I-I’m ssss-sssss-sssssssorry, J-J-J …”

  “Just shut up.” He wiped at my wound harshly again and my legs buckled, but he caught my body and brought me back up. The anger was gone as he continued to clean the cuts and spoke again. “You bleed too much.” Now his voice sounded empty, dead.

  When he had covered my back in ointment and laid an old cut-up piece of t-shirt over it, he moved away and sat down on the lip of the tub.

  “D-d-d-do you w-w-w-want …” I wanted to ask him if I could clean his back for him, but he shook his head.

  “Leave it.”

  I could tell he wasn’t feeling well again. His head hung low as he rested his elbows on his thighs.

  “D-d-d-do you …”

  “Just stop talking. He’ll hear you.”

  We were quiet as I held onto the vanity and I watched him as he breathed slowly. My back throbbed, but I ignored it for the most part as I waited. I wanted to go back to my room until the next lesson. It would be right before dinner and if I could focus, I could make it through without any more lashes. If I stayed with Joseph while he felt sick, I knew what he would ask.

  We already knew what the lesson covered, so I’d been practicing. I was fairly certain that as long as I didn’t look at anyone or the strap, I could make it through the passage.

  “Elliott.” His voice was weak and pleading. It was the same as every other time he said my name when he was ill.

  I trained my eyes on his feet, my fingers tightening, as I shook my head.

  His voice grew tense again. “Fine. When you need me, I won’t help you. You’re so selfish it’s not a wonder …”

  I gasped for air and sat up straight. As my eyes adjusted, I recognized that I was in my room in Damascus. I looked at my clock. It was after six in the evening.

  Movement startled me. My head whipped around to the couch. I could just make out her form in the dim light. “Sophie?”

  She stood and stretched, yawning deeply. “Yeah,” she said as she walked over to me. “Sorry, I fell asleep.”

  “Hhhhhow d-did I g-g-get up here?”

  Sophie sat down on my bed and brushed the hair off of my forehead. “You walked.”

  Her hands moved to mine, as her thumbs swept over the gauze. “You were pretty out of it.”

  I looked down at our hands and then back up at her. “Ssssorry.”

  She gave a low chuckle. “Don’t be sorry because you’re sick.”

  My stomach growled.

  “Tom said I could only stay until seven, but there’s plenty of soup down there for you. Dr. Dalton can heat it up.”

  “Sssstay.”

  “I can’t.”

  She pressed her lips against my sweaty forehead. “Tom said I have to go. I’ve been here quite a while and I’m sure he’s hungry, too.”

  “B-b-but tomorrow is …”

  “I’ll be back tomorrow. Jane said that she’d check-in on you.” She wrapped me in her arms and I breathed her in.

  I loved Sophie Young.

  She hugged me until the absolute last moment she could stay and then she pulled away. With her hand on the doorknob, she turned around and regarded me seriously. “Don’t give Dr. Dalton shit about the medicine. Just take it. God doesn’t want you to suffer, and neither do I.”

  I looked away but said, “O-o-okay.” If Sophie wanted me to take the medicine, I would.

  “And ease up on your hands, okay?”

  She didn’t wait for a response, which was probably for the best since I wouldn’t have been able to give her one. The thought of her seeing me bite my hands was nearly too much. I hoped that I didn’t talk in my sleep. Who knew what she might have heard.

  I didn’t want her to know all of the things my mind forced me to relive when I was sick. I didn’t want her to think of those things when she looked at me.

  It was around eight when Jane came to help me downstairs. The table was empty except for a bowl of soup and a glass of room-temperature water.

  I had some but probably could not have said how it tasted. I heard Jane’s voice but didn’t listen to her words. Stephen came in. I let him take my temperature, touch my neck and forehead, and I took his medicine when he gave it to me.

  Like the day I rode in the back of the black sedan, I recognized that the rules had changed. Although my father didn’t believe in doctors, I lived with one now. More than that, Sophie wanted me to take the medicine and allow it to heal me.

  Normally I didn’t have all these issues separating the rules of my old life with those of my new one. Usually I could keep myself from remembering this much of the past. I typically dreamt every night, but those were more abstract dreams. The ones when I was sick were concrete and real.

  They were buried and my mind kept shoveling them up and shoving them forward.

  After Jane helped me upstairs, another dream waited for me when I could no longer keep my eyes open.

  I hated the basement. It was cold and damp. The lighting was poor. It was gray outside, so only a little indirect light filtered in from the small windows placed just below the ceiling.

  I only came down here when I was forced.

  I tried to get out of it, but only received a back-handed blow from my father, who was more distraught than I’d ever seen him.

  The stairs were narrow.

  I had grown in the past months and my feet were big. I had to turn them sideways to feel safe going down those stairs.

  My body moved slowly, but my mind moved quickly.

  I knew when I got down to the third step from the bottom what I would see if I looked to the right, so I kept my eyes forward.

  I shivered and felt the bumps appear on my flesh.

  I wanted to turn and run back up the steps, but the fear of punishment kept me down there.

  The cold slab floor froze my feet through my socks.

  My fingers curled and my body tensed even more as I walked closer.

  I wouldn’t look.

  I told myself not to look.

  I could do what I had to do without looking.

  I could hear the creaks of the floor-boards above my head. They were a reminder that my father had given me a task and it needed to be completed.

  I looked down. It was a mistake. The shaking panic that came with what I saw debilitated me.

  My body seized and I caved, falling down mere inches away.


  This was evidence that what my father said was true: God hated everything that I was.

  But my father had given me a duty and I knew that if I did what I was told, and I did it right, that I could earn favor with not only God, but my father as well. In my world, I knew my father was God. I would never say that to him. It would earn me hours of punishment to speak such blasphemy.

  I thought of the song my mother sang and slowly my body began to work.

  I crawled to the low cabinet, ever fearful that something would spring out of the darkness and capture me.

  I was in pain, but my father had said I deserved it. He said that it was the last hope of making me clean.

  With the bottle in hand, I crawled back.

  I whispered the Scriptures of the lesson I was given only an hour before.

  I tried not to look. I wondered how many more days I would need to do this before it was over.

  I remembered my task and the need to pay attention.

  I started with the toes.

  It was nearly noon when I awoke to a throbbing headache. I still felt sick.

  The stairs seemed awfully long and I clung to the railing the whole way down, just as I had the day before. As much as I hated that everyone was in the kitchen eating lunch, I entered anyway. It would have been better had the Wallaces not been over. Every eye was on me.

  I eyed the coffee pot and took a step toward it.

  “Elliott, you should have some food,” Stephen said, obviously knowing my intention.

  I knew coffee would be bad for me after not eating much in the past few days, but I wanted it.

  “There’s yogurt,” Jane said, pointing to her bowl and then to the open chair next to her.

  I moved to the island and folded my hands on top of it. I didn’t want to sit next to anyone. I only came down here because I thought Sophie might’ve come back. She knew what today was and she said she’d be here.

  My body felt weak, like my knees would just give way at any moment. “SSSophie?”

  It was interesting to see everyone stop what they were doing because they heard my voice. Everything was literally silent.

  It took a few seconds, but finally Robin spoke. “I’m glad to hear you talking today, Elliott.”

  I bristled when I heard my name. I didn’t look at her. I wasn’t talking today. I was merely inquiring about my girlfriend.

  Robin stood up and moved to the counter. I moved away and stood by the coffee pot. I nearly reached out, just to touch it. The smell was tempting me, but I knew that Stephen would never allow it. I didn’t have the energy to listen to a lecture about proper nutrition during an illness.

  She had acknowledged that I had spoken, and yet neither she nor anyone else would supply me with an answer.

  I sighed deeply and then repeated myself. “SSSophie?”

  Jane set down her spoon and finally answered me. “She called earlier to see if you were up. I told her you were still sleeping and would be out for a while. So she took an open shift at work and said she’d be over around five.”

  My mood fell completely. I came downstairs for nothing. Sophie wouldn’t even be here for hours and hours. Now everyone had seen me and they were waiting for me to either behave like a normal person for once or completely break down because they all knew what today was.

  With another sigh, I pushed off the counter, determined not to be today’s painful entertainment and panic like they expected. I was almost to the hallway when I heard David.

  “Do you want to play some Wii? We were thinking of doing a bowling tournament today.”

  He didn’t say my name, but I knew he was asking me. I didn’t acknowledge him. I felt bad since I knew he would turn all of that inward and make himself feel like he did something wrong; that he was a bad brother, a horrible person, and an ineffectual distraction to me.

  As much as I wished to alleviate all of that for him, I didn’t have the strength, energy or resolve to do anything but continue on my path to my room. When I got there, there was nothing worth doing, so I lay down on the bed, knowing that I would fall asleep and be taken by my dreams, but I felt helpless to stop it.

  The dream started off fine. I was at the little spot next to the stream in the woods with Sophie and we were discussing the many attributes of Faramir. In my dream, I didn’t stutter and Sophie let me touch her face without flinching first.

  “Not everyone wants to take things from other people, Sophie.”

  “But Boromir didn’t try to persuade his father to go easy on his brother.”

  “We don’t know that.” I paused and looked up at the darkening sky. “Besides, Denathor made up his mind a long time ago. Faramir would never be his son in anything other than name.”

  When I looked up, I could see her questioning expression. “Boromir could have used his position as the first and preferred son to get Denathor to at least treat Faramir as something other than a failure.”

  My muscles tensed and my fingers twitched. The soft edges of the dream were fading into a more realistic version of life. “It w-w-wasn’t hhhhhis d-duty to sssssave me all th-the t-time.”

  I realized what I had said and waited for Sophie to catch it, but she laid back against the grass and flowers, tugging me down next to her. The sound of the stream grew louder.

  I needed to relax. We were talking about fictional characters in what was one of my favorite places in the world.

  Her fingers threaded through mine. “Not his duty, maybe, but I would have thought that part of being a good older brother was to …”

  “Joseph tried!”

  “Ow!”

  I sat up, wondering why she had cried out like that. She writhed in pain and I felt frozen. I looked at her hands and realized that I was crushing them. Instantly, I let go.

  Darkness overtook us and then I was alone. It was cold and damp and as my eyes adjusted, I realized that I was in the basement, looking at his toes.

  Then I was in my closet again, peeking through the crack of the door, watching the doorknob drip.

  Thankfully, knocking awakened me and I sat up quickly, fighting back a wave of dizziness as I made my way to the door and opened it. Jane stood there with a small tray of food.

  “Stephen says you have to eat and then you need to take your medicine.”

  My shoulders slumped and I looked at the food on the tray.

  “Yeah, I told them you didn’t like to eat in your room, but they seem to think you’ve gotten over that.”

  I had no real interest in explaining that Sophie and I had eaten a couple of meals in my room. I had no real interest in saying anything, so instead I sat down on the floor and waited for her to do the same. I managed a small smile when she sat down just outside my door, setting the tray between us.

  Jane had been in my room before, but I didn’t want her in there today. The only person I wanted in my room was Sophie. I craned my neck and tried to see the clock, but couldn’t.

  Jane knew what I wanted. “It’s a quarter after four. She called an hour ago to check on you.”

  It lightened my mood just a little to know that even though she wasn’t with me, she was thinking about me. It wouldn’t be that long before she was here. I wished that I could have spoken to her, but I knew Jane was just trying to help me by not waking me up and she knew that my stuttering was even worse talking on the phone.

  “Eat some of this,” she said, pushing the bowl toward me with her finger.

  It was Sophie’s soup. It tasted better than it had before. When I had eaten half the bowl, Jane pushed two pills toward me. I did not want to take the medicine.

  “If you don’t take the pills, he’ll just put it in a needle and give it to you that way.”

  When I was eighteen, I wasn’t going to take medicine if I didn’t want to. In a few
months, I’d be old enough to make my own choices. It wasn’t right that my will was taken from me, even though I knew there was nothing wrong with medicine.

  But Sophie wanted me to, so I carefully plucked one pill and took it with a gulp of water and then did the same with the second.

  “And Stephen wants to talk to you,” Jane added before taking the tray and standing up. “He and Robin are in his study.”

  I gasped for breath.

  “I don’t think it’s anything bad. I’m sure they just want to check in with you. No big deal.”

  She stood there looking at me with such pity that it drove me insane and made me want to weep at the same time. Jane set down the tray again and crouched down next to me, her hands finding my hair. I closed my eyes and let myself just feel the comfort she gave me.

  “It’ll be okay,” she whispered. “Tomorrow’s a new day and …”

  I stopped listening. Tomorrow would be no better. Tomorrow would always be a new day, but I was stuck living through today.

  I missed my mom.

  But I had to stop being like this. I had to stop letting people pity me. I loved Jane’s comfort, but I didn’t want to keep taking everyone’s pity. I couldn’t talk right, couldn’t emote right, I couldn’t form human connections right. Poor Elliott.

  I stood up, forcing her to pull her hands away.

  I didn’t know what Stephen and Robin wanted, but the sooner I went and dealt with it, the sooner I could go back to my room and wait for Sophie. Once Jane stood up, she reached for me again, but I evaded her hand. I did not want to be touched right now. I felt like any more sensation and I might explode from within.

  I waited until Jane and the tray were gone before moving down the hall. The door to the study was cracked.

  “It’s the right decision,” I heard Robin say.

  I fought against my panic.

  Stephen’s voice was deep and thoughtful. “I just wonder about the timing.”

  “It could help.”

  “It could destroy him, too.”

  “Sometimes it’s in the ruins where people can rebuild their lives. I think he needs it. Benjamin agrees.”