Running from Monday

by Lea Sims

  Drew’s lips curled upward at the story Claire described. Delaney. He marveled at this poignant image of her—a bedraggled blue-eyed waif who had turned her need for a rescue into a rescue of her own. He felt another little thud to his heart. Cupid was landing arrows with surprising accuracy today.

  “Delaney was never the same after that,” Claire said, interrupting his thoughts. “I could almost pinpoint her transformation to that event. The girl the police brought back that day looked angry, miserable, and defeated. And she stayed that way for a good long while.”

  [Fifteen years old]

  Delaney slipped quietly into the kitchen through the carport door, clicking it softly closed behind her. Her uncle’s car was in the driveway, and she prayed he was sleeping off a drunk or tinkering on his old car in the garage out back. A peek through the front window had told her he wasn’t in the kitchen or the living room. She just needed to get into her bedroom and grab her history notebook. She’d flown out the door to school this morning without that notebook. Essays were always due at the start of class on Mondays, and if she showed up in sixth period without her essay, she’d get marked down a whole grade for turning it in late.

  She slipped her sandals off at the door and tiptoed across the kitchen. Peeking down the hallway to the master bedroom, she saw that the door was closed. She moved quickly and quietly to the other side of the house and stepped into her bedroom. At one time, it had been her aunt and uncle’s spare room, but in the five years Delaney had lived there, it had slowly transformed into a full-fledged teen room, with REM and Pearl Jam posters on the walls, books and magazines stacked on the desk, and clothes scattered around the floor.

  Her eyes quickly scanned her room to locate her notebook, which was sitting on top of her desk, just peeking out from under the hoodie she’d worn yesterday. She stepped around the bed and over to the desk, pushing the hoodie to the floor and grabbing the notebook. She also needed batteries for her CD player, so she opened her desk drawer looking for the pack of AA batteries she bought last week.

  “What are you doing here?” a gruff voice accused from behind her. She swung around, eyes flaring wide. Her uncle was standing in the doorway. He was wearing old khaki trousers and a white cotton undershirt. He was unshaven, his eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot. They narrowed on her suspiciously. “You’re never home in the middle of the day.”

  Delaney’s heart slammed against her chest, pounding wildly. But she tried to shrug off his presence, keeping her voice light, “I needed my history notebook. I have an essay to turn in today and I didn’t want to turn it in late.” She grabbed the batteries from the drawer, pushed it closed and walked toward the door. He didn’t move from the doorway. She looked over his shoulder at the wall behind him, refusing to look him in the eye. “I need to get back to school,” she said flatly.

  His eyes roved slowly down the length of her, taking in her bare feet. “Where are your shoes, girl?” he whispered roughly. She was close enough to smell him. He hadn’t showered, and the combination of his body odor and the stale whiskey on his breath made her gag.

  “At the back door,” she said.

  “Take the rest off.”

  Her eyes flew to his face. “Wha-at?” But she knew. She could feel her pulse pounding at her temples.

  He gave her the same patronizing look he always gave her. “Oh, baby girl, let’s not play games. Take your clothes off and get in the bed, Delaney.”

  “Uncle Jimmy…please,” she whimpered. “Please don’t.” But she knew it was pointless to argue. She had learned early on that trying to dissuade him or fight him off was futile. He would tie her down if he had to. It was easier to just lie there and let him touch her. He came to her room at night less frequently than he used to. His drinking had become so excessive that he often passed out in the living room recliner and wouldn’t wake up until the next morning. When he did come, it was always the same. He wanted to touch her and he wanted her to touch him. Sometimes he would kiss her, and it was all she could do not to vomit at the taste and smell of him. It always ended with him pleasuring himself and requiring her to watch, but increasingly and to his great frustration, he was unable to finish the deed and would abandon the effort and leave the room. His drinking was taking its toll.

  “Do what you’re told, girl.”

  Delaney stepped backward, lowering her eyes and forcing herself to mentally shut down. Numbing her mind was the only way she survived these moments. Without crying or begging, she simply stripped her clothes off, dropped down on the bed, and lay flat on her back with her eyes closed. She lay there for a long moment, and when nothing happened, she opened her eyes to look up at him. He was standing at the foot of the bed staring darkly down at her, his breathing heavy. She suddenly realized that this was a new experience for him—seeing her naked in the light of day.

  “Roll over on your stomach.”

  “What? Why?” she asked, not comprehending, as she watched him drop his pants to the floor and put a knee on the bed. Numbness gave way instantly to terror as her eyes slid to the lower half of his body. He was fully alert and sober. There would be no leaving the room unsatisfied today.

  “I said roll over. Put your face in the pillow and keep your mouth shut.”

  It was happening. The moment had come—the one she had been dreading for as long as she’d been old enough to understand where all of this could lead. She felt the full weight of him fall upon her, pressing her into the bed, and she let out a scream, arching her back to try to throw him off. He put his beefy hand around the back of her neck and forced her face into the pillow. She wrenched her head to the side, gasping for air. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way, Delaney,” her uncle rasped. Then he leaned closer, breathing heavily into her ear. “Why don’t you relax. You know, you just might enjoy it.”

  She went perfectly still and squeezed her eyes shut, gripping her sheets in clenched fists. In the next moment, with an arm wrapped under her to brace himself, he took her—brutally and without regard for her innocence, flesh tearing violently. She could not hold back her shriek of pain nor the hot, angry tears that soaked her pillow. When he was finally finished, he withdrew as roughly as he started, rolled off the bed, and pulled his pants back on. Grabbing his shirt, he strode over to the door, then turned around in the doorway.

  “You’re damaged goods now, girl. This is all you’ll ever be good for. Better get used to it.” He looked down on her like she was a piece of trash, and then remembered to add, “And if you say a word to anybody, it will be more painful the next time.”

  He turned on his heel and left the room. Delaney lay stone still on the bed for a long time, staring dully at the wall. She heard her uncle grab his keys and leave the house. A minute later, she heard his car pull off. She got up slowly, pain shooting through her abdomen and lower back. She walked gingerly across the hall to the bathroom. When she saw the blood running down her inner thigh, she collapsed in front of the toilet and heaved violently into it. Then she got up, cleaned herself, grabbed her toothbrush, toothpaste and hairbrush, and walked back to her bedroom and got dressed. From the top of her closet she pulled down a large duffel bag. She shoved clothes, shoes, a flashlight, and as many personal items as she could fit into it and zipped it shut.

  She was about to leave when she turned back to her desk, grabbed a pencil and wrote a note on the steno pad to her Aunt Beth. It simply said, “I read in a magazine that minors can emancipate themselves at 15. So, I’m emancipating myself. I can’t stay here anymore.” She took her duffel bag, backpack, and pillow and walked out of the house, stopping in the kitchen only long enough to grab two apples from a bowl on the table and a Diet Coke from the refrigerator.

  Then she left.

  She walked down the street and through the park, looking to anyone who drove by like a girl on her way to a slumber party. She had no idea where she was going, so she just kept walking. She ke
pt off the main roads her aunt would be traveling home from work or any her uncle might navigate to work, Dave’s Pub or the liquor store. She stopped at the Walmart to buy a couple of burritos, sodas, and a bag of chips, then she headed to the north end of town where the animal shelter was. Once she got there, however, the gate was locked, and she kicked the fence post in frustration. She’d hoped to slip into the back kennel house and sleep on the cot there. She’d volunteered there for two summers and knew her way around the property. She also knew the security cameras that were positioned around the building weren’t actually turned on or recording anything. The shelter couldn’t really afford to spend any of its limited funding on security.

  It was getting pretty dark, so she cut across the Shady Oaks Middle School baseball fields and made her way to the old paper mill. She and her friends had hung out in the back lot of the mill quite a bit when they were in middle school. It had been shut down for a couple of years, and the people in Shady were always complaining to the county commissioners that it needed to be torn down—people worried that it would be a magnet for drug dealers and bored school-skippers. Mostly, kids went there to skateboard. Delaney knew there was a portable building on the backside of the property that had been the foreman’s office when the mill was open. She had her fingers crossed that she could get into it without having to break a window, not that it probably mattered much.

  When she got to the mill, she climbed the fence and headed to the portable. To her relief, she found the door unlocked and slipped inside. It was stifling hot inside, so she opened a couple of windows. She pulled a flashlight out of her bag because there was very little light left outside and it would be dark soon. Fortunately, there were light posts all along the back fence, and with the blinds open, they cast a lot of white light into the portable. She pulled out a burrito and a soda and put her headphones on, popping in a Nirvana CD and leaning back against the large metal desk in the middle of the room.

  She had kept her mind blank for most of the day, not thinking about what had happened with her uncle, but now, sitting on the dusty carpet of the darkened old office, the moody notes of ‘Come as You Are’ washing over her brain, she relived the events in that room. She was angry at herself for not fighting him—as soon as she knew what he was going to do, she should have fought, scratched, and kicked her way out of his clutches. She would have paid for it later, but at least she would have gotten out of there before he’d taken what he had no right to take. A fresh flood of hot tears welled up in her flashing eyes and tumbled unchecked down her cheeks. She didn’t know it was humanly possible to hate someone this much. Why?? Her brain raged, wanting answers that she would probably never be given. What was wrong with him? Why did he do this? He had never taken it this far before. Then it occurred to her—she’d never been alone in the house with him before.

  Somehow, in all the years she’d lived there, she had managed to avoid ever being home alone with him. That only gave him the option of groping her in hallways and under tables or coming into her room at night. She thought about the way she had screamed in pain today. He couldn’t risk that happening with Aunt Beth in the house, no matter how hard she slept. Or maybe something had finally pushed him over the edge today. She didn’t know. And it didn’t matter now. It could never be undone.

  “You’re damaged goods now, girl.”

  Despite all his abuse and today’s ravaging violation, it was that one remark that destroyed her. He had put into five stabbing words what had been tormenting her mind for years. Who was going to want her now? In youth group, her pastors had repeatedly told them how important purity was to God—why they needed to be saving themselves for marriage. What am I saving now? There’s nothing left to save!

  The dam inside her broke, and she could no longer hold it in. Yanking the headphones from her ears, Delaney’s shoulders slid sideways down the desk until she was lying on her side with her temple to the floor. Racking sobs overtook her, and anyone who would have happened across the building in that moment would have heard heart-wrenching and anguished wails coming from inside. She pulled her pillow to her chest and hugged it tightly. She didn’t understand why this was happening to her. She couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Where ARE you God?!” she yelled into the darkness, throat hoarse and raw. “Why are you letting this happen to me? Please…please help me!”

  She cried it out on the floor until they were no more tears left. Her eyelids grew heavy, and she was just drifting off to sleep when a loud banging noise outside the building jerked her from her slumber. She sprang to her feet fully awake. Peering through the window blinds, she saw movement coming from the scrap metal pile on the backside of the mill. She watched the pile shift as though something was burrowing under it, and then a bushy tail appeared like a waving flag from behind the pile. She relaxed and grinned. It was a dog. She grabbed her flashlight and stepped outside, walking slowly across the gravel to the edge of the pavement.

  She flicked on her flashlight and pointed it to the pile. “Hey, pup,” she said in a firm, friendly voice. “Whatcha doin’ in there?” The dog jumped at the sound of her voice, sending the sheet metal scraps and discarded roller parts skittering across the pavement. The dog that emerged from the pile was a dirty fluff ball of matted hair and perky ears. From what she could tell, it looked like a collie mix. It wasn’t wearing a collar, so she had no idea if it belonged to anyone, but based on the condition it was in, she guessed it was a stray. The dog did not run off when it heard her voice. It simply sat back on its haunches and stared at her. She approached it slowly, pointing her flashlight off to the side.

  “Hello, baby,” she said soothingly. When she was just a few feet from it, she dropped down to one knee and set the flashlight down. “Where did you come from? Are you hungry?” The dog cocked its head to the side at the sound of her voice, as if weighing her intentions. It took a tentative step forward, never lowering its ears. As it slowly inched closer, Delaney kept talking in a low, reassuring tone. When it was finally within a foot of her, it sat down again, where now she could see that “it” was actually a “he.” She put her hand out slowly, palm down, and waited for him to make a move. He sniffed her hand and then licked it, tail wagging in approval.

  They became friends in that instant.

  As Delaney rubbed his ears and patted him down, she could tell he was hungry. He was way too thin for a dog of his size, and through his thick hair, she could feel bony ribs. She got up and walked back to the portable, and he followed her without hesitation. She turned and told him to sit, which he did immediately. She told him to stay and disappeared inside the building to grab her bag of chips, and when she came back out, he was still sitting prettily, tail wagging and ears erect. He had obviously belonged to someone at some point who had cared enough to train him. She wished she had a ball to see if he would fetch, but he really needed to eat something, so she sat down on the aluminum steps of the building and called him over to her. He eagerly devoured a whole bag of Doritos, chip by chip, though he took them gently from her fingers each time she offered him one, without snapping or biting. “Good boy,” she crooned. With a few meals, a bath and a good brushing, he would be a gorgeous dog.

  They sat together on the steps for a long while, and when he didn’t leave or wander off, she brought him inside with her. She pulled a towel out of her duffel bag, stretched it out on the floor and then flopped down on her pillow. She had a small blanket in her bag, but it was too warm to need one. The dog sniffed around the room making a canine inspection of the office and then dropped to the floor next to her. Within minutes both of them were sound asleep.

  Delaney awakened the next morning to the sound of the dog whimpering and pawing at the door. Her eyes cracked open to see sunlight streaming in dust-filled shafts through the window blinds. Rolling up onto an elbow, she rubbed her eyes and looked over at the dog, who was sitting at the door staring up at the door knob. He needed to go out. She jumped
up and stumbled sleepily over to the door. “Hold your horses, buddy,” she said as she turned the lock and opened the door. The dog bounded through the opening crack of the door, and Delaney squinted into the bright morning sun.

  She took three steps out the door and ran face first into the badge-clad, burly chest of a Shady Oaks policeman.

  “In the realm of ideas, everything depends on enthusiasm…

  in the real world, all rests on perseverance.”

  —Johann Wolfgang van Goethe

  The day after the funeral, Delaney and Rogue got up early, went for a walk in the park, and were waiting at the curb for Drew when he pulled up to Hotel Indigo to pick them up. When they climbed into his truck, Rogue bounding exuberantly into the back seat, Drew held out a tall latte and a croissant. “Good morning, girls.”

  Delaney smiled back at him in delighted surprise and Rogue grinned from one floppy ear to the other at him in the rear-view mirror. Drew looked from the bright blue eyes next to him to the golden ones in the back seat and chuckled to himself. He had the two prettiest girls in Chatham County in his truck. It’s going to be a good day, he thought.