Broken Like Glass

by E. J. McCay

  I wipe my mouth and realize I’m pouring all my secrets into the room. The black water that was inside me is now threatening to fill the room and drown me.

  “And Bo? Did he…” She stops before she gets to the hard word.

  “He just had me kiss him. I just don’t think he would have been okay if I hadn’t. I’d seen that look before. Felt that…” I retch again. This time, it’s dry heaves.

  She takes a deep breath as I wipe my mouth again.

  “I feel black and dirty and worthless and trashy.”

  “Lilly, you aren’t. You aren’t any of those things. The people who did those things to you are black and dirty and worthless and trashy.”

  “Papa said the same thing, but I don’t know how to stop feeling it.”

  Chrissy shakes her head and her lips tremble. “I don’t know either, but you and me and Papa will keep talking until we do, you hear me?”

  My mouth has a mind of its own today and I keep spilling my words all over the room. “Uriah says he loves me, but I don’t know if I can love anyone, Chrissy. And Uriah, he deserves all the best things this world has to offer. He’s bright and loving and…wonderful. If I were to ever love someone, it’d be him, but I can’t let my darkness leak out onto him. I can’t see him like that.”

  I don’t think Chrissy knows how to respond. What’s there to say? But she composes herself and looks me in the eyes. Her face is so soft and full of kindness. Like Papa gets sometimes when we’re talking. “Lilly, sometimes, Jesus, or as you like to call Him, Papa, brings people into our lives to love us because He loves us so much. I’ve known Uriah as long as you have, and I can tell you without question Uriah loves you. I think maybe you should just let Papa work on your darkness and let yourself have just a taste of something good. You may not feel like you deserve anything good, but I’m here to tell you, you do.”

  I roll my eyes and snort.

  “I’m not saying walk out these doors and profess your undying love to Uriah. I’m saying, do your best to keep from pushing him away. When you get in his truck, slide over in the seat and hug him like you are hanging on for dear life. Tell him you’re glad he’s there or you’re happy he’s picking you up. Something small. Something that you can handle.”

  I bite my lip, look down at my hands, and then back at Chrissy. “I can try.”

  “That’s all anyone can do and you are one of the strongest people I’ve met in a long time, Lilly. I know your try will be the hardest.”

  At that moment, I see Chrissy Blakely in a way I’ve never seen her before. I see someone I’ve underestimated. Someone I’ve mocked and hurt. My heart hurts, and I can’t take back what I’ve thought about her, but I make a promise to myself and Papa that I’ll never think those things again. “Chrissy?”

  “Yeah, Lilly?”

  “Thank you for being my therapist.”

  Chrissy doesn’t say a word. She pulls me out of the chair, hugs me, and whispers, “Thank you for being my patient.”

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Before I leave Chrissy’s office, I stop in the bathroom to splash water on my face. I don’t want Uriah to see that I’ve been crying. As if a little water could rinse away my grief. My mouth feels nasty so I swish it with water. My reflection in the mirror looks like someone’s been beaten.

  “You look tired,” I say to myself.

  “I feel tired,” I respond back.

  I wipe my hands, gather myself together, and step out of Chrissy’s office onto the sidewalk. Uriah has waited for me right out front. Chrissy’s words swirl in my mind. As I stand on the sidewalk, looking through the window at Uriah, something washes over me. I don’t have a definition for it because it’s something I’ve never felt before.

  Uriah takes notice I’m standing there and leans over to roll down the window. “Hey, Lilly, what are you doing just standing there?”

  My feet start walking, and before I know it, I’m in Uriah’s truck. He looks at me funny. I slip across the seat, coil my arms around his neck, and hold on so tight there’s a good chance I’m suffocating him. “Thank you for picking me up and buying my groceries and getting me grape soda and putting up with my sharp tongue.”

  He slips his arms around me and holds me to him tightly, burying his face in my neck. “You’re welcome, Lilly, you’re welcome.”

  I hold on to him like my life depends on it. For some unknown reason, I just can’t let go. I know people are going to stop and stare and wonder what’s going on in Uriah’s truck, but I just can’t bring myself to care.

  “Lilly, are you okay?”

  “No. I’m not. I’m not okay. I haven’t been okay. I don’t know if I’ll ever be okay. I’ll never be good enough for you. I’ll never be what you need or anything.” The words come out fast and furious. My voice is wavering and my heart hurts ‘cause I don’t want Uriah to know all this stuff.

  Uriah holds me tighter. “I’m here. I’ll always be here. I don’t care about good enough or any of that stuff. I’ve waited for you this long. I can wait as long as you need me to wait.”

  I push back until I’m looking him in the eyes. “I’m trouble. You know that, right?”

  He smiles his warm toothy smile. The one that makes me feel so smooshy. “I can handle it.”

  “Are you hungry?”

  “I thought you’d never ask. You want to go somewhere in town?”

  “I almost forgot I’m grounded. Would you go grocery shopping for me and we’ll eat back at the cabin?”

  Uriah nods. “You gonna burn me some water?”

  “I’m gonna fix you the best PB&J you’ve ever eaten.” I smile and wiggle my eyebrows.

  It sends him into a fit of laughter. He throws his head back, pulls me to him, and hugs me like the world doesn’t exist.

  When he lets me go, he keeps me in the seat right next to him. I like the feel of being wanted. It’s a new feeling, and a feeling I could get used to real quick. I sit in the truck at the grocery store. Not enough time has passed that I feel like I can go in there yet.

  While I sit in the truck, I watch as people come and go. I have my feet on the dash, doing my people watching, when my day goes south. My daddy is at the Thriftway, and for a moment, I think he’s missed me, but he doesn’t. His eyes lock with mine and my heart races. I can’t breathe, I can’t move, and I can’t think.

  I can’t even talk about him so talking to him is out of the question, but I don’t think he understands that because when he sees me, he starts in my direction. I fumble for the lock on the door, and then reach over and lock the driver’s door. The windows are up and it’s a million degrees outside. Good thing the air conditioning works because there was no way I was rolling down the windows.

  Daddy makes it to the truck in record time. His eyes peer through the window at me. He jiggles the door handle and then pounds on the window so hard I think it’s going to bust. “Come out of there Lillian Louise James. Come out now!”

  I shake my head.

  “You come out of there right now. Just ‘cause I didn’t press charges, don’t mean you don’t need a good old fashioned butt whoopin’!”

  “No. I’m not coming out,” I yell back.

  “Girl,” he starts unbuckling his belt and pulls it off, “when I get a hold of you, you’re gonna wish your momma was still alive.”

  My daddy is in his late seventies, but you wouldn’t know it the way he carries on. I’m still scared of him to this day. It’s why I haven’t been home in so many years. He didn’t even know where I lived because I was afraid of him. I came home to visit because I thought I could manage being around him just a couple of days.

  My head is swimming. I’m gulping air because I feel like I’m being strangled.

  Daddy pounds on the window harder and yelling louder. I can see people starting to stand around and stare. I’m so embarrassed, but there’s not a thing I can do. “You just wait, Lillian. The next time I catch you, you won’t be able to get away from me and I’ll show you.
I’ll show you just what I do to little girls that hurt me. I’ll show you, you can bet on that!” He keeps yelling and pounding.

  I put my hands up to my ears and close my eyes.

  “Please, Papa, please come rescue me.”

  “You get away from my truck!” I hear Uriah’s loud, military voice.

  I look to see what’s happening. My daddy’s back is to the truck. “You can’t tell me what to do, son,” my daddy smarts back. “That’s my youngin’ in that truck and she’s due a whippin’.”

  “That’s my truck, and she’s my girl, and you’ll leave them both alone or you’ll deal with me.” Uriah isn’t taking any crap from my daddy.

  My daddy mumbles something I can’t make out, but he leaves. Uriah waits until he’s gone into the store and then I unlock the door. Uriah reaches in and grabs me. I wrap my arms around his neck and the sobs that slip out come from a place I thought I’d escaped a long time ago.

  “It’s okay, Lilly. I’m here,” he says, his voice soothing and kind. He rubs his hand up and down my back trying to reassure me, but I know my daddy isn’t going to let this go. My daddy will be sure to make good on his threats. “Y’all go home,” he says to the rubber neckers.

  My face is hidden in his chest so I can’t see who he’s talking to. I don’t care just as long as they go. What floats to my mind next, shatters me to pieces.

  Daddy will hurt Uriah.

  Either he’ll hurt him physically or he’ll use me to do it. Most people in this town see a sweet old man. They don’t know what he’s like when the doors shut. They don’t know his mean streak. They don’t know his meanness, but I do. I was the subject of it from the time I was about seven to the time I left for college.

  Daddy loved me until I learned to talk. Then he didn’t love me so much anymore because he said my mouth was too big for my britches. I can’t count the number of times my momma took a lashing from my daddy because she stood between us. She wasn’t always home though and when she wasn’t, he’d take advantage of it.

  I shiver just thinking about it.

  Uriah lets me go and holds my face looking me over. “Are you okay?”

  I shrug. “Fine as I can be I guess.”

  “I’ll call Bo. Maybe he can get Judge Kringle to give you a little wiggling room and we can go to the next town over so you can have a break.”

  I close my eyes and purse my lips.

  “What?”

  “Don’t call Bo. We aren’t friends anymore.”

  I can’t look at Uriah. I can’t face him and tell him what I did. He’ll never look at me the same. He’ll see I’m dirty and worthless.

  “Why? What happened?”

  I frown and cast my eyes at the pavement. “Please don’t make me tell.”

  Uriah tips my chin up and makes me look him in the eyes. “I’ve been easy up to this point, but I want to know what happened, Lilly. You and Bo been best friends for years so something pretty bad had to have happened.”

  Oh, Papa, what am I to do.

  The day has been hot and stale, but right then, a warm wind picks up and tosses my hair like a flag in a tornado.

  It’s Papa. I can feel it in my heart He wants me to tell. My choices are pretty clear. Either be obedient or don’t.

  “Can I tell you at home?”

  Uriah looks around. He’s forgotten we’re standing in the parking lot of the Thriftway. We don’t have any onlookers anymore, but I still don’t want to talk here. If my daddy comes back out, he’ll make another scene.

  “Get in the truck. Lock the doors. I’m going back in and getting the groceries. If he comes back, you honk the horn like crazy and I’ll be right here. You hear?”

  “Okay,” I say and hop back in the truck. I lock the doors and watch as Uriah marches back into the grocery store like a man on a mission.

  Chapter Twenty Six

  I’m fixing my best PB&J as Uriah sits out on the deck waiting for me. I take my time because I know when I get out there, he and Papa both are waiting for me to tell him what happened with Bo. I said I’d tell, though, so, I will. I’m dirty, but I’m no dirty liar.

  “You need to stop your stalling and get out here and talk to me,” Uriah calls from the deck.

  He’s caught on to my game. I pep up my speed and walk out onto the deck with the sandwiches. Uriah got the drinks before I started making the sandwiches.

  I hand him his plate and sit down with mine. He holds it in his lap and just looks at me and I stare forward.

  “You’re stalling, Lillian James.”

  I quickly glance at him. “I know.” It comes out just above a whisper.

  “So tell me,” he says and takes a bit of sandwich.

  “That first day back in the cabin after I stayed with you, Bo came over. At first, it was a normal visit with him, but he started talking about having feelings for me and saying how he worried when I was lost in the woods and how his heart would break if he lost me.”

  “Okay, doesn’t sound so bad yet.”

  I set my plate down on the deck. My hunger seems to have vanished and my stomach is in knots. “I tried to tell him his momma wouldn’t have none of that. I wasn’t good enough and he deserved better, but it was like he just wasn’t hearing me.”

  “I knew he was sweet on you.”

  “That’s not sweetness, Uriah.”

  He looks at me and frowns.

  “I told him I just wanted to be friends. That I didn’t love him like that. I told him I didn’t love anyone. Bo talked about how we would talk and watch the stars at night and hang out. He asked if I felt something for him.”

  “You don’t feel like that about him?”

  “No,” I spit. “And even if I did, I wouldn’t anymore.”

  Uriah knits his eyebrows together and gives me this menacing look. “Keep talking.”

  “I told him I didn’t. He called me a liar when I told him I don’t feel like that for no one.” I look to the corner of the deck. “I got up and stood over there and he followed me.”

  I’m fine telling what happened to this point and then my heart starts racing. This is the part when I broke that night and reliving it is painful.

  “Lilly, I know it’s hard for you to tell stuff, but you need to tell me. I need to know what happened.”

  “Bo wanted me to kiss him. He said if I kissed him and all I felt was friendship after that he’d let it be. I didn’t want to kiss Bo at all. I have never felt like that about him and I never will. I tried to tell him, but he just couldn’t or wouldn’t hear me. So he put his mouth on me and at first it was okay, but then he tried to kiss me like I was his girlfriend. When I pushed him back, the look on his face.”

  “What did he do, Lilly?”

  “He grabbed my arms and the look on his face. I don’t know, but I’d never seen him like that before. So, I told him, fine, I’ll kiss you like I said I would. I kissed him until he stopped kissing me.”

  “But he didn’t do anything other than that?”

  “No, but I can tell you right now, I’ve seen that look before. Heard that tone of voice. If I hadn’t, I don’t know what he would have done. He was just like Marlin. Just like that boy at Lucy’s house.” I gasp as I realize I’ve spilled something I hadn’t planned on spilling.

  “Marlin?” Uriah’s voice rises.

  “I didn’t mean for that to come out. Just forget about it. I’ve talked to Chrissy. She knows.”

  “Is that stuff you told her today?”

  I nod.

  Uriah jumps up, hands on his hips and looks down at me. “I’ll kill both of them if they ever so much as look at you again.”

  “You can’t change what happened. Just like I can’t.”

  “But Bo didn’t do anything, right? You’d tell me if he did.”

  “He did exactly what I just told you. He left that night. I told him were weren’t friends no more.”

  “But Marlin? What did he do?”

  Well, Papa, if I’m spilling my beans, mig
ht as well spill ’em all, right?

  “He’d catch me alone when I was over at his house helping his wife. He’d touch me and kiss me and feel me up. The last time he caught me, it went further, but not a whole lot.”

  Uriah sits down with a thud. The look on his face is something between anger and disbelief. “You’ve kept this secret this whole time?”

  “I told momma, but she called me a liar and busted me. Told me not to go spreading lies about people.”

  “Your momma didn’t believe you?”

  “Oh, I think she believed me. I just think she didn’t want daddy being sent to jail for killing him. I’ve realized she loved daddy a whole lot more than she loved me.”

  Uriah rakes a hand through his hair. He’s cut it since the last time I saw him, but it’s still long like I like. “I can’t believe you’ve gone through all of this by yourself.”

  “I’ve had Papa, but He was the only one who knew until I told you and Chrissy. Bo doesn’t even know.”

  Uriah stands and pulls me into a bear hug. His face is buried in my neck and I feel his lips move against my neck. “As long as I live, and if I can help it, no person will ever lay a finger on you again unless you want them to.”

  I snuggle into his arms and I feel so warm and so protected. It’s an entirely new experience for me. I’ve been on my own for so long its feels foreign to have all of these feelings all at once. Then I remember my daddy and those safe arms feel more like a lead coffin.

  “My daddy will hurt you, Uriah,” I say and pull away from him.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Cause I know him. He’s vindictive, mean, and horrible. He’ll kill you if he gets the chance or he’ll kill me so it’ll hurt you if he thinks that’ll be worse.”

  “Then you’re coming and staying at the house with me and momma.”

  I shake my head. “No. I won’t do that. These lips in town will flap and all their judgment will come at you and her.”

  “I don’t care. She won’t care. I’m not leaving you if you think he’s capable of that.”

  I realize now I should have kept my mouth shut. I shouldn’t have told him my daddy is dangerous. Papa, you’ve got to help me figure out how to keep him safe.