The Damned

by Jennifer Snyder

  Then I began monitoring the amount of calories I ate; she didn’t seem to mind. To her, I was attempting to be a healthier me. To me, I was marveling at the sense of control I felt. Seeing my calorie count for the day decrease little by little had been almost as exhilarating as seeing my weight drop each week.

  Powerful, that was how it made me feel.

  Even though last week I began feeling a little sick, and each time I stood, the sensation I was about to faint would hit me, it had all been worth it. Today had finally been different; I felt stronger, better. I had pushed past it all, and I was in sole control of something for the first time in my life. It felt amazing.

  I stepped onto the scale. The coldness of the metal touched the bottoms of my feet and sent a chill creeping along my spine. Crossing my arms over my chest, I watched as Karen moved the little slider along the bar. My palms grew clammy from pent up anticipation as a fluttery feeling passed through me.

  My heart pounded the second the slider came to a stop.

  “You’re checking in at 103.” Karen beamed. “You did it. You got yourself down to an ideal weight to be able to complete the routine fluidly. Now we need to tone you up a little more, and then you’ll be unstoppable on the uneven bars too.”

  Stepping off the scale, I thrust my arms around Karen, ecstatic to have met the goal she had set for me in a little over a month’s time. Happiness and pride radiated from her, wrapping around me in a cocoon of warmth. This moment was one I never wanted to end. It felt as though it had been so long since I made someone this happy because of something I’d done.

  * * * *

  After practice, I was exhausted, more so than I had ever felt. Karen couldn’t say I hadn’t given it my all today, because I had. I was sticky and gross from sweat, and my heart wouldn’t slow. It had been at a rapid pace for hours now. Pressing my palm against my chest, I massaged the area of my heart, willing it to slow its crazy pace, and for the cramps there to subside.

  Rolling to a complete stop at the sign in front of Calloway Park, I gripped my water bottle and downed the contents, thinking it might help. It didn’t. The tightness in my chest continued and the rapid beating of my heart remained as well. Sleep. That was what I need. The only other option would be to eat something, but I had already consumed the daily amount of calories I had set for myself.

  I was torn.

  Part of me wanted to throw in the towel now that I had met my goal for Karen and eat a sandwich—peanut butter and grape jelly had always been my favorite—but another part reminded me of all the work I had done to reach that goal. It would be stupid to throw it all away now—all of her pride and happiness for me.

  Once I pulled into my driveway, I scooped up my purse and rummaged through the contents for the pack of gum I had been chewing in place of eating dinner every night for the last ten days. Cramming a piece into my mouth, I pushed open my driver’s side door. I slipped out of the seat with sluggish movements and then made my way inside. My dad was sitting on the couch when I walked in. I’d been in such a daze that I hadn’t even noticed his car in the driveway.

  “Hey, honey.” He glanced up from the newspaper he was reading and smiled. “Home from practice already?”

  Already? It was nine something at night.

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  My gym bag dug into my shoulder, its weight becoming nearly unbearable. I let it slip onto the floor as I kicked off my shoes.

  “You look exhausted. Must have been an intense practice tonight.” His eyes skimmed over me.

  Ever since the last major argument my parents had—the one when my mother told him I was sneaking out—things between us had been weird. It was almost as though whatever my mother’s argument in regards to me and my sudden outburst of behavior had been had obscured his views of me in some way. This saddened me.

  “It was. It always is really.” I headed toward the base of the stairs, craving the softness of my bed, but dots began to cloud my vision. I needed to sit down, I needed a shower, and I needed more water. A throbbing pain raged inside my head, and I pressed my fingertips there as though I could stop it.

  “Did you eat yet? Your mother made her famous chicken and dumplings.” I could hear him shifting his weight on the couch to get a better look at me. “You look pale, sweetheart. Are you feeling all right?”

  The clicking of my mother’s high heels echoed through the house. “Oh, of course, she’s all right. She just needs to head to the shower and then come eat. Let her be, Scott.”

  “Don’t answer for her,” Dad growled. “I was trying to have a conversation with my daughter.”

  “And I’m just saying,” Mom countered. “You need to leave her be right now. It’s late. Let her take a shower and eat, then you can ask her all the questions you should already know the answers to, if you would bother to call her once in a while.”

  “And here we go.” Dad tossed the paper he had been reading onto the coffee table and glared at my mother. His eyes were narrowed and hard all the sudden. “Taking another jab at my job, at the amount of time I’m away from home? I work, Carol. What do you expect me to do? Sit around and judge people, ridicule them like you do, all for the sake of gaining an idea for writing another parenting book?”

  “I don’t judge or ridicule anyone,” Mom snapped.

  The dots clouding my vision grew larger the longer I stood there. My parents’ voices became distorted, and then blended together as they continued to argue. Suddenly, I was encased in darkness. I felt myself slip backward as though I was floating, or maybe I wasn’t floating, but twitching.

  The sounds of my parents’ voices made it to my ears, but nothing they said made any sense. I had no control over my body, over my actions, and then I was lost, drowning completely in the darkness that had engulfed me seconds before.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  COLE

  “Cole, will you just let me in?” Julie asked for the millionth time. Even though she sounded exasperated, I had to give her credit for her level of persistence. She had been standing outside my door for going on two hours now. “I just want to talk to you. That’s all.”

  By now I would have reached for my iPod and cranked the volume up to drown out her words, but I’d left the fucker downstairs in the living room. Rolling my eyes and sighing loudly, I figured I had better go ahead and get this over with. After all, I couldn’t avoid her. We lived in the same house, and it was painstakingly obvious that she wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. I gripped the knob and twisted. Screwing my face into one of purely aggravated teen—the one I had used over the years with my mother whenever she so much as asked me if it was raining—I slung the door open.

  “What?” I demanded.

  Julie took a small step back, as though my quick movement had shocked her. Her green eyes were wide and filled with concern. Anxiety puckered the area between them and washed out the color of her face.

  “I just, I um.” Her hand flew to her forehead at the same time her other perched on her hip. She was at a loss for words.

  “Let me make this simple for you.” I folded my arms across my chest. The muscles in my neck and shoulders quivered as my heart pounded out a sluggish beat. I hated the fact that we were about to have this conversation. I hated the look of worry in her eyes. Most of all, though, I hated the fact that I had forgotten about the damn scars while in Nick’s presence. “Do I cut myself? Yes. Do I burn myself? Sometimes. Do I know this is wrong and not a healthy way to deal with all the shit in my life? Yes.” I ground each of the words out as I held her stare. “There, everything has been laid out for you plain and simple. Are we done? Do you feel better?”

  “What the hell, Cole? How can you be so passive about this?” She stepped closer to me, her hand still pressed to her forehead and the other against her hip.

  Her bright eyes darted around the room once she crossed the threshold. I got the feeling she was searching for any cutting or burning tools I may have used recently that I had forgotten to p
ut away. It was a weird moment, one I couldn’t be a part of any longer.

  “How can you act like you care? You never did before,” I countered.

  I bolted from the room, slamming the door shut behind me and blocking her path to follow—even if only for a second—and started down the stairs. I scooped my iPod and headphones up from a side table in the living room, and then started for the front door. I had to get out of this house. I couldn’t breathe inside this place anymore. The air had become thick with remorse and worry from Julie and Nick, while at the same time heavy with shame, humiliation, annoyance, and agitation from me.

  “Where are you going?” Nick was sitting on the couch, looking distraught. His fingers were steepled together in front of his mouth. “I don’t think your sister is finished talking with you yet.”

  “And I don’t give a shit.” I gripped the knob on the front door, slung it open, and stepped outside.

  After slamming the door closed behind me, I inhaled a deep breath into my lungs before I started walking in the direction of the park, praying that no one would follow. I needed a time-out. A moment to recollect my thoughts. A moment to figure out what my next move was. Julie and Nick were sure to be eyeing me like a hawk from here on out.

  Fuck. My life had just gone from bad to worse.

  When I cut behind the house, I heard loud voices. The realization that I should have left through the back door hit me, but it was too late. Maybe Nick and Julie would think I was heading to the beach to chill and get a grip on my anger instead of the park behind their place.

  As I pressed through the darkness, the voices grew more distinct, until I was able to make out where they were coming from—inside Emory’s house. Her parents were both home and, from the sounds of it, arguing per usual. My eyes skimmed the area on top of her garage that was visible from where I stood. I couldn’t see if she was up there, but maybe this was a good thing. I didn’t need to see how wrecked she would look from another night of listening to them fight and argue. I had enough of my own emotions to deal with.

  My thoughts became muddled as I replayed how the night had gone down. I reached for my iPod and turned some music on. After placing my headphones over my ears, I crammed the device into my pocket. Once I reached the swings of Calloway Park, my mind filled with clips of what my sister and Nick could be saying. My skin crawled at the same time my lip curled from the image. The idea to head back to their place in the middle of the night and take every fucking penny they had so I could make my way back to Harper was nearly overwhelming.

  I reached into my front pocket and pulled out my pack of menthols along with a lighter. Putting a cigarette to my lips, I flicked the flame of my lighter and held it. Once I lit the cancer stick, I kept the flame in place until the tip of my thumb was sore. When I couldn’t hold it any longer, I lifted my shirt up and pressed the hot metal to my skin. My head fell back as the pain from the day became replaced by the sensation of adrenaline coursing through me.

  * * * *

  I had been sitting on a concrete picnic table inside Calloway Park for over two hours now. The dark sky above me rumbled with the sounds of thunder and a breeze had picked up. There was a storm coming, any idiot could feel it. Lying across the top of the table, I stared up into the sky, watching as the wispy, gray clouds closed in on the crescent moon. It wouldn’t be long now before the sky opened up and washed away this horrible fucking day. The second I thought it, a fat droplet fell onto my forehead.

  I pulled myself into a sitting position and switched off my music. Sliding the headphones off my ears, the sound of thunder rolled through the sky above me, loud enough to shake the table I was sitting on. There was no fucking way I was spending the night out here in this. Slipping off the table, I reluctantly headed back in the direction of Julie’s place.

  As I neared the backyard, I noticed the glow of the TV still on in the living room and froze. Wondering if it would be Nick or Julie waiting up for me, I debated whether I wanted to step foot inside. The rain began to fall from the heavy gray clouds faster. In seconds, I would be standing in a torrential downpour. Chewing on my bottom lip, I remained where I stood, unable to bring myself to set foot inside the house yet. Instead, I headed toward Nick’s truck, which was parked outside the garage.

  I tried each of his doors and realized they were all locked the exact moment the sky decided to open up. I was soaked in seconds as I stood there, staring at the front door to their place, wishing there was somewhere else I could go for the night. Squeezing my eyes shut, I hung my head back and let the icy rainwater wash over me. When I’d had enough, I sauntered to the front door and stepped inside. The flip-flops I was still wearing felt like sponges attached to my feet as I kicked them off. My eyes darted to the living room until I spotted Nick sitting with his feet propped up. The TV volume was turned down low, but from the look on his face, it didn’t matter, because he wasn’t watching it anyway. He’d been watching the door, waiting for me to come back.

  “You look like a drowned rat.” From where I stood, I couldn’t tell if there was a smile on his face as he’d said the words, but it sure sounded like it.

  “Thanks.” I twisted the edge of my shirt to ring it out on the rug beneath my feet. “I think.”

  “Listen, I know you’re soaked to the bone, but I need to say I’m sorry for the way I reacted earlier.” A bright commercial came on the screen of the TV. It lit his face enough for me to see how conflicted he was with his emotions and what he wanted to say. “I saw those scars and I flipped out. The only thing I could think about was how Julie would handle something like that.”

  I swallowed hard, but didn’t speak. This situation was awkward as hell. Was this what it felt like to come home to a pissed off dad?

  “I knew she would beat herself up about it once she found out. I had every intention of not telling her when I was driving you home, but then I saw her face when we walked in and I knew she would know something had happened. There was no point in denying it. Besides—” He shrugged. “—I can’t lie to her, especially not about something as serious as this. She’s really torn up about it, Cole. She feels like she did it to you, like leaving you behind forced you to deal with everything in that screwed up way.”

  “It’s not her fault. I did this to myself even before she left,” I admitted without any understanding as to where the confession had come from. I should have said that it was her fault and let the red rage that consumed me every time I thought about how Logan and Julie had left me behind to rot in that shithole we were raised to call home have its way with me.

  But I didn’t.

  The burn of shame attached to my words closed my throat, making it nearly impossible to breathe. They had been too honest, too revealing. Cramming my hands into my front pockets, I felt the smoothness of my lighter against my fingertips and gripped it for dear life. It was a tether to the fresh burn on my stomach, a reminder of how I was in control of my emotions and not the other way around.

  “Jesus, Cole.” Nick reached up and flicked on a lamp beside the couch. He turned off the TV and leaned forward, resting his elbows against his knees as he stared at me. “Don’t tell her that. Whatever you do, don’t tell Julie a single word of that. If she asks, which she will, you need to think of a better way to break it to her. Flat out saying you’ve done it for so long will crush her. There’s no way she would be able to forgive herself for not having known the things that happened in that house took such a horrible toll on you too.”

  “What the hell am I supposed to say, then?” I scoffed. “There’s no sugarcoated, fucking sunshiny way to say what it is that I do, so how about we just drop it and don’t talk about it at all, okay?”

  “That’s not an option. Not with your sister. Not with me. Not with how serious this is.”

  “Fine, why don’t we get it all out there now, then? Let’s talk about how horrible my home life was with my mother. How fucked up it was to see her higher than me any given night of the week. How I had to spend
the night at friends’ houses just to be able to eat a decent meal when I was younger because there was never any food at home. How my older brother left as though Julie and me meant nothing the second he turned eighteen. How my sister turned right around and did the same fucking thing to me a few years later.” I paused to catch my breath and then pressed forward, allowing all the rage and embarrassment blistering my insides to fuel my words, my deepest, darkest thoughts. “Let’s talk about how sometimes, when I stop to think about my life and how screwed up it actually is, I begin to feel numb. How cutting myself and watching the blood flow out of me is the only reminder that I am alive some days, that this isn’t some nightmare I’ve been locked in, unable to wake from. How, now, when I burn or cut myself, I feel pleasure instead of pain, an idyllic sense of happiness. How I know that must mean I’m even more screwed up inside than I thought. How other times my emotions feel like they’re suffocating me, and the only way to breathe again is to cut myself.”

  My eyes remained locked on Nick’s throughout my entire rampage of words. I didn’t notice when Julie started to come down the stairs, not until I heard her whimper. She was in the middle of the stairs, staring at me wide-eyed when I noticed her. Either she’d heard me come in and had been listening to everything from there, or she’d started to come downstairs and see what all the commotion was when I raised my voice. Either way, there was no doubt that she hadn’t missed a single thing I had said.

  “Nick wanted me to find a way to sugarcoat that, but there fucking isn’t one, so there you go. Now you know everything,” I spat.

  My heart was hammering in my throat, and the sensation I might vomit right in the middle of their fancy ass foyer filled me to the brim. I darted past her up the stairs, heading straight to my room. After locking the door behind me, I peeled off my sopping wet clothes and tossed them into a wet heap in the center of the floor. I pulled on a dry pair of boxers and stood staring at myself in the full-length mirror someone had the audacity to hang along the back of the bedroom door at some point. My reflection was the last thing I wanted to see, but my eyes refused to look away. I was locked in a fucked-up trance as I took in all the damage I’d done to myself over the past few years.