It was hard for me to accept that this woman and I were one in the same. We were monsters, her and I. Every time I saw her she was even more lost than the last time. She was dirtier each time. A new slice on her belly, a deep seated craving itching at her skin for more and more and more until the point where she would do anything to have what she wanted. She would fuck him over and over as long as she had those few moments of bliss. She would do anything. Anything to escape reality for a few seconds.
The woman in the mirror was me. And I despised her. I hated her. I understood why Rhett hated me. Why Taylor hated me. I was some sort of poison. It was in my blood. It had to be. I was the common denominator for all their hate. Even my own mother hated me. At the end she had watched him fuck me. Watched him pound into me with his stiff cock harder than he ever had before while I cried. While I begged for him to stop and her to help me.
He didn’t stop. She didn’t help. She watched while she sipped some expensive drink from a martini glass. And she smiled. She smiled while he ruined me.
“No. No. No!” I shook my head and slammed my fist into the mirror. The glass cracked under my weight, fragmenting my reflection, making my face lopsided and crooked. I liked it better that way. Distorted.
I jerked open the medicine cabinet, revealing what I came for. The tiny pill bottles. There were more than twenty of them. My mother’s name written on each one. Medicine Taylor still hadn’t thrown out.
I grabbed the bottle with the most medicine inside and twisted off the cap. My hands were heavy, bumbling and slow, but it still came off, revealing big white pills. For a moment I stared at them. Studied them. Focused on them. They were made to heal, whatever they were. They were made to fix, to repair. To help. But that’s not what I was going to use them for.
The pills in this bottle were the answer. They were going to solve all my problems. They were going to take me out of this fucked up world I was in. They were going to save me. They were the only thing that could save me.
I tipped to bottle on its end, taking as many pills into my mouth as I could. My throat was dry and only a few made it down. I wrenched the faucet on and shoved my face under it forcing the pills down my throat. My mouth tasted like cotton and I gagged, my throat wanting to reject them, but I didn’t let it. I forced them all down. Until they were gone and the bottle was empty.
I dropped it on the floor. It fell from my fingertips, seeming to fall in slow motion before clacking against the tile.
I felt nothing at first. Nothing but the ache under my skin. The same ache that plagued me day after day. Panic set in. What if this doesn’t work? What if he comes back and I’m fine? What if—
But I shut down my thoughts and jerked open the top drawer on Taylor’s side of the sink. The answer lay there. A razor. The one Taylor used to shave his face every morning, to keep his skin smooth and flawless. I yanked it out and this time I didn’t stop to ponder the blade. I turned the razor sideways and shoved it against my wrist. Pressing down as hard as I could I drug it up my arm. It tore my skin open, blood leaping to the surface. I whimpered at the pain, but I didn’t stop. It had to be done.
Wooziness set in as I pulled the blade from my skin. I slid down on the wall across from the sink. I stared down at my arm, watching the blood leak out. I tried to move it so I could use the blade on my other one, but arms felt heavy, like I was trying to lift a car. So I let go of the razor, let it fall to the tile like the pill bottle, like my dripping blood. It seemed to run faster and I had to look away as my head started to spin.
I was twisting away from life and into reality. Death.
Rhett’s face flashed in my head. He hated me, but I didn’t hate him. Even after the things he said when he saw me with his dad, I didn’t hate him. I couldn’t because of who he had been to me back before I ran away. He had been the only person who seemed to actually care about me. Even now, he had wanted to help.
But it was too late. I was beyond all help. And now he would be able to forget. He would be able to move on with his life without me and the poison, the filth that seemed to follow me everywhere I went.
I closed my eyes against the spinning. I let myself get swept away in the things I always wanted. To the smiling toothless grin of a baby who looked just like me. The baby that Taylor and my mother took from me. My baby. The baby who had to die because Taylor had become careless after Rhett left and stopped using protection. The whack job that did the abortion had butchered it, and I’d had to have multiple emergency surgeries to try and repair the damage. And in the end nothing could save my uterus, which was why I could never have kids again. But I pushed all that from my mind and imagined the baby, my baby. I thought of how it would have loved me unconditionally, how it would have been mine. The little eyes looking up at me in wonder. And then Rhett was there too, smiling at us, holding out his hand for me to take with love in his eyes. Love.
In the few moments before I was gone I basked in that love. Real love that wasn’t hindered and clouded by all the poison I seemed to carry. Maybe I would see them both again. Maybe my baby would greet me at the gates of heaven. Maybe it would forgive me for not being able to save it from the monsters that were supposed to love me. Maybe one day Rhett would be there too and I could finally have my happy ending?
But then I remembered who I was. I remembered the things I had done. The men I had fucked. The guys I had killed. I could feel the blood as it slithered down my arm and pooled on the cool tile floor.
I would never see my baby and I wouldn’t see Rhett either… because I wasn’t going to heaven.
I was going to hell.
The darkness swallows her
Until there’s nothing left
Until she begs for mercy
Until she’s screaming, clawing to breathe
Until she’s gone.
ONE
Rhett.
I stared at him. My father. He stood before me in his kitchen, shirtless—his body nearly in as good shape as mine. I tried to wrap my head around what I just walked in on a few minutes ago. My father standing over Faye’s naked body. Her skin ravaged by hundreds of superficial cuts. There were dark circles under her eyes, her skin as white as a ghost. But not as white as the powder that had been lying in the crease between his thumb and forefinger.
That didn’t just happen.
But it had. And I wanted to punch something. Him. I wanted to wail on him. I wanted to beat his face in. Destroy him. She was in his bedroom. Why is she in his bedroom? He said he came home and found her there. He found her lying there, ready to fuck him, for cocaine. Ready to do anything he wanted.
I didn’t want it to be true. Was that wrong? Was it so wrong that I wanted Faye for my own? That I’d had to force myself to stay away this last month. That I had to physically restrain myself from driving over to check on her. She was a problem for me. She made me want things I could never have. And that was bad.
I knew Dad would take care of her. He loved her. There was no question in that. He had been more heartbroken about her leaving than Jessica, her own mother.
“Explain what happened.” I heard myself say, but I sounded far away, even in my own head.
“I already told you son.” Dad laid his hands out on the dark granite counter, spreading his fingers apart. “I came home and she was in there. She has a bad drug problem.”
“Then why didn’t you fucking tell me?” I squeezed my fists hard to keep from running at him, punching him. “You were supposed to take care of her. If you knew she had this problem why didn’t you tell me? She needs help and giving her more of what’s hurting her, isn’t going to help her!”
“I know that, but I didn’t want to see her suffer.” His eyes pleaded with me, begged me to understand his position. We looked nothing alike, not really. I looked like my mom, at least that’s what he said. I couldn’t really remember what she looked like. His eyes were blue with dark hair, while mine were green with light hair.
“So you just let her go back to t
he streets.”
“I didn’t know that’s where she was going.” He let out a deep breath. “Why didn’t you tell me she was a prostitute?” His words were laced with anger.
“It wasn’t any of your business.”
“It damn-well is my business.”
I frowned. “It doesn’t matter now. She needs help.” I dug my phone out of my pocket. Seeing the little illuminated screen calmed me. I knew about some local rehab places in Dallas. I could get her checked into one today. It didn’t matter the price. I would go into fucking debt to get her the help she needed.
“She doesn’t need your help.”
I glanced up, surprised to hear the venom in Dad’s voice. “Yes, she needs someone’s help. I’m going to get her checked into a clinic.”
“No you aren’t.” Dad shook his head vehemently. “I am very capable of helping her here at home.”
“Really? You’ve done a bang up job of it so far, Dad. Not only is she upstairs naked in your bed willing to fuck you for more cocaine, but her body is mutilated beyond belief. I’m taking her and getting her some help.” I shoved my phone in my pocket, deciding I would figure out the number along the way, and moved back toward the stairs.
“No.” Dad stepped in front of me. “I can handle this.”
I stared at him with wide eyes. “Are you kidding me right now? You’re fucking lucky all you got was that split under your eye when I punched you earlier.” Blood still dripped from the superficial wound and a dark purple bruise was already starting to set in beneath his left eye.
The urge to punch him again multiplied underneath my skin like a virus. He knew she had a problem and he didn’t tell you. Even all those times you called him, he assured you she was fine. He lied to you.
“Why did you lie to me?”
“Lie to you? What are you—”
“When I called, you said she was fine. Doing good. Those were your exact words. Why did you lie to me?” I took a threatening step toward him.
“She didn’t want you to know. She was afraid you would be mad at her, disappointed. She begged me not to tell you,” he said quickly. “I was only respecting her wishes.”
“Since when do you respect anyone?” Dad was a joke, sure, I loved him because he was my dad, but people all over respected him because they feared him. He came off as this understanding, good person on the outside, but I had known him long enough to know that he was far from that. He was conniving. He didn’t do anything unless it served him well, and he sure as hell didn’t protect anyone out of the goodness of his heart. It was how he got to be so big in the contracting business. He took back doors that led to dirty hands, but none of them were as dirty as his own.
“I respect Faye, because she’s my daughter. I protect her because of that. Because I love her. Something you wouldn’t understand.”
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. We’ll hash this out later. For now, I’m getting Faye and taking her to get help.”
I pushed past him and headed back up the stairs.
“She stays here.” He followed me.
Why is he fighting me on this?
I ignored him and took the steps two at a time, moving quickly into the bedroom.
“I’m telling you son. She stays. I’m not gonna have her go to some clinic where people can put her down and potentially hurt her worse. She needs to be with me. With the person who loves her.”
She wasn’t in the bedroom where I’d last seen her, cowering on the floor tears in her eyes. The very image made my heart jump in my chest. It made me ache in ways that didn’t make sense. I didn’t want her to hurt. I wanted her to be happy. I wanted her to see all the good things life had to offer, rather than all the fucked up shit she dealt with once she ran away. But I couldn’t keep it together when I saw her like that. Willing to fuck anyone, even the man who had raised her. It made my stomach churn, made red cover my gaze. It made me want to lash out at her and destroy her. Ruin her, before she had the chance to ruin me.
I moved immediately to the bathroom door and tapped on it with my knuckles. Knuckles that still ached from punching my dad in the face. “Faye, it’s Rhett. Come out okay? I just wanna talk to you.”
There was no answer.
“Now look, you’ve gone and upset her. You’re not helping anyone by being here.”
I tossed a glare over my shoulder before jiggling the knob. To my surprise it gave way, unlocked.
“Faye…” But as I pushed the door open, the rest of my words were sucked from my chest, like someone had turned on a vacuum. Faye was on the floor, her body twisted at an awkward angle. Vomit leaked from her parted lips onto the white tile and blood was smeared around her, dripping from a thick slice on her wrist.
She’s dying.
“No! No!” I fell to my knees and pressed my hand to the wound. “Call the ambulance!” I shouted to Dad, but I kept my eyes on her. On Faye. Her eyes were open, glassy, empty. She stared at me, but she didn’t see me. I knew she didn’t. Not the way I saw her.
She can’t die.
The very thought of that possibility made something in me crack. I couldn’t say what it was. I couldn’t focus on anything. All I could see were her eyes, those vacant, unseeing eyes. I could remember looking into them, into their dark brown pools and seeing something there. Something that made me want more than the stupid pathetic version of my life I was living.
She was trying to leave again. To run. To hide. Like she did after that summer. The summer where she begged me to have sex with her. To make love to her. At the time I’d been shocked, sitting there on the couch across from her. My step-sister who was on a fast track to being a woman. A girl who had laughed at all my corny jokes and made the summer worth it. Made me not miss my new girlfriend so much, Sarah. I didn’t sleep with Faye when she asked, but I had left instead and told myself that one day, things would be different. She wouldn’t be underage. She would be a woman. And if she still felt the same. If she still thought my stupid jokes were funny, then things would be different. But only then.
But that never happened. She was gone before I could blink an eye. That innocent girl. And when I found her again, she wasn’t the same. She was someone else.
Someone who made my blood boil. Who made me want things I didn’t think I’d ever want again. Things that tried to permeate my safe, perfect existence and made me want to step out of my box even though I was disgusted by them. I wanted them. I wanted her.
And here we were. On the floor in my father’s bathroom. Those innocent eyes vacant and lost, blood cooling on the tile floor. How did we get here?
I pulled her into my arms. Her body limp, her breathing slow. Vomit and blood dripped onto my suit, but I didn’t care. I pressed my forehead to hers and looked into those vacant eyes and did something I hadn’t done in years.
I prayed.
TWO
Faye.
There were noises. A soft murmuring of voices. They fluttered around me. Permeating my ears with their soft lilting notes, cocooning me in something warm. I liked the noise. I wanted to keep it, to bask in the moments of it forever. But then there was something else.
Pain.
The soft warmth of the murmuring voices was blasted away by the pain. It didn’t seep into me, but slammed into me all at once, the intensity of it all making me cry out. Until I wasn’t just crying out, I was convulsing, gagging. Blinking my eyes against dim lights I saw the blood. A mist of it splattered over me as I continued to retch.
“Oh my God, run! Hurry! Get the nurse!”
I knew that voice, but I couldn’t look up at him. At Rhett. All I could seem to do was gag and heave up blood from my stomach. The pain was too much. Too intense. And I couldn’t stop.
There were more hands, more people. People talking loudly. Their voices pressing against the inside of my skull until I wanted claw my ears off and make the noises go away. I wanted them to disappear and be gone forever.
Why is there so much pain?
But then
I remembered. Even through the pain I could see it. The reflection I’d looked at in the mirror. The fractured poisonous woman who’d looked back at me. Me.
I’m dead.
The thought came to me, ripping through my head. And then I heard his voice. Taylor’s voice. And I knew it was true. Before I blacked out, before I let the pain and the blood carry me back into darkness, I came to realize where I was.
Hell.
I blinked my eyes against dim lights. The pain wasn’t as bad now. I’m surprised. I had figured it would only get worse. That was what the stories of hell said, right? I figured I would have been burned in an everlasting fire, but that didn’t seem to be the case either. It made sense really, that hell would be a person’s worst experiences multiplied by a thousand. And that’s what I had felt earlier. However long ago earlier had been.
“I think she’s waking up.”
I sucked in a breath at the sound of that voice. Rhett’s voice. I had heard him earlier. Why is he in my hell?
Probably to make you watch him fuck Sarah for the rest of eternity.
“Faye?”
I blinked my eyes several times, trying to force the blurry gray room into focus. But then the room wasn’t gray anymore, because all I could see was Rhett. He stood over me. Something warm touched my hand.
His green eyes came into focus, his jaw covered with stubble. “You look so real?” My words sounded like a buzzing bee, barely audible.
He smiled. Yes, he actually smiled. It was a real smile. One of those rare ones I never got to see. Hell is letting me have a real Rhett smile?
“Here.” Something bumped my lips and I glanced down, realizing it was a white straw in a clear plastic cup. I quickly sucked it into my mouth, practically moaning as the cool liquid ran down my throat.
“You’re okay,” he said as he pulled the cup away. He sat it on a little table next to my bed.
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