by Nicole Thorn
“Whoa,” I said as I set the broken wood down. It had fallen open, and I stared at what had to be at least a few hundred letters. Each one had a date on it, going back about a decade.
I pulled out the one I spotted with yesterday’s date written in Bennett’s hand. I kept looking the through the letters, noticing a few more dates. One was the day before I met him, the day of, right after our trip to Disneyland…
“No,” I mumbled to myself. It had to be a coincidence all these things matched up to these dates. There were just… so many letters.
It was wrong, but I ripped open the one marked for the day I met Bennett. I had a sick feeling in my stomach on what it would say, but I had to know.
I don’t want to do it anymore. I sat at the table, and I was reading a book. It was one of those times I was trying to see how long I could go without talking before someone noticed. So far my record was eight days. This time, I was at three. Mom didn’t talk to me yesterday after she let me out, and I didn’t get asked questions before. Work put her in a bad mood, and I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was my fault. I should have gone back to my room when she got home and started stomping around. I knew better.
But I was sitting there this morning, and she came out of her room already angry. It was too late for me to run because she would know what I was doing. I didn’t want to make it worse. I didn’t want her to come and find me in my safe place. It didn’t matter in the end because she would always find me. It came down to this one thing that I couldn’t avoid.
I didn’t belong here.
I don’t think Mom’s going to keep any of my things. She would want to use this room for something important. All of my letters will get thrown away, but that’s fine with me. But I didn’t want it to be all done without anyone knowing. Mom and Dad would find me, but I don’t know how long that would take. I still had that number my teacher gave me when I was in school. I remembered him looking at me, and asking what was wrong with me. I didn’t know, so I said that. He told me that if I hurt myself in school, the school would get in trouble, so he gave me the card with the number on it. People were supposed to be there that would talk to me. They aren’t allowed to hang up on me I think.
I really hope whoever picks up doesn’t hang up on me. I want one person to care that I was here.
I was gasping by the time I finished, and I could barely read through my tears. God, I couldn’t fucking take the pain in my chest. It was like someone crushed my lungs. I raked my hands through my hair, sobbing without breath. I felt crippled and useless that I couldn’t make this better. That I couldn’t go back and soothe this properly. Nothing would erase these scars, or that day from him. He hurt for so long, and no one was there for him. It made me feel disgusting and helpless.
I set the letter down and picked up another because I wouldn’t let him be alone in this anymore.
I sat there in a pile of misery and brokenness, reading painfully detailed accounts of beatings and cut downs, learning how hateful a person could be. The worst of it was how Bennett reacted. He blamed himself for almost everything, and he didn’t seem to understand how not okay this was. He saw everything so wrong.
The hardest letters to read were the ones where he was a kid and he didn’t understand why his mom was so angry with him. He didn’t know why she would lock him up for hours on end, ignoring him when he screamed for her and promised he was sorry. He wrote about how he would bang on the box, trying to get out because he thought he was going to die in there. A little boy… having to live with such a real fear.
I’d woken up screaming so many times in my life, being grabbed by a man too strong for me to fight off. He took so much from my sisters and me. So much that Kylie didn’t want to live with the memories anymore, Adalyn hid from the world, Riley broke on the drop of a dime, and I… I… I hated the world. For all its beauty, I saw such ugliness within its population. I didn’t feel like I fit here either.
Open letters surrounded me on the floor, and I couldn’t stop reading them. It was such an insight to Bennett’s head, and I needed to know how he thought if I was going to try and help him mend. I couldn’t believe how often she hurt him. He made it seem like it wasn’t that much. And the tennis racket… she beat him with a tennis racket. He took it every time, never trying to fight back.
The very last letter I read was the one he wrote last night, and my hands trembled as I opened it.
I should not have let myself daydream about her. I miss her so much, all the time. If she knew how much I thought about her, Layla would think I am a freak. Maybe I am, but I love her so much that my brain won’t let anything else exist when she’s in there. I’m fine with it. She was nice to think about. But in the box, I didn’t deserve her. I’ll be at her house soon anyway. I hope she lets me inside.
She’ll think that it was her fault because of what she said to my mom. The truth was that Mom would have found a reason to go off on me no matter what happened. The condoms really made her mad. Wouldn’t you think a mom would be happier to know their kid was being safe? I guess not her.
I don’t really want to write about what happened when she was hitting me. It was what happened after that I cared about. The police coming. Mom sounded so scared that they would find me, and she looked sorry when she let me out again. Maybe it was a really bad morning for her. That was why she hurt me so bad and broke my things. I won’t even be able to put this letter away right. I can try and fix the drawer later. For now, I need to go see Layla. She was the only thing that made me feel like I fit here.
My brain felt exhausted as I finished the letter, and I sat on the floor panting as I cried. How was Bennett even functioning with all this pain in his heart? He was so strong, and these letters were all that anyone needed to prove it. He thought this all made him so weak, but I wished I could make him see the truth.
When Bennett walked into his bedroom, I was so out of it that it took me too long to notice. He said my name, sounding shocked and afraid when he saw me. All I could do was weakly look up at him, having had my insides deflated.
“Why?” he asked, closing the door. “Why would you read those?”
Was he angry with me? I couldn’t tell, but his brow furrowed, and he bent in front of me, picking up the letters, and shoving them into the drawer.
I stopped him, grabbing his face so that he would look at only me. It came out in a whisper, but my voice was clear. “I love you, Benny,” I told him. “I love you.”
His eyes were wide open when I pulled him to me, pressing my lips to his. His lips parted for me, and I deepened the kiss, needing to lose myself in him and remember that he was here and safe with me. He would never be in danger again because I was going to get him out of here.
“I love you,” I said again when I finished kissing him. I pressed my forehead against his, feeling my tears as they spilled from my eyes. They turned cold in only seconds.
“I love you too,” Bennett told me.
He continued putting the letters away, and he only stopped when the door opened in the other room. His mother called out to see if anyone was home, and I charged for the door before I even realized it.
I was out the door and heading into the living room, Bennett behind me. He wasn’t close enough though because a lot of things happened very fast.
Bennett’s mother saw me, and I shoved her hard. When she stumbled, I screamed at her. “What the fuck is wrong with you?!” I shouted. “Using your kid as a punching bag, bitch.”
The woman went from being shocked to being pissed like that, and she righted herself. “You don’t know a damn thing,” she said through her teeth. “Get out of my house before I call the police.”
I shoved her again, and she hit the wall. I didn’t break my stride in getting to her again, and I ignored Bennett when he told me to stop. His mother was on her ass on the floor, and I stood over her. “Call them. I’ll tell them everything that you do to him.”
Fear flashed in her eyes before it was ta
ken over with anger as she got to her feet. She went for my hair, but I moved out of the way. I wouldn’t stand there and take it like poor Bennett did. That wasn’t how I fought.
“Please, stop!” Bennett yelled at one of us, and I couldn’t even tell which one.
I could hardly hear him.
Mrs. Posey wasn’t used to someone not letting her hurt them, so the irritation on her face was instant, and I enjoyed it. “I knew you were rotten from the moment you rang my doorbell. Why don’t you go be fucked up somewhere else? Don’t ruin our lives just because someone ruined yours.”
I smiled. “Oh, that’s not why I’m going to ruin your life. I’m going to ruin your life because you deserve it.”
She screamed incoherently and lunged at me. That was the problem with a woman like her. All her fury was insta-rage. It wasn’t something that was settled in her, like it was for me. So when it hit her, she lashed out without thinking. I, however, thought too much. It was nothing to get out of the way, grab her hair, and throw her against another wall past Bennett.
He looked so scared, and I was sorry for that. This was never going to end in anything but ugliness.
Mrs. Posey had reached behind the bookshelf and grabbed something when I wasn’t paying attention. She hit me in the stomach with the tennis racket while I watched her son.
I wheezed, falling back and onto the floor. I coughed, and my arms crossed my stomach. I saw the woman coming after me, and Bennett trying to stop her. She swung back and hit him in the chest.
“Bennett!” I yelled, and I coughed again.
I threw my foot forward and kicked the bitch in her leg. Nothing snapped, but she yelled in pain. When she fell down, I moved quickly and got the racket from her hands. I got on my feet, and I swung hard, hitting her in the stomach.
“I’m taking him,” I said through my teeth. “If you ever try and see him again, I swear to God I’m going to destroy every inch of your life. And you can go ahead and call the police if you want to. I don’t give a damn if I go to prison because I know you will too. Touch him again, and I’m going to show you how serious I am.”
I took Bennett’s hand as he watched his mother gasping on the floor. I pulled him out of the house and hoped that he didn’t hate me.
e didn’t say anything to me the entire car ride or when we got inside only to have both of my parents rush us. They sat us on the couch, and my father said something about how we looked like hell.
Dad rushed off to get the medical kit, and my mom sat on the coffee table. “What the fuck happened?” she asked, eyes on the both of us as much as they could be.
“Bad stuff,” I said before I launched into all of it.
Dad came back, and they started working on us. Bennett was almost okay for the most part, so mom looked him over, making sure nothing internal was broken. Dad started dabbing blood away from my ear, looking pissed off that someone hit his kid. Well, at least a couple parents in this world cared about their children.
I told them what I said and what I did to the woman, and the conclusion I came to. I waited for them to scream at me.
“I’m calling Officer Wigmore,” Mom said. “That woman needs to be behind bars. I’m sorry, honey,” she said to Bennett. He stared at the floor.
“Am I going to get in trouble?” I asked as my dad checked my eyes. “I attacked her first, and I threatened her. If we rat her out, there’s nothing stopping her from telling the police what I did.”
Mom sighed and tossed the bloody cloth she had into the trash. “It’s possible, but we can’t let her walk around anymore. If I were in her place, I would keep my mouth shut about you because it would make it clear that there was a reason for her to be threatened. She’ll probably deny hurting Bennett.”
“I agree,” Dad added, “and it’s going to be Bennett’s word against hers and his father.” Dad looked at him with sympathy and that little fleck of anger that only an outraged father could get. “I don’t know how this is going to go or what your mother will say. There’s a shot that she won’t say anything about Layla in hopes of getting Bennett to keep quiet.”
Mom scratched her head, tapped her foot, and wiggled around. “I really don’t want to risk Layla getting in trouble, so here’s the plan. We’re giving the kids the rest of the day to rest. I’m going to get a hold of Wigmore and ask him what to do. He’ll help us.”
Oh, I really liked Officer Wigmore. He was the man who gave us donuts when we first got out of The Dollhouse. He was so nice to us, and he was the one to keep all our parents up-to-date on the case during the investigation. He wouldn’t rat me out.
Dad finished looking me over and started washing the blood from his hands, using what he brought to the coffee table. “It doesn’t look like you have a concussion. If you get a headache, let me know, and we can get you a scan.”
Ugh, I didn’t want to do that at all, but I agreed.
“I think you’re fine too, for the most part,” Mom said to Bennett. “Just bruised. Both of you. Rest would help.” She removed her medical gloves and began sorting through all her equipment.
“What do we do?” Bennett asked Mom. “I don’t…” He rubbed his hands down his thighs. “I don’t really know what to do.”
My mom smiled softly as she rubbed his arm. “It’s okay, honey. I’m going to try and make this as easy on you as possible. Maybe we all should head down to the station,” she said, the last part to herself.
“You’re staying here,” I said, looking at Bennett. “You can’t go back there. Not ever. You live here now.”
My parents exchanged a look, and I waited for them to protest that. The fact was that he couldn’t go back, and he had nowhere else to go. I didn’t see another option, and I didn’t want one. I wanted him here.
“Layla,” Dad started, scratching his head awkwardly.
Mom grabbed his arm, silencing him as she looked to Bennett and me. “Of course you’re staying here. You can stay as long as you need to. Don’t worry about anything at all.”
Dad stared at her, looking worried. “We should probably make sure he wants to stay, right?”
All eyes went to Bennett, and we might as well have shined a spotlight on his face. “Um,” he started. “I don’t want to be a bother.”
“Stop that,” I said, my brow furrowed. “You’re not a bother, and you’re staying here even if I have to bribe you with junk food and things I can’t say in front of my parents.”
My dad made a guttural sound of pain, and my mom laughed. Laugh all you want, but I wasn’t kidding.
“Not funny,” Dad wheezed rubbing his eyes. “My daughter is a good little girl and would never touch a boy.”
Bennett stared wide-eyed at the floor.
Dad said, “Oh, no… you touched my daughter.”
“Dad,” I said, holding my hands out. “If it makes you feel better, he’s wonderful, and I love him.”
He sighed. “It makes very little better.” He pointed at Bennett. “Boy, you better take real good care of my daughter. I am not afraid to make you very uncomfortable staying here. I’m good at staring without blinking and brushing up against people awkwardly.”
Bennett nodded. “I’ll be good, sir.”
Dad patted him on the arm, standing up. “Good. Woman.” He pointed to Mom as he started walking to the stairs. “We should go see Officer Wigmore in person. Let’s head out.”
Mom stood up, eyeing him with a smirk. “I told you not to call me that unless you wanted trouble.”
Dad stared her down, narrowed his eyes at her, said, “Woman,” and then scurried up the stairs, Mom already chasing him. Well, at least they could still be themselves even when they were upset.
When we were alone, I put my head on Bennett’s shoulder because looking him in the eyes would have been too hard. “I need you to tell me you don’t hate me right now.”
My eyes were shut, but I felt his hand reach over and settle on my knee. “Nothing you do would ever make me hate you, Layla.”
“She hurt you too.”
I turned my head and put my chin on his shoulder. “You promise you don’t hate me?”
He pressed his lips to my forehead. “I will never hate you.”
I was crying when I hugged him, but Bennett was kind enough to brush away the tears before he led me up to my room. My parents passed us on the way down, but they were quiet too, back to being serious. Everything in the house felt darker.
We got to my bedroom, and I sat in the middle of my bed with Bennett. So much had happened that it all still hit me. It was long from over, but I thought the worst of it was behind us. Bennett was safe, and that was more important than my worries.
I needed to feel him. Remind myself that he was here and fine.
I turned, putting my leg on Bennett’s other side so that I sat on his lap. My hands found his, and I held on tight, watching his eyes. “Are you okay staying here?”
Bennett nodded. “You were right about my mom. I don’t think she loves me all that much. I don’t want to be where I’m not wanted.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you, baby. It’s about what’s wrong in her, not you. If you’re not wanted, it’s not because you’re not worth being wanted. I want you here.”
He broke eye contact to look at the hem of my dress. “I want to be here.”
There was something I wanted to ask him, but I wasn’t sure how he would take it. He already knew I violated his privacy when I read the letters, and he didn’t seem upset about it. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.
“Why do you write them?” I asked after another ten minutes of quiet as I gathered my courage. My eyes looked up from my lap. “Why would you keep those letters?”
Bennett still refused to look at me, but he touched my leg. He gently caressed my skin with his fingertips. “I have to write them?” He dared look up again. “I need it out of me and gone from my head. I don’t know why I keep them.”
I leaned forward to give him a quick kiss on the lips. “You won’t need to do that anymore. I’m going to keep you safe forever. I promise.”