It’s funny, you watch this scene a thousand times and you think of what you’d do if you were ever thrust into your own horror story. I certainly did after the first time this happened. I imagined it would be dark, a lonely house with no one in it except for me and my nightmare, and a set of convenient stairs and tons of windows, allowing me to run or jump out. I’m a fighter—I’d find a stick, a rock, anything to make a weapon and then I’d be ready to defend myself if I couldn’t run forever. I’d face my attacker and let him know he’d fucked with the wrong person.
This scenario is nothing like my glamorously imagined horror story. Somehow, the lack of everything traditional in a scary movie makes this much, much worse, and very real.
This is no deserted house with creaky floors and multiple staircases, no crafty nook where I can squeeze myself and hide out; no, I protected myself from that scenario when Tripp made me stop going places alone. It’s been a month since I went anywhere without a babysitter, anywhere that Marcus could corner me and hurt me, and because of that, I’m here in the bathroom with the harsh overhead lights blazing, illuminating the dark nightmare in black behind me. His cheekbones and chin are sharp, almost lethal points that jut from a face that has been shaved down to nothing but angry lines and dark circles around sunken eyes. His expression is cunning, almost amused as stares at me, his body so still I wonder he’s not made of stone. But no, there’s a small movement of his chest and his shoulders, and another, his breath coming as rapidly as mine though he hasn’t moved since he first walked in.
“Flow, it’s been a while.”
The panic that gripped me a moment ago is now working its way to full blown terror when he speaks. A shiver runs through me and I stand in frozen silence and wait for him to make his move, my mind unable to focus on anything except for him. I want to think, to break free of the fog that rolled over my brain the moment he walked in, but all I can hear is his breathing, the unsteadiness of it, and all I can see are his eyes, dark sunken pools of black that look at me as if I’m already dead. If I was scared two years ago when we were in this exact same position, it’s nothing compared to what I am now as I stare at the person I made a baby with and know he isn’t letting me go with a warning this time. Whatever Marcus has been running from his entire life has somehow become my fault, and he’s decided it’s time I pay my price.
“Marcus—” I say and turn toward him, but no words follow because he’s there, in front of me, grabbing my upper arms, squeezing so tightly that my breath whooshes out in one long hiss. Goddammit think, Rachel, I scold myself mentally, but it doesn’t work. Everything in me cowers, recoils away from him and like last time, I’m frozen, terrified, immobile and staring at him as he takes my control.
“I warned you,” he says and his voice is breathy, speedy, as if he’s been running for the past hour and can’t get enough wind. “I told you to get rid of it, I told you not to bring it around here. I told you to leave my fucking family alone but you didn’t listen. Why the fuck didn’t you listen? She’s taken everything,” he yells, bringing me to my toes as he grips my arms and pulls me closer. “I have nothing, Flow, nothing, because of you and that fucking baby. Why didn’t you listen?”
His fingers tighten and he shakes me this time, a hard yank that has my teeth snapping together and my joints popping. The stunning motion brings me back out of the fog and into reality and I shake my head no as the fear bubbles to a boil inside of me. Talk, tell him, make him see. Instructions swamp me and I take a breath, trying to calm myself enough to speak, to buy some time and try to reason. “Marcus, I told her no, I took full responsibility for Gr—for everything,” I say, remembering that he doesn’t know or care what her name is, and I don’t want to say it right now, not while the man who fathered her has me pressed up against the bathroom wall while he rages at me. “There are no rumors anymore, you have no responsibility or right to her. You’re free.”
Is that my voice? So small, so breathy? I try to swallow and realize I’m shaking, small shocking trembles that course through my entire body and make it difficult for me to act. Breathe, you have to breathe, Rachel, I think and focus on finding my center, on getting myself together and finding a way out. Because I know one thing: Marcus is gone, so far gone that he isn’t letting me out. “Marcus, let me go,” I croak out, but he shoves me against the wall, pushing his forearm securely against my throat. Spittle flies as he speaks next.
“She threatened to cut me off. Said the only way she’d acknowledge me was if I got clean and stopped embarrassing her. Thinks I can get that baby back if I go to fucking rehab. I don’t want a baby. I don’t fucking want a baby, do you hear me?”
I nod because he’s pushing up into my throat now and the pain along with the awkward arching of my neck has made it difficult to speak. My brain is scrambling to find a way to cope, to put something between me and him, to get myself away, but right now all I can feel is the blinding pain as it feeds my terror.
“I hear you,” I rasp, grasping at his arm. “I hear you, Marcus.”
“It’s too fucking late!” he screams and his forearm presses even harder against my windpipe. I hear someone outside of the door banging on the wood and saying my name, but I can’t yell out now that he’s cutting off my air. “It’s too fucking late,” he says again, only this time his voice is low, and I know he’s made his decision. His eyes are dark but they blaze into me as he chokes me, his intent as clear as if he said it aloud.
All of a sudden I’m thrown into the past and I’m in this bathroom, pregnant, alone, scared, and he’s holding me against the wall threatening me. Tears roll down my cheeks as my hands cup my belly protectively. I wonder how long it will be before someone finds me after he kills me.
Another sound at the door, someone shouting my name, and I snap back, my vision blurring as I blink back to the present, trying to clear the spots from my vision and find my center, find my fight instinct. Focusing on the burning pain in my throat, I use it as an anchor to keep me here and now. He’s screaming and pressing on me and I want to collapse, to just let him do what he wants and be done with me, to not be scared anymore, and then I think of Gracie. My sweet girl who interrupted me and showed me what life could be. My blonde angel who taught me how to stand on my own and live. Live, not die. Something about her wouldn’t let me die, even when I wanted to for all of those months.
No. No, not like this. My adrenaline surges and I shake my head, my eyes watering from the lack of oxygen, my throat burning as I try to breathe in. I will not go out like this, crying, trembling, letting him win…leaving Gracie and Tripp and everyone else. Fuck that.
The person outside of the door starts screaming and I hear a loud thud, like someone else is kicking at the door. The sound startles Marcus and he glances over, his grip loosening just enough that I can move. Clasping my hands together, I gulp air into my burning lungs and muster every bit of strength I have in reserve as I bring them up in a reverse hammer motion, snapping him under the chin so his head whips back and his grasp on me falters. I grab his shoulders and bring my knee forward, putting everything I have behind it as I meet his groin. I feel the breath whoosh out of him, but I’m already shoving him away as he collapses on me, yanking my arm from his grip as he attempts to hold onto it. My breath is pounding in my lungs and my vision is spotty as I fumble my way to the door, but I don’t stop. I can hear him moaning behind me and I think I hear him shift, but I don’t look anywhere but forward as I reach for the door.
Gripping the lock, I cry out when my fingers slip off of it, the panic I battled back only a moment ago seizing up and causing me to shake even more. I can hear people on the other side of the door and I want to call out, but I my throat is raw and clogged. I grip the lock and start to turn it just as he grabs my hair and yanks it. I scream, bringing my elbow back with enough force that I hear a crack as it connects with his rubs. He barely grunts, just keeps screaming.
“Fucking bitch. You don’t listen. Why won’t you listen?”
He’s crying now, tears streaming down his face as he yells at me. I hear the door crack the rest of the way and slam against the wall and with everything I have left, I ram my elbow back again, this time the pain causing him to release me so I can spin and follow it with a solid left hook to the jaw.
People are everywhere around us, some coming at me, some going for Marcus. I think I hear a familiar voice as someone hauls me up by the shoulders and shoves me toward the entrance, and then shouting, but my head is spinning and the world around me is threatening to go black. As much as I want to walk through the doorway and get out, I have to lean my shoulder against the wall and blink several times. I suck air in an out, trying not to heave as my vision keeps swirling.
Holyfuckingshit.
Someone takes my hand and I glance down through slitted eyes to see Lauren, her eyes wide and wet, her lips moving. I shake my head side-to-side trying to clear the dots blinking in front of me, but the movement only makes them worse. There’s a roaring in my ears that’s making it difficult to hear, and when I stumble, Lauren takes my arm and we slide down the wall to the floor together. I bring my knees up to my chest and lean my forehead on them. I can feel my head pulsing where it rapped the wall, and my knuckles are throbbing just like my throat. I breathe in tentatively and it feels like I swallowed fire, but I’m here. I’m here.
“Yeah, you’re here, Flow. You’re okay.”
I hear Lauren’s voice and realize I’ve spoken aloud. I look over at her and she holds my eyes, like she knows I can’t look at what’s around me.
“He’s coming. They had to get him off of Marcus and hold him back while they bring Marcus to his feet, but once they get him out of here, Tripp will be inside. He’ll be here,” she says and I feel my eyes prick. Seeing this, she continues quickly, the words tumbling out one after the other. “He kicked the door in. I saw Marcus go inside,” she explains, talking, still talking, keeping me calm with her words, her steady gaze. “I almost left you there, almost told myself you were fine, but I knew better. So I started banging on the door, and then Tripp showed up and he kicked it in right as you were grabbing to come out.” The people restraining Marcus bring him to his feet and Lauren’s fingers tense on mine, her eyes never wavering, never faltering. “You got yourself away, Flow, you saved yourself.” Her voice is hard, a reminder of my strength and I slide my gaze from hers to Marcus as he’s hauled out. His head is hanging, his shoulders slumped. I can’t see his face, but everything that was strong and dominant only moments ago is now broken, defeated, gone. Except for me. I’m here.
I find Lauren’s face again, latching onto her gaze that remains steady on mine. “Thank you,” I whisper and she nods. Then we both hear it, my name, a rushed expulsion of breath and pounding feet and he’s there, his face replacing Lauren’s, his hands framing my face, his thumbs sweeping over my cheekbones.
“Rachel,” he says again, this time without the panic, without the rush. It’s tender, painful, as if his words will hurt me if he says them too loudly. When he presses his lips to my forehead, everything that held me together until now disappears and I break, folding into him, grabbing on, my hands fisting at the back of his t-shirt, my face pressing to his chest as he crouches down and cradles me there. “I’ve got you. You got away, Rachel. You’re here and I’ve got you. I love you so much, I won’t leave you alone. I’m here, Rachel,” he says and I can hear the tightness in his voice, the struggle.
I nod, trusting him, and I wrap myself around him as he lifts me, sweeping his arm under my legs and bringing me to his chest, talking to me the whole time he turns and leaves the bathroom. Someone else says his name, and then mine, but I don’t look up and I don’t say anything. I don’t try to stop the tears as they fall. Instead, I rest my head on the crook of his shoulder and let him hold me up.
Thirty
I’ve been sitting through my graduation for almost an hour and I’ve discovered there’s really nothing about it that’s entertaining other than knowing there’s eventually got to be an end (please, dear god, let there be an end). My gown is stuck to my legs, my ass is numb, and the idiot next to me is snoring while Kennedy gives her valedictorian speech. I try to listen, shoving Sir Snory when his head bobs my way. It’s hot enough in here without someone’s breath making it worse, especially when said mouth breather doesn’t appear to be all that big on brushing his teeth. Jesus, teenagers are gross.
A few rows ahead I can make out Tripp’s profile. We’re seated in alphabetical order, Katie at the front, him in the middle, and me in the back, the rows of graduates shaped like a horseshoe because there are so many of us and the gym is so small. Tripp’s row is angled so that it sits facing the side of the stage, while mine faces it head on, making it an easy angle for me to watch him. As if he senses me, Tripp turns his head just a fraction to the side and our eyes meet. We stare for a minute, our eyes locked as we do our smoldering I’m-taking-your-clothes-off-in-my-head look, which reminds me of the other night when he did just that.
We went down to campus and began searching the outskirts for a house with enough room for the four of us and Gracie, and somehow in that time he talked me into the backseat, where he promptly talked me out of what I was wearing. (Whisperer, I tell you, not that I’m really working on my immunity to his powers; seeing him with no shirt is pretty amazing—lose the rest of his clothes? There are no words.) After we’d done all the damage we could do and struggled back into our clothing, we wandered the streets hand-in-hand, discarding any options that looked as though they belonged to a fraternity or just a really dirty group of people.
“Gracie’s not living somewhere that’s permanently damaged by smoke and germs,” I told him and he nodded his agreement. “And she’s not living next to someone who’s throwing ragers all day and night and bringing shady characters around.”
“Newer definitely, hopefully one that has only been inhabited before by clean little engineering nerds who spent more time at the library than home.”
We found five potentials and sent the addresses to Tanner and Katie, who were suspiciously similar in their responses. On our way home, Tripp pulled over to the side of the road before we got to my house and turned the engine off. Turning toward me, his beautiful face illuminated by the streetlight coming through the windshield, his eyes were heavy and serious.
“Are you doing okay, Rachel?”
“Yeah, why? You trying to tell me it wasn’t as good for you?” I teased but he just shook his head. “Tripp, what’s going on?”
“It just occurred to me that there’s a lot more going on for you than there is for me, with the trial and the likelihood that Marcus gets off with counseling and probation, which means he’ll be around here. Then you have summer workouts and tryouts coming up.” He blew out a breath and took my hands, lacing our fingers together. “I just want to make sure you’re not regretting staying here when you could have gone somewhere with more of guarantee for volleyball, and somewhere further away from Marcus and his family. Somewhere new.”
It’s odd being on the other side of insecurity. Until now, it’s been me worrying that Tripp would need more, that he would wake up one day and realize that he had wasted his younger years balancing a girl and a baby that took more time and energy than any one eighteen-year-old should have to give. Looking at him in that moment, his eyes heavy with worry, his face showing all of the insecurity he was feeling, I realized that love didn’t just make you happy, it made everything bigger, including the fear of what if. What if she regrets staying? What if he regrets choosing me? What if one or both of us isn’t happy? What if we can’t make it work? The questions that seize up to grab you are endless, because along with all of the good, we wait for the bad, it’s how we’ve been trained. Not now, though, not anymore. I have my fantasy, and reality can fuck off because I’m keeping him.
Leaning forward I kissed him, slowly at first, our mouths meeting, tongues clashing, until his fingers were at my hips, pulling me closer, my arms wrapped around his ne
ck. “Thank you, for thinking of me, for caring,” I said as I pulled away. “But with or without Marcus and his drama, being here, being with you and our families? That’s what’s best for Gracie. And for me.”
I saw the relief cross his face right before he rested his brow against mine. “I love you, Rachel.”
“Ah, you’re such a sissy,” I teased, but I gave him back the words, just as I gave him everything else. For Tripp, it seems, I’d give anything. And seeing how terrified he was in that moment, I know he feels the same.
Now, on a day when we’re leaving behind part of our past, I incline my chin at him across the gym, knowing he’s remembering the same thing, that we’re together and today doesn’t mark the end like it does for so many people, but a new chapter, and then he winks and turns back to the stage. I smile and do the same.
Kennedy’s still blathering on about the future and what it means. Since she isn’t showing, and since there were no rumors circulating about her, I gather she’s not pregnant anymore, which means her future is as open as it gets. I tune her out again and turn the other direction to find Gracie and my mom in the stands. It’s raining out, so the football field graduation was cancelled and we were all hauled inside to the gymnasium, each person getting a ticket with a designated amount of seats for family. I got four, so my dad, Stacy and Nick are sitting next to my mom, and for a minute, I watch as they play pass the baby.
As usual, Gracie’s loving the attention and playing them ruthlessly. Once one stops bouncing her or lacks in their entertainment value, she reaches for another. At one and a half, she’s a pro at running the show and getting what she wants. She’s turning into quite the terror, and I’m as grateful as I am terrified that she’s going to be exactly like me.
Life Interrupted Page 25