“Don’t even fucking even say that.” My voice shakes. It sounds even more fragile than hers.
Her beautiful blue eyes blink up at me. They’re red and black around the edges but they look empty, as if they’ve never cried. “Why? Because it’s true?”
Because I’d fucking die with you. Because every part of me worth existing would die. “Just don’t. God, why do you ha—”
I stop myself just in time from saying it, but my mouth burns as if I had.
She smiles, slowly. That cheery dimple in her left cheek shows up. For some reason seeing it there on that face full of self-loathing kills me. “What were you gonna ask me, Trev?”
I swallow.
“You were gonna ask why I hate myself so much, right?”
I shut my eyes. “Is that why you want me to hurt you? Because you hate yourself?”
“Maybe,” she whispers, “but mostly, I just don’t want to be controlled by the fear anymore. Then again, that could be just another excuse. I don’t know.”
Something in the way I’m looking at her makes her glance away. Her nostrils flare, slightly, as she holds her torso.
“You need to talk to someone, Sasha. I can’t do that for you.”
She tilts her head. Hair falls over her face, masking it entirely. “Yeah.”
“Maybe you think those circles at the Women’s Center are stupid, but they’re trying. They’re dealing with it the best they can.”
“I know. So am I.”
I can’t stand seeing her like this. My hands itch to touch her. You could do it, a dark voice says inside me. You could pretend to do it, but just hold her instead. Once that insidious thought took hold, it was impossible to get it out. I had to remind myself that holding her was only what I wanted. She didn’t want me. Not really. She just wanted someone to force her…
I glance back out over the lot. The air’s oddly warm for autumn. I’m still not used to how fast it gets dark. “I think I should go.”
“Trev, don’t tell anyone.”
We were back to that. Of course. “I won’t. I can’t tell anyone anyways. Left my phone at the studio, remember?”
“But when you get it back—”
“Don’t worry. I’m not the person who should be telling people.” I get up and reach into my pocket. I run my forefinger over the serrated edge of my house key as I take three steps.
“You said you wouldn’t leave.”
My gut contracts as if it’s been hit.
“You said you wouldn’t, and I said you would. I wish you hadn’t said anything.”
My heel falls heavy on the first stair.
“Trev, I’m sorry.”
My throat tightens. That’s what I should say, what I want to say. Why is it coming from her? What the fuck does she have to be sorry about? I reach for the railing and stop, one foot on the walkway, the other on the first step, while a few fruit flies circle my face.
Her door closes. I hadn’t heard her move at all this time.
I look up at the darkening blue sky. You can already see the moon but not any stars, not in this smog. I used to think that was so strange when I was really little that the moon could be out at the same time as the sun. Well, just barely the same time. The sun was almost gone.
I stand there until its completely set. A woman carrying two plastic grocery bags gives me a strange look as she boogies up the staircase, but I still don’t move. The sky is really beautiful, it’s so fucking beautiful, and Sasha can’t see it. She’s in a dark room with the blinds closed—in a dark room that only gets darker and darker and darker while I’m out here, looking at this beautiful sky while she’s alone.
What the fuck am I doing? Why aren’t I with her now? She needs me. She was afraid I would leave if she told, and that’s exactly what I did, right after I told her that nothing could make me leave.
I believed that promise when I made it. Every part of me believed it. I couldn’t even imagine a world where it wasn’t true. I couldn’t imagine…
Hurt me. I want you to hurt me, Trev.
Panic animates my legs. I’m down the stairs, on the gravel walkway, eking open my car door so I don’t hit the little red Honda next to me. Tia’s gears groan groggily as she lurches to life. I get out of Sasha’s parking lot as fast as Tia allows, wanting to put as much space between me and whatever the fuck that was back there as I can.
I don’t even make it a block before I pull over on the side of the road.
You think you’re protecting me by not doing this? I hurt all the time. Everything hurts. I don’t want to give the pain power over me anymore. I don’t want to feel anything. Help me.
Maybe I should go back. Hold her in that way that makes her cry. Lock her in my embrace in that dark room where we’re both trapped by our private despairs: all the things we want to say to each other that don’t really mean anything; thinking of all the things we want to do or change but can’t.
Help me.
But she doesn’t want my help. Not really. She wants me to…
Hurt me. I want you to hurt me.
My throat contracts. I feel like I’m gonna puke. I grip the wheel as my stomach muscles cramp.
No.
No.
No.
I can’t.
I will never do that.
Hurt me.
I would do almost anything for her. Why does she want that? Why won’t she let me help her? Love her?
Hurt me.
Why can’t I get her voice out?
Hurt me.
Why won’t it shut up?
Fucking shut up!
Hurt me.
I said shut up.
Hurt me.
Stop.
Just stop. Just fucking stop.
Please, sweetheart. Stop.
Hurt me. Hurt me. Hurt me.
I slam my forehead into the wheel and cry.
***
Trevor
I still haven’t moved. Clock’s busted, so I have no idea how much time has passed. Don’t care either. I’ve settled into this strange state of numbness. I know I’m angry. I know I just want to cry again like a whiny bitch. But I can’t bring myself to act on anything. I don’t even move. Cars file past leisurely at 25mph and I just look ahead at the gravel before me illuminated by Tia’s headlights.
I’m sitting there like that when I see her car breeze past.
I don’t why I saw her. Maybe that’s just how attune to her I am, or maybe I was looking for her the whole time, I don’t know. My hand turns the key and the car rumbles to life before I’m even aware that I’m moving.
Tia’s acting up even more than before; she’s always been a little jealous of other girls, kind of like Christine except instead of trying to kill them she just makes both me and her look like such trashy shit that no chick with any shred of integrity would get near us. Sasha has to hear me rumbling behind her, but she doesn’t try to lose me. Instead, she turns on her blinker and turns onto the road that leads out of town.
“Where the fuck are you going, Sasha?” I whisper.
About ten minutes later she pulls into Haven, a low-key bar frequented by farmers.
I stop the car and kill the lights.
What the fuck is she doing here? Haven is an okay place. Drinks are priced about right, the locals always have fun stories, and a lot of tone-deaf people show up for karaoke on Thursdays.
Sasha is tone-deaf, and it isn’t Thursday.
She pops open her door. One long, beautiful leg laced-up with fuck-me boots pops out.
Oh shit.
She gets out and pulls on the hem of her little red dress, making sure the slip of fabric is covering her ass—well, covering as much of it as it can. She spins around to grab her purse, giving me a good look at her tits all pushed up and begging to be grabbed. Then, she turns and walks straight through the cowboy doors into Haven.
I watch the doors swing.
What just happened? I did just see that, didn’t I? I don’t know what she’s thinking.
I don’t know what the fuck she’s thinking. What the hell is she doing here? She can’t be doing what I think she’s doing.
I glance at the dashboard and panic. I have no idea how much time passed from the time she got out of the car to the time she stepped inside the bar. Not enough time for her to walk past the kitchen where the cook always blasts Bryan Adams to the bathroom in the back. Not enough time for her to already be on her knees beneath the Blue Ribbon analogue clock next to the toilet that always smells like burnt fries and piss.
Yeah right. It’s enough time. If I was sitting at the bar and a girl looking like that sat down next to me and said let’s go, I’d fuck her. I wouldn’t even mind being serenaded by Bryan Adams. Hell, thirty seconds was enough time.
I’m about to bust out of the car, walk in there and carry her out over my shoulder when she emerges with some chubby hick who has his hand on her ass.
I stop breathing. Stop moving.
The hick tilts his hat down, opens the passenger door of his pickup, and holds her hand while she hops inside.
***
Trevor
They’re easy to follow. The truck is white and the left tail-light is out. They move on the winding roads next to the river further away from town. It’s quiet. Isolated.
I have no idea what I’m doing. I feel like a stalker. I think I actually am stalking her. Who follows a chick around while she and some guy look for a place to fuck? And what the hell am I gonna do when they get there?
I try not to think about it.
Tia’s not making as much noise. Maybe she knows my heart’s breaking into a thousand pieces and feels sorry for me, or maybe she’s just tired. I don’t know. All I know is Sasha’s in that truck and it’s going nowhere good.
Does she still not know I’m following her? Or maybe she knows I’m following and she’s still doing this to punish me.
They pull off the road into the little lot people use to park when they go hiking. I kill the engine and watch the light of their car wind down the road. Then, I get out.
I crouch low and keep just off the road as I make my way towards them in the dark. I’m not thinking, that much is obvious. All I can hear are frogs croaking and the low hum of the asshole’s pickup.
I really don’t like the looks of this.
The truck’s lights are still on. I see her silhouette hop out and walk to the front of the truck. The guy gets out slower. He adjusts his cowboy hat and says something with a big smile on his face that I want to punch off so hard that he won’t have anything else to smile about for the rest of his life.
Then he puts his hands around her neck, shoving her up on the truck while the other hand pushes up her skirt, and suddenly I don’t give a fuck why I’m here or whether I have a right to be or not ‘cause I’m sure as shit not gonna sit and watch this.
Fucker doesn’t even notice as I stomp forward. His tongue’s slides across Sasha’s perfect cheek, leaving a trail of saliva that shines in the moonlight. She looks forward, her eyes dead, her expression blank as he rubs his body up against her, too fucking intoxicated by the feel of her to notice she’s not into it.
“So you want it rough, baby?” he groans, slamming his pelvis into hers. There’s a jingle as he fiddles with the belt.
Her glazed over eyes wander over the distance. She looks lost, like she’s not there but someplace else. Like everything that’s happening is happening to some other girl and she’s just watching. “Yes. I want it rough.”
That’s it. I rush forward.
The second she locks her gaze to mine, she comes back to life. Her eyes sharpen. They’re shocked at first, and then, seconds later, ashamed. I hate seeing that there. I hate that she should feel, for even one second, ashamed. And I know that whatever happens I have to stop this now.
I grab his shirt and yank him off her. The guy babbles something as I swing him around and clock him in the face. He’s a big guy, but he goes down fast. They always do.
“What the fuck?” he growls, holding his jaw. It doesn’t take him long to recover. As I start forward for the second hit, he barrels forward, slamming me into his truck.
Pain shoots through my back, and then my sides as he lands a kidney punch. I bring up my knee, slamming it into his jaw and kicking his head back. His grip on my sides loosens. It’s all I need. I bring my heel down hard on his incept and punch him, again, on the other side of his face.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” he hells. “What the fuck?”
“You get the fuck away from her.” I can barely think. All I want to do is keep hitting. My fingers twitch. Anger courses through me, making my vision blur, and the distant sounds of frogs echoes in my mind above the static sound of white noise.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Sasha’s holding her arms across her chest, protectively. “Why are you here?”
I’m so angry that I’d forgotten, for a second, why I was here in the first place. And then I lock in on her wet lips. Her dress is still partially pushed up her thigh. Her eyes are filled with fear and something else I don’t want to recognize Then I remember why I’d forgotten; I didn’t want to remember because if I’d remembered for just one second I would have fucking killed him.
“Let’s go, Sasha.”
Her bottom lip trembles but her voice is firm. “No.”
“I’m not asking again.”
“Hey asshole.” The asshole below me shouts. He holds his busted lip in his hand. Blood leaks between his fingers. “She said she didn’t want to fucking go with you.”
What, now I’m the bad guy here? There’s a lot I want to say to that, but I don’t. I’m tired and angry and I want to go home and forget this day ever happened.
“Sasha,” I warn.
“No.”
“Don’t make me ask again,” I tell her through clenched teeth.
“I hate you, Trev.”
“Great. That makes two of us.”
“I fucking hate you.”
I turn to face her. “You think after everything that’s happened today that I care about something like that?”
She flinches.
A sick, self-righteous satisfaction fills me. Good. She should be disgusted with herself. She should be angry. And then I remember what she told me—what happened to her—every single fucked-up thing she’s been through—and I just want someone to fucking shoot me.
Well the guy on the ground doesn’t have a gun, but he does have a mean left hook. I hear a rustle in the grass and turn just in time for him to clock me in my left temple.
I stagger and throw up my arm, blocking the next strike. God damn this redneck hits hard.
Sasha starts screaming god knows what as I leap forward, pummeling his stomach.
He must be super pissed. I don’t blame him. I would have been too if I’d been interrupted just as I was about to fuck a girl as hot as Sasha. But that doesn’t mean I’m not gonna ruin him.
He hits harder than me. He’s beefier. Probably stronger. But the guy doesn’t protect his face. He rushes forward as if pure mass will smother any attempt to block him.
I’ll admit it, I got into fights occasionally when I was younger. Haven’t for a while and I’m definitely not a professional, but I don’t have to be to counter his attacks. Soon he’s back on the ground with my elbow pressed to his throat.
“You gonna stop now?” I ask as he squirms beneath me.
“Leave her alone,” he spits blood on my cheek. “She said no.”
For a second my grip on him falters, and I’m rewarded with a knee to my lower back. Fuck this. I’m not gonna hurt her. I’d never hurt her. I push my elbow into his neck, harder.
“Stop, Trev.” The soothing, feminine voice cuts through my thoughts. “It’s alright. Just stop.”
I feel her hands on my shoulders rubbing me softly. I smell her jasmine perfume. “Let him go. He’s done nothing wrong.”
I allow her to pull me to my feet. The guy sits up and kicks himself back across the gravel to his truc
k. “You her boyfriend or something?”
I glare at him.
He spits blood, wipes his mouth, then glares right back. “Stupid cheating bitch.”
I jolt forward, fists clenched, but Sasha stops me. “He hasn’t done anything wrong.”
The guy wipes his mouth with his hand. “Well fuck me,” he mutters as he opens the door to his truck. Sasha and I step back as he speeds off.
Sasha turns to me. “I guess this means you’re my ride home.”
Chapter 4
Sasha
Trevor grips the wheel and grinds his teeth. It’s an old habit, and one I wish he didn’t have. It can’t be good for his enamel.
I glance at the tape player. “Still don’t have a CD or mp3 player?”
He sighs. Readjusts his grip on the wheel. “Not in the car.”
After five minutes of not talking I get tired of listening to him breathe slowly through his nose, so I press down on one of the big, black buttons on the old tape player.
Smooth, beautiful singing fills the car for a few moments before Trevor reaches over and slams it off.
The silence startles me, as well as the subtle, barely controlled violence he used to preform such a mundane task. I press my knees together, squeezing my hands between my thighs.
That familiar, uncanny silence slips between us once again.
“Was that Anggun?” I ask softly.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You don’t want to talk about music?”
“No.”
“Well, alright.” I drum my fingers on the door. “Let’s talk about what just went down back there, then.”
He works his jaw a moment before answering. “Don’t.”
I open my mouth but I can’t think of a damn thing to say. Not one goddamn thing.
His eyes are on the road. He seems to be breathing louder. What I just did got under his skin.
I hadn’t meant to do that.
As we get back into the suburbs, the trees thin out. Every few blocks we pass a lone car—people who work the night shift; teens trying to make their curfew; philandering husbands; people who had to stay late at work.
You can’t see the wooden sign for my building at night. It’s a pretty shitty place. I wouldn’t have looked at twice when I was with Brian, but it’s cheap, relatively clean, and quiet. Right now I value those things more than I ever thought I would.
Pray for Darkness Page 3