When Mr. Yerdin — I refused to call him Dad — and Dwayne walked outside a couple of hours later, I didn’t rise to see them off. Instead, I stared at the table. Through the dining room window I saw them standing by the cars talking. Dwayne looked bored. They were probably discussing my demise. My mother escaped into the kitchen and turned on the faucet to fill the sink. I rose to help her. We worked in silence for several minutes. She kept looking at me as if she wanted me to say something, but I ignored her. I didn’t want to talk about it.
Finally she spoke. “This will be good for you. Dwayne is a nice young man.”
The finality of what was about to happen hit me hard when she spoke those words. I nodded, avoiding her gaze. My voice wavered as I spoke.
“Do you mind if I go out to my greenhouse? I need to finish replanting my Kaisers.”
She sighed and frowned. “I guess.”
The spring air cooled my face. My father’s laugh drifted around the garage. I leaned against the wall of the house, not wanting to move across the lawn until they left. I knelt down to change my shoes. The laces would not untie so I ripped off my shoes and socks. The urge to scream, to run, to tear my skin off my body overwhelmed me.
The air suddenly shifted and my skin crawled with what felt like maggots. I smelled rotting garbage. As I rose, I discovered Dwayne standing next to me.
His putrid breath permeated the air. He ran a hand down my back, rested it above my tailbone and pulled me close. The warmth of his body repulsed me and I could feel his grimy hand on my back, grateful that he was only touching my clothes and not my bare skin.
“What are you hiding underneath all those clothes?” His hand slid down. I struggled against his body, but he held me tight. “Course you’d look better with your hair down.” He grabbed hold of my braid, caressing the tight weave. He slid his finger up my braid and rested his hand on the back of my neck, drawing my face close to his. His fingers were so cold, yet they burned the skin he touched. I squeezed my eyes shut in anticipation of a forced kiss, but then pain shot through my scalp as he grabbed a fist full of hair and pulled. My eyes watered.
Dwayne held fast to the hairs near my scalp and yanked with such ferocity that he pulled out a chunk of hair. Agony tore through my head. I clawed at his hand that still held fast to the hair still attached to my head. Should I scream?
“Dwayne, please,” I begged, wondering if there was any way out of this. Would this be my life for the next fifty years?
“Please, what?” he sneered.
“Let me go.” What had my father gotten me into?
“Listen up you little—”
“Dwayne, come!” A voice interrupted him from the other side of the garage.
“Comin’,” he called back. He released me and I fell to the ground. He laughed, sauntering back around the garage.
I stood slowly, trying to ignore my throbbing head. Voices floated from around the garage and I knew I needed to remain silent. But the pain. I wanted to scream and cry and pound the ground. I clenched my sides and bit my tongue until I tasted blood. Finally, tires crunched down the driveway and the house door slammed. I was alone.
I stepped gingerly into the grass. I hadn’t gone barefoot in years. We were always to be covered, from the neck to the wrists and down to the toes. On a woman bare skin was too tempting for the man. Maybe that was why Dwayne felt he needed to touch me because he saw my bare feet. I’d have to be more careful in the future. The grass poked at the tender skin. I hoped that would drive my attention away from the pain in my head and my heart, but the short walk to the greenhouse didn’t yield any thorns.
Once inside, my vision blurred and the colors mixed together. Almost instantly, the pain in my head and the garbage smell disappeared. Instead, I was rewarded with the smell of hundreds of blooming roses. I blinked and focused. On top of the table sat a clear empty vase that I had intended to fill with buds from my Granada roses and bring them to my room. Instead, I wanted to snatch up the vase and throw it against the sidewall, then I remembered the Kaisers. They were the last roses my grandma gave me and she’d had that bush for several years before she passed it onto me. They were my favorite roses and they only bloomed once a year, if that. Sometimes two or three years would pass with no blooms. Now I’d never see them bloom again.
I turned on them.
Tears streamed down my face as I tore the buds off and ripped away the leaves. I turned the pot over and the rich soil poured out over my feet and skirt. I shredded the stalks as sobs fought their way out. Blood trickled down my palms. I welcomed the hurt. The pain. The punishment.
I continued to destroy my beloved Kaisers until a bloom from the hanging Dream Weaver fell in front of my nose. I inhaled deeply. I calmed and a wondrous sleep fell over me. Everything was blessedly quiet and I could taste honey on my lips. In my head visions of far away places with huge roaring waterfalls played like a movie.
But I wasn’t quite asleep.
My eyes would not open and my hands would not move. I could hear everything. Footsteps shuffled around me. The agony in my head disappeared and my stomach stilled. Thoughts raced through my brain but no emotion came. Only peace. The swishing of a broom distracted me. If only I could move, but not even my pinky toe would budge. My eyes refused to listen to my commands to open. Hours passed.
Eventually, a finger traced along my jaw and the touch did not burn. It tingled a bit, but didn’t burn. How strange to be touched but not hurt. The skin was rough, like someone who worked with his hands. A gardener perhaps. Someone who shared my love of roses. I shivered and waited. This must be a dream. A strange fantasy that my unconscious mind thought would be a good idea of a sick joke.
A warm cloth gently cleaned my wounds from the rose thorns. The pain disappeared and the gardener left my side. I tried to sigh, but nothing happened. Then a hand picked up one of my feet and slowly washed away the dirt. He worked with such gentleness. I wished I could awaken and see who would take such care of me. No one had done so in the last eight years. And still wasn’t, because this was a dream, right?
Strong arms slid under my legs and neck and picked me up. My head rested against his heart. It beat fast. His muscles rippled underneath my cheek. He moved silently out the door and I instantly missed the smell of roses.
A door creaked open and I heard the whoosh of an air conditioner. We moved with complete silence. He laid me down with care on my bed. At least I hoped it was my bed. He moved me under the blankets and placed my hands across my chest.
Then, he kissed me.
Feather light were his lips, petals of a rose resting on mine. So different from the calloused hands. The kiss lasted only seconds but was soft and deliberate, leaving me longing for more. It tasted sweet, kind of like the honey but with a touch of cinnamon. And I could hear soft music playing, the kind that makes you weep with happiness. It took away all my pain. My body came alive and my fingers tingled. Life took on meaning. This man, whoever he was, woke something raw inside of me. A taste of something I’d never known before. Something exquisite and sweet. But terrifying.
From the time that I could walk, I remember sitting in my Grandma’s greenhouse surrounded by roses. The first rose she gave me was a Ruth Alexander. She said the rose would teach me patience. And it did. Since it only bloomed once a year, I had to work my tail off for what seemed like a small reward. But the brilliant orange blooms and divine smell were worth the wait. From that moment, roses became my best friends.
THE NEXT MORNING THE MEMORIES came slowly. Dwayne. My tantrum. The kiss. Must have been a dream. I’d been exercising my imagination a little too much lately. The bizarre evening couldn’t possibly have happened. I stretched my arms and shivered in the cool air. My eyes were unwilling to open, my mind still lost in the exquisite kiss. Might as well hold on to the good parts of the dream. I licked my lips and tasted honey. I smiled. Then a crash came from the kitchen. Time to get up.
I stumbled across the cold wooden floor to my dresser. On
the top sat a clear bowl filled with water. Six rose heads in full bloom floated in the dish. I carefully scooped a rose out of the bowl. I stuck my nose in the bloom. Strawberries and Pears. These were no ordinary roses. They were Kaiser Wilhelms.
My Kaiser Wilhelm wasn’t due to bloom for another week and it belonged in a vase with long stems and a few leaves. Not a bowl. So where did these come from? Placing the rose back in the dish, I took a few deep breaths, attempting to clear my head. The last thing I remembered clearly was dinner. My father announced I was getting married. To Dwayne. And then I snapped and had delusions of a mysterious man who would rescue me from a marriage to a psychopath. Plus, I tore up my Kaisers. With my bare hands.
I inspected my arms. They should bear the marks of my tantrum. Not a scratch, just the light freckles and bleach blond hair. The dark roots were beginning to show. Soon my mother would set me down and re-dye my hair. I didn’t even remember what my natural color should be. Mother never let the roots get long enough for me to see. I tried sometimes to remember, but my father destroyed all of our pictures and my natural color eluded me. As Crusaders we were not allowed to be anything but blond. No one knew that my natural color was darker.
The roses in the bowl were definitely Kaisers. But how?
Perhaps Mother found my greenhouse a mess and thought that these roses would cheer me up. I snorted. Like anything would cheer me up after the news I received. Except she’d never set a foot in my greenhouse. Ever. Plus my mother would never do anything that nice. She could be crueler than father when she wanted.
Twenty minutes later, I scrambled out the door and down the rocky path, a piece of toast in my hand. School was the only refuge I’d had from my prison of a home. Most of the girls at Crusaders are homeschooled, but after Grandma died I heard my parents talking about the attention it’d bring if they suddenly pulled me from school so I got to keep going.
I’d been riding the bus for eleven years, but my nose still wrinkled every time I got on. It smelled like dirty sneakers from the girls’ locker room. Curse words flew freely and so did the occasional fist. The bus jerked forward while I walked to the middle where I sat in the cracked green seat by myself. No one bothered me.
Except five minutes later, someone sat next to me. I shifted my eyes so I could see her but not appear like I was looking at her. The girl had a willowy body barely covered in a bright pink sundress. Her heart-shaped face was surrounded by hair that burst from her head like orange corkscrew noodles and her baby blue eyes sparkled with excitement. She looked a little crazy, but then I wasn’t naturally a good judge of character. I thought for a moment of what kind of rose she’d be. Something orange for sure like an Ardinada or a Lady Glencora.
“You look scared,” the girl said. Her voice had a sand papery quality to it.
“No,” I mumbled and looked away, a technique I learned early on that usually worked. For me, friends were on the invisible forbidden list.
“Okay then, I’m Ruth. I’m new and super nervous. I’m a sophomore, what are you?” She stuck out her hand and waited.
It would be rude not to answer her. Plus in the few minutes since she sat next to me I’d forgotten about what my father wanted me to do. I could use the distraction.
“Same.” But I didn’t shake her hand. No need to encourage her.
She dropped her voice and her hand thankfully and whispered, “I just moved into a new foster home.”
I nodded, not sure why she was confiding in me since we’d only met minutes ago and I was trying very hard not to look at her. Then again, I’d never met a kid who was in foster care. My parents had always instructed me never to tell the teachers or counselors anything about them or I’d get taken away where I could only eat frozen peas and would get beaten with a paddle every night. Which I suppose wasn’t that much different from my current situation, but at least I knew what to expect. Plus foster parents wouldn’t let me grow my roses.
“Why?” I asked, suddenly curious. I kept my eyes pasted to the window watching oaks and redbuds fly by. My hand rested on the cool glass.
“My pop, he did some bad stuff to me and I told one of my friends, so off I went to foster care. My pop, he went to jail.”
I took in her fair skin and bright green eye shadow. “You don’t look beat up.”
“Should I?”
I nodded. “You’re in foster care. Everyone knows you get beat in foster care.”
She smiled. “Oh no, it’s great. I’m the only one there and they treat me real good. See, my foster mom, she took me to get a pedicure.” She held out her painted red toes.
She was quiet after that and I pondered her predicament. She was in foster care with a mom who took her to get pedicures. The idea was almost too much for me to comprehend. For years I’d imagined a foster home mother to be a fat version of my own but quick to take the wooden spoon to a backside. Mother never once hit me, but her words left enough damage.
As we exited the bus, I walked away from her hoping she wouldn’t follow.
She did anyway. “Come with me to the office.”
I almost said no, not wanting to risk the fallout, but I looked at her with her bouncing hair and I faltered. She had something I wanted, something I’d never allowed myself to want until now. She had freedom from her dad. So I took her to the office and made my first friend in eight years. In my mind we were already having whispered sleepovers and painting each other’s nails. Then I shook my head. No way would Mother ever let me paint my nails.
Ruth and I slipped quietly through the crowded lunchroom that smelled of body odor and pancakes. We both got breakfast. I followed Ruth towards an empty table. It seemed a bit odd that she was the new girl and yet I followed her.
An elbow jammed into my back. I stumbled forward and dropped my tray spilling French toast and sausage all over the floor.
“Oh, shit, I’m sorry,” a voice said behind me.
I looked up and saw a very handsome boy smiling down at me. He had coarse brown hair that curled around his ears and it looked like he hadn’t shaved in a few days, but he had a smile to die for. I forced a smile back as I knelt down to clean up the mess.
“It’s okay,” I muttered.
He helped me clean up and handed me back my tray. For a minute I debated just taking the tray back to my table and eating the food anyway. Dinner last night was hardly any food. Usually I ate better at school than I did at home anyway so I ate everything I could at school. But the French toast was folded in half and I could see a few hairs stuck to the sausages. I sighed and dumped the tray in the garbage. I found Ruth sitting at a table nibbling on a few grapes.
“Where’s your food?”
“Someone ran into me and it spilled everywhere. I’ll have to wait for lunch.”
“Here, you can have some of mine. I don’t like sausage.”
I reached for the fork when a tray appeared in front of me. The same boy stood there with that stupid grin on his face again.
“I really am sorry, Naomi. I’ll be more careful next time.”
I stared at the food for a few seconds. Nobody was that nice to me. Ever. I looked up, but all I saw was the back of his head as he walked back through the crowded lunch room and sat at a table by the door with a bunch of seniors.
“He was hot. How do you know him?” Ruth asked, bringing my attention back to my own table.
“I don’t.”
“He knew your name.”
I shrugged but smiled to myself anyway.
After breakfast, Ruth and I joined the throng of people moving out of the cafeteria and into first period. Boys stared appreciatively at Ruth’s long legs and visible cleavage. It irritated me, she really shouldn’t show so much skin. She didn’t seem to notice. Instead she studied her schedule and chattered on.
“Oh, what if I get lost? And who is this Mrs. Darkworth? She sounds scary.”
I snorted.
“She’s funny,” I began when a hand closed around the back of my arm and the taste
of breakfast was replaced with the taste of cough syrup and the sound of the cafeteria became the sound of a thousand fingernails on a chalkboard.
A voice whispered in my ear. “Come, meet my friends.”
I blinked and looked up. The pinched face of Dwayne Yerdin stared down at me. His eyes were blank and his mouth was twisted into a sneer. My attempt at suppressing the memory of last night shattered. The cough syrup taste grew stronger and I nearly covered my ears to drown out the noise. The crowd pressed in around us. Ruth continued walking unaware that I was no longer beside her.
“I don’t want to meet your friends.” I jerked my arm a little to free it, but he held fast. I strained my neck around to look for Ruth, but she was gone.
“I thought in light of our little agreement, you might be interested in meeting them.” His breath smelled like rotting tomatoes and kitty litter. I cowered away and nervously moved my braid so that it ran along the front of my white blouse and not the back. The memories became clearer.
I shook my head, this could not be happening. The kids around us stood so close, even if I could free my arm, I would not be able to make a quick getaway. Trapped again.
“You were so agreeable last night, I think I may need to have a talk with your father. I signed up for a girl who would listen to me and not question what I wanted.” Of course, my father. He wouldn’t be happy with me if I disobeyed Dwayne.
Dwayne pulled me over to his group of loser friends. He left his hand on the back of my arm where there was a layer of cloth protecting me from his skin. Thank goodness he didn’t try to force me to hold his hand. The crowd parted easily for him. Probably because of the stench. He put his arm around me and tugged me close. I held my breath because he had either forgotten or just didn’t bother to put on deodorant. His faded yellow t-shirt had a brown stain across his stomach. It looked a little like dried blood.
“See, I told ya I had a girlfriend.” He used his other hand to brush his greasy blond hair out of his eyes.
The Thorn Chronicles-Books 1-4: Kissed, Destroyed, Secrets, and Lies Page 2