Against the Wall

by Jill Sorenson

  I have to be strong now.

  I move in slow increments, inch by inch. There’s dried blood on Chip’s knuckles. I’m careful not to jostle his hand. When I’m free from his embrace, I slide off the bed and leave the room, tiptoeing around the mess. My heart races as I rush down the hall. I don’t stop to gather all of my things. I just grab my purse and phone from the floor. The letter is right there, so I pick it up.

  Then I’m out the door.

  I sense that attempting to run is more dangerous than standing by Chip, at least in these first, fraught moments. The space between the stairs and my car seems endless. Hearing me leave could send him into a worse rage than before. I almost trip on the bottom step. Then I race across the dark parking lot and fumble with my keys.

  Don’t look back. Don’t look back.

  I look back.

  He’s not there.

  Even so, I don’t feel safe in my car. I can picture him bursting out the door and reaching me before I have the chance to drive away. It’s like I’m in a horror movie, and Chip is Cujo. He’s going to bark at my window, frothing at the mouth.

  I make a sound of panic as I put the keys in the ignition. My hands are shaking so bad I almost drop them. Thankfully the car starts without a problem. Chip doesn’t lunge at me on the way out. No rabid Saint Bernard gnaws on my tailgate. I blink at the dark street and realize I don’t have my lights on. I turn on the windshield wipers by accident.

  I’m freaking out, swerving a little. I’m also drunk.

  I’m driving drunk.

  Shit.

  I didn’t even think of that when I got behind the wheel. I hit the headlights and continue down the street, glancing in my rearview mirror. Now I’m worried about cops and Chip. My brother can’t use his connections to get me out of a DUI. I should probably pull over, but I’m too close to the apartment complex to feel safe. I hope I don’t get in an accident. The road looks fuzzy. I know I’m well over the legal limit.

  I drive carefully until I reach a quiet residential area. It’s on my jogging route. SDSU is only about five more miles, but I can’t chance it. I park in an empty space by the side of the road and huddle behind the wheel. Eventually my heart stops racing.

  Then I burst into tears, and I cry for a long time. I have a headache when it’s over. I check my reflection in the rearview mirror and cringe. There’s dried blood at the corner of my mouth, my eyes are swollen and I have a fat lip.

  I spend one of the most uncomfortable, restless nights of my life. I can’t sleep because I’m still worried about Chip. I’m cold and thirsty and I have to pee. I finally get out and squat in the grass next to my open passenger door.

  Not my finest moment.

  But I feel better when I’m done, and I remember the clothes in my trunk. My gym bag is in there with a water bottle. I drink every drop. Then I find a hooded sweatshirt and some plaid pajama pants. Pulling them on over my other clothes, I return to the driver’s seat and sleep for a few hours.

  When I wake up, it’s dawn. My light headache has morphed into throbbing hangover. I’m gritty-eyed and queasy. I drank too much on an empty stomach.

  Groaning, I don my sunglasses and drive to the nearest coffee shop. I buy a cranberry scone with my coffee, nibbling on it as I continue to SDSU. I park outside of Kelsea’s dorm and call her to buzz me in.

  She answers the door in her underwear, hair tangled, eyes bleary. “Just a minute,” she mutters, dragging a hand down her face.

  “Can I come in?”

  She shakes her head and grabs a pair of shorts off the floor. I glance past her and realize that her roommate has a male guest. Kelsea stumbles across the hall, into the bathroom. Then she joins me in the downstairs lounge.

  “My roommate and her boyfriend kept me up all night,” she says, sharing my coffee. “They fucked like five hundred times.”

  It’s funny, but I can’t laugh. My lip hurts too much.

  “What happened?” she asks quietly.

  The story pours out of me in fits and starts, along with more tears. Kelsea doesn’t judge me or tell me what to do. She just hugs me.

  She just hugs me.

  “This is all my fault,” she says. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “I shouldn’t have pushed Eric at you.”

  I put up my hood and sink into the couch cushions. My feelings about the dance are mixed. Part embarrassment, part mmm. I knew what I was doing last night. It was wrong, and I wanted it anyway. “You didn’t force anything.”

  Kelsea rakes a hand through her wild hair, frowning. “It’s just that I saw him without his shirt the other day at Fine Ink. My dad made him clean the Dumpster, and I guess he took it off so it wouldn’t get dirty. He’s got an M on his stomach.” She points to her right hip. “Almost too low to read.”

  “That’s a gang thing.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I’m not, but I don’t want to have this conversation. I don’t want to imagine Eric’s tattoos or fantasize about him secretly pining away for me in prison. I have bigger concerns right now. Such as the fact that I’m homeless.

  “Come to breakfast with me and my dad,” Kelsea says.

  “You were serious about that?”

  “I was worried that Chip might go off on you.”

  My eyes start watering again. I’m not ready to talk to a concerned parent or show my face in public, so I shake my head. Matthew is no fool. He’ll notice my bruised lip and tell Noah. “I have to work this afternoon.”

  She squeezes my shoulder in sympathy.

  “I don’t know where to go until then.”

  “You can hang out here.”

  I stay in the lounge and browse through my phone while she goes to breakfast. There’s a ton of social media activity from last night. I scan the photos and comments, feeling numb. Eric’s posters have new comments and likes. The picture of him with the Rosie girl is really cute. They look great together. She’s smiling at him invitingly.

  But he didn’t dance with her. He danced with me.

  I close out that screen and check my messages. Nothing from Chip. There’s a text from my brother.

  Going to the zoo w/ April and Jenny @ 8am. You want to come?

  My chest tightens with emotion. I would like to go, but I can’t. I can’t tell Noah what happened because he’ll want to retaliate, and that could jeopardize his career with the police department. I’ll have to hide my face until the swelling goes down.

  I send him my regrets and put my phone away. Girls pass through the lounge on their way to work or the gym. Some give me curious glances. I feel self-conscious and uneasy. I can’t be certain that Chip won’t look for me here, so I decide to leave. I drive to Noah’s house in Chula Vista and quietly let myself in.

  Eric isn’t in the den, to my relief. He must have gone to the zoo for the day. I’m all alone, but I feel safe. Chip wouldn’t dare bother me at Noah’s. I grab some more clothes from my trunk and head straight to the shower.

  I want to wash away the horror of the evening and start clean.

  Chapter 14

  Eric

  I hit the punching bag with enough force to send it swinging.

  I tossed and turned all night, thinking about Meghan. Worrying about her. I hate myself for putting her in danger.

  I hate Chip more.

  Noah has some other workout equipment in the garage, but I just keep hitting the bag. Lifting weights reminds me of prison. I bought a pair of tennis shoes yesterday because I was getting tired of wearing my work boots. Maybe tomorrow I’ll go for a jog. I could try to follow Noah’s regimen. He’s in excellent shape for a guy with a desk job. I’ve seen too many ex-cons get soft on the outside.

  Not me.

  I hit the bag again. I need the release. I’ve got too much negative energy, too much pent-up aggression. Some criminals drown that shit with drugs and alcohol. Running from the cops is a pretty good workout. But I can’t go back to my old ways, so I a
ttack the punching bag.

  The only sound is my heavy breathing, the blood pounding in my ears and the rapid-fire thwacks of my angry fists.

  After about twenty minutes I’m winded, dripping sweat, muscles aching. It’s kind of like fucking. Not as fun, but my mind is relaxed and I feel strong. I take off my damp shirt and sit down on the weight bench, wiping my face.

  I’ve got a bruise on my jaw and the inside of my cheek is swollen. I don’t think it’s noticeable, but it doesn’t matter much. I’m planning to spend the day at the junkyard, running errands for Scrappy. Maybe mining parts for my Chevelle.

  I head back into the house and get some orange juice. While I’m standing there, I hear the sound of a faucet shutting off.

  Someone’s in the shower.

  I stride through the living room and look out the front window. Meghan’s car is parked by the curb. Damn. I was hitting the bag so hard I didn’t hear her come in. My shirt is in the laundry basket in the garage, so I walk toward the den to get a fresh one. The bathroom door opens before I can get there.

  Meghan screams in surprise and claps a hand over her mouth. She’s wearing pajama pants and a tank top with no bra. Her hair is damp from the shower. It’s clear that she had no idea I was in the house.

  Her expression changes with the recognition that I’m not a threat and her eyes wander down my sweat-drenched torso. My muscles tighten on reflex. There’s a tattoo on my abdomen, near my right hip bone, that I don’t want her to see. The rest—I want her to see. I want her to admire me. It’s a natural instinct, like longing for her touch.

  Only a second passes before I realize something’s wrong. She still seems wary of me, and she hasn’t dropped her hand.

  I step forward to move her hand away from her face. Her lip is split and swollen. There are finger-mark bruises on her cheek. I know exactly what happened, and my vision goes dark with rage. It strikes me like an earthquake, obliterating every other thought. Chip did this. I’m going to fucking kill him.

  “Where is he?” I ask.

  Her mouth trembles. “You can’t go after him.”

  “Where the fuck does he live?”

  She doesn’t tell me. I leave her in the hallway and grab a shirt, yanking it over my head in angry motions. I’m ready to hunt down that motherfucker and rip him apart, prison-style. I’ll crush every bone in his body. I bet Noah knows his address. I storm into the kitchen and scan the phone numbers April left on the fridge.

  Meghan grabs the paper to keep it away from me. I could overpower her, and I want to, but she’s looking at me with scared-rabbit eyes. “You can’t tell Noah.”

  “The fuck I can’t!”

  “Please,” she says. “He’ll lose his job.”

  It’s more likely that Noah will arrest Chip in an orderly fashion, and that won’t satisfy my bloodlust. Maybe I can call Kelsea instead. She’ll give me the info. The phone Matthew let me borrow has her number stored in the memory. I head that direction, but Meghan gets there first. She blocks the door to the den.

  “Do you want to go back to prison?” she asks.

  Of course I don’t. Goddamn it.

  She urges me toward the couch and sits down next to me. “You won’t be doing me any favors by beating him up. You’ll hurt yourself more than him.”

  I’m still seething, seeing red. “He hit you.”

  “I hit him first.”

  “So what?”

  “If I report it, they might arrest us both. Domestic violence laws are strict in California. I can’t have that on my record.”

  “You’re afraid of him.”

  “I’m done with him,” she says, meeting my gaze. “I just want it to be over. No more violence.”

  My anger doesn’t really abate, but other feelings flood in alongside it. I’m protective of her in a way that goes deeper than friendship. She’s part of my family, and I’ll always have feelings for her. I’m also directly involved. If I hadn’t kissed her last night, Chip wouldn’t have gone off the deep end.

  “It was my fault he hit you,” I say.

  “No.”

  “I shouldn’t have walked away. I should’ve put him in the hospital.”

  “You did the right thing.”

  “And he made you pay for it!”

  Tears fill her eyes and she falls silent. I can tell that she’s traumatized. I remember how shaken she was after the assault by Jack. She didn’t want to report that, either. I didn’t agree with her then and I don’t agree with her now. I only know that yelling at her won’t help. She needs me to be calm and in control.

  Calm. I take a deep breath. In control.

  It occurs to me that she might be covering for Chip. Maybe he hit her more than once. Maybe he held her down the way Jack did. I search her arms for more bruises. When I see the rug burns on her elbows, my stomach clenches with dread.

  She pushes my hands away, uncomfortable with the scrutiny.

  “Did he rape you?” I ask in a hoarse voice.

  “No.”

  “Would you tell me if he did?”

  “I don’t know,” she says, wiping her cheeks. “But I’m not lying. He didn’t.”

  “What did he do?”

  “He just yelled, mostly. After he hit me he had a total meltdown. He started throwing things around the room, punching walls. Then he said he was sorry. He crawled into bed with me and cried.”

  I rub a hand over my mouth, disturbed by the story. Chip was sorry? He’s sorry, all right. I’d like to make him sorrier. “You left in the morning?”

  “No, I left last night. I slept in my car.”

  She looks tired, with smudges under her pretty eyes. The cut on her lip will probably heal fast and the swelling will be gone in a day or two. I’m glad she’s okay, but my relief is tinged with frustration. Her minor injuries are too easy to hide.

  “I’m supposed to work this afternoon,” she says.

  I make her an ice pack and give her a blanket. She curls up on the couch beside me, flipping through channels at random. I haven’t been able to figure out the remote yet. Digital cable wasn’t that popular when I went inside. Now there are thousands of channels and HD and you can record anything you want. The choices are overwhelming.

  She finally settles on a channel that displays a tropical beach with palm trees, a hammock, and endless waves.

  “What kind of show is this?”

  “I don’t know. There’s one channel that looks like a fireplace.”

  I shake my head in wonder.

  “Did you have a TV in prison?” she asks.

  “There was one in the rec room, but I didn’t watch it much.”

  “Why not?”

  “I was busy doing drawings and tattoos.”

  She adjusts the ice pack and tilts her head to the side. “Does everything seem the same as three years ago, or different?”

  “Most things are the same,” I say.

  “What’s different?”

  She’s different. She’s still kind and caring and inquisitive, but different. More mature. The Meghan I knew back then was a small-town girl, rebelling against her religious upbringing. This Meghan is not so innocent, and all the more tempting.

  I’m different, too—but that doesn’t mean I’m good for her.

  In group therapy I learned that people often make the same mistakes over and over again. They get locked into a pattern of behavior, like a bad cycle. Drug users look for drugs. Abusive men will target abused women. I have to wonder if Meghan has gravitated toward assholes because of me. I hurt her. Chip hurt her.

  I look away, wallowing in regrets. “April’s different.”

  “She’s pregnant.”

  “Jenny’s grown up a lot.”

  “What else?”

  “Girls’ shorts are shorter.”

  She smiles at this shallow observation, as if she knows I’m putting up a front. She’s always seen more in me than I want to show. I think she sees more than what’s actually there. She sees someone goo
d.

  “Why didn’t you go to the zoo?” she asks.

  “I have somewhere else to be.”

  She accepts this vague answer and doesn’t press. Even though I’m trying to maintain the distance between us, I feel like an asshole for being so abrupt. I get up to do some laundry, my thoughts in turmoil.

  When I come back, she’s watching MTV’s spring break coverage. It’s a good example of something that hasn’t changed. Rowdy rich kids are partying in Cancun, a vacation hotspot that I don’t recognize as being part of Mexico. It bears no resemblance to places I’ve been to, like Tijuana or Rosarito Beach.

  An hour later, I make us both an early lunch. There’s tortilla soup in the fridge, so I heat up two bowls. Meghan eats about half of hers.

  “Where do you work?” I ask.

  “At The Hop.”

  I know the place. Good burgers, cute roller-girl waitresses. “Do you want me to go with you?”

  “I thought you had to be somewhere.”

  “I can rearrange my schedule.”

  She studies my face for a moment, considering my offer for protection. Then she says, “No. I can’t live like that, looking over my shoulder.”

  I accept her answer with a nod. After we’re finished, I take the dishes to the sink and wash them. I’m turning into a regular houseboy. I change from my workout clothes into Noah’s old jeans, my boots, and a long-sleeved shirt. When I come out, she arches a brow.

  “I found my Chevelle at a junkyard near Border Field,” I say.

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No. I promised to do odd jobs in exchange for the opportunity to fix her up.”

  She turns off the spring break show. “When are you supposed to be there?”

  “I didn’t give a time.”

  “If you want a ride, I can take you.”

  I shrug, because it’s not too far out of her way. She gets a bag out of the car and disappears into the bathroom. She emerges a few minutes later with her makeup done and her uniform on.

  “Do I look okay?”

  I give her a close inspection. I can’t even see the bruises. Her strawberry-colored lipstick disguises the injury, and the cute outfit helps. In a skirt that short, it’s difficult to focus on anything but her bare thighs. “You look fine.”