Fighting for Rain

by Easton, BB

  Christmas movies. Curling up with Mama on the couch. Slightly crooked stockings. Very burnt cookies for Santa. Catching my dad at three in the morning, wrapping presents with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.

  And then I see Wes … beautiful, guarded, wounded Wes … asleep in my bathtub after burying them both.

  I test my legs. I have to crawl away from this nightmare. I have to get back inside. I have to get away from the smells and the textures and the sounds of this deleted world. On wobbly limbs, I claw my way back to the door and don’t stop until it’s firmly closed behind me.

  Pressing my back to the cool metal again, I suck in as many deep, mildew-scented breaths as it takes for my heart rate to finally begin to return to normal. When I open my eyes, I expect to feel relieved. I’m back in my safe new world now. I never have to open that door again.

  But the second my gaze lands on the entrance of the Hello Kitty store, that’s exactly what I do.

  I turn and push that sucker wide open.

  So that my puke will land on the sidewalk.

  May 3

  Rain

  A knock on the door makes me jump, causing the brittle pages of the ancient tuxedo catalog I’m sitting on to crinkle loudly.

  “Come in,” I call out, but my voice doesn’t want to work, possibly due to the hours I’ve spent sobbing in this very spot since yesterday.

  I clear my throat to try again but decide not to. I don’t care who’s there. I don’t want them to come in.

  The Savvi Formalwear office door opens anyway, letting in a slice of light from the hallway. It tears across the floor, missing me by inches.

  “Yo, boss lady …” Lamar steps into the doorway. His silhouetted short, messy dreads bounce as his head swivels from left to right, scanning the dark room for signs of life. Then, he snorts out a laugh. “What the hell you doin’ down there?”

  I peer back at him as if I were viewing him from the grave. As if the activities of the living were beyond my grasp. Speaking. Feeling. Giving a damn. I remember doing those things. I just don’t remember how I did them.

  “You sittin’ under the desk ’cause Mr. Renshaw took the rolly chair?” Lamar laughs. “Or was there a tornado warnin’ I don’t know about?”

  I stare back, waiting for the words to come, but they don’t.

  I’m sorry. Rain’s not here anymore. I cried her out. This is just her fleshy wrapper, left under a desk like a wad of chewing gum.

  Lamar’s smile fades as his eyes adjust to the darkness of the windowless office. When he finally gets a good look at me, he says, “Hey … you all right?”

  Flipping my hood up over my head, I turn and face the wall.

  “So, uh … Quint’s feelin’ a little better since gettin’ cleaned up yesterday. I think I’ma try to take him to get breakfast. You wanna come?” There’s a note of hope at the end of his question. “I hear they’re makin’ eeeegggggs …”

  I don’t respond.

  I hear the air leave his lungs, taking the wind out of his sails along with it.

  “C’mon, Rainy Lady,” he whines. “I had to help him shower and feed him by myself last night.”

  If there were a shred of feeling left in this husk of a body, the fact that Lamar is more concerned about getting help with his brother than finding out why I spent the entire night curled up in a ball under a desk in a dark room might hurt. But it doesn’t. Nothing can hurt me anymore.

  I’m not even here.

  “Fine. I’ll do it myself. Again!”

  The door slam echoes in my ears for several minutes after he leaves. Or could it be hours? I don’t know anymore. I feel like I’m floating in primordial ooze. Disconnected from reality. Disconnected from my thoughts and feelings. Disconnected from time.

  The only thing I can feel is my body, and the longer I sit here, the more it makes itself known. My throbbing bladder, my growling stomach, my aching legs and back—they join together in a chorus of pain until I have no choice but to move.

  With everyone still at breakfast, the store is quiet. I make my way down the hall on rubbery legs. I watch them as they lift and step, but my brain doesn’t register the impact. It’s as if I’m wearing virtual reality goggles.

  Maybe I’m going crazy.

  I open the door to the employee restroom and prop it open so that I can see what I’m doing as I shimmy my jeans down and sit on the edge of the sink to pee.

  When I’m done, I continue to sit there, staring at a lacy spiderweb draped over a useless air-conditioning vent, admiring the dark gray nothingness swirling inside of me. Now that my bladder’s not full anymore, I am empty.

  Truly and completely.

  I zip and button my jeans with numb, clumsy fingers and make my way back to my cave. This time, I walk with my entire shoulder hugging the wall. I keep my gaze fixed on the entrance to the store—it’s too disorienting to look at my feet—but before I make it back to the office, a demon with slime-colored eyes and a mane made of snakes fills the doorway. Her jerky gaze lands on me—or what’s left of me—and a sneer splits her face from ear to ear.

  I know I should be afraid of her, but that feeling is gone too. All I can do is stare back and wait for her to attack.

  “There you are, Flush.”

  She stalks toward me with the posture of a gangster even though she’s wearing baggy black men’s pants cut off at the knee, motorcycle boots, and a black T-shirt that’s at least three sizes too big. She doesn’t stop until she’s standing right in front of me. Then, she yanks the hood off my head. Grabbing a handful of my hair, Q jerks me forward. I don’t feel the pain. I only hear her take a long, deep breath as she lifts a fistful of my hair to her nose.

  “Fresh as a fuckin’ daisy.” Q shoves my head backward, and her eyes blaze. “Riddle me this, bitch. How is it that you show up wit’ nothin’ but the clothes on yo’ back, you ain’t been eatin’ my food, you ain’t been usin’ my muhfuckin’ shampoo, yet here you is, alive and smellin’ like a gotdamn rose bush?”

  I stare at her from the safety of the nothingness and blink.

  “Where’s … yo’ … shit?” She jams two fingers into my chest with each word, her face mere inches from mine.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, the sound of my own voice taking me by surprise. “Rain isn’t home right now.”

  Q’s face darkens, and her hand coils into my hair again, yanking my head down sideways.

  “Rain don’t have a home, bitch. This my home, and I’m here to collect my muhfuckin’ rent.” Her grip on my hair tightens to the point that I finally register the pain, and I’m almost relieved to feel it. “You got two seconds to tell me where the fuck yo’ stash is before I put you and ya little boyfriends out.”

  Lifting my eyes, I glance over her shoulder at the white plaster mannequin in the center of the store. Q turns her head to follow my gaze. Then she shoves me to the ground and stomps off in that direction.

  I watch from my sideways spot on the hall floor as the mannequin falls to the ground like a cut tree. The thud of it is quickly followed by the sound of a zipper and wild cackling laughter, but all I can focus on is the blank stare of the plaster man, lying in the same position as me. Expressionless. Empty. Unfazed.

  Is this what I’ve become?

  Q drags me by my hair down the hall to the food court, rambling on about Christmas coming early, but still, I feel nothing. Not when we get there and a hush falls over the crowd. Not when Carter slams his plate down and stands up with eyes full of fury. Not when Mr. Renshaw tries to do the same, only to wince and tumble back into his rolly chair with a frustrated grunt. I feel nothing when Mrs. Renshaw covers Sophie’s eyes or when Lamar and Quint look on helplessly. And when Tiny, Loudmouth, and Brangelina chuckle as Q shoves me toward their table, my only thought is about Tiny’s wound and how he never came by to let me take a look at it last night.

  “From now on, we gon’ call dis bitch muhfuckin’ Santa Claus!” Q announces as she unzips my backpack and dumps the c
ontents out in the middle of their table.

  The runaways gasp and cheer and lunge for the pile, but Q slaps their hands away as she presents each item.

  “Granola bars!” She holds the box up to an enthusiastic rabble from the table. “Slim Jims!”

  “Yay!” The crowd cheers.

  “What the fuck is dis? GoGo squeeZ applesauce?” She reads the label.

  “Fuck yeah!”

  “Band-Aids, aspirin, antihista-whatever-the-fuck.” She blindly tosses each item over her shoulder, pelting me with medical supplies, before she goes completely still. “Oh, helllll nah.”

  Q glares at me with murderous eyes before holding up a variety box of Kotex. “Bitch, you had muhfuckin’ tampons this whole time!”

  I see a flash of movement and close my eyes just before the back of Q’s hand meets my face, all four of her chunky silver rings slicing across my cheekbone.

  Time stands still as pain explodes across the side of my face.

  I feel like I’m on a sitcom where one of the characters is freaking out, so another character slaps them and yells, Snap out of it!

  Well, Q’s slap snaps me the fuck out of it. Only there’s no laugh track. No commercial break. No lovable neighbor at the ready with a zinger of a punch line. It’s just pain. And humiliation. And tears. And loss. All the feelings I’ve been so graciously disconnected from burst through my defenses like a tidal wave in the wake of that slap.

  Once time begins to move again, I realize that the entire cafeteria has erupted into hysterics. Everyone is on their feet. Everyone is yelling. Carter has one of the runaways by his ripped T-shirt and is screaming in his face. Brad and Not Brad are hauling me to my feet, high-fiving my limp palms for taking “one helluva hit.” Q is standing on the table, tossing peanut butter sandwich crackers into the crowd like dollar bills. And Lamar is scurrying around the madness, picking up the medical supplies that Q pelted me with.

  Then, just as suddenly as the outburst began, it stops.

  And everyone turns to face the glowing TV monitors behind the fast-food counters.

  Meanwhile …

  Wes

  Thump … thump … thump … scrrrrape.

  Fuck.

  My heart begins to pound as I listen to my foster mom’s boyfriend stumbling up the stairs.

  Thump … thump-thump … WHAM.

  The thin walls rattle as he careens into them, ricocheting up the stairs and down the hall like a three-hundred-pound racquetball.

  “Fuck you,” he mutters to no one, and I reach under my pillow to grab my knife.

  Ms. Campbell went to bed hours ago, which means Limp Dick here didn’t get to fight with her tonight. She’s been doing that—going to bed earlier and earlier, taking enough sleeping pills to tranquilize a horse, just so that by the time he gets fuck-shit-up drunk, she’ll already be passed out.

  And it’s been working—for her.

  Slam! My door swings open so hard that the knob punches a hole in the Sheetrock wall.

  I try not to flinch, but I can’t help it.

  I hope he didn’t notice.

  “Wake up, you worthlessss sack of shit.”

  I grip the handle of my pocketknife tighter and crack one eye open to glance at the motherfucker unfastening his belt as he lumbers toward my mattress. The hall light is on, and I notice that the peeling wallpaper just outside my open door isn’t faded yellow with light-blue cornflowers on it anymore.

  It’s blood red with black hooded horsemen all over it. Each one is carrying a different weapon over his head as he charges—a sword, a scythe, a torch, a mace. But they don’t scare me anymore.

  And neither does this asshole.

  Because now I know this is just a dream.

  “Get up, boy!” the disgusting, sweaty, pig of a man staggering toward me yells as he slides his belt off and pulls it taut, making a snapping sound with the leather.

  I close my eyes.

  It’s just a dream.

  I’m in control.

  He can’t hurt me anymore.

  I hold my breath and lift my pointer finger off the handle of my knife, smiling as a smooth, metal trigger magically appears beneath it.

  “Ahhh!” I sit up and swing my gun out in front of me, ready to shoot the face off that sweaty, worthless piece of shit.

  But no one’s there.

  I’m not in Ms. Campbell’s foster home anymore. I’m alone, on a couch, being assaulted by the sunlight that’s streaming in through a pair of dingy plastic blinds.

  “Fuck,” I groan, flopping back down onto the sofa and throwing my forearm over my eyes.

  Even though I woke up before that motherfucker had a chance to beat the shit out of me, it feels like somebody did. My head throbs like it’s been slammed repeatedly in a car door. My equilibrium thinks I’m on a dinghy in the middle of a hurricane. And I’m pretty sure everything inside my body has gone sour.

  Hell, everything in my entire fucking life.

  When I open my eyes again, I’m not sure what day it is or how long I’ve been here, but I know exactly where the fuck I am by the fading scent of death in the air.

  I groan and rub my swollen lids.

  From my sideways viewpoint on the couch, my eyes focus on an empty bottle of Grey Goose lying sideways on the coffee table, mirroring my miserable position.

  I squeeze my eyes shut and pinch the bridge of my nose as I vaguely remember stomping through the rubble of Carter’s burned-up house and pulling everything salvageable out of the still-intact freezer.

  Including a handle of vodka.

  My plan had been to find a new place to crash—maybe a nice, abandoned bachelor pad with a fully stocked beer fridge and a pool—but the highway was only clear maybe another block or two past Rain’s house. With the riots in Franklin Springs still going strong, there was no point in risking a flat tire just to get another gun pulled on me in town by some jacked-up meth head who hadn’t slept in three days.

  So, I came to the one place I knew would be empty.

  It had nothing to do with the fact that a certain rag doll–looking, mindfuck of a girl used to live here.

  I just needed supplies and shelter.

  And a shitload of vodka.

  The sound of a car engine has me bolting upright again. I haven’t heard a car on this road since I got here. I lean to the left so that I can see the road through the gap between the blinds and the window frame. The highway is only clear from here to the Pritchard Park exit, so whoever this is, they might be coming from the mall.

  Staring into the sunlight only makes my head pound harder, but I hold my breath and squint through the pain. When the vehicle finally comes into view, I release that breath in the form of a snort. Slowing to a crawl in front of Rain’s house is the motherfucking mailman. Dude doesn’t even pull to a complete stop. He just throws a handful of envelopes at the mailbox lying on its side in the driveway and keeps on going.

  Unbelievable.

  So this is what, “You are encouraged to resume your daily lives,” looks like. Bury your dead. Barricade your front doors. Scavenge for food. But hey, we got the utilities up and running again! Your bill is in the mail!

  I scrub a hand down my face, feeling at least a week’s worth of stubble beneath my palm, and decide to take advantage of those utilities before the county realizes the owners of this house are buried under two feet of red dirt in the backyard and cuts them off again.

  I stand and wait a second for the room to stop spinning before I head for the stairs.

  I spent the worst night of my life on the second floor of this house. The door on the right is where I found Mrs. Williams—or what was left of her after her husband blasted her face off. The door on the left is where I found Rain’s lifeless body after she took a fistful of painkillers, lying on a mattress with a shotgun blast through it, too. And this bathroom—

  I flip the light switch and wince as the fluorescent light illuminates what feels like a scene from another life.

&n
bsp; Rain’s pillow still sits on the floor by the toilet where I spent most of the night with my fingers down her throat. Her long, thick black braid is still lying on top of the trash can in the corner of the room. And vanilla-scented candles still cover every flat surface. I’d pulled them out of Rain’s bedroom that night to block out the stench of death from the rest of the house, but now, I’d take blood and brains over sweet vanilla.

  Because it reminds me of her.

  When we first met, Rain smelled like sugar cookies, birthday cake, vanilla frosting with rainbow sprinkles—things I wished my mom had baked for me as a child, things I smelled and tasted at other kids’ houses. Kids whose parents remembered their birthdays. Kids whose parents loved them.

  That’s what Rain smelled like to me—the kind of love I always wanted but never had.

  But after a few days, she didn’t smell like vanilla anymore.

  She smelled like me.

  I took every good, pure, sweet thing about Rain, chewed it up, and swallowed it.

  I’m the reason she took all those pills that night.

  I’m the reason she almost joined her parents in the dirt out back.

  And I’m the reason she’s probably lying naked in Carter’s arms right now.

  There’s a reason none of my houses ever smelled like vanilla.

  It’s because love doesn’t exist in my world.

  I step over the pillow and turn the handle on the shower faucet as far as it will go. The pipes groan and rattle in protest, but a second later, water sprays from the faucet. I sigh and set my gun down on the counter, pushing some of the candles aside to make room. I pull off my Hawaiian shirt and lay it on the closed toilet lid. Then, I turn sideways to look at my bullet wound in the mirror. It’s damn near healed.

  I close my eyes and remember the way it felt when Rain put that first bandage on. Her touch was so gentle, but the pain it caused was excruciating. I’d wanted a woman to touch me like that my whole life, and once I felt it, I knew walking away would hurt worse than any fucking gunshot ever could.