The Way I Used to Be (35 page)

He used one hand—just one—to hold both my arms over my head, grinding my wrist bones together. He kept the other hand around my throat, constricting every time I made any sound at all. The sounds were involuntarily: gurgling and sputtering—dying noises—noises the body just makes when it's dying. Did he know he was killing me? I wanted to tell him I was about to die.

At some point I guess I just stopped struggling. The thing, it was happening. It didn't matter anymore. Just play dead. He kept his face buried in the pillow and every time he moved, so sharp, his hollow, muted grunts and groans reverberating through the cotton and polyester stuffing, winding a meandering path that led directly to my ears, melting with the noises of my insides breaking, the voices in my head screaming, screaming, screaming.

By 2:53 it was over. He let go of my arms. It was over, it was over, I told myself. When he ripped the nightgown out of my mouth, I started coughing and gasping. I had almost suffocated to death, but he couldn't even let me have that—a simple bodily reaction. He clamped his hand over my mouth. He was out of breath, his mouth almost touching mine, his words wet: “Shut up. Shut up. Listen to me. Listen.” He held my face still, so that I had to look directly into his eyes. His eyes were the eyes he always had, but they burned me now, burned right into me. “Shhshhshh,” he whispered as he peeled away strands of tear-soaked hair from my face, tucking them behind my ears—like, gently—over and over again, his hands on me like it's the most normal thing, like this was just supposed to be.

“Look at me,” he whispered. “No one will ever believe you. You know that. No one. Not ever.”

He pushed himself off me then, a burst of icy air rushing in between us as he sat up. He was leaving and it would finally be over. I didn't care about what had just happened, or what would happen next, I only cared that it would be done, that he would be gone. I would be quiet, I would be still, if that's what it took. I shut my eyes and waited. And waited. Except he wasn't leaving, he was kneeling between my legs, looking down at me, at my body.

I had felt plenty ugly before, in general. But never ugly like this. Never as insignificant and repulsive and hated as he made me feel then, with his eyes on me. I tried to cover myself with my hands, but he tore them away and laid my arms flat against my sides, he put his hands on me instead. It wasn't over, not yet. This was still part of it. I grab handfuls of sheets in my hands to make my body stay put, like he wanted.

He wasn't even holding me down. Not physically. But he was holding me in some other way, a way that was somehow stronger than muscle and arms and legs. I couldn't even feel my body anymore, not even the hurt, but I could feel his eyes on me, showing me all of the places I was ugly, all the things he hated most about me, all the ways I didn't matter.

“You're gonna keep your mouth shut,” he whispered into my mouth. I wasn't sure if it was a question or an order. Either way, there's only one right answer, I know. “I asked. A fucking. Question.” Drops of spit fly onto my face with each word.

I stare . . . am I allowed to speak? Wasn't I supposed to be shutting up?

He grabs hold of my chin and a handful of hair and jerks my face up and down. “Yes?” he hisses, nodding slowly. I nod my head ferociously. “Say it.”

My voice doesn't work right though; I can only get out the “s” sound.

“Say it,” he demands.

“'Es. Yes, yes,” I hear myself whimper.

“No one—do you understand? You tell no one,” he says with his mouth close to my face. “Or I swear to God. I swear to God, I'll fucking kill you.”

I hear my voice, no louder than my breath: “Please, please, please.” And I don't even know what I'm begging for—him to just get it over with and kill me or for him to spare me.

He smears his lips against my mouth one last time, looks at me like I'm his, and smiles his smile. He gets up. Then he's back in his boxers. He whispers, “Go back to sleep,” before shutting the door of my bedroom behind him.

I put both hands over my mouth, squeezed my eyes shut as tight as I could, and tried to fix my brain to disbelieve everything it thought and felt and knew to be true.

I OPEN MY EYES.
I'm breathing heavy. Then barely breathing at all. My heart races. Then stops altogether. I'm in my room. Not then, but now. And I'm okay.
I'm okay. I'm okay,
I repeat silently.

I stand up.

I pick up my phone.

I pace my room.

I need someone. I actually fucking need someone. Need someone now. But I have no one to call—no one. I have left myself with absolutely no one in the world who would ever care about what is happening to me right now.

But then I have a thought. A very stupid, masochistic thought, but now it's there in my head and it's one of those thoughts that once it's there, there's nothing that can be done to make it go away. My fingers press the numbers even though my brain forbids it, just like it was two years ago, just like no time has passed at all. The sequence of numbers ingrained in my bones and muscle, I dial.

I practice his name: “Josh. Josh,” I whisper.

I hate myself. It's ringing.

“Hello?”

I open my mouth. But what words could ever, ever undo these things, what words could ever tell enough of the truth?

I hang up.

What is wrong with me?

I redial.

“Uh, hello?”

I hang up.

Just one more time . . .

“Hel-lo-o?”

I hang up again. Damn it.

I take a breath.

Like some kind of junkie with no self-control, I just cannot stop myself. I dial.

“Who is this?” he demands.

Oh God. His voice. Just the sound of his voice makes my heart pound.

“Hello?” he inhales. “Hello?” he exhales.

I open my mouth. But then Vanessa's voice calls, “Edy? Edy, will you come out here please?”

I hang up fast.

In the living room, I'm met by two incredibly intimidating looking people: a man—a cop in uniform—and a woman who's wearing a power suit and introduces them both.

“Hello, this is Officer Mitchell and I'm Detective Dodgson. We're here to ask some questions regarding Kevin Armstrong. We understand that your family, Mr. and Mrs. McCrorey, is very close with Mr. Armstrong and his family, is that correct?”

Conner fumbles with the remote control as he tries to switch off the TV. And Vanessa does something I've never seen her do before—she reaches for Conner's hand.

Caelin is suddenly on his feet, looking entirely too confrontational considering the fact that both these people have visible guns on them. “I already told the police everything I know, which is nothing, because nothing happened!” Caelin practically shouts.

“We are aware of the statement you gave the campus police last week, but we're here today regarding a separate matter, a related but separate matter,” the woman, Detective Dodgson, says. I feel my hand clutch at my chest. Because I know, right away, I know there's someone else, another girl, someone besides the ex-girlfriend. Okay, I take a deep breath and hold it; I plant my feet into the floor, and brace myself for something terrible.

“What is this all about?” Conner says shakily, putting his arm around Vanessa's shoulder.

“Look, he didn't do anything to her, I know it!” Caelin insists.

Officer Mitchell, towering over six-foot-tall Caelin, takes a step toward him; he doesn't even need to speak to intimidate. Detective Dodgson proceeds, “We'd like to ask each of you, separately, about Kevin and Amanda Armstrong.”

The bottom of my stomach opens up and my heart drops through.

Amanda.

Of course—of course, it would be her. I try to fade. Try to hold still and just blend into the wall. Try to summon enough psychic power to disintegrate, to dematerialize right here before their eyes.

“What?” Caelin whispers, even though it's pretty clear he meant to scream it.

“Mandy?” Vanessa says, more to herself than the detective.

“Why would you want to ask us about her?” Conner asks, all of us getting afraid of the answer.

“But why? Why—what?” Vanessa can't seem to formulate a sentence.

“We're investigating a report of assault, ma'am,” Officer Mitchell says.

Detective Dodgson looks at me in a way that makes me feel naked. But she couldn't know, because nobody knows.

“What . . . do you . . . mean, assault?” Vanessa stutters, unable to comprehend what we're being told.

Caelin sits back down on the couch and just stares at an imaginary point on the carpet—doesn't speak, doesn't blink.

“We'll want to speak with each of you,” Officer Mitchell says. “Mr. McCrorey, will you join me in the other room?” He starts walking into the dining room, Conner follows, looking disoriented, clutching the remote control for dear life.

The woman looks at me dead on. “Eden, right?”

Breathless, I try my best to respond: “Yeah.”

“Can we speak privately? Caelin, Mrs. McCrorey, Officer Mitchell will be in to speak with you two shortly.”

I start toward my room, her footsteps trailing behind me.

“May I sit?” she asks, gesturing to my bed.

I nod. My heart is racing. My hands are shaking. My skin is crawling. She sits down, and the bed creaks like it's spilling its secrets out all over the place.

“I'd like to ask you a few questions, if that's all right.”

“Okay, but I really don't know anything.” Too jumpy, Edy. Calm down.

“Really?” she asks. “Because you didn't seem at all surprised when Officer Mitchell told your family about the allegations against Mr. Armstrong.” That's not a question, though. I don't know how I'm supposed to answer, so I just stare. “I'd be interested in knowing why that is.”

“Why what is?” Play dumb, that's it.

“Eden, if you have any information or knowledge regarding the Armstrongs, now would be the time to tell us.”

“I don't, though. I swear. I had no idea he was doing that to her.”

“Doing what, Eden?” she asks, pretending to be puzzled.

“I don't know. Whatever he was doing, whatever he did, I don't know.” Oh God, she sees right through me.

“All right. Then back to my initial question?”

“Why I wasn't surprised, you mean?”

“So, you
weren't
surprised?”

“No, I—I was. I was surprised—am, I mean, I
am
surprised,” I stammer.

“No,” she says slowly, “your mother and father and brother were surprised—shocked—but not you. Can you tell me what was going through your mind?”

“Nothing, I don't know, I wasn't thinking anything.”

“You had to have been thinking something?” And she looks at me with these eyes—these no-nonsense, no-bullshit, no-tolerance-for-lies-of-any-kind eyes. She looks so far inside of me, as if she can see everything. Everything I am, everything I'm not. I count the seconds of her staring into my soul: One. Two. Three. Four. Fi—

“Let me ask another question, then. Do you think that these allegations against Mr. Armstrong are plausible—just in your own opinion?”

“I don't know. How should I know? I mean, I wouldn't know.”

“I have to say, you seem awfully agitated, Eden. Are you hiding something because you think you're protecting Mr. Armstrong?”

“Protecting? No. And I'm not hiding anything, really.”

“Eden, I'll be frank with you,” she says, folding her hands neatly one over the other in her lap. “I personally spoke with Amanda, and she specifically mentioned your name. Told me I should be talking with you.” She gently points her finger at me through her clasped hands. “Do you know why?”

I shake my head too hard back and forth, back and forth.

“Well, she seemed to believe that you may have some kind of information about Mr. Armstrong. Kevin,” she adds, as if she knows the spark of rage that just the sound of his name sets off inside of me.

I watch her watching my hands shake. I cross my arms and tuck my hands under my arms.

“Amanda told me about an incident that happened at school earlier this week. She said you became highly . . . emotional when discussing—”

“No! I said no. I don't know why she mentioned me. I don't know anything.” I mean to shout it, to be firm and strong, but it just comes out in a piercing whimper.

She holds me in her poker-face stare. I cannot read her at all. She stands up, walks across my room. I think she's leaving, but she closes the door so it's only open a crack. “Eden,” she says softly. “I'm going to ask you something and I need you to be very honest in your response.” She lowers her voice and stands there like a mountain I will never be able to move. “Eden, has Kevin ever abused or assaulted you in any way, sexual or otherwise?”

I always promised myself that if only someone would ask, if someone would only ask the right question, I would tell the truth. And now it's here. It could be over in one syllable. I open my mouth. I want to say it. Yes. Yes. I try to make a sound. Yes. Say it! But my mouth is so dry, I can't.

I take a breath and I choke. I choke on the word. I'm actually choking. I stand up out of my chair as if that will help anything. I start pacing the room, losing my air quickly. I'm coughing so hard she has to race out of my bedroom to get me a glass of water. I'm still coughing when she gets back. I sip the water, but I choke even more, spewing it all over the carpet. My throat feels raw.

“Can you breathe, Eden?” she asks loudly.

I nod my head yes even though I really can't. I can't breathe. It's like there's something stuck in my throat. I cough and cough, but it doesn't do anything. I clutch at my neck. There's something there, I can feel it. Can taste it. Something lodged in my throat, something familiar, something dry like cotton, something like . . . like the end of that stupid damn nightgown that went directly into the garbage the next morning.