The Years After (45 page)

“
What’s wrong with her?”
I said in a whisper. I was angry at her and confused by her actions. Scared by what I witnessed. And worse, so afraid for her.

“She just has episodes sometimes. She’ll be okay. She has a hard time with seeing your blood. It’s just a thing about her.”

“She’s not okay. That was not okay. She was clutching the razor!
She
was bleeding!”

He shushed me some more as I started to cry again. He leaned me back finally and smiled softly, “Tiny,” his nickname for me, short for Tina, which is everyone else’s nickname for me, “she is okay. She just has more to work out than others, and needs a little extra space sometimes.”

What does that mean? I stared up at my dad’s face, looking for meaning and answers and seeing only a soft sadness for an answer. He would not tell me what I witnessed. I shook my head and stared at my fingers, which I kept interlacing. “Why can’t she be like other mothers?”

He stared at me, his gaze turning hard. “She is like other mothers. She’s an excellent mother to you and your sisters, and you know it.”

I did. I knew it. For the most part, my mom got up and got us all ready for school before getting herself ready for work. She cooked dinner and drove us to all our scheduled activities. She asked how my day was and held me if I cried, or cheered with me if I was happy. She was funny. My mom was way more fun and funnier than most moms. Sometimes, she was my best friend. Others, like at that moment, I didn’t recognize her at all.

But
why
did she have those episodes? Why did she need extra space? I don’t know. My dad would never say, no matter how many times I asked. And I did ask. The older I get, the more I ask, and the more I want to know. Dad is good at deflecting me. The weird part is: I don’t ask my mom. I feel… well, I don’t know, like I’d be kicking an injured puppy to ask her. Yet strangely, most days, my mom is strong and capable and in full control of me. I just can’t voice the question, “What is wrong with you?”

Most of whatever her episodes are, don’t happen around us. The older she gets, the less I’ve seen; and I don’t think either of my sisters would have a clue of what I was talking about.

And tonight is no different. I hear my dad enter and I wander out while he’s fixing some of the leftover dinner by heating it in the microwave. He already quizzed Emily and Melissa on their homework statuses and discussed Emily’s basketball practice with her. She’s always in a sport and keeps us all running her where she needs to be. Yup, they volunteer me for carpool duty too.

Dad glanced up at me. His face changes from the smile at Emily’s silly comment to a scowl at me. “Did you get your chemistry done?”

He remembers. I hadn’t told him today what class I was studying for. He is like that, he stays involved with me, to the point I can rarely get away with anything. But too, I kind of like knowing he cares so much.

“Yes.”

He lifts the taco up and bites it with a sigh of happiness. He misses the meat when my mom cooks. “Thank you. For taking care of your sisters,” he says finally. It’s sincere. He is grateful for my help, and my cheeks heat up in shame. I’ve been resentful and kind of like a spoiled brat about it. I drop my face so he doesn’t see it. He sets his food down and comes near me to draw me into his embrace. When he says it like that, I’m ashamed. So I have to sometimes help out with my sisters. I mean, it’s not like they ignore me, abuse me, neglect me, or beat me… well, God, all they require are some chores and accountability from me sometimes.

The next morning when I come out to the kitchen, Mom is standing there, flipping eggs in a pan. She looks normal. Her hair is done and her jeans and blouse indicate she’ll be going in to work. She smiles and tucks a strand of shoulder-length black hair behind her ear. She could pass for thirty if she wanted to. She has clear, barely wrinkled skin and a pretty, warm smile. My anger at her melts as I slip onto a bar stool. She crosses the kitchen and leans across the counter to touch my hand. “So how was Kelli yesterday?”

The current girl drama I have going on. And at hearing her interest, my mouth opens and a fifteen-minute dissertation follows.

Okay, I don’t exactly have it bad. But sometimes, I just want to understand that thing, the strange, unexplainable thing that I can’t quite put my finger on that goes on. That thing that makes my mom, sometimes not my mom. That thing I can’t quite see, but I know with absolute certainty is there.

Chapter One

~Max~

The first time the fist smashes into my gut and knocks my breath from my lungs, it feels like I am about to drown and nothing will make me breathe again. The second time the fist connects, it hits just the corner of my chin and sends my neck bending back with a sharp jerk. At this moment, it feels like one of those movie montages. You know, the kind that slows down and is flashed frame by frame. My senses feel heightened. Sounds are louder. Colors become sharper. People around me are cheering and soon become a blended mess of movement like watercolors streaming together down a canvas. Their noise fuels me. It burns through my body and powers my fists. I come back at the guy, who’s almost a foot taller than me and outweighs me by a good thirty pounds. I attack him like I am a fucking cougar, let loose on a dog. I pounce on his back and I use my hands to pull his eyelids, giving me a chance to loop my arm around his neck. I let go so my weight hangs off him. I fight dirty. No rules. No mercy. I have to. I am only five-foot-five and weigh a hundred and fifty pounds. I don’t have a lot of room for error. If he gets me in front of him, he could pound me into a bloody pulp at his feet.

No way. Spurred by that, I start thrashing hard on the guy’s back and he keeps pulling at me. When the kid finally falls to his knees, I let go, or if he indicates he is giving up. Whichever comes first. It really doesn’t matter to me. I have never actually killed anyone. But I do usually win. I am so good at being totally underestimated. As a rule, I am laughed and mocked and jeered at by the crowd. Most don’t think I am serious when I challenge them to a fight. A paid fight. A fight that I always intend to win. I’ve been doing this game for eight years. I learned from the best, my older brother, a former drug runner who is now in prison for kidnapping and overdosing my other brother’s girlfriend. But for a little while, he taught me how to win, and win no matter what the odds. And although I hate Quentrell, I took those lessons to heart. No one pushed Quentrell around or made him look stupid. And no one would do that to me, either. Between my height and speech problems, most of my youth was spent being humiliated by my peers. Now? I rely on my fists to make sure that doesn’t happen again.

I have to be careful however, that my adoptive parents and family don’t catch on to what I do. I try not to do it too much or get a reputation. I try to do it only with college kids in the area who don’t know me or mine.

But this time I fail. As the guy is straining and making weird grunt sounds, I spot her.

Christina.

Christina Hendricks is standing in the crowd around us. We’re in the front yard of some faceless, nameless (to me, anyway) farmhouse where these college kids like to congregate. I often insert myself into them, and when I’m sure no one recognizes me, I put on this little show. I start by finding big, drunk jocks who consider me no more than a joke, and never a threat. I make contact somehow. I might bump into them; or spill something on them, or do something to make them bristle and speak to me. When I’m rude enough, the guy wants to immediately kick my ass. I just laugh it off, and say that the jock would lose. I say it loud it enough to challenge the kid’s pride into taking me on. Then the kids all laugh at me because there is no way
I
could win. Sometimes I don’t. I’ve taken my fair share of beatings in my nineteen years. But most often, I get the better of my opponents before they do more than just tap me with their fists. And even when they do more, I rarely ever feel it. I have an aversion to being touched, but I have no aversion to being hit. Kind of screwed up, I know. Christina has pointed that out to me multiple times. But still, she respects my boundaries, and my proclivities.

Except this. Fighting. She always hates when I fight. I rarely tell her when I leave her house or my own and sneak off to do it. I don’t do it all the time. Not like I used to when I was young. Just sometimes. Once in awhile. Just when I need it. The rush of adrenaline. The sense of power and control. The supremacy of fearlessness. That, perhaps, is what I get out of it. It makes me feel invincible. What can you fear when you’re already hurt? A punch? A kick? A hit? They come at me, and even connect with me; and the bruises and blood eventually heal and go away. Finished. It’s the
approach
of the fist or foot that instigates the fear: not the actual deed. Some say I’m crazy. A hellion. A psycho. Maybe I am. I don’t know. I’d like to know anybody raised the way I was and see how normal they are.

My solution has always been to fight. Perhaps I seek retribution from a world that has, for most of my life, beat me down. Abused me. Hurt me. Humiliated me. When I fight, nobody can beat me down, or abuse me, or embarrass me, or hurt me. Why? Because I choose to be there. I choose my opponents. I choose the circumstances. I always choose. I put myself there. So it’s my choice every time.

But I prefer not to do it in front of Christina. What is she doing here? How could she be here? I can’t believe at twelve o’clock at night I’d find Christina at some college party. Christina doesn’t usually show up at these kinds of places. She parties a little bit, but usually with kids in our senior class. And always I am there, watching over her, protecting her. Even if she never truly realizes how much I do. But now she is
here.
Worse still? The hand I notice that’s holding hers.

The slight pause is almost my undoing. The guy gets a fist into the side of me. I let out an “oof,” but hold on tighter.

Then… Christina, her eyes round in horror, turns and flees, as if she’s afraid of me. I hate it when I scare her. I hate it when she runs from me. I hate it worst of all when any guy’s hand touches hers.

Even if it’ll never be mine.

~Christina~

Tonight’s the night. I have waited over eighteen years to have sex, and I’m doing it tonight. And the one I’ve chosen for the honor? A sophomore at Central Washington University who brought me to the party tonight. I live in such a small town, where the only real bonus is that it’s a college town. There is always a fresh influx of students each year; so since I’ve turned sixteen, I have new guys to choose from every year. Behind my parents’ back, of course. They treat me as if I’m still about eight, and not a senior in high school, only a month away from graduation. It hasn’t dawned on them, or anyone else, really, that I’m officially an adult.

We are in a two-story Victorian with a pretty raging party going on. It’s out in the middle of nowhere at one of the old farmhouses that surround Ellensburg. Some idiots rented out an old, historical house to a group of college students. Not a smart move. But there are bedrooms! Lots and lots of bedrooms and I agreed to use one of the rooms with Brad, the sophomore. He isn’t anything all that special to me. Just some guy I dated a few times. He’s cute enough. I’m figuring since he’s
in college
he must be a lot more experienced than the boys in my own class. At least, he can’t be any worse.

I don’t really care who does it, just that it gets done. I really want to do this and get it over with. Get on with it. Whatever you want to call it. I cannot graduate high school and still be a virgin. So lame. I am really tired of being lame. But having my parents for parents, it’s hard to be otherwise. They don’t allow me to do anything. They are strict to the nth degree. I might as well have been raised in a freaking prison.

I came with Brad and we’ve been milling about for an hour or so. I really hate the taste of beer so I only pretend to sip it. Brad downed several glasses and took a few hits off some weed. I pretended to be enthralled with the crowd and ignore it. No. Don’t need that on my breath. I was supposed to be at my girlfriend’s tonight. I hope the cover worked. Oldest trick in the book. But I so rarely lie to my parents, I have a good chance of getting away with it.

My stomach is little jittery, considering what I plan for tonight, I think I’m keeping my cool and all. I am not talking or giggling too much, or doing the usual things I do when I’m nervous or excited. I am standing here, pretending to sip my drink, while I smile when it seems to fit, and hoping I blend into the average age of the crowd around me.

Commotion. Almost the entire room shifts and starts out the doors to the front yard. I glance at Brad just as he yells, “Fight!”

My stomach curdles. Fights only made me think of Max. I hate that. Luckily, he doesn’t do it very often anymore. And tonight, I do not want to be thinking about Max when I’m trying to have to sex.

Brad pulls my hand so I have to let him drag me with him towards the fast-growing crowd outside. I am near the back. My shoes sink into the soggy grass. The crowd hollers and yells catcalls. They seem to be chanting a name, “Johnson” or “Johansen” or something like that. The obvious favorite. More “whoo-hoo”s and “wow”s. To me, it’s sick the way people revere such a blood sport. It’s sick to cheer on people that are hurting each other.

My stomach has cramps. I hear the grunts and the flesh smacking. It makes me feel like running inside and hiding under a table. I can’t stand to witness the revelry and merry making over anyone hurting another.

When the crowd clears, I see him.

Max Salazar.

He’s on the other guy’s back. The guy is bigger than he is and slowly losing as it’s evident Max is choking him. My stomach completely churns. How can he do that? How can the Max I know, the Max who plays basketball with me, and messes around on video games, and is just there all the time at my house, now be choking someone?

He sees me. I memorize the moment his eyes find mine. They grow big and shocked. His mouth opens as if he is about to say, “Christina?”