RAGE (12 page)

When I woke, I was lying on my back on the floor of my bedroom, my arms stretched out above my head. I was staring up at the ceiling, blinking rapidly, and waiting for my vision to correct itself, when I remembered what had happened in the living room earlier with Travis, and how I must’ve gotten to my room. He’d knocked me out with his repeated blows to my face, and had probably dragged me in here to avoid having me sprawled out on the living room floor where he’d be forced to look at me.

That was fine. I didn’t want to look at him either.

Creating shooting pains that tore throughout my body like bolts of lightning, I rolled onto my side and pushed myself into the sitting position. Every inch of my body ached fiercely, and taking a deep breath was impossible. So was breathing through my nose. The scrapes from my run-in with Dominic had formed scabs. Bending my knees to stand tore open those scabs, creating a new stinging sensation and fresh blood. My face and head hurt the most out of all my aches and pains. But I somehow managed to push myself up from the floor and make my way to the bathroom. I didn’t care if I made noise now. What would he do to me - beat me? He’d already done that.

I locked the door and stood in front of the mirror, bracing myself against the sink. As I turned on the water, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and was shocked at what I saw. Before, I’d had some vague idea of what I must look like, but I saw now that it was worse than I’d imagined. It made me angry to see myself this way. My jaw tightened and my teeth clenched. I quickly looked away before the anger consumed me. It scared me earlier when I was fighting Travis, and I’d nearly been lost to the anger within me. So I averted my eyes to avoid a repeat.

With a cold, wet a washcloth, I daubed my face, scrubbing gently at the dried blood. It was a painful task, and one that wasn’t finished quickly. There was a lot of blood.

After removing as much of the blood as I cared to, I surveyed the damage. It didn’t look as bad now. Not so much like raw hamburger meat. There were a couple of cuts on my cheek that were pretty deep, but the rest were minor scrapes. They’d bled and formed long, thin scabs, but they weren’t serious. I had a new black eye, which took the place of the one that had just started to fade away. My lower lip was busted and swollen. My nose was swollen and red, but it was straight as ever. I didn’t think it was broken, but it was still full of blood, mostly dried now, making it impossible to breathe through.

I’d seen better days, that was for sure. But I’d also seen worse.

Carefully, I stripped out of my clothes, trying not to cause myself more pain than necessary. I inspected my body, noticing the bumps and bruises that covered my arms and legs. The blood from my knees had run down my shins. The blood from my nose had soaked through my shirt, and settled on my chest.

I took a shower, though it wasn’t as hot as I would’ve liked. The hot water stung too much, so I dialed it back and added some cold water. I lingered a little longer than I usually did in the shower. I was tired and weak, which was most of the reason why I took my time. The other part of the reason was at this moment, I just didn’t care. I didn’t care if Travis came in the bathroom right now and beat the hell out of me. I wouldn’t even fight him back. Whatever happened would happen. I didn’t care.

After I finally turned off the water and got out of the tub, I peed, flushed, brushed my teeth to rid my mouth of the old blood, and walked from the bathroom to my bedroom with the towel wrapped around my waist. After putting on a clean shirt and a pair of shorts, I took my dirty clothes to the washing machine and started them.

Still not caring, I paid no attention to Travis or his whereabouts.

In no more than a daze, I walked from room to room doing these things. When finished, I walked back to my bedroom, still in a daze, which may have been better described as a funk. My arms hung limply at my sides, and my feet barely cleared the floor. In fact, there were some steps I’d taken where my feet didn’t clear the floor, and had dragged along beneath me. When I returned to my room, I collapsed onto the bed, sending new bolts of pain throughout my body.

I rolled onto my side, facing the wall. It hurt less to lay on my right side. My back and the back of my head were covered with knots. My stomach was sore from Travis’ punch earlier. This was just the easier way to lie. And I didn’t fail to notice that I was taking the easiest path, just like my mother.

I stared at the wall and hated my life.

Every day of every month of every year that my mother had been with Travis, I woke up dreading the day. I never knew what was going to happen or when or where. But I always knew who. Travis.

Every night I went to bed wondering if he would storm into my room to drag me out of bed and beat me for some reason, or worse yet, crawl into bed with me.

My health had gone downhill. I was nervous and jumpy. I never got enough food, or the right kind. I wasn’t getting the right kinds of vitamins. The bruises, knots, cuts and scrapes weren’t good for the body, and they healed much slower now than used to. I wasn’t healthy. How could I be when I was going through so much?

I couldn’t concentrate on my school work. I wanted to. I tried to. But it was hard to concentrate when my mind was always racing around whether I’d done something to cause Travis to beat me, or trying to think up a lie for my newest bruises. I was smart. I knew it. I’d had good grades in every subject before Travis came into the picture. But I lacked the focus and concentration now it took to get those grades.

He really had ruined my life in every way. From my grades to my health to destroying the relationship with my mother, he’d ruined all of it, taking from me all that I had.

Except my relationship with Carly.

Thinking of her now comforted me. It was like being wrapped in a warm blanket on a cold day. As I remembered the way her lips had felt against my cheek, the anger began to fade. All the bad things that had happened to me throughout the day became distant problems as I focused on Carly.

I couldn’t believe that I’d asked her to the dance. I couldn’t believe she’d wanted me to ask her. All this time, I’d doubted that she liked me and all this time, she had. I had no idea why, but she did and that was all that mattered.

Unable to imagine the level of suffering I would be in right now if not for her, I drifted off to sleep thinking of the kiss and dreaming of the dance.

Sometime later, I woke. I opened my eyes and lay there, enjoying the few blissful seconds I had before the memories of the days’ events of the day came rushing back at me, bringing with them the pain.

Coming from the living room were loud voices. Listening closely, I could tell that Travis had company. Dale and Mike were in there, and were no doubt being told tales of how awesome Travis was earlier when he beat up on a kid. Though I couldn’t make out many words, there was no mistaking the laughter that was undoubtedly aimed at me.

I didn’t understand how a grown man could take pride in beating up on a child. I wondered - and not for the first time - what had happened to him in his life that made him the way he is now. What had happened to him to make him beat me and rape me in the first place, but also to be happy about doing it? The only explanation I could come up with for an answer was that it had happened to him when he was young.

Of course, that didn’t make it right and it certainly didn’t make it okay. In fact, it should make him want to do the opposite. He knows what it feels like to be abused, so he should never want to inflict that on someone else. Yet he did.

As I lay there thinking of what Travis’ childhood must’ve been like, I realized that we all basically have two choices. We can either do what was done to us, continuing the abuse. Or we can do the opposite, stopping it. Clearly Travis chose to continue. I would never make that choice. If and when I had children, they would be loved, and never hit or abused in any way.

So should I hate him for making the wrong choice? I didn’t know if I should, but I certainly did. I hated him with every fiber of my being. I didn’t want to hate him. But he left me no choice.

Quickly, a thought floated through my mind, staying only long enough for me to realize it was there. What if Travis had a normal, happy childhood? What if he abused me because he enjoyed it? He certainly seemed to enjoy it while he did it. I’d always assumed he’d had a rough childhood, but what if he didn’t? Of course, that didn’t change a single thing. But the thought frightened me a little. There would be no reasoning with someone who did those types of things for fun. I’d always hoped he would feel bad for me at some point and stop. But if he liked it, well, there was nothing I could hope for now. Nothing short of his death - or mine - would make him stop.

And now I had to pee. I considered crossing the hall to the bathroom. After all, I really didn’t care anymore. But as I slowly sat up in bed and swung my legs painfully to the floor, Carly popped into my head. Suddenly, I cared. I didn’t want to be beaten again. She wouldn’t want to show up to a dance with a date that looked as I looked now.

Instead of crossing the hall and using the toilet, I opened the window in my bedroom and stood on my tiptoes. I pulled my shorts down in the front, and aimed away from the house as I peed on the grass. Looking around as I peed, I hoped no one could see me. Carly might not want to go to the dance with a guy who hung his wiener out the window to pee.

When my bladder was empty, I closed the window and headed for bed. I caught a glimpse of my sketch pad lying on the floor in the corner, where it had fallen when I’d thrown it. I walked over to it, suddenly sad that I’d thrown it and mistreated it in such a way. I bent down and picked it up, favoring my left side. Carefully, I straightened out the pages which had become creased from lying in a crumpled heap. I already felt bad for having thrown it, but seeing some of my pictures, some of my best ones, in this condition broke my heart.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, I reached for the lamp, but stopped before turning it on. I remembered the speech about wasting electricity, so I remained in the dark, the only light coming from the streetlight outside my window. I didn’t have room on my body for any more knots or bruises.

I flipped through the pad a page at a time, both admiring my work and making sure each page was smooth and perfect. It still amazed me that such beautiful work had come from my stubby, shaking fingers. I was never sure how it happened. I put a pencil in my hand, put it to the paper, and the next thing I knew, I was looking at a really great drawing. The shading and shadows were what made them so amazing, so realistic. Knowing that they came from me just blew my mind.

Looking at them now, I knew that deciding to put my work in the art show at school was the right decision. Other people should see these. Whether they laughed at them or loved them, they needed to see them. What good were they if I kept them to myself? And there was no denying that I’d lain in bed many nights fantasizing that my drawings were my ticket out of hell. Some fancy art guy, who just happened to show up at a middle school art show, would see my work, be wowed by it, and rush me off to a big city like New York where I would have my own shows and become very rich. Maybe even famous. Realistically, I knew it would never happen. But it was a fantasy, and after all, that’s what fantasies were for. To help you deal with your miserable life.

I placed the sketch pad on the nightstand, catching a glimpse of the clock. It was after one in the morning, by either ten minutes or eighteen minutes. It was impossible to tell with an alarm clock with the burned out bulb. Looking at it, a surge of anger rushed through me from head to toe. My stomach tightened. I was suddenly very anger with my mother. She bought me that piece of crap clock. She bought me all the pieces of crap I owned. I quickly shut my eyes and tried to calm myself, telling myself it was just a clock. Just a simple, digital alarm clock. No reason to get angry. One day, it wouldn’t matter. I should consider myself lucky to even have my own alarm clock. I kept my eyes closed until my stomach relaxed and I didn’t want to hit something. I glanced at the clock again, this time without the surge of anger, and realized that it wasn’t long until I had to get up for school, and I was still tired.

I stretched out on the bed as carefully as I could to keep from causing myself more pain. As I waited for sleep to return, I made several decisions about my life. I’m sure none of them were going to go well, but I was going to do them.

The first was to tell Carly how much I really liked her, and for how long. She had put herself out there a little bit, and I should do the same. I wanted her to know how much she meant to me, and how much she’d helped me survive without even knowing she was doing it. I may even tell her about my home life. Maybe.

The second was to tell my mother exactly what Travis had been doing to me all these years. She was going to see me covered in bruises and scrapes, and when she asked what happened, I was going to tell her. Even if Travis was standing there, ready to tell her a lie. She had to know. This couldn’t go on, and if she knew how badly he’d been treating her only child, she would get rid of him for good, even if it wasn’t the easiest thing to do. It was something I should’ve done after the first time, but I was terrified of what would happen to me. I wasn’t afraid of that now. The worst things that could be done to me already had been done, so I had nothing to lose.

Then, I had to do something with the pistol. I had a couple of options. I could hide it somewhere around the house and Travis would just think he’d overlooked it when he finally found it. But I didn’t want to do that because I had no doubt that he planned to kill me with it. And hopefully, when my mother found out about Travis beating and raping me all these years, he wouldn’t be here to find it anyway.

That left the other option, which was to get rid of it. Bury it next to the dead cat or throw it in a dumpster. Maybe I could sell it, buy a new sketch pad, and give the rest to my mom. Maybe. I wasn’t sure how that would work. Maybe after I told my mom about Travis and he was gone, I’d show her the gun and she could decide what to do with it.

As I thought of making these changes, I drifted off to sleep. I felt a smile start to form on my lips, but it never quite made it.