Calico (27 page)

Fuck! What the hell should I say? What the hell
can
I possibly say that will be acceptable in my father’s eyes?

Something comes to me, but it’s not an easy deception. “I was attacked,” I whisper. “I was walking home from school one night and someone grabbed me from behind.”

My father squints at me. This clearly wasn’t what he expected me to say. It’s not what he
wanted
me to say. He wants a culprit for this crime, this perceived disrespect that has been dealt him. Almost beating me to death hasn’t been enough. He wants someone else to pay the price, too. “What do you mean, you were attacked?”

“It was dark. I was coming back from the library and I had my headphones in. I didn’t hear anyone following me. I should have been paying attention, but I was thinking about my exams, and—

“What did he do to you?” I can’t tell if he’s already seen through my lie, or if he’s growing angry at the prospect of someone accosting me on the street. He’s grinding his teeth together like he’s set on milling them to dust, though.
 

“He put his hand over my mouth. I couldn’t scream. He…he put his hand up my shirt.” I start crying. It’s vital that he believes I went through a traumatic experience. The tears come quick and easy.

“What then?” he demands.
 

I spin a tale of struggle and violence. I make it sound horrific and torturous. My father twitches on the edge of my bed, absorbing everything I say until my story is over. I hold my breath, waiting to see if he’s about to snap and trash the room. Standing up, he runs his hands through his hair, hissing. He paces back and forth. “You should have told me when it happened,” he snaps.
 

“I know. I felt ashamed. I…I was humiliated. And I didn’t want to upset you.”

He says something next that stuns me. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Coralie. You shouldn’t have felt that way. You’re good and pure. Innocent. I always knew you were,” he says, wagging a finger at me. “I always knew you were a good girl. If you’d have said something right away, I could have killed the fucker, though. I’m your father. You know you can tell me anything. It’s my job to protect you.”

If I weren’t scared out of my mind, I’d be laughing hysterically right now.
He’s
been the only thing I’ve ever been afraid of for such a long time. He’s the one who’s repeatedly hurt me, year after year after year. He’s the one who’s had me waking up in a cold sweat for as long as I can remember, terrified that he was there finally, lurking in my room, waiting to emerge from the shadows.
 

“I know, Daddy. I’m so sorry,” I stammer. “I was just so confused. And…and I’ve been scared ever since.”

He fumes as he paces. “And you didn’t see his face? You have no idea what he looks like?”

I shake my head. “It was dark. He was behind me the whole time.”

“I want to skin that bastard alive,” he spits. “I want to kill someone.”

He fails to acknowledge that he
has
already killed someone. Or maybe it’s just that he doesn’t care. He hasn’t asked me about what happened down in the basement, though he must surely know. He must have heard me screaming. He must have seen the blood when he came down to leave the food and the water. He chooses to pretend like it just never happened. He cements this when he says, “You’re still a virgin, Coralie. No matter what. In my mind, you’re still in tact.” This seems to be critically important to him. I just nod. “From now on, I’ll pick you up from school every day. And no more going out after dark.
Ever
.”

My life is essentially over now. As I lay in bed, my whole body aching and throbbing, feeling hollow inside, I realize that this is it. I can’t stay here anymore. I have to leave. Despite the pacing and the angry words, he’s relatively calm right now. I know him, though. It won’t last. He’ll change his mind at some point, decide that this was my fault, and I won’t be waking up next time. I’ll be buried in the basement, just like my son.
 

And unlike him, no one will know that I’m there.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CORALIE

Rise and Fall

THEN

I stay in bed for a week. I struggle to even make it to the bathroom. At first my father insists on helping me shower. I can’t persuade him that I don’t need the help, so I stand there, shoulders rounded in, body hunched over, eyes shut, cold water thrashing my beaten body. After day three, I’m still bleeding, though, and the sight of the blood circling around the drain in the shower tray seems to repulse him. He tells me then that until I’m better I must stay in bed.
 

He was right about my bruises. The deep purple shadows on my face fade quickly at least. By the time I have to go back to school, they’re a sickly shade of green and yellow. With a subtle application of some cover-up foundation, they’re almost invisible.
 

I can just about get around if I walk slowly, but my father drives me to Port Royal High anyway, just like he said he would. I see Callan waiting for me outside Willoughby’s just like usual, but he doesn’t see me fly by in the car. I pretend not to notice him.
 

No one speaks to me in the hallways at school. The other students move from class to class, laughing and joking, oblivious to the fact that the world has ended. Callan and I don’t have any classes together, so I don’t see him until lunch in the cafeteria. He drops his bag at an empty table and makes a dash for me as soon as he sees me. “There she is, my little bluebird.” He wraps his arms around me and pulls me in for a kiss, and I don’t even know how to respond. I’m so relieved to see him. I’m torn inside out at seeing him, too, because I have to tell him what’s happened and I don’t know how. I won’t be able to find the right words to make the news hurt any less; it’s going to kill him. He kisses me lightly, cupping the back of my neck in his hand, and I feel myself falling apart already. On the other side of the cafeteria, Shane and Tina whoop and cheer as Callan kisses me, and I just stand there, going along with it because Callan seems happy and I don’t want to change that yet. His hand shifts between us, secretly brushing my belly, secretly trying to say hello to our baby. Our baby that’s no longer there.

Callan produces a pen from behind his ear and holds it out to me. “I need some fresh ink,” he says, pulling back the sleeve of his hoody, exposing his arm. I’ve missed my Coralie Taylor original artwork.”

“Callan, can we just—”
 

He waggles the pen in front of my face, grinning angelically. “
Please
?”

I take the pen from him, not really seeing it or the small, hurried etch I create on his wrist of a bird. A bluebird to be precise. I’m three seconds away from bursting into tears. Callan must see it on my face.

“Whoa…whoa, what the hell, Coralie. What’s wrong?” Callan’s face falls, and for a moment I think he’s figured it out, that I’m no longer pregnant. But then he says, “Oh shit. You already know, don’t you? You’ve already seen it?” and I know he doesn’t have a clue.

“Seen what?”
 

“The shot I took of you a couple of weeks ago with the bruise under your eye. The one you got playing lacrosse? I…” He winces. “God, I know I should have asked, but it was such a raw picture and you were away in New York, and, well…I kind of
sold
it.”

My stomach lurches. I know the picture he’s talking about all too well. I’d come home one night and Malcolm was blind drunk. I hadn’t even done anything wrong. He’d made no excuses as he’d lashed out with his belt, catching me on the side of the head with its buckle. One centimeter higher and he would have blinded me. There had been no way for me to hide it, so Dad had coached me through saying that I’d gotten the injury during a lacrosse game. Callan hadn’t second-guessed me. I’d given him no reason to. He had begged me to let him take a photo with his Leica, though. Said the bruising would contrast crazily in an image. I’d eventually given in and told him he could. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think anyone else would see it. “You did
what
?”

“Fuck,” he hisses under his breath. “I’m such an idiot. I sold it, Coralie. I sold it to Rise And Fall Magazine. He proceeds to explain who Rise and Fall Magazine are, but I know all too well; he has a stack of their publications sitting by his bedside that date back at least four years. “They had a competition and I thought what the hell, it’s not like I’m going to win or anything. And then last Thursday they called and told me I
had
won, and…shit, they’ve put it on the front cover. It came out yesterday.”

What. The. Fuck? I let Callan take a picture of me, and he submitted it for a magazine cover?
I frown, scrutinizing his face, trying to work out if he’s joking. Callan isn’t smiling anymore; he looks worried. “I have a copy of it in my bag, bluebird. Do you want to see it?”

I nod silently. Callan fetches his bag and pulls out a copy of the magazine in question, and there I am, eyes shining with emotion, my mouth slightly fuller on one side than the other just like always…and a dark, brutal bruise underneath my right eye. Three words overlay the picture in big white block capitols:
Our Troubled Youth
. And then underneath:
Imagery and Original Artworks From the Badlands—A New Chapter from the Young Voices of America.
 

I keep staring at it, hoping that my face on the cover will morph into someone else’s. He doesn’t know what he’s done. He has no idea how bad this is. If my father happens to see this, he’s going to kill Callan and then he’s going to kill me.

“You’re angry, aren’t you? Jesus, I’m so sorry, bluebird. I just figured you wouldn’t mind. You’re not a girly girl. You don’t wear tons of make up. You’re not vain like ninety-nine point nine percent of the girls here. I honestly would never have submitted the picture if I thought you’d say no. You believe me, don’t you?”

My eyes remain locked on the magazine he’s holding out to me in his hand. “I lost the baby,” I whisper.
 

I watch the magazine lower as Callan’s arm falls to his side. “
What
?” His voice is barely there; he sounds winded, like I just sucker punched him in the chest. “What do you mean, you
lost
it?”

I suppose wording it that way does make it sound like I merely misplaced it or something. “I mean…” My throat is burning, aching, closing up. It’s painful to swallow. I just need to get the words out. Once they’re out in the open between us that will be half the battle done. “I mean I’m not pregnant anymore. I lost the baby. He died.”

“I don’t understand. When? Why didn’t you call me?”

He has no idea how painful that question is, given that I would have given a major organ to do exactly that when I was locked in that basement. Resentment spills over inside me, leaving a bitter taste in my mouth. I have to remind myself that none of this is his fault. I was meant to be away. He knew he wasn’t likely to hear from me. He wanted me to enjoy my time out of state, away from my overbearing father. “It wasn’t something I wanted to tell you over the phone,” I say. Callan’s dark eyes are flashing, filled with pain, anger, sorrow, denial. I can see the emotions all taking turns as he shoves his magazine back into his bag and threads his arms through the straps.
 

“I’ve gotta get out of here,” he says. Shane and Tina call out to us, beckoning us over to their table as we pass them by, but Callan keeps on walking, stumbling like a zombie. Outside, the sun is high overhead, the air distorted by the wavy heat, the blacktop of the quad soft and sticky underfoot, smelling like ozone. No one’s around. No one’s crazy enough to be loitering outside in these kinds of temperatures.
 

“Are you okay?” Callan spins around, his eyes shining with unshed tears. “Was it bad? Are you okay?” he repeats.
 

I just nod, not wanting to risk speech. My voice will break and that will be it for me; I’ll start crying and I won’t be able to stop.
 

“I wish I’d been there,” he murmurs. “I should have fucking been there.”

“You couldn’t have done anything.” This is truer than he will ever know. If he had been there when my father discovered our secret, he’d be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life—if he was lucky—and our baby would still be gone.
 

“Why? Why did it happen?”

I bite my lip, my eyes stinging furiously. “Sometimes it just…it happens, Cal. Sometimes it’s just what’s meant to be.”

He thinks about this for a second, eyes fixed on a distant point over my head, though I can tell he’s not seeing anything. “Fine. I know…I know I probably couldn’t have stopped it, but I should have been there for you, Coralie. You must have needed me.” I nod again. I feel myself crumple, the stoic expression I’ve tried to maintain on my face disintegrating as I burst into tears. “Shit. Come here.” Callan takes me in his arms and holds onto me, kissing my temple and my cheek gently as he rocks us from side to side. I can feel his tears wetting my face, too. I’ve only ever seen him cry one other time—when I climbed into bed with him a couple of nights after Jo told us she was dying. Ever since then, he’s been putting a brave face on, helping her when she’s sick, driving her to and from her chemo appointments. He’s been strong for her, which has meant no tears. Until now, of course.

He holds my face in his hands, bright diamonds hanging from the ends of his sooty eyelashes. “I’m sorry, bluebird. I’m so fucking sorry. I know we didn’t plan to have a kid. I know we’re kids ourselves, but I would have taken care of you both. I would have supported and loved you both, no matter what. Later, when we’re ready, we can try again. If you want to. If you can still see yourself having a family with me.” I can feel his pain radiating off him, aching the same way it aches in me. I was so scared when I found out I was pregnant, but telling Callan changed that. He calmed me, made me feel excited about it for the first time. I want nothing more in the world than to have a child with him, but it’s never going to happen now, though. I know what I have to do, and it’s going to destroy me.