Pulled Within (18 page)

This wasn’t the first time I’d seen someone act this way. I’d been around drugs and their users so much over the years, behavior like his was almost expected at times. It had never really bothered me. Maybe because the weed had given me a nice calm buzz, and I was able to tune it out. Or maybe because all my friends were druggies; if I wasn’t hanging with them, listening to shit like this, I’d have been
completely alone. Or maybe because this had become somewhat
normal
for me, and nothing
—
not even Jeremy acting like a squirrel and
thinking there were imaginary people coming to get him
—
could have been more fucked up then the events that had led to my scar.

But some of that was no longer true. I was reconnecting with Hart, and he didn’t use. And I wasn’t nearly high enough to ignore Jeremy‘s
tweaking side. And almost every time I’d been in this house,
something happened…something that just wasn’t right.

I really shouldn’t have been taking this so lightly, but I needed something to alleviate the storm of pain roiling inside me.

“
Raaaaae,
you’re ignoring me. Have they gotten to you, too, Rae? Have they taken over your body?”

“No, Jeremy, they haven’t
taken over my body
.” I stuck the tip of
the blunt back in my mouth and sucked in another hit.

“Go get Caleb.
Noooow
.” His eyes had moved back to the
window. Tremors made his hands shake even harder than before. “Tell him to close the door.”

“Tell me yourself,” Caleb said, joining us in the living room. “Dude, you’ve got to lay off that shit. You’re making less sense than you usually do.” He stopped in front of me to pick up the blunt.
When he saw the size of it, he walked away without it. “Keep it. I’ll roll another.”

“Caleb, we’re surrounded!” Jeremy said, still staring out the
window. “I’m telling you, they’re penetrating.”

“You mean infiltrating?” Caleb asked, breaking up a bud on the table.

“Same shit,” Jeremy said. “I can see ‘em. They’re everywhere.
Wearing black or some color like that. Holy fuck, did you see that
one? It just jumped, Caleb! It fucking
jumped
!”

I kept puffing on the blunt until it was finally down to a roach. Caleb kept all the roaches
—
whether they were the very ends of
joints or blunts
—
in a jar under the coffee table. When the jar got full every
few weeks, he’d dump all the ends together, sprinkle in some resin and roll a massive godfather that was at least three papers wide. The
last time I’d attended one of those epic smoking sessions was just before Brady had taken off. The jar was almost full; there would be another one coming up soon.

I wouldn’t be here for that one.

I stubbed out the blunt, dropped it in the jar, put the lid back, and stood from the couch. “I’ll see you guys in a little bit.”

“Don’t go out there,” Jeremy yelled. “They’ll get you. They’ll
—
”

“I’m just going to my room,” I said as I passed him. “Relax.” I knew without checking that it was well past four in the morning. I needed to charge my phone for a bit and get all my clothes together. Hart would be getting up soon for work, if he wasn’t already awake, and I didn’t want to miss him.

My room was exactly as I’d left it, but the mattress was now
bare. I didn’t see the trash bag of puke anywhere. Thankfully, it seemed the boys had cleaned it up for me.

I was still dressed in Hart’s sweatpants and hoodie as I took a
seat on the floor next to the bed. The stains on the mattress looked worse
than they had before. I couldn’t tell if they were from piss or
blood
—
most
likely both. I imagined someone had crashed here after Hart had carried me out. The new splatter marks on the wall were probably
from them, too…and the smell.

This place was just nasty.

The blunt was making me lazy. I wanted to get the hell out of there, but I just didn’t have the energy after working all night and
driving back to Bar Harbor. I leaned against the wall, trying to avoid the
stains and crossed my legs. I pulled out the elastic that held my
ponytail, letting the strands fall around my face and over my
shoulders. My fingers ran through it, picking out the knots, smoothing down the soft waves.

I felt sleep coming. My lids were heavy, my mouth dry from the weed. My body was supported by the wall as my chin found a comfortable spot on my shoulder.

When my eyes closed, I saw Gerald’s hands. They were in the middle of all the blackness.

My eyes burst open, but they were too heavy to remain that way and immediately shut again. And I was too tired to fight it.

To fight him.

He was there, waiting for me…

***

“You’re such a sweet girl,” he whispered. He was so close, his breath
felt
like a feather on my cheek. Or like the stuffing that came out of my doll
when
Darren ripped the head off. My brother said the doll was creepy-
looking… maybe it was.

His warm hand rested on my back and began rubbing circles between
my shoulder blades. After a few seconds, he moved up slowly until he
reached
the bare skin on my neck, the spot between the collar of my T-shirt and my
hair.

“Do you like being a good girl…for me?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

I liked to make him happy. When I did, he gave me presents or candy.
Mommy worked nights, so she didn’t know what he fed me. He liked it that way…and I think I did, too.

“To help you fall asleep, I want you to think about one of your favorite places. Will you do that for me?”

I nodded again.

That favorite place was Mommy’s bed on Sunday mornings. She never
worked on Sundays. Darren and I would crawl in on both sides of her and
fall
asleep against her arms. When we would wake up, she’d be gone. She was
usually in the kitchen making us breakfast. Sometimes he’d be out there with her, and they’d fight about money.

Then later in the morning, while Darren and I were watching cartoons
on the couch, she’d go into her room and lock the door. I’d lean against it
and listen to her. She’d be crying. That was as close as she’d let me get, so that’s where I’d stay. I usually fell asleep there.

One time she forgot to lock her door. It was after one of their money fights. I brought in my piggy bank and set it on her big bed. She wouldn’t
take it, so I emptied it on top of her blanket and told her to keep all the quarters. It had taken me so long to save them, but I wanted her to have it all.

Mommy needed my money more than I did.

“Close your eyes for me, sweetheart,” he said.

I did as he said and curled my arms around my pillow.

His hand moved a little higher as he brushed over my hair. His fingers were like the comb Mommy used on me sometimes when she helped me get
ready for school, sliding back and forth between each strand. Every couple of
passes, he’d sweep the hair out of my eyes or tuck it behind my ear. Then
he’d start again, brush, brush, sweep.

Brush, brush, sweep.

Back and forth…back and forth.

His skin was so warm, and even though it was rough, it didn’t hurt
when he brushed. The dryness on his fingers would often make my forehead sore,
or my cheek, or my neck. But the sweep was quickly followed by two
brushes and I loved those.

Brush, brush, sweep.

“Good night, Rae,” he said.

Brush, brush, sweep.

His lips kissed the middle of my cheek. His mouth was always wet
enough to leave a mark on my skin. Sometimes it took minutes for it to dry. But I didn’t concentrate on that. I concentrated on my Mommy.

Brush, brush, sweep.

Back and forth.

***

I woke to the scream that tore from my lips, and I tucked my
legs against my chest. My arms clasped around my knees as I rocked.

Back and forth
.

Twenty-three days
.

My ass swayed over the crunchy carpet, and goose bumps
covered my entire body. I had a similar reaction when Hart touched me, but for completely different reasons. This time, it was the same as when I
thought about Gary, the fucking peeper. How I’d been completely
naked. Totally vulnerable.

Open for his touch without even knowing it.

Considering the missed call and the so-called meeting with my mom, I wasn’t surprised he’d popped into my dream.

Not my dream. My
nightmare.

Those hands…I couldn’t get them out of my head.

Every time I swallowed, more saliva shot into my mouth. It was
my stomach’s way of responding to the feel of his fingers, and the
meaning behind them. It was also a warning, telling me I needed to head to a bathroom and that I didn’t have much time.

I rose quickly and sprinted out of my room, my stomach heaving
before I even got to the hallway. The door to the bathroom was open. Jeremy was kneeling in front of the toilet, so I went straight to the
sink.
I’d told Shane earlier that the pancakes had tasted so good going down. They didn’t hold any of their fluffy buttery goodness when
they came
back up. The small piece of chicken and two sodas that I’d had at
work only made it worse.

When my stomach finally felt empty and I’d stopped dry
heaving, I turned on the faucet to wash everything down the drain. The basin
was half-f; the added water filled it even higher. I glanced at Jeremy while I waited for it to drain. His finger was down his throat
as he
gagged over the toilet, but nothing solid came out. His face turned
redder with each heave.

“Not feeling so hot?” I asked.

It was a stupid question. He was trying to make himself sick;
obviously, he wasn’t feeling good. But something seemed off. I
stared for
a second, realizing the hand that wasn’t down his throat had slid past the elastic waist of his sweats. He was jerking off…and
whimpering. I couldn’t tell if his noises were from how good it felt or if the fingers hitting the back of his throat were causing him pain.

The combination of the two was way too fucking bizarre.

“Jeremy,” I barked, “what the hell?”

His hand poked into the fabric of his sweats on the upstroke and
disappeared during the downstroke. It began to move faster, his
breath
quickened. “I’m…getting…them…out.” He gagged again, shoving
his
other fingers even deeper down his throat. Not even saliva came, or
bile. He was as empty as I was.

I glanced back at the sink. The puke was floating on the top of
the
water, which had now pooled and almost filled the entire bowl. I
needed
to stick my fingers in the drain to unclog it or get a plunger.
Something.

But I was too distracted by the asshole masturbating and
heaving next to me.

“They penetrated me,” he said. “I need to get them out.”

He hadn’t sobered up at all. He’d probably taken even more shit, and this was just the start of his psychosis.

I wasn’t going to stick around to watch the middle…or the end.

Or any more of the beginning.

His jerking filled the silence as I looked under the sink for a plunger. There was nothing there, so I checked the bathroom closet.

“
Ahhhhh!
” he yelled. A gag followed. “
Get. The. Fuck. Out. Of.
Me!
” Each word came out of his mouth in the same beat that he pumped his fist. “
Get. The. Fuck. Out. Of. Me!
”

Someone else could clean up the sink and the puke water.

I needed to get the hell out of there.

I tore off to the kitchen, searching through the cabinets for a
trash
bag. The only one I could find was on the floor of the pantry,
covered in
dust and hairballs. I picked it up, opened it and shook it out as I rushed back into my room. I didn’t fold my clothes or put them in any kind of order. I just shoved them into the bag. This was the
second time I’d done this
—
cramming my whole wardrobe into plastic, unfolded and probably even a little damp and stained from whatever was musty on the carpet. It didn’t matter.

After I collected all my stuff, I shut the bedroom door behind
me. Jeremy was still in the bathroom, his sounds growing louder as I approached. Skin rubbing on raw flesh. Gagging on his own fingers. He was unfazed as I stood in the doorway watching him. The crank had made him like that. Most of Brady’s boys had been on it at some point over the years. It made them do some insane things.

Even Saint.

He was such a straightedge now, but he’d earned his nickname years ago when his grandmother had dragged him to church early one Sunday morning after a party. Mid-sermon, Saint tried to get up
from the pew to make a run for the bathroom. He didn’t make it. He ended up hurling all over his grandmother. Jeremy’s parents had
been sitting in the pew behind them and his dad shouted, “That boy ain’t no fuckin’ saint.”