Something crashes to the floor, and the jarring sound prompts me to move.
My hands shake as I bend over and feel around the floor for my clothes. The sticky wetness of his release drips down my thighs but I can’t think about that right now. I’m able to locate my jeans and fumble into them on trembling legs. Where’s my shirt?
I’m yanked by the arm away from the door. It opens, and a spear of bright light breaks the inky blackness of the room.
Harsh words like “You disgust me” and “I hate the sight of you” follow me as I’m pushed out into the hallway, and he slams the door in my shell-shocked face.
He tossed me out, half-naked, like I don’t matter. Like what we just did doesn’t matter. Like what I gave him—my body, my heart, my love—doesn’t matter.
The cruel words my sister taunts me with daily assault me.
Stupid, pathetic, ugly, fat, worthless, disgusting.
I let the tears fall.
Another door opens behind me, and Mike walks out into the hallway.
“Douglass?”
I try to cover my chest the best I can, but it’s useless. He sees my shame and devastation.
I barely notice when he ushers me into the office. I’m mentally not present when he slips my arms through a long-sleeved shirt to cover my nakedness. I don’t recall Mike driving me back to Natalie’s house.
I do remember going into the kitchen, grabbing a steak knife, and locking myself in my bathroom.
Stupid, pathetic, ugly, fat, worthless, disgusting.
I remember how much it hurt, that first jagged slice across my wrist. Oh god, did it hurt. But not as much as I was hurting on the inside. My entire shitty, depressing life played across my mind as I spiraled into the darkness. Dad, dead. Mom, dead. My sister abuses and hurts me. The man I love used me and threw me out in the most shameful way. I have no friends. I have no life. I’m fat and I hate myself. Every day is an endless struggle.
I press the knife down harder.
Mental pain can be so much worse than physical pain. A blow to the flesh heals over time, but a blow to the heart can cause irreparable damage. If I make the cut bigger, would that pain leach out and spill down the drain? Could I rid myself of it that easily?
“I want you gone. I never want to see you again.”
Three.
That’s how many times I tried to saw at my wrist.
But I couldn’t do it.
Because sitting alone in a puddle of blood and tears on the bathroom floor, I chose life.
Days later, I packed a suitcase and left Woodspire.
And never looked back.
Chapter 29
Present Day
I lift a sleeping Douglass in my arms. She’s nothing but dead weight, having passed out from exhaustion. At some point, we ended up sitting on the floor, so I could hold her in my arms, and she killed me a thousand times over with her tears as she finally told me everything. About that night. About her eating disorder. About… fuck, I can’t say the words, not even in my thoughts.
And the goddamn irony of it all? I remember now. Most of it, anyway. Those forgotten memories came back piece by piece as she spoke, like the flickering images of a zoetrope.
By the time I’d noticed Douglass sitting at the corner table at Mickey’s, I was already four beers past drunk and not planning on stopping until I was good and passed out and didn’t have to think about my run-in with Amelia and Chase earlier that day. How happy they looked together.
And then my drunken eyes had spotted Douglass across the room. Beautiful, shy, sweet Douglass. The little sister of my ex. The girl that had always held my interest for some reason, even though we’d barely spoken more than a few words to one another. But she was young. Too young. So I had kept my distance.She’s not off limits anymore, my inebriated brain had told me that night. She’d graduated high school early, had plans to go to Rice but was taking a gap year, or so I had heard through the town gossip mill.
