I heard Nessie hiccup in her sleep, still surrounded by her army of stuffed animals. But she roused me. I didn’t want her to find me like this if she woke up—especially after hearing. . .“She could join in.”
Those words replayed in my head, torturing me as much as the pain between my legs.
I didn’t believe Woodrow would ever hurt his sister, Woody, either. But I had no idea how far Hell would go.
So, I shifted. I used my satin shorts to wipe the blood between my legs, cringing every time I hit a sore spot, which was continuously.
I gazed over the bloodstains on the carpet, knowing I’d have to clean them tomorrow. Knowing I’d have to clean the stain that lingered at its side—someone else’s DNA crusting into the carpet.
I moved to collect a new pair of shorts from the dresser, hiding the old pair at the back of my drawer, and I dressed in the dark after turning out the nightlight that Ville had put on.
I didn’t want to see anymore. I wanted to forget this room and all that happened in it.
I made it three steps to the bed before turning to put the light back on. It felt safer. I didn’t like the dark, because every time I closed my eyes to blink and darkness surrounded me, I saw what happened in this room tonight.
I shuffled painfully into bed. I didn’t pull my diary from under my pillow like every other night. I, instead, pulled the blankets over my head, blocking out reality, praying to any god who would listen, to let me slip into another world.
Chapter 11
Woodrow—aged seventeen
Ileft my bed the second my eyes opened; I didn’t give myself time to come around, or to notice the diary that had been left open on the floor.
I needed to throw on some clothes after having slept completely naked.
I looked over to the door, my chair wedged under the handle, as always. I didn’t remember much of the events where I was myself—the events between switching alters—thanks to the concussion I was surely suffering.
Last night, my father had beat me to within an inch of my life before Hell stepped in to save me. But fuck knows what else he had done. Couldn’t have been as bad as I thought, because my only other memory of being myself last night, was my father coming into my room to tell me he was proud of how I’d controlled the monster inside me.
I didn’t feel like I had control. I felt it slipping away. Hell, climbing to the surface again.
I didn’t answer my father as he smiled at me from the doorway, blood staining his shirt, alcohol strong on his breath—a new bottle in hand that he must have popped out for. The second he left, I barricaded the door and collapsed onto the bed. . . confused over everything, including the minutes prior.
I didn’t trust him. I didn’t trust me as Hell took over for a few more hours of my life, doing who knows what in this devastated room.
The covers still lay as I left them, half hanging off my bed.
The pains in my body and all the bruises covering it, had me wondering how I’d managed to control the monster. How Hell hadn’t sliced open my father’s throat with one of the broken pieces of glass lying on my bedroom floor.
My body pained me as I sunk into my sweats. If there was a mirror in this room, I’d have seen that I was more shades of blue and purple than I was white. I looked like the damn love child of Barney and that female smurf that all the other smurfs swooned over.
I threw on a t-shirt, grateful that the size swamped me. Grateful for no pressure on any of my bruises.
I dropped to the floor, my fingers pulling the diary out from beneath my cascading bed sheets, placing it in a comfortable reading position as I tried to remember anything I did in between the switches.
I couldn’t remember anything. . . but I somehow felt like the worst human alive. Blank spaces filled the space of my recent memories. But I knew Hell worded his actions in the book riddled with our life stories because it was open on a page that I didn’t recognize. . . and written in blue pen.
Something I never did, always opting for black.
I was scared to look, but I knew I had to know what had happened here last night.
The bold blue words smiled up at me from the sheet. The pen was still in the centerfold, no lid in sight, the ink drying up.
I shook my head, scanning the words he’d written. I had to ignore the pain in my throat to do such a simple action. “No, no, no.”
My fingers splayed my face, not in time to stop a tear from falling to the page and smearing the blue ink of Hell’s latest input more than what it already was, thanks to us being left-handed.
He’d done so many shitty things; he’d stabbed my mother, the reason left void, so I had no fucking clue as to why. I kept reading, wishing I’d stopped there.
