That's my safe place.
***
The thing I was most scared of happens four days later, on a Thursday afternoon.
I don't even know what I did wrong. I was carrying firewood from the pile behind the barn to the porch, just like Mr. Henderson had told me to do, moving as fast as I could with the heavy logs in my arms.
Maybe I wasn't carrying enough pieces at once, or maybe I wasn't moving fast enough for his liking. Or maybe he was just drunk and meanand looking for someone to hurt, looking for an outlet for whatever rage was burning inside him. It doesn't really matter what the reason was. The reason never really matters with men like him.
"Get over here, boy," he says from the porch where he's standing with a beer in one hand, the words slurring together.
I walk toward him on legs that feel like they belong to someone else, like I'm controlling my body from a great distance. My heart is pounding so hard I can hear it in my ears, a drumbeat that drowns out everything else, and I already know what's coming.
I know because I watched it happen to Jay. I know because Jay warned me this day would come.
"Take your shirt off," Henderson commands, his eyes cold and flat.
My hands shake as I pull my T-shirt over my head, trembling so badly I can barely grip the fabric. The cold autumn air hits my bare skin and makes me shiver, goosebumps rising on my arms and chest. I stand there holding my shirt in a ball against my chest, not knowing what to do with it, not knowing what to do with myself.
Then I hear the sound—leather sliding through belt loops, a hiss and a whisper that makes my whole body go tight with fear. I know that sound. The clink of the buckle as he doubles the belt over in his hand, snapping it once to test it.
"Turn around," he orders.
I turn around slowly and stare at the firewood I dropped on the ground when he called me over. I start counting the logs because I need something to focus on, something to hold onto to keep from falling apart. One, two, three, four, five—
The first crack of the belt against my bare back is like nothing I've ever felt before, white-hot and electric, pain that explodes across my skin and radiates through my whole body. My body jerks forward before I can stop it, before I can control the instinctive reaction.
"Don't you move, boy," Henderson growls from behind me. "You better stand still."
I don't move. I plant my feet and squeeze my eyes shut tight and dig my fingernails into my palms hard enough to draw blood, and I do what Jay told me to do. I go somewhere else in my mind.
The barn. The loft. The smell of old hay gone yellow and dusty, scratchy against my jeans. Jay is sitting next to me with his arm around my shoulders, warm and solid and real and safe. The sky is turning dark through the loft door and I can hear the wind moving through the fields outside, the grass whispering.
His voice is in my ear, steady and calm.
The pain is temporary. You survive today so you can survive tomorrow. That's the whole game. That's the only game. We'll get through this together.
I hold onto that picture in my mind as hard as I can, gripping it like a lifeline, making it as real as I can possibly make it. The scratch of hay through my jeans. The feeling of Jay's heartbeat against my shoulder, steady and strong.
The belt keeps falling—four times, five times, six times, maybe more, I lose count somewhere in there as the pain blurs together, but I'm far away now. I'm in the barn with Jay. I'm safe in my mind even as my body suffers.
I don't cry. I don't make a sound. I bite down on my lip so hard I taste blood.
When it's finally over, Mr. Henderson shoves me hard between the shoulder blades with his palm, and I stumble forward, barely catching myself on the porch railing before I fall. He goes back inside without another word, muttering under his breath about ungrateful fucking kids and wasted money and how the state doesn't pay him enough to deal with this shit. The screen door slams shut behind him with a bang that makes me flinch.
I stand there for a long time, gripping the railing with both hands so tight my knuckles turn white, feeling the cold air against my back where the skin is burning and screaming. I wait for my body to start working again, for my legs to feel like mine instead of someone else's, for the ringing in my ears to stop, for my vision to clear from the edges where it's gone dark and spotty.
Then, slowly, painfully, I pick up the firewood piece by piece, and I carry it to the porch even though every step sends pain shooting through my back like lightning. I finish the job because not finishing it will onlymake things worse later. I go inside when all the wood is stacked neatly, and I find Jay.
He's in our room doing homework at the small desk in the corner, and when he sees my face his whole expression changes in an instant. He crosses the room fast, closes the door behind me and locks it, and puts his hands on my shoulders so gently it almost makes me want to cry more than the belt did.
"Where?"
"Back," I manage to say. "Side of my head too, I think. One hit landed there."
He turns me around carefully, like I'm made of glass that might shatter, and lifts my shirt. I hear him breathe in sharp through his teeth, a hissing sound of sympathetic pain.
"It's not bad." I know he's lying to make me feel better. "I've seen worse. You'll heal clean."
