“It’s going to be okay, Carrie.”
She nods but her lips stay shut, as if she’s afraid of opening them and letting her fears spill out.
We lapse back into silence, and she looks down to hide her face. I see her watching our footsteps as we walk; mine are in sync with hers. I smile at people as they pass us. Some smile back, but most just frown, and God do I pity them. They haven’t known a love like ours. It transcends everything. They don’t know how our lives have been connected from that very first day so many years ago. They haven’t experienced the things we have. All these people are just rolling through life as if it isn’t worth living. As if their lives are meaningless, pointless existences. And they are,but they don’t have to be,I want to say.Your lives can be as wonderful as ours too. You just have to take that leap into the unknown.
I stop at a bus stop, and I check what time the next one is due, and I see that it’s only three minutes. And I smile again, because everything is going our way and everything is going to be perfect now.
The day is getting late and the bus is packed when it pulls up. How did those hours slip by us? I didn’t even notice. It was minutes, seconds, not a day. Not almost night. Yet people board the bus after their long days at work. Men with briefcase thinking they’re some hot shit with their ties and hats, and women with their heels that click down the center of the bus. Old people, young people, children and dogs. We all share the same air, the same space as we fight to get home. As we struggle to get to where we really belong. Behind those closed doors with our drapes pulled tight to blot out the rest of the world. To omit the boss we hate, the neighbors we despise, and the family we avoid.
She pays for us both because I have no money with me, and I say thank you but she doesn’t respond.
Carrie is leaning with her head against the window. It’s raining outside now, and the windows have steamed up. She’s tracing patterns on the glass, and I remember another time that she did that. When I found her hiding in my room, her face black and blue from the fist her dad hit her with.
*
“You’re back?” I say, but she doesn’t say anything. She’s been gone a week, but it felt like forever. “When did you get back?” I ask, but she still doesn’t reply.
I’m carrying my schoolbooks, so I come in and I put them on my desk neatly, and I have homework to do, but I’ll do it later because Carrie is back and that’s much more important than algebra. I go and sit next to her on the bed and I reach out for her arm, but she flinches and pulls away before my fingers touch her.
“Where did you go?” I ask. Still nothing. Just the dead air of silence between us.
I see her patterns in the steam on the window. Swirls and loops and curves. It’s pretty.
“I missed you,” I say.
Her hand stills on the glass, her finger poised above a curve, and then she looks at me.
“I was gone but he brought me back. I escaped but he’s trapped me again. I missed you too,” she sighs, answering all of my questions at once.
I swallow. “Are you hungry?” I ask, and she nods her head. “I’ll make you something to eat. Bologna sandwich? Coffee?”
She nods again.
I stand up and I go to my door. I look back in at her and she’s drawing on the glass again.
“I’m sorry he found you,” I say. “But I’m also not.”
She turns and looks at me again. “I know.”
“I am sorry about that.” I look down, feeling shame creep up my cheeks. I know what her dad does to her. I know he hits her and touches her where he shouldn’t. I know her mom doesn’t do anything to help and that she is a drunk. I know her situation is horrible and hopeless and that she’s hurting so much. “I really did miss you,” I say.
“I know you did,” she says.
Our gazes are connected for a few precious seconds. I see her world without me and without her dad and without her mom. I see how it could have been for her. And she sees my life, without her in it. Our situations are reversed if we are apart.
Mine is worse and hers is better, but still I cannot let her go.
If you love something, set it free. That’s what the poem says. But I don’t want to set her free, though I love her very much. I want to keep her trapped in a gilded cage. I want her to be with me always. No matter what the consequences.
That’s why I told her dad where she was going. That’s why I always tell him.
“I’m sorry, Carrie,” I say, and I leave the room.
I make her a sandwich and I put extra mayo on, just like she likes it. I make her coffee with two sugars and just a splash of milk, and then I carry both things upstairs.
I push the door open to my room and I find her with a knife in her hand and blood on her wrists. It drips onto my duvet and she slides down and lays her head on my pillow.
I drop the tray and her coffee spills and her sandwich falls, and everything comes crashing down on my bedroom floor. I run to the bed, I collapse by her head, and I press my hand to her wrist to stem the blood.
“No, no,” I say. “Mom!” I scream over and over. “Stay with me, Carrie!”
“I’m sorry too,” she says, and then she closes her eyes.
