He shakes his head at me, and I’m blinded by so much rage that I don’t see it when his fist comes up and connects with my face.
And then the world is black.
When I wake up, I’m on a gurney in a small room and my mom is holding an ice pack against my face. My jaw hurts so much. It’s like I took a sledgehammer to it.
“What happened?” I ask, and I try to sit up but the world is still spinning so I lie back down. Dad isn’t in the room.
“Carrie’s dad hit you. You were unconscious, Ethan,” she says. “Hush now. Rest, son.”
I think of all the times that Mr. Brown has hit Carrie. And how much it must have hurt every single time he did that. I start to cry because I’m a pussy, and I let my mom hold me while I think of Carrie and her beautiful face that takes her father’s punches night after night, and I try not to think about all of the other things that he does to hurt her. And I know now why she wants to die—why she would rather be dead and without me than live another minute in this hell.
I force myself to sit up. My mom places a hand on my shoulder.
“Lie back, Ethan, you need to rest,” she says.
“I need to see her,” I reply sadly.
“No!” she snaps at me. And I’m shocked, because Mom almost never shouts—especially at me. “No, you need to let your dad and Mr. Brown handle it. Carrie is a troubled young girl. She needs professional help, and her dad is going to sort it out for her. You are banned from seeing her.”
I push her away and swing my legs over the side of the gurney. “You can’t stop me.” I glare. “We love each other, Mom,” I plead, and I hope that she’ll understand, but I can see it in her eyes that she’s done caring. She’s done letting Carrie’s trouble seep into our family life.
I stand up and push my mom’s hand off me and I walk away from her. I open the door and ignore my mom’s calls to come back as I go into the corridor and the world spins around and around and around. The white walls swim in and out of focus, and I do a little head-shake, just like Carrie’s dad had done.
The hospital is busy. I guess they always are. A constant hustle and bustle of life and death, shuffling from one place to the next.
To get better.
To get well.
Or to die.
Those are your only choices in a place like this.It’s so sad,I think as I search for Carrie’s room. It’s by chance that I find it.
Carrie’s dad is leaving it but he doesn’t see me. He’s too busy looking at his cell phone.
I wait until he turns a corner and then I open her door and go inside. Carrie is asleep on the bed. Her face is pale and her hair is plastered to the side of it.
I watch over her and I take her hand in mine. Her eyelids flutter, and she wakes with a start.
“Ethan,” she says my name, a caress to my ears.
“I’m here,” I say.
She tries to smile, but her face crumples in pain. An internal misery that you can’t escape from. I reach over and lift her body—I hadn’t realized how skinny she had become—and then I hold her to me while she cries.
“I can’t—" she starts to say, and I hush her and then she cries some more.
“I know,” I say. “I’ll fix this. I’m sorry, I promise I’ll fix this.”
And I feel awful, I really do. It’s my fault that she’s crying. I told him where she was and he brought her back here, to this horrible life, where he hurts her over and over. I’d never forgive me if I were her, yet here she is, holding my hand and trusting me to make this right.
“I can’t go back there,” she sobs quietly against my shoulder. My T-shirt sticks to my skin, damp with her tears.
“I know. I’ll fix it,” I say again.
“How?”
I pause because I know that once I say it, there’s no going back. I promised her once and I didn’t follow through, so she left. I can’t lose her again. I won’t. So this time, I’ll follow through. This time, I won’t be a pussy.
