My belly is full of soup that makes sense, and my heart is full of love, and that makes sense too. Love it better than hate. And for the first time in a really long time, I have an abundance of hope.
Carrie broke my heart when she left, when she disappeared without saying goodbye. I never understood what it was that I did that made her go away.
My counselor, Mr. fucking Jeffrey, says it’s because of what I did, and that’s why she went away. But I know that’s not it. He doesn’t understand.
He says that I’ve blocked it all out, that it was too traumatic for me to cope with. That’s what the courts said too. And apparently that’s what happens when something really traumatic happens to a person. When the mind can’t cope…it shuts that memory away. The human body is a glorious thing, and it will do anything to survive. Shutting out memories is just one of the ways it does that.
And I believe Mr. fucking Jeffrey. It’s not that I don’t, because I do. I’ve read up on it in the library. There was even a book called “Trauma and How to Deal With It,” so I know he’s not just bullshitting me. I know he’s for real with what he’s saying. But I just know that I’d know.
Ya know?
I think back to Carrie—how she was back then. I didn’t see her for a month, and when I did, she was different. Suddenly—or maybe not if I was paying attention at all (and I call myself a friend!) —her home life wasn’t just about having cracked paint and lice in her hair.
It was more.
It was less.
It was all of the above.
It was dirty, but much worse than dirty windows.
It was the sort of dirty that could never be washed away, no matter how hard you scrubbed.
The first day I saw after her month-long vanishing trick, her dad hit her across the face and I had wanted to vomit.
And so I did.
I puked in my mouth and then I swallowed it back down.
And I’ll never forget the taste of the acid, burning in my throat. Just like I’ll never forget the look on her face as he dragged her away.
Her lip dripping with blood.
She never asked me to stop him.
She never asked for help.
She just let him take her.
I thought she’d given up.
But she hadn’t.
She was just accepting what could not be changed, what had to be, until it didn’t have to be that way anymore. I didn’t know then that she was already forming a plan.
The taste of acid stayed with me well into the evening, so much so that I couldn’t even eat my food. My mom was worried because I never left my dinner. I was a good boy. I was grateful. I ate my dinner and I did my homework on time and I was respectful and polite, and I prayed to God before bed every night. But that night was different.
And so my mom knew something was wrong, she just didn’t know how deep the wrongness had gone. How much it had seeped inside of me. It was like blinking and seeing the world in its rightful state.
Carrie’s dad was a bad man.
Carrie would make me just as bad soon enough.
But it was worth it.
She was worth it.
