Chapter twenty-nine:
I wake slowly to the feel of lukewarm water.
The wetness cocoons my face like a blanket.
It slips off as I sit up.
I feel a hundred times better than before. I look down at my body, seeing the water tinged pink where my feet have bled. I reach for my left foot first, expecting the worst, but it’s nothing really. Just some small cuts. The same can be said of my right foot.
I peel off the bandage on my arm and take a proper look at it. The stitches look angry and red, and that’s worrying, but I can’t go back to the pharmacy for anything so I’ll just have to deal with the problem. I pull the plug on the tub and I stand up, grabbing the towel and drying myself with it. It’s nice; it still smells of Carrie and it makes me feel more and more relaxed the more I rub it over my body, as if I am rubbing Carrie all over me.
I need to clean the tub out, but it will have to wait for now.
I stand up, catching sight of myself in the small vanity mirror. I look exhausted and beaten down. Dark rings are heavy under my eyes, and a small bruise has formed on my chin where I fell.
I look away with a shake of my head, my brain already in overdrive as to how I can turn this entire mess around. I look through Carrie’s things and find a white T-shirt which looks pretty clean, and I take that with me down the stairs to the kitchen. I pull my clothes from the dryer and put them back on, feeling more and more like myself as the minutes pass.
I cut the T-shirt into strips and wrap them around my arm to make a clean bandage, tying them in a knot. I wince, but I feel better now that the wound is covered. I boil the kettle and make myself a black coffee with extra sugar, because I know that sugar, or really glucose, is important when you’ve lost a lot of blood, and I know now that that’s what happened to me. I lost too much blood and passed out. They gave me fluids and blood at the hospital and probably some antibiotics, though I’ll need to get more at some point.
The thoughts hit me all at once, like a wall moving toward me at full speed. The hospital will have filled out a police report about me because it was a stab wound. They have my wallet because they stole it from my jeans.
“Fuck,” I say to myself, because that means they have my ID and they’ll find out who I am.
They’ll go to my apartment, to my job.
They might contact my parents.
And they’ll definitely contact Mr. fucking Jeffrey.
I’m panicking, but it’s okay, I eventually decide. It’s okay. I’m not at home, I’m here with Carrie.
The police can’t and won’t find me here because they don’t even know that Carrie is alive.
They think she’s dead, just like her dad.
Carrie and I will eventually go to the station together to clear my name, and I’ll apologize for leaving the hospital like I did. And I’ll explain that I needed to get back to Carrie because she was here all alone. Though of course I won’t mention that I tied her up, because they won’t understand.
And I can understand why it would look bad. I’m not stupid, but they don’t know me and Carrie. They don’t know how our relationship works.
I’ll even ask where my sneakers are, and we’ll all laugh at how I had to walk home in the rain with no sneakers on.
I smile and I feel calmer now. I feel like I have a better plan. I sip my coffee, and it’s really not nice at all. Carrie really needs to get some better coffee than this. And I’d go to the store for her and buy some things, but I don’t have my wallet so I don’t have any money, so I can’t.
“What a mess,” I say.
I look at the clock on the wall and see that it is 3:15 a.m., but I’m not even a little bit sleepy. I cook another can of her beans, and I eat them straight from the pan because it’s just easier that way. The beans fill the empty hole in my stomach, and that’s nice. My stomach feels warm and full, and I don’t feel so worried or nervous anymore. The anxiousness has gone, not just from thinking about the police or being at the hospital, but from being with her again. It’s nice, I think, that we’re slowly slipping into some form of normalcy.
I think of the homeless man I spoke to earlier. I wonder where he is sleeping tonight; with all this rain, his cardboard won’t keep him dry. I worry about how hungry he must be, and I vow to go back and give him some money once all of this mess is sorted out.
Mom always said I was a caring soul. Those were her exact words.
‘You’re a caring soul, Ethan,’she’d say, and she’d smile at me with her pretty pink mouth.
And Mom was right, and she still is, even if she doesn’t believe it anymore. Even if my dad made her turn her back on me. Iama caring soul. If I wasn’t then I wouldn’t be here, looking after Carrie and making sure that she was okay. I wouldn’t be planning to go and help that homeless man.
A caring soul wouldn’t do those things. But I am and I will. Because I’m good.
I’m not bad, or rotten, like the lawyers said. Like the reporters said all those years ago. Mom didn’t do anything wrong; she was a good mom, and I was a good boy, and now I’m a good man.
