Chapter forty-three:
The world keeps turning, no matter what we throw at it.
Throw bombs. Throw disease. Throw famine. Throw hate and love and war and peace. Throw your swords and your vermin. Throw your everything and it will still stand. It will still turn and be and move and live.
It will always continue, whether it wants to or not.
But I am not the world.
I am a man.
I am Ethan Cowells.
And I will fall if you break me.
I will crumble if you hurt me.
I am only human.
The clock always seemed to tick louder when I was waiting for Carrie. As if the clock was mocking me, and my impatience.
Today was no different.
Mom was going out to the grocery store. Dad had gone to work.
Carrie had said she would come over to see me. I was excited to see her.
I liked Carrie. She let me touch her. She had pretty eyes. She made me feel special, like I was the only one. More special than my mom made me feel. More special than my dad made me feel.
It was a different type of special I felt when I was with Carrie.
She knocked three times on the back door.
Knock, knock, knock…
I almost knocked my stool over when I stood up.
I opened it, my heart full. But she looked different today. She’d been looking more and more different every time I saw her, but today was really bad.
Her lip was bruised—no change there—but this time the blood was still wet. She forced a smile, and I saw the blood on her teeth.
“Carrie?” I said her name and she took a step toward me.
She collapsed in the door and I caught her in my arms.
“I’m okay,” she mumbled. “I’m okay.”
But she didn’t seem okay.
I helped her inside. She winced when she sat on the stool, so I took her to our living room. She still winced, but less so, when she sat down on our sofa. It was soft and comfy. It had large arms that Dad leaned on when he read the newspaper. Carrie used them now to rest her head on.
“What happened?” I ask, but I don’t want to know. I can tell before she speaks that I don’t want to know.
She shakes her head because she doesn’t want to me to know too. She doesn’t want to speak about it. And I breathe a sigh of relief and I’m about to ask her if she wants to get an orange juice and go upstairs. Because the last thing I want is for my mom to come home and find Carrie in the house again.
“I don’t think I can do it anymore, Ethan,” she whispers.
I put my arm around her. “It will be okay,” I say, and I kiss the side of her head like Dad does to Mom when she’s stressed out.
