Existing (17 page)

He pulls away and drives down the darkened street. “I’m glad you’re making friends, Rose, and doing things that teenagers should do.”

“Yeah,” I sigh, “me too.”

“I thought you’d be drunk, to be honest, but I’m glad you’ve still got a sensible head on you.”

I laugh and think back to Ashley and the cream. “I only had a few beers.”

“Beers?” he says with his eyebrows raised. “I didn’t have you down as a beer drinker.”

I smile. “Neither did
I.”

I lean my head back and close my eyes. I think about Cabe and how he made me feel when he sat next to me on the beach and then I think about Gabriella. I can see his hands running down her back
so I squeeze my eyes closed tighter.

I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I know my Father is shaking my leg. “Wake up, sleepy head. We’re home.”

I open my eyes a crack
and stare up at our house, and have an unbelievable urge to get into my own bed. As I climb out of the car, the front door swings wide open and I stare at Hallie’s unhappy face as I walk up the path.

“Straight to be
d for you,” she says unhappily.

I nod. “I wasn’t planning on going anywhere else.”

As I squeeze past her and into the hallway, I watch her eyes fly up and down me. She frowns and shakes her head.

My mouth feels as dry as the Sahara desert when I open my eyes the next morning. The brightness of my room tells me that I’ve slept well into the morning. I roll out of bed and walk through the house, finding it empty. I scratch my head trying to remember if my Dad was supposed to be playing golf today and then wonder where Hallie has taken Ava.

An hour later
, I’ve made myself bacon and eggs for breakfast and tidied up the kitchen. Dressed in my comfy clothes, I grab my book and head out into the backyard. The sun is shining and breaking through the clouds with just about enough warmth to take the chill out of the wind. I grab a picnic blanket and settle myself in the middle of the lawn with the plan of reading and doing nothing else. I crawl onto my front on the blanket and lean up on my elbows. It can’t be more than two minutes before I find myself lost in the world of vampires and werewolves and forgetting all about Ashley last night and his crazy cream antics.

The heat of the sun beats down against the back of my neck
a few hours later as I lean up to stretch my muscles out. I’m halfway through my book and can’t bear to stop. I love losing myself in a good book, which has always provided an escape from Hallie and the shit hole has been my life at times. Finding myself in a world where other people have bigger problems than me makes me feel just that little bit better…sometimes.

I lean back on my heels and stretch my fingers high up toward the sky. I throw my head back and watch the white fluffy clouds breeze over my field of vision. I take a sip of my orange juice that is now a little too warm to clench my thirst properly and lean down to put it back on the grass. As my body stretches across the blanket
, I hear a noise directly behind me. I start to turn my head to look to see what it is when a searing, blinding bolt of pain surges across my back.  I hear myself involuntarily cry out in anguish. My back feels like a fire ball has been thrown across it. Tears immediately stream down my face as I turn over and have just enough time to pull my arm up to block the garden rake from tearing my face apart. I can’t stand the feel of my back against the blanket and push myself to standing, whimpering and groaning as I scramble to my feet.

“You little slut!
Don’t you ever dare do that again!”

I step back from the spit that flies from Hallie’s mouth and feel hot trickles of blood dripping down my spine. “What are you talking about?” I sob.

“You!” she yells, lunging toward me with the rake. I stagger backwards trying to watch her hands and where she’s planning on putting the rake next, but my eyes keep flying up to hers. I’ve never seen anyone look as angry as she does right now. “Dressing up like a little whore, going out and getting drunk, and then getting your Father to pick you up and bring you back into my house smelling of dirty, cheap sex that you’ve had with some geeky, ugly fucking boy,” she screams, as she pulls the rake back before swinging it at me. My knee crunches from the force, making me crumble to the ground. “I thought that after last year’s disaster, we agreed that you wouldn’t go anywhere near a boy again?!”

“Don’t,” I cry. “Please don’t do that again.” The searing pain shoots around the back of my knee
, making me wince as I try to move again. I feel like too much of a target being on the ground underneath her. “I wasn’t with a boy!”

“You make me sick. What on earth did you think you looked like with all that make-up on? And that dress! In fact
, don’t get me started on that dress. You looked like a hooker!” She wipes the snot that’s dripping from her nose with the back of her hand. “No one wants you, Roisin, and especially not a good-looking, popular boy. Who would want an ugly little cheap thing like you, someone who doesn’t have any friends, dresses like a frumpy old woman, and sees fucking ghosts?!”

I can feel the blood seeping through my t-shirt and feel another wave of tears fall down my cheeks.

“Don’t cry. You’re absolutely pathetic.”

“I’m not,” I say through gritted teeth.

She snatches her arm up so quick that I don’t see the back of her hand before it slaps against my cheek. I stagger back, listening to the noise echoing around the backyard and through the trees and feeling the tingling of my skin as my tears stream across it.

“And that was for telling tales to your Father about me. How dare you
?!”

“What tales?” I ask through my sobs.

“About picking Ava up! If I was to tell your Father about all the little things you do, he’d hate you. Do you remember last summer Rosin?”

I nod, thinking about my box of secrets that I keep in my closet
in my room and cry fresh tears. I will never forget last year for as long as I live. How can she think that I would?

“Exactly!
He wouldn’t think the sun still shines out of your fat backside then, would he?” She stands up to full height and throws the rake onto the ground. “You need to remember that I can ruin you.”

I shake my head and hear myself mumble an apology.

“You’re a waste of fucking space. Not only did you go out last night and make a complete show of yourself, but you’ve also done nothing today! The house is a complete mess, which means you’re also a lazy little shit.” She spits on the ground.

I sniff and try
to focus on her face. “I cleaned up this-“

“Don’t backtalk
me young lady,” she growls. “I might do something I regret.”

I snap my mouth shut and watch her remove the anger from her face before storming back into the house. I sniff and stare at the blanket and my book that’s lying on the grass
, but know I won’t be able to bend my knee to pick it up. I think about ignoring it to go into the house, but I know Hallie will moan about that too. I clench my teeth together and feel tiny beads of sweat explode onto my forehead and above my top lip as I bend down to retrieve my stuff. As I hobble toward the house with tears drying on my face, I can’t decide what hurts the most. I need to look at my back to see the damage done, but I don’t need a mirror to tell me that it looks like I’ve been pawed by a tiger. I can’t believe she attacked me in the yard where the neighbors could have seen her. This is a new low for Hallie. She’s crossed the line now and I don’t know how to get us back over it.

I move silently through the house
, trying to avoid both Hallie and Ava, and lock myself in the bathroom. As soon as I hear the door click, the tears pour in a torrent down my face and I collapse onto my knees, ignoring the pain in my right knee and sobbing into the towel hanging from the gold rail.

I’ve tried to be strong. I’ve tried to deal with it as one of those things that just happens to me
, but I can’t take this anymore. I can’t take being physically scarred by her any longer. People will notice. I think about my back and realize with horror that I have swimming on Monday morning. There is no way I can wear a one-piece swimsuit with my back looking like this. People will see. People will ask questions and I can’t have people asking questions. It’ll destroy us. It’ll destroy my Father but especially Ava, and I know I can’t ever let that happen to her.

I slowly pull myself to standing and switch on the shower. I know the water is going to sting like mad, but I also know that what was on the end of the rake was disgusting. I can’t begin to imagine what kinds of germs are seeping into my blood stream right now. As condensation starts to form on the mirror, I slowly pull my t-shirt over my head and turn around. Tears silently run down my cheeks as I stare at the violent slashes of blood and ripped skin that decorate my entire back.

I let my sweatpants drop to the floor and brace myself. I grit my teeth and breathe through the pain in my knee as I bend down
to remove my panties. I stare at my knee that has swollen to the point of looking like a small melon and shake my head. How could she do this to me? Why has she done this to me? It doesn’t make sense.

I hold my breath and step into the shower. I let the hot water pour over my face and down my chest before turning around. I gasp in sheer pain as
the water glides over my shredded back. I shut my eyes tight and try to ignore the black dots that are floating in front of my eyes.

After standing in the hot water until it ran out and dressin
g slowly with no bra under my t-shirt, I tip-toe down the stairs and into the kitchen.

“Rose,”
Ava says, spying me as I walk past the living room. “Where have you been?”

I plaster a smile on my face and try to walk as normal
ly as possible into the kitchen. “I’ve been in my room, Ava. I don’t feel very well today.”

I watch the concern spread across her face and feel bad for making her worry. “What’s the matter with you?”

“I just have a tummy ache. Grown up girls get them sometimes.”

I watch her eyes flick around for a few seconds
before I reach up to the medicine cabinet and quickly swallow two aspirins.

“
Is it like the tummy ache you had before?”

I swallow and shake my head.

“Do those tablets make the tummy ache stop?” she asks innocently.

I pat her head and flick the kettle on. “They don’t make it stop but they make it ache less. It doesn’t hurt so
bad when I take the tablets.”

She nods and twirls around on her heels. “Mommy took me to the mall this morning.”

“Did she?” I ask in surprise, while pouring the hot water over a Twinnings English breakfast tea bag. “Did you have a good time?”

Ava
shrugs, which makes me think that Hallie probably dragged her around all the women’s shops without giving her five year-old daughter a second thought. “Mommy bought a new dress and some shoes.”

“Did you help her to pick them out?”

I move around the kitchen slowly, trying not to make any sudden movements that could make my knee or back hurt even more. I can feel Ava watching me, waiting for me to explain my weird behavior.

“No
, Mommy said that the things that I picked were silly.”

I frown and turn away from
Ava so she can’t see. I pour myself a glass of water and pick my hot mug up too as I walk through the kitchen.

“Where are you going?”
she asks.

“Back to bed,” I say quietly. “My tummy was aching all last night so I didn’t get much sleep and I’m really tired.”

Ava nods but doesn’t move as I pass her along the hallway.

“If you feel better later
, will you play with me, please?”

I stop just before I reach the stairs and smile at her. “Yeah, we’ll see.”

She smiles slowly but remains in the hallway, patting her tiny hands against the wall as she watches me climb the stairs.

I crash onto my bed after carefully placing my drinks onto my desk and sob into the pillow. I can’t face Hallie again today. I’m not sure I can face her ever again bu
t I know I have to. Today is a different story though. Today, I need to be able to crumble.

The next morning I wake before anyone else. I dress quietly after surveying my back in the mirror and make
a mental note to call a pharmacist to get some cream for my cuts. They’re still red raw and have purple bruises outlining each one, but I need to make sure they don’t get infected and that they heal properly. There’s no way I could explain them away to a doctor or nurse.

I scribble a quick note for my Dad and leave it on the kitchen
countertop. I feel bad. He wanted to take me out and have the Father/Daughter day that he’d mentioned earlier on in the week, but I can’t face him. I can’t stand the fact that I’d have to walk around and pretend that my back isn’t hurting. If I thought I could explain them away as some clumsy fall then I would, but the sad truth is that I can’t think of anything. What could I have possibly fallen on that would leave the scratches and tears that I have across my back? Nothing, that’s what.