Chapter 3

I stood like a lost lamb in the hospital, wishing that none of it was happening. Wishing that all of it would go away like I’d done so many times before. This wasn’t the first time, that I’d been in the hospital in the last year. The first was when Gran was on her death bed and the second was when Mom had an accident, pretty much like this one. She claimed to have fallen down the stairs and even went so far as to tell the nurses that. They insisted on calling the police, but Mom tried to talk them out of it. They did it anyway and for some reason both her and Stuart managed to talk their way out of it. The same stairs that she’d been walking up and down for the last ten years since we moved in. Stairs she hadn’t fallen down a single time before she married Stuart.  

Aunt Rose, Mom’s twin sister held my hand. “I told her not to marry that man. Who knows how many times he hit her? I mean, this must have been going on for a while. He couldn’t have just suddenly decided to kill her, this must have been ongoing… Sorry this isn’t helping…”

I was speechless thinking that I could have told her my fears, worries about Mom, but I thought that it was some dirty secret that Mom wanted to keep, and I should respect her wishes. The times I would ask Mom and she would tell me that she was okay. She had an accident, she’d tell me, but I knew something was wrong and did nothing. Out of shame or fear?

Teresa and Ava had gone home, orders from Aunt Rose. It was just her and me, whilst we were waiting for Uncle Graham, or rather Uncle G, that’s what he liked being called because he’s an aspiring rapper and Mom and Aunt Rose’s younger brother. Mom had a kid, so Aunt Rose took on the role of looking out for Uncle G when Grandpa died. She’s younger than Mom by a minute and only a decade older than Uncle G, but that doesn’t stop her treating him like a little kid. One that spends more time being a bad boy trying to get his label deal and constantly produces new songs.

Either way, they were my family and I didn’t know if they were going to be my last remaining family and the idea of it scared me.

“I shouldn’t have snuck out.” I jumped out of my seat like I was on fire as I thought about the last few hours. I was going to the party of a lifetime, Rex Brentwood’s party, and not once did I bother to check what was going on with Mom. Not once did I look back, no all I did was think about me.

“Hey, you didn’t know what was going on….none of us really did.”

I nodded my head, feeling confused about Aunt Rose’s statement. One minute she knew and the next she didn’t.

Mom why do you have so much make-up on at this time of day?

There was no denying that I suspected that something was wrong, but I couldn’t do anything about it. I had my own nightmare when it came to Stuart and I tried to keep it out of my mind, but no matter how much I tried, I was reminded of it as if it was only yesterday.

“I should have cut down my travels and not decided to take so much time from work. Then when I did, I had to make sure I was one of the top reporters. I’m competing against the new faces, who want to be top reporters. I had to get my break, but then I should have come around more. After all, she’s my twin.…” Aunt Rose was muttering to herself nervously, but her words were stopped by the doctor entering the waiting room. I could tell by the look on her face that she didn’t have good news. It felt like last year all over again, taking Gran to the hospital and when the doctor came to speak to us. He had the same look on his face that Mom’s doctor had right now, and I knew that it wasn’t going to be good news.

“I’m sorry, we did the best that we could, but with her injuries from the fall down the stairs. There’s no easy way to say this, but we couldn’t save her. I’m sorry but she’s gone.”

The words echoed in my head, over and over again. I didn’t want to believe it. The screams that flooded the room from Aunt Rose’s mouth made me realize otherwise. The doctor who had been in front of me talking had now left the room. I was alone with the echoes of Aunt Rose’s screams and the reassurance from Uncle Graham who had suddenly appeared. The only thing that I wanted to do was take it all back.

Tell Mom that it didn’t matter about next year, I’d go to a local university and not leave home. I knew that she was feeling lonely after Gran died, and that made her run into the arms of Stuart.

The man was wrong for her and he’d killed her. Rage washed over me thinking about him, not feeling the pain that I felt right now.

“Where is he?” I cried out as I faced Aunt Rose.

She stopped crying, sobbing and she didn’t ask me who I was talking to as she blurted out, “He’s gone.”

I slumped down in the chair, thinking why I’d never asked about him before. We drove to the hospital because a neighbor heard a noise from the house and had then called the police and ambulance. Mrs. Wilcott, the one that I often complained about being nosey and often asked if everything was ok in our house. The woman I’d thought of with so much malice was the woman I thought had saved my mom’s life. For once I’d been happy that she was so nosey. But she hadn’t saved Mom, just like I hadn’t. I’d failed Mom, we all did, and now she was dead. I was alone without her and a wave of fear pierced with an icy pain into my mind. I was an orphan. Knowing that my own selfishness had led me to this fate filled me with deep despair that dropped me to my knees as a wail tore from my chest. I’d failed my mom.

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Like a zombie, I eventually left the hospital. I got into the rental car that Aunt Rose had rented, and she drove while Graham sat in silence in his own seat. The last conversation we had before leaving the hospital was about where to go. I wasn’t going back to that house.

Not tonight.

They couldn’t drag me there, even if they insisted. Both Ava and Teresa, who I’d been sending hourly updates to, offered me a place at their homes. But I didn’t want to, I wanted to be with Aunt Rose and Graham. For now, anyway.

Besides school starts soon and I knew one thing for sure; I wasn’t going. I couldn’t handle the thought of facing the other students. I knew for sure, there would be the sympathy looks, the same one that I got in the hallways of the hospital when Gran died.

Same thing, different year.

I looked out of the window, I should have been curious about where we were going, but tiredness was taking over my mind. That night, the one that changed everything, became flashes in my mind until my eyes closed, and I started to sleep. I was sitting in my room debating whether to call Teresa or Ava or do the usual and FaceTime them both. We usually talked every night anyway, but this was the beginning of our summer vacation. We should be out having fun, not sitting on FaceTime, I’d thought.

I knew all we’d talk about was my crush on Abe. I’d wanted him to ask me out every time I tutored him, I’d often held my breath and waited, but so far, he’d just thanked me for the lesson and gone back to his house. I was about to go to the window and see if he was home. It was as if we were so close with his house being next door. But then it was kind of crazy at the same time it felt so damn far. I probably even had a silly smile on my face, but it soon disappeared. I was brought back to earth, and not in a good way, by Stuart at my door.

He was my stepfather, my mom said she loved him, but I couldn’t stand him. I hated the way he looked at me with a sleezy grin and the way he spoke to me, as if he knew something about me that I didn’t. He’d never tried anything with me, or even suggested that he would do something, but there was something in the way his eyes gazed at me. The way that his eyes traced my body made me feel as if he was undressing me with his eyes. It made my skin crawl.  

And there were changes in my mom since they got married. When they were dating he was the best man in the world, I hated the way that she described him like that. She never talked about my dad. But I had some schoolgirl’s fantasy that he was some kind of hero and Mom and he had some kind of fight and that was why he stayed away.

I didn’t want to think of him as a jerk. Half-me, half-jerk. No, I wanted to think of him as someone who Mom probably had a one-night stand with, and she didn’t know how to contact him or something like that.

Not some kind of jerk that left her the moment she told him that she was pregnant with me.

When Stuart and her dated, she was happy but the moment she walked down that aisle? I wasn’t blind. I knew that things changed.

The things she’d say now that she’d never said to me before. Sometimes, she complained that my clothes were too tight, that they ´encouraged´ young boys to try to take advantage of me. Yeah, she wasn’t good at the pep talk and I wasn’t good at listening to it.

But tonight, was the start of something new. I was happy, looking forward to the summer ahead and nothing could dim that happiness. Until Stuart walked into my room. Well, not exactly walked, it was more like he stumbled and nearly tripped over my bed. He stayed there, beside me, his breath reeking of the alcohol that had made him ‘stumble’ into my room by ‘accident’.

I could tell he was drunk; it wasn’t the first time I’d seen him that way.

I also knew that it wouldn’t be the last time. Stuart liked to drink, and he’d made that clear often enough. If he came in the house and there wasn’t liquor, the whole street would hear his roar and Mom would respond to it like a good choir girl. No matter how tired she was from work, or hungry, she would run to the store to please him. To get him some liquor and more. Anything to keep her man happy. When she did that I didn’t know who I hated more; her or him?

This was her house, her home and he stormed in and made it into her prison. No longer her refuge, but her sentence for life the moment she said, “I do”, when they got married and he decided to show his true colors. Not the cloak that he’d been hiding under for the short, four months that they dated before he moved in and they’d got married.

Gran wasn’t happy, but then again neither was I.

He laughed as the words began to slur out his mouth. “Sorry, I thought that this was my room.”

He should get up now, leave my room, and me, in peace, but he just stayed there, and I got a weird vibe from him that made me incredibly nervous. When he continued to stay there, looking over at me, I knew I had to get up; get up or something terrible would happen.

I shook my head at him, shocked that he’d stormed into my room and I was certain that he was confused. I waited but it didn’t look as if he was leaving. We were lying on the bed, nearly side-by-side. I moved to stand up, simply to help him up, to get him back to his and my mom’s room, when like a lion he moved to pin me down beneath him.

I didn’t even realize that he’d moved, because I was stuck between trying to figure out how to get him off my bed and more importantly how to get him out of my room.

Nerves took over my body as he rolled over me. I should have screamed, said something as he leered down at me with a grin that would torment me every night, with my hands pinned above my head. But I couldn’t, I was too surprised, too shocked, and suddenly, very afraid.

“You look just like your mom. Just a few pounds bigger and a few years younger.”

I closed my eyes, hoping that this nightmare would go away. That he would go away, but he didn’t as he forced his wet lips against mine. His mouth was slobbery, and made me cringe, but my head was pinned against my pillows. His kiss was nothing that I wanted to be a part of, and the urge to scream took over. He forced my mouth open with his tongue, and the scream was strangled off.

He was taking a part of me that I didn’t want to give him. I used to think that I was strong and if someone tried to attack me then I would scream, and all the aerobic classes would come in useful. That I’d be able to wiggle away or punch the guy in the balls to get him off of me.

Anything!

But I couldn’t move, I was paralyzed with fear, with horror, and that’s just how he wanted me. I struggled beneath him, tried to push him away, tried to get away, but he held me down with his weight and his hand that clamped my hands above my head.

I thought there wasn’t anyone that could save me, I thought that there was nothing I could do to stop whatever it was that he had planned. I thought I’d rather die than have this man force me, until I heard a voice.

Mom.

She was home! I tried to turn my head just as I felt him go stiff over me. His hand moved quickly, to cover my mouth, so that I couldn’t scream for her help.

She yelled out our names, “Vicki. Stuart!”

She called for us again and again and that’s what finally broke through Stuart’s drunken haze. Just as quickly as Stuart was on me, he was off me. No longer slurring or acting drunk, he was now standing there perfectly normal, as if nothing had happened. He glared at me menacingly and put a finger to his lips before he left my room. I could tell he rushed down to Mom when I heard her giggle and the smack of their lips as they kissed. She was all giggly and it was as if she’d completely forgotten that she’d been calling both our names and only he’d appeared. All thought of me was lost in the kiss. The same kiss that he’d given me a few seconds ago or tried to.

“Vicki, honey, you need to wake up,” Aunt Rose spoke as she shook my arm and brought me back to the present, brought me out of the nightmare.

But Stuart hasn’t finished with us yet, the nightmare continues, I thought, as recent events came back to me. I clutched at her arm, her hand, as she looked down at me, so like Mom.

“You were screaming, are you okay?” She peered at me closely, and we both knew neither of us was okay, but that we’d have to be. We had to get through this, somehow.

 I wondered if I’d screamed his name. Or given a clue about what I was screaming about? I started to speak, but quickly closed my mouth. I opened it up again and both times was greeted with silence. I didn’t know what to tell her. The truth? It was too late now. I should have said it back then, when everyone asked why I never used the front door of my house anymore. Why I snuck in through the back and why I always made sure that my door was locked.

Always.

I spent most of my time on the bed, just eating. My one and only comfort to calm my nerves. Especially chocolate. I had the sweetest tooth, I knew. Especially the nights I would be in my room wondering if Stuart would force his way in there to start what he never had the chance to finish.

I wanted to tell Mom, but something stopped me every time. I knew that something was wrong with their relationship, the moment I heard about the accident the first time. If you could even call it that?

“Yeah. I was having a bad dream,” I replied thinking that this wasn’t the time or place, to reveal the secret that I’d been holding on to for so many weeks. A cold chill entered the car, maybe someone opened the window, but if I’d told Mom would she have left him? Would she have been alive right now, if I’d told her? The idea made me feel sick, it hurt, this idea that if I’d told this secret, Mom wouldn’t be dead. She would be alive and no longer live in fear.

Aunt Rose nodded her head and that’s when I noticed that we were parked outside my house. I thought I made it clear that I didn’t want to go in there. Not tonight. Maybe not ever.

“You see, honey.…” she didn’t finish her sentence.

She cleared her throat before hesitating to tell me what was on her mind. No more was she crying hysterically like she was in the hospital. It was if she was on a drug, one that I’d seen a couple of kids taking at a party. They would go into this no-zone, as if they were trying to get their mind together.

I thought nothing could get any worse. Just then I realized that more truths would come out and none of them would be good, only bad. Aunt Rose wanted to ask or tell me something, but maybe my nightmare stopped her from talking. I was relieved, I couldn’t handle hearing anything more. Not today.