I strip my shorts off and reach for an oversized t-shirt meant for sleep. Pulling it over my head, I crawl beneath the comforter, resting back and staring at the ceiling. It takes a while, but as the silence continues, it's not long until I hear Rylie's soft snores drifting over to me.
My muscles are tense, refusing to relax. I ball my hands into fists and wish I had my old principal's stress ball. That damn thing would get a work out with me. My anger simmers below the surface of my skin, and I can't seem to stop the carousel that my thoughts have jumped on. I close my eyes to escape the feeling, but it only gets worse. The problem is, once I've closed my eyes, it's almost impossible to open them back up again. So, I just lay there, stewing in my own furious confusion. Eyes closed. Body taut and mind a disorganized mess.
An image of Kate with her body against Dean's pops into my mind's eye. I repress a growl of irritation and roll onto my side, away from Rylie's soft sleep noises. How the fuck can she sleep with someone else in the room? I wonder absently. I've grown used to her enough that I can catch a few hours here and there, but it's been a while since I've had a truly full night's sleep and I doubt tonight will be that night.
Probably because I can't stop thinking about it. About him. About her. Fuck him, I think. I rear up without opening my eyes and punch at my pillow, mashing it under my head before slamming the side of my skull back into it.
Dean Carter can go to hell, and I'd be happy to send him there.
Several minutes go by—stretching into an unending cavern of time—and despite my resolute belief that I wouldn't sleep, the longer my eyes stay shut, the more my thoughts begin to drift out. My cheek presses into the fabric of my pillow and I turn into it, inhaling the scent. It's dry in the room. Too hot. It reminds me of another time and place where a different heat had settled over me, and maybe that's the reason why, when I do actually fall asleep, I'm thrust into an old memory that I'd hoped to never relive again.
"Pretty little thing, isn't she?" I come awake to the sound of voices in the house and my first thought is, not again. I don't think. I just scramble out of bed and head for the window, digging my fingers beneath the dirty frame. I freeze when the window doesn't budge but instead pinches down on my hands. That's when I realize something's different. "The pictures are certainly something, but you know I want the real thing, Patty."
"You can have it," she says, her voice growing closer to my bedroom door.
Hurry, hurry, hurry, I urge myself, yanking at the window. Again, though, it doesn't move. I scan the outer edges and my eyes widen when I see what's making it stick. Long, thick nails are jammed into the outside of the frame, pinning it in place. As drunk and high as Patricia is ... she figured it out. She must really be desperate for the cash.
Sweat collects at the base of my neck and slides down my spine, pooling in the small of my back beneath my tank top. Don't panic, I tell myself. Just think. But thinking becomes difficult when I hear the sounds of two sets of footsteps quietly approaching my bedroom door.
"She always keeps her door locked," I hear Patricia whisper.
That's right, you dirty cunt, I think. Just for times like these.
The man with her scoffs, the noise disrupted when he coughs and the sound of phlegm choking in his throat filters through the thin wooden door. "Don't worry 'bout that, Patty," the man says after he's finished clearing his throat. "I think I can handle one little door. Is she a screamer?"
No, I think. But I am a fighter. I dash across the room and stand at the door, debating. There's nothing in the room to block it. Nothing save for the twin sized mattress and the rickety bed frame, but that's light—I should know since I carried it home after someone tossed it to the side of the road. It works better than the mattress on the floor since the roaches crawl under it now rather than over my feet while I'm sleeping.
"She's never home when I send people in," Patty says quietly, replying to the man. "So, I don't know. But I know she'll be here this time. I nailed her window shut. She should still be sleeping, and even if she's not, there's only one way out and you're looking at it."
"So she's a virgin then?" I close my eyes and lean my head against the doorframe. The excitement in his tone is repulsive. I can't see him, but he sounds old. Much older than a man like him has any right to be. Men who buy little girls, even teenagers, should die as soon as they're born. There's no place for filth like him. Then again ... maybe I should be grateful because there's no place for me either. I curl my hands into fists. But I don't care if there's not a place for me. I'm going to fight anyway. No one will take from me what I don't want to give.
And unfortunately for him, I'm not a virgin. I'd lost that shit not long after the first night I'd caught one of Patty's friends trying to sneak into my room. I'd known she'd do it again. I just hadn't expected her to catch onto my escape hatch. I hadn't thought her that smart. But I had given up my virginity to one of the boys from school—a nice nerdy guy who'd been far too fast, but at least it'd been my choice. That's what mattered. My choice. My body. My control.
My heart is pumping. My chest feels like a vise is being squeezed around it. My mind begins running in circles. There’s no other way out, though. Patty's right. It's the door or I break the window. And if I break the window there's no fixing it. I'll be sleeping with a broken window and I'm not stupid enough to believe that these stupid motherfuckers won’t try to get in any way they can.
No, I have to stand my ground. I have to fight back. I have to prove to these assholes that if they think they can come in and treat me like my mother then they're in for a big surprise. I take a deep breath and step back.
My eyes lock on the doorknob and I watch as it turns, stopping only momentarily when the locking mechanism kicks into place. Then it starts turning again, the man doesn't even try to finesse it. He just turns until I can hear the flimsy lock inside the knob crack and break and then the door creeps open.
Game on, motherfucker.
The second he steps into the room, I fly at him. My fists hit a flabby stomach and a shaggy face. The man grunts under the surprise of my assault, his arms coming around to lift my much smaller frame. He slams me down on the floor and the musk of his breath hits me in the face a split second later.
I should be terrified, I think to myself. And yet, as I rake my dull nails down the side of his face and kick at any place I can reach, all I can really focus on is my anger. It's a boiling volcano inside of me, overflowing, and the moment the man rears back and I'm given an opening, I take it with no qualms. I punch him straight in the throat and grab his head with both hands when he's choking on his own partially crushed airway.
Yanking his head back, I slam it into mine and wince when stars dance in front of my eyes, but it does the trick. The man falls off me with a grunt and for good measure, when I get to my feet, I kick him in the balls. What is left of the oxygen in the man's lungs expels, and I turn to see a shocked Patricia still standing in the hallway.
She gathers herself and gives me a look of contempt. "You couldn't just lay down and take it?" she snarls. "After all I do for you—" I'm not going to let her finish. I take two steps towards her and watch with dispassionate indifference as my fist flies at her face. It's almost like watching a movie because I don't even feel it when my knuckles connect with her cheek and slide up into her eye socket. But she goes down. I step over her prone form on the floor and I'm halfway to the front door when I hear her mutter something behind me. I don't stop to respond, I just storm out of the trailer in nothing but the tank top and flannel shorts that I went to sleep in.