Ache (16 page)

And I did nothing.

All these years later, the guilt is almost unbearable.  Deep down, I feel like I am as bad as her uncle, why didn’t I save her?  Why didn’t I do something?

I hate myself.

Rationally, I know this is crazy, I was a just a kid then, but I can’t shake it.

I decide to search for our mark, but it’s right where I remember.  It’s faded, but still readable near the ceiling, black paint on the wall — a heart with A + C written inside.  I rub my ear, holding Annie’s black rose earring, while I trace the outlines of the heart, remembering the night she painted it.  I’ve had quite a few girls like Debbie, they’re always like Debbie, but Annie was the first and last girl I truly cared about — allowed myself to care about.

I’ve never told anyone about Annie.  Officer Dan found me in that tunnel, and I’m not sure what he knows, one way or the other.  We were two lost children that found one another, but in the end — we couldn’t save each other.

I eventually found the record store.  I met Todd there two years later, a year after a tornado wiped away the trailer park.  By then, Annie was just a childhood legend, the nameless ghost that haunted the Elm Street playground.

I never cried for Annie, not that night or any since.

I cry now.

I cry for Annie.  I cry for Tonya, for my mom, for Shauna and even for myself.

And this is how I spend the rest of my eighteenth birthday, leaning back against the wall where Annie killed herself in the tunnel under Elm Street, next to an abandoned playground.

I walk back to the Garage the following morning in a fog, my mind not really thinking about anything anymore.  I’m exhausted. 

It’s raining, which makes me feel better.

Fuck everyone.

I walk along the railroad tracks on the way back and retrace my steps around the back of the Garage, but I don’t smell honeysuckle today and it pisses me off.

Tonya’s van is parked out front.

I get to the front door, but it’s locked.  I fish around in my pocket and realize I don’t have my key.  I bang on the door, but Tonya isn’t here or if she is, she isn’t letting me in.  I drop to the sidewalk under the front door awning and light a cigarette.

I have nowhere else to go.

Later in the morning, Bradford’s BMW pulls up.  They sit for a while before Tonya gets out.  She walks past me, opens the door and goes inside without a word but leaves the door open.

I get up and walk in while the BMW drives off.

Tonya must have gone upstairs already, but the honeysuckle scent remains.  Bradford must like it, can’t say I blame him.  I take my wet shoes, socks and shirt off and sit down on the couch.  I don’t have any other clean pants to wear.

I hear her upstairs and feel like a trespasser.  I’m sure she wants me to go, but she’s too nice to say so.  I look around at my gear, thinking again about the good times we had here, the music and the friendship.

I don’t even want to think about how much I’m going to miss her, because I already do and it hurts.

I raise my voice so she can hear me.  “If it’s okay, I’ll leave my guitars and stuff here and clear out today.”

No response.

This is painful.  I’m losing my best friend.

She helped me to forget that I hated myself, that I didn’t deserve everything that had ever happened, at least for a little while.  With her, everything was okay.

“Is that cool?” I shout up again.

She leans over the balcony.  “What are you talking about?”

“I know I’m kind of in the way, you know, with you and Bradford.”

“Me and Bradford?”  She has an unfriendly tone.  “Hang on.”

She comes down the stairs wearing a North Gymnastics t-shirt that hangs to mid-thigh and nothing else except for her wrist-bands.  She’s changed so much in the last few days, she almost looks like a different person.  Even though I know she’s overcoming something and it’s all for the better, I miss the flannels shirts.

She stops, standing in front of me with her hands on her hips.  “What?  You did a good thing with Shelly, but regardless of what happened at the café, I’m still mad at you.”

“I was saying I can split, so I’m not in the way.  I just wanted to leave my guitars here for a while.”

The anger seems to fall away and her eyes soften.  “Why do you want to leave?”

“I’m in the way.  I hurt everyone near me.  I don’t want to bring you down with me.”

“I don’t understand, bring me where?  You’re not making any sense.  No, you don’t have to leave, but do whatever you want.”  The anger seeps back into her tone.  “You’re high maintenance, Connor, you really are.”

“Yeah, I know.  I’m sorry.”

I get up and brush past her and her perfume follows me, taunting me as I walk over to the windows and light a cigarette.

“Oh my God,” I hear her whisper.

I didn’t even think about not having a shirt on, now I feel like an asshole, like I’m begging for pity.

“It’s nothing, sorry.”  I grab my wet shirt from the floor, but she stops me and lays her head against my back.

“I had no idea,” she says as she traces the scars with her fingers.

I feel her touch, almost a tickle as her fingertips move from the dead scars to the living flesh of my back.  Suddenly, I don’t want her to touch me; I feel filthy somehow, beneath her.  She’s too good to touch something this ugly.

I walk away from her and stare out the windows again, considering what to say.

And then I just start talking.

“He likes belts quite a lot, they leave scars.  The burns are obvious, I guess.  The big scary one is from the accident, the windshield.  He usually hit me where it doesn’t show and the few times when he broke ribs, he took me to different emergency rooms, said I fell down the stairs.

“I think he knew he had to do things different after that, that’s when the belt came out.  He started in with the cigarettes when I was thirteen.  You learn to hide it, because if anyone finds out — it’s best no one finds out.  You know what the funny thing was?  It wasn’t a secret.  Well, this was,” I say pointing over my shoulder to the scars on my back.  “But the black eyes and fat-lips; stuff like that, I’d tell my teachers I got in a fight or something, which I did quite a lot, but it was too common.  I missed a lot of school too.  They knew something was up, never said shit about it, of course.”

I grin to myself.  “He missed some work too.  I gave him all he wanted when I got older, but I never was able to take him before.

“So there it is, poor Connor, huh?  What the fuck ever, I’m over it.  Anyway, I’ll be out of your hair so you and Bradford can have some time together.  I’m sorry for being a dick to him.  That was wrong.”

She steps in front of me and gives me her serious face.

“Wait, not poor Connor or what the fuck ever.  We need to talk about this, you can’t deal with something like this on your own.  Jesus Christ, your dad’s a monster.”

“Yeah, I ran into him yesterday.  I was trying to end it with Shauna and apologize for everything.”

“End it?  You’re all over the place.  What happened with your dad?”

Her eyes are full of sadness and compassion, and I don’t know how to deal with it so I begin to walk away again, but she takes my hand and doesn’t let me go.  I look at her hand because I can’t meet her eyes.

“He cornered me over at the bank.”

“In front of Shauna?”

“Yeah.  It was weird, it was like I was a little kid again, all scared and shit and then he crossed a line and I wasn’t anymore.  I decked him and then the police showed up.  I got arrested.”

“Arrested?  Connor, why didn’t you call me?”

“They let me go, no charges.  You were busy, it’s cool.”

“No, it’s not cool and stop it with this glib attitude.  This is serious, so just stop it.”  I glance up and see that her eyes are getting glassy.  “What about Shauna?”

“I realized why I was trying to date her, and it was for all of the wrong reasons.  I was searching for validation and something else, something she wasn’t.  I met someone once and I was so obsessed with her memory, I forgot to see Shauna for who she is.  I know that now.  I’m not making any sense, am I?  I just wanted to be accepted, but I don’t love her, so I went to apologize, like I said, and tell her it wasn’t going to work.”

“You’re right, I don’t understand.  Did you apologize?  Did you tell her there was nothing between the two of you?”

She lays her hand on my chest over my cameo and her hand is so warm, it reminds me again of what I’m losing here today.

“Sort of, she forgave me again for the other night, said she loved me, but I told her it wasn’t going to work.  I can’t get over the Shelly thing either, you know?  Anyway, that’s when everything went down with my dad and the police showed up, so I didn’t get to finish things.  But I’ll talk to Shauna again, when I get a chance, to make sure she’s okay with everything.  I feel like shit about all of it.  She has her own issues to deal with.”

“Do you think she will?”

I look up to her face and she looks as tired and sad as I feel.  “Be okay?  I hope so; she doesn’t really have a choice.”  I pull away and sit down on the couch again and hold my cameo.  “This is all I have of her.”

“Your mom?”

“Yeah.  I had her guitar too, the one I learned to play on, but Dad must have pawned it or something, it’s not at the house anymore.”

“What happened to your mom?” she asks softly, like she’s afraid she’s going to spook me.

“Car accident.”

She leans back against the heavy table we keep the P.A. mixer on and nods for me to go on.

I look out the windows again, not focusing on anything.  And then I tell her what happened.

“My dad got invited to some Country Club, I don’t remember the name, it was down toward Norman.  We had dinner and he got shit faced with his buddy.  When we went to leave, my mom tried to get him to let her drive, but he pushed her away and yelled at us to get in the car.

“I was scared.  He was really drunk.  He starts weaving all over the road and she’s telling him to pull over and they’re screaming at each other.  I’m crying by this point, I remember that.

“I lean over the seat and yell at him to stop screaming at Mom and to let her drive, and then he hits me — you know, back hands me.  He sends me flying into the back seat.  I think that was the first time he hit me.

“Mom is furious, you know?  She tries to get him to stop and then Dad loses it and attacks her while he’s driving.  We’re racing down the road now.  I saw the power pole, but I don’t remember screaming or anything.  And then we hit it.”

I glance at Tonya, she has tears running down her cheeks.

“So Mom ends up sideways through the windshield, it was an old car.  I end up in the windshield next to her.  I remember I couldn’t move, the glass was stabbing into my back like fangs, I was stuck, kind of hanging there.

“I don’t remember any pain, but it must have been a bitch.  I was probably in shock.”

I look up and wipe tears away.

“Did she die, I mean, was she in a lot of pain?” Tonya asks tentatively.

“Yeah, she must have been in agony.  She died that night, eventually.  We were both half-way through the windshield.  Her face was next to mine and I could see the fear in her eyes, not for herself, it was for me.  She tried to talk to me, but all she could manage was wheezing gasps.  I watched her, each breathe becoming harder, slower and further apart.

“In the end, she was sucking for air, but she was probably drowning in her own blood, internally, you know?  Dad was out cold, he was hurt pretty bad, but nothing too serious, broken ribs and his arm and shoulder were messed up.

“I remember when she died, it was like a light fading away.  She had brown eyes, big soft brown eyes.  They always sparkled, you know, like with excitement.  She was always like that, doing stuff for me or for other people, PTA, shit, she was everywhere, always finding the best in everything, everyone.  You would have liked her.”

Tonya chokes back a sob and kneels down in front of me and hugs my legs, laying her face against my knees.

“I just stared into her eyes and she stared right back, maybe trying to remember everything, me being born, growing up, maybe.  Shit, I don’t know.  But I remember she was there and then she wasn’t.  I was with her for a long time before they pulled us out of the windshield.
”

Tonya looks up at me.  “And you’ve just kept this inside all this time?  You never talked to anyone?”

“Why?  It won’t bring her back.  It won’t fix everything that happened.”

Tonya squeezes my legs and whispers through her tears, “I’m so sorry.”

“The weird thing though, is she gave me the cameo earlier in the evening.  She said it was special and I should take care of it for her.  I don’t remember why she did that.  But after a few weeks, I left the hospital, you know, after they stitched me up, and one of the emergency room surgeons gave it to me, said it was in my pants pocket the night they brought me in.  When I got home, everything that was my mom’s, every picture of her, her books, just everything that was her — was gone, like she had never been there, except the guitar.  My dad cleared everything out, but I have no idea why he left the guitar, except maybe because it was in my closet and he didn’t go in my room.

“So that’s how my mom died and I got that scar,” I say as I wipe my eyes dry.

“My God, Connor, that’s awful.  I’m so sorry,” Tonya says again.

“I guess it was my fault, you know?  I’m pretty sure my dad blames me for her death.”

“No, no, Connor.  It’s not your fault, you were just a kid.  Kids aren’t adults, you can’t blame yourself for not being the man back then that you are today.” 

“The man I am?  Killing my mom, mean son of a bitch for a dad and this is what you get,” I say as I spread my arms out, “hardly a man worth anything.”

“You didn’t kill anyone, never say that again,” Tonya says sharply.  “I told you before, you’re a good man, never forget that — you are.”

“I wish I could believe you.  I had no business bringing this down on anyone else, I’m sorry for telling you.  Hell, I have a hard enough time even relating to anyone normal.  I need to stick with girls like Debbie.”

“Never be sorry for confiding in me, never.  I’ll always be here for you.  Never forget that either.  You trust me, don’t you?” she asks.

I look into her eyes.  “Yes, I trust you with everything I am.”

“Then trust me about this.  I wish you would have talked to me about all of this sooner,” Tonya says.