Stronger than You Know (5 page)

Now that I'm not at Mom's anymore, I'm sort of in awe I survived it all. The thought of someone walking into my room now the way it happened then—now that I know what life is like without all of that—the thought staggers me.

I just want to go to sleep, but there's no way that's happening tonight. The pictures come again and again. Mom's cackling laugh, the one that meant she's oblivious to what's going on. The last boyfriend, Richard, was the worst—beer belly, smelly, his stubble scratched my face and any other place he'd see fit to have his mouth. He was the one with the knife. Just to make sure I'd be quiet. He didn't know I already had lots of practice.

My body starts to shake, and I roll into a ball as the tears begin.

I'm safe. I'm with family. I'm safe. I'm safe. I'm safe.

But no matter what my surroundings are, I don't feel safe. Ever. It's even worse, because what I feel doesn't mix with logic. My body continues to shake and my tears keep dropping onto the sheets.

My pillow is soaked. How long has it been? Seconds? Minutes? Hours?

“Joy?” I hear Aunt Nicole's voice and soft knocking on my door.

“Yeah?” I rub my face frantically a few times, pushing off any wetness.

“Can I come in?”

“Yeah.” But I don't want to talk. The walls in this house are made of paper.

She walks slowly into my room. She's in one of Uncle Rob's T-shirts and sweatpants she probably just threw on. I think it's sort of sweet that she sleeps in his shirts. “Do you want to take something?” Her voice is a near-silent whisper. “It's past midnight.”

I roll onto my back. I'm so
weak
. Instead of answering, I just nod. Xanax—the nighttime snack of losers. Perfect. At least I won't relive anything more tonight. No dreams. Just sleep.

SEVEN

Wait. Is this what it's like to do better?

The house is quiet when I step downstairs after finishing homework, and it reminds me of my home before this one.

In the trailer, I'd wait until everything was this quiet and then I would do the dishes and sweep the floor and take out the trash. I learned quickly to do those things nearly silently. I had most of the night, so time wasn't a problem. Sometimes I could clean during the day when Mom was gone, but I never knew when she would be back.

At the Mooresons', everything is clean when the family goes to bed. Aunt Nicole cleans after her whirlwind morning routine, and Uncle Rob cleans up after dinner. I'm not sure how to help. I should be helping.

I wander into the kitchen where Aunt Nicole stands sifting through her phone with an exasperated look on her face.

“You okay?” I ask quietly.

“I haven't been able to find time to schedule a hair appointment.”

Yeah. Because she spends so much time taking
me
to
my
appointments.

“I'm trying to find a time that works for both me and my hairdresser. It's not going well.”

“I can do it,” I say so fast that my words topple over each other.

Aunt Nicole rests her phone on the counter and her eyes meet mine. “What?”

“I know how to cut hair. Mom cut hair. I know how.” I hope. I did some of the neighbors and the neighbors' kids. Sometimes. Mom liked the extra money.

Aunt Nicole is quiet for so long that I'm wondering if I've really messed up. I'm never sure if I'm doing or saying the right thing.

“Stay right there.” She smiles and points. “This is perfect.”

In less than two minutes, Aunt Nicole has a stool set up next to the sink, a towel wrapped around her shoulders, a spray bottle of water and one of conditioner, and I'm holding scissors and a comb. I actually start to relax now that I have a task. As I take in the shape of her face, I realize her hair's all wrong. “Do you trust me?” I ask.

Aunt Nicole raises a brow. “Anything you want. I've had the same hair for years.”

I spray her hair and start cutting. A
lot
.

“You're doing Mom's hair?” Tara's smile is wide as she pauses against the counter. I love the days when Trent and his dad aren't here—the house feels so much more relaxed. “Can you do me when you're done?” Tara's sweetness practically pours out of everything she says, making her an easy person for me to be around.

“If you want.” Does she know I'd love to, but that I'm not sure how to use those words or if I should?

“Awesome,” she says.

I cut until Aunt Nicole's hair rests just under her ears.

Tara claps. “This is so cool!”

Now I'm smiling. I can't help it. I'm extra careful with shaping the cut just right, keeping the front slightly longer than the back and adding layers so her hair sits the way I imagined.

“Oh my gosh, Mom!” Tara grins. “It's so
awesome
.”

Aunt Nicole runs her hands through the layers a few times. “This feels so strange.” Her smile is wide. “But I think I'm going to love it.”

“Nicole?” Uncle Rob stops in the doorway, smiling. “You look amazing.”

“Thank you, Joy.” Aunt Nicole stands and gives me a small hug, but I step away after a brief moment. The closeness is still intense.

I back to the other side of the kitchen, just in case Uncle Rob decides to come all the way in. “Don't thank me until you see it yourself,” I whisper.

Now that Uncle Rob's here, I lower my voice. Like maybe he won't notice me in the room, which is silly because there's only four of us in here. My wish to not be noticed is just something else that belongs on my list.

“Me next.” Tara sits. “If you're up to it.”

I stand unsure. I
can
cut her hair. I want to, just not if her dad's going to be in the room. I know him being here shouldn't matter, but just like always, it does matter.

“I'm taking your mother out to dinner,” Uncle Rob says. His eyes don't leave her face as he brings her hand up for a kiss.

He's so different than any man I've ever been around—quiet and gentle. I don't understand him.

“You guys can order pizza. Here's forty bucks.” He sets it on the counter. “Nice job, Joy. You're very talented.”

I don't look at him because I'm completely pathetic, but I manage a nod. I do a lot of that around here.

Uncle Rob wraps his arm around his wife and they're gone.

“So,” Tara says. “I want something funky. And something that will hide my fat cheeks.”

I shake my head. “You don't have fat cheeks.” That's crazy. She's not fat. She's soft. She has this small waist but a real shape to her. I'm jealous of how her body curves so smoothly.

“You're only saying that because you're so thin.” She points at me.

“I'm too skinny. I look sick or something.” I hate my bony body. “I envy your soft cheeks. I can't imagine mine ever looking like yours. You're so pretty.”

Tara's jaw drops. “You are like the sweetest person ever.”

I don't know how to react to her words so I pick up my scissors instead. “How about we make it a little shorter, just under your shoulders, and add layers everywhere?” I can see her new look in my head and want to get started.

“Sounds awesome.”

I shift my raincoat hood farther over my face, enjoying my walk home from school even though it's raining. My feet are damp and cold, but it feels good to be away from hot, dry, and dusty of California.

“It's my walking buddy.”

I snap my head around.

Justin.

Now is when I should speak, right? He's not bad. He's just a guy. A guy who goes to my school. Logically this is all cool. I just need to convince my body of this. Deep breath in. I'm okay. We're okay. This is okay.

“Don't look so surprised.” He chuckles. “We're both walking from the same place to homes that are close to each other.”

“Sorry.” That's a word I'm good at, and I think my voice even sounded all right. He doesn't know me well enough to hear the shakiness. I hate that my nerves are on edge just because he's close.

He moves in step next to me. “Is this okay? I mean, is it okay if we walk together?”

I nod. That's something else I'm pretty great at. Nodding.

I like Justin's shoes. They used to be white, but he's drawn all over them so there's barely any white left. Makes me wonder if he gets in trouble for violating dress code. “That's really cool.” I point down.

Drawing. I suddenly miss drawing so much I only half understand why I stopped. All my sketchbooks were taken as evidence like most of my stuff from home, but I wouldn't want those anyway. I'd want new ones. If … If I can still find it inside me to draw. Might have to add it to my list.

• Can't talk to people.
  
• Hides in her room.
  
• Can't stand the smell of cigarettes and beer.
  
• Is afraid of her own uncle for no particular reason.
  
• Isn't sure she can draw
  

“What's cool?” he asks.

“Your shoes.” Now I feel good. I'm talking to someone I don't know. A guy. A guy that's not my cousin. A guy I find pretty cute. And I like his drawings. Maybe I'll start to do some of my own again. Maybe. Then I can start crossing some of the crazy off my list.

“Hey, thanks. My dad hates them. He keeps giving me a hard time for making him buy shoes that I destroy.” He kicks a stray rock off the sidewalk. “But drawing helps with the ADD, so I keep drawing.”

“Oh.”

“How's the breathing today?”

“Fine.” Right. He thinks I have asthma. I'll need to straighten that out. But not today. Today I'm just trying to breathe and concentrate on our shoes on the pavement. And not panic.

“You're a girl of few words.”

“Yep.”

He laughs.

Was that funny? “I like to listen.”

My head is silent. My heart is silent. I just gave him a piece of me. A piece of truth.

• Spoke with a boy. With Justin. Didn't lie and didn't have a panic attack. Yet.
  

But I won't tell Lydia about my drawings. She doesn't know how much I love art, and it would just end up on the list of things she asks me to work on. That part of me I want to get back on my own.

“Cool,” he says. We walk a few steps in silence. “I like to talk.”

I let myself steal a glance at him.

“There you are.” A crooked smile pulls up one corner of his mouth.

I smile back. I'm so brave! Well, brave for me.

“I'm not bugging you, am I?”

“No.” Wow. I like walking next to him. I want him to keep talking about things, anything. What will he talk about next? What kinds of things does he think about? What does he do outside of school? Most kids have after-school hobbies or clubs and stuff, just not me, not right now. Not yet.

Wow.
Not yet
. But I will, I think. I'll start to be able to have things after school. Maybe something I do. Something I like or something I'm good at. All these ideas and thoughts leave me with the most amazing feeling.
Hope
.

“Well, I'll be seeing you around,” Justin says.

What? Is he leaving? My heart sinks as I come to a stop. Oh. I'm at the house. He's walking backward, still looking at me. I'm kind of sad our time today is over, but maybe we can talk in Government or something. I wave and turn up the driveway still clinging to the faint feeling of hope that I'm starting to belong.

EIGHT

Sometimes there are no good answers

Aunt Nicole and I sit in Lydia's office.

“I've come here without you a few times,” Aunt Nicole says.

My heart jumps. Am I in trouble? Why are they talking about me without me?

“Relax, Joy.” Aunt Nicole rests her hand on my shoulder and I flinch.

I hear her suck in a breath.

“Okay, Joy?” Lydia's voice. “I need you to look at me, please.”

I do as asked.

“You and your aunt are okay, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Why did you jump away from her?”

I'm so stupid. When will I get enough control over my body to stop overreacting? “I didn't mean to. It just … happens.”

“You feel stressed?”

“A little. I didn't know she was here talking about me without me.” That's understandable, right?

Aunt Nicole turns on the couch to face me. “I was here for me. Because I feel like I should have rescued you a long time ago.”

“Rescued?” It sounds so dramatic.

“Yes.” She nods. Her eyes are intent on my face. “I play that brief phone call over and over in my head. When you were eight. I knew you weren't in school, and I was worried, but you were such a long drive away.”

“And you and Mom don't get along.” It never seemed weird that my aunt didn't visit. Mom doesn't like her.

“I called child services after we talked.”

“You did?”

“They said they came to the house and everything seemed fine.”

I lean back against the couch feeling weak. I remember. I haven't remembered that in forever. After my call with Aunt Nicole, Mom and I talked about school. She told me that people might be coming over and warned me that if they thought we didn't get along, I might go somewhere else. We had so much fun over the next few days. We read together and watched TV and cleaned our small home. When child services popped in for their surprise visit we were ready.

I was so afraid that Mom would go back to how she was or that we'd be separated when we were finally having fun. I was very convincing when I told them how well Mom and I did and that the conversation with my aunt was all a misunderstanding. We never see her. How could she know?

My eyes close. After those people left, everything went back to how it was before. Mom's drinking even got worse for a while when she split with the nice guy who helped set me up with school.

“She only pretended so they wouldn't take me,” I say. “Or maybe so they wouldn't take her. I think she wanted me there, but I have no idea why.” Why? Why? That horrible question again. The question with no good answers, the one that needs to be stuffed away. There's no good explanation for anything that's happened in my life, the good or bad. I won't open my eyes, not now. I don't even try to stop the memories. Today I know I'll lose.

Mom's smiling face comes up first, our old brown flowered couch behind her. Then I see her smoker's teeth. She yells. I hear her harsh voice like I'm there. “I don't believe you, Joy! Something's going on!” She hated how much attention Richard gave me, but there's no way she hated it as much as I did.

Aunt Nicole slides next to me. “I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't want you. You're an angel, Joy.”

I shake my head. Her voice fades the memory away and all I see is black.

“Rob and I. We have a good life and we didn't see it. We weren't seeing how lucky we all were. I mean, we get along okay, but learning about you, and having you in our house … we appreciate all the smaller things more than we ever have.”

“Because my life was so sucky?” I feel an actual smile start to form.

“And because you're so special.”

My eyes squeeze tighter.

“Open your eyes, Joy,” Lydia says. “We both know that helps.”

“I have felt so often like I completely failed you,” Aunt Nicole says.

“How could you think that?” I ask. Now my eyes have to open. I stare at Aunt Nicole's round face, her newly shortened hair.

“Because if I had been more persistent, if I'd pushed visits. I just feel like … maybe I would have been able to get you out of there sooner.”

I shrug. “I never thought about you not being there sooner. I'm still sort of overwhelmed by what you're doing for me now.” And I don't want them being nice to me because of guilt.

“We love having you at our house. I need you to know that.”

I stare. What words could say thank you in the right way?

Lydia leans forward in her chair. “Joy, you have to know your Uncle Rob feels the same. The only reason he isn't here is because I know how hard it is for you to talk around him.”

“I'll work on it.” I'm promising myself. I'm more determined.

Lydia leans toward me. “Maybe just try to spend some time in the same room as him, okay? Small steps. Don't feel bad about taking small steps.”

Right. Baby steps. One tiny step after another. Maybe when I'm eighty I'll really start to get somewhere.

Uncle Rob is in the living room reading a book near the gas fire. Fake fire, only it's real because it can still burn things. Sort of funny.

So, small steps. I don't want to be crazy forever. I don't want to keep being afraid of the people who live in this house. It's supposed to be my house too, even if it doesn't always feel like it.

And I don't want to be afraid of the kids at school. Like Justin. This house seems like a safe place to start. But being in the same room as Uncle Rob still feels like a pretty big step.

I sit on the floor near the blue flames and pull out my math homework. There. We're in the same room. This is good. He's reading. I'm working. Seems perfect. I take a barrette out of my bag and pull the hair off my face. It's something I don't normally do because most of the time I'm trying to hide.

He glances over his book, probably as unsure about me being in here as I am. Maybe he just doesn't like me. Maybe that's why we don't talk. Or maybe he read something in my file that makes him leave me alone—there are certainly enough instances that would make him wonder if I'd ever want to be around men. Or maybe there are things in there that would make him not want to be around
me
.

“Hi,” I whisper.

His smile is big and immediate. “Hi, Joy. Glad you joined me.” His voice is quiet but he's not whispering.

It's hot in front of the fire and the warmth is a nice contrast to the wet day. Now that I'm here, I don't want to move. I spread out my math book and notebook in front me. The heat is too much for all the layers I have on, so I slide my sweatshirt off, and lie on my stomach in my tank top. The warmth feels even better on my bare skin. I rest my chin on my palms and my elbows on the floor. After not paying attention in math, I'm trying to figure out parabolas using the examples from the text. I think I'm getting it. When I flip the page, Uncle Rob sucks in a breath behind me.

I turn to look at him. “Are you okay?” I ask.

“Are
you
?” His forehead is wrinkled up, and I swear I see tears in his eyes. What happened?

“I'm just working on parabolas. I didn't pay attention in class so …” But we're so not talking about this. What are we talking about then? I sit up to face him. What could be wrong?

He's staring at my bare scarred shoulders and back. Right. Tank top. How did I miss that?

“Your back and shoulders … All those round, white … I'm sorry, you don't want …” He shakes his head and leans back in his chair, still watching me.

“You have my file. I figured you and Aunt Nicole knew everything.” How could he be surprised by the scars? All the details are in there, exposing me in a way I didn't ask for.

“No.” His eyes meet mine. His voice is still so quiet. He doesn't look at me the way the men mom brought home did. Not at all.

“We asked for information on what we should and shouldn't do with and for you. We only wanted to know what we needed to. The rest is yours, personal.”

What?
I assumed they'd read everything available to them. They invited me into their house, to be around their kids. I'd think they'd want all the details.

“It's scars from cigarette burns,” I explain.

His lips press together and his chin quivers like he's fighting not to cry.

I need to make him feel better. “They're no big deal.” Any scarring you can see isn't a big deal. All the other stuff, the stuff you can't see, that's what weighs me down.

Tears roll down his cheeks. “There's so
many
.”

He's crying. Uncle Rob is crying because of me. Over things that happened what feels like a lifetime ago.

“They didn't all happen at once.” And now we're talking. Uncle Rob and I, and I'm not terrified. That alone feels like progress.

He's leaning forward in his chair again, book forgotten. “Joy … No one. No one should ever …”

I don't want him to be so sad over me. I'm fighting for something to say. “It looks a lot worse than it is, Uncle Rob. Stuff like that only happened when everyone was drinking and having fun. It wasn't …” I shake my head. “It wasn't like you're thinking.”

He's still silent and he's wiped his tears once, but they're still there.

“It's not like they held me down and …” But I can't think about being held down. That pulls me into a worse place than where Uncle Rob is right now. “I'm sorry, I'll go.”

“No, Joy. I'm sorry. It took me by surprise, that's all. I don't want you to go—if you're okay staying in here with me.” Uncle Rob's eyes that hold so much kindness.

“I'll be right back.” I go to my room and dig around for a T-shirt. Something that covers my scars. When I step back into the small den, his tears have dried and he has his book in his hand.

There's an almost apologetic frown on his face when I sit in front of the fire. He probably feels bad that I changed for him.

“I'm really glad you decided to come stay with us,” he says.

As opposed to all my other options. “Thanks.” I look at him for just another second. “I'm back to parabolas.”

“Let me know if you need any help.” He leans back behind his book.

“I will, thanks.”

Uncle Rob and I are suddenly not only talking, but I shared a bit of my past with him. Maybe there will be a point when I feel like I belong here. Maybe.