“That doesn’t mean I wanted you to … fuck me.”
She made the whole thing sound so dirty and wrong. Tyler needed to shower.
After a minute or so of silence, she told him to drive her back home unless, that was, he wanted her to walk home or maybe wanted to rape her again. He could have punched her.
“I didn’t rape you.”
“Then who did? Not you? Fine. Your fucking dick? You want to blame it all on your manhood? Is that how much of a pussy faggot you are?”
Tyler blinked. He needed to say something to appease her and fast. “I’m sorry?” He said it like a question.
She laughed sarcastically. “Just take me home before I run to somebody’s house and tell them Tyler Williams just raped me.”
He didn’t say anything else. Trying to calm her wouldn’t work. She had already decided what happened, already judged him, found him guilty, and was now determining sentence. If he pushed her, she really would run to somebody’s house (trashy trailer) and start squawking about date rape. Or even assault rape.
He drove back up the twisty roads, maneuvering between more parked cars than earlier and noticed how many of the mobile homes were set askew from each other like teeth in a malformed mouth. Several people were outside smoking cigarettes and each person watched him drive past as if he were a possible threat to their smoking break. Driving up the hill that corkscrewed was like trying to leave Hell; every time he thought he had reached the summit, the road curved again and continued upward. He grew dizzy.
He stopped outside her house, put the car in park, turned to her. “Sasha …”
She took a deep breath.
“Sasha, I—”
She spun toward him, hair wiping around her face. “You raped me. You. Raped. Me. You don’t get to say anything. Not one fucking thing. If you mention anything to anyone, I will tell the whole world. But don’t think I won’t tell everyone anyway. You know why? Because you raped me. I decide what happens now. If I go inside and decide to call the police, too bad. If I tell everyone I know and your reputation is ruined, too bad. You got that? You can’t say shit. Okay?” Spittle had gathered at the corners of her mouth and now a long strip of phlegm hung from her lower lip like drool from the mouth of a pit bull.
He didn’t say anything. What could he say?
She swung open her door and jumped out. But as she did, and just before she slammed the door hard enough to rock the car, she said something that Tyler barely caught. It sounded like, Mother is not going to be pleased. Then she was running across her front lawn and sprinting up the stone steps like something was chasing her. A moment later, a light came on in an upstairs room.
Mother is not going to be pleased. Who called their mom “mother” anyway? And what did that mean, not going to be pleased? It was her phrasing that gnawed at his brain. He wouldn’t have thought anything of it if she muttered that her mom was going to totally flip her shit or be totally fucking pissed, but saying she was not going to be pleased seemed more menacing somehow. It reminded Tyler of cold-blooded psychopaths who calmly told their kidnapped victims that they had brought all this on themselves before slicing their throats. Rational people got pissed. Psychos calmly placed blame and started killing.
Tyler started to drive away and stopped. Someone was staring out from the bottom window near the porch. A red light flickered behind the figure, casting the person’s face in complete shadow. It had to be Sasha’s mother. The longer he stared, Tyler was better able to make out long hair that sat in a clump on top of her head and fell unevenly to border her face. As he strained to see, Tyler convinced himself that the woman was staring straight at him with large eyes, which glowed red each time the light flickered in the room. Could she see him sitting in his car? Did she know what had happened, or at least suspected what had happened? Was her mouth open? Was it opening and closing as if she were saying something? But what and to whom? Maybe he was imagining all of this.
Mother is not going to be pleased.
Tyler drove away from that house and out of Hidden Hills Trailer Trash Town as quickly as he could without inviting cops or a car accident.
The silhouetted image of a woman—definitely her mother—kept him awake most of the night. Every time sleep took him away, the woman’s large, red eyes pulsing in the dark ushered him back to consciousness. Also in those dreams (more like quick, horrific flashes) the woman’s mouth was moving in silent prayer. But not prayer, no. She was mouthing the words to a curse.
* * *
With a horrendous headache and burning eyes, Tyler shuffled into the bathroom, washed his face, and joined the family for the weekly Saturday morning breakfast ritual Dad had restarted after the baby died.
With little variation, these breakfasts always consisted of eggs (made any way you wanted, though Dad was really only good at making scrambled eggs and merely proficient at the rest), bacon, toast, coffee and orange juice. The breakfasts were pleasant times, although Tyler almost always slept through most of them and grabbed his eggs while Delaney was running off somewhere and Brendan was heading to his bowling league and Dad, of course, was in the bedroom trying to motivate Mom out of hibernation.
The aroma of coffee grabbed him immediately and his whole body perked up. He headed right for the coffee maker, hoping the rest of the family would reserve comment on his early arrival until at least after he had enough coffee to settle his stomach and sooth his stinging eyes. He managed a long, delicious gulp before Delaney spoke up.
“You look like crap,” she said.
He shrugged. “I must take after my little sister.”
“Ha. Ha,” Delaney said in exaggerated fashion. She was sitting in her usual spot next to Dad, Brendan across from her. The lone seat across from Dad waited with an empty plate for him. When Mom used to eat with them, before the shit with the baby, Tyler would squeeze next to Brendan and give Mom the seat opposite Dad. He couldn’t remember the last time he saw the extra chair at the kitchen table.
“Surprised you’re up,” Dad said and took a bite of toast.
“Yeah, well, I am.”
“I see you are your usual charming self,” Dad said.
Tyler sat at the empty plate and took another long drink of coffee. It tasted particularly good this morning, and he began to feel better. Today was a new day after all, and maybe everything would turn out alright. He knew things weren’t so easily fixed (just look at Mom, if, that was, you dared to enter her bedroom and see what she had become), but it felt good, no, wonderful, to at least pretend everything was going to work out. The sunlight streaming in through the kitchen bay window had pushed the dark thoughts away. Sunlight was good at that.
“How was your date?” Delaney asked in a mocking voice but with eyes that betrayed her real interest.
“Fine,” he said and kept drinking his coffee.
“Ohhh,” she crooned, “it must have been magical.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
“You know she’s like, weird, right?”
You raped me. You did it!
He shrugged again. It was the perfect response to just about every question.
“The girls at school think she’s like messed up in the head. I mean, she lives in that trailer trash place and—”
“Anyway,” Dad cut in, “how do you want your eggs?”
Another shrug later and Dad was making the scrambled eggs he did best.
“You know what I mean, though, right?” Delaney asked.
“Yeah. Let me worry about it.”
Mouth opening and closing with muted words as eyes burned red in flickering light. Just a dream.