Little Battles Read online

  First published by The Writer’s Coffee Shop, 2011

  Copyright © N.K. Smith, 2011

  The right of N.K. Smith to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000

  This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part maybe reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The Writer’s Coffee Shop

  (Australia) PO Box 2013 Hornsby Westfield NSW 1635

  (USA) PO Box 2116 Waxahachie TX 75168

  Paperback ISBN- 978-1-61213-030-9

  E-book ISBN- 978-1-61213-031-6

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the US Congress Library.

  Cover image by: Roberto Rizzo

  Cover design by: Jennifer McGuire

  www.thewriterscoffeeshop.com/nsmith

  N.K. Smith has been writing in some fashion since the early age of ten. Her first short story, written in fifth grade, was a summer camp mystery. N.K. is realizing her childhood dreams with the continuation of the Old Wounds series.

  Having lived several places throughout the northeast United States, N.K. has returned to her native Indiana where she lives with her husband, two children, and three cats. N.K. has an avid interest in natural, organic, and sustainable living and lives a vegan lifestyle.

  To my family, who supports everything I do and to the countless number of pre-readers and friends who sent me comments, thoughts, advice, and opinions, Brittany, Caryn, and Lea among them. A deep “thank you” goes to the people who have been the kindest to me, including Amanda, Debbie, and Jennie.

  I was freaking the hell out. I’d hoped that a good night’s sleep would have taken away my absolute terror, but I was wrong.

  Last night at Elliott’s house, I’d danced with him. Me, Sophie Young, danced with a high school boy, and on the night of Homecoming, no less. Not that we were in the gym or whatever, but it was all hands-around-the-waist, head-on-freaking-shoulder dancing in his room. It was messed up at that point, even if I kind of liked it, but then my stupid mouth went ahead and started talking, even though my brain told it to shut the hell up.

  I’d told him about the stupid fork. I just knew that shit was going to happen.

  I was pissed.

  I couldn’t believe I spilled about the night I was doing the dishes and my mom, Helen, hit me so hard that I fell onto a dirty fork that had been sticking up out of the dishwasher.

  It was something I never wanted him to know; just one of the many instances where I was hurt at the hands of my mother, and I didn’t want to be seen as weak. Especially not to Elliott.

  I was so angry with myself for saying that shit. I never spoke about it. Ever. I was really angry when he kept asking about it. I was really angry that I was in Maryland, in the tiny little town of Damascus, and extremely pissed at the stupid judge in Tampa who told me I needed to move here and get therapy. I hated Bitch Wallace, my stupid counselor, for pairing me with someone like Elliott.

  What the hell was it about him? I’d spent years keeping things tightly locked up because who would want to hear it anyway? And then every time I was in the same room with Elliott, the stuttering, shy boy with the beautiful face and amazing mind, I felt like telling him everything, up to and including my preferred cut of underwear.

  Stupid!

  I’d gotten crazy-high last night to make sure I’d get some decent sleep, hoping it would calm me down, but did it work? Hell, no. It was ten a.m. on a Sunday and I just kept wondering where the working part of my brain went.

  Nothing good has ever come from telling people shit like that.

  So while my father Tom went rock climbing and then out drinking, I got really stoned and found myself on a bus headed for Baltimore. I tried like hell the entire ride to stuff Elliott back into the “Rusty Dalton” box, but he didn’t fit anymore. Since we’d started e-mailing, asking and answering each other questions, he’d become an actual person to me.

  I’d told him enough about myself and I was through with it. I was fucking over it. The e-mails were a bad idea. I couldn’t believe I’d initiated it. What was I thinking? I didn’t want him to know this stuff at all, and the only result of all this contact would be that he’d feel attached to me. I didn’t want someone attached to me. I didn’t want to be attached. He’d start feeling entitled to know me; to know how I felt; to know my past.

  I didn’t want that shit.

  Once in Baltimore, I walked around until I found a pay phone. It was ridiculously hard to do. I had no idea when they’d disappeared from our urban landscape, but their demise pissed me right the hell off. I was sure the phone companies couldn’t afford so many in this day and age, but not all of us were blessed with cancer-causing cell phones.

  It took me forty-five minutes to find one, and by that time my buzz had worn off. The old receipt was tucked in my back pocket and it was my sole purpose for coming here. Even if he couldn’t meet up, it was better than sitting around all day like a moon-eyed dipshit, fretting over some stupid high school boy who never stopped asking questions.

  I was aware that I was the one who’d started the question-asking. Stupid fucking me. I would have never done it if Elliott hadn’t been so interesting.

  As I dialed the number of Ian, a guy I’d met last week while shopping with girls who weren’t really my friends, I did my best to push Elliott, along with all that shit he got me to say and feel, out of my mind. After Ian gave me directions, I was there in no time, knocking on his door. After I got inside, I again managed to shove the stuttering boy who’d been occupying my every thought out of my mind, as Ian watched me checking out the pictures on the wall.

  The one I was looking at right now was of Ian in combat fatigues standing next to some kind of large gun in the middle of a desert. “You were in the military?” Duh.

  “Yep.” He came up close behind me. “Iraq, two years.”

  “When did you get home?”

  I turned around, finding myself so close to him that I didn’t even bother looking up into his face, I just put my hands against his t-shirt-covered torso. There was no need to be coy. He thought I was legal, and I didn’t give a shit that I wasn’t. We both knew what was going to happen, and I’d never been a fan of playing hard-to-get. Whether it was a bad or good decision, here we both were and I wasn’t the type to back out of things.

  “Six months ago.”

  “Do you miss it?” What was wrong with me? Why the hell did I insist on asking everyone questions? Since when did I start giving a shit?

  His hands moved from my waist up to my breasts and he pushed me back against the wall. “Do I miss almost being killed every day? Can’t say that I do. Roadside explosions aren’t as much fun as they sound.”

  Ian stepped back, his hands leaving me as he lifted up his shirt, exposing some wicked scars on his chest. “Thankfully the shrapnel that punctured the skin missed my heart and only tore through one lung, and even though my skin was on fire from the blast, it didn’t consume me completely. How old did you say you were again?”

  Reaching out, I brushed my fingertips against the wide, smooth area of his scarred, burnt flesh, and wondered momentarily if he was one of those guys who suffered from PTSD or some shit. It wo
uld be fitting that yet again, I found someone that was screwed up.

  There were no normal people left anymore.

  I couldn’t help but gasp in shock when he picked me up and carried me up the stairs. My breathing was rapid as his strong hands gripped me with tight possession. I had to remind myself that this was why I’d come to Baltimore today. Again I had to push Elliott from my mind, telling myself he wasn’t my boyfriend. No matter how damaged I was, I knew I didn’t want to ruin him like that. If we continued our friendship, eventually I would.

  I felt like I’d given Elliott enough of myself, too much, even though I knew I’d given him next to nothing. No, that wasn’t right. I’d taken enough from Elliott and in return, I had thoughts about things I’d never wanted to think about; I wanted to be finished with it all. I wanted to go back to not reliving all this shit.

  I was in Ian’s room now. Clearly his wife decorated it. I felt like shit letting this man kiss me in the middle of the room his wife had decorated, but I stopped acknowledging it. I wanted to feel this way. I wanted to hate myself just a little more, because it was better than the alternative. It was better than thinking about forks in my neck, and getting shoved into brick walls for playing in dirt, and cutting my hair in hopes that Helen couldn’t rip it out like she always did. It was better than feeling the hope that Elliott’s friendship dangled in front of me.

  My thoughts were so consuming that I didn’t realize I was naked. Ian was too, his body hard, drawing my eyes away from his scars. I didn’t know how old he was, but I knew I was too young to be doing this with him legally, just as I knew how immoral it was to bang another woman’s husband.

  But as he pushed me back onto the bed, I just couldn’t care. “Oh, shit,” I breathed, loving the way he was making my body feel with his tongue.

  I needed this. I needed this tingle he was creating. I needed the way his touch was driving every fucking thought out of my head and allowing me to focus on the heat spreading throughout my body.

  I didn’t think I was loud. My eyes were closed, but popped open quickly when I felt his hand cover my mouth. “Shhhh. Quiet, baby. My kid’s taking a nap. We don’t want to wake him up.”

  While the information that I was not only fucking someone’s husband, but someone’s father settled in, I couldn’t help but be distracted. My brain was stuck on something else.

  Shhhh! Quiet, Sophie.

  I froze and I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

  Even when Ian removed his hand from my mouth, I still felt it there. As he said something about being a tease, I still couldn’t get my mind to push past its paralysis. I could only do what he wanted.

  Shhhh! Quiet, Sophie.

  I wanted to be high.

  I knew things were happening, that my body was moving and that he was moving with me. My body was still paralyzed but that didn’t stop him from moving it for me. He’d just fucked me and then laid his head down on my stomach. I wanted to push him off of me, but my body wouldn’t comply.

  Shhhh! Quiet, Sophie. Don’t wake your mother.

  Finally, my brain let me control my body again. I needed to get away.

  “Get off.”

  “I just did,” he mumbled against my belly.

  “Get off of me,” I clarified, using all my force to push at him and sit up all at once.

  “Where are you going?” he asked as I got off the bed and hastily grabbed my clothes.

  “What? You want to cuddle?” I tugged on my pants and glared back at him.

  He shrugged.

  “Go find your fucking wife.” With that I left the bedroom, pulling my shirt over my head as I went.

  I sat shivering on the bus home, my legs drawn up against my chest, my arms wrapped around them. I wished I’d brought my one-hitter. I wished I had some pills with me. I wished that the orgasm I’d gotten had been enough to still the rapid thoughts I was having. This shit had never happened before. Usually sex calmed my racing thoughts just like weed did. Typically I felt good after doing it and both my body and mind were sated.

  But it wasn’t like that. I felt worse now.

  I was left to deal with the shit playing out in my head.

  Shhhh! Quiet, Sophie. Don’t wake your mother.

  I wanted to puke. I felt sick. Biting the inside of my cheek was the only thing that kept me from screaming. The blood that pooled in my mouth did nothing to settle my stomach or my mind.

  I went quickly to the great big house that sat back from the road and hoped like hell he could make the shit in my head stop. I couldn’t deal with this. I didn’t want to deal with this.

  Shhhh! Quiet, Sophie. Don’t wake your mother.

  I shivered and rang the doorbell, relieved when someone answered.

  “Just give me something. Please?” I practically begged once inside Aiden’s room. I knew he’d be holding. He made a lot of money slinging drugs, and he wasn’t the type of guy to be out of what his customers wanted.

  “You just said you had no money, Sophie. The shit’s not free, you know.”

  I nodded. “No, I know. I’ve got money, just not on me.”

  His eyes narrowed. “I’ll give it to you, but you’d better pay me tomorrow.” He went over to his dresser, pulling open the middle drawer. “Now what do you want?”

  I peered inside, thankfully feeling myself go slightly numb at the mere sight of my choices. “That,” I answered, pointing. “And a couple of those.”

  It was only after a line was up my nose that I began to feel better. “Do you want to do one with me?”

  Even though he was smiling, he shook his head. “I sell that shit, I don’t do it. It’ll rot your brain, not to mention your nose cartilage.”

  “’s fine with me,” I said. “What do I need nose cartilage for?” I did one more line and shivered as the energy, the chemically electrified charge, coursed through me. I stood up and ran my hands through my hair. “Thanks.”

  His eyes were hard and when I tried to leave, he wrapped his hand around my bicep. “I fucking mean it. You’d better pay me tomorrow. I don’t have time for this ‘just give me a little more time to get the money’ bullshit. Got it?”

  I nodded, sniffing as my nose tickled and burned. “Yeah,” I huffed. “I’ve got the money at home. I’ll give it to you tomorrow.”

  “Good.” He released my arm, but one of his hands moved to my chest as the other came to press between my legs, and he bit at my lower lip as my eyes slowly closed.

  Shhhh! Quiet, Sophie. My eyes snapped open and I pushed Aiden away, which made me stumble backwards until I hit the door, the doorknob sticking me hard in my lower back. I didn’t want to have sex with him.

  “I’ll give you the money tomorrow,” I repeated as my hands found the knob behind me.

  He licked his lips and smiled. “Good.”

  Thank my deity of choice, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, that I had enough brain power to buy a few Vicodin from Aiden too. Monday was not going to be easy to handle.

  I got up and immediately smoked out when I realized Tom was already gone. While I waited for Jason, my pot connection and ride to school, I took two halves of a pill.

  I hadn’t slept at all Sunday and spent my entire night pushing thoughts around in my head, so I spent the first part of my day sleeping through all my classes. I liked it. I was sure that I had dreams, but I couldn’t sleep long enough to remember them. Before I knew it, I was smoking out again with Jason in the woods.

  When I got to the greenhouse for Horticulture, Elliott was already at our table. I’d taken another half of the painkiller and was incredibly high, but still very, very tired. “Hey,” I said in greeting, never meeting his eyes.

  He searched my face and it made me incredibly uncomfortable. I turned away as I sat down. I should’ve bought more coke from Aiden yesterda
y. A bump would’ve been great right about now. I pillowed my head on my folded arms.

  “S-S-SSSophie?”

  I didn’t look up when he said my name, but I didn’t want him to be upset that I didn’t respond. He’d take it as me not liking him or something, and then the kicked-puppy look would appear. “What, Elliott?”

  “Are y-you o-o-okay?”

  Closing my eyes, I tried to banish what I heard in my head. Shhhh! Quiet, Sophie. Don’t wake your mother. I nodded against my arms. “I’m good, Elliott. Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”

  “Are y-you g-going to take n-notes?”

  I shook my head. “No. I’m sure it’ll be more of the same.”

  I wasn’t sure if he said anything else because I let my mind drift off on a codeine-induced wave of numbness. I think I might’ve fallen asleep, since I started to have thoughts of beds and bodies in the hidden depths of night falling away from me.

  Before I could get into Jason’s car to leave school, I felt a strong hand wrap around my arm. “You have my money?”

  I looked up and saw Aiden. Fuck. “I forgot it at home.” His hold on me tightened. “OW! Jesus! I have it, just not here.”

  He pressed me back against the door of the car and leaned in close. “Don’t play games, Sophie. Give me the fucking money.”

  “It’s at home.”

  “What the fuck?” Someone growled behind me.

  I turned, very happy to find that Jason had finally made it to his car. While Aiden moved away just an inch, he tightened his hold on my arm. I’d be surprised if I wasn’t bruised.

  “You’d better tell your girl here that she needs to pay me my money.”

  Jason’s gaze shifted from Aiden, to me, and then back. It seemed like his whole body sighed. “How much does she owe you?”

  “Sixty, and it’s going to be rounded up to a hundred if it’s not in my hands right fucking now.”

  Again Jason sighed, then snuck his hand into his pocket and pulled out a wad of cash, unwrapping three bills and shoving them toward Aiden. Finally, my arm was released, but instead of feeling better, the blood rushing back made my arm hurt even more.