Little Battles Read online

  “Please just clean anyway? Please? With the brown towels?”

  Jace sighed. “Fine. Can I go now? She’s waiting for me…”

  “In your room?”

  “No, in your room,” he answered, his voice annoyed and edgy.

  Jerry looked frightened, like the thought of me in his bedroom sparked actual panic.

  “Of course not in your room. She’s in mine, unless she got tired of waiting for me,” he said pointedly. “Don’t flip. Why would she be in your room?”

  “Make sure you clean your room when she goes.”

  “No.”

  “What?” his father asked, his voice taking on that panicked nature again.

  “I like her germs in my room, Dad. It’s my room. Besides, it’s Sophie. Tom’s daughter. He was over just—”

  “It’s not the same and we cleaned after he left too. Just clean, Jason. Promise me you’ll clean.”

  “Fine,” he relented with a sigh. “Did you take your meds today?”

  Jerry fidgeted, but nodded. “I just need you to clean, that’s all. Sorry I yelled.”

  Jason shrugged. “What do you want for dinner?”

  He was like his father’s fucking parent or something. I’d known that his dad had some mental issues, but it never occurred to me that Jason would have to take care of him so much.

  I went back to Jason’s room and grabbed my coat, wanting to leave. When I turned back around, he was leaning in the doorway.

  “You taking off?”

  I nodded. “I have to get dinner and all that.”

  “Me too.”

  I started shrugging on my coat, but before I could, Jason took it away and lifted me, pressing me into the wall. His mouth on my neck was heavy and wet, and it felt so good. The way his arms were behind me, his hands in my hair, set me alight with heat. My legs automatically wrapped around his waist and his hips thrust upward, driving his very obvious excitement against me.

  I thought about Elliott and I felt awful because I’d kissed him on Wednesday and now I had Jason pressing against me in all the right places. I’d been trying not to do this shit. Jace breathed out against my ear and I instantly froze. The rush of air brought memories.

  Shhhh!

  I pushed against him, then opened my eyes and straightened my legs. He let me down, but only after trying to hold me closer to him for a split-second.

  “What the fuck?” His breath was coming out in spurts.

  “I have to go, Jace.”

  He said something, but I didn’t listen. My mind was racing with thoughts of things I didn’t want to think about.

  “But, Sophie…”

  “No, I have to go. The bus will be along any minute.”

  “I can take you home.”

  I shook my head and licked my lips. “You have to make Jerry dinner.”

  Sighing, he gave me a half-nod. “Fine, but I’ll see you tomorrow morning, right?”

  “Actually, I’m getting another ride.”

  “Who the hell from?”

  It wasn’t hard to hear the jealousy in his voice. I worked really hard not to get pissed at him.

  “Elliott.”

  “Why?”

  There was no reason why Elliott was going to pick me up. He just was, so I shrugged.

  “So no wake and bake then?” I shook my head and he followed suit. “That’s screwed up, Sophie. We always--”

  I cut him off. “We can burn before class.”

  He eyed me carefully. “Why don’t you just ride with me and we’ll clam bake like usual?”

  As appealing as I always found getting fried first thing in the morning inside of an enclosed vehicle, I’d already told Elliott he could pick me up. “Not tomorrow, Jace.”

  “Whatever.” He went to sit down on his bed and then nodded toward the door. “You’re going to miss your fucking bus.”

  One might think Chris would’ve taken a weekend off from being cruel, but as he followed me through his family’s store, letting loose with a steady stream of taunts, I realized that he was a full-time jerk.

  I had to keep reminding myself that I was only there to pick up a few things for Sophie. I’d noticed that she didn’t have a hat or gloves and if we were going to go out in the newly-fallen snow, she would need them.

  “Aiden didn’t say, of course, but I bet she’s a screamer. Or at least, she will be with me.”

  I grit my teeth and wondered if he really thought that anyone believed his boasts of prowess.

  “Are those for Sophia or your brain-dead, space-cadet sister, D-D-Dalton?” It bugged me that he called her Sophia when she so clearly wanted to be called Sophie. I had to work really hard to have compassion for Anderson. I wondered what had happened to him that was so bad he felt he felt the need to be so horrible to people.

  He needed therapy more than most of the kids who saw Robin or the other guy.

  “Now there’s a thought, D-D-Dalton.” He drew in a deep breath and smiled. “Your mental sister has a tight body. I think Sophie’d look so hot with her face between your sister’s thighs while I took her from behind.”

  I closed my eyes for just a moment while I fought against the urge to defend them. I really wanted to, but I knew anything I said would only make him laugh, and the more he talked, the weaker I got.

  If only Trent was here.

  Then, as if Chris could read my mind, he said, “Run and tell her idiot boyfriend. We all know that the next time the sheriff gets a call about his uncontrolled anger, he’ll be locked away.” He sighed exaggeratedly. “I wonder if he’d mind me fucking your sister while he’s taking it in the ass in prison.”

  My breath caught and I felt sick. I heard him laugh again. I could only focus again when his mother came into sight.

  “Good morning, Elliott. Ready to ring those up?”

  I swallowed hard and looked at Chris, watching as his posture changed now that his mother was around.

  “Y-yes, MM-MMMMrs. A-A-Anderson.”

  I handed over my money and took the hat and gloves in exchange.

  “Tell your father hello for me, will you?” I nodded and left as quickly as I could.

  I stopped at the grocery store to pick up Sophie’s favorite juice. I knew she didn’t want me to be her boyfriend, but there was nothing stopping me from taking care of her.

  She was still sleeping when I got to her house, and as Mr. Young tried to wake her up, I hoped that I hadn’t gotten the time wrong.

  However when she came downstairs, saving me from being alone with her father, I couldn’t help but be relieved. She was completely beautiful in threadbare clothes that were too big for her and her hair all over the place. I was rewarded with a smile when she saw the Pom juice, but thought for a moment that she hated the gloves and hat before she seemed to compose herself and thank me.

  I wasn’t trying to overstep any boundaries, I just wanted to make sure she didn’t get sick on her first outing in the Mid-Atlantic winter.

  We played in the snow. I could count the number of times I had “just played” in my entire life on one hand. When I threw that first snowball at her, I knew that I was taking a risk and just for a moment, she looked like she might’ve been upset. Then she lobbed a poorly made snowball back at me and all my fears melted away.

  She would have to work on that aim before getting into a battle with David though. I’d only been in two snowball fights with him, but he was incredibly accurate.

  As she cooked chili, I’d asked her a question and true to form, she’d asked me one right back. I’d been so happy she was cooking. Funny how she was making that particular dish when she told me about her mother using peppers to burn her.

  I hadn’t known that the tongue could scar, and I wondered if it still hurt.
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  It was during the discussion of my mother that the unparalleled sadness settled down on me. I was happy that I wasn’t panicking in front of her, but I couldn’t stop the quicksand of despair as it swallowed me whole, so much that I hardly even tasted Sophie’s food when it was time to eat.

  I was barely able to say a proper goodbye to her and her father before driving home in what could only be described as a daze.

  David, Jane, and Stephen were all eating dinner when I returned. I avoided speaking by answering all their questions with a shrug, a nod, or a shake of my head.

  Instead of just having sad thoughts running through my mind, I kept reciting various Bible passages. All it did was manage to keep me on that amazingly thin edge of being normal, or what passed as normal for me, and complete panic.

  Sleep was difficult and I found myself unable to work on my speech or pick up an instrument. My body was as heavy as my mind and I was bound to the bed, my arms wrapped around my legs.

  I didn’t speak at all on Sunday. I wouldn’t have come out of my room either if I hadn’t wanted coffee so badly.

  “Elliott, please,” Stephen said on Monday morning as he looked deeply into my eyes. I looked away, the intensity of his gaze too much for me to handle. “You can’t keep shutting down like this, you know.”

  I could and I would. I didn’t have to talk. There was no stipulation in the adoption papers stating that I had to. I had nothing to say and it made me angry that everyone wanted to turn it into some major thing.

  It wasn’t like I was silent because they did something wrong. I wasn’t punishing them. I just didn’t want to talk. Not only did I not get much sleep, but my brain was still a little warped from last night’s painful thoughts.

  It wasn’t so much that I was thinking about my mother, because I did that a lot. It was more that I was thinking about why she did what she did.

  I knew Sophie didn’t understand and that she thought I should’ve been angry at my mother, but I didn’t blame her. Not for her addictions and not for how she chose to escape. I would have thought Sophie would understand that. She got high every day as her means of escaping the pain she didn’t want to feel.

  My mother just took it a step further when the addiction became a source of pain as well.

  She almost took me with her.

  There are many days I wished she had. Being so young, it would’ve been difficult to truly understand what that gun pointed at me really meant.

  But I knew now.

  She was going to save me.

  And then she didn’t.

  Instead, she turned the gun around. I remembered how her hand shook. Her face was pale and she had tiny beads of sweat forming on her forehead.

  Addiction had clouded her eyes for so many years. So many, in fact, that I wasn’t sure I had ever seen her eyes clear until that day. She’d taken a deep breath and I had risen up onto my knees, my lips pressed together. I remembered wanting to ask her if she would just stay with me for a little while longer after she‘d told me she had to go.

  I hadn’t realized then what she meant.

  Then there was blood and brains on my door, on my walls, on my carpet, on my things, and it clued me in to the fact that she wasn’t going out to the store or to her dealer.

  The last thing she said right before, “I love you, Ellie-bear,” was that there was a half of her tuna salad sandwich left in the refrigerator for me.

  But I couldn’t understand it. And I couldn’t get out of my room.

  She was lying in front of my door and I couldn’t bring myself to step over her. The doorknob had been dripping.

  “Elliott?”

  I brought my gaze back to Stephen.

  “You don’t have to talk,” he said as he pushed a pad of paper and a pen toward me, “but please let me know what’s going on.”

  I looked at the paper and scowled. I wasn’t mute. I just didn’t want to talk.

  Stephen moved his hands toward my face and I leaned back, hoping to get away. I flinched when he touched the hollows under my eyes, knowing there were dark bruise-like circles there, and grabbed his forearms and pushed him away, forcing him to stop touching me.

  “I-I-I-I-I’m gg-g-g-ggg-gg-ggoing t-t-to sc-school n-now.”

  “Elliott,” Stephen said again, his tone making me feel guilty about how I didn’t want to talk and didn’t want him to touch me. I felt bad that he always seemed like he thought he was a failure because of it.

  “W-w-w-what?”

  I tried my hardest to convey through my eyes that I wanted him to back off and leave me alone. I didn’t understand why he thought after five years of near-silence that this would be the morning I would come clean, giving up every hidden secret to him simply because he “wanted to help.”

  When he didn’t speak, I stood up and grabbed my bag. “I-I-I’m p-p-p-picking up S-S-Soph-phie.” I exhaled heavily, upset with myself for butchering a simple four-word sentence. It was no wonder Sophie kept me at a distance.

  I couldn’t even say her beautiful name without turning it into an ugly, stunted sound.

  I pulled up to her house and fought back my body’s response to hyperventilate. She was waiting for me out on her porch. The snow from the weekend was nearly melted, but it was still too cold for her to be waiting outside.

  I checked the clock. Stephen had made me ten minutes late.

  The panic wore off when she smiled at me. She was wearing the gloves and hat I’d gotten her. A part of me wanted Chris Anderson to see them on her and know that I had indeed gotten them for Sophie. The other part didn’t want him to see them at all. My torso was still sore and bruised from last week.

  Despite my poor overall mood, I smiled back at her. She slipped something into her coat pocket before picking up her bag and making her way to the car. I probably should have gotten out and opened the door for her. That would have been the nice thing to do.

  Once she was inside, I realized quickly that she was high again, but I didn’t care right then, because she was inside the car with me and that simple fact made me feel better.

  The lingering sadness from the weekend faded until it was almost gone.

  Almost.

  “Hey, Elliott.”

  But just because I felt better in her presence, didn’t mean that I wanted to hear myself butcher her name again. So instead of giving her an actual greeting like she deserved, I smiled at her and pointed to the travel mug filled with coffee.

  “Thanks,” she said as she wrapped her hand around the mug.

  I nodded back at her.

  Her mug paused mid-air as she looked at me, narrowing her eyes in scrutiny, and said, “What’s wrong?”

  I shook my head, my eyes closing for just the briefest of moments.

  “Why aren’t you talking, Elliott?”

  I sighed. Although it warmed me that she knew within the first minute there was something wrong, I couldn’t force myself to speak. My teeth clenched together as I wished I could just talk. There were so many thoughts that I wanted to share with her.

  Suddenly her hands were in my hair and I closed my eyes again. “You don’t have to,” she whispered so low it was almost as if she’d never said it.

  When I opened my eyes, I made the mistake of trying to touch her. Just my fingertips brushed her cheekbone before she turned away. She gripped her coffee mug tightly and the only sound beyond the squeak of the leather seats was my sigh. I swallowed back my disappointment and waited until she’d fastened her seatbelt before shifting into first gear.

  When we parked at school, she turned back to me, her eyes narrowed again, studying me like Stephen or Robin usually did.

  “S-ssssstop.”

  She turned back around, grabbing the strap of her bag and the mug of coffee with one hand. “You going to be oka
y?”

  I nodded. She covered my hand, still resting on the gear shift. “I’m sorry for…whatever’s wrong.”

  She didn’t need to apologize for anything. It wasn’t her fault I was the way I was.

  Her hand was still resting on mine, so I figured I’d try again, just in case this was the time she’d actually let me touch her the way she touched me, but she moved away just like she always did. This was what Stephen must’ve felt like with me. He couldn’t stop hoping, and apparently neither could I.

  “W-w-w-why c-can you t-touch m-mm-mme but I c-can’t t-touch you?”

  Sophie’s eyes widened for a moment before she turned away, then ran her hands through her hair, and bit her lower lip.

  “I want you to touch me,” she said quietly.

  If what she was saying was true, then it was no longer a risk, so I tried to touch her cheek again.

  She sucked in a deep, shuddering breath and moved away, practically pressed against the door. “Not like that,” she said. “You shouldn’t want that.”

  She was so confusing. “I shouldn’t w-w-want that?”

  She had a dark look in her eyes before she closed them. “You shouldn’t want that from me.”

  “SSS-SSSophie…”

  She opened her eyes and reached for the door handle. “I have to go, Elliott.”

  I shouldn’t have done it, but I did. I reached out and grabbed her wrist. For just a moment, she froze. She didn’t blink. She didn’t breathe. Then she pulled her arm free. “Don’t want what you can’t have. I’m not capable of giving you what you need.”

  “W-w-what do I n-need?” It was a serious question, because I honestly had no idea at this point, and if she did, I wanted to know.

  “Someone who’s good for you. I’ll ruin you. I won’t even mean to do it, but I will.”

  Were we back to that again? “S-S-Sophie, I think…”

  She scrubbed her face with the palm of her hand. “I got a job,” she said, her voice much lighter.

  I wanted to congratulate her, but before I could even think of something to say, she was nodding toward the school, her bottom lip between her teeth. “I’ll see you in the greenhouse.”