Read Online What We Knew by Barbara Stewart - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Barbara Stewart
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Subject: SOS
I just wanted to put the fear of darkness in him.
It’s not like we didn’t try to get him to stop. We really did. But he wouldn’t. Things kept escalating. We had to do something .
Please come home.
I understand about you and Justin. Mom does, too. She didn’t mean the things she said—you know how she is. That was a pretty big bomb you dropped. How was she supposed to know? You had a girlfriend for three years. Lisa took it hard, too. She always had a not-so-secret crush on you. I think she dreamed that someday you’d see she wasn’t a kid anymore—your little sister’s best friend—and fall in love, just like in the movies. But it’s never like the movies, is it? Love?
Sometimes it feels like the ugliest thing he put in me that day is fear. I fight it, I do. But it’s there. And it hurts. I’ll get over it—I have to, right?—but I don’t ever want to hurt again.
I’m rambling. I know. This is turning into one of those e-mails Grandma sends, the ones where you scroll and scroll and never reach the end. It would be easier if you’d just answer your phone. It’s so quiet right now. Almost too quiet. I keep expecting the cops to show up any minute, pounding on the door, waking Mom, waking the neighbors, dragging me out to the street in cuffs. But I need help. I need someone to listen. I could go to Foley, but I never want to see him again.
I can’t sleep. I’m too afraid.
eight
If I ever make a movie with a grisly murder scene, I’ll film it in the Hillhurst Park bathroom. It’s one of those concrete block buildings with an L passage and a metal door that gets padlocked after dark. Inside, there’s a curtainless shower and four stalls with plywood doors you can see over and caged windows set high in the walls. Post-slaughter, a killer can wash the gore down the floor drain. I don’t know how I’ll capture the smell, which is always something funky.
That day it was rotten eggs.
Washing my hands, I checked my reflection in the polished metal over the sink. My blue streaks were fading. I needed more color. I tiptoed around the wet toilet paper stuck to the floor and held the door for a mother dragging a rabid toddler on a leash. Cue the screechy violins.
But the places where bad things happen aren’t always so ominous, I thought, stopping to buy a blue raspberry taffy from the Snack Shack. A few days before, a boy with a bee allergy died right here in front of the candy counter.
I took the shortcut through the pines back to the pool. When I’d left, Lisa was propped on her elbows watching Katie practice handstands in the shallow end. But now Katie was crouched on the grass with the towel over her head and Lisa was screaming and gesturing at a woman in a mom bathing suit. The mom flailed angrily right back.
Conflict makes my knees go wobbly. I wanted to climb under the towel with Katie. I caught enough of the shouting to hear that the woman’s son had yanked down Katie’s bikini bottom. I didn’t know if Katie was hiding because everyone had seen or because her sister had morphed into a raging psycho.
“If your son ever touches my sister again, I’ll break his little arm!” Lisa shrieked. Which was exactly the wrong thing to be yelling when park security showed up to investigate the disturbance. The guard listened to the lifeguard and then the mom. A few minutes later, he was escorting Lisa through the crowd toward Katie and me. I pulled on my T-shirt and then peeked under the towel and handed Katie hers.
“Get this,” Lisa said, shoving her book in her bag. “He’s asking us to leave.”
The officer just stood there, clutching his belt, looking bored.
“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s cloudy anyway.”
“It’s sexual harassment!” Lisa shouted to anyone still listening. “My sister has a right to go swimming without being felt up!” She reached under the towel for Katie’s hand and guided her up the knoll to the jogging path.
Subject: SOS
I just wanted to put the fear of darkness in him.
It’s not like we didn’t try to get him to stop. We really did. But he wouldn’t. Things kept escalating. We had to do something .
Please come home.
I understand about you and Justin. Mom does, too. She didn’t mean the things she said—you know how she is. That was a pretty big bomb you dropped. How was she supposed to know? You had a girlfriend for three years. Lisa took it hard, too. She always had a not-so-secret crush on you. I think she dreamed that someday you’d see she wasn’t a kid anymore—your little sister’s best friend—and fall in love, just like in the movies. But it’s never like the movies, is it? Love?
Sometimes it feels like the ugliest thing he put in me that day is fear. I fight it, I do. But it’s there. And it hurts. I’ll get over it—I have to, right?—but I don’t ever want to hurt again.
I’m rambling. I know. This is turning into one of those e-mails Grandma sends, the ones where you scroll and scroll and never reach the end. It would be easier if you’d just answer your phone. It’s so quiet right now. Almost too quiet. I keep expecting the cops to show up any minute, pounding on the door, waking Mom, waking the neighbors, dragging me out to the street in cuffs. But I need help. I need someone to listen. I could go to Foley, but I never want to see him again.
I can’t sleep. I’m too afraid.
eight
If I ever make a movie with a grisly murder scene, I’ll film it in the Hillhurst Park bathroom. It’s one of those concrete block buildings with an L passage and a metal door that gets padlocked after dark. Inside, there’s a curtainless shower and four stalls with plywood doors you can see over and caged windows set high in the walls. Post-slaughter, a killer can wash the gore down the floor drain. I don’t know how I’ll capture the smell, which is always something funky.
That day it was rotten eggs.
Washing my hands, I checked my reflection in the polished metal over the sink. My blue streaks were fading. I needed more color. I tiptoed around the wet toilet paper stuck to the floor and held the door for a mother dragging a rabid toddler on a leash. Cue the screechy violins.
But the places where bad things happen aren’t always so ominous, I thought, stopping to buy a blue raspberry taffy from the Snack Shack. A few days before, a boy with a bee allergy died right here in front of the candy counter.
I took the shortcut through the pines back to the pool. When I’d left, Lisa was propped on her elbows watching Katie practice handstands in the shallow end. But now Katie was crouched on the grass with the towel over her head and Lisa was screaming and gesturing at a woman in a mom bathing suit. The mom flailed angrily right back.
Conflict makes my knees go wobbly. I wanted to climb under the towel with Katie. I caught enough of the shouting to hear that the woman’s son had yanked down Katie’s bikini bottom. I didn’t know if Katie was hiding because everyone had seen or because her sister had morphed into a raging psycho.
“If your son ever touches my sister again, I’ll break his little arm!” Lisa shrieked. Which was exactly the wrong thing to be yelling when park security showed up to investigate the disturbance. The guard listened to the lifeguard and then the mom. A few minutes later, he was escorting Lisa through the crowd toward Katie and me. I pulled on my T-shirt and then peeked under the towel and handed Katie hers.
“Get this,” Lisa said, shoving her book in her bag. “He’s asking us to leave.”
The officer just stood there, clutching his belt, looking bored.
“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s cloudy anyway.”
“It’s sexual harassment!” Lisa shouted to anyone still listening. “My sister has a right to go swimming without being felt up!” She reached under the towel for Katie’s hand and guided her up the knoll to the jogging path.
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