Page 28 of Colossal
What is wrong with me?
Exactly what my stepmother always said is wrong.
The devil is inside of me. He came out to play tonight.
It’s evil that urges me to my knees in the school library. Urges me to tease Eric with covert touches and peeks of my body until he’s stiff in class. My entire body grows enflamed thinking of the milk that fountains from his sex, all for me. For the taking.
I’m a bad girl. I’m not like everyone else.
Eric finally realized it tonight. It was only a matter of time.
I’ve reached the trellis that I’ll need to climb to return to my room, but I don’t have the strength to scale the wooden frame just yet. Instead, I double over and cry silently, my tears falling into the grass. When I’m almost dizzy from a lack of oxygen, I straighten again and take a sobbing breath, my hands all but numb as I climb.
I’ve made it about three feet off the ground when a hand fists in the back of my dress, yanking me off the trellis and I go tumbling backward into the grass, the breath whooshing clean out of my lungs. I lay there staring up at the night sky, too stunned to move. I can’t catch my breath. I can’t—
My stepmother’s face appears above me, twisted and enraged.
“I knew it.” She looks at someone nearby. “Didn’t I tell you she was vile? Look at the way she’s dressed!”
I scramble to pull down my silky hemline, all too aware that I didn’t put my panties back on before fleeing the party, but it’s too late. She’s already glimpsed my lack of undergarments. My breasts are all but falling out of the slip dress, too. And when I lift my head enough to find my father standing in the shadow of the eaves, I cry all the harder.
“Were you out selling your body to the highest bidder? Or did you give your charms away for free? Neither would surprise me.”
I shake my head and try to speak, but no sound comes out.
She squats down and slaps me hard across the face. Twice. “Answer! Did you set out to steal the spotlight from mydeservinggirls? Did you flash yourself all over town and bring shame to this family? Did you find a weak man to recreate your sick drawings?”
Pain implodes in the center of my chest and all I can do is clutch at the spot that hurts the most, whimpering over what feels like my impending death.
I’m exactly what she said I am.
She called it. She knew.
Now, Eric knows, too.
“Maybe we should all go inside and talk this out,” my father ventures.
But as usual, he’s ignored when it comes to a matter that concerns me. The fact that I haven’t responded to her questions makes my stepmother angry and she raises her hand high once again, bringing it down in a stinging slap to my face. She hits me so hard that I feel my lip split and she’s not done. She hauls back once again—
A furious roar splits the night air around me.
It’s so loud that my stepmother tips sideways and lands on her hip, before scrambling to her feet and lunging into the shadows, alongside my father. I take advantage of her distraction to roll onto my side and curl into a ball. She’s never actually hit me before and my ears are ringing. I’m so stunned, I’m only half aware of the looming figure that approaches. I’m forced to acknowledge the giant storming in my direction, though, when his footsteps begin to shake the ground beneath me.
Eric is here. No.Why?
I curl tighter into my ball, wishing I could disappear.
Did he come to see for himself that he made the right decision cutting me loose?
Did he come to join them in condemning me?
My heart furiously denies those possibilities, but all I am right now is a vessel for shame and agony. Please, I don’t want him to see me like this.
“Marlow,” Eric chokes out, landing on his knees beside me, his warm, familiar hands running over my head and down my back, making me cry harder. “Oh God, baby. Where are you hurt? Can you talk to me?”
Why is he still calling me baby?
“I saw you hit her. I’m calling the fucking police,” Eric rasps, sounding like he’s in a world of pain. I sense him taking a phone out, my ears registering the distant electronic tones of numbers being tapped. “Don’t worry, Marlow. I’m taking you away from this place. You’re never coming back here again. You’re coming to stay with me.” His breathing is labored, his free hand still skating over me, checking for injuries. “Will it hurt you if I hold you? Jesus, I can’t tell if anything is broken or—”
