Page 49 of The Way I Used to Be
“What did you do?” I say, losing my voice to the tears.
“What are you talking about?”
“You don’t even know what you did! You made everything worse! I told you to stay out of it and now everything’s worse! Do you even realize what you’ve done? Do you even care? God, I hate you!” The tears stream down my face, my words fading to nothing as my voice strains to make him comprehend how much he’s hurt me: “I hate you I hate you hate you so much I hate you hate you I fucking hate you... hate... you... hate... I... hate...” I see his mouth moving, but I can barely hear the words he’s screaming back at me. I want to fight now. It’s deafening, blinding. I want to fight so hard. To the death.
“Edy, stop it! Stop!” he keeps saying over and over. I realize that his hands are now around my wrists. And it’s because I had been pounding my fists against his chest. “Would you just calmthefuckdown, sit, and tell me what the hell happened.” He pulls me down onto the couch but doesn’t let go of my arms. I look at his hands gripping on to me; his knuckles all red and swollen, the skin broken and raw. So he got in a fight with him, with Josh—that’s what they meant.
“So, what, you beat him up?”
“Edy, you don’t understand what happened—”
“No, you don’t understand. You don’t understand what happened!” I sob.
“Edy, I had to,” he continues, ignoring every word out of my mouth, as usual.
“No, you didn’t! Why couldn’t you let me deal with it? It was over. Everything was fine and now—” But how could I admit what had just happened? Because if they had wanted to, they could’ve done anything. And I was not tough. I was weak. So fucking weak, like I always knew I was, like everyone always knew I was. It’s too humiliating. “When did you even see him?” I ask instead.
“New Year’s Eve. We were at this party, drinking, whatever, and then a bunch of the guys start talking shit—things that he told them, Eden—things I never wanted to hear about my little sister, by the way! And so then he shows up later and he’s drinking and saying all this stupid, fucked-up shit.... We got into it, okay?”
“Got into it—let go of me—what is that supposed to mean? Let go of me!”
“No, I’m scared!” he roars back. “I’m scared of you! You’re out of your mind. I’m not letting go.”
“Let. Me. Go.” I jerk my arms with each word.
“Don’t. Don’t. Hit me. Again. I’m so fucking serious, Edy,” he says, his voice low, as he tightens his grip. We stare each other down, brimming with some kind of deep-seated rivalry that’s about to drown us both, then he finally releases my wrists.
“What did they say he said, Caelin?” I take my coat off, wipe my eyes on the sleeve of my shirt.
He leans back, crossing his arms, sulking like a child. “I can’t even repeat it.”
“If it’s that bad, then it didn’t come from him. He’s not like that—you don’t know him! He doesn’t even drink. He doesn’t like being around drunk people. Was he even really there, or did you have to go find him?”
“Edy.” He looks up at me and grins. “Come on, all he had to do was say one thing to these assholes. It came from him, no matter what he said to start it. And he was there. And completely fucking trashed, okay? God, you’re so naive,” he says with a laugh.
“You’re the one who’s naive! Did you actually think they would just let something like this go?” That piques his attention—the sudden realization that he’s not all powerful, that he’s not in control of everything anymore.
“Did somebody say something—did he actually have the balls to talk to you again?”
“No, not him—I didn’t even see him at school today.”
“Who, then?” he demands. “Who?”
“Why, do you want to make it ten million times worse? Maybe get me killed or something? You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Then you wouldn’t have to be so embarrassed of me.”
“Edy, come on, don’t say that.” He tries to reach for me. “You know that’s not—Edy...,” he calls.
But I’m already gone.
I slam my bedroom door as hard as I can.
I turn the lock, ninety degrees, and slink down to the floor.
And suddenly everything in my body goes quiet. Everything in my mind—quiet. Like I’ve exhausted every emotion, every reaction, every thought, and I have nothing left to offer, not to Caelin, not even to myself.
I hear him shouting on the other side of my door, pounding. “Edy. Edy? Eden!” Pounding, pounding, pounding. “Open this fucking door!” He rattles the doorknob, trying to get in. “Edy? Are you okay? Edy, damn it.”
I say nothing. I do nothing. I feel nothing.
