Page 10 of Let Me
Addictions aren’t easy to get over. For both the addict, and their family.
I know, because I watched her do it after we moved. I felt a sick sense of retribution at watching her suffer. Watching her pay for all the times she let men into our apartment who didn’t always wantherwhen they came to get a fix. Watching her go through what I felt I went through my entire life. She became an addict shortly after I was born. It’s a miracle I managed to survive long enough to take care of myself.
I press my nails into my palms to stop thinking of her. Of that. Because the reality is, as lousy of a mother as she was, it wasn’t her that brought the real monster onto me. Not really.
I take a shortcut through an empty alleyway. Or rather, I thought it was empty. But when I’m halfway through, I hear someone laugh behind me.
The hairs on the back of my arms stand on end and I turn around, squinting in the dark. I see a figure coming toward me, slowly, as if he might be shuffling. My throat tightens. It was stupid to come this way. Stupid to be in a dress and boots with only my keys for a weapon. I put them between my index and middle finger anyhow and I turn back around and start to run as fast as I can. If this person is limping, then I can get to the other side of the alley and out before he catches up.
Besides, this is Toronto, I remind myself.
It’s safe here.
But as I’m running, another figure steps into view ahead of me and I see a street lamp’s light fall onto his face and he’s leering at me, face stretched into a wide grin. He laughs, too, and I look back and see the other man still coming, much faster now.
“You’ve got nowhere to go, little girl,” the man at the end of the alley says. He’s big, wide shoulders, bald-headed. He’s probably in his fifties, and he’s wearing a worn suit. He takes a step closer while I freeze in the middle of the alley, heart thudding in my chest. All I can think is that if I survive this, I’m going to kill AdamandBenji for dragging me out into this mess.
But right now, I need to think of something else.
That familiar fear stills through me, like ice in my veins. The same fear I had with the men who came to see my mom. The same fear I had at eighteen when Rolland first found me, stumbling into his house that June night after I ran away from Mom’s, with nowhere else to go. When Rolland pulled me into his home and offered me a drink. And it felt safe, at first, and then all of the sudden, his hands all over me, it didn’t.
It feels like that now, but I’m not going to be another victim.
I take a step toward the bald man, the steps coming closer from the man at my back.
The man in front of me grins. “That’s a good girl,” he croons. “Come to Daddy.”
My skin crawls with his words, but I keep moving closer, hoping, maybe, that I’ll surprise him. I hold my keys out in a trembling hand, but he just laughs. That sound hardens my anger.
We’re only a few feet away now, the grime of the city beneath my feet, a man at my back, and the one leering before me, his bald head glistening from the lamp lights just out of reach. Just beyond him. If he gets his hand over my mouth, no one will hear me. And no one will see me in this darkness.
Fucking Adam. I swear to God…
The man reaches out for me, a large hand clamped over my wrist as he tugs me violently forward, off of my feet. I lunge to his neck with my keys, but he easily swats my arm aside with his other hand. He presses me against him, his stomach the only thing between us.
And behind me, someone clamps a hand on my shoulder.
I open my mouth to scream but a hand goes over my mouth, stifling it. I try to bite him, try to fight my way out of this, but their grips are tight, and my heart is pounding hard and fast in my chest and I can barelythink.
I knee the man in front of me, remembering the little bit of self-defense I took in my first year of university. It wasn’t nearly enough, apparently, because he grips my knee, and then both of them drive me back, against the wall, and my head hits the bricks, spots flashing in the darkness. The man’s hand goes to my throat, squeezing, and then he’s pawing at my dress, his hand going lower, then clenching around my bare thigh and I think,This is it.
I think of Rolland.
Of being eighteen in his arms, of trusting him.
I squirm again, trying to twist out of their grip but they’ve got me up against the wall, closed in on either side and I feel like I’m drowning.
I still. I don’t know why, but my muscles are aching, and the man’s hand is along my inner thigh. Fear makes me immobile. All those classes I teach at the gym, yoga and spin and personal training, none of it was good for this.
A waste of fucking time.
Not again.
It’s a plea in my mind to whatever god might be listening.
Not a-fucking-gain.
“Let her go.”
