Page 61 of The Misfits
twenty-one
MEGAN
My knees wobble as I carry Dexter to his borrowed car parked at the side of the manor. He isn’t overly heavy, but excluding a couple of days ago, it’s been a while since I’ve carried anyone on my back. My father also didn’t move as much as Dexter. He was too drunk to do anything, much less fight me.
I should have hated him for wasting all our money on alcohol, but since it kept his focus off me, I supplied him with endless bottles of whiskey. I wasn’t old enough to buy it, but some good comes from people feeling sorry for you. They don’t want to help you. They merely want to usher you out of their store as soon as possible that they’re willing to sell alcohol to a fourteen-year-old child.
Dexter isn’t drunk, but whatever his father gave him had him sleeping like a baby for the past several hours. He rambled constantly under his breath. Nothing he said made any sense, but it all followed a similar pattern. That he should have protected his mother. That he should have believed her. And that he willnevermake the same mistake again.
I offered him comfort the best I could, but there’s only so much I can do while in the arena that caused his nightmares. If I don’t want him to go into a full psychosis, I need to get him out of this place as soon as possible. A two-star motel isn’t the best location to unscramble the mess, but it’s got to be better than staying here. Being here will harm Dexter more, and the way he patted my hair while promising to fix his mistakes has me more than eager to seek a secondary location.
I like when he pats my hair and tells me I’m a good girl. Not once have I ever been praised. Not even by my mother. I thought it was because of all the hurtful things my father said to her. That she couldn’t understand how to give praise because she had never received it. But I’m beginning to wonder if that’s the truth. Perhaps she didn’t love me like my father always told me. Maybe she was selfish and all about herself. Sometimes that is the only way you can live.
Thankfully, I won’t need to worry about that anymore. I’ll have Dexter by my side, and together, we will be unstoppable.
I just need to get him far away from this horrible ranch.
If I had left my family ranch when I was old enough to do so, perhaps I wouldn’t have been admitted to the mental hospital before the age of twelve. My life has been one doctor visit after another and a ton of medication in between. I can’t recall the last time my brain was this clear. It’s still hazy, and there’s lots of murkiness to sludge through, but it’s nowhere near as glum as it once was.
It’s so clear, I’m now realizing how silly I was for believing Nick was my savior. He didn’t save me from the torment. He pushed me headfirst into it. He was mean and bitter, and he always tookherside.
That won’t be the case with Dexter. He will look after me. He might even love me.
We’ll make sure of it.
Just a little bit further,I mutter to the determined voices in my head since my mouth refuses to cooperate with my brain. Through the constant chatter, I can hear the words I want to speak. They’re rolling around in my head, but they won’t come out no matter how hard I try.
I haven’t spoken in years, so I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. Everything takes time.
Even murders aren’t thought up on a whim.
I hope Dexter isn’t too mad when he discovers I didn’t take all the pills he gave me. The water served with my supper made me super woozy. I hated feeling like that. My mind was in a haze for years, so I’ll do everything in my power not to feel that way again.
I don’t want to get in trouble. He said once we killed his dad, we would be free to be with one another. I don’t want to lose that chance. I also don’t want to lose him. It’s scary out here alone, even more so when the wind whistles through the trees. They sound like women crying, like the tormented screams that ripped from my mother’s mouth multiple times before she cried enough tears to fill the bathtub.
She cried all the time. Even while cuddling me, her cheeks were drenched. Daddy said the men who visited our house once a week made her upset. I never once believed him. She cried more after he went to check on her. I don’t know what he said, but she always yelled the same thing on repeat once he left. “I hate you. I’ll hate you till the day I take my last breath.”
She did precisely that only two days later.
After shaking off the bad memories like I’m not carrying a man double my size on my back, I continue my journey. It is a slow and treacherous trek, but with a strength I never knew I had in me, we make it to the flashy car Dexter borrowed yesterday just as the man who carried me into the marshland exits the manor.
He warned me not to come back here, but where else am I meant to go? Dexter’s father is dead, his son is belligerent, and I don’t have a single penny to my name.
“Ugh,” I grunt when Dexter’s slip into the car doesn’t occur without him pulling out a chunk of my hair. It reminds me of how I got the chip in my front tooth. As you can imagine, it wasn’t pleasant, but since we need to get out of here before our escape is interrupted, I’ll save the details for another day.
After slipping into the driver’s seat of a pricy sports car, I take off like a bat out of hell. I don’t know how to drive a car with this horsepower. We nearly skid out of control, but a quick yank on the steering wheel veers us back toward the main road.
My veins are already doing the weird pulsating thing they did after I hung my father from the beam in the barn, but it feels different today. I don’t know if that is because Dexter is seated next to me or because the man I killed isn’t related to me by blood.
Whatever it is, it sees me flattening my foot to the floor.
We make it to Motel 6 at a record-setting pace. It is the same motel I wordlessly begged Dexter to take me to after he sharpened the blade on my razor. I’m not a natural-born killer like Dexter. It takes a lot of pushing to get me to that place. My father hurt me for years, but it was only when he told me I had to pick between my one true love or him did I snap.
The same can be said for Dexter. If we didn’t kill his father, I wouldn’t be here for him to love.
That isn’t something he ever wants to face.
I hope.
