Page 214 of Drown Like Heaven
Micah had stopped it. In the midst of fighting me, he’d protected me.
Everything turned over in my head, getting darker, heavier. I stood up, no longer pleased with the bruises or cuts on my body, no longer wanting Micah to come back. He couldn’t do that to me anymore, not whenhewas the one to fucking leaveme. I’d never be grateful for him again.
Chapter 57
Dakota
My bedroom was small and moonlit, my laptop laying on my bed and a flash drive gripped in my fist. I’d found it earlier today in a random box of junk in my closet when I was looking for an old giftcard I swore had five dollars left on it. Didn’t find the giftcard, but I did find this…memory stick. It was fuchsia and metallic and I kept flipping the cover off, then clicking it back on, contemplating.
I didn’t know what was on it. Potentially my middle school homework. Potentially other things like old pictures. Or maybe it was blank.
I jammed the flash drive into the USB port on my laptop, then waited for the icon to pop up on my desktop. I clicked it open and watched video files appearing in the folder, the thumbnails loading in. All the ones at the top were all from almost eleven years ago, around Christmastime—so just after my eleventh birthday.
A lump formed in my throat as I slammed my laptop shut. By seeing the dates and thumbnails, I knew what these videos were.
Huge breaths rushed in and out of my chest, tears welling in my eyes as I stared at nothing except the darkness of my bedroom. I could feel my pulse in my fingertips, pressed flat on top of my closed laptop, trembling slightly.
I stood up and stumbled into the bathroom, sticking my wrists under a cold stream of water coming out of the faucet. I gripped the edge of the sink and took deep breaths, over and over and over, sucking in oxygen.
Breathe.
Slipping back into my bedroom, I sat criss-cross on my unmade bed and stared at my closed laptop, pulse racing in my chest. With some invisible force compelling me, my hand lifted open the screen, even though I knew nothing good would come of watching this. I couldn’t stop myself from turning up the volume and playing the first clip.
It was a grainy Photo Booth video of me and Anthony making stupid faces.
I had my tongue out and my fingers hooked in the sides of my mouth and he was crossing his eyes, little blue birds swirling over our heads. He would’ve been fourteen in the video. Both of us were laughing. We were sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on the old couch, brown and stained, with the sort of fabric you could draw patterns on using the direction of the fibers. The light was soft and reddish, glowing off the Christmas tree I could see reflected in the picture frame above our heads.
Tears dripped down my cheeks as I watched, and I did nothing to stop them.
I went to the next video, then the next one, watching me and my brother try out all the filters. Watching the videos like they’d all taken place in an alternate universe. Like I wasn’t actually the girl in them.
Bug eyes, hearts over our heads, stretch, chipmunk cheeks, sepia. High-pitched voice changers altering the tone of my fifth-grade laughter. In the background I could hear cabinets slamming in the kitchen, hear our father’s voice starting up, low at first, then loud. Video-me didn’t even flinch at the shouts, didn’t even look up.
Every time I walk in this house, you’re on my fuckin’ back. Don’t roll your eyes at me, bitch. Always starting something. Don’t start crying again, Jesus. Don’t tell me what I said—I remember what I goddamn said. Fuckin’ useless.
You’re turning her into you, all softness and no sense.
Referring to me.
It all sounded so much worse now, and I found myself wondering how it’d ever been so normal to me. I could almost smell the cigarette smoke lingering on my hair, on my clothes when I was at school.
Anthony was looking up, past the camera, watching whatever dispute was happening in the kitchen while I made a fish face on the video, hand stuck up in a peace-sign. His brows were furrowed with anger and I could see anxiety in the press of his lips, his smile long gone.
I clicked onto a new video.
The clip started with the laptop wobbling in my hands as I set it on the arm of the couch, then backed up, watching the screen to make sure I was in frame. The Christmas tree was glowing on the right side of the picture. I’d pushed the coffee table out of the way so I could attempt a crooked cartwheel. I was humming something to myself, sorta out of breath because I’d probably done a bunch of cartwheels before this one.
“Dakota!” my father barked.
I landed hard on my knees on the thin carpet, looking over at him off-screen.
“Can’t you be quiet for five fuckin’ minutes?” he yelled. “Turn that damn thing off.”
“Okay,” I said, crawling over to the laptop.
The video ended.
Another video. This one I was standing with the laptop, the video shaking as I walked into the kitchen. Yellow light shone down on the top of my head and my smiling face.
