Page 25

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Calista

AGE 15

W hy is she bringing me here? Isn’t this the last place that any person should be, let alone a teenager?

Ever since Dad died last year, Mom’s drug addiction has skyrocketed. She began shooting herself with the substance the moment Dad was diagnosed with cancer, and after it took him, it just… never stopped.

This is the first time she’s taken me anywhere with her. I’ve never been to this side of the city before, but I’m not surprised. It’s nothing like the historical homes that surround ours. The pristine yards that are kept up by the neighbors. No gates separating the fronts, because I guess everyone trusts each other not to steal anything left there overnight.

Here there are mobile homes, worn-down houses, and empty lots. Cars piled in each driveway, some don’t even look like they’d run with the amount of rust I can see on them.

“Mom?”

She's gripping the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckle bones press hard against her skin, looking like they might break through.

“Yes, sweetheart?”

We are at a stop sign, and her leg is bouncing so hard that the car is shaking.

“Where are we going?”

It’s Saturday evening and I just got done cheering at my high school’s basketball game. I normally don’t change until I get home, and I really don’t want to be walking around anywhere in my uniform.

She sighs. “I’ll be quick.”

That really wasn’t an answer, but instead of arguing with her, I look forward as we begin moving again.

Soon, we pull into a driveway with just three other cars, enough space to fit without a squeeze. She’s out of the car almost before it’s even in park.

“Stay here, I won’t be long.”

Now I’m more worried. This neighborhood scares me. The moment her door is closed, I lock the car and unbuckle my seatbelt. Nervously, I bite on the inside of my cheek and pull on the stretchy fabric of my skirt.

Five minutes turn to twenty.

Twenty, soon to an hour.

I’ve been playing Bejeweled on my phone when it flashes that I’ve got a low battery. When I lift my gaze, it’s pitch-black outside. My heart hammers straight against my chest and I look around. There are only a few streetlights in sight, and even fewer that still work.

Looking back at the house, there is a light on inside.

I really don’t know what to do and honestly contemplate calling the police to come get me. Except, I feel like I’d get in trouble. I’m not in any physical danger, but I don’t think I’m supposed to be here. This doesn’t feel like a place for me.

After placing my phone into the glove compartment, I unlock the car and walk up the uneven path to the front door. Weeds hug either side, and even more are overgrown onto the concrete patio. The metal screen is closed, but the door behind it is wide open.

The smell is all too familiar—it’s exactly like the den in our house, a mix of something chemical and skunky. When I first noticed it, I thought Mom was dissecting a skunk. We did one in my freshman year, though it was only a frog.

I was wrong, very wrong.

“Mom?” I murmur, my nerves running my blood cold. No answer, but I didn’t expect that with how loud the television is somewhere in the house.

Swallowing roughly, I adjust my cheer shorts, wishing that they were longer.

The screen door is unlocked, and I walk in. “Momma?” I say again, taking a few more nervous steps into the house. This hall goes straight through, because I can see a door right at the end of it. There are several archways on either side, and as I come to the first one, I’m grateful this is as far as I have to go.

There are several couches that look as though bought at a secondhand store and shoved in here just for the purpose to optimize sitting, because nothing matches. My mom is spread out on the couch, one of her legs hiked up over the back of it, the other dangling.

Six men, and another woman sit equally slack.

None of them have noticed me, and I’m not entirely sure what is safe. I feel like the car would be. I can at least lock myself in and hide. Maybe I’ll secure myself in the trunk, open the back seat to allow for me to not die of suffocation. Would I die of that back there?

“What do we have here?”

I scream instinctively without thinking, startled so badly by the voice behind me that I can’t control it.

A rough hand clasps over my mouth, and I begin kicking and wailing my arms. I’m strong, my dad had me taking karate before his passing. I was working up to a black belt, but whoever this is, is so much larger than me. He overpowers me immediately, wrapping an arm around my torso and squeezing mine to my sides.

“Who the fuck brought the kid?!” he bellows, and I search for my mom’s help.

My shout of “Mom!” is muffled by his tightening hand.

She doesn’t even move, just waves her hand as though she couldn’t be bothered.

“This ain’t no place for a little girl, Jasmine,” the man behind me says, before lifting me off the ground and dragging me down the hall.

I’m terrified, but even still, tears don’t come to my eyes.

I keep screaming, kicking, and using whatever I can to free myself. The wall is my only aid, and at one point, I kick so hard his shoulder slams into the opposite one.

He curses and turns me around in his arms, tossing me over his shoulder. I bang hard on his back, then his head, but it all goes ignored as we turn into a room. My entire body shakes uncontrollably.

“No, no, no—no—no—no—no! NO! Please, no!”

I grab the doorframe as we enter, my nails digging hard into the hollow wood. “Let me go! No, no! Mom! Mom! Help!”

His rough grunt accompanies him tearing me from my hold.

As I’m shoved from his shoulder, he throws me onto a mattress that has no spring. It’s hard, as though he threw me to the solid floor.

I cower back, looking up at the man. He’s got a bored expression, tall and wide, with a gut I’ve started to see my mom growing. Then he licks his lips and I feel nausea rolling from my stomach straight to my throat.

“You look just like Jasmine.” He turns away from me and heads to the door. “The guys are gonna love that.” As he disappears out the door and slams it shut, I hear a click, and then another one.

I scramble off the bed and go straight to the doorknob, jiggling it and pulling. It’s locked, and no matter how hard I pull on it, there is no give.

“Mom! Mom! Help, Mom, please!!” All I hear is laughing, and it’s fading further and further away.

I turn quickly, looking around the room that smells of mildew and smoke. It’s too dark to see anything, and when I feel around for a light switch and click it, nothing illuminates.

My knees want to buckle, to drop me and give up, but I can’t. Dad would tell me to find a way. To rely only on myself if it came down to it, because the only person that wouldn’t disappoint me, was me.

There is a window, and when I get to it and open it, I see metal bars in my way. I curse my body, because at the ripe age of twelve, my boobs began to come in. Now at fifteen, I’m a C cup and will absolutely not fit through these.

I’m going to try, I can’t just sit here and wait for them or my mom. I’ll run and hope to God that there is someone good out there that will hear my cries for help.

I shift up onto my butt and turn, shoving my shoulder through two of the bars. I can already tell I won’t fit, the moment I get my head to it, both sides squeeze at my temples.

Grabbing the bars, I begin pulling them apart. There is a slight give, which has me hoping. They are parts that are rusted, which has me searching for the weakest of them.

I'm grateful for the strength sports have given me; they've kept me steady, even when I'm terrified. I want to scream for help, but that would only bring them here faster. My mind might be teetering on the edge of collapse, but my body knows it's not time to give up yet.

One of the last two bars on the right are worse than the rest, and I put one of my heels against it, then pull in the opposite direction on the other. The metal whines, and I clench my teeth through a grunt.

There… there…

The metal bends, and as I put every inch of strength I have behind it, the one I’m holding gives and the top breaks apart from the rest of the structure. I’m thrown backward, landing hard on my spine against something solid. When I hit the ground with a loud thud, a sharp whimper escapes me, pain radiating from the impact.

I’m shaking as I push myself up, my hand pressing against the spot where the impact landed, feeling a bruise already forming. Limping, I grip the edge of the bed to help haul myself back up toward the window, my legs almost useless from the shock. That hit sent a piercing pain straight through them. I have no doubt they will go numb any second.

Adrenaline shoots through me as the door behind me flies open. When I look back and it’s not my mom, I’m moving as quickly as I can through the metal bars.

“Get back here!”

I let out a scream so loud it cracks in my throat, and I swear I’m free, the cool air against my bare legs feeling incredible. Except just as I’m squeezing my chest through, a grip on my hair stops my escape.

“Where the fuck are you going?” It’s not the first guy’s voice, but it could be Santa Claus for all I care, and I’d still fight.

“You gonna just leave your poor mom like this?” I grab at the guy’s hand at my hair, scratching and drawing blood as I half hang out the window.

My legs have nothing to give me leverage, and as I kick to find anything, I’m forcefully dragged back through. I attempt at hooking my legs down, tearing one of my hands away from the one holding my hair and grabbing the bars to not be pulled back into this house.

“Help! Help! Please help, anyone!” I’m done calling for my mom.

Another hand grabs my arm, and tears me backward. In one motion I’m brought back. A heat slices through my leg, and I scream out in pain, no longer just in terror.

I can’t even focus on the hands on me, because the agony from my leg makes my body shake uncontrollably—I think I’m going into shock.

“Shit, she’s bleeding!”

I try to lean forward, to see what has happened, but my back is shoved onto the floor. “Bitch just had to run, get the fucking first aid kit. I can’t have someone else dying in this house.”

Thrashing around does nothing, but I’m hysterical. My calf is on fire and fear has completely overtaken any control on my body I had.

Pain erupts across my face. “Settle the fuck down. Jay, get me the fucking rivo.” The eye closest to where he slapped me feels like a weight is bearing down on it.

A body straddles over my chest as someone else grabs my arms, and then I feel a pinch at the center of my bicep. My head snaps up, and I see a needle slowly pulling out of my skin.

“No! Please… please, don’t do this… please…” I’m suffocating, going blind, dying .

The weight on my chest isn’t from this grown man pinning me down but from whatever’s been pumped into my veins. It’s pulling me away, deeper and deeper, until his face blurs and twists, morphing into something monstrous—a demon that can’t share the same space as the beautiful one I once knew.

“Wrap her fucking leg up, I don’t want that much of a mess.”

The world around me disappears, and I’m submerged into Hell. That’s the only place that makes sense.

“I hope she’s a virgin, at least then it’ll be worth the trouble.”

I wish the substance would have knocked me out instead of just making me incapable of using my limbs. Lulling me into a calm I don’t want to have.

I still feel everything. See everything…

I want to die, please let me die.

I was trapped in that house for three days, and my mom doesn’t remember anything that happened.

I do…

I remember everything, and it’s why I’ve not left my room in two weeks. She’s telling me I’m being dramatic, that my fall was my own fault. I had to have sixteen stitches, and it was infected because they wouldn’t take me to a hospital.

I’m barely able to walk, and when my coach called me to ask why I had been missing practice, I told him I wouldn’t be able to cheer for the rest of the semester. It’s not even from the wound in my calf, I mean, physically yes it is. The doctor told me I’d need to do physical therapy due to the muscle damage, and the scar tissue that likely will form from the stitches.

I don’t even want to cheer anymore.

I never want to put on that uniform ever again.

It’s currently staring at me, hanging over the back of my desk chair. Like a fucking cursed doll, it won’t go away.

“She isn’t even crying, she wants it.”

I hide under my covers, the sounds of their voices, the touch of their hands, it’s all playing over and over. The record is broken, and I don’t know how to stop it.

“Virgin cunts feel so good.”

“Please make it stop!” Grabbing my pillow, I shove it over my face and scream. Depleting all my air and holding it down, willing myself to allow it to suffocate me.

I can’t, because I’m weak. The moment my body jerks for sustenance to keep me living, I throw aside the pillow and curl into a tight ball. I’d never thought my virginity was anything special, as long as it was me who chose to give it away.

I’m afraid… not because of the memories, but because I didn’t cry. I screamed ‘no’, for them to stop, but I never shed tears. I’m defective, and maybe I did want it.

It was my fault for going into the house.

I’m so embarrassed.

I want to hide away.

I never want to see anyone ever again.

I’m sorry . I failed myself…