Page 9 of Sac-rifice (RBMC: Cleveland, Ohio Chapter #7)

WHEN DOVES CRY

COR

Past

M y tiny bare feet pounded hard against the harsh unforgiving pebbles and dirt as I ran for my life. My toes burned as if I’d fallen asleep and had left them near a fire too long.

“That’s right, little dove. Run. Run like your pitiful life depends on it!

” his voice called after me from where he stood motionless.

This was all a big misunderstanding; I hadn’t stolen the baseball card.

Isaac had. If he would stop chasing me, I would explain this to him.

He would forgive me. I knew he would. Shane always forgave me, eventually, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t nervous with him hot on my heels.

Shane acted like a bully, but it wasn’t who he truly was on the inside.

He had a huge heart and protected the people he cared about.

All of the other kids avoided him like the plague.

Not me. He might have been a few years older than me, but we didn’t need to be the same age as me to see the person he truly was.

The real Shane, not the masked version he wanted everyone else to see, but the one he wanted everyone to admire and fear in the same breath.

He liked being in the spotlight while with a crowd of friends, but I didn’t know if anyone else saw him like I did.

Maybe it was because he was different around me, but then again, I too was different when we were together.

I wasn’t scared to let him see the parts of me I tried to hide from everyone else.

It was pointless. He saw me as much as I saw him.

My fingertips trembled against my kneecaps as I squatted down, making myself as small as possible.

I hid behind a bush in the middle of the field that separated our houses.

The same bush Shane had taught me to run and hide behind when I needed to get away from the pain.

This place had kept me safe more times than I cared to count.

There were times that I hadn’t made it out the door, times when the crisp blades of grass had only a second to tickle my toes before I was dragged back into my nightmare.

I couldn’t risk anyone discovering this spot, so when someone saw me before I was able to hide, I gave up.

I used to fight for my safety, gripping the door frame as tightly as possible, my dirty nails clawing at the wood like my life depended on whether the rusty screws stayed in place or not; it always did.

Somedays, though, I was tired. No, I was exhausted because I didn’t know peace.

Our doors were rarely locked, and if they were, it didn’t matter because the knobs would fall off if someone shook them with too much force.

It was a result of stripped screws that could never be fully tightened.

Isaac and I were only able to do so much with case knives and screwdrivers that weren’t the right size.

Sometimes, though, it didn’t matter if a door was locked or not; bad things happened behind locked doors as easily as ones that were unlocked when your monster held a skeleton key.

“Cor, you have to remember to be smart about things! This isn’t smart. How can you stay safe if you hide in a viper’s den?” Shane’s head cocked to the side, and he sighed, his fingertips tugging at the end of my ponytail.

“What are you talking about?” I asked in an uneven voice while I tried to catch my breath.

My eyebrows were furrowed together as I thought about what he said.

I was full-on judging him hard. I was okay.

I thought no one noticed me leaving my room, much less walking out of the house… but maybe someone had been watching me.

I glanced over my shoulder, peering through the vibrant petals of the flowers and green leaves that covered of up the majority of the bush surrounding me before gazing back at him.

I looked between the branches and limbs to our connected yard and didn’t see anything out of place.

A blue jay landed on the branch of the old maple above us and squawked before it took off.

The tire swing swayed in the light summer breeze, and my favorite windchime sang softly out from where it hung on our porch just out of sight.

There wasn’t a snake close to us from what I could tell, and I didn’t see a forgotten water hose lying out.

Nothing I saw resembled a viper or any other kind of reptile.

He promised this was to help me learn to trust my instincts, but if my not-so-splendid hiding spot was any sign, my instincts were terrible and could not to be trusted.

I told myself to do the exact opposite of what I felt was correct and maybe then I would get this right. Maybe then I could protect myself.

“This is the hiding spot I showed you. Don’t hide in a place where the person you’re running from knows where it is. They’re bound to find you like a tiny dove waiting to become a snake’s dinner.” He sighed.

My large eyes widened at the mention of a snake eating a dove. I knew things like that happened in nature. Predators killed their prey. I wasn’t as na?ve as everyone thought I was, but I didn’t understand why he kept talking about doves.

“Oh,” I breathed, nibbling on the corner of my mouth nervously.

“I’m just not good at this, Shane. I’ll never be able to protect myself from them.

” I ran my hand through the dirt between my feet, flicking away a twig.

It flipped about an inch away, disturbing a ladybug from its peaceful rest. I instantly felt bad for bothering it when its wings separated and it zipped across the lawn to safety.

“Everyone and everything would be better off if I wasn’t here. ”

“That’s not fucking true,” he cursed as his light blue-green eyes glared at me.

My skin became flushed, but I wasn’t sure if it was from what he said or how he was looking at me.

Every aspect of Shane was intense—from his soul searing stares and hateful words to the simplest of things like spreading butter on toast. I should be used to him by now, but something told me I never would be.

Blood shouldn’t rush to my face when he looked at me, but it always did.

“You swore. You told me not to cuss, so you shouldn’t either,” I pointed out matter-of-factly, breaking eye contact, and scanning the yard for the whereabouts of the ladybug. She was probably okay since she was able to fly, but I felt guilty for putting her in harm’s way, regardless.

A small deep laugh left him, and he smiled. “Yeah, I guess I did. But I’m older, so I’m allowed.”

“Then I am, too.”

“You know what? I’ll make you a deal.”

“What kind of deal?”

“Every time you hide, and I don’t find you, you can pick the prize you want. If using cuss words happens to be what you want, then I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

I pressed my lips together, making my mouth a flat line as I stared at him, thinking about what he said.

Isaac was his best friend, and he hated keeping secrets from him.

Of course, he would tell my brother if I cussed.

The only secret I knew he had kept to himself wasn’t his to tell.

It was mine. Anyone else would have believed his lie because other than Isaac and me, Shane had a habit of telling people what they wanted to hear to get them to leave faster.

“Happy people don’t stick around to argue,” he told me one time.

When he was around us, though, he opened up and let us see how beautiful his heart was.

He was an acquired taste for sure. His good looks naturally drew people to him, but sometimes, his attitude ran them off.

Other times, people stayed around for a laugh.

I thought he actually liked people even though he said he didn’t, but he got tired of pretending with them.

This was just who he was; I was used to him.

He and Isaac had been friends for what seemed like my whole life, leaving Tate and me to become friends by default.

When all three of them were together, they were always into something.

My mom had her hands full even before my stepdad passed away and her awful excuse for a person came into our lives.

“Dea...” My voice trailed off before I finished agreeing to his terms. “Wait. What do you get if you win?”

“The same thing, Cor.”

“But you already get to cuss because you’re older. You just said that.”

“No, little dove.” His tongue swiped over his top teeth, and my stomach did a flip flop. “I get whatever I want as a prize.”

“Seems fair,” I thought out loud with a nod.

`Shane stood up from his crouched position and held his hand open for me. My fingers curled over his palm that made mine look like it belonged to an eight-year-old and not a twelve-year-old. As he pulled me to my feet, hair swished down into my vision.

“So, do you agree?” His fingertips brushed my long bangs out of my eyes and behind my ear. I expected him to pull his hand back, but his fingers lightly cupped my face. I nervously chewed on the inside of my lip and glanced at his mouth as it twitched slightly.

I sucked in a breath and nervously answered, “I guess so.”

“You guess so? C’mon, you can have anything you want if you win, Cor,” he teased while he waggled his eyebrows. “I know you’ve had your eye on Isaac’s baseball mitt. I could get you one of those. Maybe a pink one. It’s your favorite color, right?”

I nodded, unable to force sounds out of my mouth to form words. No one saw me, much less knew what my favorite color was. I wasn’t born to be the star of a show. There probably wouldn’t even be a spot for me in the cast. I fit more into the role of a stagehand, hidden behind the curtain.

My cheeks burned under his touch, but I considered what he offered.

An extra glove would be nice. I usually used Isaac’s when his hand wasn’t shoved in it, which wasn’t very often—there wasn’t a whole lot to do for entertainment when you were the poor kids of the town; so we spent most summers outside from dusk till dawn playing baseball or whatever we came up with.

Sometimes, Tate or Isaac lent me their gloves, but that still made us one glove short with a person bare handing it or someone sitting out.

After the gigantic bruise Shane ended up getting by catching a fastball without his mitt, I felt bad for using anyone’s.

Shane shrugged it off and said it didn’t hurt, but a bruise the size of a baseball would cause anyone pain.

He was a liar, trying to act tough, but I couldn’t understand why.

He didn’t need to be anything other than who he was around us.

Isaac got his glove after Shane and Tate’s parents took them to watch a baseball game.

They had left it early and missed the biggest part of the game due to thunderstorms. Shane’s parents stopped by several merch shops on the way out of the stadium and bought them mitts, t-shirts, and a big foam finger for each of them.

Shane even brought over a pink t-shirt that had the team’s logo on the back of it and a baseball with a feather on the front.

Since it was my size, he gave it to me. He told me his mom accidentally grabbed the wrong size, and the stadium wouldn’t accept returns.

Isaac glared at him when he explained the mix-up, and Tate smiled like he was up to something.

Isaac didn’t like when Shane hung out with me alone, but I didn’t understand his issue.

I guess he was jealous that his best friend was spending time with me and not him.

We all hung out together, but Isaac thinks of me as his friend.

No, I was his annoying kid sister, always tagging along with him and his friend because Mom didn’t give him any other choice but to keep an eye on me.

Someone had to keep me alive, and as fate would have it, that responsibility fell on my brother.

My brother might not have liked having me around all the time, but Shane didn’t mind, and besides, we had known each other our entire lives.

I could remember when we were both terrified of a man Mom had invited dressed up as a clown during a cookout, and that was at least three years ago.

Who even thought it was a good idea to wear a costume to a memorial service anyway?

I guess a person who drank his breakfast, lunch, and dinner from a liquor bottle didn’t make the best decisions.

When he popped around the corner, he laughed.

The chuckle sounded like it was something out of a horror movie and not the least bit happy. It set off a chain reaction.

My body froze and tears streamed down my face.

The screams that left me were so loud Mom had to have heard them, but she said she never heard me screaming her name.

The man’s painted mouth pulled back into a smirk as he reached for me, and a stream of pee ran down my legs.

Shane jerked me out of the guy’s reach and kicked him in the privates.

The man cussed, whacking Shane hard across his cheek, and my body was flung backward.

My back smacked against the ground with a thud, yanking Shane right on top of me.

Before we got to our feet, or it might have even been when the buttwipe struck him, Shane peed himself, too.

We quickly stood up and ran to his bedroom to hide.

I spent the rest of the evening there, wearing his clothes, which hung off my body, and hiding from that scary drunk clown.

You couldn’t get more personal than sharing embarrassing memories of urine covered pants and abuse, could you?

“Made your mind up yet?” Shane quietly asked, bringing my attention back to our conversation. The mitts.