Messed Up (27 page)

I remember walking into the detention room eyeing my fellow misfits, wondering what they were in for, and if they would accept me into their kingdom. I felt like we were in this together, that we could understand each other, if only for that one day. I played scrabble with a kid who had pierced his own tongue during gym class, and mancala with a girl who’d been caught making out with her boyfriend under a table in the computer lab. I got the sense that the others had been to Saturday school before, but they were willing to show me the way, because I was one of them now.

When Camille arrived at my house that afternoon, I sensed a similar comradely. She walked into my room with authority, “Okay Levi, leave me to it,” she said pushing him from my room.

He looked at me and shrugged, “I’ll be back in an hour, Chelsea,” then he turned to Camille and said severely, “Watch your mouth.”

Camille rolled her eyes as Levi left my room.

She looked at me carefully with appraising eyes, “It’s not so bad actually,” she noted, “I’ve had worse.” I followed Camille into the bathroom. She directed me to sit up on the counter, and I obliged. Opening the large makeup case she’d brought with her, she dabbed her finger in a thick flesh colored paste, “So, how are you holding up?” she asked as she carefully dotted the paste under my eye.

“
I’m okay,” was all I could manage.

“
The first time was the worst for me,” she said stopping to look at me directly, “Not just the pain, but the realization that he wasn’t what I had thought. I’m sorry I didn’t warn you. I feel guilty about that,” she sighed.

“
You tried,” I muttered.

“
Not hard enough,” she looked regretfully at me as she brushed my hair to the side, exposing the bandages on my forehead.

“
It wouldn’t have mattered,” I replied, more to myself than to her, “I wouldn’t have believed you.”

“
True,” she conceded, “Probably not,” she began rubbing another thick paste under my eye, “So, what is it he is holding over your head? He must have something. With me it was my sister. She’s fourteen. He convinced me that he would…” she let the end of her sentence drop off as she moved to sit on the counter next to me, “He knew that he could beat me up, but that wouldn’t keep me as helpless as if he threatened her, and of course I knew he meant it. That’s why I feel sorry for you,” she sighed, “I had a pretty good idea about what I was getting myself into with Levi. Of course, I thought it would be different with me, but he’s been in my class since elementary school. There has never been any question in my mind of what he was capable of,” she said bitterly, “It was pure stupidity that led me into to this mess.”

Camille pushed herself back off the counter and began to work on my makeup again. We were silent for a couple of minutes. I looked at Camille carefully as she applied a thin coat of powder to my face. She was really beautiful. Her features were sharp and flawless. She could have easily been a runway model with her pouty lips and deep dark eyes.

“
Has it changed at all? I mean, since me?” I asked, hoping she would understand what I was getting at.

“
I thought at first when he started seeing you that I would be off the hook. No such luck. It’s a little better, but he still considers me his property. I could never date anyone else. Not that I would. I feel kind of like a used car at this point” she said smiling weakly, but then added, “But just one more year and he’ll be off to whatever East Coast school his dad can bribe his way into.”

“
One more year,” I repeated feeling heavy with the realization that this had only just begun for me. I could feel my eyes well with tears.

“
Hey, don’t cry,” Camille said lightly, “You’ll ruin your makeup.”

“
Isn’t there anyway…” I asked helplessly.

“
Take my advice,” she said applying blush to my cheek bones, “Do your best to grin and bear it. If you fight back, he will only make your life harder,” and then to prove her point she lifted up her shirt to expose her stomach. The left side of her stomach, at her rib cage, was green with a bruise the size of an ostrich egg, “This is what I got for my conversation with Mandy at the mall. And I didn’t even know you were listening.”

“
Oh my God,” I gasped, “I am so sorry Camille,” I realized the bruise was also the size and shape of Levi’s foot.

“
Not your fault,” she said firmly, “Anyway, if there is any consolation to this at least we’re not alone, we have each other now. Camille stepped back, evaluating her work and smiled, “Done.”

I looked at my reflection in the mirror, my face now appearing completely unblemished, “It’s like it never happened.”

27

There are certain activities in my life that are so routine I could do them blind-folded or half asleep, and sometimes I do. Like blow drying my hair, for instance. It’s not that I am thinking about the way I fold big chunks of my brown hair around the brush, running the hot air back and forth against it until it is dry, and then move on to another lock of hair. I just do it, most mornings, without thinking about the process or anything else, really. The same is true of brushing my teeth or unloading the dishwasher, and eventually it became true with the way I spent time with Levi.

My parents returned home from their great expedition to the Grand Canyon and beyond. They quickly got back into their own work-a-day lives. Neither of them noticed the small scab on my forehead or the slightly darker half moon under my left eye. The only thing that either of them commented on was how clean I had managed to keep the house. This having everything to do with the fact Levi had hired a housecleaner to straighten up before they returned, because, as he said,
why do it yourself if you can pay somebody else to do it?

My days consisted of basically two things: going to work and hanging out with Levi. Any attempt he had made in the past to protect me from the illicit aspects of his life had disappeared that night on the side of a dark dirt road when the real Levi had emerged. A couple times I made plans with friends from Montecito but Levi always convinced me to cancel at the last minute. I found his powers of persuasion to be very effective. “Do you think they even like you Chelsea?” he’d asked, “Have any of them called you once all summer?”

That was the thing about Levi, besides having seemingly zero problem beating me down physically, he had even less trepidation about making me feel inadequate emotionally. It was as if he was out to prove that he was the only one capable of making me feel good about myself. It had begun to really work too. I felt myself craving his approval as if it were some kind of drug. If he didn’t say I looked beautiful one night, I would begin to feel unattractive. I had a vague recollection of the Chelsea that was self confident, the me who didn’t worry incessantly about how I was going to do my hair or make-up so that Levi would like it.

In fact, I was in the process of changing my outfit for the third time when my mom knocked at my door.

“Mail call,” she said walking into my room and handing me an envelope, “Your dad and I are going out to dinner tonight, Chels. What are your plans?” she asked flipping through a stack of bills.

“Levi and I are going to party at Camille’s house,” I replied, slipping out of my jeans and switching into a plaid skirt.

“Jesus Chelsea! How’d you get that bruise?” my mom asked startling me with her tone. She was looking at a deep purple baseball sized welt on the side of my leg, which I had received two nights ago for forgetting to call Levi after work.

“I ran into the side of a table,” I responded, quickly pulling up my skirt. This was halfway true, except that I had been thrown into the side of a table.

“Looks painful,” she commented.

“Whatever,” I said inspecting myself in the mirror.

My mom left my room and I slumped down on my bed, frustrated by my clothing situation. The envelope my mom had brought caught my eye from where it sat on my desk. I grabbed it in my hand and studied the typing on the front. There was no return address. I opened it carefully and pulled out the letter it held. My heart jumped as I immediately placed the printing as Conner’s.

I quickly checked out my window, finding no sign of Levi. I hurried to lock my door, just in case, before sitting on the edge of my bed and reading the letter:

I reread the letter, trying to commit it to memory. I heard Levi’s voice as he greeted my dad in the entryway. I panicked, not knowing where to stash Conner’s letter. I could hear his footsteps on the stairs. I crumpled it into a ball and shoved it into the back of underwear drawer, just as Levi tapped on my door.

“Hey,” I said opening the door. I watched as Levi’s eyes evaluated me, starting at my feet and moving slowly up to my face. He leaned in to kiss me.

“How about jeans,” he said, shutting the door behind him and laying back onto my bed. I changed quickly, eager to get out of my room. Somehow the letter seemed to be shouting out for recognition. With every second Levi was in my room the chances of him discovering the crumpled piece of paper seemed to increase exponentially.

“Ready?” I asked, taking a step toward the door.

“Nope. Come here,” he replied motioning me to him with a wave of his hand.

I paused for a fraction of a second before following his orders. I sat down on his lap as he began kissing my neck.

“Why so nervous,” he asked stopping suddenly and grabbing my hair tightly in his hand.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about Levi,” I said trying desperately to sound casual.

“I can practically hear your heart beating,” he said suspiciously as he placed his free hand under my shirt and against my chest.

“Can’t a girl be excited to see her incredibly hot boyfriend,” I smiled broadly. I could feel his hand release my hair.

“Good answer,” he said pulling me on top of him as he groped at my butt.

We drove to the party in Levi’s car. I assumed it would be much like every party I’d been dragged to that summer. They were basically a series of rich, drunk kids, doing drugs and destroying their parent’s beautiful, if not overly lavish homes. The one saving grace of this party was that it was at Camille’s house, so she was guaranteed to be there. We had become friends over the past couple of weeks, she made sure to look out for me at these parties, especially when Levi had gotten too drunk or stoned to acknowledge my presence. I knew that Camille and I would not be friends under normal circumstances, but our shared bond of desperation linked us.

Camille’s house was one of two massive homes that stood on a peak overlooking Santa Juanita. Before I’d ever been to her house or even knew Camille existed, I’d identified her house as one of the eyes on the mountain. From practically anywhere you stood in the city you could see these two homes. At night, when their lights were on, they appeared like eyes of a jack-o-lantern glaring down at the city below.

The house was in the style of a Tudor home. It reminded me a lot of a doll house my uncle had made for me when I was a kid. It was painted white with dark brown trim and was a solid looking rectangle. Whatever architect had designed it had lacked serious creative vision, that much was for sure.

Levi entered the front door without bothering to knock. I wondered how many nights he’d walked through that same door, after leaving me. Or maybe he climbed in her window, as he did at my house most nights.

Many of the parties we’d gone to had consisted of the same group of forty or so kids, that seemed to make up Levi’s circle of friends, but this party was different. It was crowded with people, most seemed younger. They stood around uncomfortably sipping from red keg cups, and laughing weakly. It would have been difficult to maneuver through all the bodies that were squashed together in the entryway had Levi not had the effect of Moses parting the sea as he walked into the crowd. Most of the guys shook his hand or patted his back enthusiastically, while the girls all smiled enormously at him batting their eyelashes. It was almost like he was a celebrity. I grabbed his hand, feeling strangely jealous.