Bleed Like Me (4 page)

I shook my head. “No. It's not, because it's not unisex, so I don't fall in the toilet when some guy forgets to put the lid
down or slip in a puddle of piss because none of you can aim to save your lives.”

“Girls are just as disgusting. You wouldn't believe the crap I find in the trash.”

I offered a widemouthed grin. “Which is exactly why I won't clean the bathroom.”

Ricardo stared at the ceiling, his equivalent of the Ali eye roll, then pointed to the pile of paint cans. “Have fun, then.”

By the time I was finished with all of them, my body ached so much I pulled a tarp into the corner of the garage and fell asleep. When I woke, I noticed Dennis had covered me with a sleeping bag and left my paycheck next to a cup of coffee. I gulped down the coffee and double-checked the padlocks on the garage before starting my nightly round of avoiding home.

The house was quiet by the time I stumbled in. It was after eleven, and my throat was raw from too many cigarettes. All three of my brothers were passed out in their large, messy room in a pile of arms and legs and ADD-inspired exhaustion. My parents had given them the biggest bedroom when it became clear they wouldn't sleep without one another. Mom and Dad had joined two smaller bedrooms for themselves and given me the back office to turn into my room. I went to the bathroom and heard my parents' voices through the thin walls.

“You baby them too much,” Dad said. His voice had a sneering, critical edge that tunneled through me.

“They're just boys,” Mom murmured, tired and pleading.

“They're old enough to do some of the bedtime routine on their own,” he grumbled.

“They had to do that enough in Guatemala. We need to show them we'll always take care of them.”

“You shouldn't be picking out their clothes and helping them get dressed. They're far too old for that. Luis in particular.”

“He's only in fifth grade,” she whispered.

“He's too old. Are you going to clean up after him when he has his first wet dream?”

The venom in Dad's voice made me jerk back.

“Go to hell, Richard. Don't put your insecurity on me.” Mom's weak voice was laced with anger.

I covered my ears with my hands. Their words blended into white noise, and I breathed in and out of my mouth. I sat on the toilet, waiting until the angry muffles stopped. My brothers. It was always about my brothers. Or at least it had been since they came home with my parents. That'd been five years ago. Five years of therapy, five years of attachment issues, five years of shrieking. My skin itched everywhere.

I popped my head into the hallway and saw the light to my parents' room flick off. My shoulders dropped and I moved back toward the bathroom mirror. I stared at the dark circles beneath my eyes. I'd lost too much weight and looked shitty, even for me. I pushed my bleached bangs out of my face so
they blended with the black and red streaks in the rest of my hair. Luis called me the freaky zebra girl. My makeup had started to streak on my face, but I was too exhausted to bother with taking it off. I gulped down a glass of water and crept back to my room.

The tiny light in the corner illuminated shadows across the dark chocolate walls. Horror-movie posters covered most of them. Tools peeked from a gray metal box in the corner. My banged-up laptop sat open on the small wooden desk I'd built from scrap lumber. I launched the Internet and reviewed the history. Porn sites. Luis. Stupid kid didn't even know how to erase where he'd been trolling. Evidently the wet dream was going to happen sooner rather than later.

My parents' words pinged around my head and I started to tremble. I flattened myself facedown on the worn-out quilt Mom had sewn for me when I was born, before she gave up sewing to patch together boys instead. I slid my hand under my bed, groping for the familiar plastic case tucked between my mattress and bed frame. My fingers brushed over it and something inside me uncoiled. I tugged out the polka-dot plastic makeup kit and unzipped it, my fingers shaking in anticipation. They moved over the razor blades and I got the dizzy, light-headed feeling I always got when I thought about cutting. I scratched off old blood from one of the razors with my nail.

I dropped my clothes into a pile on the floor and pulled on a large Cassius Clay T-shirt to sleep in. The material slid over my itchy skin, causing prickles along the back of my neck. I lifted the left side of the shirt and rubbed a circle in my flesh, spreading the skin above my hipbone. My stomach was the safest place to cut. My parents hated half shirts and bikinis, so there was no danger of anyone seeing scabs or scars. The razor slipped along the edge of my skin like a cat scratch. I pushed harder, the first tiny drops of blood popping out. It stung, and my breath came out with a whoosh. I retraced the line, harder the second time across. My skin, the razor, my blood, back and forth. The pain pierced me, poured over me. And finally, finally, I could breathe again.

Drip. Cut. Drip. Cut.

My parents' conversation, the anger in Mom's voice, the accusation in Dad's, all of it slipped away. There was only the point of the blade and the precision of knowing how not to go too deep. One. Two. Three cuts along the side of my stomach. Parallel and beautiful in their own way.

Cool air hit my exposed leg and my head jerked up. Brooks was sitting with his elbows on the ledge of my window, watching me. Oh God. Crap. The screen was open halfway and the window was pushed all the way up. Stupid brothers and their stupid water-balloon launching pad on the roof outside my room. I wanted to kill them.

Brooks's eyes drifted between the razor in my hand and the bloody scratches on my stomach. I dropped the razor into its case, dragged my shirt down, and slid to the floor, tucking the kit beneath the bed.

“What're you doing here?” I said, trying to blink away the post-cut euphoria.

His feet swung to the floor and he pulled himself inside. “You cut?”

“What're you doing here?” I whispered again. “What're you doing in my bedroom?”

“Visiting.”

“Get out.” I stood up and pointed to the window.

He pushed the screen down. “No. I told you, I'm just visiting.”

“I didn't invite you.”

He smiled. “Semantics. You did say ‘I'll see you later' at the party when you took off. That's practically an invitation.”

“ ‘See you later' doesn't mean ‘come stalk me at my house,' you freak.”

He tucked his hands into his jean pockets and eyed my room. “So you like horror movies, huh?”

I glanced at the
Friday the 13th
and
Nightmare on Elm Street
posters on my walls and smiled a little. “Mostly eighties horror movies. Those are the really great ones. When they used fake blood and bad effects. Not the perfect CGI stuff they do today.”

He mirrored my grin. “Have you seen
Happy Birthday to Me
?”

I gaped at him. “Of course. Have you?”

“Yep. What about
Sleepaway Camp
?”

I nodded and took a step closer to him. I'd never met anyone who'd seen
Sleepaway Camp
. “How have you seen those?”

“My mom had a collection of them. I watched them when I was bored and left to fend for myself,” he said. “It was a pretty great time for horror movies. I saw the remake of
Prom Night
and it totally sucked in comparison to the original. It's like trying to remake
Star Wars
. You kinda want all the cheesy effects and bad acting.”

The breeze from the window hit my legs again and I suddenly remembered where we were.

“My parents will kill you if they find you here.”

Brooks took three steps toward me and tugged at the bottom of my shirt.

I swatted at his cold hands. “Get the hell away from me.”

He didn't release his grip. “I wanna see your stomach.”

The air froze in the room, too still and stifling. “Back off. I don't know what you're talking about.”

He gave me a tiny grin. “Gannon. Surely you're not gonna lie to me? I watched you for the last few minutes. I wanna see your cuts.”

“No. Back off. It's none of your business.”

His hand loosened and his other hand lifted my chin. “I'm making you my business.”

The memory of his soft lips in the woods flashed through my mind. I hated that his words made me want him. I hated to think I was
that
girl. The one who lifted her shirt because of warm lips, good taste in movies, and a caveman sense of possession.

I crossed my arms. “Why? Do you think you're gonna fix me?”

He laughed too loud and I reached up to cover his mouth. His tongue thrust forward and he licked my palm. I pulled back, but not before his teeth nipped my fingers. Christ, this boy was messing with my head.

“Hell no, I'm not gonna fix you. Look at me. Do I seem at all qualified to fix anyone?”

My eyes skimmed over his ratty shirt, low-riding jeans, and blue hair. He barely seemed qualified to dress himself. “Good point. Seriously. What are you doing here? How'd you find me?”

He grinned and the metal bar on his brow lifted. “Not too many other Amelia Gannons in the school directory.”

“You looked for me in the school directory?”

“Yeah.” His hand moved to the edge of my T-shirt again. I slapped it away. “I thought you might be kinda into me. Most people don't like me, but you seem different from the other people at school.”

I closed my eyes against the reality of him in my room. This couldn't be happening. No guy had been in my room. Ever. I didn't do relationships. People didn't see me that way. Most people didn't see me at all. My hands curled around the edge of my T-shirt as I shored up my defenses.

“So you just popped over to my house and climbed through the window? Did you think you were gonna get laid? I'm not exactly into that whole
Romeo and Juliet
balcony scene.”

Brooks leaned forward, then snatched my hand and swung me next to him on the bed. I struggled, but his arms locked around me. My body stilled and I met his eyes. He shook his hair back.

“I didn't think I'd be lucky enough to get laid tonight. But I thought you'd consider me.”

I eased out of his grip. “Consider you what? A psycho who breaks into my room at eleven o'clock at night?”

“No,” he said, letting me go and tracing the hoops along my ear. “Consider me your guy.”

I rolled over and got to my feet. “Brooks. I'm not sure how to respond to that. I met you less than a week ago. This is kind of coming out of left field, you know?”

He sat on the edge of my bed and tapped a tune on his knees with his long, distracting fingers. “Yeah. But I still think you'll consider me.”

I didn't say anything. The whole conversation was surreal,
even for my world. Brooks hopped up and moved toward the window. After two steps he turned back and snatched my razor case from under my bed. “You should give this shit up. I don't want you doing it anymore. We're not going to roll that way.”

I snatched the case from his hands and held it behind my back. “We're not going to roll
any
way.”

Brooks leaned toward me and dropped his mouth onto my neck. I slugged him, but he chuckled, and his warm tongue circled the spot above my collarbone until my knees almost gave out. Then he sucked my skin so hard I squeaked. He released me and swiveled us toward the long mirror in the corner of my room. His arm snaked around me, and his free hand tilted my head to the side to show me the hickey he'd just given me.

“No more cutting,” he whispered. “I want to know about every mark that's on your body.”

He released me and dropped out of my window so fast I couldn't even respond. I wanted to tell him to go to hell. I wanted to tell him to find someone else. I wanted to tell him I wasn't buying the shit he was selling. But I couldn't turn away from the mirror and the hideously beautiful mark on my neck.

•  •  •

Ali and I sat smoking on a parking bumper in front of the Punkin' Donuts the next day. Work was slow and Ricardo had offered to stay late so I could take off.

“So Skeevy Dave offered to get us Green Day tickets if we want.”

I snorted. “Green Day? For real?”

Ali blew a long stream of smoke above my head. Her new tongue piercing flashed as she took another drag. “Don't be such a snob. I heard they're amazing in concert.”

I shrugged and fiddled with the laces on my boots. “What's the catch?”

Ali tapped her feet. “Dave wants to come with us.”

Ick. Gross. A thousand yucks. “And you're considering it?”

“Maybe. It
is
Green Day.”

I put out my cigarette and looked at Ali. “And it
is
Skeevy Dave.”

Ali blinked her overly charcoaled eyes at me before nodding. “Yeah, you're right. It's not worth it. I just thought it might be fun for a bunch of us to go.”

Did a bunch of us include her boy toy from the woods? Part of me wanted to ask, but then I bit my tongue and pulled out another cigarette. Getting into that conversation with Ali would open a whole can of worms between us: an oversharing TMI can of worms that had the potential to leave me raw. And then I might talk about the weird way I felt about Brooks. Ali didn't need that from me and I honestly didn't need it from her.

Plus, I still wasn't exactly sure what I thought about Brooks.
And Ali would want to dissect every detail and I'd have to tell her about his appearance at my window.

I pulled the string to my hoodie tighter. I had no idea how I was supposed to explain the hickey. Where it came from and how I couldn't stop staring at it, tracing my finger over it as I looked at myself in the mirror. Explanations would be a waste of time because I didn't really get him. Us. Whatever.