Bottom Feeder (27 page)

Sergeant Wotley stomps into the
hallway, yelling again before the door closes behind
him.

“
Jackson, what . .
.”

He raises a hand to stop
me from talking. I think he’s going to say
something—
anything—
to let me know what I should do. His erratic breathing is the
only audible thing in the room. He dresses in record time and bolts
out the door.

I ease back to the floor, exhausted. I
gave my only pillow to Jackson last night so his head would stay
elevated in case of a hurl emergency. Suffice it to say, sleep did
not happen. I’d like nothing more than to get thirty minutes of
good ‘ol REM.

So many questions run through my head.
Do I stay? Leave? Where would I go? Are there restrictions against
me being in his room? Exactly how much trouble is Jackson in
because I’m here?

Maybe it’s panic, or maybe
I just have to pee, but I can’t gather my scattered thinking into
one cohesive thought. My feet come to a screeching halt the moment
I switch on the bathroom light. I was so preoccupied with taking
care of Jackson last night that I missed the most horrifying,
disgusting scene
ever
. The shower curtain is pulled back, exposing black rings
around the bottom of the stall. The toilet has similar rings around
the inside of the bowl, not to mention yellow streaks running down
the side. Someone obviously wasn’t taught how to aim
correctly.

I back out of the
bathroom.
Slowly.
My feet reluctantly stay on the cold tile due to the unknown
sticky substance on the floor. How does he feel clean after
showering in here? Ew.

I search the room for supplies,
locating a broom and dustpan tucked between the wall and his
roommate’s closet. The cleaners underneath the bathroom sink are
still sealed and shrink-wrapped in plastic.

So
not surprised.

Using two plastic grocery
bags to tie around my hands for gloves—I was
not
touching that toilet with bare
hands—I spend the next hour scrubbing, disinfecting, sweeping,
mopping with paper towels, and repeating where
necessary.

I think about Dom to distract myself
from the nastiness.

Last night was amazing. Kisses that
weren’t practice sessions and singing for someone other than Dixon
was an incredible feeling. The crowd actually applauded after I
finished the song. Sure, it’s just karaoke in a small club in North
Carolina, but it’s a big step for me.

Dom swooped me off the
stage and asked for permission to kiss me.
Permission
. I’m a sucker for good
manners.

Excited tremors course through my body
as I recall his soft, gentle lips against mine. Then I remember how
he promised to come back last night but never did. What a stupid,
silly little girl I must seem like to have fallen for his ruse. I
allowed myself to get caught up in a web of deceit, probably
crafted by Jackson so he wouldn’t have to deal with me while he was
out ruining my car seats. But what a glorious, intricately woven
web it was.

Yep. A stupid, silly
little girl
in-freakin’-deed
.

On the bright side, I have no regrets.
I kissed a guy that made me feel like I was the only person in the
room that mattered. And I liked it. I like doing things I like; the
luxury is a rare occasion.

I can kiss boys and they don’t have to
talk to or see me again, right? No big deal.

Your luggage is in his
room.

“
Crap,” I say aloud. I
sigh in disgust of my inexperience.

I finish up the last corner of the
bathroom, making a final decision to store last night away as a
warning to refrain from being so naïve.

I step back to check out my work, much
like an artist after finishing a masterpiece. That is, if said
masterpiece was covered in grime and urine. I remove the grocery
bag gloves and give my hands several good washes before scrubbing
my something-sticky encrusted feet. Yuck.

The heavy door to the room flies open,
smacking against the wall and closing again. I jump, unsure if I
should hide or stand still. Jackson stalks through the room with
fists clinched at his sides, stopping only inches from my
face.

I rub my wrists from the memories
Jackson’s crazed eyes conjure up. His glare is reminiscent of
Larry’s when he tied my hands—and sometimes my feet—in the room
beneath his stairs.

I am inside the calm before the storm.
I wait for the hellfire to rain down.

And rain down it does.

“
Do. You. Know. How. Much.
Trouble. I. Am. In . . . because of
you?”
Jackson’s tone is quiet,
thoughtful. “You.” He begins circling me like a lion stalking its
prey. “Because of
you,
my spotless military record is stained. S
tained!
You know what, Maddy? You
are an omen. Did you know that? A useless fucking nobody.
Absolutely good-for-nothing except, of course, for bringing
everyone down with you and around you. To be seen and associated
with someone as
beneath society
as you are is a disservice to everyone else in
the world who does not fuck things up on a regular.”

Never let them see how much they hurt
you. Never. They feed off your hurt and fear like vultures on fresh
roadkill. Jackson’s words are nothing I haven’t heard before during
Daddy’s drunken rants and Larry’s every day
conversation.

I keep quiet and alert for sudden fist
movements or flying objects.

“
I know you want me to
want you, Maddy,” he purrs. “But I would never
ever
give you the time of day. You
are disgusting.” Jackson’s shoulder brushes mine. I fight back the
instinct to flinch. Never let them see you flinch.

His tirade continues as I silently
take his assault. “Nobody wants you. Cordell was right: you are a
bottom feeder. No one wants a bottom feeder. Not me. Not your
daddy. Not your mama.”

I fight back the urge to sigh. I'm
running out of patience. Is he going to swing, or continue spitting
salty venom on my wounds?

“
I cannot
believe
I agreed to take
you on this trip.” His voice rises to an earsplitting octave as he
continues, turning his back to me. “A car and cash as tradeoff to
spend a few days making sure you get to New York. There is no
question why he didn’t want you. You’re a thorn in everybody’s
side. No wonder he was making his getaway as soon as you
left.”

I manage an unintelligible,
“What?”

Be quiet. Allow him to
finish the tirade. Then get out as quickly as your feet can
move.

He snaps his head around
at the sound of my voice, a menacing smile spreading across his
face. “I guess the secret’s out now. In the beginning, I didn’t
understand. Now I know why Cordell wanted to get on with a new life
he’s made with his
wife and real
child.
But it’s all crystal
now.”

His words aren’t locking into place in
my brain, like he’s speaking in riddles.

I shake my head. “I don’t
understand.”

“
Because you’re an idiot,”
Jackson says matter-of-factly. “Let me lay it out for
you.”

“
Please, enlighten
me.”

“
Do you know how
much
Madelyn Carrington
is worth?” he questions, choking out my name like
a toxin. “Your father—well actually, he’s not but we’ll get to that
later—paid me ten thousand dollars, along with a seventy-five
thousand dollar car to move you to New York. He paid me to take the
scenic route so he could make his exit from you nice and quietly.
Frankly, I’m not sure if you’re worth any of that.”

He begins pacing the length of the
room, turning his back to me. “Cordell isn’t your real father, you
know? He bought your way into school just so he could get you, and
all of your embarrassing self, out of his life. He married another
woman, even has a daughter who is living up to everything you could
never be.”

Not my real father?

Nothing he is saying makes sense. Yet,
everything makes sense.

This brings to light a lot of things
I’ve always questioned. I didn’t fit with my fath—Cordell—but I
never imagined it was because I wasn’t his daughter.

I always did what he asked: wearing
the dresses, acting like a true Southern debutante should,
pretending to be interested in any and everything he did. He even
asked me once, when I was eleven, to ignore him when he screeched
at me during his drunken outbursts. And you know what? I did ignore
the name calling and anything else that spewed out of his mouth,
even when he wasn’t drinking. I wanted to be the perfect daughter
for him. I wanted to make him happy.

Still, I never fit inside his world. I
guess now I know why.

Jackson continues to throw his insults
at me like interminable slaps to the face. I can’t feel them. There
isn’t much feeling left inside me right now.

As the missing and misshapen pieces of
my life are pieced together, my world begins breaking into bits
around me.

I am a lie. My life is a funhouse
mirror that distorts and bends the reflection of whoever stands
next to me. I’ve been looking from the inside of this mirror,
thinking I see and read everything clearly when, in truth, I don’t
know a thing.

This new information makes me wonder
if Cordell knew about the things Larry did to me.

“
. . . probably why
Grace
offed
herself.”

Holdupwaitaminute.

“
What are you talking
about? Mama died of a . . . heart attack?”

Jackson glares into my
eyes for a moment and lowers his voice. “That’s right. You don’t
know that either,” he says, cocking his head to the side.
“Cordell’s money paid to say that Grace died of cardiac arrest. A
handful of pills, chased by a bottle of Jack took her out.
She
didn’t want you,
either. In so many words, Maddy, you killed your own mama—simply by
existing. Like a fucking plague.”

A rage like I have never experienced
snaps like a rubber band inside me. An unexplainable film covers my
eyes. Everything Jackson says after that rumbles through my ears
muffled and distorted. Tears I haven’t shed in years are on the
brink of spilling over. My hands grasp the strap of something on
the nightstand.

I pick up the heavy object and hurl it
around as hard and fast as my arms allow.

The shouting stops, mid-sentence.
Jackson’s eyes roll back as he falls to the floor. Every physical
thing inside me is screaming to hit him again. I stand with my feet
inches from his head, contemplating my next move. The decision to
hit him again and leave him sprawled on the floor is overthrown
when I look down at the object my hand.

A Kevlar helmet. The very one that
probably protected him in Afghanistan. I drop the helmet at the
same time I drop to my knees.

What have I done?

I put my ear to his chest. Jackson’s
body expands and deflates evenly. I cautiously graze my fingertips
over the bump forming on his left temporal lobe.

Do military bases have normal 911?
Will he be in more trouble if I find someone and they realize I’m
still in his room? I lift his closed eyelids. No dilated pupils, no
concussion. I yank the blanket from his bed to drape over him. I
stroke his head, hair, and face while I reassess the
situation.

What do I do? What do I do? What do I
do?

You’re going to do what
you always do, Carrington.

As long as the world continues to
turn, I will continue to move on, to grow stronger in the midst of
chaos.

The first thing I decide
to do is forgive: Cordell. Jackson. Even Mama. If her
suicide
was
my
fault, I can’t exactly blame her for leaving me. In twenty years, a
therapist is going to have a field day with how I handled this
information.

Forgiveness is something I’ve grown
accustomed to. Holding grudges means anger, and anger is not good
when you need a real plan.

Forgiveness is one thing, forgetting
is another. Cliché, but true. My mind is numb, yet the tears
continue to flow from my eyes, committing the second highest form
of treason against myself.

I feel so much shame for hitting
Jackson. Not because I’m sorry. Because it makes me feel like he's
won at breaking me down.

I’ve never allowed someone to see how
much they hurt me, how much their words or actions distress me. I
have worked so hard not to show hurt or pain.

I
want
to be angry.

Jackson’s words were meant to slice
through me like hot knives through cold butter. However, at the end
of the day they are only words. Disrespectful, malicious,
hate-filled words. But words nonetheless.

I have learned more about life in the
last hour than in all of my previous eighteen years.