Scars (14 page)

“You will cut to keep silent—”

I can’t believe what I remembered, either. It can’t be true. It just can’t. Cutting is
my
thing. Not his.

Acid rises up in my throat.
Cutting is what’s kept me alive. What helped me when I couldn’t take it any more … .

It’s what helped me forget.

No!
I stagger upright, stare at my wide, frightened eyes in the mirror.
I can’t be doing what he wants me to. I can’t be!

There’s a knock on the door. I tighten up, watching it like someone’s going to burst right through.

“Kendra? It’s me,” Meghan calls.

I let her in, and she locks the door behind her. Then she puts my arm under the faucet and turns the water on. I flinch as the cold water hits my skin.

“Does that hurt?”

Yes.
I shake my head no.

The blood washes from my chaotic slashes, revealing how deep they are before the blood pools up again. Meghan sucks in her breath sharply. She grabs a paper towel and hands it to me. “You’d better dry it. I don’t want to hurt you.”

I gingerly pat my arm. It’s aching fiercely now.

Meghan sits me down on the lid of the toilet seat and starts taking things out of her shopping bag: a roll of gauze bandage, a box of sterile nonstick pads, and some nail scissors. She rips open the packages and gently bandages my arm, wrapping it up tight with the clean, white gauze. I know I should be thanking her, but I just sit there and shiver, feeling sick.

“You okay?” Meghan asks gently—so gently.

“You will cut to forget.”

I nod.
I’m so sorry. I never meant for you to see this.
But I don’t say it. I can’t get my voice to work.

Meghan reaches for my arm, the one that’s not hurt, and pulls me up. “Come on. Let’s get you out of here.”

I nod again and pull my sleeve down over the bandage. I take a step, then another, out of the bathroom.

It’s too big a betrayal to be true. He can’t have taught
me to cut. I can’t just be doing what he wants me to. That would mean I’m letting him win. That would mean I’m still letting him hurt me.

I stumble, and Meghan catches me.

“You okay?” she asks again.

No words. Just shadows fluttering inside me, tearing away my voice. I manage to nod.

She leads me out of the Java Cup, past the staring customers and into the park. We walk back to where we sat earlier and ease down on the grass. Meghan wraps her arms around me and holds me, rocking me gently. A leaf floats down, brushing against my face.

“It’s okay. It’ll all be okay,” she whispers.

But it won’t be. How can it?

“Hey! Whatchu starin’at?” Meghan yells over my shoulder, her arm moving sharply against my back. I know she’s just given someone the bird.

“Sorry. Look, he got away this time. But he’s getting desperate. He’ll make a mistake—and then we’ll catch him.”

I’m the one who made a mistake—by remembering.

No.
I shudder.
It was right to remember. I needed to remember. But I need to be able to cut, too.

“You will cut to forget.”

“What’s happening, Kendra?” Meghan asks, stroking my sweaty hair.

I clear my tight throat. Move my lips. Form the words. “I think a memory’s coming. A big one.”
The rest of the memory I don’t want to see.

“You want to call Carolyn?”

“Already did. She’s not in.” My teeth chatter. “I just want it to go away.”

“But it won’t, will it? Why don’t you just let it come? I’ll stay with you.”

“I’m afraid to!”

“I know.”

Meghan holds me tighter. I shudder as the shadows slice their way through my mind.
His hand closing on my wrist. His breath hot on my cheek. The bathroom door snapping shut behind me—locking.

I rock against the fear, teeth clenched, trying to hold it all back.

“Let it come, Kendra. Let it come.”

Cold floor tiles bite into the bottoms of my feet, making my ankles ache as the cold moves up my legs. The light flickers. The man roughly pushes up my sleeve, chaffing my skin.

“You will learn to keep silent,” he says, his voice echoing in the small room.

“No!” I cry, and clutch Meghan’s hand.

“I’m right here. Right here with you.”

The man pulls a utility knife out of his pocket and pushes the blade up until an inch shows through the handle. The tip of the blade is dull in the light.

“You will cut to keep silent. You will cut to forget. You will cut not to tell. And if you tell, you will cut to kill yourself. You will use your own knife to end your life.”

The words are familiar, like I’ve heard them many
times, in many different places. But the voice is the same. His voice. It’s always his voice.

“And if you fail, I will kill you myself. I will kill you if you tell.”

He grabs my arm, fingers bruising my wrist, and forces the utility knife into my hand. I want to drop it, want to let it go, but his hand closes tightly over mine, crushing my fingers into the handle.

Fear bursts through me, harsh and bright, and I swim up to the top of my head. I shut myself off from my body and mind, shut myself down and go to sleep.

Another part of me steps forward. A part that can follow directions, without reacting. A part that can see the world in shapes and shadows. A part that’s a robot.

The man-shape pushes her hand down, fast and hard, making the blade slash into her flesh. The robot is fascinated by the sight of the skin parting open to reveal a bubbly white interior. There is no pain, no feeling. Just parted skin, like an open mouth, and blood rushing up to fill it.

The man-shape hands her a square of white cloth and makes her press it against the wound.

“Now you,” he commands.

The robot had watched carefully. The command is clear. Still, her mouth is oddly dry and she feels a strange sensation. But robots don’t feel. She knows that.

She brings the blade down to her arm, judging carefully. For some reason, her ears are ringing and her perfectly controlled hand is trembling. She slashes once, twice, at his command.

“If you ever talk about me again, you will slit your own neck. You will do it because you will be sorry that you talked.”

He tells her that she can go.

I walk out of the bathroom, not knowing what I am doing there. My arm is screaming with pain. I look down and am terrified. I don’t know what’s happened, how I got hurt.

I try to remember, but my mind is blank, a thick grey fog filling my head. My mind stretches and twists itself, trying to understand, but nothing makes sense. I start to pull back from the world. And then a voice tells me that I did it to myself, to keep myself from remembering.

I believe the voice. And I remember how to cut.

The shadow lifts slowly. I lie there, exhausted.

Meghan’s worried face comes into focus. I can feel her arms around me again, can smell the amber-like honey on her skin. I push myself away.

“It was bad, huh?” she says.

“Oh, yeah.”

I shudder; another wave is coming. Meghan holds me tight.

I’m five, maybe six, curled up, naked, shivering, in the bathroom.

The man holds a life–sized plastic arm in front of me,
its surface flesh-colored. He forces the utility knife into my hand.

“This is your arm. Your body,” he says. “What will you do if you talk?”

“Cut it,” the robot part of me answers automatically, her voice toneless.

“Show me,” the man says.

And I do. Over and over, until it becomes a muscle memory, something I can do without thinking. Without looking. Until it’s a part of me.

I retch. He was preparing me for it, even then. He was making sure I wouldn’t talk.

But I did talk. He didn’t manage to stop me. Not completely.

I blink my eyes, forcing myself to focus on the trees, on the grass, on Meghan.

Meghan’s watching me, her face tight and pale, and I know this was hard for her. Maybe too hard.

“I’m sorry.” I push myself away.

Her hands pull me back. “No. Tell me.”

My lips feel cemented together.

“I’ve been through shit, too, Kendra,” Meghan says. “Maybe not as bad as you, but—I can take it. I want to know.”

I tell her what I remembered, in slow, halting words.

Meghan rakes her fingers through her hair. “God, he’s sick. Just sick.”

“I guess.”

“You guess? Come on, Kendra, that’s pretty scary shit.”

“I know, but—” A thought skitters just outside my reach. I grab for it; it’s gone.

“But what? And don’t tell me it wasn’t so bad. I saw your face.”

The thought hovers again, darting around my consciousness. I close my eyes, and it comes, chilling my skin.

“Palette knives aren’t sharp. They’re to spread paint, create texture on the canvas, mix colors. They couldn’t cut through cheese. But the one in that package, it had sharp edges like a blade. I took one look at it and cut worse than I ever have before. It was almost like I couldn’t stop.” I take a shaky breath. “I think that’s what he was trying to get me to do. I think he wanted me to kill myself because I’ve talked about the abuse. Because I’ve tried to remember who he is. And because I’ve been using my art to tell.”

“Goddamn bastard.” Meghan looks like she wants to punch something to keep from crying.

“Hey, it’s okay,” I say, and it is.

“How can you say that?”

“I know it sounds weird, but I almost feel stronger. Figuring out what he wanted me to do—remembering what he taught me—has made everything clearer. It’s like I was painting with only two primary colors before, and now I have the third.”

I pull her to me, and we sit there together, listening to each other breathe.

Something blocks out the sun. The stench of alcohol is overpowering. I look up to see a guy leering down at us.

Meghan snaps open her eyes and jerks upright. “Get lost, you pervert.”