Stained (12 page)

No!
I fight him, but I am so weak that my punches are like a fly against his back. I almost don't care. I just want it to be over.

“That's good, Judy,” Brian whispers in my ear, his unshaven cheek pricking my skin. “It's so good.”

Coldness runs through me. “It's Sarah,” I say, though I don't know why I tell him.

“Sarah,” Brian says, and pushes my hair from my face. “That's what I said.”

But I know he's called me by a dead girl's name. I jerk beneath his hands.

He moves against me, and I think I should feel something, but I feel nothing, not even pain, just a dull waiting for this to be over, for the monotony of my life to start up again. Because he means to keep me alive, at least for a while longer, or he wouldn't have brought me food.

I drift away from my body, from the room. Dad and Mom will look for me. I know they will. And Charlene will, too. Maybe even Nick. I feel a small rush of warmth.

I keep my mind on Nick, draw him closer to me, see his soulful eyes, his soft face, the way he looks at me as if he knows my heart and likes what he sees. I make him more real than this room, than the man on top of me. I make Nick so vivid that we must be connecting somehow. I'm sure he can hear me, if only I can think loudly enough at him, the way Professor X can.

Nick, who loves comics as much as I do, who believes in good and evil, who knows what it's like not to belong. Who wants to believe in superpowers as much as I do. If anyone could connect with me telepathically and understand what is happening, it would be him.

Pain rips through me, and Nick's face starts to fade. But I won't let him go.

I visualize Brian as I saw him last, his handsome face distorted, and I imagine sending it to Nick in bursts.
Find me, Nick. Save me.

Day 10, 7:30 P.M.

 

NO ONE'S SEEN HER. I don't know how anyone can just vanish, but it happens. It happens way too often, and it's driving me insane. I wish superpowers were real, wish I could hear her call for help the way Superman always hears Lois.

I stuff another cookie in my mouth, crumbs falling onto my keyboard. I can barely taste the sweetness, don't even like it, but still I eat. I eat to numb the feelings inside me. The dread. The fear. The pain. Without even noticing, I've gone through half the package of cookies. I push the box aside, feeling queasy.

She must be so afraid, my Sarah. So alone. I need her found and brought back home. I've imagined swooping in like Superman to save her, but I really don't care who does it or how it happens; I just want her back. Back with her family, back with me at school, giving me little snippets of her time. She's not dead. I know Old Fart-a-Lot thinks she is. Even the cops do. But I don't.

If she comes back, I'm not going to hide anymore. I'm going to show her how I feel.

I break out my pencils and markers, my comic paper, and I draw Sarah the way I see her—brave and fierce. But it's not enough somehow. I stare off into space, letting my mind wander—and then I know how to show her the way I see her. The way she really is. I draw her as Diamond, fighting the bad guys, stopping abductions and rapes and things most comics never address. It's just me and Sarah/Diamond against the world—and we win. We win every single time.

I DON'T KNOW HOW long it's been this time. Even with the foil balls, it's hard to keep track. But he's back. I just heard his car door slam. I tense, waiting.

The stairs shake, then the door scrapes open. I charge toward the cold air, determined to make it. Brian throws me backwards. I hit the floor hard, my teeth jarring. I scramble up again, panting, but the door has already grated shut.

“When are you going to learn that this is your home?” Brian asks calmly, as if what he's saying is reasonable.

I hear a thump as he sets something down.

“Well?” he says.

“My home is with my parents.”

“Not that again,” Brian says, and sighs heavily.

I feel him watching me.

“And what are those stupid foil balls for?”

My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.

“Well?”

Do I admit the truth to him or not? “They're for counting the days.”

He snorts. “What difference will that make?”

None. He's right; it won't get me out of here.

I shrug and take a step back, my jeans chafing. Can he smell my period blood? Can he see it? My body has betrayed me, bleeding when I can't stop its flow. When I can't even do the most basic thing to keep myself clean, to have some sort of dignity.

I clench my hands. “I . . . I need something.”

“You do, do you?” Brian says slowly. “What do you want?”

I swallow and try to keep the shame out of my voice. “Women's things. You know. For that time of the month.”

“Ah,” Brian says. “Of course. And what are you going to do for it? You haven't showed me that you've learned anything.”

A blaze of heat ignites in my chest. I don't want to dance to his tune. But I have to if I want to stop the bleeding. “I manipulate people.”

“That's the lesson all right, but I don't hear you believing it,” Brian says, his voice closer than it was a moment ago.

I try to add more feeling. “I manipulated my parents.”

He steps even closer. “Yes, you did. And you acted like a victim, trying to get people to take care of you. You know that, don't you?”

“Yes,” I hear myself saying.

“Hmm. I think you're beginning to learn.” He strokes my cheek. “Very well. You've earned a reward.”

Dare I ask him for one more thing while he's in such a good mood? I run my tongue over my dry lips. “Thanks. And could I please also have some toilet paper?”

“You're really pushing it, aren't you?” Brian says, his voice hard. Then he sighs, “I suppose you've earned it.”

I hear him leave. I find my way to the door, but he's locked it again. He's never forgotten yet. I keep hoping he will.

Brian knocks me back when he reenters, then thrusts something soft into my hands.

I feel it with my fingers. “What—?”

“Rags,” Brian says pleasantly. “That's what you've earned.”

“Thank you,” I choke out, trying to sound grateful so he won't take them away.

“And this.” He pushes a soft, round roll into my hands.

Toilet paper. Gratefulness makes me weep.

“You're really beginning to stink.”

My body burns. “If you give me soap, some deoderant . . .”

“You won't be here long enough to bother.”

He pushes me to the floor, his hands undoing my jeans. I leave my body faster this time.

I KNOW I SHOULD be grateful. I've slept and woken many times, and I'm still not dead. I have food again—more crackers, peanut butter, and bananas. And three jugs of water. But I am so sick of the thick, nutty taste of peanut butter, the sweet pulpiness of bananas, and the salty dryness of crackers that I have to force them down. I dream of those two french fries. I wake up smelling them, and when I realize it's just peanut butter, it's hard not to cry. And I long to smell fresh air, to see the faces of the people I love, to be able to walk about freely.

Wind howls through the hole in the door, raging and wailing, blowing in bits of snow that melt on my skin. I shiver and wrap the thermal blanket tighter around me, then crawl back to my corner under the down comforter. I hope the snow doesn't bury my prison. I need a way to get out. And as much as I hate to admit it, I need a way for Brian to get in.

He's been coming by more often. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Except that he brings food and water, and I'm still alive.

But his words keep circling through my head, telling me that I act like a victim. As much as I don't want to, I keep remembering times that prove him right, like that time I tried to get a job.

The little fruit market in our neighborhood had a hand-lettered sign in the grimy window:
PART-TIME HELP NEEDED. APPLY WITHIN.
No one had ever hired me to do anything, not even babysit. But I wanted to start saving for my treatments.

So I walked into the shop, steeling myself as the jangling bell announced me. The warm air smelled like a mixture of ripening fruit and mustiness. I kept my head tilted so my hair covered my cheek. A woman with streaks of gray in her thick black hair shuffled up to the counter. Her wrinkled face looked weary. She was definitely a five. Nothing beautiful about her, but nothing ugly, either. Just a regular person that most people didn't even notice. How I wanted that.

“Yes, yes, can I help you?” The woman looked at me closer, then leaned over the chipped counter to get a better look. “What happen to your face?”

What happened to your manners?
I wanted to snap, but I sucked the words back.

“What happen?” the woman said again, her voice loud and insistent. The other customers turned to look.

My face grew warm. “Nothing happened,” I mumbled. “I was born like this.”

“Eh?” the woman said, cocking her ear toward me.

The other customers busied themselves among the bins of fruit, but I could feel them taking peeks at me. I wanted to flatten inward until there was nothing left for anyone to stare at. But if I could pay for the treatments, maybe Mom would let me have them, and then I wouldn't have to go through this anymore. I spoke loudly enough so they could all hear me. “It's a port-wine stain; I was born with it.”

“Ah.” The woman nodded, then looked away, like she was embarrassed by me now.

I took another breath. “I wanted to apply for the part-time job?”

The woman shook her head. “No, no. No job.”

“No job?” I clenched my hands together. “But the sign in the window says—”

“No job right now. You come back later, okay? Later.” She nodded and turned away.

I stood there, confused. Did she mean there were no jobs for me because of my face? Or did she mean to come back later that day, when someone else would be there?

Another customer looked at me, curiosity and sympathy in her eyes. I rushed out of the store, and I never went back. Never tried anywhere else, either. Maybe I did act like a victim.

No. I wanted to be treated with respect, and I didn't get it there. Okay, maybe I tried to shield myself from more rejection. But who doesn't do that? That's not being a victim. I've got to keep myself from being sucked into Brian's lies. Nothing he says to me is true.

I get up, feel my way over to the window, and tug on the boards again.

Day 27, 5:30 P.M.

 

I HOPE SARAH'S STILL alive. I pray that she is. But it's getting harder to believe that she might be. It's been almost a month since she went missing.

I square my shoulders and walk into the police station, where I get the clerk to call the detective down.

“You again,” the detective says, looking at me sourly. I've come by once a week since Sarah disappeared. You'd think he'd expect me by now.

“Don't want me to drop by? Then find Sarah!”

The detective shakes his head wearily. “It's not like we haven't been trying. Your coming here, hassling me like this—it only eats up valuable working time.”

“Right. Like you were searching for her when the desk clerk phoned you.”

“Hey—I've got twenty-five other cases I have to deal with on top of hers. And all are just as important.”

“Just as important as a missing girl?” I say.

“You'd be surprised. Look, kid—you can't keep coming by here, asking for me. I want to get Sarah Meadows back, too. But this isn't the way to do it.” He takes a step toward the door, holding out his hand to usher me out.

“Then what is?” I say, not moving.

The detective shrugs. “If I knew, we'd be doing it. We're already doing everything we can.”

Code words for “we've almost given up.”

“Just—don't stop looking. Sarah's a good person. Brave, smart, and kind. She doesn't deserve this.”

“None of them do, son,” the detective says sadly.

I leave before I yell at him. That won't get me anywhere. I can't believe how easily a missing person gets pushed aside after barely a month. A life has to be worth more than that. Sarah is worth more than that. I rip open a bag of chips and stuff a handful in my mouth. Anger churns through my gut.

I head toward the Meadowses' house. I go over as often as I can. They've become a second family to me. We find comfort in one another's grief, and in our hope. In a world that doesn't seem to care, that doesn't support our belief that Sarah is still alive, we buoy one another up. The reporters have stopped calling. The only ones who talk about Sarah now are the gossip rags, and even they don't have much to say, and nothing hopeful. But as long as they keep Sarah in people's minds, I guess it's a good thing. I throw my empty chip bag in the trash and dust off my hands and face.

Brian is leaving just as I come in. We nod at each other, our faces tight with worry. “Distract her, will you?” he whispers. “She wouldn't let me.”

“I'll try,” I whisper back. I close the door behind him.

Mrs. Meadows is sitting at the kitchen table, printing off photo after photo of Sarah. She painstakingly places them in an album while tears stream down her cheeks.

I sit down tentatively at the table with her. “Wow, that's a lot of photos,” I say.

Mrs. Meadows looks up at me, scissors in one hand, photo that she's been trimming in the other. “I never took the time to go through all our photos; I was always too busy. Sure, I kept an album, and one for Sarah, too—but there are so many other photos that should be in them. So many sweet images.” She's crying harder now.

“Here, let me help you,” I say, and gently take the scissors from her shaking hand. I think she needs someone else to remember and love Sarah along with her more than she needs to be distracted. I finish trimming the photo of six-year-old Sarah lying in a hammock reading a comic. “Tell me about this one,” I say.