When he lifted his head and looked at her, Addie could see the child that he’d been. The pain and the fear that he’d had back then. The emotional scarring that still lingered on the man that he’d become. When he moved her, she stood with him, knowing that if they left his room, there would never be a telling of the rest of the story.
“He’d been in jail for something else a few weeks later. I don’t remember what it was, but Ana, my sister, and I were living it up. We both knew where the stash of money was kept; even the drugs that he sold were in the house. We never bothered that part, but we did have us a grand time with pizzas being delivered and soft drinks. Neither of us had ever had a hot pie until then. Mother was gone a lot. She’d run the streets, telling everyone that her man was locked up. I’m not sure what they thought of her, but I’m sure that it wasn’t good.” Addie asked him what had happened next. “He came home.”
It was more than that and she knew it. But she watched him as he pulled a towel off the warmer and handed it to her. When she was wrapped in it and he had one around his waist, he sat on the commode and her on the counter.
“At first it seemed that he was going to be all right with what we’d done, getting into his money. There wasn’t much, but it was nearly gone when he returned to the apartment. But we should have known better. When he sat down with us and picked up the last piece, Ana asked him if he wanted something to drink. As soon as she stood up, he lashed out with his fist and hit her in the face. She hit the counter behind her and just dropped to the floor. The next fist he swung out with got me square in the head.” Nick looked at her then, like he was trying to judge what she was going to say to him.
“When I came around he’d already taken Ana to the bedroom. She was tied there, her hands and feet wrapped up in tape like he always did. She was on her back this time, something that he’d never done to her before. When he saw me and grabbed for me, I kicked out at his head and knocked him back from me as he tried to get me to stand up and go with him.” As he continued, Nick stood up and stared vacantly into the sink. “The table had been broken at some point. I’m not sure how or when, but there were all kinds of things laying on the floor around me that I threw at him. I kicked too, catching him in the face and head as many times as I could. But I was ready this time. You see, while he’d been locked away, I’d taken to practicing what I’d do should he come after me again. And I had hidden things all over the house that I would be able to grab up and use against him. The screwdriver fit well in my hand, and when I hit him with it in the face…I didn’t stop when he was dead. I stabbed him so many times in the chest that it caved in. His heart had been punctured several times, by not just the screwdriver but his own ribs as well. I never wanted him to get up again. Then…then I ran.”
“You were caught and taken to the hospital, right? They knew it was self-defense.”
He nodded, then shook his head and stood there before he explained. “I could always see the dead. Not a good way to put it, but I could. When it was possible for me to do so, I’d help them out. Find things for them to pass on. Sometimes I’d even contact a family member to let them know. As I lay there dying in that box, one of them came to stay with me while someone else had one of the police come and find me. I was taken to the hospital then, but I was arrested too. For my own safety, they told me.” He didn’t turn yet. “I suppose it was the right thing to do, but I didn’t think so back then.”
“What happened then? Did you get any help? Your sister, what did they do for her?” He told her that she’d been put into the system so that their mother couldn’t find her, that he was in the hospital for so long that he never could find her.
“It was too late then. She’d already killed herself. I might have too if the dead had left me alone. I wasn’t able to help her. Or my mother if she had wanted it. My mind was too…too overwhelmed by then.” He looked at her in the reflection of the mirror. “Mother told them that is was all my fault that Glass was dead. Which, to a point I suppose, is true. I killed him. But when they asked her about the rapes or the scars and fresh lashes on my body, she told them that I fell a lot. And that Ana and I played rough, that was all it was.” His laughter was bitter. “She continued to deny his part in my nearly dying from the rape up until she died of a drug overdose, telling everyone who would listen that it was all my fault. Ana too. Then a few weeks later, she killed herself by going back to the house and taking all the drugs he’d had and using them on herself.”