“I want to skin that bastard alive,” he spits. “I want to kill someone.”
He fails to acknowledge that he has already killed someone. Or maybe it’s just that he doesn’t care. He hasn’t asked me about what happened down in the basement, though he must surely know. He must have heard me screaming. He must have seen the blood when he came down to leave the food and the water. He chooses to pretend like it just never happened. He cements this when he says, “You’re still a virgin, Coralie. No matter what. In my mind, you’re still in tact.” This seems to be critically important to him. I just nod. “From now on, I’ll pick you up from school every day. And no more going out after dark. Ever.”
My life is essentially over now. As I lay in bed, my whole body aching and throbbing, feeling hollow inside, I realize that this is it. I can’t stay here anymore. I have to leave. Despite the pacing and the angry words, he’s relatively calm right now. I know him, though. It won’t last. He’ll change his mind at some point, decide that this was my fault, and I won’t be waking up next time. I’ll be buried in the basement, just like my son.
And unlike him, no one will know that I’m there.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CORALIE
Rise and Fall
THEN
I stay in bed for a week. I struggle to even make it to the bathroom. At first my father insists on helping me shower. I can’t persuade him that I don’t need the help, so I stand there, shoulders rounded in, body hunched over, eyes shut, cold water thrashing my beaten body. After day three, I’m still bleeding, though, and the sight of the blood circling around the drain in the shower tray seems to repulse him. He tells me then that until I’m better I must stay in bed.
He was right about my bruises. The deep purple shadows on my face fade quickly at least. By the time I have to go back to school, they’re a sickly shade of green and yellow. With a subtle application of some cover-up foundation, they’re almost invisible.
I can just about get around if I walk slowly, but my father drives me to Port Royal High anyway, just like he said he would. I see Callan waiting for me outside Willoughby’s just like usual, but he doesn’t see me fly by in the car. I pretend not to notice him.
No one speaks to me in the hallways at school. The other students move from class to class, laughing and joking, oblivious to the fact that the world has ended. Callan and I don’t have any classes together, so I don’t see him until lunch in the cafeteria. He drops his bag at an empty table and makes a dash for me as soon as he sees me. “There she is, my little bluebird.” He wraps his arms around me and pulls me in for a kiss, and I don’t even know how to respond. I’m so relieved to see him. I’m torn inside out at seeing him, too, because I have to tell him what’s happened and I don’t know how. I won’t be able to find the right words to make the news hurt any less; it’s going to kill him. He kisses me lightly, cupping the back of my neck in his hand, and I feel myself falling apart already. On the other side of the cafeteria, Shane and Tina whoop and cheer as Callan kisses me, and I just stand there, going along with it because Callan seems happy and I don’t want to change that yet. His hand shifts between us, secretly brushing my belly, secretly trying to say hello to our baby. Our baby that’s no longer there.
Callan produces a pen from behind his ear and holds it out to me. “I need some fresh ink,” he says, pulling back the sleeve of his hoody, exposing his arm. I’ve missed my Coralie Taylor original artwork.”
“Callan, can we just—”
He waggles the pen in front of my face, grinning angelically. “Please?”
I take the pen from him, not really seeing it or the small, hurried etch I create on his wrist of a bird. A bluebird to be precise. I’m three seconds away from bursting into tears. Callan must see it on my face.
“Whoa…whoa, what the hell, Coralie. What’s wrong?” Callan’s face falls, and for a moment I think he’s figured it out, that I’m no longer pregnant. But then he says, “Oh shit. You already know, don’t you? You’ve already seen it?” and I know he doesn’t have a clue.
“Seen what?”