They tell me it will heal a lot, and by the time I am a grown up, it'll be a line, not red and swollen like it is now. But all I can imagine is what the kids will say when they see me. At least I was normal on the outside before.
There's a knock on the door. Mom comes rushing in and puts her finger up to her lips. She closes my bedroom door so it doesn't make a sound. She crouches as she walks past the window and over to a chair beside my bed. She's pale and sweaty and her eyes are always moving around, searching for something.
When I got home last week, a bunch of people came over with food: cakes, pies, casseroles. I was excited to have all these sweets. But mom kept inspecting them all. She said she found things like bugs, and poison and that she wouldn't let anyone hurt me ever again. That we can't trust our neighbors anymore. They tried to kill me once and she won't let it happen again.
The doorbell rings again and mom jumps in her seat, like someone just set a firecracker off next to her.
“Mom, why d-d-do you think they want to hurt m-me?”
“Because you're going to be someone special when you grow up and they are trying to kill you before that happens,” she whispers, rubbing my hair away from my forehead. “I finally understood. W-w-when I saw you at the hospital…” her voice starts to shake. Sometimes when people cry, they sound the way I always do. “All the tubes and you were so still…” Her tears fall onto my bed sheets. “I understood. The teasing. The way they lured you out there. It was a set up.”
It's easy to believe what she's telling me. That they don't want me because I am better than them. That I will be famous one day. That this was a way to take me down, the way that The Joker is always trying to take down Batman.
“I'm going to protect you. I won't leave your side again. No more trips to the hospital for me. They know I know. And they are trying to make me forget so that I won't protect you.”
The knocking and ringing stops. She turns to the window and peeps through the shades.
“See? Someone left something at the door. I'm going to get it and inspect it. They keep trying to sneak in poisons.”
“But ma. D-d-dad is a cop. He arrr-ested the man who r-ran me over.”
She smiles sweetly, grabbing my hand in hers. “Oh my little Samuel. That's just his job. Your daddy is one of them too.”
I don't startle anymore when I wake up and find Night sitting in the corner of the room, watching me in silence. This time, it's late, the skylight above still black from the night sky. Usually I sleep through his entrance. He can be silent when he wants, but tonight, I am restless. Once I see his silhouette, watching me, I can't even entertain going back to sleep.
It's been weeks since he chased me through the black woods, tackled me to the mud, and attacked me. Weeks since he tenderly carried me back to the cabin, showered me, and then made the pain he caused go away on the wet shower floor. That hasn't happened again. No, the sex has been rough, as if he's trying to erase that night from my memory. As usual, my compliance is rewarded—with orgasms, food, clean clothes, fresh water. I never quite know what is coming my way…a knife held against my throat, being bound or blindfolded, gagged, or sometimes it's just raw. He comes in and he takes, he gives, and he leaves.
If you had asked me months ago, would I be used to anything like this, I would have laughed at the notion. Or maybe even recoiled in horror. But no, this is my life. I have come to terms with it.
You will like this he once said to me. Like isn't a word for this. This is not buttered toast or a cup of tea. You don't like this, you breathe it. It lives and grows in you. You hate it or you pine for it so strongly that, without it, you find yourself wanting to pull out each and every hair at the root, one by one.
When he misses a day or two, I get anxious. So anxious I find it hard to breathe, and I worry that he won't come back or that I have done something to upset him and awaken the rage he showed me that night. He is my only person now. So I cling to his presence desperately, even if I know the second the opportunity arises, I will unlock the old Vesper out of her dungeon and I will run.
He still hasn't shown me his face. I find it insulting, that after all I have given him, he can't show me that respect.
Night knows I am awake, but he does nothing. He doesn't move or utter a sound. I wonder if I've disrupted this routine of his. If he wanted me awake he would have awoken me. So I decide, at my own peril, that if he is going to intrude on my sleep, I will intrude on his Vesper-watching time.
“Why do you do that? Watch me?” I ask, still on my back, gazing up at the skylight. “Oh, that's right, you don't talk to me. Well, you do, but only when you want to fuck or boss me around,” I snipe cavalierly.