My eyelids are too heavy to open now, and I’m pushed and pulled, my legs moving like rubber. I feel the room spinning, but I can’t look. It’s all too much. Even the pain fades away. I can’t feel it even though I know it’s there.
I’m pushed, and I think I’m on the ground. Yes, I’m on the ground. The bathroom floor? I feel the cool tile under my legs, and I feel the moisture, and I know it’s blood. My cheek is wet. Am I crying?
“Please,” I whisper.
“It’s too late for that,” she tells me, and her mouth is so close to my ear. “You fucking cunt.”
The room spins again, and something about her mouth, her voice. How did I not see it before?
I whirl and freeze, and her face is contorted grotesquely, her mouth a slant.
She grins. “You recognize me, don’t you, Corinne?”
Her mouth.
Her eyes.
Her nose.
Her face.
They all flash in the streetlight, one by one by one, and in that moment, I...
Do.
I’m back on All Hallows Lane, and the night is dark, flickering with jack-o’-lanterns.
Lucy was there, but she was different. She was younger.
“You’re Jessica,” I whisper, and she nods, and in my head, she’s the little girl she used to be, with long pigtails and pink sneakers, and how did I not recognize her before?
She was playing with teacups in her room, pouring tea with a pot, as her father was raping me in the bedroom.
“I heard the screams,” she tells me now. “Only, I didn’t come. Because it was better you than me, Corinne.”
Everything flashes, the memories the memories the memories, and they all come together in a picture, then break apart, then fit together again.
I focus.
And it hurts.
I squeeze my eyes closed tighter, remembering what it had been like...his meaty hands all over me. He’d held me down, and I struggled so hard that I bit through my lip, but he had raped me anyway. He was stronger, bigger, more determined.
He’d entered me violently, taking my virginity in one terrible thrust. His onion breath was in my face, warm and hot. His fingers pinched my nipple hard, so hard. I screamed, but no one cared.
You cunt, he’d whispered in my ear as he raped me. You fucking cunt. You fucking cunt.
He’d kept repeating it, as though he was angry at me, as though I was getting what I deserved.
“He kept us at home so that he could ‘play’ with us whenever he wanted,” Lucy says. “You had to ruin everything. If you’d just shut up and played with him, he would’ve left you alone.”
“It wasn’t playing,” I say, and my words are slurred now. “It was raping.”
“Whatever you’d like to call it.” She shrugs.
“I didn’t do anything,” I whisper.
“That’s right,” she hisses. “You didn’t do anything. Until you killed him. And my mother came home with your father, and...well, you know what happened next.”
“I don’t,” I whisper. “I can’t remember.” I hold my hand to my head, and everything hurts.
“I think you truly don’t,” Lucy says, examining me. “You really are crazy. Your father killed my mother protecting you, you fucking cunt. Your pussy wasn’t worth it.”
“Oh my god,” I murmur, and the world caves in, and my memories flood me, weighing me down. I rock back and forth and fight to stay conscious.
I feel like I’m swimming through memories, and the water is murky and thick.
“Lucy,” I try to say, but she laughs again.
“Don’t even try. I’m not helping you.”
The craziness whirls and twirls, and I can’t focus anymore. I...I...I can’t.
I drop to the ground, and my legs won’t hold me. My hand is outstretched, and I can’t move it. My fingers feel like splinters of wood. My body feels like concrete. Then something cold is sliced across my wrist. It doesn’t hurt. I just feel the warmth pouring over my hand.
The blood.
I can’t feel.
I can’t feel.
I can’t feel.
“Lucy?” I think I say.
Nothing.
I hear Artie yelp sharply, then there’s silence.
Nothing.
My fingers are sticky and it’s my blood.
I feel cold, and I know I’m dying.
I’m dying.
This is what it’s like to die.
I fight onto my elbows and muster up every ounce of strength I have. I don’t know how I do it, but I pull myself over the bathroom threshold and into the bedroom. I feel for the phone on the nightstand, and the lamp falls on top of me.
But my fingers...they close around the phone. I dial 911.
I drop the phone.
I...
I...
I don’t know anything anymore.
Time doesn’t exist.
I wait and time runs into itself.
I’m on the floor.
I’m in the sky.
I’m floating.
Floating.
My hands and feet turn cold and faint, and my vision starts to fade. I think someone touches me.
Voices.
Sounds.
I babble something.
Does my tongue work?
It’s so black.
Black.
Black as night.
Brock is a shape beside me, with spots of light swirling around his head. I can’t see his face. I think he’s touching me, but I don’t know where. It’s like I’m behind a veil of fog and the only thing keeping me grounded is the pain.
“It’s a hemorrhage,” he tells someone. I don’t care who. Not anymore. I close my eyes because the lights are too much to bear.
The pain carries me on a wave. It goes higher, higher, higher...then crashes down, and I can’t take it. I can’t take it.
“Jude, I love you,” I say out loud. I think I say it out loud. But it’s not Jude’s voice that answers. It’s Brock.
“I’ll tell him, Corinne. He’s right outside.”
My belly rips apart from pain, and I cry out, and I’m moving, and my eyes are closed, squeezed tight.
That’s all I know.
45
Corrine
When I open my eyes, it’s bright, blindingly bright.
The pain is gone.
I look around the room.
Jude is sitting next to my hospital bed, and there is an IV in my arm.
“What...”
I’m confused because I’m not usually in hospital beds. I’m usually standing over them. I can’t remember.
I can’t remember anything.
I finger the gauze circling my wrist, concealing stitches. How did it get there?
“What happened?” I ask, and my voice is scratchy. “Why am I here?”
Jude’s face is grim. There is pain in his eyes, true deep pain, and I’m puzzled. I’ve never felt so disoriented. I was in my house, and now I’m not.
Now I’m here, and my husband is hesitant to tell me why.
“Jude?”
“You...” He clears his throat. “You tried to kill yourself, Co.”
My heart pounds, and I stare at my wrist, then at him.
“No,” I argue. “I didn’t.” I shake my head, but he’s so very grim, and I’m dizzy still.
“You did,” he says limply. “I got there just as the ambulance did, and you were in a pool of blood. Corinne, God. Why?”
He drops his head into his hands, and I’m stunned.
“I don’t... I don’t remember,” I say, and my words are wooden, and my heart is still. “I don’t think I would ever do that.”
But there are holes in my brain. More holes. Just like from that night so long ago, and I can’t remember what happened. I can’t remember then, and I can’t remember now. I’m so damaged, so very damaged.
“Oh my God,” I moan, and I feel sick. “I’m so broken, Jude. I’m so sorry.”
Jude swallows, and he’s got a shadow of stubble on his jaw, and his eyes are red and tired.
“If you didn’t want to have the baby, you could’ve told me. You didn’t have to...” He closes his eyes. “You didn’t have to attempt an abortion yourself. At home.”
My eyes fly back open. “Attempt an abortion? Jude, what are you saying?”
He sighs, and he grasps my hand, and I don’t know why he even wants to touch me. Not if what he’s saying is true.
“You took the abortion pill, Corinne. They found it in your bloodstream. You took it all at once.”
He keeps his eyes closed, and I try to breathe.
“No. I wouldn’t.” I shake my head, and Jude nods.
“You did.”
I’m stunned. I’m speechless. I don’t even... I can’t... I can’t form a cohesive thought.
I...
I...
“I wouldn’t,” I say again. “Jude, that doesn’t make sense. Why would I give myself an abortion and then try to kill myself? Why wouldn’t I just kill myself and save a step?”