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“Turn. Goddamn retard, you fucked up my life, I said turn!” And suddenly I’m without a shirt, and my back is on fire, the whistling of the belt falling on me again and again threatening to split my head. “You’re a waste of money, a waste of space.” Words, punctuated by the lashes of the belt, gouging into my back, opening lines of fire. “A burden, that’s what you are. Dead weight. Didn’t have to deal with this in the army. Real men there. So take it like a man and shut the fuck up.”
The pain is eating at me like acid, spreading from my back to my chest to my skull, shattering me piece by piece. “Please, Dad, please...”
And the dark thickens like molasses, the space shifts and I’m lying down, faces bent over me, sneering and laughing, and saying “Give up, Ross, just give the hell up...”
But something soft penetrates the blackness, a silken touch on my cheek, so gentle it pierces the memory, or the dream, and brings me back to the present. I blink, wincing at the golden afternoon light slipping through the trees, and then blink again at the face leaning over me.
“Luna,” I mumble stupidly. What the hell?
I thought I’d woken up but maybe I’m still dreaming.
Have to be, because why would she be here? And there’s a smell of food, so strong my stomach grumbles angrily. My body’s worse than Buddy once it’s decided it needs sustenance, even though I’m pretty fucking sure I stopped growing. Dad always said I was eating him out of house and home, and...
“Hey, Ross,” dream-girl says, still leaning over me. “Sorry I woke you up. You were mumbling in your sleep, and I thought...”
“What?”
A shrug. “You looked like you were having a nightmare.”
Her words drop like pebbles in the night, settle. She straightens and I sit up. “You’re really here.”
Her laughter is a bright spark, her teeth a flash of white. “Yeah. What are you still doing out here?”
I glance at the house door and shiver. No, I really don’t wanna go inside, not even feeling as shitty as I am.
The movement makes me realize that the pain in my body is real, as much as the girl, spreading from my side to my back and chest. No wonder I dreamed of dad. He and pain are bound together, one and the same, a wound that won’t heal.
“Ross.” She moves away, then returns, pulling an old stool from under the window and sits beside me, a covered plate in her hand. She also has a plastic bottle, wet with condensation, and a plastic sheet of pills. “Here.”
“What’s that?” I’m goddamn dizzy, that’s the goddamn truth, and sitting up makes it worse, so I lay back, struggling to hide it.
“Figured you could use some dinner,” she says, “some painkillers... and some Gatorade. I thought it would do you good, since you won’t go to the docs.”
I’m staring at her, back to thinking I’m dreaming, or else hallucinating. “What?”
“Here. Brought you a spoon, too. Dig in, it’s warm.”
When she places the bowl in my lap, automatically I reach for it, its warmth seeping into my hands. Damn she’s right. It’s growing cold out here, and the food smells great. I stuff my face before I manage to formulate the question that’s on the tip of my tongue.
She’s quiet while I inhale her dad’s famous stew, and it’s damn good, that’s for sure, peppery and thick with potatoes and carrots and soft chunks of meat. After I’m done, just short of licking the bowl clean, wordlessly she passes me the pills and the bottle, and though the drink tastes like candy shit, it feels good going down my parched throat.
I burp, stifling it too late.
“Good to know you haven’t suddenly acquired manners,” she mutters, but she shoots me a quick grin that unsettles me even more.
Okay, what the fuck is going on? I can’t take this shit anymore. “Why are you doing this?”
“You didn’t like the stew?”
“I did, it’s good, I...” Fuck. I lift the empty bottle in one hand, the empty bowl in the other and dunno if to give them back or smash them against the trees surrounding the house. “I don’t understand.”
You. I don’t understand you.
She sure doesn’t attempt to enlighten me, either. She stays sitting by my side, a mysterious, sexy little sphinx full of riddles and magic, drawing me to her even as I struggle to understand what’s going on in her cute head.
We sit in silence, the river burbling along, the trees whispering, birds fluttering on the branches. The house groans as it settles into the night, wood contracting and furniture shifting. The house is haunted, I swear. Maybe by my mom. Maybe it’s dad’s angry ghost, wandering far from his bod
y.
