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“She doesn’t want you dead. She loves you.” Rick smiles back at me before pressing the gun deeper into my temple. “And that’s the beauty of love and the horror of it too,” he points out.
“Let him shoot me… I’d rather be dead.” I flick my eyes back to Beth, begging her to listen to me.
Rick keeps his eyes on me as leans his mouth into Beth's ear
“Take his cock and put it in your mouth, sweetheart,” he whispers.
“And did she?” Lydia's voice draws me back to the moment, her eyes wide and full of horror as she stares back at me.
“She did,” I admit, hanging my head in shame and wishing my answer could be different.
“None of that was your fault. You can’t seriously blame yourself for it.” She shakes her head as she tries to take everything in and comfort me at the same time.
“I thought I was sick.”
“Screwy,” Lydia goes to pull her hand away, but I crush her in my palm so she can’t.
“I’m not going anywhere. I want to be closer,” she assures me, and I don’t understand how she could feel that way, but I release her hand and watch in amazement as she shifts her body nearer to mine, resting her head on my shoulder.
“After Rick cut me free and sent us to our rooms. Beth wanted to talk about it. But I just wanted to blank it all out. I couldn’t face it. I couldn’t go back there. I hated her for committing me to that fucking memory. I’d meant what I’d said–I’d rather be dead. I was mean to her. I let her know how angry I was, and two days later, she cut herself open and bled out on our bathroom floor.”
“Screwy,” Lydia's hand trembles as she reaches it up and places it on my cheek. My tears slide through her fingers as I kiss the inside of her palm. Grateful that she’s still with me.
“It wasn’t your fault. You were his victim too.”
“It was all my fault. I should have spoken up before instead of being scared. I should have forced him to blow my brains out, or at least the next day, when she tried to talk to me about it, I should have listened. I just couldn’t look at her.” I shake my head in shame when I think back to what a coward I was.
“That bastard had me believing I was as sick as he was. Then Squealer found the pills in the bathroom cabinet. Of course, to him, it was a big joke, the first time he’d laughed since we buried Beth. He thought it was hilarious that big, scary Rick couldn’t get his dick hard. He wanted to try one out and made me do it with him. And that’s when I realized what Rick had been doing to me.”
“He drugged you. With what?” Lydia stares at me in shock.
“There’s a pill a man can take if he struggles to get it hard. You imagine how that would work on a hormonal teenage boy. I knew straight away that he’d done it to weaken me. To buy my silence and make me think I was a disgrace. And it fucking worked.
Mom was never around to cook. Rick always had this thing about us sitting around the table together. He even used to make us say grace before we ate. It would have been easy enough for him to crush it up and put it in my food. I was always the last to be served. I just used to figure it was his way of belittling me.”
“What happened after?”
“Something inside of me snapped. I flipped, and I found the strength of fifty men inside me. I killed the man with my bare hands out in our yard, with my mama and my brother watching. Then I locked up everything that happened inside my head to protect them from the truth. It didn’t matter that he was dead. Beth still haunted me, though. She blamed me because I was a coward, and I let all those bad things happen to her.
I’m the real reason she’s dead, and I’ve been trying to prove to her every day since that I’m not that person anymore.”
“And you’ve never told Squealer about this?” Lydia asks, with so much pity in her tone.
“I thought about it. That night I first saw it happening. But Beth begged me not to. She knew as well as I did that Squealer would react. He’s always been so self-assured, he’d have tried killing Rick, and he’d have gotten himself hurt.”
“And since?” she asks.
“Squealer wouldn’t be Squealer no more if I shared it with him. He’d wanna take on some of the burdens. He’d beat himself up for not seeing the signs. All the things my brother’s done to protect me over the years, this is the least I can offer him. He never finds out.” I make that clear to her because it’s non-negotiable.
“My heart hurts for you, Screwy.” Lydia wraps both her arms around my waist and clutches my body. I breathe her in, confused at how she can still want to be anywhere near me. It only goes to show what a good person she is.
“So what’s this?” she picks up the tin from the floor and holds it in her hand.
“After I killed Rick, they took me to an asylum, like I told you. Squealer felt he had to look out for me, so he did shit to get himself locked up, too.
I stopped talking. Figured I couldn't speak out to anyone when it was important, so there was no point in me having a fucking voice after.
I had physicists and doctors try to pick at my head, but I didn’t let them in. I couldn’t because what happened had to die with Beth.
