“No, I do. I really do.” His whole body shook with the word really like he couldn’t contain himself. He pushed me against the car, and I felt his erection at my leg like an unwanted cockroach.
“I’ll give you the car,” I attempted to bargain.
“I’ll take the car,” he said. “Once I’m done with you.” He pressed his hands between my thighs and pushed his gross, unwashed face into my neck.
“I can get you money.” I tried to stall him, but he was deaf to me. He pawed at my dress and licked slimy trails on my cheek. I needed to come up with a plan—any plan. I couldn’t overpower him, so I needed a weapon. The jagged car key cut into my palm and I realized what I had to do.
With one motion, I thrust the key into his eye. He screamed as the sharp point made contact with the soft membrane. Blindly, wildly, he swiped for me, but I stabbed it again, and again. Blood poured from his face, drenching me. It splattered all over the pretty glitter on my dress, staining the remarkable blue color. He buckled over.
His shoe twisted in the fabric at the bottom of my dress as he fell, and I heard a sickening rip. The air licked at my now exposed leg. I shouldn’t have cared—the dress was covered in wine and blood and dirt—but it hurt. It felt like he’d taken a piece of me with him.
I glanced at his beat-up car and made another split-second decision. I bent down and sifted through his pockets until I found his keys, then stood up and took a final look at him. Body thrashing on the asphalt like a fish tossed into a bucket. Low, inhuman moans fading into the background of the abandoned gas station. Hands red, shiny, and dripping as he clutched his eye.
I ran to his car.
The tank in the asshole’s car was halfway full—better than what I had before, at least. I adjusted the rearview mirror, catching a look at myself.
Blood.
On my dress, on my face, drying on my hands. I waited to feel guilty like when I’d killed Big O, but it didn’t come.
In the mirror, the asshole was getting up, murder in his other eye. Swallowing, I reversed so quickly the smell of burning rubber filled the air. The man’s body got bigger and bigger in the rearview until he was almost up to the bumper, until I could almost hit him.
He put his hands up to his face just as I hit the brakes. I waited, watching him in the mirror. My heart beat fast, blood rushing through my body. He’d tried to rape me. I wanted him under my wheels, but I didn’t know the first thing about disposing of a body, and I’d been lucky Anteros had cleaned up my mess the first time.
I sped off in the opposite direction. I was invigorated, and this time I didn’t shy away from the feeling. I reveled in it. I let the power in darkness course through my veins.
Rip it off. Keep it off.
When I got to Jersey, the sun was just coming up, streaks of orange shooting across the cobalt sky. I parked the stolen car in the driveway. The rusted car door creaked and the sloping driveway was so steep that I had to push hard against gravity to keep it open.
I stumbled toward the door, officially out of energy. I was worried the bank would have foreclosed and sold it, but for the time being it was still the same shit hole I’d grown up in. Cracked steps, overgrown grass, peeling roof.
The key was under the mat where I’d left it and I shoved it into the lock, opening the door. I might have hated this place, might have resented having to return, but a few months before I’d been carted out the door a prisoner. Now I was returning covered in another man’s blood, free. I could at least acknowledge the power in that.
I shut the door behind me, key falling from my hand to the floor with a clang. I would lock it tomorrow, I told myself. No one would come to this house—there was only one person who had, and he wouldn’t come for me. I’d made it explicit he shouldn’t. I ignored the pang in my heart and stumbled through the rooms, barely able to stand, to see.
The smells were too familiar. It wasn’t nostalgia, it was trauma. Rancid, twisting in my brain like rotten meat.
Frankie get your fucking ass over here, you ungrateful cunt. I do so much for you and you can’t do one simple thing? Why isn’t my picture working? You’re just like your fucking useless mother. I have a game to watch—what the fuck are you crying for? WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU CRYING FOR?
I pushed past the TV room, trying to get to the closet. I couldn’t pass out in the TV room, in Papa’s room, where he’d sat da
y in, day out, barely moving to piss. I’d brought his meals to him. I’d brought his paper to him. I could still see the indent his ass made.
I stumbled to my closet, pulling open the small, irregularly shaped door that marked the entrance. I fell onto the mattress without any ceremony, feet sticking out into the hallway.
Later, when I had more energy, I would change clothes. I would shower. I would switch so I was lying vertically on the bed. Later, when I had a good amount of energy, I would do all of that.
I stared up at the wrinkly pictures still taped to my wall. The room was a time capsule, and I was inside it. Still sick, still me. I lifted my arm, studying the blood caked in the little hairs.
At least when it really hit me, I was home, really home. Because Lucia wasn’t home, Anteros wasn’t home.
This was home.
The blood on my clothes was another lie.
Nothing had changed. I would always be the sick Jersey girl sitting in her closet.