Sweet Dreams-32 The first cut is the Deepest.

Chapter 32

……………It was cold and I could see my breath. Everything was just freezing in the place. There were drafts through the whole place because we lived in an old building that was in a bad place that no building checker from the city would like to go and we were too far out of the way for them to really care.

Someone paid someone to keep it from being condemned and people like me and Momma and the stepshit got to live here. Him and her got a warmer room because they got like blankets and stuff that they stuck up over the drafty places and if I even asked for more I’d get a slap from either of them.

It never mattered what I ever wanted.

All I was to Cliff was a stupid little cunt.

I didn’t matter only Cliff mattered then his booze and drugs and Momma somewhere and there was a whole list of things that he’d likely have ahead of me.

There was cracks in the bricks that the place was made of, there was holes in the plaster and one of my windows was cracked enough that cold air kept getting inside…not that it made much of a difference because the windows were like ancient and single pane stuff so…in Detroit in February there is this moisture and chill that comes in off the lakes that sinks right into your bones when it mixed with that deep cold that blows in from the northern mid-west.

Everything hurts…I try to keep moving under my crappy blankets but it only sort of helps. I’m sleeping in a mattress on the floor so it’s damp too. I’m nine, nine and I shouldn’t be so cold that it feels like my fingers and toes are going to like freeze and crack or something…even in my lower back there’s this ache and because I’m that cold.

Every time that happens I get sick afterwards.

Momma’s out dancing she’s got a job at the Croft which is this bar out further from us nestled out where some of the old smelter factories were making steel and stuff.

So it’s just me and him.

And after awhile I’m so cold I’m crying.

“Hey…what are you crying about?”

“Nothin…” (Sniffle.)

“Don’t fucking lie to me, what are you crying about?”

(Sniffle.) “I’m c..cold…”

“Alright come on I’ll warm you up.”

I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t because my brain’s yellin Danger! Danger! But I’m so cold it hurts.

And I’m so tired of hurting ‘cause of all the other stuff.

(Sniffle.) “’Kay..”

Cliff helps me up and he has my hand and takes me to his and Momma’s room. It smells like sex, old sex and cigarettes and cigarette butts which are kinda worse especially since he’s been rolling his smokes lately from smoke butts. There’s that menthol-rubber-burned sugar smell of meth lingering and body odour only masked in the slightest way by the cheap port he’s been drinking…not like cooking wine but like that cheap in a plastic bottle whino stuff.

He lifts me and sort of pushes me up onto the bed and its warm and I can’t help but to snuggle into the foulness just for the heat, I need the heat and I can’t help but to cry as his hand just reaches out and he pulls my panties off.

“No…Cliff…no…” I sob.

SLAPP!

“Don’t you ever tell me No!”

He’s on me then, over me and I’m too small and he’s holding me down by his body weight and he kisses me with that meth-smoke-wine mouth and pipe rotting teeth…I gag but he slaps me out of gagging.

“Shut up, shut up you little slut…I’ll give you something to really cry about instead of what you really want…”

“No..”

SLAPP!

My head hits the head board and I see stars and everything is dimming in and out until I feel Cliff stick his hand between my legs and inside of me…I sort of just go limp and mewl from the hit and the helplessness…

“There we are…tight…so…tight, you’ve got a tight little pussy like your Momma used to…yeah…yeah…yeah…”

He move and shucks his clothes and he’s back on my again and he’s pushing my legs open and I squirm or try to but every time I do it makes my head swim and he puts the head of his guy thing into me and I scream…he shoves his underwear into my mouth and all I can tasted and smell is leftover sex stain, pee and skidmark…then he shoves into me…

“Oh yeah momma’s little girl…”

…………………………………… I wake screaming and I’m trying to breathe but there’s something on my face and on me and I don’t know where I am and I thrash wildly trying to get free.

“Lemme go! Lemme go!.....Fucking LET ME GO!”

Someone grabs me and I lash out fists and feet and I’m being held down and I’m fighting that and I can’t breathe right and I swear, I fucking swear I can still taste his underwear…and I gag…and gag and then whatever is in my stomach comes up in a rush and I’m hurling my guts up and it hurts…of god it hurts.

There’s two nurses there holding me and Adam’s there with a couple of cuts to his face and a welt on his cheek. He’s got this wild look like all this happened really suddenly and it’s dark in the room and night time I think…he’s holding the trash can that I’m barfing into.

I’m panting and it’s still hard to breathe and I realize that there’s a plastic thingy and bandages on my face over my nose.

I …I’m okay…I’m safe…

“Nightmare?” He asks.

(Spit.) “Yeah…I was home…and I was nine…And I was a girl this time…”

“Fuck.” There that sort of flat dark tone like he just gets it. But the nurses still sort of looked at him.

“Yeah…” It’s kind of hollow and really tired…God my heart is so tired sometimes.

“You going to be okay?”

“Dunno…sometimes it doesn’t feel like I’ll ever be okay.”

“Yeah…” he get’s up. And looks at the nurses. “Can you go to the family room and go get my son.”

“She really needs to rest sir.”

“She just had a fucking PTSD rape dream okay…you think you’d be ready to sleep after that?....................go get Alex…please.” He was right on the edge of that vengeful angry Adam but he toned it down but that “please” came through clenched teeth.

Both the nurses leave pretty fast and he sit’s on the edge of my bed and reaches over and gives me his coffee. “It’s cold and it’s black…”

“And it’ll work to get the taste out of my mouth.”

“Bad…”

“Just like real life…actually it had a lot of my real life in it.”

“Last I heard they left the state.”

“Had investigators hired to look for them?”

“Of course…they should pay for what they did to you.”

“Not everyone gets justice Adam you know that.”

“I know that’s why I’m a lawyer.”

“But that’s not the kind of law that you practice.”

“I did.”

“What happened?”

“Long story, besides I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Too bad I need the distraction.”

“Fuck… (Sigh)…” he looks at me and Alex comes in. “Dad…what happened to you?”

“Hunter’s got a good right and don’t let her hit you while she’s got her rings on.” He get’s up but I hold onto a couple of fingers. “What?”

“We finish my bedtime story later?”

“Alex take care of your girlfriend I need a smoke.”

I watch him go with that sort of saved by the bell kind of thing going on. I really wanted to hear more about this and get a better handle on the man but I’m really glad that Alex is here. I make room for him on the bed.

“So…the nurse said you had a nightmare?”

“Yeah I was little and I was me without my extra bits…and well Cliff was Cliff.”

“I ever meet him I’m going to kill him.”

“No…no you’re not…”

“Why…after what he put you through why shouldn’t I?”

“Because I want you to be a better man than that.”

“Okay…”

“Besides…”

“Besides?”

“He’s already got two strikes and he’s both skipped out on his parole officer and he’s likely done something by now that when they catch him he’s gone for good this time…Your Dad’s pretty sure him and Mom are out of the state which isn’t a surprise I’m just hoping their in a state where they still have the death penalty.”

“There’s a cheery thought.”

“Not really but holding me would go a long way towards that.”

“You’re still shaking…gimme a sec?”

“Okay…”

I’m sitting there alone and it’s…it’s bad…just now being alone…after all of this…it’s stupid, I mean there’s people around the place and he’ll be right back but it’s just like…you know when I talk about when those feelings jump you and drag you down?

It’s like they’re lurking in the shadows.

I’ve got tears starting to run down my face when Alex comes back and he wasn’t that long. He’s go my book bag and his and a blanket shoved under one arm and a Styrofoam cup in the other and he looks at me.

“Hey…whoa…it’s okay…I’m right here.”

“It’s not okay…ow… (Tried to sniffle, can’t.)…I feel so broken Alex…”

He set the drink down on the tray stand thing and the bags on the foot of the bed and he get’s up beside me on the bed and wraps me up in fresh heated clean hospital linen and pulls me into his arms.

“Oh…fu..Alex…” I sob it but it’s a mix of pain and a good sob because he got it. He really got it and he knows the things that are…him, his hugs…that way he just seems to make himself into my armor against those black dogs chasing me down. The clean sheet…the heat…

He just nods and he holds me and rocks me gently and it’s a few long minutes maybe more before I shake and cry these things out of myself and I look at him and I must be a total mess with the stuff on my face, post puking, sweaty and all that stuff and he stares back at me and he actually gives me one of his melt me smiles…not the Alex kind of sort of smirk smile like his smiles had made a mad dash to the surface of his personality but the other one…that only for you, you’re amazing and you’re special smile that is still a small smile but that’s because it’s shy.

It’s that amazing cute little boy before the stuff that happened looking at you from around the corner and smiling at you.

I feel changed by that you know…I feel like that little girl liking that little boy with a flower in her hand.

And looking like this, after that nightmare….

He kisses me really carefully and really gently and I feel safe… yeah that safe all over again and I feel treasured and I feel loved…god I feel love in that just for me, it could only be for me loved kind of way and it’s like the best feeling and the best medication in the world knowing that there’s someone there with that love that we’re all wanting…

Aching for and scared to believe in.

Then he smiles that smile again and it just sinks into my heart and he reaches for our bags and takes out his laptop and set’s it up.

“I figured sleep was going to be a no go so I thought we could watch a movie?”

“Okay…it’s not like I’ve seen many yet.”

“Yeah I love that about you actually.”

“I love that you can find things to love about me…”

“Of course I can….” He passes me the Styrofoam cup and its hot chocolate and it’s the powdered stuff but it’s still hot chocolate he knows me that well…. “Hunter…the best stuff comes from the broken things…mosaics, collages, the prize in the bottom of the cereal boxes…there’s such thing as treasure without the sunken ship…there’s not chocolate happening to peanut butter…You are exactly who you are as you are no matter what…You’re the girl I fell in love with right there in the afternoon sunshine on that back of that bus.”

“But that was the day that we met.” I’m smiling and my heart is doing these great big huge aching love thumps.

“Yeah, it was love at first sight.”

“Love at first sight?”

“Yeah…we’re here aren’t we.?”

I look at him and it’s just true…here in the hospital room I can sort of see him when we met too just as clear as can be in my mind and even if I had no idea…it’s true…I fell for him then…honestly I really do.

I kiss his gently, softly but a little harder than he kissed me.

“I’m so glad that your chocolate crashed into my peanut butter.”

God I love making him smile.