Nine
R I V E R
PAST 10 YEARS OLD
MY FAVORITE STUFFED ANIMAL , Rocky, is stuffed in my mouth. The dirty fur tastes sour on my tongue from being in so many filthy places. But I need him. I need to bite down on something to keep myself from sobbing. When I cry, it hurts. I think Billy broke my ribs again.
He said as long as my lungs aren’t punctured, I would be fine.
How does he know they’re not?
My ankle is sprained from when I tried to run away from him. It rolled because Billy grabbed me by the hair and pulled me back unexpectedly. My ankle gave out, along with the rest of me. My body, soul, and spirit… they’re all giving up on me.
Billy said if I leave the room, then I’ll be punished again.
My mom is in the next room over, her moaning and screaming a mixture of pleasure and pain.
Billy does the same things to me that he does to her, but I’ve never had the urge to make the noises she does. It doesn’t feel good. Billy said it’s supposed to, but all it does is hurt. It always hurts.
With him, and with the other men Mom brings home. When they’re done with her, they come to my room at night. They hurt me. They leave bruises and scratches, and even bite marks. The last guy left a scar from him biting my thigh so hard.
“Billy, please!” Mom shouts, the thin walls doing nothing to mask her terror. Flesh hitting flesh follows her desperate pleas, along with a loud grunt. Billy always makes that noise when he’s finished. I look forward to that noise because then he leaves me alone.
Billy pokes his head in the door a few minutes later, shirtless with his pants unbuttoned still.
A cigarette is hanging out of his mouth, the acrid smell filtering in my room. The walls are yellow from all the smoke. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the color white in my life. Not when anything pure is tainted in Shallow Hill.
“You still crying?” he asks, a brow raised as he sucks on his cigarette. Rocky is still in my mouth, but I don’t have the urge to cry anymore. Now, I just want to curl in a ball and hide.
I pull Rocky out of my mouth and toss him to the side, the once-blue dinosaur rolling across the dirty floor.
“No,” I mumble. The tears haven’t dried on my cheeks yet. Billy doesn’t like it when I lie, but he hates it more when I show weakness.
“You better not be,” he warns. “Your mother’s pussy is looser than the Grand fucking Canyon.
But I don’t have that problem with you.”
I learned what that term means a couple years ago. Billy loves to say the word when he’s making me dirty. He said it’s the best he ever had, but I don’t want to be the best. I want to be worse than Mom. If I was bigger than the ocean, maybe he wouldn’t want me.
“I’m not crying,” I say again. His threat was clear. He’d come dirty me up again if I keep crying. He always says that he’ll give me a reason to cry when I show weakness. And when he does, I want to die.
Billy walks in the room, crouches down to eye level and hands me the cigarette. I take it. If I don’t, he’ll put it out on my skin. Pride shines in his cold, dead eyes when I bring the stick to my mouth and inhale the smoke. I used to cough all the time when Billy made me smoke these, but I don’t anymore. I got better at it.
He urges to me to suck on it again. I do and get a little buzz. The pain doesn’t go away, but it seems a little more tolerable now.
“Will you help me to the bathroom?” I ask quietly. Asking Billy a favor never comes free. I know this, but the urge to go is starting to deepen.
He takes the cigarette back from and sticks it in his mouth. I study his lips, where they’re hugging the yellow filter. Where my lips just were. It makes me feel like he’s touching me.
“You’re too old to need help to the bathroom, River,” he admonishes.
My bottom lip threatens to tremble as the feeling gets worse. I really have to pee. But I don’t want to try and get up in front of Billy. He’ll see me struggle. He’ll see me cry. He’ll see me weak.
And then he’ll make those things worse.
“Okay, Billy. I don’t have to go that bad,” I lie. It’s a lie worth saying if it means he’ll believe me and leave. He looks down at me, a knowing smile tugging on his lips.
“Okay, River,” he repeats, his cold voice airy. “I hope you don’t, because you’re grounded.
You’re not allowed to come out of this room until morning. You hear me?”
I suck in a painful breath, but nod my head.
Billy gives me one last smile and then walks out of the room, closing and locking the door behind him. The locks always been on the outside, never the inside.
The second he leaves, I release myself. It’s cold in here, maybe it’ll keep me warm for the night.
