Page 10 of As the Rain Falls
Dragging me, my arms, my legs, as if assessing the damage.She cried hard, showing me to my father.
“What do we do now?”
It all got blurry afterwards.
Broken glasses, ugly threats.
Loud cursing, and doors being slammed.
Take her upstair!
Clean her up!
Get in the car!
She didn’t fight me off!
I don’t want to go!
The next part I remember well.
Cold water hit my back, the pressure strong enough to muffle the choked-up sound I made when I found my reflection in the mirror. I saw limbs everywhere, contorted and twisted around me. I flinched, trying to hide myself because I felt like I was being watched.
My mother started scrubbing. She scrubbed my body clean, let the blood slip down the drain, and I sobbed as she did it.
“Mommy?”
“Shush.” She pressed her hand over my mouth. “Don’t cry. It’s okay.”
It wasn’t.
It wasn’t okay.
“My body.” I swallowed hard, tasting the tears on my tongue. “It hurts so bad.”
“Shh, Cassandra. Don’t say anything.”
More time passed.
I held my towel over my shoulders as we walked back to the room. A cold breeze blew, making the seashells decorations hanging over my bed spin. I stood up again and walked closer to the window, planning to close it and get dressed. Lucia’s light had been glitching all along.
“Get dressed, Cassandra.”
Mom changed the bedsheets, hiding the dirty ones inside an old suitcase that she dragged back downstairs. I didn’t know where my father and Nathaniel were anymore, but they certainly weren’t home.
“What are we going to do?” I asked mom after she came back. I knew things could be done. People could be called. Hospitals could be driven to. “He really hurt me, mommy.”
Her green eyes, much like his and mine, seemed to carry some sort of hopelessness I hadn’t seen there before. She was pale, sickeningly so, and her hands were cold when they pressed against my cheek.
“Nathaniel is such a good brother. I don’t want you to hate him.”
I blinked hard.
“I promise, he is,” she insisted. “He loves you so much, Cassandra.”
“Are we not calling the police?”
Silence.
