Don't Speak: Chapter Seven

Damien’s cracked hands gripped tightly around my arms. The tip of his fingers dug into my flesh and the thick nails pierced the skin’s fragile surface. His eyes weren't looking at me; instead, they were steadily focused on the floor tiles and darted back and forth. Solid green tiles lined the trailer; they were a disgusting green too, like something you would throw-up. I followed his eyes movements and noticed a small cockroach zipping around his feet.

When I saw the poor creature I closed my eyes, the crunch of his hard shell followed as well as the sappy gooey uplift of Damien’s foot. My eyelashes flickered open to see Damien’s eyes on me now, I was his next victim; and we both knew he could squash me just as easily as the cockroach.

“I leave you alone for two weeks, and this is what you become?” He snapped. His gripped tightened after each emphasise and I saw the skin bruise and bleed under his nails. The week flashes by me, the tears, the Soap Operas, the blankets. When had I last eaten? He shook me furiously.

“Listen to me Beth! Are you all there?” He screamed and I nodded as my eyes rolled to the back of my head. “You’re coming to school today, got it? Your freedom is gone. You obviously can’t handle that much responsibility.”

The car ride to school was a lot like the others, quiet and awkward. The car smelled cleaner then it usually did, kind of like an air freshening aerosol and I noticed a major lack of crushed pop cans on the trucks carpeted floor. I looked in the back seat and immediately noticed a few pairs of clothes scattered across the back seat and then a bright orange thong wrapped around a pair of jeans.

"I can understand how someone could lose their underwear, but their pants too?" I asked solemnly.

"Don't start this Beth." And with that our conversation was over. I looked forward holding the trucks door handle.

I started thinking about what had happened before the last few weeks. Daniel and I were going to drive up to Saskatoon, but I got scared. But of what? The future? Finally being able to run from my current life? It’s not even like I would have been running, I would have just been taking a break. My eyes darted to Damien and around the truck again. Taking a break from all this.

“Damien?” I asked, I reached over and grabbed his forearm. For comfort? I’m not sure. Damien’s arm recoiled from my touch, as he gasped. I jumped back and pressed myself against the side of the truck.

“Watch it Beth.” Damien cried, yet he was calm. I understood right away why he jumped the way he did and my fear left me so I sat normally in my seat. I felt guilty about what I did; I should have paid attention. I quickly glanced over at his forearm where I had grabbed, and noticed a large purpling bruise with deep scratch marked branding into his light skin.

Year’s before in grade 7, was when I first took any recognition to Damien, back then I had my small group of friends. A bunch of girl’s that are now known as the doorknobs, not just because they are as smart as one, but also because of that saying when a girl is called a doorknob “everyone has had a turn.” Back then though we were merely just a group of girls trying not get too much attention or be squashed by the social hierarchy of the high school system. Our school is grade 7 to 12, so we were in the same school that we’re in now. We spent most of our time up in the green house that on the roof, hiding ourselves among the rows of table that nurse the flowering plants, people never came up here unless it was for class projects or during class time when the teacher would haul the lot of us up here. So it was kind of our escape away from the non-stop torture that grade sevens had to endure from the older grades.

We were sitting under a table of genetically modified Marigolds, eating our lunches and talking about boys, when Damien was brought up. I knew who he was because he had been in my class since kindergarten, and I had photography with him that year. He hung out with Bret and Brandon so I had never talked to him before, and in elementary it was all about cooties, so boys and girls never really talked much then.

All the girls in my group adored Damien, they thought he was so hot, and he was single so they were all coming up with techniques to talk to him without seeming desperate.

“I heard after school he goes over to the diner.” Cleo said, she had actually ended up dating him for a couple months in grade 7, but he broke up with her because she was to needy. I sat quietly with the girls. When I was 12, boys made no sense to me and I was sure I would never date or kiss a guy, when all these girls wanted to do was kiss the boys at school.

“I would never date him, have you heard of his family life?” Hailey added, all the girls wanted Damien except Hailey. She wanted the grade ten’s, and she wouldn’t settle for anything less. All the girls nodded and went quiet at that statement. They all knew about his past, and sadly I was too far out of the loop to know about it.

“What about his family life?” I piped in. All eyes landed on me.

“You don’t know?” Hailey asked rudely, I shook my head, and took another bite of left-over pizza from my lunch. “His dad’s a drunk and beats him when he gets really drunk. His mom doesn’t do anything to stop him either, she just hides in the bathroom and screams, and the police can’t do anything about it because he lives outside of town limits and the county police could care less.”

I shrunk back against the wall and right beside a cactus plant. I didn’t know that it was that bad. Our group of friends split up a few months after that because Cleo started going out with Damien and the others got jealous, and even though I never threatened any of them surrounding him at the time, I was an enemy in the group as well, so I started eating lunch alone. None of them would still go up to the green house, so I had it all to myself.

Damien turned into the parking lot, and his wheels screeched as we went over the speed bump. Damien was really strong, well-built and the captain of our football team, but compared to his dad, he was a scrawny little boy. We parked and Damien turned around to get his stuff from the back seat, he flinched slightly from the pain in his arm.

"Damien stop." I opened my backpack pulling out a little first aid kit I carried with me.

"Beth that's not necessary." He rebutted.

"Too bad. Sit down and deal with it." I shot back. He did as I said. I cleaned off the wound with an alcohol swab, he cringed but stayed relatively quiet. I pulled an ice cube out of my water bottled, wrapping it in medical wrap and then around his arm.

He glanced over at me, and he gave me a faint smile. These were on of the few moments I actually felt okay with him, this unique feeling of equality and sense of belonging. That's what he offered me, to belong somewhere. I smiled back, this was the feeling I had first gotten around him, the feeling that I was genuinely loved.

That feeling left the moment he opened my car door, and forced a kiss against my lips.

Damien pressed a deep loving kiss against my mouth, and used his tongue to pry open my teeth. I tried to move away, but nothing would work, so I gave into the kiss allowing him to fully take control of my lips, my mouth, my tongue. It was sincerely a wonderful kiss, but all I kept thinking about was his hands, and how I held them in mine, he was trying to pursue them elsewhere.

“Damien. Beth.” I heard from outside the car, Damien pulled away and I saw Daniel leaning against the school brick wall. Daniel wore a light grey t-shirt with a few buttons down the front from the collar. I hadn’t noticed before, but he had two studs in his snake bite piercing instead of the rings. How long had he been there? Did he think I liked the kiss? Did he see me struggling? From Daniel’s eyes, I saw sorrow. He must have thought the kiss was real, for Damien as well as me. Maybe it was for Damien, but I would give up ever being allowed to kiss again, just to be able to hold Daniel’s hand beside the cliffs one more time.

“Good to see you Dan,” Damien exclaimed, I could tell by his tone of voice he wished he wasn’t here. He turned to face Daniel pulling me out of the truck and locking it with the key. Daniel walked up to us and they start talking about the football game that will be in Saskatoon this coming weekend. I pulled my backpack over my shoulder and started to walk away, but I feel a hand grabbed my shoulder. I turn around and notice it wasn’t Damien who tried to stop me. It was Daniel.

If I’m not with you Beth, Daniel will be with you. I can’t trust you alone anymore… Damien’s voice rang in my head as Daniel escorted me into the library. Who did Daniel think he was? Telling me I could and couldn’t do, holding me back as I tried to leave the parking lot. My glare was passionately burrowing deep into his soul, trying to figure him out. One minute he is asking me why I’m even with Damien and trying to get me to practically run away with him after only a day of knowing him and now, now he has because one of Damien’s little slaves. What about this morning, when he had given me that look of love and passion? Had that meant anything?

The library is a grand room, and quite adequately lit. It has a high-ceiling, and the walls are splashed with a dark crimson red. The walls are obscured entirely by floor to ceiling bookshelves, which are broken up by thin, rosy pink curtains on the tall skinny windows. The library was donated by one of the richer families in town who loves books. There are a few families in Winter that founded the place, and are rich off of old money. Then there are people like me, who just have no money, period.

“I was not expecting this…” Daniel exclaimed.

“Just because we are a small crippled town, doesn’t mean we have no class” I hissed. Daniel gave me a questioning look, I rolled my eyes and sat down at the nearest studying table. Both Daniel and I had our spares first thing this morning so he was “accompanying” me.

Don’t think of it as me punishing you dear; think of it as me being aware of your safety. With this system you can’t hurt yourself like you did before. No matter what Damien tried to convince me of, I knew he was punishing me, and for nothing in the least. I opened my novel study book and started reading.

“I’m doing this for you. If I act like Damien’s friend and accomplice, you will get your freedom when you’re around me. I’m trying to help you Beth.” Daniel said. I wanted to believe him; I just couldn’t bring myself to. If I did believe him that would mean I’d have to trust him, and that was a whole other thing I didn’t want to get into.

I dug myself deeper into the book. I didn’t want to talk about it; if I did I would fall into whatever trap he was lying out. It had to be a trap; all guys had some kind of angle. Right? I heard him sigh deeply and sink against the back of his chair closing his eyes. We sat like that for a while; I finished the next chapter in the book, then another and another.

“Why do you care Daniel?” I blurted out. “Why do you even care about me?” He looked up surprised. Had I really just said that to him? He sat up straight in his chair and looked eyes with me.

“It may not mean a lot coming from a guy you just met, but Elizabeth, who you are now seems to me to be someone amazing. You’re gorgeous and nice, fun to talk to and though it may take a while you seem to be a very loving person, and I want to get to know that person wholeheartedly.” This struck me deep, my heart ached, and I didn’t know how to respond. He cared for me that much, did he really? I thought back to Damien; he loved me, but he used brute force to make me love him back, a tactic that didn’t work but I left him thinking it did because I was scared of the consequences.

My thoughts were interrupted by the looked that Daniel gave. His gazed shoot across the library, he looked scared, he looked ready to run. I followed his gaze and my eyes landed on a misplaced girl with fiery red curls, she was wearing a cute flowery top, brand name jeans, and pink high heels. A little red purse covered in little jewels and bedazzlements hung loosely on her shoulder, she looked around the room, her bright blue eyes landing on Daniel, she raised her perfectly manicured hand and waved excitedly.

“Danny!” she exclaimed.