Page 40 of Pieces of Me

“I walked all the way home, bleedin’, cryin’. Took a hot shower and scrubbed the smell of him from my skin, the slickness from between my legs. Cried all night long. Could barely function for days. My mama was so worried about me, kept beggin’ me to tell her what was wrong.”

Rylan rocked her as she sobbed, “And when I finally broke down and told her what happened, she didn’t comfort me. No, she screamed at me, called me a whore, ripped the dog tags from around my neck, and said I shamed my dead daddy, that he was now cryin’ in heaven, his heart broken over what I did. She told me I was a filthy sinner, said I had no right to be in front of decent, God-fearin’ people. No more church choir, no more youth group, since I might corrupt all those innocent kids with my filth.”

Rylan pressed her face into his shoulder, and she wrapped her arms around him and clutched him. “Of course I ended up pregnant,” she whispered, her words muffled against Rylan’s shirt, “and my mama wouldn’t let me have an abortion. No way. She and some of her friends showed me horrible pictures of aborted babies, preached about it bein’ murder, said it was God’s will that I be punished for my sin by havin’ to bear my lover’s child in shame.

“And in the end, after they ‘saved my baby’s life’ and I had him, my mama kicked me out, said she never wanted to hear from me again, and that she’d pray for my salvation every day.”

Rylan closed his eyes. “What did you do?”

Heather pulled away from him and sprawled back out on the porch swing, her face twisted. “I took the baby and went to live with my friend Tanya. Both her mama and daddy were in prison, and she had two older brothers in their twenties. One of them came into my room one night and said unless I fucked him, I couldn’t stay. ‘You can’t stay here for free,’ he said. What choice did I have? I let him fuck me, and the other brother, too. They told everyone about it, and my reputation as a whore was set in stone from then on. I had a bastard kid as proof, so what could I say otherwise?”

Rylan sat beside her on the swing. She seemed as brittle as glass, as if the slightest movement would cause her to shatter.

“I hate Scott’s father with everythin’ I have. He ruined my life, all to win a bet. I hope he’s dead. I hope he suffered and died screaming. I hope he’s burnin’ in hell.” Her voice shook with fervor. “And if by some chance I ever see him again, I will kill him myself.”

She turned to Rylan. “When I look at my son, all I see every day, every fuckin’ minute of the day, is the man I hate enough to kill. Scott looks exactly like him, exactly. And I hate him.”

“It’s not fair to him, Heather―”

“I know it’s not fuckin’ fair. But he ruined my life, too. If it weren’t for him, my mama might have eventually forgiven me, or at least let me stay livin’ with her so I could finish high school. Because of him, I had to truly whore myself. I had to turn myself into what everyone said I was, until I didn’t even know how to be anythin’ else anymore.”

Rylan could argue how Scott wasn’t to blame, how he couldn’t help who he looked like, how dwelling on the past wouldn’t change anything, but as Heather gazed at him, he noticed with a sudden jolt the glimmer of madness behind her eyes. She wasn’t capable of being reasonable about it anymore, was so deeply immersed in her overwhelming hatred that it had twisted her.

She lifted the whiskey bottle and drank, self-medicating the only way she knew how. Rylan closed his eyes. Better for Scott that he get away from her, that he leave here in the near future and didn’t look back.

Rylan pushed to standing and glanced around when he heard a muffled noise behind him. He took a horrified step back when he saw Scott standing at the base of the porch steps, his face bone white. Jesus, how much had he heard?

“It’s not true.” He stared at Heather, anguish raw in his voice. “It can’t be true.”

Heather peered past Rylan to Scott and her face twisted into a sneer. “What, about the daddy you worship so much? It’s true, every word.”

“No!” Scott shouted, running up the steps toward her. Rylan got in front of him, but maddened, Scott knocked him away, sending him flying backward to crash into the porch railing. It splintered under his weight, but held.

“You lyin’ bitch,” Scott snarled, leaning down to the swing and caging Heather in with his arms. “Smearin’ him just ’cause you don’t want to admit you were a careless slut that night behind Banana Bob’s! Tell the truth!” His angry voice held a thread of desperation, as if begging her to take back everything she’d said.

Instead she slapped him, hard. “And you’re a fuckin’ child,” she hissed, “who don’t know nothin’ about nothin’. Believin’ what you want to believe. Oh, it’s true. Your father fucked me to win a bet. Lied to me and led me on, all so he could high-five his buddies out in the hallway and get paid, with me lyin’ there bleedin’.”

Scott reeled back, both from the blow and the words that rang with bitter certainty. “No,” he whispered, shaking his head. “No.”

Rylan could only stand there helplessly as Scott’s heart almost visibly broke, every fantasy, every dream he’d ever clung to during his short life crumbling into dust. He seemed to shrink in on himself, already mortally wounded, but Heather wasn’t done.

“He wasn’t no Navy pilot either,” she sneered. “I told everybody the Banana Bob’s story to make myself feel better, not wantin’ to admit I was fooled by a fuckin’ twenty-one-year-old undesignated seaman.” She spat the words at Scott. “A loser! Someone who did so fuckin’ average in boot camp that they didn’t even know where to put him. He was no better than a glorified janitor, someone who scrubs fuckin’ toilets and cleans up other people’s shit! Wasn’t no goddamned hero, that’s for sure. He was nobody. Just like you.”

The damage having been wrought to her satisfaction, Heather stood, pushed by an unresisting Scott, and disappeared into the trailer, gathering up the now-crying little kids and whisking them off to their room.

“Scott.” Rylan tried to take him in his arms, but Scott brushed him away and trudged past him. Rylan followed him to their bedroom, where he found Scott standing in the middle of it, looking lost.

Rylan moved close to him and took a deep breath, praying he could find the words to comfort. “Heather went through something truly awful,” he said in a soft voice, “and she let it turn her into a bitter, hateful woman. There’s nothing anyone can do about that.” He stepped closer. “But no matter what she said, none of this is your fault. None of it.”

He put his hand tentatively on Scott’s arm, and that seemed to galvanize Scott into action.

“Fuck her!” he yelled, shoving Rylan away. “And fuck him, too. Fuck everybody!”

With two long strides, he went to the wall and ripped his fighter jet posters off the wall, tearing them to shreds and throwing them to the floor. He knocked his Top Gun DVD from his bedside table and stomped on it with the heel of his boot, cracking it into a thousand pieces.

“Scott,” Rylan cried. “Stop it! You don’t have to do this. Let me help you!”

Scott paused and looked at him, his eyes almost feral, his lips twisted. “What the fuck can you do for me, Ry? Huh?”