I scrub harder, desperate to get this over quicker.
“Do you feel better about me kicking you? I kissed it better like Mommy would.”
No, Mom doesn’t do that.
And if she ever finds out, it’ll break her heart. She can never find out. Dollie can never find out. Dad can never find out.
It only happened once.
No one needs to know.
I can forget it.
Please, let me forget it. I look up, praying to anyone who’ll listen.
That hope fades away as I tremble in the water. Colin dips his hand in and says, “Here, let me help you get it done quicker.”
His hand touches me down there, and I can’t take it. My mind offers that space again—the safe one. The room turns black and gets smaller, but I fight it.
Dollie can’t fit.
Dollie needs to be safe, too.
Blinking in the image of the bathroom, the grubby white tiles and lace curtains, tears pour from my eyes.
I need something to get me out of this fucking room. Out of this house. Out of this rotten man’s life.
But that isn’t something that will happen.
In some way, he owns me now.
He owns me.
He’ll own me forever.
I think back to my little shard of glass and all the intentions I had. I wanted to use it on him, but his thick skin might not even break the way my soft skin did, and my pants are out of reach.
If I could reach…a twisted thought wraps around my brain, torturing me and offering me an out at the same time.
I’d use it on me.
On the ledge of this bathtub sits a substitute—a blade Colin uses to shave those whiskers on his ugly face.
I launch for it, water splashing everywhere, and I scream out, “I’m sorry, Dollie, I just can’t do this.”
Colin screams something, too, but the wall around my heart and soul—crumbling, piece by piece—blocks him out, sound and touch.
And I use those last peaceful moments, before the weight of everything drags me to depression, to reenact a scene I saw in a movie once. I angle Colin’s blade and pray for one second that it’s clean, then I drag the blade over my wrist and wait for the water to turn red.
But the water remains this ugly beige color, scum sticking to the sides of the tub.
I failed.
I didn’t get deep enough.
A wave of reality crashes, and a surge of relief overwhelms me. Because what was I thinking?
I can’t leave Dollie here alone with this thing.
