What I Did This Summer by Davey Fitz Page 4

point he had to make. Twisting and turning Melody around, exposing the exquisite beauty of her body, as he ran it into the ground with his mouth. Listing out the inventory of things about her that made him sick to his stomach: Her cottage cheese thighs and dumpy ass, just one big fat catastrophe. Her pudgy little gut. Her breasts that, according to him, were non-existent. Her skinny-fat arms and legs. The turkey-folds of flab in her armpits. The weak fatty consistency of her neck. The soft white hair that covered her entire body. The whiskers around her mouth and beneath her lower lip. The coarse hair that grew way too thick for his taste in her big long goofy looking nose. How, if she didn’t smell like a horrible accident at a sardine cannery right then, he’d swear she was a ten-year-old boy.

  As I watched Melody cringe, I interrupted him. Asking him, politely, to cut it out, trying to keep my cool. Getting even more angry. Angrier than I’d ever gotten at my friends when they talked down about her.

  He continued to slip in the digs, reminiscing about how she’d doted on me even before she’d started to bleed, and how adorable it was that I felt such devotion for her, too. How I was actually blessed to never have kissed her, because she had breath that could melt glass and, if I got within an inch of her mouth when her hormones got going, I’d probably vomit. How bad the disaster area between her legs smelt when she got excited and soaked the forest of a front lawn she couldn’t be bothered to trim.

  He smacked her across the face and she pressed her lips closed as he clipped her one across the chin and backhanded her to watch her stumble. He looked over his shoulder quickly, pointing at her with his thumb, as he asked me if I really wanted that pug-ugly mess all for myself. He backhanded her again, even harder, and I began to move forward as she begged me with her hands to retreat. Then he looked at me and told me, even if I did still want her for whatever reason he couldn’t possibly understand, it was just too bad, because she belonged to him until he decided otherwise.

  My uncle’s voice raged in my head and I fought to drown it out as the lights inside the house grew dim and I told Dan to knock it off. That it wasn’t funny anymore. That it never had been.

  He pulled a pistol from the back of his trousers and whipped Melody on the right temple with the butt, snapping her head backward and sideways into the wall and making her fall face down on the floor as she covered her head with her hands and cried out. He kicked her in the stomach as she whimpered in pain and looked up at me, her eyes begging for help. And he told me what my friends had told me. That I could have her if I still wanted her, just like any guy who needed a good spit and polish could, as long as I bought what he was selling or, at least, helped him move it. Like more than a few of my best buddies already had. Like he could smell on her breath every time she came back home after collecting his money from them.

  From her place on the floor she begged me to stop fighting for her as he stamped on her back, threatening to break her in two. And she told me I wasn’t the one who needed saving. Maybe not realising I had no idea what she meant. Admitting once again, to her boyfriend’s delight, how she’d always felt about me. And, to his puzzlement, how she didn’t want me to get hurt any more.

  As Dan kept his attention fixed on Melody, taking so much pleasure in crushing her bared soul beneath his boots, I wrenched the gun from his hand, slamming my elbow into his jaw and sending him crashing to the floor.

  My uncle’s voice roared in my head again. Asking me the same questions, over and over. And it began to look like sunset inside.

  Dan looked up at me and laughed as he wiped the blood from his mouth. Telling me how, no matter what I did, my precious Melody would be spending that night in his bed, making sure he was completely satisfied, and if I didn’t walk away immediately, he’d have us both beaten down so badly we’d wish we were dead. And if I had the sac to shoot him, we’d both actually be dead. Real soon. Telling me she wasn’t worth it. That my Melody was just a not-entirely-disgusting-yet pie-faced low-rent slut with a face and a body that were only going to get uglier and more bizarre looking with age. A plain piece of nothing that did who and what she was told. And that was all she’d ever be.

  She looked up at me, as her boyfriend twisted her head in his direction, yanking the hair on the back of her neck as she begged me to leave. But I wasn’t about to go. Definitely not without her. Not knowing she was with him and wondering how badly he must hurt her when no one was there to see.

  Melody’s mouth trembled open, continuing to plead with me to walk away, and Dan began slapping her around again as he pulled her hair harder and told me to get lost.

  As she cried, I felt my fists begin to clench in anger. And the sunset turned to twilight.

  From behind me, I felt my uncle watching again and I saw a shadow begin to darken the room. And that shadow grew. I tried to convince myself it was just the night. The sun going down. But the lights were all on and the blinds were drawn and that shadow consumed everything as it crept up my back. And as it overcame me and the world went dark, I felt nothing but hatred. Vengeance. Death. Pure evil.

  And I will swear until the day I die that I released my grip on that gun. I let my hands go limp and felt it fall from my grasp. I heard it hit the floor. But the shadow grew darker. Enveloping everything in its black cloak of night. And, though I won’t ever be able to explain how, it put that gun back in my hand and it pulled the trigger.

  When the gun went off, it splattered Dan’s head all over the walls. The pistol had been silenced, but the sound of his skull exploding and the echo of its grey matter smacking up against the walls was deafening.

  Then the shadow disappeared. Dan’s body was no longer there. The walls were sparkling clean and the gun lay at my feet. Safety on. And, in that moment, I didn’t question where in God’s creation the shadow had come from or where it, my uncle and the bloody, horrifying mess they’d created had gone.

  Melody jerked back in shock and confusion, and I picked her up off of the floor, adjusting her clothing and straightening her hair. She hugged me tightly, pressing her head into my chest that grew warm with her tears as I shook with fear and reassured her as best I could, kissing her and holding her as she chewed on my shirt, completely traumatised.

  We exited the house quickly, hand in hand, and when we got to the street she released herself from my grip. I stopped to scan her eyes, questioning. She looked petrified and helpless.

  I told her we needed to leave, fast. That her boyfriend was, or had been, very well connected. She let me know she was aware of what he was. And she begged my forgiveness for putting me through the ordeal we’d just suffered. Telling me that what he’d said about her and everything I’d heard about her from my friends—all the things she’d done under his brutal direction—were true. Telling me that, if I could still stand to be with her, she would prove to me she wasn’t what he’d made her do, and she would be mine, just mine, for as long as I would have her. And if I really thought it was the best thing, and I insisted she leave with me that instant, she’d follow me without question. She’d leave everything behind and go with me to catch a bus. Right then and there.

  As I looked into her eyes, I felt time slow and the moon made the night a little bit brighter. I touched her face with my hand as she relaxed her cheek against it and I told her that whatever she’d done, whatever she thought she was or ever had been, didn’t change how I felt about her. That, in my eyes and in my heart, she would always be the same beautiful girl I’d loved from a distance for far too long.

  I looked around my world as she smiled and kissed at my hand. And everywhere I looked, she was there. I was surrounded by things I loved. I could finally answer my uncle’s riddle, or at the very least, render its closing question impotent and illogical.

  I asked her if she was sure she could get what she needed from her parents’ house and be back quickly. The light in her eyes burnt more brightly than I’d ever seen as her smile grew wide and she told me she could be back in a snap with extra money so we could get as
far away as possible and I nodded my assent. She traced her hands around my face as I touched my fingers to her lips and she gave them a soft warm kiss. And she told me the only thing I’d ever wanted to hear: She was going to make me happy.

  I let her know she already had, and a blissful smile drew itself across her face as she nodded and pulled me into her once more. Kissing me desperately one last time, then biting her lower lip, blushing.

  We went our separate ways and, after I collected my things from my uncle’s and said goodbye to the empty house, I made it back to our meeting place at the bus terminal in record time.

  And I waited. Hiding in the shadows and watching when she didn’t show up as quickly as I’d hoped. I waited for hours. And, when she still didn’t appear, I cased the location and searched the crowded streets for days. Avoiding my uncle’s watchful eyes, and the authorities who’d mistakenly classified me as a missing person for reasons I still don’t understand. But she never arrived to meet me there. She never showed up anywhere, and I waited.

  And, almost as soon as I’d realised something was wrong, the shadow had come back. It followed me everywhere. Keeping me hidden. Keeping me safe, as I searched for