Remembering Sunday

Six

Celestine's POV

The banging on the front door thundered through the air like gunshots. I cowered in the corner of my bedroom, banging on the wall next to me and shouting to Eliza and Violet to find a place to hide, and find it fast.

As much as I didn't want to, I leave my room and slowly make my way down the stairs and open the front door. Mama appears from the living room and stands behind me, her hand resting comfortingly on my shoulder as I stare my boyfriend down. Mama's presence gave my voice the strength it needed to not tremble or show weakness as I spoke.

"What do you want?" My voice, thank God, is cold and hard, and he's visibly taken aback for a second. Then his stunned demeanor changes in to one of jealousy and rage as he asks, "Who the fuck was that?"

"A friend."

"You don't have friends. Now I'm going to ask one more time, who the fuck was that?"

"Like I said, a friend. Surprisingly enough, I actually do have friends," I reply, my words sharp and laced with poison.

His fists clench at his sides, and Mama squeezes my shoulder and whispers almost inaudibly, "Don't cry, Celestine Aurora, be strong." I nod in acknowledgement of her words and wait for the onslaught to come. And come it does. I've never spoken back to him this way before.

He'd been standing in the doorway, but now he plows past us, shoving Mama aside and grabbing me by my shoulder, pinning me hard to the wall and grabbing my face with such force that his nails dug in to my skin and drew specks of blood. I hear the girls scream upstairs and I say, "Go, Mama, the girls need you." When she didn't move, I screamed, "Go now!" She went.

"Who the fuck do you think you are, talking to me like that? You have no right to speak to me that way! Fucking disrespectful bitch." He laughed, a sarcastic, lethal sound from the depths of Hell itself. I flinched at the sound as if he'd thrown a punch with it. "What was I expecting, though, from that half-breed mother of yours. She doesn't know shit about making a decent person of anyone. Look at how you and your slut sisters turned out. Lying whore bitches, all of you!"

My hands had been in the back pockets of my frayed denim shorts. When his fist came flying towards my face, I freed my hands and waited for the scream. I knew he would do something like this, so this time I was prepared. Just as his fist collided with my face and cracked my cheekbone, I slashed at him with the pocketknife I'd been holding and waited until he jumped back from me, clutching his bleeding face, to escape from his grasp and sprint up the stairs, screaming for Mama and the girls to get out.

His blood-slicked hands wrapped tight around my arm and pulled me down the stairs back to him, and he growled, "I don't think so Cellie baby. You're not going anywhere. What, did you think you could just whore around on me and get away with it?"

     When Mama left, so did my bravery. I couldn't defend myself now. I can't. knew it was just him and I in the house now, and that filled me with a sickening dread.

     The blood pouring from the gash in his rage-contorted face made him look like the incarnation of the devil himself. Tears flooded my eyes at the sight of him, but I refused to let them fall. I had to have some bit of strength to make it out of this ordeal alive.

     I held my pocketknife tight in my fist and braced myself, ready to cut at him again. He grabbed my wrist tight, an excruciating, vice-like grasp, making me cry out in pain and drop the knife. When he bends to pick it up, I slam my foot down on the back of his head as hard as I can, cracking his nose on the floor. He screams in fury, and his hands are brought back to his own bloodied face once again. I take this chance to run.

     I dash up the stairs and charge in to my room, using my wide open window as a means of escape. I shimmy through and land clumsily in the rose bush beneath my window. Barely fazed by the dirt and scratches from the thorns, I run harder and faster than I ever have, making sure to turn down unfamiliar streets and alleys to assure that he wouldn't find me. As I ran, I called Chris.

     "Hey, Cel. Is everything okay?"

     "No!" I cry breathlessly. "Chris, are you home?"

     There's trembling, breathy panic now in his voice as he replies, "Uh, yeah, yeah I'm home. You're on your way?"

     "Yes. . . please help me!" My voice breaks as I sob in to the phone.

     "I will. You'll be safe once you're here, I promise. Your mom already called to let me know you were coming. You're safe with me, Cel."

    I hang up when I reach his doorway, banging as hard as I can on the door until he opens it, his eyes widening with fear once they land on me. I must have looked like a disaster, covered in blood, bruises, and dirt.

     "Get in here, I'll take care of you."

     I all but collapse into his arms once I'm in the house. I have no strength or energy in me anywhere any longer. Every inch of me hurts. I don't even have it in me to cry from the overwhelming pain. Chris strokes my hair softly, over and over and over, assuring me once again while he does so that I'll be safe with him.

     He guided me to the couch and let me lay my head on his lap. Once I relaxed in to his touch, all of the pain and misery that the adrenaline had kept mostly at bay flooded my body and sent me curling in on myself, my eyes squeezing shut, hot tears slipping through the cracks. How the fuck did I get myself in to this?

     "Cel, what can I do for you?"

     It takes me a long time to say what first comes to mind. I didn't know if I should say it. Would it be weird? Would it be too much? Oh, fuck it, this whole situation is too much. I just met this boy and now he's sheltering me from my boyfriend. He's comforting me and taking care of me as if we've known each other our whole lives. So fuck the whole "we just met" thing. The innocent newness of our friendship is gone now.

     "Just don't leave me."

     "I won't." He chuckles a little and adds, "Besides, your mom already loves me. I don't think she'd let me leave."

    I want to laugh, but I don't have it in me yet. It takes all I have to lay on my back and look up at him. He looks down at me and pushes my sweaty hair away from my face while he says, "I'm really sorry about all of this. He wouldn't have done this if I hadn't been there."

     I shake my head a little and mutter, "No. No, he. . ." I take in as deep of a breath as I can. "He. . . he would have. . . he would have done it anyway. Don't. . . don't blame yourself."

"Save your strength, Cel, you don't have to explain it." His touch is impossibly gentle as his thumb caresses my swollen cheek, and I, without even thinking, lean in to his hand, subconsciously craving more. He tells me he's gonna get me some ice, and he helps me sit up so he can stand.

While his back is turned to me, I watch how me moves. His actions are not aggressive. They aren't silent messages of hatred and feral rage. They're slow and careful calm, and they fill me with a sense of calm and safety.

Is it wrong that I feel safer with a boy I just met days ago than I do with the boy who has claimed to love me for the past two years?