The Lights In the Sky

Chapter 9

I didn't sleep that night. I mean, how could I? Between the great things that happened with Deborah and the horrible things that happened after, my mind was all over the place. I didn't even turnoff my lights. Just sat in bed listening to music really low on my laptop. I bounced around from one song to another, zoned out and thinking. My hand kept reaching up to touch the scar on my neck,almost compulsively. I had no recollection of how I got it. Sometimes in football, I end up with bruises and scrapes that I don't remember getting in the first place. But they never hurt the way this one did when Deborah touched it in the truck.

Eventually I got out of bed and went to my bathroom mirror. I tried to get a look at the scar, but have you ever tried to see something on the back of your neck? Even with a mirror, it's impossible. I kept turning my head at different angles trying to see it. The whole time,my fingers never left the scar. Frustrated, I grabbed my phone and took a quick picture of my neck.

The scar wasn't a scar. It was a long protrusion, an elongated bump that ran just under my skin. Frank's older cousin on his mom's side has these subdermal piercings. Have you seen those before? They put thin metal rods, almost like toothpicks, right under people's skin and it heals over and they have these ridges. That's what it felt like.

At the bottom part of the picture, I noticed something else. A dark mark on my shoulder. I ran back to the bathroom; it was in a spot I could easily see in the mirror. I guess I just didn't notice before because I was so focused on my neck.

There were four of them. Bruises a few inches long that met at a center point. The impressions of four fingers.

I closed my eyes and I was there; it all replayed before me like a VHS tape on fast-forward. Face down on a cold, metal table. I was in my underwear. My right cheek was smashed against the freezing surface. I was screaming, not in pain but anger. My bare chest was tight; it was hard to breathe. One of their sandpaper hands pressed against my back, holding me down. There was a sharp pain in the back of my neck.

And then I was back in my bathroom. And I felt disgusting. Dirty, covered by their fingers. I turned on the shower and jumped in. The water got hotter and hotter and I let it. I let it burn my skin and fill my mouth with steam. And I scrubbed with my hands, every inch. The water was scolding my skin. Burning the feeling of their hands away. At some point I collapsed and fell to the ground and the water continued to burn me.

I didn't move.

We went to Grandma Maisie's for dinner the next day. I was exhausted. The kind of tired where you'd do anything to sleep, even if it meant collapsing into your plate of mashed potatoes. I looked like crap, too. My eyes had bags under them and my lips had no color at all. Despite the fact that our house was always freezing, my skin was bright red and peeling.

Mom and Dad were so worried about me,they actually didn't fight on the way there. Mom even offered to let me stay home. But I didn't want to be there alone, so I told her I'd go to make Grandma Maisie happy. And I think I did. She always lights up when Tabitha and I walk through the door. Tabitha and I played "I Spy" on the way and I tried to make her giggle by saying that the stop signs were green and the dog licking itself on the street corner was an old lady with a cane.

I can't tell you what we had for dinner, but I think I liked it. After we ate, Mom and Dad took Tabitha on a walk. That's something they do sometimes since Grandma lives in town. You don't really go for many walks in the country. I'm not sure why. Seems like the perfect thing to do, but the roads are narrow and winding and you don't want a truck to come over a hill and nail you, I suppose.

It was just me and Grandma Maisie sitting in her rocking chairs. She keeps them on either side of her record player. It's pretty cool that she has one of those. She poured herself some whiskey on the rocks and then offered me a glass. I said no thanks so we just sat there while she sipped. The record was some compilation thing, which I didn't even realize they made on vinyl. I thought it was all album rock type stuff.