I.

A two story barnhouse, the red tin roof clashing against the peeling whiteness of the walls. The back porch wood rotted in the spring rains. The screen door was busted and wouldn’t shut- bent above the handle from when you locked dad out and he wanted in. If you lock a door, it doesn’t need to be there. All that was broken this time was his hand and the beer bottle against the car. We found it the next morning, picking among the grass for glints of sun. He slept in again, and we went for a walk to nowhere.

II.

You couldn’t get the crawlspace door open, the frame jammed with dried paint and dust, your joints jammed with fatigue. You were so tired. When was the last time we opened it? Had we ever used it? Someone had built it here for us. Someone was looking out, for us.
Thumps up the staircase screamed in our ears louder than his voice could muster. Moma, he’s coming. I couldn’t say anything more. What could I tell her that she didn’t already know? When the paint broke, we rushed in, all elbows and knees, head bent below the frame. The dark amplified the sound, you against the wall. You were lying there when we came out. He was gone.

III.

A man and a woman are fighting. He has a knife. Please hurry. We had hoped that would help. Police helped the good guys. Who was the good guy?

We heard the sirens before we saw the blue and red rays through the fog. Our toes sunk in the wet clay, staining our feet brown. We were safest here, huddled behind the collapsing wood shed. They wouldn’t see us. We watched a scene play out in another person’s life, void of emotion. I woke up, the moon watching us. We were baby mice, raw and pink and withered. Moma hadn’t came and got us yet. I tried not to wonder why, thinking of ways the snake would swallow us whole.

IV.

We both, you and I, saw the nights with no sleep, purple painted under her eyes. Being 17 comes with its problems, you told me. I had come to you for help. I had saw the lines on her thighs, a delicate network of intricate pain. She told me it made her feel better, that food made her sick.

We saw the way she flinched when people touched her, her arms, her back, her legs, her shoulders, her neck. A body of bad memories. Even soft touches burned. We watched as she would run out of a room, alone or with him, face flushed, out of breathe. She left a week after. She went for a walk to nowhere with nothing. She said she’d come back for me.

V.

He had took the food and threw it around the house. By the time we got home the stench had filled every curtain, counter, bedsheet. You used it as an excuse to toss out the old mattresses. You liked to think it meant starting over, him helping pull the queen out and scrub the walls. His liver cringed again that night, his stomach emptying in the toilet. Thin trails of red circled in the water. I wished there was more, painting a picture of death.

VI.
His bloodshot eyes scared me. He was a predator and I was the prey, a mouse caught in a maze. I only wanted to find the cheese and leave. He blocked the door to the kitchen, a hand on either side of the frame. His arms spanned over a foot. He said it was a accident, he fell and lost his balance and reached out. My chest just happened to be there. I forgave him.

VII.
I wasn’t quite afraid to sleep. My eyes burned in the morning, and I fell into a habit of catching quick naps during school. She had told me to watch out. I had told you, to warn you, to protect me. You told me she was crazy. That all she wanted was attention. I believed you. She carried my number in her pocket, and borrowed a phone when she could. I stopped answering numbers I didn’t recognize, sparing myself from another excuse as to why she couldn’t yet come home.

I was fifteenth and knew enough about life to laugh when a guy smacked my butt but hadn’t yet realized that I had the power to tell them no. Stop.

Sugarplums had just started to dance in front of my eyes when the door slammed. I rolled and faced the wall. He was back in my room, the moon casting his shadow over me, against the wall and window. The Boogeyman. Except he never stayed under my bed.

The springs creaked by my feet. She had said to call her. Not to hesitate. Not to wait. I pressed redial on the last missed call. I heard her voice, telling me not to say a word. Be still, be asleep. She knew.

He stood and walked out. I cried.

VIII.

The knock on the door was hard, knowing, powerful. The Prius sat waiting, outside, innocent in this world and the next. It only wanted to help.

The woman’s hair, pulled tight back, screamed for release as loud as my head screamed when she spoke. She had gotten a report. She had to investigate.

My stomach curled and they couldn’t get the door open. The puddle in the corner of my gray carpet was now stained brown and orange and green, the mysteries of my throat. I refused to unlock the door and opened the window for air.

She slid a card under the door, whispered sorry. She said she should have known better. She couldn’t have known anything I didn’t tell her.
My stomach stayed empty that night, and the next morning. You said I wasn’t allowed to eat. You said I had brought them to the house.
You rented a hotel for the next week, so he could have a warm place to sleep. You knew something wasn’t right.

IX.

The couch bounces me up as you plop down, curious in what Judge Judy’s ruling is now. The commercial ends, but the T.V. is drowned out. A woman cries, silently, on the screen. Her life seems ruined, and the world keeps spinning. The sound of gravel being pushed aside, a deep base, boom boom, filters in from the driveway. I look at you and stand.

X.

I see her again, in Walmart. She has gained weight, and her hair is now black. Cut in sharp edges, it ended in split ends that did nothing to hide the piercings along her ear. The purple shirt was a comfy style. She had always loved boots.

She caught me staring. I was losing nerve as she watched me walk towards her, a ball of lost directions and size 13 jeans. I had wished I fixed my make up that morning.

I said, “Don’t you remember me, Leesa?”

“My name’s Emmie. Are you O.K.?”