Wounded (6 page)

I hesitate, gathering my voice so it doesn't crack. "You're all I had, Lani. Now I don't even have that. I have no one else..." I look down, stare at my shoes, tighten my control. "Maybe you're right. But if you didn't love me, you should've told me. Broken up with me."

She cries now, slow, quiet tears. "I'm sorry. I didn't want to hurt you. I didn't want to have to see you in pain."

I let her see the agony in my eyes. "Well, you fucked that up."

I pick up my duffel bag and walk out, pushing down the emotion until there's nothing left but emptiness. No anger, no hurt. Nothing.
 

I walk away, my coat buttoned up tight, duffel slung across my back. It's frigid out. Evening. Seven, maybe eight o'clock. Full dark. Snow drifts, not really falling, just blown around by the knife-like wind. I don't know where I'm going, where I'm walking. I can't see much in the dark with the snow stinging my eyes. I don't care. I welcome the pain of the cold right now. It distracts me from my anger.

I'm pissed that she cheated on me for so long, pissed that she didn't have the goddamn balls to tell me she didn't love me.
 

Mainly, I'm pissed that she's right. We lost our virginity together, explored our sexuality together. I've never even dated anyone else. Never kissed or held or fucked anyone else. Never even considered it. I've held on to her for so long because she's familiar and comforting. She's what I have.
 

Had
.

I try not to think about being alone, but it's inevitable. I'm shuffling down a sidewalk, skeins of snow skirling around my feet as I pass through pools of streetlamp light. And then, suddenly, I'm seventeen again. In school. Sitting in trig, doodling instead of paying attention to the lecture since I hate math because it's boring and easy. The principal, Mr. Boyd, comes in and announces that he'd like to see me outside for a moment. And then tells me to grab my bag. My heart suddenly pounds and my palms sweat and something is wrong, wrong, wrong.
 

I hear the words from Mr. Boyd, crackling and static-y and broken up by disbelief: "Car accident...killed on impact...critical condition...ride to the hospital..."

I follow numbly through the hallways, backpack hanging from one shoulder. The hospital is quiet, orderlies and nurses bustling past on squeaky sneakers, doctors in lab coats with clipboards and file folders. I'm in a room, curtained off. Monitors beep. Antiseptic and cleaners and death and sickness assault my nostrils.

Mom, bruised, broken, bleeding. Dying. A tubes is in her mouth and an oxygen cannula in her nose. Bandages on her head. Someone is pulling me away to explain about internal bleeding, cranial swelling.

"Will she die?" I ask, cutting off the explanation.

A male voice, deep, calm, soothing. I don't look at him. "It's hard to tell. It doesn't look good, though, son. I'm sorry. We're doing all we can."

"My dad?"

Silence.
 

Another voice, and face, stepping in front of my blank stare. A policeman. "Son, I'm sorry, but your father didn't make it. He was killed on impact." The policeman rests his hand on my shoulder briefly and then drops it. "Is there anyone we can call for you, son?"

A brief spike of rage pulses through me. "I'm not your son. I'm
her
son." I jab my finger at the door. "My name is Hunter."

The policeman nods. "Sure thing, Hunter. Sorry. It's just a habit, didn't mean anything by it. So, do you have a relative we could call for you?"

I shake my head. "No. There's no one else."

The officer seems shocked. "No one at all? No sisters or aunts or grandparents?"

I choke down the urge to punch his face. "No, asshole. That's what 'no one' means. My grandparents are all dead. I'm an only child."

"Watch it, son."

"
You
watch it,
Officer
. I'm about to be an orphan. I think I'm allowed to be upset."

He relents. "You're right. I'm sorry. So where are you going to go?"

I shrug. "My girlfriend's parents might be able to help. I don't know."

I'm shaken out of the memory and back into the present by a car skidding to a stop in the road next to me. It's Doug, talking through the rolled-down window of his sensible Mercury four-door sedan. "Hunter, look, I know you don't want to see me, of all people, but let me drop off you somewhere. It's below zero out here and dropping fast, man. You'll get hypothermia."

I ignore him and keep walking. He pulls the car over and jumps out, the car facing away from me, door open, lights on to illuminate a swath of thickly falling snow.
 

"Hunter, dude, listen—"

I try to keep walking past him, but he keeps pace and steps in front of me. Big fucking mistake. I stop, glare for about three heartbeats while I wait for him to move, then jerk my fist from my coat pocket and swing. I connect with his jaw and send him flying. He's just a little guy, no meat, no muscle, no experience with fights. He crumples hard. I step over to him to make sure he's not seriously hurt. He's not, just stunned unconscious. He wakes immediately to see me standing over him, fists clenched. He scrambles away.

"Hunter, please, listen. I was just—"

I move away. "Fuck off. I don't want a ride. If I see you again, I'll break your skinny fucking neck."

He stumbles to his car, clutching his jaw, and drives off. The heat of anger keeps me warm for a while. I finally remember my cell phone.
 

It rings six times before Derek picks up, out of breath. "Dude, what's up? I'm...unnhh...god
damn
Maggie!...I'm busy." I hear a woman moaning in the background.
 

"Sorry, bro. Listen, I caught Lani in bed with Doug Pearson. I need you to pick me up. It's fucking cold out here."

I hear Derek's breath catch and he stifles a groan, and the woman gasps softly. Only Derek would stay on the phone during sex.
 

"Sure thing, man. Be right there." I hear Maggie’s moaning voice start to get loud just as he hangs up.
 

I shake my head in bemusement. Derek is a dog. The man gets more pussy than a cat licking itself. I don't get it, but it's his thing. I keep walking, head ducked down, shoulders hunched up in that odd, useless gesture we do when we're cold. I make it another half mile or so before Derek's borrowed red F-150 swings around in an illegal U-turn and skids to a stop next to me. There's a tarp over some construction tools in the bed. I toss my duffel bag under the tarp and get in the truck.

Derek pulls away towards his parents’ house. "So. Bitch be trippin', huh?"

I rub my hands together and hold them in front of the heater vent. "Yeah. Got back from the gym and walked in on them." I groan and flop my head back on the ripped cloth seat back. "Fuck, man. With Doug Pearson.
Doug
, of all people."

"Isn't he, like, an insurance salesman or something?" Derek asks.

"Yeah. Something like that."

Derek shakes his head. "Fucked up, man. Cheating on a beast like you with a skinny little shit like Doug?"

I scrub my hand over my wet, buzz-cut scalp. "No shit. Don't remind me."
 

We went to high school with Doug Pearson. Graduated with him. He was the geek who sat alone in the corner while Derek and I sat a table filled with our lettermen jock buddies. Doug was valedictorian, NHS, school band, all that. And now he sells insurance. Won't ever leave Des Moines, probably.
 

But he got the girl, didn't he?

Fuck.

"Hey, man, don't sweat it. She's a ho. Her loss. Now you can get some real hookups goin' on. Fuck a real bitch. Lani's always been stuck up. You're better off."

I remind myself that he means well.

"I was gonna ask her to marry me, D." My voice is quiet.

Derek cocks an eyebrow at me, incredulous. "Dude, thank god you didn't. You don't need her. I know you've been with her forever, but that don't make her right for you. I never said anything 'cause you wouldn't have listened, but I never liked her. She's hot and all that, but I never got the sense she loved you as much as you loved her."

I slug Derek's arm hard. "Next time say something, fucker."

"Hopefully there won't
be
a next time." He grins at me. "Lets go get fucked up. I've got a bottle of Johnny with our name on it back at my folks' place."

"Sounds good." It does sound good, in that moment.
 

I want nothing more than to forget Lani for a while. It won't change anything or erase the pain, but it'll let me forget. I learned the hard way after my parents died that no amount of booze or pot or anything else will take away the pain. I quit trying to bury the hurt and just dealt with it. Good thing I've got practice, because I can feel the pain spreading cracks through my heart.
 

This is going to take some time to heal.

Good thing we ship out soon.

THREE

RANIA

Iraq, 1993

I clutch my stomach and try not to moan. The food and money I got from the soldier lasted me more than two months. Now it is gone, and I am hungry again. Desperation ripples through me.
 

I hunch against the wall as a troop of uniformed Iraqi soldiers march past. Official government soldiers. Hard-eyed, rough, merciless. I hate them.
 

My home is gone. A stray bomb or mortar or something. I have nowhere to sleep. Nowhere to go. No one to help me. Hassan is nowhere to be found. I have looked. I do not feel in my heart that he is dead; he has just found a better life for himself.
 

An idea is percolating in the bottom of my belly. I have ignored it for days. I cannot do it. I will not do it. But my hunger, my thirst, my need to survive, to not give up, this drives me. I wait for dawn and then sneak across the city, looking for a specific building. I find it, eventually. I huddle in an alley across the street, watching, hoping they will be there, hoping they will not be.
 

Night falls. My stomach growls and rumbles and expands, empty, gnawing at my ribs.
 

I see him, striding down the street, cigarette tip glowing like a moving orange star through the shadows. My legs are moving before my brain has time to stop me. He sees me coming. His eyes are not unkind, but he still eyes me with the hungry, lustful look that I have come to understand.
 

"You should not be here, girl." He sips his cigarette and speaks between puffs of acrid gray. "What do you want?"

"I..." Words fail me. "What you gave me, it is gone. I am hungry."

He frowns. "You made it last all this time? Girl, that wasn't enough to feed a rat for a week."

"I do not need much."

"What do you want from me? I do not have enough to just give you food or money all the time."
 

I do not know how to say it. The words will not come. Instead, I reach up and unwrap my hijab. I shake my hair out and look up at him through the waves of black. "Please?"

He sighs and flicks his cigarette away. "No. That was a one-time thing. I was drunk. I did not mean to turn you into a prostitute."

I shrug. "I do not know how else to get food. No one will give me a job. I have looked. I almost got caught stealing. He almost cut off my hand."

"It is no way for a girl to live." He looks uncomfortable. "I felt bad, after you left."

"What choice do I have? Should I just lie down and die? I do not want to do this, you know. But I do not see how else to survive."

He blows a breath out through his teeth. "All right. Fine. Where do you live?"

I shift uncomfortably. "Nowhere. My house got destroyed."

He curses. "There are plenty of abandoned houses around here, girl. Come on. I'll find you something."

He stalks ahead of me, mumbling something to himself. Eventually he finds a house that is empty and in reasonable condition. It is next to a bombed-out mosque. The window has no glass, the door is broken off its hinges, and the electricity does not work. But there is running water. A real shower. A real toilet. The soldier fidgets around the house. I do not know what he is doing, so I get to work clearing the dirt and debris. The kitchen, living room, and bedroom are all one room. The kitchen part has some cabinets, a stove, an empty refrigerator. I hear a crackle and a hum, and then the single bare light bulb in the ceiling flickers to life.

He comes back, wiping his hands on his pants. I stare at the bulb in awe.
 

"I was an electrician before the war started," he says by way of explanation.
 

"Thank you."

He shrugs. He fixes the door, then stares around at the little room. "It is not much, but it is something. The mosque next door is not used, obviously. You could...work there. Sleep here. It helps to have somewhere safe to go."

I laugh. "Safe? What is safe?"

He laughs, too. "True. But it is better than the streets."

The silence is awkward. I do not know what to do. Neither does he.

"Are you serious about this?" he asks. "Once you start, I do not think it will be very easy to stop."

"Do you have a better idea for me?" I say. "I told you, I do not want to do this. It makes me sick to think about. But...I don't have any other choice. I have tried everything else. I have not eaten in a week. I stole a piece of bread a few days ago, and almost got my hand chopped off for it. No one will help me. I do not know what else to do. You...you gave me money and food for—for that. Maybe someone else will, too."

He rubs his face with both hands. "What's your name?"

"Rania."

"Rania, I'm Malik." He takes a step closer. "You are a very pretty girl, Rania. I am not your father or your brother or your husband. I cannot tell you what to do. I am just a soldier. I would not want a girl in my family to do this."

"You would help her, though. If she was desperate."

"Yes, I would."

"There is no one to help me. You have helped me. I do not want to, but I have to, to eat."

"I guess I get that. I wish it did not come to this for you. I like you. You have spirit. You are very beautiful."