Warning: violent content.
*
Home at last, Dawn limped to the kitchen and devoured a large chunk of angel food cake. The clock on the microwave glowed Three A.M., four hours past curfew. Her father was in the living room, snoring on the sofa as a scratchy, black-and-white western played on TV. Daddy was concerned about her. He never said as much, because he trusted Dawn's judgment in every matter, yet she saw how the worry lines multiplied on his forehead each day.
Dawn fondly remembered the person she had been only a few weeks prior, the sheltered, suburbanite girl who never skipped class and never stayed out past Daddy's curfew.
After turning off the television, Dawn gingerly bent to kiss her Daddy's forehead.
Red welts studded her butt and upper thighs, a painful testament to Jase Riley's cruelty. Insulting him had been stupid, no matter how right it felt at the time. Jase's stoner friends all hooted like baboons when she called him a pig for squeezing her breasts. He
was
a pig, otherwise he wouldn't have sent his disgusting hand under her shirt in front of so many people. After pinning her against the sofa, Jase raised her skirt and lowered her panties, beating Dawn's pale skin purple with the wire handle of a flyswatter. Each blow was more savage than the last; it was a miracle she hadn't bled. Dawn learned her lesson. She wouldn't insult him--not until she healed a little bit.
Climbing the steps to her room was near impossible, each little movement wrought agonizing pain. Gathering a few clothes from her dresser drawers Dawn headed for the bathroom, desperate to feel clean again.
Warm needles rained from the showerhead. Her own soapy fingers were excruciating, each touch a hornet's sting to the ravaged flesh. Although being with Jase Riley was Hell, she had no choice but to endure every disgusting moment. She loved Jeff. As imperfect as he was, he was the only brother she would ever have and her failure to cooperate with Jase Riley would endanger the professional football career Jeff so coveted.
Dawn shut off the water and wrung her turquoise washrag. She felt as clean as possible, considering the circumstances. Using a hand towel, she wiped the steam from the mirror above the sink. The reflection that stared back was a stranger's.
Never had Dawn been more disturbed by her own appearance. Each flaw (and in her eyes there were many) made her stomach lurch. What little luster had once ornamented her pale skin faded to a sickly white. The freckles which ranged over most of her body seemed a disease. Her womanly curves, which had once seemed normal and healthy, made her feel bloated like a whale. She was ugly, anyone with eyes could tell, yet Jase promised to take her to the Midtown strip club on Saturday night.
The club was holding an amateur night competition, five hundred dollars in prizes to the winner. The thought of exposing her fat, ugly body to so many people chilled the blood in her veins. Protests that she had no chance of competing were moot. Jase had already bribed the club's owner an amount significantly higher than five hundred dollars, assuring her easy victory.
Dressed in an extra-long tee, she padded down the hallway with the intent of grabbing another nibble from the kitchen. No matter how often she ate, her stomach wouldn't stop complaining.
She peeked into Jeff's room. The desk lamp cast a lonely beam of light, painting the walls with unmoving shadows. Asleep on the bed, Jeff's long legs were spread and his hands folded across his stomach. A week prior, right on campus in front of God and everyone, he had walked up to her and asked if she was in any sort of trouble. It was the first time he had ever treated her like a human being in front of other human beings. Usually, she was just the kid sister, an annoying inconvenience to be taxied to school and forgotten.
I lied,Jeff
. The closer she moved to the bed the more prevalent his soft, steady breath became.
I am in so much trouble and I don't know what to do
.
His right arm moved, tumbling over the side of the bed. The left arm remained tucked close to his body, as if desperate to avoid the lonely half of the queen-sized bed. A slight smile and contented sigh were evidence that his dreams were sweet. Dawn longed for sweet dreams. Or no dreams at all. Anything would be better than the nightmare her life had become.
Unsure of what she was doing, Dawn slipped beneath the covers. Warmth enveloped her as she moved closer to his body. Inhaling a heady, masculine scent, her pulse beat just a bit faster. No longer feeling adrift, she scooted close to his body. As the hem of the long t-shirt rode up, usually supple Egyptian cotton bed sheets felt like sandpaper to her welted thighs. Jeff's skinny arm moved, grazing the floor before sleepily draping her hip. His touch wrought pure agony, yet Dawn felt safer and more secure than she had in a very long time; she had found an island of sanity in a decidedly insane world.
Hovering her fingers over his mouth, Dawn bathed in the warmth of his breath. She wanted to touch him, to feel the contours of his handsome face, to place her hand on his chest and feel the beat of his heart. She didn't dare. Suffering a severe blow to the sternum, he had been carted off the football field the previous Saturday. Capillaries had been obliterated by a linebacker's helmet, painting Jeff's thin chest a disturbing hue of bluish-purple.
Wearing an ice pack for much of the week, Jeff gritted his teeth and fought through the long, agonizing days. To his credit, he never once complained about the pain. He was a beanpole, prima donna and oftentimes impossible to live with, but his toughness could never be questioned. And all the years Jeff seemed so cold and distant, that was just his way of coping with pain, with sadness, with loneliness and with the immense pressures that came from being who he was.
The enigma of Jeff Kramer finally seemed solved.
He has to be cold as steel; it's the only way he can be strong as steel
. For so long it had seemed like her big brother was lost but the little boy, who watched stoically as the dual poisons of chemotherapy and radiation withered his mother, had never left; he was the son who humiliated the father he secretly worshipped; he was the star quarterback, the big man on campus trapped in an endless cycle of loneliness; and he was the man she had freely given her virginity.
Reflexively, she reached to brush the shaggy bangs from his forehead, contacting warm skin only. He'd recently gotten that long overdue haircut. The barber had cropped Jeff's dark hair extremely short, leaving just enough to comb. The coppery red highlights were that much more striking amongst the expanse of dark brown.
Jeff stirred at her touch but didn't immediately wake. Mumbling something that might have been her name, his long body shifted on the mattress. She reached to turn out the light, before resuming the gentle strokes across his forehead. His eyes lazily batted open. Groping blindly for the stranger who had invaded his sleep, his fingers grazed the tips of her breasts.
