BOUNDARIES: A Louisiana Love Story (Post 27)

Note: To learn more about Penelope Przekop's novel, BOUNDARIES, and to start reading at the beginning, go here!

Chapter 11: Bartholomew (continued)

God, why cain’t you make me love Peter this way? Why does it have to be Matt? Shouldn’t I be allowed to choose?
     I pull away from Peter, thinking that if I can look into his eyes—if I can just feel okay about it—I may be able to kiss him, and feel something more. But as I create some distance between us someone bumps into me. As I’m pushed away, I look into Peter’s eyes for a moment—long enough to know that I don’t want to kiss him. So instead, I let myself drift in the direction I’ve been shoved.
     The crowd throbs to the beat of a pain above my left eye. Without Matt’s body to block it, the kitchen light blinds me. Turning from it, I wade through the house, squinting, head swimming, searching for him. I know Matt wants me; he loves me. Loving and wanting go together like Siamese twins, twin cities, and twin peaks—impossible to separate once established.
     When I’ve come full circle to the kitchen door again, I stumble through it, and head up the narrow back stairway of the old house. The unnaturally steep stairs have no handrail so I slide my arms across the walls to steady myself. When I reach the top, I take a step that isn’t there—like a climbing dream that strikes before you realize you’re sleeping. Matt’s laughter echoes through the second story hallway, a homing device, a mating call. A siren.
     He’s in the room just ahead to my left.
     Before going in, I stand at the doorway for several minutes. A damp, musty smell fills my head. The large room has two sets of bunk beds; each holds a clinging couple. Two of the couples make out at a speed adults recognize as private, but that's commonly seen at high school dances and college frat parties. Matt and a frat brother named Bart are sprawled across a long window seat. Bart’s girlfriend pokes each of them in the ribs as fast as she can. They laugh, yelling at her to cut it out. She’s a slight girl, light enough to walk on water.
     It strikes me as odd that Matt’s even in the room. He doesn’t seem to realize that he’s the odd man out. I wonder if he’s hiding from me, but then decide that if his purpose is to hide, he wouldn’t be laughing so loud. Furthermore, he wouldn’t have told me about the party in the first place. After all, only a week ago he waited outside my jungle. He knew I was coming then, and he knew tonight.
     After taking a deep breath, I breeze into the room as if I have every right to be there—as if I’m the missing link for the odd man. The closer I come to him, the louder Matt laughs. It isn’t real. The uncomfortable sound continues to pour from his mouth until I stand directly in front of him. I smile, fighting back tears. “What are you doin’ up here?” I ask in my cheeriest voice.
     Bart pokes me in the ribs and says, “Just goofin’ around.”
     Laughing, I poke him back.
     “Hey, don’t poke my boyfriend,” his girlfriend says. “Poke Matt.”
     “Yeah, he needs a poke!” Bart says, giving Matt a hard jab in the side. Matt yelps. But the yelp quickly turns to more laughter as he stares at me through the darkness.
     I try to read his mind, but my desire to touch him clouds my judgment. My guts smash into the front side of my body, the side that faces him, trying to get closer. He has the look of smashed guts, too. But his laughter scares me. His mixed up face is not that of a person laughing. My drunken eyes dart around the room. The bunk beds are like surreal sailboats floating in the distance. The beautiful couples cling to each other as if afraid they’ll fall into the sea rising above me.
     Bart and his girlfriend begin to kiss. Their tongues dart around their mouths until I can no longer tell them apart. Remembering that it’s not polite to stare, I look away.
     The only place for me to look is at Matt. His incessant laughter teases me until there’s nothing I can do, no choice I can make except to lean into the window seat and poke, tickle, prod, jab, nudge, and jolt. All I can feel are my fingers and hands touching him, exploring in the process, loving him in some desperate, pathetic sense, familiar to us both.
     He jumps from the seat, shaken, as if he feels my radiating pain and can’t bear it. He shoves me toward the deep, center of the room and yells louder than the blaring music, louder than any laughter, any siren.  “Get your fuckin’ hands off my dick!”
     The beautiful boys and girls floating dreamily across the green carpeted sea in safe, fluffy sailboats bolt up. Their arms fall from one another as their mouths drop open. Their eyes grow large as they watch Lolita’s juice drain from my head.
     In the oddest moment of my life, I wait as it swirls toward the tiny opening at the top of my neck. It dribbles into my body. As if following a recipe, I can’t go on until the last drop splashes out.
     Somebody snickers.
     Matt’s words echo in my mind. Get your fuckin’ hands off my dick! Get your hands off my dick! Then I hear other voices. They twist through my head, making their way toward the funnel's opening, searching for an escape.  
     Don’t sleep with them.
     You’re a murderer! Do you realize that? 
     GO AWAY! 
     That’s what you get for spreading your legs at the drop of a hat! 
     We’re goin’ to Grandma’s for good this time. 
     You’re not the kind of girl I wanna get involved with. 
     Don’t be selfish. 
     Selfish. 
     Selfish. 
     I heard you were a psycho! 
     It’s my duty to help save these people … these people … these people. 
     Please, just put my baby back. 
     I have seen the face of God!
     If I fuck you, will you leave?
     A familiar band of demons surrounds me as the voices dissipate. The creatures cling to my right arm, slowly pulling it behind me. Just when I think it may snap, my arm shoots forward. The last echoing voice draining through my body settles into my fist as it makes contact with the side of Matt’s head.
     I hear myself scream.
     My arms and legs fly wildly through the tight space between us, hitting, clawing, punching, and grabbing at the boy I want to crawl into. The stitches in my back separate, wetting my shirt with blood. Voices rise around me like those of the drowning students in my psychedelic dream. For several glorious moments, I lose all sense of good and evil, right and wrong.
     Finally, what seems like a thousand hands grab my arms and legs. Fingers dig into my throbbing, lonely skin. I don’t resist as they carry me from the room like pallbearers. They dump me at the deserted end of the hallway and then hurry back to comfort Matt, their wounded brother. Closed doors stretch high above me on all sides. Dirt sits next to my face.
    As the last guy disappears into the bedroom, I struggle to my feet. I yank open each closed door surrounding me until I find the right one. I stick my head in the toilet and vomit. As my head hangs over the fraternity’s filth, I remember what my father said the day he cried. “You’ll make it, Peyton. You’re strong.”
    I will ... never ... give ... up.
    Rhythmic thunder created by hoards of jumping students, upstairs and downstairs, fills the house like tribal war drums. The pseudo home shudders as I tear through the bathroom cabinets, searching for something, anything that will serve my purpose. Dissatisfied with what I find, I move to the hall closet. There, buried deep inside the clutter, I find some redneck frat brother’s hunting rifle or BB gun; I don't know what it is but I know I'm going to use it. I don’t know if it’s loaded or not; I don’t stop to think.
     I go back to the bedroom and only hesitate long enough to spot my prey. Now, dancing students pack the dark space like refugees hanging over the side of a ship too small to hold them while I stand in the doorway, in an ocean, flailing for help. Suddenly the music and the dancing stop, and for a second I see fear in the eyes of a pale, redheaded girl. She looks like Anne.
    My heart shatters.
    I lift the gun to my shoulder and fire.
    Then I stop breathing because the terror of feeling such hatred takes your breath away.
    The blast is loud but as I fall back dizzy against the wall, I hear Peter’s voice. “Jesus Christ!” he says. Light floods the room and a communal drunken roar of laughter, fear, and disbelief rings out as the students realize it’s me.
     I cry as Peter pushes me down the narrow back stairway, and out the kitchen door. Madonna’s voice permeates the thick southern air as he shoves me into the passenger seat of my car. “You sit here and don’t move,” he yells, his normally cheerful face distorted. It fills my view. “Do you hear me, Peyton? You just sit here and pray to God you didn’t hurt anybody.” He slams the door. “You better hope he’s listenin’ because you’re in a shit load.”
     I sit in a trance; my eyes unable to blink. I rock back and forth until sweat from my forehead shines across the dashboard. I hear myself repeating three pain-filled words, “Please save me,” until he finally returns. I sound so far away from myself.
     “I hope you’ve been sayin’ your prayers,” he says, jamming the keys into the ignition. I continue to chant as we drive away. “God damn it, Peyton.” He shakes his head. We’re both shaking our heads. “I don’t know what happened,” he says. “I couldn’t get back into the room. It was crazy.”
     I’d never heard Peter curse. ”Please save me,” I cry. “Just save me.” Tears stream down my face, and blood, like tears from a third eye formed because the two I have aren’t enough, seeps out of the stitched up cut on my back, matting my clothes.
     “Peyton, it’s gonna be okay. They’re all wasted. Nobody seems to understand what happened.” His head darts back and forth between the windshield and me. “Bart just told me to get you out ... like it was nothin’.”
     “God, please help me.”
     “Peyton?” He grabs my leg with his free hand. “Peyton!”
     Then I try to tell him how I feel but the words spew out like foreign language. The garbled nonsense goes on and on. His grip tightens and I know he can’t understand. Salty sweat and tears fill my mouth. My body begins to shake and I can’t make it stop. He finally silences me with a soft slap across the face. The car swerves, nearly hitting a truck, and somehow through the darkness I see the terrified face of the driver, shocked and innocent.
     I hold my cheek in my hand. I can feel my eyes grow larger than they’ve ever stretched. A pain shoots through my head. “I wanted to kill him,” I say.
     “You were drunk. People act stupid—they make mistakes when they’re drunk. You know that.”
     “But I’m not drunk anymore.” In my instant sobriety, I realize that the details of my actions are already slipping away. They are clearing back like doctors preparing to shock a person back to life. The body jolts. The heart restarts. The person lives.
     “I wanted to kill him.”
     “Okay. Just forget about it now.” He reaches again for my leg and begins patting it, lightly at first, but then harder and harder until it seems as if he’s trying to shove something back into me. It starts to hurt but I don’t care.
     “You’re the one who told me to think about thangs for as long as it takes.”
     “Yah, well, I don’t know. Maybe there are some thangs that you just have to force yourself to forget and thank God they didn’t ruin your life.”
     “I cain’t forget this. I’ll never stop thinkin’ about this.”
     And I never have.
     My heart squeezes in on itself and I’m not sure if it’s stopping for good or starting back up again. “Where are you takin’ me?”
     “To my place. You shouldn’t be alone tonight.”
     “It doesn’t matter.”
     “Sure it does,” He says, smiling. He pats my leg again. “I’ll take good care of you.”
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Read Chapter 12 next week.

To find out what BOUNDARIES is about and start reading at the beginning. go here.

BOUNDARIES is Penelope Przekop's first novel. It's a work of fiction based on true events. Since writing BOUNDARIES, she has completed two other novels. ABERRATIONS was published by Greenleaf Book Group in 2008. CENTERPIECES is currently being considered by several publishers. Penelope is working on her fourth novel, DUST.