Filed to story: Brace Face Betty Drama Story
My ears are suddenly on fire. I want to shrink back into the seat, or under it, or just fucking run away. I do my best to keep my voice steady when I say, “I thought you believed me.”
His head whips around, eyes bearing down on me, full of wild energy. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m not trying to fact check.”
Shame spirals through me.
‘Don’t be such a fucking tease, Betty. Show us that pretty little cunt. Come on, princess. That’s right. Open your mouth. Wider. Wider. Stupid bitch. D’you wanna die for the sake of a quick fuck?
‘
I jolt at the memory of the hand cracking against my cheek. Marcus’s eyes widen at the sudden movement. I can’t bear the look on his face, so I avert my gaze, staring down at the peeling laminated menu that’s tucked behind the condiment bottles. “Why then? What’s the point in rehashing it all? It’s all over and done with now. It doesn’t matter.”
For a second, Marcus doesn’t say anything. When I risk a sidelong glance at him, he’s running his thumb along the edge of his steak knife, pressing so hard his skin has bleached white. A small, crimson bead of blood drips down onto the table. “It matters,” he says flatly. “I’m gonna need to know who I have to hurt first, aren’t I?”
“Don’t be stupid, Marcus. You’re not going to do anything to any of them.”
He puts the steak knife down and quickly wipes away the blood from the table as Layla approaches with our food. Once she’s gone, I repeat myself, needing him to hear me. “Those guys are untouchable. Their families own the school. They own the whole town. Hell, they even own the cops. If you fuck with them, there’ll be hell to pay, and it won’t be any of them settling the bill.
Believe me.”
“I believe you. But I still want you to tell me. Do you think…” He knows he’s asking something really hard. He looks like he hates that he’s asking it of me. “Do you think you could do it?”
“I don’t know. What’s the worst, most awful, brutal thing that’s ever happened to you? You think you could tell me all about it in great detail?” I’m not being sarcastic. I genuinely want to know.
He gives me a hard look, jaw set, and then nods. Just the once. “My mother killed herself when I was six. I came home from school. It was a Thursday, so I only had a half day. The kitchen smelled strange, and it made me lightheaded to breathe. I didn’t know it then, but the gas burner was still on. If I’d turned on a light, I would have blown the whole fucking place sky high.”
I reach across the table, placing my hand over his. “Marcus, I didn’t mean right now.”
He shrugs one shoulder, quirking his mouth up at one side, too. “Ben was only nine months old. He was in the living room, naked, with a cut on his arm. Was screaming at the top of his lungs. I knew something wasn’t right, so I went from room to room, looking for my mom. I found her in the spare bedroom upstairs. She wasn’t dead yet. One of her eyes was missing, and her hair was wet, full of these little white shards. Her hair was dark like mine, almost black, so I didn’t know it was covered in blood until I touched it and my hand came away red. I didn’t know the little white shards were fragments of her own skull.
“She was gaping at me, her mouth opening and closing like a fish. I was six, so I didn’t really know what had happened. I saw the gun on the floor. It was half under the bed, and she was reaching for it, hand clasping and unclasping. She was making these awful wet, gurgling noises. I started crying, because I knew she was going to die. She was crying too, but she was crying tears of blood, and I didn’t know what the fuck to do, so I tried to leave the spare room to get to the phone, but…” He swallows, then exhales a steady, long breath.
This is soul destroying. This is the most terrible thing I have ever heard, and I wasn’t even there. Six-year-old Marcus was, though. I rub the heel of my hand into the center of my chest, as if the physical action will ease the emotional pain I’m feeling. “Marcus, you really don’t need to-“
“She grabbed hold of my ankle. Wouldn’t let me go. She was so fucked up, but it was surprising how tight she held onto me then. I turned her onto her back, and that’s when I saw that most of the left side of her jaw was missing. She couldn’t speak. She tried,” he says, nodding, “but she couldn’t. So, she told me what she wanted by pointing at the gun. I didn’t want to give it to her, but I could see that she was in so much pain and I didn’t know what else to do, so I got it for her. I gave it to her. I did.”
I cover my mouth with my hands, my eyes burning like crazy. I’m too scared to breathe for fear that I’ll end up bursting into tears. Marcus looks at me. Looks hard. Doesn’t waiver. “She couldn’t close her hand around the handle. She kept on trying, and she kept on dropping it. In the end, she started this…awful wailing. I’d never heard anything like it before. She was suffering. She wanted to go, and she couldn’t fucking do it, and I knew what was going to happen next, but-“
“Oh, Marcus.”
“The gun was fucking huge. I think it was a desert eagle or something, must have been to blow half her face off like that, but I wasn’t really looking at it properly. At the time, all I knew was that it was heavy and I couldn’t hold it straight, not even with both hands. She helped me. She guided it to her other temple. The one she hadn’t already ruined. She closed her eyes, sighed, and it was like this…this wash of relief came over her. She nodded, squeezing her hand around the top of my thigh, digging her fingernails into my leg, and then I remember her jerking, the sound of the gun firing, the small room filling up with this horrible smelling smoke, and there being blood running down the wall. And…that was it. I called nine one one. Told them what had happened. There was a second there where they thought I’d just straight up fucking killed her. Took two days for the coroner to confirm that my story was probably the truth. They kept me in a psyche ward, locked inside this room with three fully grown crazy motherfuckers who kept trying to touch me. And then it was the system. Foster care. Bumped from home to home.”
His skin has taken on this deathly hue, like a part of him has just died in the retelling of this dark, fucked up story. “If I’d come home earlier, I probably could have stopped her.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Marcus. None of it.”
He looks down at the food in front of him, then back up at me again. He shifts a little, laying his hands flat against the top of the table. I don’t think he knows what to do with them. “You’re right. I know,” he says. “She did it to herself. Even in the end, she managed to pull the trigger. But I held it for her, Betty.
I fucking held it.”
MARCUS POV
I run the St. Christopher medallion along the chain around my neck on the drive back to the cabin, tearing myself a new one.
Way to ruin lunch, ya fuckin’ asshole. Nothing like a good old gory suicide to really whet a girl’s appetite.
Beside me, Betty sits in silence, two to-go boxes full of cold food resting on her lap. I think she’s fucking traumatized.
I was traumatized as fuck for a seriously long time after that happened to me, but I’ve had the benefit of eleven years and a whole heap of a state-ordered therapy since then. I don’t like to think about it. I sure as fuck don’t like to talk about it, but I can if I really feel the need to.