The Story of Tinkerbell

Tinkerbell's Fault

My mom gaped at me, scowling. "What?"

I stood trembling and hugging myself. "Robbie made me," I said. "He raped me."

My mom rolled her eyes and stomped. "Don't you say that shit about him. Don't blame him because you're a little slut."

I pressed my chin to my chest, sobbing, because she was right. I'd let him fuck me at first, so it wasn't really rape.

Mom sighed and came over, put her arms around me. "We'll get you an abortion. It'll be alright."

A couple weeks later, she took me to the clinic. I holed up in my room afterward with the bottle of codeine they'd given me for the pain, taking pill after pill and writing bad poetry. A friend had said she was going to come over and keep me company, but she never showed. Robbie was out all the time with his new girlfriend, and my mom stayed in her room. She stayed in her room a lot since my dad had moved out.

***

My mom squinted at me through the smoke from her menthol cigarette. "Grace, I'm not going to kick him out."

I tried to wrap my arms around myself tight enough to hold myself together. "He hits me, mom."

She took a long drag, smirking at the walls. "You're just pissed off he has a new girlfriend."

I sucked a breath through my tight throat, trying to stop crying. Crying was all I did lately. I was tired of my own whining.

Mom sighed. "You can't make up your mind whether you want him to stay or go, and you're the one wanted him to move in in the first place."

I couldn't breathe. "If you don't kick him out," I wheezed, "I'm going to leave. I'll fucking run away."

She stubbed her cigarette out. "Oh, Jesus Christ, Grace. Just stop."

I whirled and ran to my room, shutting the door and throwing myself face-down on my bed. I gasped, trying to get air into my lungs. Mom was right: I couldn't make up my mind whether I wanted him to stay or go. I know he hurt me, but he was all I had, and I just wanted him to hold me and tell me he loved me again. I wanted someone to care.

You can't rely on anyone else to care about you. You have to care about yourself. But not even I liked myself. I was annoying, and ugly, and no good at anything. I didn't care whether I lived or died, and neither did anyone else.

School ended two weeks after that. Robbie went to live on the west side of the state with his girlfriend. My dad managed to land a teaching job in town and moved back in.

***

I lay on my belly on my bed, examining the Jelly Bellies on my palm and throwing the rejects back into the tub. Heavy footsteps came down the hallway, and I tensed as they stopped outside my door.

There was a booming knock, and I winced. "Yeah?"

My dad opened the door, his shirt wet from changing the sprinkler lines in the orchard. "There she is! Little Miss Hermit!"

I grunted, filling my mouth with jelly beans.

"What are you doing in your room so much?" He jerked his chin at the notebook on my pillow. "Writing?"

I swallowed and sucked the candy from my teeth. "Yeah, a little bit."

He stepped into my room. "What are you writing? Can I see?"

I quickly grabbed the notebook and clutched it to my chest. He laughed, then stopped and squinted at the wall behind me. "What's on your wall?"

He nudged me out of the way and scowled Raphaelite women I'd stayed up all night sketching on my wall in No. 2 pencil.

His hands gathered into fists. "Goddammit, Grace! You can't draw on the fucking wall!"

"Why not?"

He threw up his hands and huffed. "You just can't do it! It's the fucking wall! Draw in your notebook if you need to draw that crap." He stomped out and came back with a wet rag. I sat at the end of my bed and watched through a haze of tears as he angrily scrubbed at my wall, smearing the pencil into a huge, grey smudge.

"What's going on in here?" My mom leaned on the doorjamb, scowling in confusion.

"She drew on the goddamn wall!"

My mom came in and peered at the half-wiped away drawing. "It's beautiful. And it's just in pencil. Why couldn't you leave it?"

My dad sputtered, and they started arguing. I pressed myself into the corner. My skin hurt and prickled. I squeezed my eyes shut, and images of my body as a bloated, rotting piece of meat invaded my mind. That's what I felt like. Raw and torn apart, putrid and disgusting. I gulped air, and it tasted like death.

"What's wrong, Grace?"

I opened my eyes, panting, to find my parents staring at me. "I don't feel good," I said.

"Are you sick?"

I shook my head, struggling to breathe. I was a carcass. I was full of maggots. The stench of rot pounded at me. It hurt.

I threw down my notebook and ran out of the room.

I darted out the front door into the heat. The sun baked my skin, and I visualized myself as a green steak in a frying pan. My stomach churned.

I ran down to the orchard and threw myself in front of one of the sprinklers, letting the cold water blast my face and my body. I followed the spray around as the sprinkler turned, and gradually my heart quit pounding and I could get a full breath of air. The images in my mind began to fade and the horrible smell lifted.

I heard the crunch of tires on the gravel shoulder of the road. "Hey, Grapes! Is that you?"

I swiped the wet hair out of my face and peered between the trees. "Patrick?"

His belly laugh sounded through his open window. "You running through the sprinklers?"

I wandered over through the tall orchard grass, my clothes and hair dripping. "Yeah sort of."

He grinned, looking me up and down. "You look hot. Want a Slurpee?"

I wrung the water out of my tank top. "Uh, yeah. Sure. That sounds really good, actually."

I went around and climbed into his car. It was oven-hot inside, and my wet ass stuck to the vinyl. We skidded out and trundled down the road, and I tried to smooth my wet hair. I felt like an idiot, but I also felt like an angel had just swooped down and saved me.

"So, how's your summer going?" he asked.

I shrugged avoiding his gaze. "Not bad. Yours?"

"It's going better than brain surgery, but not quite as well as World War II."

I sputtered as I laughed unexpectedly. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

He laughed too, and that was his only response. I studied him as he turned down toward the 7-11, and he smiled at me. "I thought you didn't like me anymore," I blurted. "Robbie told me you said I was a showoff in English class and that I played guitar like I have Down Syndrome."

Patrick did a double-take and then burst into laughter even louder than before. "What the fuck?" He held his belly and almost swerved off the road, he was laughing so hard. "I didn't...no, I didn't say that. I was wondering why you didn't want to hang out anymore."

I broke into a smile and leaned back in my seat, letting the hot wind dry my hair. The stench of death had lifted completely, and I could smell the grass and clover.