He looked concerned for a moment. That is, until I opened one of my eyes and stuck out my tongue. As we began to laugh again, I mimed dying on the floor. For once, it wasn't a fantasy, just a harmless joke. Finally we got ourselves back under control and Josh Ramsay's head appeared over the edge of the bed once again.
"But really, Ebony, are you okay?"
"Worry wart." I said in response and this time took his helping hand and allowed him to lift my bone thin body off the floor and onto the bed.
"So.........." Josh looked serious. "What was that a second ago?"
"The kiss?" He nodded.
"Real." I said and he smiled again. "You, know what, Josh?"
"What?" he asked.
"I think it's time I told you everything."
"Everything?"
"My problem, Josh." I said, perhaps a bit impatiently.
"But I thought you told me already. The day we met." he looked puzzled. I rolled my eyes.
"What I told you that day was a fact. Just some words that happened to be true. I want to tell you the story. And it's a long one, so I suggest you get comfortable." I skooched sideways at the head of the bed and patted the spot next to me, indicating that he should sit down. He did so.
"I guess it started with the day I was born......."
And I told him of how my father was a horrible person. He was an alcoholic who was violent even when he wasn't drunk. I told him that I looked just like my mother, expect for one thing. I had my father's hair. So, at the age of ten, I went out and died it, taking the money from my own pocket. I told him of the beating that my mom took for that one.
"He beat your mom?" Josh yelped in surprise.
"Yeah." I said with a bitter smile.
"But you got the hair dye, not her. Why did she get beaten?"
"Because." I said "He thought it was her fault for letting such a monstrosity happen......"
I told him of the guilt. I told him that I was terrified practically to death that my dad would eventually kill her or that she would run away and leave me alone with my dad.
"And it happened." I said, tears now beginning to fall.
"He killed her?!" Josh looked like he had never heard anything more horrible.
"No." I said "She packed up and left me to my father's wrath. That was when I was fourteen......."
I told him about the beating I received then. I showed him the scar on my back that I still had. He gasped at it and it's horrible bone-white grin. I told him about the beatings that I received almost daily. About how I began to hate my mother as well. My mother who left in the dead of night without me. Who left me alone. I told him about the night my father broke my arm and then sent me off to bed. How I decided, as I lay there in pain to just run and never look back. I climbed out the window using the fire escape ladder, and just ran.
"Where did you go?" he whispered, not wanting to hear, but needing to know.
"Ash Greene's. Her and her parents took me in with open arms."
"Ashley Greene?" he repeated "The bitch that brought you here?"
"Don't remind me of what I said about her........."
I told him of my determination to get to college and pursue my dream of becoming a zoologist. About how Ash, who had been scheming with me since freshman year when we met about the pair of us becoming zoologists and doing meaningful, life-saving work with the orangutans. How the pair of us helped each other. I told him about the day I found that I received the scholarship. How proud I was.
"How the hell did you get into this shit, then?" Josh asked "You seemed pretty happy."
I smiled grimly. The smile was a decrepit thing with absolutely no humor in it. "The fact that I had a scholarship didn't change the fact that my mom abandoned me. That my dad beat me. That he broke my arm and that I had to live without the love of a family. I mean, the Greene's were amazing, but you know, it was more like a never-ending sleepover than an adoption. They liked me, sure, maybe even loved me, but it was the kind of detached love that you have for your kid's friends, you know? It was like having parents, but it wasn't. It kind of hurt a bit when they made more fuss over Ash than me. I wasn't bitter or mad. I had no right to be. They took me in when they could've just handed me to the state or, worse yet, my father (for want of a better word). I owe them everything. It's just that I was still their kid's best friend."
Josh nodded and I went on. I told him of how I got to college and how I met a very attractive boy named Mike.
"Mike?!" he cried.
"Yeah, do you know that ass?" I asked.
"Ass?" he said "No way. He's not an ass, he's in my band. Curly brown hair, brown eyes?"
"No dumb ass." I replied with a ghost of a smile "This Mike is in college with me, and has gray eyes and long blond hair. By the way, don't you think you'd know if your band member was in college?"
His smile faded "Oh, yeah......."
I continued. Saying how Mike had introduced me to cocaine. I told him about the excellent high. How for a short while my past disappeared and I was on top of the world. I told him about how grateful I was towards Mike. How he became my first. How he conned me into it. And then how he asked for it again. I was tired and said no. I told Josh about how he took his hand and slapped me a good one right across the face and followed it with a punch to the stomach. He finished the whole thing with a hearty push and I hit the wall, knocking myself unconscious. I told Josh about how he wasn't even high. How I woke up the next morning completely naked in his bed.
"What?!" he yelped. "He did that to you?!"
I nodded and Josh put a protective arm around my shoulders, as if to ward off spirits of Mike that might creep into the room and try to hurt me. I snuggled against his chest and smiled. This felt good. Right. Safe. Finding the train of my thoughts again, I continued my horror story.
I told Josh about how when Miked woke up and saw me crying, now fully dressed on the bed that his roommate had used to sleep in. He comforted me and asked me out. I said no and he pushed me off the bed and into the hall, while my tears still flowed. I felt Josh's arm tighten momentarily around my shoulders.
I told him how Mike and I did the friends with benefits thing every now and again, mostly when at least I was high. About how he still beat me, but how I was still attracted to that jerk in a really weird way. Transfixed with the way he took control. I told him how I sunk lower and lower until my work was suffering horribly. How Ash Greene got sick of my shit and brought me here and how the rest was history.
"Your turn." I said.
"My turn?"
"Tell me your story." I was still snuggled up to him, but I could manage still a look at his face. He looked rather like he didn't know how to begin.
I listened to a tale of an accidental slip into heroine. How soon, his drug-warped mind saw him as fat. He didn't like that, and turned to laxatives and his own gag reflex. He binged and purged with passion. Josh could see that he needed to get better, but couldn't . He was so disgusted with himself that he picked up a knife and for every time he purged or used the heroine, he cut.
"After a while, I seemed to deserve it." he said. I nodded. That's how it felt before I tried to kill myself. I was a horrible person. I didn't deserve my life.
He told me of his wonderful friend Matt Webb who tried to help him and, in time, helped him realized that the only person who truly fix Josh Ramsay was Josh Ramsay.
"And the rest is history."
"The rest is history." I agreed. "And hopefully there will be a good future."
Chapter 7
Start from the beginning
