The Carrero Effect Trilogy

Chapter 30

Lying in the dark, watching the reflections of the water on my ceiling, I'm still numb with a sensation as though I'm floating on the ocean directly, but I'm still lying on my bed. It's night and dark; I haven't left, and I don't want to.

I've cried so much that my body is ravaged and weak. I didn't know it could do this to me, releasing so much doubt, insecurity, and pain. I haven't sobbed properly since I was five years old. Back then, I didn't cry over heartache; I only knew the tears from physical pain and illness. This is so much worse.

Crying over Jake must be the worst pain I have ever experienced; it leads to my breaking down over the way my life has turned out. The way I am. I think of my mother and wonder if she ever disintegrated like this over the men she dated.

Did she break this way over Ray Vanquis when he left?

Except I never dated Jake; he never left me in that way. I have no clue what to call this. I've never experienced her kind of heartache. Ray inflicted more than heartbreak on her. The thought of that monster makes me nauseous.

Did she cry when he beat her to a pulp and left her half-dead on her floor? Why am I even thinking about this?

I never dwell on this; I don't want to. It's a thought that makes me ill. I can't stop in my emotional state; the walls in my head have been smashed, and I'm not in control of the thoughts and memories flooding in. The memories flashing into my mind are like a stop-motion movie, and I've lost control.

Ray and his ugly, screwed-up face towering over my mother, her body broken and bruised after he had raped her again for making him angry. I witnessed so much cruelty and perversion when she was in a relationship with him, powerless to stop him and afraid to try.

My mind is like an open door now, unable to stop the memories. He's in my head, and she's there crying on the floor, but then it's not her … it's me, and I'm eighteen … memories I've tried so hard to push down for an eternity break through my fatigue-shattered walls.

He was a big man, strong and cruel. After being with him, I saw the bruises on my mother; she would laugh them away uneasily and say he was just a rough lover. Rough was true.

It wasn't the first time I'd been punched by one of her boyfriends. The first hit was a punch right in the face, a reaction to my self-defensive slap when he tried to force a kiss on me. It knocked me down and made me groan, my head spinning with a warmth spreading over my lips. I tasted the blood in my mouth, fueling my rage; I tried to get back up, but he hauled me up by the hair and threw me against the wall.

He tried to push his tongue in my mouth; I fought with all my might, but he grabbed my clothes and started to tear at them, my jeans at the waist, bursting the button off, trying to thrust his hand down there. I kicked, bit, and clawed until the floor was hard against my face with another jarring punch.

He yanked my jeans down when I was reeling and hunched over onto the wooden floor. He had knocked the sense out of me, and I knew what he would do; I had seen him hold my mother down this way more than once. She never knew I came home and saw it many times; I hid in the shadows and slunk away quickly, afraid to intervene. Ray was a devil and instilled fear with his aggression and bulk. He got off on this shit.

My pants were around my ankles, and he pulled my underwear down. I flipped in terror and rage, turned, twisted, and thrust about, trying to save myself from him. His grip was strong, but I had a renewed strength as adrenaline coursed in my veins. I cruelly gouged his face with my nails, which angered him; he got up to rain more vicious kicks on my body, beating me down.

I remember chanting internally, "I'm not going to crumble; I'm not going to pass out; I'm going to fight," in a bid to stay conscious. I reached for the table nearby, and it fell, the vase smashing over the top of me; I scrambled desperately to grab a piece of it, but he grabbed my ankles and hauled me backward. My arms dragged through the broken mess until my blood was smearing the floor, my arms warm with the thick liquid. I kicked with my restrained feet, knocking him over into the couch, and it gave me time to yank my clothes back up and stumble to my feet. I was dizzy and swaying.

I tried to run, but he was on me with the fury of a psycho, beating me and pushing me into a corner, blackness wrapping around me. I thought he would kill me for sure, but then there was a thud … a low, hollow thud … and he stopped. His face turned blank, his eyes glazed over and zoned out, and he crumpled to the floor, revealing my mother standing behind him.

She was holding a massive, twisted, wooden sculpture above her head. She glared at me; her eyes were red-rimmed, her face white and bloodless. But what I saw in that look will always haunt me, worse than what he had done, what he had been attempting to do, that finally ripped my heart right out and stomped it to death. All I could see was the anguish on her face and the accusation in her eyes which said, "What did you do, Emma?"

I close my eyes against the fresh torrent of tears as I try to push that memory away again and again, but her face stays persistent. My mother always blamed me for Ray leaving. I was eighteen by then, no longer a child, no longer her sweet innocent little girl, but she saw me as a capable woman who must have given him some sign that I wanted it. She felt betrayed by me; it's the one thing I've never been able to admit to myself, her jealousy and blame. If she believed that of me, then why wouldn't I?

All of this with Jake, has it been because of me? Because I led him to believe I wanted these things from him?

How can I recall these things and feel like I asked for them? I didn't ask for them. I didn't ask Ray to try to rape me, but deep down, that child is nodding at me somewhere inside, and she's saying, "Yes, Emma, yes, you did.

Why else would these men, one after the other, try to touch you? Try to take you? You must have done something, Emma. Your own mother believed it."

It's the guilt I forever shy away from, the shame and misery of my internal battle. It's what she programmed me to accept.

Is this what I do to Jake? Do I make him want to push things further between us? Like those men, will he take what he wants, then leave me broken on the floor, the way my mother was left. The way I was left.

Jake isn't capable of such things, but I must be doing something for it to turn out this way.

What has Jake done to me? Why is he doing this to me now?

My mind is a messy scramble of thoughts and emotions, half of which make no sense, and I'm dying inside.

I didn't drink before Jake Carrero; I didn't like how it made me feel like I had lost control. I never kissed men because it brought back memories that made me feel ill. I never wanted anyone sexually or even felt turned on by anyone before Jake.

I never opened up and told anyone the things I've told him. I never kicked back, let go, relaxed, and had fun before him. I never took my hair down, let alone cut it. I never cried. And now I can't seem to stop.

Jake has slowly unraveled me, and he has no clue. He has no idea the depths to which he has affected me and changed me. That damn Carrero and his effects on me can't be reversed.

I keep people at arm's length, even Sarah. She's my best friend, yet I've never told her anything that would justify that title. I don't blame her for drifting away because I've never given her a reason not to. I know everything about her, yet she knows very little about me, only what she's witnessed from being around me. I was always a closed book.

We drifted apart, and I was glad. I didn't want her looking at me and remembering who I had been. She had been my focus, my person to protect and care for, in place of the mother I was leaving behind. She had given me a purpose, someone to care for, and I pulled away when she no longer needed me.

It suited me that I got a job that required me to devote all my time and attention to organizing someone else's life. It's what I needed: control, calm, organization, safety, and security. Independence and self-reliance. I could focus on someone else's existence and deny my own. Sarah never really knew the real me; she'd always seen the facade. Everyone has always seen the act.

Everyone except Jake. He broke through the layers.

Men have always made me nervous, despite moving away and starting over. Men have a way of making that wall go up. I don't trust them; I never have. I don't trust anyone except myself.

Well, I didn't.

Until Jake.

Do I trust Jake? I did, in my own way, but now?

Knowing what he's gone to do, I don't know anymore. I deserve it. He's been patient and tries in a way no one has ever tried to see through my brave facade. He saw my mask right from the start; he said as much. I don't want him to see through it because, if he did, and he found this Emma, what would he see?

Insecure, troubled, and emotionally all over the place. What would he do?

She's a broken little girl who flinches when men raise their hands, even though she's practiced remaining cool. She's scared of getting close to anyone, even a friend, in case they rip her heart out as her own parents did. Her first start in life was learning that she could rely on no one and that no one loved her.

I can't even relax and let anyone else look after me; I'm the only one I can rely on. But I let Jake, so many times; he's taken care of me. It hurts to remember the countless ways he's done so over the past months, but that Jake has just walked out on me and hurt me in the cruelest way. Wiping the slate clean and ripping the floor from under me.

Letting people in removes your defenses, and they learn how to wound you deeply, as Jake has done. People say they love you, but they don't; the ones who apparently love you cut the deepest.

So why let anyone love me at all? Why care about him leaving me now? Stop caring. Stop crying. Go back to numb.

Loving no one, letting no one in. Let him go, close him out, and never trust him again. It was always better that way.

***

I finally emerge, like an exhausted shell, hours before dawn. I watch the ocean lap up and down on the distant beach in the moonlight; the boat is still and quiet, and I feel alone.

I wonder where he is, and it slices across my heart cruelly; I wonder who 'she' is.

Don't do this to yourself; this isn't worth it.

I push it away and try not to dwell anymore. I create a new little black box in the recesses of my mind and push everything in there. I'll label this one 'Jake' and file every hurtful memory, kiss, touch, and tear.

Then, I won't just close the lid. I'll lock it tight and throw it into the deepest part of my crazy mind. That's what I do when life throws me so much pain and misery I move on. I stop myself from caring anymore, which is precisely what I will do with him.

He wants to 'uncross' the line? Well, I will erase the line and build a fucking steel wall to keep him on the other side. If he wants PA Emma back, then that's what he will get.