SWNOVELS Skin of a Sinner: Chapter 4
Roman: 14 years old – Isabella: 12 years old.
“Damn it, Mickey,” Bella sighs, dabbing an alcohol-soaked pad to the cut on my face.
I smirk up at her, bouncing my leg on the concrete as I sit on the edge of the deck. “Yeah, but did you see the other guy?”
The glare she shoots my way is enough to make Hell freeze over. But knowing her, I’ll say a few choice words here and there, and it’ll melt like it’s just another day in paradise.
Steve is going to have a field day over this. He’ll probably try to get a couple more hits in himself or decide my weekend would be better off spent in the basement. He’s figured out that it’s far more effective than a belt or a “good ol’ fashion beatin’,” as he’d say.
“Yes, I saw the other guy.” She throws her hands up, but the exasperation doesn’t reach her eyes. “You pushed him to his knees and made him beg me for my forgiveness.”
I lift a shoulder. “You should have said you didn’t forgive him. Make it more exciting for me. You can forgive me by playing tag.”
We might be too old to play those types of games, but I just love the way her eyes widen right before I catch her. Screw hide and seek, or hacky sack. Tag is the only game I’ve ever wanted to play with her.
This time, when she looks at me, she really does seem exhausted, but it disappears when I wince from the sharp sting of the cotton on the open wound on my cheek.
I have to hand it to the kid from before; he didn’t look like much, but he could throw a punch. Caught me completely off guard. I almost had respect for him, but then I remembered why he ended up there.
“It was an accident.”
She’s been saying that all afternoon. It looked like no accident from what I saw. The lunchbox I gave her when we were kids somehow ended up in his bag. My Bella doesn’t have accidents like that.
This was deliberate.
I don’t take kindly to that.
Bella and I—not me and Bella (she’s been helping me with my English homework)—have been playing this little cat-and-mouse game since day one. I’m the cat, everyone else is the mouse, and she’s the dog from Tom & Jerry that would try to mediate. Or simply stand to the side and flinch every time someone lands a hit on me.
I like her flinching far more than I should.
I squeeze the stress ball the little princess got me using as of last month. I’ve already gone through two of them—not that she knows. If she did, she’d probably burst a vein from being overly worried about me. I’ve just been pocketing them from the department store instead and replacing them before she figures it out.
The stress ball is a handy little gadget that has stopped me from bashing my head into a wall. Or Steve’s, maybe even Josh’s, too. We have a new kid staying with us, about five years younger than Bella.
At first, I liked Jeremy because he was quiet and kept to himself. Then Bella sniffed him out and decided to take that little shit under her wing. If he’s under her wing, then by extension, that means he’s under my wing, which gets fucking exhausting when I only have two wings. Half the time, I’m walking myself into the basement before Steve gets the chance to drag me in there.
But it’s easier now.
Down there in the cold.
Now, I have the handy dandy stress ball, a pen and paper, and the MP3 player I stole from Skinny—or was it Ugly?—all because they looked at my girl the wrong way.
At least her hair isn’t so ridiculously wonky anymore. She means well and tries her damn best, but I usually end up redoing it for her before we walk to school. If not, I just can’t stop staring at it in all its chaos.
Every morning, I hold my breath to see if she tried braiding it because, unless she brings a hairbrush, there’s no way I can salvage it.
She frowns at me, and I frown, too.
“Maybe you should have talked to him before you punched him,” Pigtails says.
If she ever knew I still call her Pigtails in my head, she’d probably be debating whether to disown me or sit in the corner and cry. The last time I did, her bottom lip quivered—God, I hate it when it quivers—and she started getting upset, saying that I thought she was a pig.
I shrug, grinning. “No point wasting time. I was cutting to the chase.”
She carefully dabs the wound again. In my entire life, Bella is the only person who has tended to my wounds without being paid to do it. “There are two sides to every story, Mickey. What you did was grievous bodily assault.” Her r’s come out nice and clear.
Bella’s been watching Law & Order for the past month, and now she thinks she wants to be a defense attorney—which might actually come in handy for me, so it’s all a go from my point of view.
I catch sight of her earring and internally wince. I’m unsure if she still thinks about losing her mother’s earrings, but I do. Every day.
“Your side is the only one that counts.”
She rolls her eyes. “I’m not sure if that’s how justice works.”
I can’t help it; I roll my eyes too. “Shut up, you’re, like, eleven.”
“No, I’m twelve, thank you very much.” She places her hands on her hips. “Twelve years and three months,” she adds matter-of-factly.
I put no effort into hiding my victorious grin. Pointing out her age always gets a rise out of her. She’s twelve going on twenty with how much she tries to mother everyone.
Then the first sign starts; the loud wheeze in her breath from the change in season. Bella clears her throat to hide it, but I narrow my eyes at her. Then, as the seconds pass, she turns to the side and lets out a series of earth-shattering coughs.
Reaching for my bag, I tug it onto my lap and ignore the pain from my busted knuckles. I rummage around the front pocket until I find what I need, all while Bella wheezes between coughs.
I sigh as I hold out the inhaler. Her delicate fingers wrap around it without hesitation, struggling to suck it in between breaths. She never remembers to take it like she’s meant to. And it’s fall, the worst time of year for her.
“You lied to me.” I explicitly asked her this morning, “Did you take your inhaler?”
Do you know what her response was? A couple of flutters of her eyelashes and a bashful, “Mmhmm.”
Typical.
I’m not falling for that shit next time.
“Do I need to start forcing you to take it?”
Her eyes water from all her coughing as she moves to sit beside me, attempting to calm her breathing. I take the inhaler from her and stuff it back in my bag.
She shakes her head softly. Even without the inhaler, she would have gotten through the worst of the coughs within a few minutes. Still, then she’d spend the rest of the day wheezing until she took the medication. It seems to be getting worse the older she gets.
“Then you better start taking it,” I scold.
She tries to play it off by resuming her nursing duties. “It was just the one time.”
“This week,” I add.
If no one reminded her, this girl would forget to feed herself.
She scrunches her nose. “It tastes bad.”
“Don’t care. You’re going to start taking it properly. Promise me.” I know she won’t. Isabella Garcia doesn’t make promises she can’t keep. I can see in her eyes that she’s itching to change the subject because this has been a point of real contention for a while.
“Sarai la mia morte.”
You’re going to be the death of me.
I don’t remember much of the language, but Bella is trying to learn it so we can “speak behind the adults’ backs,” even though her Spanish is better than my Italian. And I don’t know any Spanish beyond gracias, and me llamo Roman.
“Don’t forget, I’m going to visit Mitchell’s mother this weekend,” Bella says suddenly as she plasters on a band-aid.
I groan, but I’m unsure whether it’s from the pressure of the band-aid on my cut or from her reminder. I hate when she goes, because she’s all alone with no one to watch over her. What if Mitchell, her new foster dad, tries to hit her? He hasn’t done it before, but it doesn’t mean he won’t start. Or, what if she has a nightmare, can’t find Mickey Mouse, or has a panic attack again? Or if she forgets her inhaler?
“Why do you have to go?”
It’s not like anyone in her foster family has given a shit about inviting her to their family gatherings. At least Mitchell’s place is better than the hellhole she was in when we first met.
When Margaret heard all about how she wouldn’t get proper lunches—and I may have mentioned a bruise or two—the state swooped in to save the little girl with bright brown eyes. Apparently, she didn’t have “attention seeker” in her file, so they believed every word she said and got her out of there.
Mitchell is an asshole, but at least he gives her three meals a day and enough blankets to keep her warm—not like the last house.
Bella pinches her lip between her teeth, then shrugs like it isn’t something to worry about. Probably more for my sake than hers. “They told me I have to go. I don’t make the rules, I just follow the orders.”
“But you should try—’
“Mickey,” she says calmly, eying the stress ball that looks a hair away from exploding. “I’ll be back at school on Monday, and you won’t even notice I’m gone.”
She’s wrong. I’ll notice.
I always notice.
Unless I’m in the basement, I’m loitering on her lawn, or terrorizing the neighborhood, which she isn’t really a fan of.
If it were up to her, she’d have us both curled up with a book. She’s been doing this annoying thing where she likes going to the park to sit down and read, but I hate it. There aren’t enough noises, and I like hearing the sound of her voice.
“Isa,” Mitchell yells from somewhere inside the house. “Get inside. Set the table up for dinner.”
Pigtails steps back with a slight shake of her head, and I jump to my feet. Two days. She’s gone for two days. That’s nothing. That’s like… Like… Forty-eight hours.
I can count down or something.
I move forward to give her a hug, but the rejection smacks me in the face as she turns and runs up the stairs, avoiding my touch entirely. I know she wouldn’t have done it on purpose, I just guessed—well, hoped she’d be a little less scared now.
We never used to be able to high-five without one or both of us flinching, so when she hugged me for the very first time two years ago on my birthday, it was like I saw the light. Then, when she hugged me last year, I’m pretty sure I understood why people find religion.
I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been hugged—that I can remember—and Bella takes both places. I wasn’t even sure I liked it at first. It felt so claustrophobic, and all her hair was shoved in my nose and mouth, but the second those small arms of hers wrapped around my waist, everything stilled. The noises, the need to move, to burn energy by taking it out on another person. She is the only one who has ever been able to calm me. Sometimes she does this special little laugh, and the world quietens, but it doesn’t go away forever. Until she hugged me, and for once, everything felt normal.
Peaceful.
Right.
“See you Monday,” she half wheezes over her shoulder.
“Yeah,” I say. “Monday.”
Forty-eight hours.
I can do forty-eight hours.
It turns out I can’t count. Either that, or she’s been gone for more than forty-eight hours. But whatever. I survived. Barely. I’ll see her today, and that’s all that I care about.
I show up at her house earlier than usual and tug at the bracelet she recently made me as I wait, leaning against the fence. I’m still not used to wearing it and it makes me feel uneasy. Something about the bumps of the cotton strings sends weird shivers down my spine.
Not that I’ve told Pigtails that.
She was so excited to give it to me—even blew me off for a whole afternoon just to make it.
If I lost it, I’m not sure how I’d react. Or how she’d react—probably cry. So the simple solution is never to take it off, even when I shower. But now the thinning fabric has me on edge.
Bella has what she claims is a matching one, even though the pattern is different, and hers is a mixture of teals and reds, while mine is simply red and black. She claimed it was so I didn’t need to worry about getting blood on it.
Well, she didn’t use the word blood; she used dirty, but we both know what she really wanted to say.
Time ticks by at an agonizingly slow pace until it’s time for her to come out. Then five minutes pass. Then ten. Then twenty. She never walks through the front doors.
Uneasiness wedges itself into the space beneath my ribs. This isn’t like her. This isn’t like Bella. She is never late. If she is, she’ll stick her head out of the window and wake the neighborhood just to tell me how much longer she needs.
I mutter, “Fuck it,” under my breath as I storm to the house.
Mitchell never lets me inside, so I only get to see its interior if he isn’t home or if I sneak in. When I go for the lock, the handle doesn’t turn. Not caring if Mitchell rips me a new one, I pound my still-healing fists against the door, peeking through the window as I wait.
Five seconds.
Ten.
No sound.
No movement.
The rational part of my brain tells me that her trip has just been extended. She’ll be back later tonight, and when I wake up tomorrow, it’ll be like she never left. And then everything will be fine. I’ll be fine.
But the other part of me has eyes. It knows what I’m seeing. I know what is on the other side of the window, and every inch of me is saying that the rational part is fucking delusional.
White-hot rage crawls beneath my skin as I stare at the empty dining room. Empty. No chairs, no table, no fake fucking plant. Empty.
No.
No.
Bella would never leave me. Never. She said she would see me today, and she wouldn’t lie about that, would she?
No.
No, she never lets me down in any way that counts.
She’s always been there for me—the light at the top of the basement, the first bite after days of starvation, the one who doesn’t make me feel like running.
Bella wouldn’t leave. She just wouldn’t.
I sprint around the outside of the house, checking one window after the other. Empty. Every one of them. But the final nail in the coffin is her room. Empty. My drawings aren’t on the walls, the bed is gone, and Mickey Mouse is nowhere to be seen.
No.
No, no, no.
They can’t just take her away from me. They can’t.
My feet take me to the back porch, the last place I saw her, and try the ranch slider, but it doesn’t budge. I need to get inside. I have to get inside. I have to check. I don’t know; maybe she’s in there somewhere. Maybe she managed to get away and hide in a closet.
I have to.
I have to. I have to. I have to.
She—
No, she can’t be gone. I refuse to believe it. I can’t—No. She has to come back.
I don’t feel the glass shattering beneath my knuckles. With each pummel, another shard pierces my skin, and another drop of blood drops onto the floor. It isn’t until I feel it. Not the pain or the ache. The absence of it. The disappearance of the itch.
Then I see it. The one thing I refuse to take off laying on the floor amongst the drops of crimson. The last thing I got from her.
The bracelet.
I broke it.
Bella’s bracelet.