Touch Him Again, And I'll Kill You

When Gerard’s car pulled into the driveway to my house, I suddenly felt very panicked.
“Frankie, you okay?” He soothingly placed his hand on my knee.
“I don’t know why, but I just...I just don’t feel comfortable here.”
I saw him shrug out of the corner of my eye.
“That’s very understandable after what happened to you here.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, the first time I had looked at him throughout this whole drive.
“You need to talk about it sometime, Frank. It isn’t just going to disappear. It has to be confronted.”
I rolled my eyes and opened the car door. “That’s really fucking easy for you to say since it didn’t happen to you. See you at graduation, Gerard.” I stepped out of his car and slammed the door. I heard him yelling my name as I walked to the front door.
Once inside of my house, I began looking for my mom. Her car was in the driveway so I knew she was home.
I found her sitting at the kitchen table sipping a cup of coffee from a red mug.
“Frankie, how was your trip?” I kissed her cheek and sat down across from her.
“It was okay, we don’t really want to tell everyone what we did, we just want to keep it between us, y’know?” I fed her a lie just in case she asked me for details that I couldn’t give her.
She gave me a small nod. “I trust you, especially with Max. He’s a great kid. Better than that one you used to date, Gerard, remember? What a troublemaker he was. How is Max, anyway? I noticed he didn’t come in when he dropped you off.”
I felt like I was going to throw up at the sound of his name. “He’s okay, he was just tired, that’s why he didn’t come in. I’m tired, too actually. I think I’m gonna head up to bed, if that’s okay with you.”
She smiled at me. “Of course it is, sweetie.”
I gave her a small hug before walking up the stairs and to my room. The door was open and I could see inside that my mom had cleaned my room. I froze when I saw the light pink sheets poking out beneath the dark pillows. I stared at them for what felt like hours, just remembering everything that had happened on them, remembering that they were all I could see when I had went through what felt like an eternity of pain.
I ran over to my bed and threw the heavy blanket off of it to see the sheet more clearly. I was face to face with a blood stain about the size of my fist. I couldn’t hold it in anymore, I ran to the bathroom and barely made it to the toilet by the time the puke spilled out of my mouth. There were tears running down my eyes. There was a small knock on the door followed my mother’s voice. “Frankie? Are you okay?” I rested my head on the wall behind me and sobbed into my hands, hoping that she would just leave me alone.
“Frankie, I’m coming in.” I covered my eyes with my hands as I heard the door creak open.
“Oh...Frankie..” I felt her sit down on the floor next to me and she began to rub small circles into my back. She gently grabbed my hands with hers and pulled them away from my face so that I could see her.
“Baby, something happened to you. What was it?” I shook my head.
“No, no, no.” I said, my voice cracking.
She wrapped her arm around my shoulder and pulled me down so my head was resting on her shoulder as she ran her manicured nails through my curly brown hair. We stayed like that for a while, in complete silence. It was so comforting to be with her.
“He raped me.” My voice sounded like it was distant, and like it wasn’t mine.
“I know, honey.” I pulled away from her and stared into her eyes.
“I saw the blood on your sheets, and your clothes in the trash.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
She gave me a solemn look. “Because you process things differently, and I needed you to come to me when you were ready. I know you weren’t with him for the last few weeks, so where did you go?”
“I stayed with a few friends.”
She didn’t ask me any further questions, and I really appreciated it. I couldn’t handle much more of it.
She let me sleep in her bed with her that night so that I wasn’t alone. We talked about getting a therapist and making a doctor’s appointment, and just finally became close again. She was my mother and I was her son, just like it use to be.

Notes