I'm shivering as I sit on a stool in Miss. Desjardin's kitchen. She sits behind me on another stool, a First Aid kit resting on the counter beside her. She inspects the wound on my back, her fingers softly touching the skin around it. It throbs.
"Well, it looks as though the bath cleaned it out a little, but I'll need to disinfect it just to be safe, okay?" she says from behind me. I can feel her breath on my neck and I nod.
I hear her moving and unscrewing a cap off a bottle. There's a moment of silence until she touches what feels like a damp piece of cotton against my wound. I wince as a burning sensation over-takes the throbbing. I grip the side of the counter, squeezing my eyes shut. I cry out.
"I'm sorry, sweetie. I should have told you that it would sting." Miss. Desjardin says.
I look ahead at a microwave in front of me. The numbers above the little control pad flicker and I take a deep breath.
Not here. Not now.
The flickering stops, as does the burning and I relax my shoulders a little.
"Should we just patch it up? It seems very clean, anyway. I don't think it will need stitches, unless you wanna go to the hospital?"
I spin around on the stool, shaking my head. "No, no. I can't go to the hospital. The police will be looking for me soon and they'll take me away."
"Okay, okay. Not hospitals." she says calmly. I realize that she is still wearing her Prom dress. She looked so pretty and then I ruined it. She patches up the wound. "Let me get the rest of you looked at."
She starts with the slash on my arm and she begins to clean it up. The same burning returns and I bite my lower lip and grip the counter once again. The numbers on the microwave don't flicker this time.
"Carrie, I think we have to talk about what happened last night." she glances at me as she starts to wrap gauze around my arm.
I nod in reply, moving my hand from the counter, clutching the top of my towel because I'm afraid it's going to fall down.
"How – how did you do what . . . you did?" she doesn't look at me as she says this.
I open my mouth, trying to think of the right words. Nothing comes until I rehearse it in my head. Will she believe me? "I – I have telekinesis."
"Tele – what's that?"
"I can move things with my mind."
Miss. Desjardin nods her head lightly as she fixes the gauze with a safety pin. She then hops off the stool and motions to it for me to prop my leg up on it and I do so. She kneels down and gets to the work on the back of my leg.
I feel more tears coming and I let them fall. There's no point in trying to stop them or wiping them away.
"I'm a monster." I sob, my shoulders heaving. I feel as though I'm going to be sick. The burning comes from my leg this time, but I don't pay much attention to it.
"No, you're not, Carrie." Miss. Desjardin says matter-of-factly.
"But you saw, Miss. Desjardin. I killed those people. I killed my Momma."
She wraps my leg in the white gauze, attaches a safety pin and then starts putting the stuff back into the first aid box. Her silence worries me and I'm afraid of what she's going to say.
"Let's get you dressed and we can talk about this more." she takes my hand and I follow her upstairs and into her bedroom.
Her large bed is made with not a single crease and it smells like air freshener. She sits me down on it and walks over to her chest-of-drawers. She digs inside, pulling out a pair of gray sweatpants and sits them down beside me. I used to wear a similar pair during gym. Momma never let me wear shorts because she thought they were immodest. She then brings me over a white tank top and a red flannel shirt, things Momma would never let me wear.
"I hope these are okay for you. I'll let you change. I'll be down in the living room. Do you want anything?"
I shake my head, "No, thank you."
She leaves and I start to get dressed.
I button the flannel shirt all the way to the top because Momma would think of it as "slutty" if I walked around showing my chest for all to see. As I walk into the living room, I tuck my hair behind my ears and sit down next to Miss. Desjardin, who has a mug of tea in her hands.
"Do you want to talk about this? It's okay if you think you're not ready yet." she says, taking a sip of her tea before sitting it down on the coffee table.
"No . . . no, I want to." I reply.
We sit in silence. Neither of us knows where to begin until I start crying again. She scoots over, putting an arm delicately around my shoulders and she pulls me close. I lean into her, ignore the ache in my shoulder.
"I deserve to go to hell, Miss. Desjardin. You saw what I did. I didn't mean for it to go so far, but it did." my mouth feels dry.
"But I'm sure you didn't mean to . . . kill them."
"I did. I wanted them dead for what they did to me, but I didn't – I didn't . . ."
I don't know what to say. My feelings are conflicted. They deserved to be punished, but did they really deserve to die? Especially in such horrible ways. I can still smell Tina burning . . .
She deserved it! Just like the rest of them and you know it!
Not like that. Not in that way. I should have never . . .
"Carrie?" Miss. Desjardin's voice snaps me out of a trance.
"They deserved to be punished, Miss. Desjardin, but I shouldn't have killed them. They just – they made fun of me for so long and when they did that . . ."
I can't go on. My mouth is too dry and I'm crying too much to gather my thoughts clearly.
"I know, Carrie. Let's just talk about what happened after Prom." she takes my hands in hers.
I tell her about everything, how I went after Billy and Chris and killed them. Then how I went home, took a bath and how Momma tried to stab me to death, but I stopped her by stabbing her to death. Then when Sue came into the house and it started to collapse after being hit by the stones that fell from the sky. By the time I'm finished, Miss. Desjardin's face is pale, as though she can't believe what she's heard. I wouldn't if I was her.
"So – uh, so Sue was there? Do you think she knows you survived?" she finally asks after a few moments of silence.
"I don't think she knows I'm alive."
"Do you think she was in on it will Billy and Chris?"
"No. I could read her mind. She didn't have anything to do with it. She wanted to help me, but I wanted to die with Momma."
You should be dead, you Devil's Whore!
The sound of Momma's voice screams in my head and even though I know it's not real, I grimace at it.
"Are you okay?" Miss. Desjardin asks, looking at me worriedly.
"Uh . . . I think I need to lie down."
"You can use my guest room upstairs. That's where you'll be staying."
"You're – you're gonna let me stay?"
Miss. Desjardin nods and a feel a weight being lifted from my shoulders and I finally feel one hundred percent safe with her.
"I want to help you, Carrie. But let's get you to bed."
She stands and we head upstairs. She leads me to a room at the end of the hall and I step in. The bed is a double, which is bigger than my single at home. It looks comfy and the room is warm and welcoming.
I walk over to the bed and pull back the covers. I lay down and roll over on my side instantly as a warm pain spreads through my back, reminding me of the stab wound. I reach over to pull the covers up around me, but Miss. Desjardin does it for me, just like Momma did.
I'm not gonna let anyone hurt you, little girl.
Momma's voice comes back to me, except this time it's calm and loving.
"Try and get some sleep, Carrie. If I'm asleep when you get up, help yourself to anything in the fridge and watch some TV if you want. But if you need to talk to me about something, don't hesitate to wake me up. Okay?" she heads for the door and I watch her leave, nodding at her.
"Oh, and don't answer the door to anyone." she closes the door.
I cry myself to sleep.
