A/N: So, clearly, I am still avidly writing this story. Honestly, there's a part of me right now that has to figure out everyone's endgame (not saying its ending any time soon though!), I just need to figure out, at the end of the story, where everyone is going to be. I also need to figure out if certain parts will fit together well enough to drive the story in the direction I want it to go.
In the meantime, I give you this:
Chapter 12
Where Nothing Hurts And Nothing Bleeds
Amy settled into a chair next to Ricky and settled her books in front of her. For some weird reason, they were starting the week with their fifth, sixth, and seventh classes of the day instead of the first four. It had more to do with keeping the Van Nuys students on a regular schedule than anything else.
Ricky looked up at her after scribbling a few things into his notebook. "How'd your morning go?"
Amy shrugged, staring at the folded letter she still held in her hands. "Fine, I guess. I finished my reading before I fell asleep last night. Yours?"
Ricky shrugged as well. "Not that easy. Took a while to fall asleep and then when I did, it was restless."
"I'm sorry," Amy murmured. She still had her attention focused more on the letter in her hands than anything else.
"What is that," Ricky finally asked.
Amy shrugged again. "My new locker mate left it for me. It basically just says hi, nice to meet you, I hope we can meet in person and be friends," she told him.
Ricky nodded slowly. "You want to meet the person you're sharing a locker with?"
Amy rolled her shoulder, and pursed her slips slightly, rolling her eyes. "Doesn't really matter to me. Grace had this idea though, that we should all try to at least make friends with them, and to befriend someone from our own school."
Ricky gave her a slightly surprised look, pretending that he was writing something on his notebook as a teacher passed by them. Amy opened a notebook as well, and uncapped a pen, like she had work to do as well.
"I'm all for trying to be nicer to kids at Grant, but if the person I share a locker with is a slob, I'm not making some major effort," he said quietly.
Amy smirked and chuckled a little. "Hey, some of the coolest people can have dirty lockers."
Ricky nodded. "So can some of the craziest. If your locker is a mess, then that speaks to how much chaos is in your life, if you ask me."
Amy furrowed her brow at him. "Your locker is always spotless. You just don't want to be friends with someone who doesn't clean up after themselves."
Ricky shrugged, smiling at her. "Yeah, I guess."
"Hey Amy. Ricky."
They both looked up, and saw a girl roughly the same height as Amy, standing in front of them. Her hair was a very light blond, and her chocolate brown eyes bore into both of them as she held a memo pad over a textbook, and a pen.
"Hey, Valerie," Amy spoke back politely. "What's up?"
Valerie Denison wasn't exactly someone who ran within the same crowd with Ricky and Amy. She was friends with the artsy kids, and was in just about every club in school. She was also one of the senior editors on the school newspaper, and the school yearbook.
"Well, even though we're here at Van Nuys for the time being, the school wants to keep everything separate as far as clubs and whatnot, and I noticed that you two hadn't given an interview yet about the shooting, so I was wondering…"
Amy looked over at Ricky, who, in mere seconds, looked absolutely annoyed at the prospect.
"It wouldn't be anything too personal," Valerie insisted quickly. "Just a few questions on what that day was like for you, how it effected you… Stuff like that."
Ricky's demeanor didn't change. Amy took a heavy breath and looked back up at Valerie. "Can we think about it?"
She nodded, though there was an apprehension behind it. "I'll need an answer soon though; like by tomorrow, if you can manage that."
Amy nodded as well. "Thanks."
Valerie spun on her heels and walked out of the cafeteria. Amy turned her attention back to Ricky again.
"We've been turning away reporters for two weeks," she informed him. Do you really want to continue doing it?"
Ricky shrugged at her, writing aimlessly in his notebook as to not attract attention to them. "I have no interest in talking to anyone who has anything to do with the media."
Amy nodded haphazardly and shrugged. "Well I hate to tell you, but until we do, they're never going to leave us alone; you more than me. Everyone wants to know the kid who was carried out of school looking dead."
Ricky leaned across the table, looking frustrated. "I don't want people knowing who I am, or where I've been and what I've done. I've lived enough of my life with people knowing more than I'd have liked them to. Right now I just don't want anything to do with people who want to exploit what we've all been through."
Amy raised her eyebrows slightly. "Tenth graders are going to exploit us?"
Ricky rolled his eyes. "Okay, maybe not kids we go to school with, but-"
"But people are going to keep asking until we talk to someone. So why not do it with people we know? At least then we can say we've said our piece."
Ricky dropped his pen and reached out to grab the coffee that Amy had brought in for him. He took a long drink from it, still not taking his gaze off of Amy.
"I'm not doing anything that means giving some super exclusive interview. Not now," he insisted.
Amy smiled and brushed her hand up across his cheek. "Okay."
-
I close my eyes and I can see a better day
I close my eyes and pray…
-
Amy flipped her biology textbook shut and looked up at Ricky from the table. He was currently sitting on the floor with John, playing with a set of blocks that Amy had set out once they'd gotten to the apartment. Contrary to what they had hoped, she had ended up with homework on her first day back. It was simple note-taking, but it still frustrated her to no end.
She pushed back from the table and walked over to where Ricky and John where seated, and sat down between them. John passed her a block and she chuckled, settling it on a tower that Ricky was building with them.
"You get all your homework done," he asked.
Amy nodded, continuing to accept blocks from John as he passed them to her. "It was just some notes and a few questions in the book."
Ricky started picking up some of the blocks that he had built into a tower and placed them into the bucket that Amy had gotten them out from. "So when's this interview we're supposed to have with Val?"
"She said she'd give me a call," Amy said. "She wasn't quite sure when she'd get around to it. Might be sometime during one of the next few mornings to come. It all depends."
"On what," Ricky asked, annoyed.
"On schedules," she said simply. "Besides, we don't have to be school until one tomorrow."
Ricky nodded. "You still coming with me to my appointment?"
Amy nodded as well, tossing some of the blocks into the bucket as well. "I figured we could take John over to the nursery around eight or nine, and then go over there."
"Sounds good," Ricky agreed.
They continued to pick up the blocks until all but a few were put away, and then Ricky called out for take-out, while Amy got John changed into pajamas and then settled him into his highchair, with a bib wrapped around him so that he didn't get food all of himself. She went to work feeding him food from a jar, and then warmed up a bottle for him as well.
By the time dinner showed up, she had just put him down in the pack and play, and set out plates for Ricky and herself. He was hopping around on one leg as he poured out Chinese food onto plates for them. Amy stopped long enough to take a phone call, before she joined him back at the table as he finished piling food onto his plate.
"Who was that," he asked.
"First call was my mom," she answered, spooning white rice onto her plate. "I told her John and I would be spending the night. And then Valerie called. She asked if we could meet after classes tomorrow. I said yeah."
"All three of us," Ricky asked.
Amy nodded, settling the rice carton back on the table. She looked up at him. "That's okay, right?"
Ricky nodded. He gave a small smile. "It is. I just…I don't want some big interview. Other people were shot that day too. I wasn't even shot by anyone that was actually involved with the real shooting."
Amy shook her head. "Only because I threw my arm over your head. Joe tried to shoot you too."
Ricky shrugged, chewing on a piece of orange chicken. "I don't remember."
-
I'm not crazy, I'm just a little impaired
I know right now you don't care
-
Grace looked up at Adrian as she slammed her textbook shut and shoved it aside. "Who gives homework on the first day back to school?"
Adrian shrugged, looking in her book and then scribbling something in her notebook. "Evil Calculus teachers?"
Grace laughed. She pushed back from the table and walked over to the fridge and opened it. She searched through it for a few minutes before she pulled something out. She walked over into the space between the island and the cupboards. She opened up the cupboard with the cups and pulled a glass down out of it.
Adrian closed up her calculus book and turned around. "Grace, what are you doing!"
Her eyes were wide at the sight of Grace pouring liquor into a cup.
Grace just shrugged. "It's just a cup of wine. You want some?"
Adrian jumped up from her seat and walked over to Grace. She grabbed the bottle hastily from Grace and recapped it. "No! I don't want any! What are you doing? You're gonna get yourself into trouble!"
Grace rolled her eyes. "I highly doubt that. It's not like I'm drinking so much that-"
"You shouldn't be drinking at all! Does your mom know about this? How long have you been doing it?"
Grace rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Does it really matter?"
Adrian forced a laugh out and shook her head. "I think it would matter to your parents!"
Grace shook her head. She picked up the glass and took a drink out of it. "My dad is dead, and my mom is always off with Jeff now. You think she's around enough to notice what I do anymore?"
Adrian huffed. "Well what about Jack? Does Jack know? You know he's there for you, Grace!"
Grace shrugged, rolling her eyes again. She walked back over to the table and sat down. She crossed one leg over the other as she sipped out of the cup she was holding in her hands. "No, Jack doesn't know. Why would I tell him? So he can tell his mom and dad, and they can tell my mom? No thanks, Adrian."
Adrian groaned. She picked up the wine bottle and walked over to the fridge. She placed it inside and then walked over to the table and took the cup out of Grace's hands.
"What about the fact that you can't mix antidepressants and sleep meds with alcohol? Don't you care about how that will affect your health? It could hurt your liver! You could kill yourself, Grace!"
Adrian stared at her, arms flung out with her face aghast. Grace simply continued to drink from the glass as she picked up her books and stuffed them into her bag.
"Nothing's going to happen to me," she said with assurance. "I'm fine."
Adrian laughed in disgust. "Yeah, that's what everyone says. But you know what? Most people who make stupid choices like this- because that is what you're doing - making a stupid choice. They usually end up rehab eventually. Is that what you want?"
Grace gulped down what was in her wine glass and then grabbed her bag off the side of her chair. "You know what Adrian? I don't really care what happens to me, so why don't you just leave? You sitting here and yelling at me isn't going to change anything."
"Leave? So that you can drink more," Adrian said angrily. "No way."
Grace rolled her eyes, and with a huff, she turned on her heel. She walked over to the stairs and marched up them, to her room. Adrian followed behind her and threw her hand out to stop Grace's door from flying shut as she walked into it. She walked in as well and stood near the doorway.
"Why didn't you tell me you were depressed or whatever," Adrian asked.
Grace groaned. "It doesn't matter how I feel, Adrian, so let it go! Just go home!" She walked over to her and shoved her, and then pushed her out of the room, turning to shut the door behind her. Adrian huffed as she leaned against the door.
"I'm here for you, Grace. I wish you'd talk to me." She rested her hand against the door, hoping for an answer. When she didn't receive one, she turned on her heel and walked out of the house.
-
I remember when you came with me that night
You said forever, that you would never let me go
-
Amy shifted from one foot to the other as she stood in the lobby of the therapists' office. They had dropped John off earlier that morning at the church nursery. Ricky was sitting in his wheelchair next to her with his head rested in his hand.
She sipped from the coffee she had picked up on the drive over there as she leaned against the wall behind her.
Ricky looked up at her and rubbed his eyes, yawning for what had to be the fifth time that morning. "Sucks that even though we have half days now, we can't sleep in."
Amy nodded, taking another sip from her coffee. "Are you sure you don't want something with caffeine in it?"
Ricky nodded as well. "Makes my head feel funny. It doesn't seem to like being mixed with pain meds."
Amy walked over to the chair next to him and sat down, still holding her coffee tightly in her hand. She bounced her feet against the floor and looked around the room. Ricky reached over and placed his hand on her one of her knees. She looked up at him.
"Take a deep breath," he laughed. "It's not an interrogation. You don't have to answer any questions you don't want to, and if you don't like it, there's no one saying that you have to come again."
Amy furrowed her brow. "Then why do you? I've heard you say more than once that you can't stand being here."
Ricky shrugged. "When I lived with my parents, I didn't have a choice, but the logical part of me knows when I need to be here."
"And you feel like you need to be here five days a week now," Amy asked disbelievingly.
Ricky shrugged again. "My father raped me and tried to kill me. The logical part of me says I do, so for now, I show up."
Amy frowned and nodded. She reached over and grabbed his hand. "I'm sorry, Ricky. I'm sorry he did the things to you that he did, and that he won't stop."
He tipped his head to the side, looking over at her. "I am too. Not for me, but for him."
Amy raised her eyebrows at him. "Seriously?"
Ricky nodded. "He's the one who did what his father did to him. He's the one who missed out on living a full life because he felt the need to repeat his past. I, on the other hand, get to watch my son grow up and live the life that I used to wish for."
Amy looked at him skeptically. "What do you mean 'used to'?"
Ricky shrugged. "Wishing is for people who want something they can't have. There's no use to it."
Amy let out a sigh and leaned back in her chair. As she did, Dr. Fields door opened and he stepped out, holding his own cup of coffee.
"Ricky, Amy. I'm ready for both of you if you want to come in," he said loud enough for them to hear them.
Amy stood and Ken walked over to them. He pushed Ricky's chair into his room, and Amy followed slowly behind them, closing the door once they were inside. With a little help, Ricky shifted to the couch and rested his leg up onto the table in front of him, where Dr. Fields had placed a pillow for his foot. Amy walked over and sat near him on the couch, but left an amicable amount of space between them. She still held her coffee cup in her hand, though she had settled her bag next to her feet on the floor.
Dr. Fields poured both of them each a cup of water and then walked over to his chair and sat down in it. He picked up two separate files and flipped both of them open before settling them in the chair next to him.
"Good morning to both of you," said cheerfully.
Amy was slightly surprised by his tone. Ricky shrugged, and she muttered a 'good morning' back at him.
"So, Amy, Ricky tells me you'd like to start coming to therapy," he asked.
Amy shrugged. She leaned forward and set her coffee down on the table and then leaned back on the couch. She crossed one leg over the other. "I guess. It's more that my parents want me here. They think it might help."
"Help with what exactly," Dr. Fields picked up one of the files. It was extremely thin compared to Ricky's very thick folder, which was filled with note after note from the years of therapy he'd had so far.
"They said they're worried about how I've been since the shooting at school," she said.
Dr. Fields nodded as he wrote something in her file. "And what do you think about it all?"
Amy shrugged again. "I don't know. I think what happened is really screwed up. I don't think we should all be bright and shiny faced. People were hurt. People died. Some of my closest friends are dead."
Dr. Fields nodded. "So you see no problem with your anger?"
Amy's jaw dropped. She looked over at Ricky, who simply shrugged. He grabbed a glass of water off of the table and sipped from it.
"Why should I? One of my best friends was shot in the head, my boyfriend almost was almost killed… Why should I pretend to be happy?"
She settled her coffee cup on the table and crossed one arm over the other.
Dr. Fields shook his head. "That's not what I'm asking. In no way, should you pretend to act some way that you don't feel, but what do you think about being asked to talk to someone about how everything has made you feel?"
Amy exhaled heavily through her nose and looked down at the floor. She ran her hand through her bangs. "I don't know. I don't get how talking to someone is going to help me to feel better. I can't erase what I heard from my head."
Ricky looked over at her, his mouth slightly ajar.
Dr. Fields put his hand up to Ricky and shook his head. "Wait just a minute."
He turned his attention back to Amy and settled her file next to his chair, clasping his hands together. "You're talking about hearing the gunfire?"
"No," Ricky shook his head as tears burned in his eyes. "No. You… You listened?"
Amy looked over at him. "How was I supposed to block it out? Not hear it? What he did to you-"
Ricky clenched the side of the couch and leaned forward on it, sucking in deep breaths. Dr. Fields moved off his chair and walked over to them. He picked up a wastepaper bin off the floor and rested it in Ricky's lap as he perched on the arm of the couch. Ricky whipped his hand up and grabbed the edge of the bin as he heaved into it.
Amy stood and walked over to the wall on the far side of the room. She stared out the window and held her injured arm tightly against her body.
"You okay?"
"Mmm."
She looked briefly over her shoulder and watched as Dr. Fields settled the wastepaper bin on the floor and then pulled the bag off the sides and tied it shut.
"Does that get to you," Dr. Fields asked as he sat back down in his chair. "Knowing she overheard what happened and didn't stop it?"
Ricky shook his head. Amy turned her gaze back to the window she'd been staring out. "I told her not to come in, 'cause I knew he'd kill her if she did. She couldn't leave the room without risking being killed either, so I told her to hide."
Amy turned around from where she stood. "Yeah, and instead, I got to listen to your father r- do things."
Ricky leaned forward on the couch. "Say it. Say what he did."
They stared each other down, but Amy said nothing.
"It's rape," Ricky growled, his voice raw. "And for twelve years, my father did it to me every night. My mom was never there, and the only person who listened to me scream, apparently enjoyed it because he kept doing it."
Amy kept her attention turned away from them, trying to keep what he was saying blocked out. She glared so widely out the window, she felt like her eyes might fall out of her head. Tears were filling her eyes, but she was fighting every fiber of herself to keep them from falling.
"Its sick and twisted, too, Ames, cause he'll never stop. It's not good enough to go after anyone else, either. The only one he wants to hurt is me. Just, me."
"STOP!" Amy whipped around and glared at her, clenching her fists. "Don't you get it? You talking about that, about what he did? It hurts. I hate knowing he did those things to you!"
Ricky leaned back slightly and gulped. "Then why are you with me?"
Amy walked back over to the couch and sat down next to him. "Because I love you." She reached her hand up and cupped his cheek, brushing her thumb across his face. "I always have. I don't know why, but I do. And thinking about what he did to you, and about how I could've stopped it-"
Ricky shook his head, pulling her hand off his face. "You couldn't have stopped him. He would've done whatever it would've taken to get what he wanted. He always has. He probably would have killed you that day. And then what? What would I have done about John? What if the cops hadn't caught Bob? What if he was still out there, and he came after me again? What if he got to John? Don't you get it? If he had gotten to you, John and I would be as good as dead."
Amy dropped her hand into her lap and stared down at it as tears ran down her face. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
Ricky shook his head again. "Don't apologize. You didn't do anything wrong."
He leaned forward and brushed his nose against hers, and then kissed her cheek.
"So I ask again," Dr. Fields said gently. "What do you think about being here, Amy?"
She looked up at him shakily as she settled back on the couch. This time she left no space between herself and Ricky, and he held her hand in his own.
"It scares me," she said honestly.
Dr. Fields shifted in his chair, leaning forward. "Why?"
Amy bit her bottom lip and shrugged slightly. "I don't know. I think I'm afraid of realizing that I'm a completely different person than I think I am."
Dr. Fields smiled at her, but he also shrugged. "Well, you never know unless you give yourself a chance to find out."
Amy nodded slowly, and looked back down to the floor.
Dr. Fields looked over at Ricky. "You getting any sleep yet?"
Ricky shrugged, blinking his eyes slowly. "Trying."
"He keeps waking up from nightmares," Amy murmured.
"How bad are they," Dr. Fields asked.
Ricky took a deep breath and let it out. "I'm remembering things that feel more like dreams, but I know they're real."
"Like," Dr. Fields asked. He didn't want to push Ricky too hard, but he also knew if he didn't push enough, they wouldn't discuss what really needed to be.
Ricky looked around the room, and his expression changed to that of someone emotionally pained by their own memories.
"He used to beat me up so bad that I'd end up with concussions so bad I can't remember whole days or weeks at a time. They rarely let me to go to the hospital, and when they did ,they'd make me make up some story about falling out of a tree or getting beat up on my walk home from school. I keep dreaming about things that happened when I was five, six years old. Like my first day of school…"
"You've never talked about that before," Dr. Fields mentioned.
Amy crossed one leg over the other and turned to face Ricky. "What happened?"
Ricky looked out the window across the room. "My father wasn't too happy that I wasn't around to do his bidding all of the time, and that he couldn't…" He shook his head, staring hard at the window panes.
"Couldn't what?"
Ricky set his jaw. A soundless sob quaked in his chest. "Couldn't lend me out to his buddies so that he could get high. He's never had a job. For as long as I can remember, he used me to get ahead. Whatever he needed, he used me to get it. He even-"
Ricky's breathing became harder at the memories rolling through his head like a movie reel. He shook his head. They didn't really want to know this stuff.
Tears rolled down Amy's cheeks as she listened to him talk. As much as it hurt her to hear that he'd been through this things. She knew that, to some degree, it helped him to be able to talk about it.
"What is it," she asked.
Ricky looked up at her. "You don't want to know."
She shrugged. "I'd rather know than not, and watch you suffer because of it."
She squeezed his hand gently, brushing her thumb over his knuckles. "What is it?"
"On weekends," he started. "If he was indebted to someone, he'd let them take me. Sometimes it was for a few hours. Other times, I'd be gone all weekend. In the beginning, sometimes my mom would go looking for me, and find me. But by the time I told my teacher about everything, she'd given up trying. I spent more time doing my father's bidding at some random stranger's place, or a rundown hotel, than I did at home."
Dr. Fields leaned back in his chair, and exhaled a long breath. It seemed for as many time as Ricky told him such horrid stories about his past, there were always more that he left unsaid. He couldn't imagine wishing that kind of pain on anyone. And yet, the more time went on, the more there was always left to say about something that he would sooner keep to himself.
"Your life is just one bad horror movie after another," Amy murmured into the air.
Dr. Fields checked his watch. "Why don't we take a short break. Have either of you eaten breakfast?"
Amy shook her head. "We haven't really had appetites."
Dr. Fields nodded. He walked across the room and opened a large cabinet. He pulled out two clean bowls and settled them settled them on his desk. He walked back over to the cabinet and grabbed a box of cereal out of it. He filled both bowls and then grabbed a carton of milk from the fridge and poured some into each bowl. Lastly, he returned the cereal and milk to the cabinet and fridge, and grabbed plastic spoons from a box. He settled them inside the bowls and then walked back over to Ricky and Amy, and settled the bowls on the coffee table in front of them.
Ricky pulled his hand reluctantly from Amy's. He scooted forward on the couch and grabbed the spoon inside the bowl settled in front of him, and scooped a bite from it. She followed his movements and scooped a generous spoonful of cereal into her mouth.
"Ricky, you still writing when it helps," Dr. Fields asked.
Ricky nodded as he munched down a bite of his cheerios. "Mostly when I can't sleep at night."
"You write anything in the last few days," he asked.
Ricky nodded. He took another bite from his cereal bowl and then reached into Amy's bag and pulled out a small book. It was hardcover with a basic black covering. He flipped it open and read the writing.
"its dirty,
this feeling,
can't wash it off my skin,
its burning,
deep inside,
its burdening me within
so sick,
so impure,
can't forget those nights
if I could run away,
cause i don't want to stay,
endless, endless night
tears, burning,
silence, yearning
rocking and pacing,
hiding and waiting
lone tears,
dark in the night,
shaking,
running from my skin
wake up, wake up,
this isn't right
so sick,
so impure
wide awake,
but tired inside
burning from the inside out,
every touch filled with doubt,
can't wash this off,
can't cut it away,
though I might try
can't throw it away
get rid of it,
get off,
wipe away,
off my skin,
touching, burning,
hurting my skin
i'm sick inside,
you've made me want to die
burning with impurity
innocence never seemed so dull
aching pain, is a stow-away
and my white canvas has crimson flowers
tears, burning tears,
but still, I'm sitting here
so impure,
there's nothing left here
excuse me sir,
I think this belonged to you..."
He closed the book slowly and looked up; first at Amy, and then at Dr. Fields. Amy looked heartbroken. Dr. Fields looked scared.
"Are you suicidal, Ricky?"