Fly in the Ointment

"I don't know why, but for some reason he decided to convince me to leave work by telling everyone a story about a time that I..." she stopped and even though I couldn't see her face I could tell she was blushing hard. "I...I accidentally bit him. Down there."

"It's ok, I get it. You don't have to go into detail Candice," I said softly as she shivered despite the heat that permeated the house.

"He was so graphic. He made it sound like I was either this stupid little girl who didn't know what she was doing or some evil bitch who got off on trying to hurt him. Everyone was just shocked that he was talking about this and eventually someone called security." She pawed at her face to wipe away tears again and drew a shaky breath. "I left with him because I was just too embarrassed to stay there. I don't think I could ever show my face at that place again."

"I'm sorry. I know it doesn't mean anything but..."

"He beat me so bad that night I thought for sure he'd kill me," she drove on as if I hadn't spoken. "I begged him to take me to the hospital but that just made him hit me even more."

"Candice..."

"He made me do things. Horrible, twisted things. I can't even describe them, they were just so...so wrong." Her hands were wringing fiercer than ever as she relived that memory. "Someone called the police. I don't know if it was a neighbor who heard me screaming or one of the people at the office. I don't know."

"Ok Candice. Ok," I slid from the chair and took her in my arms, breaking a rule I'd set for myself long ago. I couldn't help it, she needed someone to hold her and I just couldn't deny her that. She sobbed loudly into my chest and I fought down my own tears as I thought about everything that had led us to this point.

'I should tell her. She deserves to know why I couldn't save her. Even if it only makes her life worse, she deserves to know who I really am.' I'd gone over those exact same thoughts many times before, but now they seemed far more compelling than ever before.

'But it'll just hurt her more. Look at her! She doesn't need to be hurt any more. I don't think she could handle it.' Once again my thoughts were the same as always, though I was still no closer to finding what the 'right thing to do' was. I'd fought with myself for so long over this but there just didn't seem to be an answer.

"He went to jail for assault, but they let him out a few days ago. I had to get away. I just had to." She whimpered against me as I held her tight.

"He only spent a few months in jail for beating you up?" I asked incredulously. I'd always thought assault was a rather serious crime that warranted more than that as punishment.

"Yeah. I..." she sniffled against my chest and seemed on the verge of falling silent for good when suddenly she went on. "I couldn't testify against him. I just couldn't."

"Oh Candice," I sighed and she held me tighter than ever.

"The prosecutor said that without me, the case was too weak. He couldn't get him on anything significant. I wish I wasn't such a coward, but I just couldn't go in there and look at him. It was too scary, I couldn't do it." She sounded miserable as she clung to me and cried. I did my best to reassure her, but who was I kidding? I had no experience in this sort of thing.

"I filed for divorce and took off to find you before he could find me. I'm sorry I just showed up, but I didn't have anywhere else to go."

"It's ok. I'm glad you came to me. I'm sorry for being such an asshole to you," I whispered down at her before softly kissing her brown hair.

"It's ok. You didn't know," she mumbled back.

We held each other like that for God knows how long, sweating and sticky from the oppressive heat of the desert but still somehow comfortable together. I was in turmoil as I tried to decide if this was the time to finally come clean. I tumbled it over and over through my mind, trying to see the problem from every possible angle. There just didn't seem to be a right answer, and finally I decided that since she'd been so honest with me the least I could do was return the favor. I braced myself for the storm ahead and slowly disentangled us.

"What is it Cedric?" my sister asked as I stood up from her.

"I'll be right back."

"Um, ok" she said rather dubiously.

I quickly made my way through the house to my bedroom and swiped my wallet from the nightstand I keep it on. I dug through it to find a credit card and then tossed the wallet on my bed before heading back to my sister.

"This is a credit card I never use," I said as I approached her again. I sat in the recliner again and placed the card on the table beside me. "I want you to have it. It has a ten thousand dollar limit and I'll pay it off whenever you use it."

"I can't take that!" she gasped as she looked at the card as if it was a snake about to strike at her.

"I understand, but let me tell you something before you decide if you should take it or not" I said. My throat felt dry and about to close up as I forced more words through it. "I don't want you to think I'm trying to buy you off, because I'm not. I just want you to be able to escape from everything and not worry about Steven or anything."

"Buy me off? Buy me off for what?" she asked as her face contorted into a look of confusion.

"Just listen alright. I know this is gonna be hard to hear. Fuck, it's gonna be hard to say. But please, just let me finish before you say anything, alright?" I implored as she looked at me in surprise.

"Alright I guess," she said slowly. I drew in a shaky breath and tried hard not to puss out and run away. It took every bit of courage I had, and maybe a good amount of fear too, to go on.

"When we were young..." I started but felt like I was going at it the wrong way. "Do you remember how we used to play when you were just a little girl?"

"Yeah. What do you mean?"

"I mean, like, when we'd be in the living room just sort of messing around. You know, like, playing like kids. Wrestling and stuff." I was very aware that the word 'like' was coming out of my mouth way too much but I seemed powerless to stop it.

"Yeah, I remember," she answered slowly, her eyes looking up and to the side as if trying to find the memory there.

"There was a time when I was like, I don't know, fifteen maybe, and you were ten that..." I suddenly couldn't breathe. I struggled to pull in air but it was like Mike Tyson had just punched me in the gut full force and all I could do was bug my eyes out and make that fish face.

"That what Cedric?" my sister asked, sounding more desperate by the second. "What happened?" With a whoosh of air I got my breath back and before I could think about what I was saying I was talking.

"I molested you!" I spat it out as if the words were the worst tasting thing I'd ever had in my mouth. In truth it was by far the worst experience of my life saying them and knowing they were true. There is nothing in this word or the next that I wouldn't give to make them false, but they aren't.

"I didn't rape you, or even take any clothes off, but it was still the worst thing I've ever done or even imagined." I was crying as the words poured from me.

The look of shock on Candice's face was absolute. It was as if I'd completely inverted everything she'd ever known to be real and she was incapable of handling it. I wanted to stop, but for some reason the words refused to be held in any longer and continued to shoot from me in rapid bursts.

"I'm so sorry, but that doesn't mean shit and if I could I'd take it back but I can't. I wish there was some way for me to make it up to you but there isn't and I know I'll just have to burn in hell for it." I had no control over my mouth as it just kept going like crazy.

"I had to leave. I couldn't stay near you once I realized what I'd done. It just hit me one day, this repressed memory that decided to come out and ruin everything. I couldn't help it, I just saw you so differently after that. You were so pretty and so sweet, I'm sorry but I couldn't help it. I had to get away, for you as much as for myself."

Finally I fell silent as everything had been purged from me. I felt exhausted, terrified, and relieved all at once. At the same time, I could see the pain I had just inflicted on my sister written plainly on her face. Oh how I wanted to take that away from her. It was unbearable to know that I had caused it and even worse to realize there was nothing I could do about it.

Before I could ask her anything, Candice let her face fall into a mask of immobile dispassion. She reached over to the table and swiped up the card from it before standing slowly before me. I watched as she strode across the room toward the front door without saying a word. With a pull the door was open and a second later she was gone, leaving me to myself just the way I'd always said I wanted it.

My head fell into my hands and the world closed in around me. A pressure seemed to be growing within me, trapping what tattered remains there were of my soul and pressing them together into a ball. The pressure increased rapidly, compressing me within myself into an increasingly tiny and painful sphere.

The strain was unbearable as I realized for the first time in my life that suicide was a real option. I'd thought about it before, but there was always that stubborn side of me that said it would be too easy and I refuse to take the easy way out. That stubbornness was gone and now I was left with the realization that my thirty years of life added up to less than nothing.

I'd squandered every good thing I'd ever had and ruined what I could never have. I was a purely negative influence on everyone around me and always had been. Even my sister, my little beautiful sister who deserved nothing but my honest love, had been my victim. I was worse than useless.

That tiny ball within me was reduced to a speck as the weight pressed down from every direction. Hope was gone and all I had was pain. The pressure increased, crushing the speck into something smaller and then something smaller still.

It was grinding me down.

Making me smaller.

Making me nothing.

Leaving me empty.