28. PROTECTION
I felt something pull at my backpack. Was this starting all over again? Didn’t this just happen? I didn’t have the strength or ability to push it away. I could faintly hear my phone ringing then stop. I couldn’t tell if someone was there or not. Did someone just take my cell phone and answer it? Who?
“Patrick?” It was a guy’s voice. Wait, Patrick was calling me? Oh my god, I was supposed to meet him. That’s where I was going. “Joey.” Joey? What was he doing here?
Joey immediately yelled back into the phone, “I didn’t do anything. I just found her.” There was a short pause, “Over behind the girl’s locker room.”
Is that where I was? Behind the girl’s locker room? How long had I been lying here? Slowly, I was feeling like I could think and come out of the fog and darkness.
“Not good. Yeah. I’m not leaving her alone like this. Okay.” I heard my phone close shut. “Liz? It’s Joey. Can you hear me?”
I tried to say something, anything, but all that came out was, “Uhh…”
“Liz…you’re gonna be okay.”
I felt a hand on my shoulder. I immediately winced and the hand retracted. So, reactionary movements, I could do. Voluntary movements required so much more effort. I knew he wasn’t trying to hurt me, but I couldn’t help but feel scared. Even though he pulled his hand away, the spot he touched throbbed.
I heard several footsteps running in my direction. Did Becca and her friends come back? I put what little energy I had left into finding my way out of the fog. I managed to slowly open my eyes. Joey was on the ground next to me.
“Oh my god! Liz!” Patrick shouted. He fell to his knees beside me. Bobby and Jason were right behind him. I heard Emily and Cassie gasp. “What the hell happened?” He looked at Joey.
“I told you. I don’t know. I found her like this.” Joey responded defensively.
“Uhhh…” Was all I managed to say. I needed to do a better job of communicating than that. I was able to get my eyes open, now I had to get my mouth and brain to work together.
“Liz?” Patrick’s voice cracked as his attention turned back to me. I attempted to push myself up. Patrick helped me sit upright. His touch made me want to jerk back, like I did with Joey. I bit my lip and closed my eyes to set my resolve to sit up—I could taste the blood. I leaned against the wall behind me, grimacing in pain. “God, are you okay? Is anything broken?”
I thought back to that day in the alley and how broken ribs felt like. I had a lot of pain, but nothing resembling that kind of pain. “I don’t think so.” I managed to say softly. Finally, coherent words came out of my mouth.
I put my trembling hand to my face and felt the still wet blood. My nose had stopped gushing, but it was still bleeding. Emily took out a bunch of tissues from her backpack and handed it to me. I wadded them up and put them over my nose. I winced in pain as I applied pressure to my nose. Between the pain and loss of blood, I was so dizzy and light-headed. I had a hard time keeping my eyes open and my head steady. I just wanted everyone to go away. I didn’t mean that. I didn’t want to be alone, it’s just… I wanted everyone to stop staring at me with horror, pity and disbelief. That’s what I wanted to go away.
“Cassie, Emily, can you get her some water?” Patrick asked. It’s as if he knew I needed to get some of the pressure of everyone gawking at me off.
“Yeah, yeah. No problem. Come on, Cassie.” Emily and Cassie quickly left in the direction of a vending machine.
“Joey, thanks for staying with her, but we got it from here.” Patrick looked intently on me and barely glanced at Joey.
“I’m not going anywhere.” Joey was staring at me.
“You should go.” Bobby put his hand on Joey’s shoulder.
Joey shook off Bobby’s hand. “No. Not until Liz says so.”
I was not in the mood to referee. In fact, I felt like I was fading. The girls returned with some water and damp paper towels.
“Here, Liz.” Emily handed me an open water bottle. I slowly lifted my hand to get it. Patrick helped me hold on to the bottle since my grip on it was pretty weak. I sipped the water, which felt like it burned inside me. What I really felt was the cold water going down my parched throat and pain associated with anything that required the smallest effort.
“Let’s clean you up a little. Okay?” Cassie offered. I looked up at her and nodded. She looked at Joey. “Excuse me.” He stood up and stepped aside. She and Emily knelt down beside me. They gently wiped my face and hands. It stung.
Patrick finally asked the question that I knew everyone was wondering. “What happened?”
I looked down at the ground and blinked slowly. I had this nagging feeling that I was missing something. Becca said something that I didn’t really hear. What was it? How do I tell him? It wasn’t a question if I would tell him. But how?
“I was walking to the gym to meet you and…got into a fight, if you can call it that. At first, it was just words…next thing I knew I was outnumbered.” That was truthful.
“Who did this to you?”
I didn’t say anything.
“Who?” Patrick paused, waiting for an answer. “Liz, tell me who. I need to make sure that they never hurt you again.” I shook my head. “Why would you want to protect them?”
He had a point. I didn’t want her to get away with this, but I didn’t want to hurt him either. “It’s not them I’m protecting. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Don’t worry about me.” He sounded exasperated.
“Yeah, we got Patrick’s back. And yours.” Jason added.
Finally, I whispered. “Becca.”
“Your girlfriend!” Joey grabbed Patrick’s shoulder from behind. “Your girlfriend did this?!”
“Ex. Becca isn’t my girlfriend anymore.” Patrick said gruffly.
“And you were worried about me hurting Liz? And it was your girlfriend.” Joey threw back at him.
“EX.” Patrick angrily turned to face Joey. “What are you deaf?”
“Excuse me.” Joey was sarcastic. “Ex-girlfriend.” He rolled his eyes. “You sure she knows that?”
“Come on Joey, lay off.” Jason interrupted.
“What? You guys…” Joey seemed ready to take them on.
I didn’t want to listen to anyone fighting. I had enough of that today. “Guys…please. It’s not Patrick’s fault.” I was tired of having everyone look at me with pity in their eyes. I started to get up off the ground. My legs were unsteady and my sense of balance was so off that Patrick had to grab me to keep me from falling. “I’ll be okay. I just need some…” I really appreciated them being there, but I didn’t want to hurt their feelings by asking them to back off.
Patrick picked up on my hint, “Air. Breathing room would be nice.”
Bobby nodded, “Guys, let’s give her some space.” The girls and Jason turned to walk away, but Joey stood still. “You too, Joey.”
“Liz?” Joey looked at me intently, like he wanted me to tell Bobby that he could stay.
“It’s okay, Joey. Thanks, really. But I’ll be alright. You can go. I’ll be fine with Patrick.” I was thankful that he wanted to help, but there was nothing he could do. And I didn’t feel like I could talk to him, the way I can with Patrick.
Joey wasn’t happy to leave. “Only because you said so. Let me know if you need anything. Anything.”
I nodded. “Okay, thanks.”
Joey left. Bobby, Emily, Jason and Cassie walked away and sat at a bench to wait. They were about a building away. With Patrick’s help, I weakly walked over to the closest bench. I took another sip of water. Patrick wouldn’t take his eyes off me and watched my every move.
“Thanks for having them back off. I couldn’t stand them looking at me like that.” I stared at them from a distance.
“No problem. I figured.” He paused and put his hand on my leg. “I’m sorry that Becca…”
“Stop. Like I said, it’s not your fault. You’re not responsi
ble for what Becca does.” I scolded him. I didn’t want to hear it. “She knew what she was doing.”
He looked down for a second. “What happened?”
I shook my head. “You don’t want to know.”
“Yes, I do.” He insisted.
“You’re not going to like it.” I looked at him in the eyes, “You need to promise me that you’re not going to blame yourself.”
“Liz, but…” He shook his head. The second I said her name, I knew he was already doing it. I didn’t want him to. Once I told him what started it, he’d feel really guilty.
“Promise.” I insisted.
“Fine. I promise.” Patrick reluctantly answered. He looked at me, waiting.
“Well…umm…” Great. Now how do I start? It isn’t an easy story to relay. Then again, I’ve had to share tough things before. This isn’t as bad, in the grand spectrum of things. I told him how she grabbed me by my backpack and blamed me for ruining her perfect little lie and breaking them up.
Patrick winced and ran his hand through his hair. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“I know. I don’t pretend to have that kind of power over anyone. To be honest, at that moment, I was mad. I was pissed that she felt like she had some claim on you. I told her to look in the mirror for someone to blame, ‘cause it wasn’t me.” I sighed and rolled my eyes. “She talked about how happy you guys were, until I came along. She called you Paddy…”
He grimaced. “I really hated it when she called me that. Ugh.”
“I couldn’t stand it either. So, I kind of corrected her.” His eyes got wide. “Yeah, called her a user. Next thing I knew we were shoving each other, then she slapped me. When I hit back, her friends jumped in. Yeah, and it wasn’t to stop the fight. She had me outnumbered. After that, I don’t remember too much. It’s sort of a blur. Next thing I remember was seeing Joey and you.”
“God, Liz. I’m sorry. It’s my…” He tilted his head back, regret stained his face.
“No!” I interrupted him. “You promised! I don’t want to hear it.”
“But…”
“No. You’re not the one to blame for this.” I interrupted. “You didn’t do this to me. She and her friends did.” I started trembling. I was so angry. Angry at her and her friends. Angry that Patrick was blaming himself. Angry that I wasn’t able to fight back. Angry that my friends looked at me in pity.
“Liz…it’s okay. You’re okay. Calm down.” He held my hands which were shaking. Patrick looked at me, trying to read my mind. “Liz, relax.”
I couldn’t. I was so agitated. I looked over to where I had been lying on the ground. I had these out of body visions of what Becca did to me. I didn’t want to sit there anymore. I had to get away. I couldn’t be at school, at that spot right now. “No. No.” I shook my head. “I need to get out of here.”
“Sure. Okay.” Patrick said gently, stood up and offered his hand. I held onto his hand as I got up. I was still a little shaky on my feet, but okay. He walked close to me, in case I needed to be steadied, keeping in pace with me. We went over to where everyone was waiting to tell them we were leaving. I wanted to leave school, but I didn’t know where I wanted to go. I couldn’t go home. Not like this. I was a mess. Patrick walked me to my car in silence.
Great. He was probably blaming himself, even though I told him not to. He shouldn’t feel guilty that his crazy, bitchy ex-girlfriend blamed me for their break-up. I was just glad that he was done with her. Lindsey had told me to watch my back. Boy, she wasn’t wrong. I should have, especially after knowing that Becca and Patrick just broke up. I shouldn’t have let my guard down, thinking everything was fine. That’s usually when things go bad, and in my case, horribly bad.
“Do you want to be alone? I understand if you don’t want to see me right now.” Patrick’s voice sounded so small and distant. I had never heard him sound crushed before. I didn’t want him to bail on me. God, what if he thought it would be better if he wasn’t my friend. If we didn’t hang out. I couldn’t take that. That’s probably what Becca wanted. It would be just like her to manipulate him like that. To make Patrick feel so bad about me getting beat up, like it was his fault, that he would stop being my friend and go back to her, to get her to leave me alone. No. I would not let that happen.
“I don’t want to be alone. I hate being alone, especially when I feel like this. You are the only person I want to be with me right now. Please don’t go.” I felt like I was losing it and I couldn’t get a grip on myself. My mind was spinning out of control and the thought of Becca manipulating my friendship with Patrick. Not just messing with me, but with him and making him feel so guilty. And it seemed to be working.
Patrick’s expression changed. It was like he felt a little stronger. “You’re not alone, I’ll stay with you. Where do you want to go?”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to go home, ‘cause my parents will be there. But, I need to change and clean-up.” My shirt was torn and bloodied. My nose had stopped bleeding, but it was obvious that it had. My hair was a mess. I just needed to change my shirt, wash my face, and brush my hair. After that, I could feel some semblance of normal. I was torn, I didn’t know what to do. I needed to change, but I didn’t want to go home.
“Let’s go to my house. You can clean up. I’m sure Lindsey has something you can wear. She won’t mind. We can stay there and hang out or go wherever you want.”
“Okay.” We both had our cars and couldn’t leave them at school. It would be easier to drive separately to his house and decide what to do from there. I got into my car to wait for Patrick to get his car, when I realized how sore I really was. Ow! Twisting to get into the driver’s seat caused a sharp pain go through my side. Man, that hurt.
I looked in my rear-view mirror and, for the first time, got a small glimpse at myself. What a mess. Before I could dwell on it, I could see him in my rear-view mirror. He waved for me to pull out. Patrick was in full protective mode, watching my back. He followed me to his house.
I kept replaying what happened in my head. I tried to remember more. I always blanked out at the same place. Why couldn’t I remember more? Alright, I know why, in a way, I was getting the crap beat out of me. But there was something Becca said that I couldn’t remember. Why? Why do I care what she said? I didn’t care what she said when I was conscious and alert. Why should I when I wasn’t? I didn’t like not knowing something or having gaps in my memory. It made me uneasy.
I got to Patrick’s house and he pulled into the driveway, while I parked on the street. I didn’t see any other cars parked at his house, his parents must not be home. I was a little relieved that they wouldn’t see me all messed up. I was slow to get out of car. Patrick was already out of his car and opening my door before I turned in pain to do it myself. Ow. Getting into the car when you’re hurt is one thing. You can plop into the seat and stand the pain as you settled in. But, to get out of the car is a whole other kind of pain. Now, you’re working against gravity and every muscle that hurts.
Patrick had to help me out of the car. Even with his help, it still hurt like hell. This sucked. He carried my backpack as we walked into his house. Patrick put his backpack down in the family room and we headed upstairs to Lindsey’s room. It was weird being in someone’s room when they weren’t there.
“Just pick whatever. I know Lindsey won’t mind.” Patrick slid her closet door open.
I looked at the clothes hanging in the closet. I casually flipped through the hangers. Her clothes were nice—blouses, button-downed shirts neatly ironed. All I wanted was a t-shirt. Just a basic t-shirt that didn’t call any attention to me. “Umm… I don’t know. This doesn’t feel right.” I was afraid that I would mess up her clothes. “I’m sure she won’t mind, but still…not asking. I’d feel bad if I spilled something on it or… Nah. It’s okay.” I closed her closet and headed out of her room.
“You sure? I can call her to ask, if it makes you feel better.” Patrick pulled out his cell phone.
r /> “No. Please, don’t bother her. No need to explain why I’d need to borrow something. Let me just wash my face.” I walked to the bathroom. Patrick put my backpack next to the sink. I shut the door behind him and turned the light on. I got my first good look at myself. My pony tail was loose with chunks of hair that fell over my face. I can’t believe this happened again. I can’t believe I let her do this to me. How could this have happened? I’m not going to cry. I’m not going to cry. Not here. Not at Patrick’s, when his family could come home at any minute.
I turned on the water and lathered soap in my hands. I scrubbed my face. It stung as I rubbed the soap into my scrapes and cuts. The dirt and dried blood washed off into the sink. My face felt a little fresher and my hair was a little wet. Ugh, my hair. I pulled the hair tie out of my hair, causing the rest of my pony tail to fall. I shook out my hair, hoping to get the random bits of dirt out. Where is my brush? I dug through my backpack and found it.
I brushed through the tangles in my hair. Ow. My head hurt too much to put my hair back up into a pony tail. I fixed my hair to fall over part of my face and my shoulders. It was an easy way to partially cover the reminders that Becca left me. Well, at least from the shoulders up, I looked halfway decent. I looked down at my clothes. What am I going to do? I could partially hide the evidence on my face, but my clothes. It was obvious something happened to me when you looked at my shirt. It was torn, dirtied and bloodied. I stared at myself in the mirror. All I wanted to do was shove my shirt into my backpack. That wouldn’t work, I couldn’t go around without a shirt.
The knock on the door startled me. “How you are doing, Liz?” Patrick asked through the door.
“Umm…okay, I guess. I’ll be right out.” There wasn’t much else I could do.
“I brought you something to change into.”
I thought about his offer of borrowing something from Lindsey. It still felt wrong. I didn’t want to compound my problems. “I told you…”
“I know. It’s not Lindsey’s. It’s mine. It’s just a t-shirt.”
I should have figured that Patrick would know what I needed. I cracked open the door and his hand reached in with the shirt. “Thanks.”
I quickly pulled off my shirt and shoved it into my backpack. I put on Patrick’s shirt. It felt good—big, but comfortable and clean. It was like I was finally starting to shed off the dirty film that Becca cast on me. I checked myself out in the mirror. Much better. At least now, I looked more presentable.
I opened the door and saw Patrick waiting for me in the hallway. “How are you doing? Feeling better?”
“A little. I feel…cleaner.” I grabbed my backpack.
“That’s good.” He took my backpack from me. “What do you want to do? Hang out here? Go somewhere?” He looked at his watch. “My mom and Andy will probably be home soon. Just so you know.”
I thought about it for a second. “I don’t want them to see me this way. You know?”
Patrick nodded. “Yeah, I understand. Where do you want to go?”
“Hmmm… Could we go to the bluffs?” I didn’t know how he’d feel if I suggested going to his favorite thinking place.
“Sure.” Patrick smiled. Good, he isn’t mad. “I was thinking the same thing. Let me get you a sweatshirt. Sometimes, it gets cool right around now.” He ran to his room and came back with two sweatshirts. I put on the sweatshirt he handed me. It was oversized for me, but felt warm and comfy.