K. Randis - Spilled Milk

“You can’t help how they are,” Jason replied.

“Kat has started to cut herself. She told my mom it makes her feel good. And Thomas is in his second juvenile detention center in less than two years. I’m eighteen and engaged but there have been so many times I’ve cried to you, cried to you , over Paul and I don’t even know why.”

I threw my hands up in the air. “How is that fair even to you Jason? I’m failing my classes, I can’t even get my own fiancé to touch me anymore because you’re afraid I’ll start crying or that you’ll do something to sexually trigger me in the wrong way, and I’m pretty sure at this point I don’t even have a job.”

Jason opened his mouth but I cut him off. “Ask me for a list of things I didn’t screw up next time, it’ll be shorter.”

Jason grabbed me on my upper right arm to spin me toward him and I flung myself towards him. “Don’t ever touch me there. Don’t you ever grab my arm like that.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, did I hurt you?” His voice cracked as I placed a hand over where he touched me.

The one time I tried to get away from Earl, the one window of opportunity where I actually fought back, he had grabbed me in the same spot. His grimy hands seized my arm and he was able to pin me back down on the bed like a ragdoll. Jason couldn’t have known that, but I was past any form of rational thinking at that point.

I took the ring off my finger and slammed it down on the desk next to the bed. Jason looked at it, terrified. “Baby you’re upset, I know, but-”

“But what? You’ll never understand. No one will ever understand. I don’t even understand!” I blindly searched for my car keys.

“You can’t drive like that, Brooke you stay, I’ll leave. Please.”

“I need to get out of here.”

The door slammed behind me as I pulled on a jacket. My accelerator touched the floor and I fumbled my phone out of my purse. “Gina!” I cried when she picked up. “I need you.”

“So, you finally got angry huh?” Gina filled my second cup of wine. “I was wondering when that was going to happen.”

“I was horrible to him, Gina. He won’t take me back. I wouldn’t take me back.” I swirled my hand and watched the wine flow off the sides of the glass like Lou had taught me.

“Oh, he’ll take you back. That’s not even a question. Question is do you want him back?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.”

“You still think about Paul?”

“I have dreams about him sometimes, I’ve cried to Jason about missing Paul. Isn’t that screwed up? But Jason just tells me he understands that he realizes he was part of my life and he wouldn’t expect me to forget he existed. Then I remember how he treated me when we broke up and I just, I don’t know. Can you love two people at once?”

Gina raised an eyebrow. “You were both so young, ya know?”

I knew Gina wanted me as a daughter-in-law. She always hinted that she thought there would be a day that we would rekindle our relationship, and when we did, she would be anticipating lots of grandbabies.

“I know. I know me and Jason won’t get married anytime soon anyway, I’d lose my financial aid for college.” Gina and I were three glasses of wine in when she approached the next topic.

“You know the jurors are trying to meet with the D.A’s office this week. They can tell Rob exactly what he needs to clarify next time. There’s no way he’ll walk next time, no way.”

“How am I supposed to do that all over again? I’ve been a wreck. I can’t even remember the last time I didn’t have to schedule a day of court into my life. I throw up before going in to see him. The nightmares just won’t go away.”

“Don’t rub your face like that, you’ll get wrinkles. And you will do it again, because you have people there to support you. Would you rather him out on the streets, finding other little girls and boys to molest? I don’t think so.”

“Little boys?”

Gina silenced herself with a gulp of wine.

“What little boys?”

She looked away from me.

“Gina, tell me.”

“Oh God.” She covered her mouth. “I promised I wouldn’t say anything. It’s the wine.”

“Gina!”

“Please don’t tell anyone I told you. Please don’t. There’s a reason why the defense won’t bring up the fact that you passed out and couldn’t remember certain things. They can’t open that bag of worms.”

“I don’t get it.”

“You had a witness. Your brother, Thomas, he walked in on it.”

My mouth dropped.

“He went into your parent’s room to use their bathroom because someone was in the other one. He saw you passed out on the bed and tried to leave the room before Earl saw him. Oh, the wine.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose before continuing. “Earl ran after him, chased him into his bedroom and pinned him up against the wall, asked him if he liked what he saw.”

She waved her hand. “He was raped too. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry no one told you, we wanted him to tell you when he was ready.”

“No, Gina. Oh my God.”

She pulled my hand away from my mouth as she wrapped her arms around me. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have told you.”

“Why isn’t the D.A doing something about this?” My voice carried louder than I expected it to. “Why can’t we let Thomas testify too?”

“He’s been in and out of detention centers. He’s having trouble passing his classes and gets in trouble all the time, he’s lashing out. He’s a textbook example of what an abused child acts like.”

“Exactly!”

Gina handed me a tissue. “He doesn’t have the credibility you do. He didn’t get the help like you did. Do you really think he could sit up there and have a lawyer tell him he was making it up? Or imply that what he was saying was a lie?”

I shook my head as I blew my nose. “Thomas would jump over the stand and kill him.”

“Exactly. Your testimony alone is enough to put him away for a great length of time, Brooke. And if and when he’s ready, there is a long statute of limitations. He can be thirty when he decides to press charges. He’s not there yet.”

It all made sense. Thomas was always asking when and if Earl would be coming back home. He wasn’t asking because he missed him or because he didn’t believe what I was saying. He was asking because he was petrified that he would have to live under the same roof as him again. Thomas and I shared the same nightmares.

Gina bent down beside me. “You have a chance to get justice for you and your family. You can put him away, I know you can. You’re smart and you’re ready. If you can do it one time, you can do it again and again. You won’t let him beat you, not like this.”

She was right. This fight had always been about keeping my siblings safe. I failed to do that by sacrificing myself to Earl. It was a bunch of smoke and mirrors I let myself believe that I was protecting them. He would win if I backed down now, and everything I’ve gone through up until this point would have been for nothing.

I nodded at Gina. “When can we meet with the jurors?”

Two of the jurors met with the D.A’s office for over a week. They hashed out what they thought needed clarification: Was my grandmother in the room like the defense suggested at one point? Where exactly was my mom during all of this? Why didn’t I tell anyone, and when I did, what brought me to do that? Why were my grades so high? They assured Rob that once they clearly delivered the answers to those questions to the next jury, there would be no room for reasonable doubt and a guilty verdict was imminent.