Enough Read online

  Enough

  Mary Jennifer

  Payne

  orca soundings

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  Copyright © 2016 Mary Jennifer Payne

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Payne, Mary Jennifer, author

  Enough / Mary Jennifer Payne.

  (Orca soundings)

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-4598-1330-4 (paperback).—ISBN 978-1-4598-1331-1 (pdf).—ISBN 978-1-4598-1332-8 (epub)

  I. Title.

  PS8631.A9543E56 2016 jC813'.6 C2016-900534-8

  C2016-900535-6

  First published in the United States, 2016

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2016931875

  Summary: In this high-interest novel for teen readers, Lizzie has to protect herself from her mother’s boyfriend while looking out for her brother.

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Cover image by iStock.com

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  www.orcabook.com

  19 18 17 16 • 4 3 2 1

  To all survivors of domestic and sexual violence

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  If you could be granted any superpower, which would you choose? Would it be more fun to climb buildings like Spiderman, soar through the skies like a peregrine falcon, or run like a cheetah?

  The decision wouldn’t be hard for me. For the past three years, I’ve been wishing I could become invisible whenever Mom’s boyfriend decides to use me as his personal punching bag. And tonight, as Dean’s fingers close around my upper arm like a crab, digging into my flesh and making tears spring to my eyes, I make that familiar wish once more.

  God, please make this stop. Please make me invisible.

  Dean pulls me close and leans in so that his face is level with mine. Red, spidery veins crisscross the yellowy whites of his eyes like a subway map. At thirty-five he looks a good ten years older. His breath is hot on my face. He reeks of booze, cigarette smoke and sour sweat.

  “You little bitch,” he says, spittle landing on my cheek. I hold my breath, afraid of vomiting all over myself if I inhale his stench. “Where’s my forty dollars?”

  I stare hard at the front of his gray cotton T-shirt. The soft bulge of his stomach hangs ever so slightly over the waist of his jeans. Behind Dean, on the mantel of our fake fireplace, is a black-and-white photo of my grandmother when she was in her early twenties. It was taken at the waterfront. She’s sitting on a rock, the wind blowing her thick, dark hair away from her face. Her full lips are pulled back into a wide smile. I have the same wide mouth and high cheekbones. The photo is one of the only really beautiful things left in this townhouse. After Dad’s death, the beauty in our family home steadily decayed, like a cut flower without water. Then Dean came along and made sure he destroyed any last remaining bit of beauty or sense of security that was left. He moved in three and a half years ago, and I hate him.

  “What forty dollars?” I ask, forcing myself to meet his angry stare. “You’re completely pissed. In fact, you probably spent it on booze or some whore and can’t even remember.”

  His eyes narrow into snakelike slits. “If you want to be going to school tomorrow and seeing that prick of a boyfriend of yours, you better make them twenty dollar bills appear. Otherwise, you’re going to have the ‘flu’ for the next week.”

  My head snaps back up to meet his gaze, and I laugh. “I don’t have your money,” I say. I’m shaking with adrenaline and fear, and I can only hope he doesn’t notice. If there’s anything Dean likes, it’s weakness. I guess that’s why he loves Mom so much. That and the fact that she drinks with him until they both become drooling idiots passed out on our couch.

  “Think you’re funny, Lizzie?” he slurs. “How’s this for funny?” Suddenly his free hand is wrapped around my brown curls, and my head snaps backward. My scalp feels like it is on fire. For a brief second I’m scared my bladder is going to give out. If I piss myself, Dean will be in heaven.

  But I won’t give him the satisfaction.

  “Yeah, I do think I’m funny,” I manage through gritted teeth. “I’m funny, and you’re pathetic. A pathetic loser and a waste of space.” Then I purse my lips and spit at him. Most of the saliva misses him, but his chin ends up speckled with bits of foamy spittle.

  Dean stares at me. I can almost see the wheels turning in his mind. Our fights have been worsening over the last two years. I’ve become more and more defiant and confrontational with him to ensure that all his anger is directed at me and not Charlie.

  Then Dean does something completely unexpected. He smiles. It’s a cold smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. As his grip on my hair tightens, I realize I’m in trouble. Fear rises in my throat like vomit. I should’ve waited to come home. I knew Charlie had physiotherapy, but I was just too hungry to stay at the library any longer. Besides, I had no money to buy something to eat.

  In the next instant, my world changes forever as Dean’s thin, chapped lips press against mine. I struggle like a wild animal caught in a trap, but he’s still ten times stronger than me, even in his drunken state. Walking me backward, he presses me up against the wall beside the fireplace. Tears roll down my cheeks as his hand fumbles under the fabric of my jean shirt. He pushes my bra up and begins to knead my right breast.

  I know my grandmother sees what’s happening. She’s right there on the mantel, watching Dean do this to me. His free hand is now at the waistband of my black jeans, and he’s undoing my belt. My blood turns cold. This can’t be happening.

  I try to move my head. It feels like my hair will rip out of my scalp with even the slightest movement. Dean moves his hips against me.

  “I can feel you like it, you little whore,” he hisses into my ear. “I’ve been holding back from doing this for too long. Your days of acting like a wild animal are over. You need some breaking in.” I choke back a sob. I haven’t even let Fahad touch me like this.

  Please, Grandma. Please strike him dead. Do something. Don’t let this happen to me. Make me invisible. Please.

  “You knew this would happen,” he whispers, his breath hot against my neck. His skin pushes against mine, faster and faster.

  Tears roll down my face. I’m on a roller-coaster ride and it will end soon. It has to.

  “When I saw you after your shower, wrapped up in your towel last week… I knew you wanted me as much as I wanted you. And I was right.” His voice is breathless, strained.

  I hear the click of a key in the front door downstairs, and a few seconds later the familiar sound of Charlie’s heavy footsteps reaches my ears. Relief floods my body.

  Dean stops and pu
shes me away. Then he roughly shoves me into the hallway and in the direction of my bedroom. I can hear the metal clinking of his belt buckle as he does it back up.

  “Hey, darlin’,” he calls out to Mom as I race into my room. “You home already?”

  Shaking, I close my bedroom door behind me. Then I lean my back against it and press the palm of my hand against my mouth to stifle my screams.

  Chapter Two

  Dean moved in with us shortly after my twelfth birthday. He’d only been dating Mom for a couple of months, but there was nothing unusual about it. Within the first year of Dad’s death, Mom began drinking. Then she started dating and was never without a man after that. She always invited the guys she was dating into our lives super fast.

  When I went to the bathroom in the middle of the night, it wasn’t unusual for me to pass a hairy, half-naked stranger Mom had brought home from whatever bar she’d been at. Usually he’d be too messed-up to notice me, but sometimes he’d give me a smile or nod. One time, this fat, bald guy reached over and tousled my hair like I was some little kid. I still remember the high-pitched yelp of pain he let out when I sank my teeth into his hand.

  The string of guys Mom brought to live with us was mainly made up of losers who were about as intelligent as our dog, Trixie, but harmless enough. They’d either ignore my brother, Charlie, and me or try to become friends with us. They’d bribe us with candy and late nights watching television when we really should’ve been in bed. I knew they did it to get on our good sides in the hope of keeping Mom. We put up with them, mainly because we knew they’d be short-lived. After Dad died, Mom’s commitment to anything beyond Charlie, me and booze disappeared. That included holding down a steady job, which meant we had to sell our house just off the Danforth. It was the only home I’d known. Charlie was even born there. It was so much nicer than the shitty, rented townhouse we now live in.

  Things changed again when Dean came along. Mom was different with him. Whatever he wanted, she bent over backward to provide. Like Mom’s, Dean’s drinking got in the way of him holding down steady employment. He bounced between odd renovation jobs or late-night security jobs. With neither Dean nor Mom working long enough to bring in a steady flow of money, things were often tense. Mom still tried to be a decent parent to Charlie and me, but more and more, I was the one who made dinner, packed Charlie’s lunches and helped him with homework. Now I’m even forging her signature on his school forms so he can go on field trips and stuff. One thing Mom has had to do is keep Charlie’s physiotherapy appointments. This is super important, since he has really high arches and some sort of nerve damage because of the operation on his clubfoot. He has to wear a brace sometimes on his foot, and between that and the nerve damage, he is slow and unbalanced. At least she’s always followed through with that.

  I’m lying on my bed thinking about all of this while rubbing my lips over and over, until they are swollen and raw. The pain feels good—it helps dull the memory of Dean’s flesh pressing against mine. I skipped dinner, though Charlie called over and over for me to watch Glee and eat fried rice with him on the couch. I feel terrible, because I never let Charlie down, but there was no way I could go out there and face Dean. I’ve always felt I am holding my own with him, that I’ve won as many of our battles as he has, no matter how many bruises I have to hide afterward. But not this time. This changes everything.

  I stare at the ceiling, at the spidery crack from last year’s leak that weaves its way across the entire length of my room. Spots of black mold are beginning to peek through the yellowed paint. Mom needs to know what happened tonight. Dean finally did something that will make her see what a prick he is. She deserves so much better. What she needs is someone like Dad. She needs someone good and kind who will love her and treat her the way he did, the way she deserves to be treated. Then she’ll be able to stop drinking and go back to work as an ESL teacher. And Charlie will get the chance to have a real father figure in his life. Maybe Mom will meet someone who will be able to protect Charlie when he gets bullied about his disability, someone who will cheer from the sidelines at his soccer games. I close my eyes and imagine Mom’s new boyfriend…he looks like a cross between Idris Elba and Brad Pitt. Someone kind of hot in an older-man way.

  I’m imagining this fantasy man hoisting Charlie on his shoulders when my bedroom door swings open. Mom stumbles in. I breathe a sigh of relief. Now I can tell her about Dean.

  But before I can get a word out, she begins to sob.

  “Mom? What’s wrong?” I ask, sitting up.

  “Dean…” she stammers through her tears. “He…” She begins to rock back and forth, from one foot to the other, like a little kid who has just been punished.

  I sit up. Has Dean done something to her? To Charlie? As far as I know, he only hits me, though he yells at Charlie a lot. My heart starts thrumming in my chest like a djembe. I’ll kill him. If he’s so much as laid a finger on either of them, I’ll rip his beating heart out of his chest.

  Mom points at me, her index finger shaking like a divining rod. Her dyed-blond hair is a mess. The top of her head looks like a bird’s nest caught in a hurricane. “He told me…told me what happened.” The words are slurred, but the hurt and anger in them are as clear as ice. “He told me what you did.”

  “What I did? Mom, he’s lying…I didn’t do anything.” I’m pleading, close to crying now as well. “He grabbed me. He…” I trail off. It makes me feel dirty just to think about it. I can practically feel his hot breath on my face again, his fingers touching me…

  “That’s what he told me you’d say.” She hiccups loudly. “How could you do this? He told me how you’ve been parading around in front of him in your bra lately when it’s just the two of you here, pretending you didn’t know he was home.” A sob catches in her throat. “How could you do this to me?”

  This can’t be happening. I’m dreaming, and this is just a big nightmare. I pinch myself hard and close my eyes. All of this is like some bad Degrassi episode.

  “Your father would be ashamed of you,” she says, her voice hardening.

  The words hit me like a gunshot. “Mom, please,” I say. I’m crying just as hard as she is now. Snot mixes with salty tears on my upper lip. “You have to believe me. I hate Dean. You know I do.”

  Mom’s face is a mask of fury. I can’t believe this is real, that she is taking his word over mine.

  “If anything like this happens again, I’m calling Children’s Aid and telling them to put you in foster care,” she says, her voice shaking. “You’re not going to break up this family, Lizzie.”

  I stare at her in disbelief. Family? What a joke! We’re hardly a family anymore. My heart hurts so much. Right now, not only do I wish I was invisible, I wish I was dead. If it weren’t for Charlie, I don’t know what I’d do.

  My mind flashes back to my brother as a two-year-old toddler. He wasn’t able to learn to walk like the other kids because of his clubfoot, so Dad would put Charlie’s feet on top of his, and that way Charlie could feel the sensation of walking without falling over or worrying about getting hurt. We’d be at Cherry Beach, Charlie’s high-pitched laugh ringing out like music as Dad walked him along the sand bordering the shimmering water dotted with sailboats. I’d run alongside them, collecting rocks and bits of driftwood that Charlie could keep as souvenirs later. People would turn and smile, though I could detect the sympathy in their eyes. I wanted to run up and tell them they didn’t need to feel sorry for Charlie, because he was going to be just fine. SickKids Hospital was going to fix his leg, but he would be strong and happy anyway because of our family. Later, as the sun began to set, Mom and Dad would barbecue hamburgers, hot dogs and s’mores on the charcoal grill, and we’d lay out a blanket and pretend we were medieval kings and queens having a feast.

  “And another thing. You’re grounded,” Mom says, her words tearing into my happy memory. “No going out on the weekend, no seeing Fahad or your friends. For the next week you can stay in here when yo
u’re home. Dean needs a break from you.”

  I stare at her, tears still spilling down my cheeks. “He needs a break from me?” I choke back a laugh. “You know how he is with me, Mom. What’s happened to you? Why don’t you try being a mother again? Or would it hurt you too much to care about Charlie and me?”

  My words hang in the air. Mom’s face crumples like a week-old balloon.

  As quick as a lightning flash, she’s in front of me. “You have no idea what I’ve been through, Lizzie,” she says, her voice barely a whisper. And then she draws back her hand and slaps me squarely across the face. My cheek burns like it’s been splashed by acid.

  I stare at her. “You are wrong,” I say, covering the stinging skin of my cheek with my right hand. “You’re the one Dad would be ashamed of.” For the first time in my life, I realize I’m beginning to hate my mother. She’s weak, and she’s an alcoholic. Worst of all, she’s placed Charlie and me in danger with her addiction to men and booze. Basically, Mom’s the biggest loser I know.

  I turn my back on her and crawl into bed without bothering to take off my Converse. Without a word, I pull the comforter over my head. My bedroom door clicks shut a few moments later.

  Chapter Three

  It’s five past twelve. I sit on the edge of my bed. My eyes are swollen, donutlike, from hours of crying. Once more I check to be sure my backpack is packed with all the necessities—toothbrush, makeup bag, a couple of pairs of jeans, some underwear, socks, my Ugg boots and two sweaters.

  Am I really going to do this? Do I have a choice?

  I slip a hand into the front pocket of my jeans and finger the two crumpled twenty-dollar bills I took from Dean. It’s likely enough for a cab, but I’d rather not spend it all on that. Our townhouse is only a twenty-minute walk from Downsview Station. It’s not too bad in the middle of a sunny, warm summer’s day. But at midnight in the dead of winter, it’s going to be a brutal walk.

  I won’t be able to leave if either Dean or Mom is still awake. Ninja-like, I make my way down the hall. The light from the television flickers like a beacon in the darkness, illuminating my way. I press myself against the wall and peer into our living room. They’re both sprawled out on the couch, an empty bottle of Jack Daniels and a half-full bottle of Diet Coke sitting on the coffee table in front of them. Dean is snoring loudly, one hand stuffed down the front of his unbuttoned jeans. A shiny string of saliva leaks from the corner of his open mouth. I fight a very real urge to grab a knife from the kitchen and stick it into his chest.