Manchineel (eBook)

Chapter Two

Elyse was fourteen when she started seeing her therapist, Dr. Guillermo Delgado. Right away, he’d insisted she call him by his first name, as if that would place them on equal footing. Adults were always doing patronizing stuff like that. Skepticism kept a tight grip on her secrets, but eventually, he wore her down. While Child Protective Services had briefed him on some of the darker details of her story, Elyse opened up about where it all started.

George Ramos always smiled and waved as she walked home from school. Even if it felt a bit odd at first—an older boy like him, out of high school a few years, calling over a twelve-year-old girl to chat, it was kind of nice. Still dressed in his bright construction vest and boots, he’d always ask her about her day and seemed to care about hearing her answer. At first, she’d just wave shyly before crossing the street to her house. But each day he’d talk to her a little more, until he finally coaxed out some words.

“You’re so pretty. Why don’t you ever smile? You’d be even prettier if you smiled.”

She shrugged at him and looked back at her house, where pastel pink strips of paint peeled off the crumbling stucco. “I’ll smile when I have something to smile about.” It was the most she’d ever said to him, and he was delighted, laughing hysterically with a mix of surprise and amusement. It made her want to smile too, but she held it back, instead pulling at her fingers.

“What happened to your hands?”

They were stained the color of saffron. “Oh. In chemistry we did an experiment to test carbohydrates. We were dipping potatoes in iodine and mine spilled.”

George squinted at her hands and smirked. “I usually just dip my potatoes in ketchup.”

She tried her best not to laugh, but his silly tone broke her, and she smiled, turning her face. “That’s a bad joke.”

“Ah, but I got you. Don’t hide it, pretty girl. I knew I’d make you smile one day.”

Most days after that, she’d stop and chat with him in his gravel driveway. Sometimes his mother would be out there with him, chain-smoking in her plastic patio chair. It went on like this for a few weeks, until one day he finally asked her, “Aren’t you hot wearing all that?” He motioned toward her long sleeves and uniform khaki pants in the sweltering heat. Her eyes shamefully fell to her shoes, rubber soles worn down and tattered from constant use. “I can hear him yelling, you know. I thought maybe he was whooping your mom. But he probably hits you too, huh?”

The words hurt somehow. They embarrassed her. She’d done her best to hide the bruises, to keep her family’s dysfunction a secret. Without speaking, she turned and rushed home. He shouted for her, but she kept going until she was behind her front door.

Inside, her mother lay on the worn sofa, staring blankly at a daytime talk show, the volume turned up too loud. Elyse’s fingers tightened around the doorknob as she took in the scene. The room was dim, the heavy curtains drawn, blocking out the afternoon sun. Bags of chips and candy littered the coffee table, bottles of nail polish and magazines strewn about. Her mother hauled her face around slowly. Her eyes, bloodshot and distant, met Elyse’s for a brief moment before drifting back to the television screen. “What time is it?” she mumbled, her voice hoarse. The smell of stale cigarettes permeated the house.

“Four something.” The blaring sound of the television was making it hard to think, so Elyse reached for the remote and turned the volume down a few notches. She sat beside her mother and gestured toward the junk food. “Is that all you ate today?”

“I don’t have the energy to cook.”

“I’ll make something. You need to eat real food. That’s why you don’t have energy.”

Venturing into the kitchen to scavenge a meal, her mind wandered back to that carbohydrate experiment, how the long chains of glucose molecules changed color under the iodine. Remembering George’s dumb joke made her smile to herself. He’d meant well. Maybe she shouldn’t have run away, she thought.

Then, she felt the pain. With a grip of her hair and a quick tug, her father forced her out of his way. A sharp sting on her scalp drew her attention to his hand, which he shook out, a bundle of long brown strands falling from his fist and landing on the floor. Giving her a disgusted look, he finished his stride to the fridge to retrieve a beer.

After dinner, she inspected her head in her bedroom mirror and found a white patch of scalp the size of an egg. Taking a brush, she shifted the hair in different directions, trying to come up with a hairstyle to wear for the rest of the school year. That’s when she heard it for the first time—a light knock at her window. She ignored it at first, thinking it was a squirrel or some other wildlife. But when it continued, she turned to find a man’s silhouette behind the glass. Panicked, she froze.

“Elyse, it’s George,” he whispered.

Hearing his familiar voice was a relief, even if it was strange for him to be out there at this late hour. She wondered how he knew which room was hers. With a grunt, she lifted the window just enough to talk. He’d already removed the screen.

“What are you doing here?”

“Can I come in? The mosquitos are eating me.”

She turned toward her door, hurrying over to lock it. If her father knew she’d let a boy into her room, he’d kill her, especially an older boy like George. By the time she turned around, George had already hoisted his upper body onto the window ledge, using the strength of his arms to pull himself forward. His boots momentarily caught on the edge, but with a little wiggle and a groan, he managed to free himself, sliding onto the brown carpeting. Once inside, he took a moment to brush off the bits of leaves and dirt from his clothes.

“You ran off earlier, and I didn’t get to tell you,” he said, keeping his voice hushed. “I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings. We’re friends, aren’t we?”

He stepped closer and she could smell the familiar scent of liquor on his breath. She nodded because she was afraid not to.

“Everybody needs a friend sometimes. Can I give you a hug?”

She didn’t want to, but before she could say no, he’d already pulled her into an embrace. Her body tensed at first, but then he squeezed, and something shifted. Heat rose to her face, her eyes. Her chest tightened and she started to sob. It was like a levee broke and the floodwaters escaped, drowning everything in their path.

Stroking her hair, he soothed her. “Shhh, it’s okay. Let it out.”

Despite her apprehension there was something oddly comforting about it. Over time, she’d learned to trust him, to let her guard down. So when he pulled her into bed and held her there, wrapped up in his arms, she didn’t protest.

That first night was innocent. She lay with him until the tears stopped, then he kissed her forehead and whispered, “Goodnight,” before climbing back outside and disappearing into the dark.

The sound of a white noise machine whooshed in the background of Guillermo’s office as Elyse eyed a rainbow-colored emotions wheel on the table between them. A shelf behind him held rows of books and vibrant binders. He nodded at her, his eyebrows drawn together. “Do you know why you kept letting George in, even after the abuse started?”

Elyse sat on the edge of the plush, gray sofa, squeezing a balled-up tissue in her fist, wondering how she could have been so stupid. “I guess I was scared of what might happen if I didn’t.”

“When it stopped, was that because at some point you refused to let him in?”

Knees drawn up to her chest, she hugged her arms tight around them, curling herself into a protective shell. The heels of her feet, covered by white cotton socks, rested at the sofa’s edge. She dropped her head, pressing her cheek against the worn denim fabric of her jeans.

“You’re safe here, Elyse,” he said softly. “I’m here to help you.”

The words were desperate to escape, even as her tongue threatened to choke them back. “It stopped because I killed him,” she said. It was the first time she’d ever told anybody, and a strange sense of calm came over her.

Guillermo remained measured, seeming to diffuse his alarm by tightening his grip on his yellow legal pad and adjusting in his seat. “Did you plan to kill him?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“How?”

“My class went to the History Miami Museum. They were talking about how the natives used fruit from the manchineel trees to kill Ponce de León.” Even at fourteen, the irony was not lost on her that it was George who forged her father’s signature on her permission slip. He’d even given her the twenty dollars she needed to attend.

The thought of the permission slip in her backpack burned a hole in her stomach the entire bus ride and walk home. Money was tight. Asking for a signature and twenty dollars meant she’d have to speak up and let the burden of her existence be acknowledged. Being noticed was always a roll of the dice, a decision she made voluntarily only under the most extreme circumstances.

That night when George visited, he asked her why she looked so worried. “I’ll take care of it,” he promised after she explained. “Lay back.”

By then she’d stopped fighting him off, having resigned herself to the pain of it. After, he caught his breath and pulled her into an embrace. “Let me see the...