Rival by M.C. Cerny
Elizabeth
Opening my eyes, Eddie slouched in a chair next to my bed. His shoulders hunched, more tired-looking than I’d ever seen him before.
“Hey, Lizzie…” he said.
“Eddie.” My voice cracked, and I sat up as he pulled me into his arms for a quick hug. We weren’t exactly a family laced with the warm and fuzzies, but we took what we could get.
“What happened to your hand?” He offered me cold water with fresh ice chips from the nightstand I hadn’t noticed before.
Gulping down the water, I answered his question, “Him.”
We both knew who I meant. He nodded, grunting. A cursory review of my body on the bed meant everything else was okay. A broken finger seemed the least of my problems.
For now, though, my secret was out.
“His name is Adam Huntley. Did you know that?” Eddie’s eyes verbalized the disappointment he seemed to be holding back. I really fucked the pooch with this one.
I shook my head. “No.”
“The man who claims you stole his car, Liz. Did you know he’s a mob guy of some kind? He’s involved with bad shit. Real bad shit. Guns and drugs, if the rumors are true. What were you thinking?” He censured me, hands flipping up in the air.
I wasn’t thinking; that was my problem. I was only thinking about the payday of a thousand dollars for hot-wiring a car that was worth over two hundred times that.
Statistically speaking, I got screwed.
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t. It was Ben and Mark who saw the car and decided to go for it. Look, I know I can fix this.” I reached for him, but he got up and paced around the room at a dizzying speed.
“Lizzie, they put kids like you in the juvenile detention facility in Bordentown for shit like this.” He continued pacing the room back and forth.
“Pfft. The girls go to the one in Clinton.” I shrugged, massaging my wrist and untangling the IV.
He slapped the wall, shaking his hand with the sting.
“Goddamn it, grand theft auto doesn’t just go away!” he shouted.
“Yes. Yes, it can,” I said.
Adam Huntley made that choice explicitly clear.
However, I didn’t know how to explain it to him in a way that made sense and didn’t make me seem like a child bride, whore, or worse.
“It’s my job to protect you. Liz, I can’t make this go away. We’re not six and ten anymore, and I’m not a superhero.”
He worried at the skin on his thumb. I patted the bed, urging him to come closer. Eddie had this hero complex. How many times growing up had he tried to save me from myself? I didn’t fully understand the scope of his guilt until this moment. How could I tell him the only salvation was giving in to the control freak who lingered outside? We had to ride the wave until the shore was close enough to swim to.
He finally stopped pacing and sat on the edge of the bed. Eddie’s eyes sliced me open with regret and emotions I couldn’t explain when I spoke the words that threatened to choke me.
“Everything is negotiable.” I reached for his hand. My voice wavered with the words. I was attempting to fix my own fuckup for once in my sorry life. I should’ve been home playing with dolls, or chatting on the telephone with girlfriends, or whatever it was that normal fourteen-year-old girls did. I shouldn’t have to be making life-altering decisions, but you grew up quick in the ward or you died there, and I was all about survival.
“Mr. Huntley, Adam, that is … the man I met outside. He’s offered to take care of things, Liz,” Eddie spoke, but I didn’t think he realized what all that entailed.
“I know, and I think we should do it.” I had no idea what the demon with dragon eyes offered, but I was willing to do it. If we were realistic, Eddie would’ve been stuck working the docks until I aged out of the system at eighteen. Seventeen if we lied. I couldn’t force him to wait three, almost four more years to live his life.
Eddie choked up, looking toward the doorway before hissing, “I can call that social worker.”
“I am not going into foster care!” I grabbed his hand, squeezing.
“No, I just meant, maybe she could help us, instead of him.” Somehow Eddie knew deep down this man couldn’t be trusted, and I wasn’t forthcoming with details.
“What? If you sleep with her again? No, Eddie. You have Fiona back, and you need to make a life with her,” I pleaded.
While I try not to kill myself making a life with the monster who holds salvation above my head with a pretty price tag costing my freedom.
“I can’t lose you.” His hands held mine, trembling together and fighting for the lesser of two evils.
“You won’t. I’ll just be doing what he wants; it can’t be that bad, can it?” I said.
Eddie frowned.
“He wants to file for guardianship.”
Heavy words and strong actions that made no sense for a man like Mr. Huntley. He treated me like a pesky fly he wanted to crush, not a cherished ward.
“Can he do that?” I asked.
“He has the money to buy this city, pay people off, and grease the wheels of whatever deal he wants. Shit, Liz, I don’t like this.”
“We don’t have to like it. All we have to do is get through it.”
“He said you’d be going to some fancy girl’s school in the middle of fucking nowhere. Vermont.” He said the state name like it was vile. “He wants to give you an opportunity to reform.” Eddie uttered reform with the same disdain as Vermont. At least they had ice cream, Ben and Jerry’s, so it couldn’t be all bad, could it?
The joke was on Huntley if Vermont was the worst he had to offer because you couldn’t reform someone who didn’t want to change. My only interest was in adapting for survival.
“So I have to wear a stupid dress in the woods and grow out my hair.” I made light of it, but Eddie didn’t buy it.
“This isn’t some fucking fairy tale,” Eddie barked.
I wanted the bedsheets to suck me up and pull me down a rabbit hole. “I know.” Girls like me didn’t get a happily ever after.
“It’s more than that, Liz. I don’t like the way he talks about you ... like he owns you.” Eddie resumed pacing. I hated to tell him there was no other choice.
He does own me, Eddie. He owns every part of me, and he isn’t letting go until he has his pound of flesh.
“He isn’t going to touch me. He’s gotta be what, like twice my age?” I said.
Eddie rubbed a hand over his tired and adult-looking seventeen-year-old face.
“Liz, you don’t understand men.” I hated his condescending tone.
“I know enough,” I snapped back.
“That’s what I’m afraid of, a fourteen-year-old-know-it-all.”
“Hey, you know what, I don’t need the dad tone of voice,” I mouthed off. I might actually end up with daddy issues after all of this.
He grabbed his hair, pulling. “What if … shit, Liz. I’m too young to be an uncle.”
“Eww, disgusting.” I pushed down the acidic, vile thoughts to the basement of my mind. My stomach rolled with fear, and I couldn’t look Eddie in the eye.
Stopping his frantic pacing, he growled low and leaned over my bed caging me in. “It can happen.”
I pushed him back with my good hand.
“I know, but it won’t.” Nothing was guaranteed the moment I left this hospital. This was the reason my brother and I fought so hard to stay together no matter what. If the system wasn’t pulling us apart, it was Adam Huntley.
“You don’t know that,” he said.
We stared each other down.
“I know it.” I knew it because I’d stab him with the closest sharp object I could get my hands on if he tried anything creepy-uncle-like. Awkwardly, we laughed, but we both knew it wasn’t funny.
Fuck fourteen.
I hadn’t felt like a kid in ages. We parented ourselves, and look at how well that worked out. Here I was going to sign my life away to the devil. I saw too many things that made me an adult long before childhood waned and logic ruled.
“I love you, and I’m not going to lose my only family. You can go to school, join the military like you wanted, and Fi can finish nursing school. When this is all over, we’ll get together over dinners in our fancy apartment in Hoboken filled with Ikea furniture, overlooking the Hudson like we talked about.”
“Elizabeth.” He choked up.
I shook my head.
“Listen to me. There’s a couple hundred bucks in the wall behind my bed.”
“No,” he said.
“Yes.” Our eyes connected, and Eddie knew how important this was. When family mattered most, you did what you had to do to make sure they survived. We were scrappy like that.
He struggled to find the words. “I hate how calm you’re being about this.”
“It’s for the best.” I smiled sadly, telling Eddie what he needed to hear. “I’m going to be okay.”
Little did I know the suffering that was guaranteed to follow the next several years would be as good as it got.