You Need Me by Sharon Bairden

Author:Sharon Bairden [Bairden, Sharon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781914480232
Publisher: Red Dog Press

Ronnie crawled back to his own bed and lay there until morning slipped through a gap in the curtains. He had got up and made his mother’s breakfast at the usual time, terrified to deviate from the rules. She hadn’t woken up when he went into her room. He hovered around the bed, putting the tray down then picking it back up again, before leaving it beside her bed, afraid to take it away in case she punished him later.

Back in his bedroom, he absently poked around at the freshest burn on his arm. The sharp sting took away his other pain—the pain inside. Sitting on his bed he stared at himself in the mirror and in a moment of clarity saw himself as others must see him. Hair wild, his eyes sunken into a hollow, dirty-looking face. Spots of dried blood crusted where he had cut himself trying to shave. His fingers reached up to touch his cheek, remembering the kiss from the kid. He could see the tremor in his hand. He knew he couldn’t take much more, if he didn’t get away from her, one of them would kill the other.

His skin still crawled from the names she had called him last night, the things she had said about him. The words clung to his skin. He wouldn’t do that. Not to her, not to anybody. He was not a pervert or a freak. He just wanted to feel normal. He wanted the feeling of belonging Morag gave him. Morag didn’t make him feel like a freak or a pervert. She understood him. She was the mother he'd always wished he’d had. And Jess? She got him too. She hadn’t judged when he had lied about the burns. She hadn’t recoiled back in disgust when he had lied about the self-harm. Instead she had listened, and let him talk. Slowly she had prised the truth out of him and she still hadn’t turned her back on him. And, when he had gazed deep into her eyes, he saw himself reflected back.

But then he cringed as an image of the night before flashed before his eyes, his clumsy attempt to kiss her. Would she ever speak to him again after that? His mind continued zipping from one thought to another, and his hands grew clammy as the scene played out in slow motion inside his head. The three women in his life were actually destroying him, and he could do nothing to stop it.

Ronnie felt sick, he didn’t know what was worse, these rare moments of clarity and focus or the chaos that was his normal reality. However, he did know he had to get out of the house, he felt suffocated, hemmed in, he just needed to breathe. He stood up and listened. The silence was heavy. He pulled his bedroom door closed and crossed the landing to his mother’s room. From behind the door, her rhythmic snoring belied the monster who lay beneath the covers.

Cautiously he made his way downstairs, careful not to step on the tread that creaked.

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