Pull Out My Insides

I pull up into the driveway and see a police car also parked in the driveway. The hell? As my hand opens the door and my eyes catch the pale face of my brother, I know that something's wrong.

"Who are you?" the police officer asks.

"I'm Asher..."

"Are you the other nephew of Mr. Peter Johnson?"

"Yes..."

"Well, I'm sorry to inform you that he and his wife were murdered earlier tonight."

"What?! How?!" I exclaim in shock, though not with much remorse.

"Well, apparently your aunt and uncle got into a minor accident with a man, nothing much more than the man accidentally bumped into their car and caused a bit of damage. Your uncle kept verbally assaulting the man and apparently, the man brought out a gun and shot them."

"Shit.." I mutter, running my hands through my hair.

"Now, we need to place their daughter, Cassidy, with one of her relatives. Would you be willing? Just for a little while until we can come up with something more permanent? A few weeks at most?"

I groan, remembering the little stuck up brat.

"I'm not sure," my brother answers, "my brother and I both work multiple jobs and we can barely afford enough for the two of us. Plus, Asher can't waste much money because he has a baby on the way."

The police officer nods knowingly. "I understand. Could we place her here for two days then? The closest relative other than you is in a completely different state."

Anderson just sighs and nods. "Sure."

The officer walks out quickly, coming back a few minutes later with a girl about 12 or 13 with a snarl on her face. Cassidy. After telling us he'll keep in touch, he leaves as quickly as possible, wanting to get away from the she-devil. Lucky bastard.

"Enjoy your ride in the police car? I'm sure it'll give you a little taste of the years to come," I snarl at the little bitch.

She just rolls her eyes and scoffs. "Please, I'm sure you've been in one, like, so many times."

"For your information, I've never been arrested. But I don't think I can say the same for you."
As she opens her mouth to retort, Anderson steps between us before things can get too harsh.

"Alright, alright! Break it up!"

She scoffs again. "Whatever, you just don't want us to fight and break anything, 'cause you're too poor to afford new shit."

I roll my eyes at her poor attempt of getting me riled up again. Anderson just shoots her a warning look and pulls us both into the kitchen. As he tries to make us be civil to each other, we sit there and glare at each other. We never really got along, as you can see. A silence engulfs the room, and then the doorbell ringing breaks me out of our glaring contest. Anderson sighs and gets up to open the door. A few seconds later, he shouts out to me.

"Asher, it's for you!"

I furrow my eyebrows and walk to the door and see Zara with tears running down her face and mascara dripping down alongside the salty tears. I immediately rush over and take her in my arms.

"What's wrong?" I whisper into her ear, not even noticing Anderson leaving.

She sniffles a few times and looks up with her big, green eyes.

"M-My dog j-just died. We had her since I was like 5 and my hormones are making me irrationally emotional and, oh, God, I miss her so much," she explains, burying her head into my shirt.

I rub her back soothingly and move us over to the couch. She snuggles into my side and cries into the nape of my neck. I pull her to me and stroke her hair, trying to comfort the crying girl.

"Uhg, who's that?" a snooty voice asks.

"Shut the fuck up, Cassidy. Go away," I snarl.

"You can't make me do anything! Oh my God, she's so gross and ugly and fat!" she squeals, making Zara cry even harder.

"Cassidy! That is unacceptable! She's gorgeous and she's not fat--she's pregnant! Now go away or get the fuck out of my house!" I shout, still rubbing Zara's back.

"What if I don't?"

"Then I will smash your laptop to pieces with a hammer and make you watch and then set your phone on fire!"

She gets a look of surprise on her face and scrambles to get out as fast as she can.

"It's so true," Zara whispers to me.

"Zara... you know that nothing she said was true. You're not gross or fat or ugly. You're the most beautiful person I've ever met and even now, you're still skinny. She's just jealous because the only 'beauty' she has comes out of a bottle. She doesn't have the natural beauty you do. Plus, she's upset 'cause her parents just died."

"Her parents just died?"

I nod. "Yeah, my aunt and uncle. The sad thing is, I'm not even really sad. They were horrible people and I don't even want to..." I trail off, shaking my head.

"Don't even want to what?" she asks softly.

"Let's go to my room," I tell her, helping her stand up and leading her to my room.

I close and lock the door, sitting down on the bed and patting the spot next to me.

"Let me tell you something about my uncle--something my parents didn't know, Cassidy doesn't know, and Anderson can only guess about."

I take a deep breath, and Zara grabs my hands reassuringly.

"Okay. When I was about four, my parents had to take Anderson somewhere because he had some health problems or something and they to see someone. So, they left me with my 'trustworthy' aunt and uncle. So, one day, my aunt was gone and I heard weird noises from my uncle's room, so I walked inside and found him cheating on my aunt. He shouted and tried to make me promise that I wouldn't tell her, but I was raised an extremely honest person by my parents, so I couldn't promise to lie. After the many times of me still not agreeing, he grabbed my aunt's flat iron, and then heated it up--the whole time it was heating up, his little girlfriend was sneaking out of the room. So, little naive me didn't know what was happening. Not until he came towards me with the red hot iron and started burning as much of my skin that he could without letting it be noticeable outside of my clothes. And then..." I choke up a bit, looking away.

Zara kisses my hand and looks up at me with her doeful eyes. "It's okay, Asher. You don't have to tell me if it's too hard," she tells me, probably already guessing what it was.

I shake my head. "No, I have to tell someone. It's been inside too long."

She nods and I let out a shaky breath.

"So, he kept burning me and I was screaming--screaming as loud as I could. When I wouldn't stop screaming, he got mad. So he-he decided he had to do something to make me quiet so the neighbors wouldn't hear and he wouldn't get even more pissed off. To make me quiet, he... he..."

She nods encouragingly, tears already falling down her face.

"He made me suck him off."

She lets out a gasp, bringing her hands to her mouth. I break down shortly after, babbling random things, feeling relieved to have finally gotten it out. She just hugs me as tightly as she can, whispering things in my ear. After I calmed down a bit, she asked me a question.

"How did your parents never find the burns?"

I shrugged a bit. "I would m-make my b-baths really c-cold to make 'em fell b-better and then I-I'd wear r-really long clothes s-so they couldn't really t-tell."

I pull away, taking off my shirt and pants, revealing the burn marks still prominent on parts of my pale skin. She gasps lightly, taking in the imperfections.

"A-And i-it's like, e-every time I l-look in the m-mirror, I s-see them and it-it's like I'm th-there again." I turn around, showing her the many burn marks on my back.

"H-He had to rip the o-other part of the iron off s-so he could get my back. He had to mark my skin on the outside to show that I'm imperfect--inside and out."

She shakes her head, hugging me again. "You're still perfect to me--inside and out."

I give her a half-hearted smile. "So I guess it's justified that I'm not exactly full of remorse at their death..."

"I don't see why you would be sad. I'm so so sorry, Ash. So sorry," she tells me.

And we lay on my bed, still entangled in each other's arms. And that's how we fall asleep.