The Needle and the Damage Done

I manage to forget about the letter after a few days. Math formulas and vocab words overtake the place in my mind that was filled with curiosity about Sylvia and her identity, and frankly, I’m grateful for that; it’s saving me a lot of sleepless nights. Besides that, Mom wants me to find a job, which I have absolutely no interest in doing, but to appease her, I decide to go look after school one day. Since I don’t have a car of mine, wherever I end up has to be within walking distance from both my house and the school, which shouldn’t be too tough since the main streets of Brunswick are pretty busy, with tons of restaurants, shops, and gas stations.

When my last class lets out, I set out on my afternoon endeavor of finding a job. As I walk, I try to figure out what kind of place I’d rather work at, immediately ruling out anything to do with food since I’d rather not be privy to the restaurant industry’s dirty little secrets. I walk by the gas stations, deciding against those as well. The ones around here tend to get shot up on occasion and I definitely don't want to die just because my mom wants me to get a paycheck. I pass a lot of shops, though I do consider GameStop and Home Depot. I try to stray from retail jobs since I know that they involve a lot of customer interaction and I’m a generally shy guy. I finally decide to stop into a flower shop pretty close to my house called Final Touch. It’s girly, I realize, and even though it’s technically retail, I see exactly one car in the parking lot, so I doubt I’d have to deal with people too often. I decide that it’s worth a shot, so I head inside.

Behind the counter, there’s an older woman sitting and reading a magazine. I approach her a little cautiously, but I feel less nervous when she looks up at me and smiles. “Hello, dear. What can I help you with?”

“Hi,” I greet her, feeling much more at ease. She has a nice smile and a warm voice. It reminds me of my grandma’s house on the holidays. “I was walking by and I was wondering if you were hiring.”

“I could use some help as a matter of fact,” she tells me, closing her magazine. I recognize it as something my mom reads. “What do you know about flowers?”

“Not much,” I admit, frowning slightly. She purses her lips hesitantly, so I add quickly, “I’m a fast learner, though.”

She laughs. “It’s okay. You’ll mostly be answering phones and running errands for me anyway.”

My ears perk up at her use of future-tense. “So what does that mean? Can you use me?”

“I can use you,” she confirms, nodding and smiling. “The hours vary week by week, but they’re reasonable, and I’m very flexible. I pay eight dollars an hour. Do you have a driver’s license?” I nod, so she continues. “Good. I can use you to drop off orders as well.” She extends her arm, offering a soft, wafer-thin hand to shake. “I’m Hilary.”

I shake her hand, feeling a little stupid for not telling her my name sooner. “Dawson.”

We talk a little longer about job details and my availability, and after that she shows me around her little store. I leave approximately thirty minutes later with a promise to show up after school tomorrow. I’m happy to have something to report back to my mother, though I inwardly groan when I remember that she is home so there will inevitably be some kind of tasteless tofu concoction for dinner. Even after all these years of eating it, tofu never sits well in my stomach and usually keeps me running to the bathroom for the next twenty-four hours (gross, I know, but true). I decide to break the news to her over our subpar meal and she responds positively.

“That’s great, honey,” she affirms. She looks older than she really is, tired and ultimately detached. She’s been that way since Dad died three years ago. But still, she tries and asks a few questions about it, pleased with my answers. We shift to other topics, jumping around between small details within our days. We finish up and I help her with the dishes. Mom thanks me and I turn to head upstairs and start my homework.

She stops me briefly. “By the way, you’ve got mail. I left it up on your desk.”

I nod and thank her, not thinking anything of this, figuring it’s another college recruitment letter or possibly a bank statement. I head upstairs and sit down at my desk to see an envelope sitting there with no return address. Sylvia floods back into my mind as I tear the letter open.

Dear Dawson,

Do you remember my last letter when I told you about my boyfriend who I don’t like? John? Well, that still stands true. Except that I’ve definitely moved from disliking him to full-on, hardcore hating him.

I wonder what happened. Maybe he forgot to call her or something. It seems like girls get really upset about a lot of irrelevant things like that, or at least they do at my school.

In order to tell you that story, I suppose I have to give you some more information. He and I started dating a few months ago, and it was fine for a while. But then it started going really downhill fast. He started needing to know where I was and who I was with when we weren’t together, and he texts me all the fucking time. Actually, he’s texting me right now, but I’m ignoring him.

All right, that’s weird. I’ll give her that. That would drive me nuts, too. I still wonder what he could have done, though.

Aside from that, he constantly thinks that I’m cheating on him, which is highly annoying. For one thing, I’m just not like that. For another, he occupies all of my time outside of school, so even if I was like that, when the hell would I even have the time to even talk to anyone else, let alone date them? Hell, I don’t even have time to talk to my dad. I mean, not that he really has time to talk to me either, but still. I live with the guy.

Again, I agree that that’s annoying, but I don’t think it justifies hatred. There has to be something else besides the fact that John is an insecure piece of shit.

Really, that’s not the worst of it, though. Those are just minor irritations. The major issue that I have with John pertains to sex.

Oh, dear Jesus. This should be quite interesting.

I’ll just warn you upfront that this section will be more than a little explicit, so I don’t mind if you want to skip to the end. I’ll never know. In fact, I have no idea If you even read my first letter, but I guess it doesn’t matter anyway. I just need to get all this out somehow.

Anyway, I’ll just get to the point. I don’t enjoy it when John kisses me, and I especially don’t like it when he sticks his tongue down my throat. He has to know that I don’t like it. I never kiss him back. But he kisses me anyway, and it’s easier to just go along with it than to put up a fight. And that’s just the way our intimacy is: I just go along with it in order to avoid an argument, and if I don’t want to go along with it, I get coerced into it anyway.

I stop reading for a moment, wondering just how much worse this can get. I see a few more long paragraphs, but I’m not sure I want to read any more. I could always just skip to the end or stop reading altogether like Sylvia suggested, but I’m also desperately curious.

The first time I ever got pressured into doing something I didn’t want to do was probably about a month into when we started dating. We were in his basement watching TV and we ended up fooling around. Or rather, he started fooling around with me. I let him kiss me like I normally did while I focused on the TV, watching, ironically, 16 and Pregnant. The next thing I knew, he was unzipping my jeans and shoving a hand down the front of my pants. I told him to stop and made a feeble attempt to push him away, but to no avail. He kept shushing me when I protested and talking softly, telling me that I’d like it. With that, two fingers went right in (and I don’t think I need to tell you where those fingers went). Actually, to be more accurate, he forced them in. I went numb, shutting my eyes and trying to lose myself somewhere else. I don’t know how much time passed, but eventually he stopped and I felt ready to vomit. When I went home, I went right into the shower and tried to wash the memory away.

I can feel my blood pressure rising with every word. My stomach cramps and I feel as though my tofu dinner may make a second appearance.

After that, that’s how everything went. He’d do what he wanted and I’d mentally clock out. I got really good at finding somewhere else to let my mind wander to. Sometimes I’d recite the list of prepositions I learned in the eighth grade and other times I’d think back to random childhood memories, like when my dad used to take me to dinner every week and we’d have father-daughter dates. Anything, just as long as I didn’t have to acknowledge what was happening. Shit, I can’t even tell you any of the details of losing my virginity. I truly can’t remember any of that. But I definitely won’t forget last night.

Earlier last night, John came over to study, or rather, tutor me. For whatever reason, he seems to think that I need it, even though I’m an A student and he’s a low B student at best. Ironically, we don’t even go to the same school, but I digress.

Any hope I might have had about learning Sylvia’s identity through this John douchebag flies right out the window.

Anyway, he was here and we were up in my room since my dad wasn’t home (what else is new?). Naturally, John thought that this would be the perfect time to start fooling around. I told him no, that I actually really needed to get some work done. He started trying to talk me into having sex with him as he usually does. For the first time, I really resisted. I’d had enough of his shit and I didn’t want to put up with it anymore. I was tired of him forcing himself on me all the time. I was going to stand up to him and hold my ground. Not like it ended up working, though. All it did was piss him off.

The next thing I knew, I was pinned to my bed with my clothes being pushed and torn away. I started to scream, but he put a hand over my mouth and told me to shut up. In retrospect, I don’t even know why I started to scream. It’s not like my dad or anyone else was around to help me anyway. But this was the first time that I didn’t blank out. I was fully present, completely aware of his weight on me, every thrust. It could not end fast enough.

I shut my eyes tight, my hands clamping around the paper. My fists are clenched and there’s a homicidal rage running through my veins. I’m seconds away from punching a wall or breaking a mirror or something. I'm almost afraid that dinner's going to make a second appearance. So many thoughts are running through my mind and it takes me at least twenty minutes before I can regain my composure enough to continue reading.

When he left, I immediately got into the shower, thinking that I could scrub him away like I had the first time. It didn’t work. I changed into new pajamas, tore the sheets from my bed and threw them in a pile with the clothes I'd been wearing before taking them outside and tossing them in the trash. I went back to my bedroom long enough only to put new sheets on my bed and grab clothes for the next day. Even that short amount of time in my room made my chest tight and I thought I’d throw up, which not to be gross, I promptly did as soon as I exited my room. I felt dirty about the whole thing.

My dad didn’t come home for about another hour, though he didn’t seem to notice that anything was wrong. His only question was why I was camped out on the couch. I told him that there was a spider in my room that I’d attempted to kill but lost, so I was too freaked to sleep in there. That’s not the first time I’ve given him this answer, but it’s the first time that it’s ever been a lie. I couldn’t imagine trying to tell him exactly what happened while he was gone, or explaining to him that my room no longer felt safe because John can’t keep his dick in his pants or take no for a fucking answer.

I’m sorry that I wrote you this letter. I just needed to tell somebody, but I just can’t say it out loud. And at least this way, I won’t get those pitying looks from my friends because I really hate that.

Again, I’m sorry, but thanks for listening. I think.
Sylvia

What the hell am I supposed to do with this letter? I’ve got an entire outline of a crime in my hands. I’d give it to the police if I thought it would do any good, but what could they do? There’s only fake names attached and I doubt they could do any type of handwriting analysis. Even if they could though, Sylvia showered and got rid of the most important evidence and threw out her sheets and clothes, too. So I’m left with no other option but tucking this letter away with the other, though I read it over and over in my mind. I attempt to sleep on the couch that night, but I don’t sleep a wink. I doubt that Sylvia does either.