20 Weeks – Chapter 9 (Part 2)

20 Weeks – Chapter 9 (Part 2)
 
 
 
“This looks about as good a place as any,” Ben said with a huff, as he dropped the small man’s body onto the hard-packed Texas dirt.
 
“I… I don’t know…” Bijuu said, as she mindlessly twisted her bottom lip with a pair of pinched fingers.
 
“What do you mean ‘you don’t know’?  We’ve come this far, haven’t we?  I’ve done everything you asked.  You can’t just give up now.  We’ll go to jail.  I won’t do jail, Bijuu.  I can’t do jail.”
 
Bijuu set down the shovel she had slung over her shoulder, and looked long and hard at the sweat covered boy.
 
“Yeah.  Well, I don’t do dead bodies, and just look at me now,” Bijuu said, as she looked once again at her boss’ filthy body which was lying in a ditch and half-hidden by ferns.
 
“Yeah, look at you now.  Finally standing up for yourself.”
 
“Finally?”
 
“Yeah.  Finally?”
 
“What the fuck does that mean?” Bijuu foolishly demanded bitterly of the only ally she in had in the whole entire world.
 
“Come on Bij…” Ben cooed then, almost as if he could back-peddle.
 
But as it is with most exhausted and starving pregnant women, there simply was no back-peddling with Bijuu.
 
“Come on Bij… what?” she demanded, as if she wasn’t more than a foot shorter than the older boy.
 
“I mean… you let everyone walk all over you; Chad, your dad, your boss…”
 
“I didn’t let them do anything,” Bijuu told the large and intimidating young man in such a small voice she wasn’t even sure he heard.
 
But then he said, “No, but you didn’t fight back either, did you?”
 
“Fight back?” Bijuu asked, as her back bristled into a protective hunch.
 
“Fight back?  How can I fight back?  I don’t have any money.  I don’t have any power.  And we all know people get exactly as much justice as they can afford.”
 
Ben opened his mouth to speak, but Bijuu wasn’t finished quite yet.
 
“All I ever do… all I can ever do, is deal with the consequences.  That’s all women like me ever know… how to pay the consequences of other people’s actions, other people’s choices.”
 
Bijuu looked up that, straight into Bens’ big brown eyes.
 
“And you know what we get in exchange?”
 
“What?”
 
“We get to go goddamn insane.”
 
“Bullshit,” Ben said without a second’s pause, and with a bit of conviction in his voice.
 
“Fuck you,” Bijuu told him, with a bit of bite of her own.
 
“No.  Bijuu.  Fuck them.  They’re the ones you should be mad at.”
 
“I am mad at them.”
 
“Oh yeah?”
 
Bijuu turned away at that, and then put a protective hand on top of her stomach, her empty stomach that pained her and made her sick all at the same time.
 
“You’re so afraid of being hurt.  So afraid of more pain.  You’ll do anything not to look at the problem, just stick your fingers in your ears and pretend it’ll all go away.”
 
“What would you have me do?” the young girl with the painted face and sad eyes asked, in all earnesty.
 
“I’d have you face it.  Face them.  Tell the world even, what they did.  Make them face it Bijuu.  Make them pay for it.  Because nobody should get to treat you like that and get away with it.  Nobody.”
 
Bijuu’s eyes welled with tears and her nose ran with snot, but still, she did not say a word.
 
“No more running around, hiding in the woods.  It’s time, Bijuu.”
 
“What would you know about facing your fears?” she asked the boy who had left her to deal with the cop on her own.
 
“Who are you?  Just some wannabe musician, what have you ever done?  When have you ever been brave?”
 
Ben snorted and then said, with a degree of indignation Bijuu did not feel he deserved, “At least I’m not lying to everyone.  And besides, I’m the one that’s kept you alive this long.  You think those two guys in your room would’ve been so compliant without me?  I’m the whole entire reason you’re still standing on your two feet.”
 
“Oh yeah?” Bijuu asked with a derisive snort, but inside she was quaking.
 
“Then go.  If you want me to stand on my own two feet FOR ONCE – just go!” she screamed at the boy who moments ago had been her salvation.
 
“You don’t mean that, Bijuu… just like you never mean anything you say.”
 
“Just go!” she screamed in a loud whisper, as they were both still cognizant to some degree at least that they were not entirely alone.
 
“You don’t mean that…” Ben repeated, looking the young woman square in the eye.
 
“Go,” she repeated, without blinking an eye.
 
 
 
 
© Raena Exe 2022
ISBN   978-1-7332979-8-1
 
*All characters, places, and events are completely fictional.
*All rights reserved.
 

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