Psycho Save Us by Chad Huskins Read Free Book Online

long before she got her first
period.  Her cousin Tyrese had taught her all about it, though he never knew it. 
It was Christmas, they had traveled to Memaw’s house—her Nan’s nan, in the last
year of her life.  Ricky, Kaley’s ex-stepdad-to-be, wasn’t even her mom’s
boyfriend back then.  Shannon was inside her mother, but nobody knew it yet. 
Kaley was very small.  She drank a lot of Coca-Colas that night.  Her bladder
had warned her that if she didn’t get to a bathroom very quick, she would need
a mop.  Kaley hustled to the bathroom at the end of the hall, but it was
occupied, locked.  She found a paper towel roll in the kitchen and went
outside, in the dark, all alone.  Out there was Tyrese and his two older
brothers.  He followed her, though she hadn’t known it at the time.  She hadn’t
known it until she got out in the woods and dropped her pants and squatted. 
She had been cleaning herself up when something hit her.  It was the charm.  She
felt…curious.  Curious about someone else.  She felt wanted, too.  Emotions that
she wouldn’t understand until she was in her twenties had swirled and
coalesced.  She pulled her pants up quickly, because something else made her
shiver, and it wasn’t the cold December wind.  Kaley remembered turning around,
looking back towards the house with the lights on, and seeing Tyrese’s
silhouette there.  He was twelve years old at the time, and he was coming for
her.  He didn’t even know it yet, but he was.  He thought he was just curious. 
He thought he was only going to see how little girls peed, maybe see what their
plumbing looked like.  “Hey, Kaley,” he said.  He might as well have screamed,
“I’m here to kill you!”, because she gasped, stood, and ran.  She couldn’t go
back to the party because he was in her way, and he would stop her, talk to her
cousin to cousin.  Tyrese would laugh and convince her there was nothing to be
afraid of.  And Kaley would believe him.  She would doubt her charm, just as
she usually did.  In that moment, she knew she couldn’t let that happen.
    That night,
Kaley ran from him.  She ran deeper into the woods.  She came out onto another
street and got lost quickly.  Later that night she would get a mean spanking
after the cops were finally called and found her wandering blocks away.  Mom
demanded to know why she’d done it, but Kaley hadn’t told her.  In truth, she
hadn’t known, either.  How does one explain a premonition that they doubted had
really happened themselves?  Kaley felt stupid, and part of her had determined
to never make herself look that stupid again.  She now realized that that night
had been the beginning of her new, sanity-saving programming, the programming
that told her not to listen to such stupid “feelings” again or else she would suffer
more humiliation.  For proud girls like Kaley, saving dignity was everything,
and that placed her at constant odds with her charm.
    She had listened
to her charm back then.  It had probably saved her.  I should’ve listened to
it tonight .
    Echoes…
    There was that
crying baby again.  Someone really needed to do something about that
baby.
    Now, her dream
became displacing, and she had no idea of where she was or what she had been
doing.  She wasn’t even sure this was a dream.  Kaley suddenly realized she needed
to be some place, she knew that inherently.  But where?  She had forgotten.  It
was important.  It was vital that she get there.  Yet, what good was
being there if she couldn’t even recall what she needed to be there for ? 
So she remained.  She remained where she was, with neither the ability to
choose nor the will to choose.  She remained.  Deep, deep within herself, there
was the ghost of panic haunting her.  She felt constricted, and she always
would.  She knew it.  On some fundamental level, she knew that she would always
be confined somehow.
    And then, all at
once, she saw him.  The