A Rain of Frogs

“Do you think you have a good life?” he asked, tapping his pen against a leather-bound notepad.

I smiled. The therapist had been asking me this question in a variety of ways over the last few weeks, and I had supplied the same answer in a variety of ways.

My mother, disturbed by my sudden drop in school performance after the attack, had taken matters into her own hands. Against my father’s protests, she had taken me to her therapist.

“I think some parts of it could be better, but for the most part, yeah, I think I have a good life.” I replied.

The therapist nodded. He’d been expecting the answer.

I looked out the window. I loved the view from here. The window overlooked an old cobblestone courtyard, and directly across from the window was an old stone building with a slate roof. Rain water cascaded down the slate tiles like a tiny waterfall. It was January, but winter hadn’t managed to get a grip on the climate yet.

Therapist, I thought to myself, The Rapist. Probably an old joke, but I found it funny. I tried not to smile.

“Do you have any friends?” he asked. This was a new question, though I had been expecting it, even from the very beginning. My mouth was suddenly filled with the taste of metal. I considered a moment how to answer the question.

“Yeah. One or two.”

I hated the way he wrote in his pad every time I said something. I wondered if he were writing my answer down, or his thoughts. I suspected it was both, but maybe it was neither. Maybe the pad was just a prop, something to help keep me out of my comfort zone.

“Can you tell me about them Adrian? Your friends.” he asked. Rain pattered against the window.

“What do you want to know?” I asked. I refused to make this easy for him.

“You could start with their names.” he responded immediately.

I nodded, and continued to watch the rain run down that window across the courtyard.

“My cousin Mike. Probably my best friend in the world, except for maybe my sister.” I answered.

He just nodded and scribbled, letting the silence between us draw out. I would not be the first to fill it. Eventually he spoke. “We’ll talk about both of them soon. Anyone else? Anyone not related to you?”

“Amy.” I answered after a long drawn out pause.

I watched him look over top of his glasses at me. “Amy? Tell me about Amy.”

I sighed and leaned back into the overstuffed chair, and listened to the scrape of his pen on his notepad.

“I don’t know how to describe Amy.” I said.

A favorite statement of my mother’s was “If you’re taking the day off school, you’d better be dead.”

Most parents wouldn’t have sent their children to school that way. Most parents would probably have taken a more concerned role after the attack, worried more about their child’s safety. I went to school with the bruises and cuts. I was, after all, still clearly breathing.

My classmates prodded me with questions. The suffering of others always made them gregarious. I tried to deflect their attention, but inevitably found myself explaining that I had been attacked in the town hall park. While the others crowded me to hear the story, Jay listened intently from a distance, far enough away to seem disinterested, but close enough to hear.

At lunchtime I was called to the Principal’s office. This time I approached with no dread. I thought I knew what to expect, but when I was motioned into the office by the receptionist I discovered I was wrong.

Mr. Ford introduced me to a constable and invited me to sit down. My parents had called the authorities. He explained there were just a few questions, that it wouldn’t take long.

Did I see the person who attacked me? What time was it, approximately? Was anything taken from me? Was I alone? How did I get home? What did the person look like? Did I know them? Who was with me?

The questions went on and on, and every once in a while the constable would repeat a question he had asked earlier, phrased a different way. His face was friendly enough, but his manner became less so. I supplied answers he didn’t want, I continued to not be trapped by his questioning.

It was clear he didn’t believe me but equally clear there was nothing he could do about it.

An hour later I returned to my class. Jay looked at me intently as I made my way to my seat, trying to fathom what had transpired. A moment of cruelty stole over me, and I smiled wickedly at him. It was delicious to watch his face contort in fear.

Later on I felt bad about it, but at that moment I relished the look on his face, and the power I had to cause it.

In the end it wasn’t so bad.

I arrived home much later than I should have. Amy had walked me to within two houses of home, then skipped off down a pedestrian pathway after telling me she’d see me one day after school. I opened the door, with expectations of all hell.

Instead I was met by my concerned sister who fretted and flitted around, cleaning my cuts and even washing my jacket, which I had missed with the blood but not the vomit.

She was full of questions, but I was empty of answers. If there was one thing that my short but all too eventful life had taught me, it was that in moments of difficulty, we were all alone. I couldn’t tell who had beat me.

Even when my parents got home hours later I was silent. My mother worried over the cut on my temple and the purple blossoms of bruise on my chest, becoming more and more angry that I wouldn’t talk.

My father held the broken corpse of my guitar in his hands, and complained about violence inherent to the system, how criminals were glorified and victims marginalized. He almost foamed at the mouth when he got to the part about victims aiding and abetting the criminals by not talking.

It had only taken them ten minutes to forget that I was the one who had been hurt in all of this. I timed it on the kitchen clock.

Eventually they sent me to bed, even though I hadn’t had dinner. Being sent to bed without dinner was a standard punishment in our house. I doubted they had noted the irony.

“Hey kid.”

I opened my eyes. It was dark.

“Kid! Wake up! You okay?” the voice urged again.

I didn’t understand where I was. It was dark, there was something cold and wet pressed against my cheek, and what sounded like a child’s voice was calling me “kid” and telling me to get up.

The world exploded into a riot of pinwheeling color and patterns as I sat up. And pain. Lots of pain. It shot through my head in a shining white blade of heat and light. I threw up.

“Wow. That’s impressive,” the voice intoned, “It’s always corn, you notice that? Even if you haven’t had any.”

I tried not to laugh even though exactly the same thought had just passed through my mind. But laughing made the blade of shimmering pain twist in my head.

“Who are you?” I finally managed to croak.

“Ha! At least you didn’t ask who YOU were,” said the voice.

The kaleidoscope of colors had begun to subside, and with it the sharpness of the pain in my head, so I ventured a glance toward the voice. My eyes passed the wreckage of my guitar, and with sudden swiftness and a gut-wrenching sense of loss I remembered exactly why I was here.

It was dark, and there was no moon to light the night. The nearest streetlights were on the other side of the park. At first I couldn’t make out anyone, my eyes wouldn’t focus properly, but eventually the blurry shape resolved itself into a child.

Though her face was partly obscured by a hood, it was obvious she was a girl, and about my own age. She was bundled up in a jacket and jeans to guard against the cold. She had red woolen mittens and red canvas shoes, like old-style basketball shoes.

I stared at her shoes for a while. I didn’t know why, but her shoes seemed wrong to me. Eventually the sound of her voice brought me around.

“So, you okay? what happened? she asked.

“Yeah. I’m okay,” I answered. I tore my eyes from her shoes and looked at her face as she sat down beside me. It was a face I felt I could tell anything to. “I’m okay. Will be, anyway.”

“That’s good to know. I doubt your guitar will fare so well. It looks pretty smashed up.”

I didn’t answer. Her assessment was perfect. My grandfather would have been crushed, I was heartbroken. Even worse, I dreaded telling my mother about it.

“Yeah. That’ll be a problem. Who are you, anyway?” I asked her.

She stood up and offered me a hand. Once on my feet I swayed a bit, and she continued to hold my hand to help keep me balanced.

“You can call me Amy.”

I trudged across the park near town hall, on my way home from a guitar lesson. I had told my mother that if I were to continue taking piano lessons, I also wanted to take guitar lessons, learn to play something that interested me instead of constantly having to compete. She must have seen the determination in my eyes – she found the best guitar teacher in town and made the arrangements.

I was returning from my third lesson, walking home. She might have arranged the lessons, but she also made it clear she wouldn’t be a chauffeur. The frosted, brown grass crunched under foot. Winter was slowly tightening its grip.

It wasn’t till I drew level with the merry-go-round and stopped to adjust the strap of the guitar case that I noticed the figure sitting at the top of the slide. I couldn’t make out a face – it was only a person-shaped shadow against the grey sky.

“Hey, you.” the voice said. It was a cold voice, devoid of emotion. My heart fell.

“Hi Jay.”

I watched as he slid down the slide and approached me. Each step left the grass bare, a brown patch against the paler frost. His breath puffed from his mouth and hung around his head in the still, windless air. He stopped in front of me. I looked up into his face and fought the urge to look away, to find an escape. Running could only have made the situation worse.

“What’s in there, baby?” he asked, motioning to the soft case slung across my shoulder.

Any hope I had of this ending without tears was rapidly draining away. His voice was cold and emotionless, but his eyes burned with hurt and anger. I was always frightened of Jay, but his eyes terrified me.

“I’m sorry about your sister, Jay.” I said.

I instantly understood it was the wrong thing to say. His fist lashed out and caught me under the chin, sending me to the hard ground. The guitar sounded a muffled clang as it slid off my shoulder and landed beside me.

“You don’t talk about her!” he screamed as he kicked me. “You don’t talk about her at all ever! Got it?”

As suddenly as he had started, he stopped. I opened my eyes to see he had taken my guitar out of its case. The guitar had been my grandfathers. He had given it to me in hopes that I might some day enjoy it as much as he had.

I held out my hand, still sitting. “Give me my guitar Jay.”

“Give me my guitar, Jay,” he mocked. “And what if I don’t?”

I kept my hand out, determined to get my grandfather’s guitar back. “Give it now, Jay.” I demanded.

I saw him move but I wasn’t fast enough. He was bigger and stronger and faster than I was, and I was off balance trying to stand up. The guitar caught me on the temple, spinning me around and back off my feet. It all happened so slowly.

I heard wood splinter and strings break. I felt the sharp edges of broken wood dig into my skin. As I spun toward the ground, I saw stars. I always thought that was an odd expression, but I saw nothing but black and stars.

I remember him yelling at me, screaming at me from a million miles away. I remember thinking how disappointed my grandfather would have been. I remember the metallic smell of blood in my nose and thinking how upset my mother would be if it stained my coat.

I remember the spiky, frosty grass pressing against my face and how the blackness stole over me.