I closed my eyes.

“Honey, tell me what you need,” Mitch urged and I opened my eyes.

“I need to go over there.”

“I’m thinkin’ now’s not good.”

“Mitch, I need to go over there. I can’t go to sleep wondering. I need to know.”

“It’s late, you can know tomorrow.”

“Mitch,” I leaned in and got up on my toes, “please, I need to know.”

He studied me again. Then he muttered, “Fuck, all right. Hang on and I’ll ask Bradon or Brent to come over here in case one of the kids wakes up.”

I nodded and he let me go with one arm to pull his phone out of the back pocket of his jeans.

While he did this I asked, “Where are the kids now?”

He hit some buttons while he answered, “Billie is sleepin’ on the pull out in my second bedroom. Derek and LaTanya had an inflatable mattress and that’s in there too, Billy’s on it.”

I bit my lip as he put his phone to his ear and then said, “Bray? Mitch. Yeah, hey. Can you come over here for a few minutes while I take Mara over to her place to get some of her shit?” He paused then said, “Thanks, man.” Then he flipped his phone shut and shoved it into his back pocket before his arm went back around me.

“This is a new level,” I told him when he did.

“Sorry?” he asked.

“Vandalism,” I explained. “It’s a new level for the Trailer Trash Twins. They’re stupid, crazy and mean but this…” I trailed off and my eyes went to his shoulder.

It dawned on me that I’d been doing this for a while and Mitch hadn’t responded so my eyes slid back to his to see he was staring at me thoughtfully.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothin’,” he answered and there was a knock on the door.

Mitch’s arms dropped but he grabbed my hand and walked me to the door. He opened it and Bradon was there, looking worried at the same time looking curious. Mitch guided us out of his way and Bradon walked in.

Bradon was tall, blond, slim and lean and if he wasn’t gay, I’d have a faraway, freakishly shy crush on him too. Since he was an awesome guy, luckily he was gay so he could be my friend.

“Hey honey, how you doin’?” he asked, I tipped my head to the side and felt my lips tremble. “Shit,” Bradon muttered, pulled me away from Mitch and gave me a big hug. I wrapped my arms tight around him and hugged him back. “It’s gonna be okay,” he whispered in my ear.

“Yeah,” I replied but even I didn’t believe me.

“We know this now, we’ll all keep vigilant. You and those kids’ll be okay,” Bray assured me.

He was tall, slim and lean. Brent was somewhat shorter, bulkier and more muscular. Derek was built tough and strong. All I’d encountered on Mitch was solid, hard muscle. But none of them were ninja masters.

But Mitch had a gun and the training and authority to use it. And I was pretty certain that if the Trailer Trash Twins came calling again, he’d aim to maim rather than take them out in a bloody rampage. I hated them and I had reason to, now a new reason but not a bigger one, but I didn’t want them dead. I was happy with maimed. I focused on that because it made me feel slightly better.

“Thanks,” I whispered to Bray then felt Mitch’s hand warm on my back.

“Let’s get this done, baby,” Mitch said gently.

I pulled away from Bradon and returned the smile he was aiming at me. Mine was wobbly. Then I turned to Mitch and nodded.

“We won’t be long,” Mitch told Bradon as he opened the door.

“Whatever, Mitch, I don’t need to be anywhere,” Bradon replied.

Mitch nodded to him, grabbed my hand and led me out. There was yellow police tape criss-crossing my door that I hadn’t noticed because I hadn’t even looked that way. Something about seeing that tape made all this even more real and I suddenly stopped halfway across the breezeway. The minute I did, Mitch was in my space.

“We should do this tomorrow,” he said.

I tipped my head back, looked at the underside of the roof over the breezeway and sucked in breath. Then I looked at him.

“I’m okay.”

His hand tensed in mine and he muttered, “Survivor.”

Then he led me the rest of the way, dropped my hand, dug some keys out of his pocket and used them on a new bolt and padlock that was on my door because the doorknob and the door around it were busted to oblivion.

Oh boy.

He pushed open the door and used my hand to guide me forward, dropped it and put it in my back to force me down to duck under the criss-cross tape. We walked in and he flipped on the overhead lights.

The instant my eyes saw it, my mind retreated and it didn’t register on me. I saw my sofa and armchair had been slashed, the stuffing everywhere. I saw my television turned over on its face, smashed. Parts of my stereo strewn around the room. CDs, DVDs books from my shelves everywhere, cases broken, discs broken, books torn. I saw everything in my kitchen cupboards was all over the counters and some of it peeking out on the floor at the end of the bar. Broken crockery. Even food.

Holy crap.

I wandered down the hall and reached into the hall bathroom to turn on the light. I didn’t keep much in there but what was in there was all over the place.

I moved to my bedroom and turned on that light. My Spring Deluxe was slashed too. Completely laid to waste. My raspberry sheets and blush comforter cover with its embroidered raspberry flowers with delicate, grass green stems and leaves was shredded, feathers from my duvet and pillows all over the place. My clothes were everywhere, my dresser drawers pulled out and tossed, broken, across the room, their contents tangled with the feathers and shreds of my sheets.

I walked to my bathroom and more of the same. Tampon boxes emptied, tampons all over the sink and floor. The plastic pulled away from toilet paper rolls, the rolls unrolled. Bottles and tubs of my toiletries open, their insides spilling out, mingled with tampons and toilet paper and staining my towels and extra sheets that had been yanked out of my bathroom closet. My medicine cabinet looted. Even my ibuprofen capsules were littered everywhere.

“Mara, sweetheart, just grab what you need and –” I heard Mitch say from close but I moved, drifting out of the room and down the hall where I switched the light on to the kids’ room.

The same there. Their new beds where annihilated. The bedclothes slashed and shredded. Their new and old clothes scattered across the room.

I saw something and walked to it, picking up the remnants of Billie’s new, tiny, pink fluffy teddy bear that Mitch bought her. She loved that thing. It was the nicest toy she owned. She slept with it every night since he gave it to her. Every night. She never let it go even as heavy as she slept.

She never let it go.

Why would Mom and Lulamae do this? Why?

As these things go, whatever fog that had drifted around me cleared and the crushing weight of what I was seeing landed on me.

I needed new everything. The kids did too.

Everything.

Without me telling my body to do it, I folded into a deep, knees-closed squat, my ass to my ankles, my knees in my chest. I wrapped my arms around the back of my head as I pressed my face into my knees, feeling the soft fur of Billie’s decimated teddy bear brushing my cheek.

“Fuck,” I heard Mitch mutter.

I was sobbing into my knees, oblivious to everything but the hatred and ugliness that surrounded me. All that was hideous about the home I grew up in washing through my life, the one I’d worked so hard to build, the one I desperately wanted to give Billy and Billie. As ever, all I knew, all I was, all that was contained in the blood flowing through my veins shredding everything good that I worked so hard to have.

More fool I that I thought I’d ever get away from it, escape it. Ever.

I felt myself moving and then I was in Mitch’s arms. I wound mine around his neck, pressed my face in his throat and sobbed silently against his skin as he carried me through my apartment. I vaguely heard the police tape tearing off the doorframe and we were in the breezeway. Then we were in Mitch’s apartment.

“Oh fuck,” I heard Bray whisper. “That doesn’t look like it went too well.”

I didn’t lift my head and Mitch didn’t pause in walking as I heard him issue orders.

“Go get LaTanya,” Mitch said to Bray. “Mara’ll need stuff for a while. Tell her she needs to be careful about what she touches; she only touches what she’s bringin’ over. Nothin’ else. Can you do that for Mara?”

“Absolutely,” Bradon replied.

Then Mitch was moving funny and I vaguely noticed he was no longer standing but sitting. I was folded in his lap, his arms tight around me. This didn’t register except that I burrowed deeper and held on tighter, pressing my face hard into his neck.

One of his hands started stroking my back. I felt his head tilt down and his lips at my ear.

“It’s okay, baby, everything’s gonna be okay,” he whispered there.

“I wah…worked so hard,” I stammered back.

“I know,” Mitch replied gently.

“I wah…worked so hard to be eh…eh…everything they weren’t. To have duh…decent things around me,” I stuttered into his skin. “Wah…wah…why do they hate me so much? What did I ever do to them except bah…bah…breathe?”

Mitch didn’t respond but he kept his head tilted to me, I could feel his cheek pressed against my hair and I felt his hand moving, warm and soothing on my back. After a while it penetrated that this felt nice and when it did, my tears started to subside.

Mitch heard it and repeated, “Everything’s gonna be okay, Mara.”

I nodded against his neck not believing him for a second.