i slapped her. i watched her face burn with the sting.

I remember her nightgown. It always looked ratty, despite the cheery tulip print. I remember her soft doll feet. I loved touching those cool velvet soles to my cheeks, then covered with pimples.

I was desperate. And I had so much anger inside me. I didn't know what to do with it. Except keying cars and smashing telephones.

She had raven-black hair, so shiny you could use it as a mirror. (If you wanted to see yourself, that is). She would fall asleep outside my door. on the flesh-colored carpet. It broke my heart, but I was already to used to that sort of hurt, I guess. When i would wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom; there she would be, curled up with the door sill as her pillow, asleep, her features melting.

There was only sweetness in that girl, Carrie. She came from Chile. Had grown up an orphan. And it was possible, they said, that she had something wrong with her brain.

Who doesn't?

But she didn't know what to do with those toys that are supposed to teach you useful grown-up things. Like how to count M&M peanut-looking balls. Or to fit basic shapes into the right holes. One day I got so agitated watching her try to push a square into a star-shaped hole that i slapped her. I watched her face burn with the sting. Then I watched as the bottom lip begin to quiver, and those brown, sweet eyes that had seen fuck knows what, filled up with tears.

She cried. I cried.

Then I slapped her again.

Oh Carrie, can you ever forgive me?

Because I don't think I can.