"She doesn't always, just when she's really mad," Carrie rebuffs, sounding a little desperate. It isn't that she can't appreciate what Eddie's trying to say or why he's so insistent, but he doesn't understand. When she says she doesn't know anything else, she means literally. Until she met him, she was completely isolated. Tommy had invited her to prom, sure, but as soon as Momma found out, off they went halfway across the country to Hawkins, Indiana, and the last thing she wants is for Momma to make them start over again. Beyond that, though, the thing that scares her the most is that he seems to think she can just uproot her entire life in an instant because Momma's mean sometimes. She hasn't ever had friends, she's never had a father, she's never had anyone other than Momma. Where would she even begin?
"If who knew what was happening?" she asks, her voice tight with a sob hovering in the back of her throat as she tries to pivot the subject away from the head-spinning idea of leaving home, even if to escape more beatings. "Momma, who warned me that they were all going to laugh at me and I shouldn't talk to them? She was right. Who else? Ms. Desjardin, who went to the principal to try to get the girls punished for throwing tampons and pads at me when I didn't know what my first period was and I thought I was dying? The principal, who called Momma to pick me up and told her what happened even though I begged him not to? 'Cause I know she's crazy and she thinks the only way you get your period is when you're deflowered, so I knew I'd get locked in the closet?
"Literally anybody at school who could read 'Carrie White Eats Shit' spray painted across an entire wall of lockers at least once every couple of weeks, or maybe the janitors who had to keep repainting the lockers over and over and over to cover it up every time? Nobody cared, Eddie. I don't matter like you think I do," she asks, her voice tightening and going shriller with every word as she fights and finally loses the battle against crying in front of him. All of it just comes pouring out of her — words, tears; the whole thing — before she can stop it, like his insistence that somebody should've stepped in before him breaks the dam holding back seventeen years worth of misery.
Sniffling, Carrie's face scrunched up and she shakes her head, pulling away from him and turning her back to try to give herself some semblance of privacy while she tries to compose herself again. "Nobody cared. Everybody hated me, Eddie; everybody. I've never had a friend until you guys. I don't know anything except my Momma, don't you get it? She hurts me sometimes, but not like the kids at school used to. I can heal from a Bible thwap on the back of the head. I've done it a million times and I could do it a million more. It doesn't bother me like it's bothering you because that's just always been my life. I don't even know if I believe you when you say that it isn't normal...I don't have a frame of reference."
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"If who knew what was happening?" she asks, her voice tight with a sob hovering in the back of her throat as she tries to pivot the subject away from the head-spinning idea of leaving home, even if to escape more beatings. "Momma, who warned me that they were all going to laugh at me and I shouldn't talk to them? She was right. Who else? Ms. Desjardin, who went to the principal to try to get the girls punished for throwing tampons and pads at me when I didn't know what my first period was and I thought I was dying? The principal, who called Momma to pick me up and told her what happened even though I begged him not to? 'Cause I know she's crazy and she thinks the only way you get your period is when you're deflowered, so I knew I'd get locked in the closet?
"Literally anybody at school who could read 'Carrie White Eats Shit' spray painted across an entire wall of lockers at least once every couple of weeks, or maybe the janitors who had to keep repainting the lockers over and over and over to cover it up every time? Nobody cared, Eddie. I don't matter like you think I do," she asks, her voice tightening and going shriller with every word as she fights and finally loses the battle against crying in front of him. All of it just comes pouring out of her — words, tears; the whole thing — before she can stop it, like his insistence that somebody should've stepped in before him breaks the dam holding back seventeen years worth of misery.
Sniffling, Carrie's face scrunched up and she shakes her head, pulling away from him and turning her back to try to give herself some semblance of privacy while she tries to compose herself again. "Nobody cared. Everybody hated me, Eddie; everybody. I've never had a friend until you guys. I don't know anything except my Momma, don't you get it? She hurts me sometimes, but not like the kids at school used to. I can heal from a Bible thwap on the back of the head. I've done it a million times and I could do it a million more. It doesn't bother me like it's bothering you because that's just always been my life. I don't even know if I believe you when you say that it isn't normal...I don't have a frame of reference."