Authors: Jenn Cooksey
“You dropped something,” she whisper-hisses, shoving a handful of black material into my chest and giving me no choice but to take it, “Just so you know, those were meant for Holden’s eyes,
not
yours.”
The shock resulting from what is the verbal equivalent of being slapped in the face wears off while I stare unseeing at Destiny’s back. She gets in Maddie’s Cabriolet with her and speeds away; the few moments it takes for the convertible’s taillights to fade and disappear around the corner, plenty of time to replace my momentary confusion with irritation and everything that goes with fast becoming pissed off. I decide to not chase them down. Engaging with them feeling like I do wouldn’t be the smartest thing to do. Or the safest. A high speed pursuit more often than not encompasses reckless driving and I for one don’t fancy wrapping my car around a tree. Especially not over a slighted teenage chick driving around with a warped point of view that fits in with her jealousy.
My hackles rise even further with a pit-stop I make for gas at the Circle K a few blocks from home. While I’m fueling up, I go into the convenience store to grab a soda and a pack of smokes, and just as the overly dour clerk with a massive case of acne hands me my change, I hear, “Nice stunt you pulled yesterday, Hastings, always knew you were a douche.”
“Excuse me?”
My head swings around in utter disbelief over the words my ears are still ringing with.
“You heard me, you fuck. First you’re a no-show to his funeral and then you throw a kegger where you announce to a room full of people that you’re gonna nail his girlfriend the very same night. What kind of pond scum
does
that shit?” A guy I seriously don’t think I’ve ever seen before says bare inches from my face.
White-hot adrenaline screams through my body at breakneck speed. Both of my hands clench into outraged fists while my teeth grind together and bite out, “I don’t know who the
fuck
you are, but you might wanna back the fuck up and check your facts,
asshole
.”
“Yeah?”
he taunts, getting so close to my face, I can see myself clearly in the black of his dilated pupils.
I shove him out of my personal space. “Yeah.”
He comes right back at me with his fist aimed at my head. It connects. Mostly because I stand here and just take the hit, as if I’m looking forward to it. Ignoring the starbursts and blistering heat radiating from my cheekbone, I swing back. Blood is coming from his nose, where I’d released most of a week’s worth of my pent up hostility, and from my own face it’s ironically dripping down onto the silkscreened image of Eddie’s bloodied ax on my shirt. The clerk and two other customers separate us and by the time I’m in my car again, crossing paths with a tree isn’t sounding so bad.
Driving home with the accelerator practically slammed through the floorboards the whole way, I screech into the driveway. I’m
beyond
incensed. And, I’ve of course forgotten all about what’s waiting for me here. I throw the front door open so hard it hits the wall and becomes one with the house, the drywall welcoming the inside doorknob like a bosom buddy. Not sparing a single glance for my father sitting at the kitchen table, I head straight for the refrigerator and the beer I’m desperately praying is still inside it.
“Just what are you planning on doing with that beer, Boy?” My father questions as I pull out a can of PBR, “‘Cause I
know
you’re not about to drink alcohol right in front of me.”
I pop the top, the sound of defiance echoing through the kitchen. “Yes, Sir, I sure as
shit
am.”
“No, you are not!” He yanks the can from my lips and slams it down on the counter; excited, sudsy foam bubbling up and out the opening.
“What is your fucking problem?!”
I shout in his face, my temper flaring even higher than I ever thought possible. I mean I’m old enough to legally commit murder in the name of freedom while fighting for our country, but I can’t have a fucking beer after an inherently shitty day and being in a goddamned fight?! The fuck is that bullshit, you know?!
He backhands me. It’s not hard and my face barely turns with the impact, but it’s enough to get my attention. “You will
not
use that tone with me, you hear me?! I will not be spoken to like that by
my
son in my own damned house!” His tone is suggestive of one that could’ve been used to say, “I brought you into this world. I can take you out.”
I grab the beer off the counter again and start chugging as I turn to go into my room.
“Where do you think you’re going?!” I glare at him over my shoulder to see he’s only a step behind me. “How dare you turn your back to me!”
“You really need to back off,
Sir
…I have had a day to end all shitty as fuck days and I can’t handle more bullshit right now without going ballistic.”
“Well, whose fault is that now, huh? It’s no wonder you had your ass beat and it’s about damned time! Saves me the trouble of doing it myself,” he growls and stands in my doorway with his hands fisted on his hips, like his son having his face punched repeatedly was just desserts for having a party without permission the night before, “With your impudent, foolhardy actions and utter lack of respect shown in the last twenty-four hours, you have brought
nothing
but shame to this house and my good name!”
Did he seriously just say you’ve brought shame to a HOUSE?
Jesus fucking Christ! Where does he think we live? Tara? During the 1860s?! It was a party! I hosted a stupid party, reluctantly I might add, not fall in with the wrong side during the War of Northern Aggression!
I open my mouth to retort and a light bulb goes off. He was home this morning and overheard every-little-fucking-thing said between Erica and me. He just doesn't know what we were actually talking about...he just assumes he does. “Just what,
exactly
, are you accusing me of here,
Dad
?”
“You watch your tone, ‘cause, Boy, so help me… I should wring your damned neck for doing what you did.”
I am
so
heated with unspoken resentment and overpowering fury, I push him when I question, “And what was that? Huh?”
“You know goddamned well what you did, and you did it
my
house!” He pushes back.
“I pay
rent
, you self-righteous son of a bitch!”
That gets me another backhanded smack across my face. This time, though, I feel it.
“You think because I make you be financially responsible for yourself that you’re entitled to do as you please?! Well I got news for ya, Boy, it don’t. Not here, not anywhere,” he angrily informs me and then pointing at my bed and the ruddy stain that’s clearly visible, he actually says exactly what he thinks of his only son. What he thinks of
me
… “Under
my
roof you preyed on that sweet girl’s emotions and stole her innocence when she was the
most
vulnerable. Now I wanna hear what you have to say for yourself!”
No, you really don’t…
I’m not sure if I mumble the thought aloud, but regardless, he provokes me to answer by sarcastically saying, “Speak up, sport, I can’t hear ya!”
Done. So
fucking
done. I’m shaking from the tippy-top of my head all the way down to my toenails, practically vibrating with barely restrained violence. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I know what I’m about to say is essentially like asking to be hit, but I don’t care anymore. I'm not a frightened little boy waiting for him to come home to see the
report card in my trembling hand that has a far from acceptable C- on it, and trying for the life of me to think of a way I can explain, or make it or myself go away altogether before I have to present it to him and receive my punishment. I’m an adult, it’s my life, and I don’t owe him
or
his mother fucking house and good name an explanation for jack shit. Not to mention that I didn’t actually do what he’s accusing me of. I made sure of that. Despite everything last night, that
one
thing was what I made sure I wouldn’t be guilty of.
“You wanna know what I have to say? How ‘bout fuck you. Fuck you, fuck your rules, fuck your house, and
especially
fuck your good name!”
His arm draws back and knowing that whether or not I move or duck, it’s gonna fucking hurt, I just stand here and wince in anticipation. Nothing happens. No earsplitting pain, no crunching of bone…nothing. I crack my eyes open just in time to see crushing regret make an appearance on his face while he says, “Get outta my house. I want you gone before I come back.”
“As you wish, Your Highness,” I say to his turning frame, bowing and waving my hand in front of me in snide, royal deference.
Out of the corner of his eye he catches sight of my mockery, so grabbing hold of me by the arm and shirt collar, he throws me backwards into my room where I land sideways on my bed. “OUT! Get. Out.
Now!
”
He storms out of the house and I start throwing shit into as many duffle bags and backpacks as I can find, marveling over what I refer to as my “Free Bird” moment. I’ve been planning and looking forward to this for so long; however, I never in a million years would’ve pictured it going down this way. Not that it really matters anymore. The little boy I used to be and I are both finally free. I’m getting the hell out of this house and as far away as I can get from Darth, this shit-hole town, and its entire population…
8
—Erica—
Throughout the day, my conscience has been sending me visual flashes of last night and with them, targeted bursts of sorrow, guilt, and electrically charged regret randomly slam into me when I least expect them to. Although I would’ve preferred to see the new summer blockbuster that just released, I don’t care for seeing movies alone and according to what Destiny told me when I texted her earlier, she got herself grounded by coming home past curfew last night. She’d be really hurt and would probably send me on a first-class guilt trip if I abandoned our new movie release ritual and saw it without her anyway, so instead, I’ve spent the entire day doing laundry, dusting, window shopping at the mall; all in an effort to keep myself occupied and distracted while I attempt the cumbersome task of forgiving myself.
Cole, God love him, was absolutely right.
Despite the urge and the justification I have to do so, I am not going to beat myself up for what
didn’t
happen last night. After all, he was the victim of my utter break from reality and all rational thought, so if he’s not going to make it a thing, then there’s no reason for me to.
Standing in the bed linen aisle of Walmart, I nod once decisively, physically reaffirming my decision to let it go. In that vein of thinking, I also decided earlier today that I’m done wallowing in self-pity and allowing my grief to exert control over me like it has this past week. I refuse to be anyone’s bitch…even my own.
Picking out and buying Cole new sheets even though he told me not to doesn’t count. Unintentional as it was, I still ruined his sheets. Yes, he can probably pre-treat them and get most of the blood up, but he’s kidding himself if he thinks there won’t be a stain. Blood is just one of those things that if you don’t deal with it immediately, it’ll always be there to haunt you. That’s why at almost seven o’clock tonight, I spontaneously jumped up off the couch and drove to Walmart to pick up some new sheets along with the contents of a Cinderella Care Package I decided to put together for him; including but not limited to a bucket and scrub brush, Oxy Clean, and a homemade coupon to be his laundry slave for a day.
Okay, so my care packages and coupons are a totally high school thing to do. I realize this, I do, but I just graduated and I can’t change who I am over night—no matter how much I might want to and try. Besides, it’s the thought that counts and it’s better than nothing. Plus this way, when Cole refuses my offer of cleaning up the mess I made, like I’m pretty sure he will, he’ll still end up sleeping on clean sheets at the end of the day. Now if I can only determine from memory if his bed is a full or a queen and then decide between stripes and plain old blue like he had before I landed my possessed butt on broken glass.
Maybe something to match his comforter…
I place the striped set in my cart along side the light blue ones and reach out towards the shelves again, my hand pausing briefly in midair before I bring it back with a sudden realization. I have no idea what Cole’s comforter actually looks like. Thinking back to this morning, though, I almost want to say it’s just plain white. Like
plain
plain; no duvet cover or anything. Just a white, down-filled comforter.
I have to shake myself when I begin to feel heat creeping into my cheeks from yet another unbidden memory; one that’s accompanied by phantom sensations. The warmth that spreads across my face and the tinge of weakness in my knees make me feel as though my body has abandoned the moral high ground that it should be clawing its way tooth and nail to be standing on again…that is, if it has any understanding of what remorse is. It clearly doesn’t, which is further demonstrated as I have to take a deep breath to slow my heart rate back down and brush away a vigilante tear before it falls from my eye.
Hastily I shove my emotional instability away again and the plain blue linens back onto the shelf. I look away and try to ignore the sheets that seem to be shouting my uneasy distraction to the world by standing out in stark contrast against all the patterned bedding I’d carelessly put them with. As I scoot myself the hell out of the aisle, sniffling back another tear or two, my cart crashes into someone else’s and I immediately start crying. Like, full-blown crying…runny, snotty nose and all.
“Oh my Gosh! I am
so
sor…ry,” the other cart driver exclaims, her voice trailing off with the last syllables of her apology. It’s too late, she’s seen what I’m not stealthy or fast enough at replacing with my happy face. “Erica? Oh, honey…”