Authors: Katie McGarry
“What?” Her forehead crinkled in disbelief.
“Unlike you, I don’t have parents to pay for everything. I’ve got a job, Princess, and if I don’t leave now, I’ll be late. See you around.”
Grabbing my books and jacket, I left the table and immediately exited the library. The cold January air smacked me in the face. Ice covered several spots on the pavement.
“Hey!”
I glanced over my shoulder. Echo bounded after me, leather jacket on one arm and pack slung over her back. “Get your damn jacket on. It’s cold outside.” I didn’t stop for her, but I slowed my pace, curious as to why she followed me out.
She caught up quickly and kept step beside me. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I told you, to work. I thought you were smart.” I’d never met anyone so fun to mess with.
“Fine. Then when are we going to make this session up?”
I slammed my books on the piece of crap I called a car, causing rust to scatter to the ground. “We’re not. I’ll make you a deal. You tell Mrs. Collins that we’re meeting as many days after school as you want, collect whatever volunteer hours you need for whatever little club you belong to, and I’ll back you up. I won’t have to see you and you won’t have to look at me. I get to continue with my screwed up life and you get to go home and play dress-up with your friends. Deal?”
Echo winced and backed away as if I’d slapped her. She lost her footing when she hit a patch of ice. My right hand swept out and snatched her wrist before her body could smack the ground.
I kept hold of her while she steadied herself using the trunk of my car. Embarrassment or cold flushed her white cheeks. Either way, I found it funny. But before I had a chance to make
fun of her, her eyes widened and she stared down at the wrist I held.
Her long blue sleeve was hiked past her elbow and I followed her gaze to the exposed skin. She attempted to yank her hand away, but I tightened my grip and swallowed my disgust. In all the horror-show homes I’d lived in, I never once saw mutilation like that. White and pale red, raised scars zigzagged up her arm. “What the fuck is that?”
I tore my eyes away from the scars and searched her face for answers. She sucked in several shallow gasps before yanking a second time and successfully jerking out of my grasp. “Nothing.”
“That ain’t nothing.” And that
something
had to hurt like hell when it happened.
Echo stretched her sleeve past her wrist to her fingertips. She resembled a corpse. The blood rushed out of her cheeks and her body quaked with silent tremors. “Leave me alone.”
She turned away and stumbled back to the library.
Dare You To
BETH
My ass vibrates. I stretch before reaching into my back pocket for my cell.
For a second, I wonder if pretty boy from Taco Bell somehow managed to score my number. I dreamed of him—Taco Bell Boy. He stood close to me, looking all arrogant and gorgeous with his mop of sandy-blond hair and light brown eyes. This time he wasn’t trying to play me by getting my number. He was smiling at me like I actually mattered.
As I said—just a dream.
The image fades when I check the time and the caller ID on my cell: 3:00 a.m. and The Last Stop bar. Fuck. Wishing I never sobered up, I accept the call. “Hold on.”
My best friend Isaiah’s asleep beside me, his arm haphazardly thrown over my stomach. Gently lifting it, I squeeze out from underneath. Noah’s passed out on the couch, with his girlfriend, Echo, pulled tight against him. Shit, when did she get back in town?
Quietly, I climb the stairs, enter the kitchen, and shut the door to the basement. “Yeah.”
“Your mother’s causing problems again,” says a pissed-off male voice. Unfortunately, I know this voice: Denny. Bartender/owner of The Last Stop.
“Have you cut her off?”
“I can’t stop guys from buying her drinks. Look, kid, you pay me to call you before I call the police or bounce her out to the curb. You’ve got fifteen minutes to drag her ass out.”
He hangs up. Denny really needs to work on his conversational skills.
I walk the two blocks to the strip mall, which boasts all the conveniences white trash can desire: a Laundromat, Dollar Store, liquor store, piss-ass market that accepts WIC and food stamps and sells stale bread and week-old meat, cigarette store, pawn shop, and biker bar. Oh, and a dilapidated lawyer’s office in case you get caught shoplifting or holding up any of the above.
The other stores closed hours ago, placing the bars over their windows. Groups of men and women huddle around the scores of motorcycles that fill the parking lot. The stale stench of cigarettes and the sweet scent of cloves and pot mingle together in the hot summer air.
Denny and I both know he won’t call the cops, but I can’t risk it. Mom’s been arrested twice and is on probation. And even if he doesn’t call the cops, he’ll kick her out. A burst of male laughter reminds me why that’s not a good thing. It’s not happy laughter or joyous or even sane. It’s mean, has an edge, and craves someone’s pain.
Mom thrives on sick men. I don’t get it. Don’t have to. I just clean up the mess.
The dull bulbs hanging over the pool tables, the running red-neon lights over the bar, and the two televisions hanging on the wall create the bar’s only light. The sign on the door states two things: no one under the age of twenty-one and no gang colors. Even in the dimness, I can see neither rule applies. Most of the men wear jackets with their motorcycle gang emblem clearly in sight, and half the girls hanging on those men are underage.
I push between two men to where Denny serves drinks at the bar. “Where is she?”
Denny, in his typical red flannel, nods toward the back. “Where she’s always at.”
“Thanks.”
I draw stares and snickers as I walk past. Most of the laughter belongs to regulars. They know why I’m here. I see the judgment in their eyes. The amusement. The pity. Damn hypocrites.
I walk with my head high, shoulders squared. I’m better than them. No matter the whispers and taunts they throw out. Fuck them. Fuck them all.
Most everyone in the back room hovers over a poker game near the front, leaving the rest of the room empty. The door to the alley hangs wide open. I can see Mom’s apartment complex and her front door from here. Convenient.
Mom sits at a small round table in the corner. Two bottles of whiskey and a shot glass sit beside her. She rubs her cheek, then pulls her hand away. Inside of me, anger erupts.
He hit her. Again. Her cheek is red. Blotchy. The skin underneath the eye already swelling.
“Elisabeth.” Mom slurs the
s
and drunkenly waves me over. She picks up a whiskey bottle and tips it over the general area of the shot glass, but nothing comes out.
I go to her, take the bottle, and set it on the table beside us. “It’s empty.”
“Oh.” She blinks her hollow blue eyes. “Be a good girl and go get me another.”
“I’m seventeen.”
“Then get you something too.”
“Let’s go, Mom.”
Mom smooths her blond hair with a shaky hand and glances around as if she just woke from a dream. “He hit me.”
“I know.”
“I hit him back.”
Don’t doubt she hit him first. “We’ve gotta go.”
“I don’t blame you.”
That statement hits me in ways a man can’t. I release a long breath and search for a way to ease the sting of her words, but I fail. I pick up the other bottle, grateful for the pitiful amount remaining, pour a shot, and swig it down. Then pour another, pushing it toward her. “Yes, you do.”
Mom stares at the drink before letting her middle-aged fingers trace the rim of the shot glass. Her nails are bitten to the quick. The cuticles grown over. The skin surrounding the nails is dry and cracked. I wonder if my mom was ever pretty.
She throws her head back as she drinks. “You’re right. I do. Your father would never have left if it wasn’t for you.”
“I know.” The burn from the whiskey suppresses the pain of the memory. “Let’s go.”
“He loved me.”
“I know.”
“What you did…it forced him to leave.”
“I know.”
“You ruined my life.”
“I know.”
She begins to cry. It’s the drunk cry. The type where it all comes out—the tears, the snot, the spit, the horrible truth you should never tell another soul. “I hate you.”
I flinch. Swallow. And remind myself to inhale. “I know.”
Mom grabs my hand. I don’t pull away. I don’t grab her in return. I let her do what she must. We’ve been down this road several times.
“I’m sorry, baby.” Mom wipes her nose with the bare skin of her forearm. “I didn’t mean it. I love you. You know I do. Don’t leave me alone. Okay?”
“Okay.” What else can I say? She’s my mom. My mom.
Her fingers draw circles on the back of my hand and she refuses eye contact. “Stay with me tonight?”
This is where Isaiah drew the line. Actually, he drew the line further back, forcing me to promise I’d stay away from her altogether after her boyfriend beat the shit out of me. I’ve kind of kept the promise by moving in with my aunt. But someone has to take care of my mom—make sure she eats, has food, pays her bills. It is, after all, my fault Dad left. “Let’s get you home.”
Mom smiles, not noticing I haven’t answered. Sometimes, at night, I dream of her smiling. She was happy when Dad lived with us. Then I ruined her happiness.
Her knees wobble when she stands, but Mom can walk. It’s a good night.
“Where are you going?” I ask when she steps in the direction of the bar.
“To pay my tab.”
Impressive. She has money. “I’ll do it. Stay right here and I’ll walk you home.”
Instead of handing me cash, Mom leans against the back door. Great. Now I’m left with the tab. I push people in my quest to reach the bar, and Denny grimaces when he spots me. “Get her out, kid.”
“She’s out. What’s her tab?”
“Already paid.”
Ice runs in my veins. “When?”
“Just now.”
No
. “By who?”
He won’t meet my eyes. “Who do you think?”
Shit. I’m falling over myself, stumbling over people, yanking them out of my way. He hit her once. He’ll do it again. I run full force out the back door into the alley and see nothing. Nothing in the dark shadows. Nothing in the streetlights. Crickets chirp in surround sound. “Mom?”
Glass breaks. Glass breaks again. Horrible shrieks echo from the front of Mom’s apartment complex. God, he’s killing her. I know it.
My heart pounds against my rib cage, making it difficult to breathe. Everything shakes—my hands, my legs. The vision of what I’ll see when I reach the parking lot eats at my soul: Mom in a bloody pulp and her asshole boyfriend standing over her. Tears burn my eyes and I trip as I round the corner of the building, scraping my palms on the blacktop. I don’t care. I need to find her. My mom…
My mom swings a baseball bat and shatters the back window of a shitty El Camino.
“What…what are you doing?” And where did she score a baseball bat?
“He.” She swings the bat and breaks more glass. “Cheated.”
I blink, unsure if I want to hug her or kill her. “Then break up with him.”
“You crazy ass bitch!” From the gap between the two apartment buildings, Mom’s boyfriend flies toward her and smacks her face with an open palm. The slap of his hand across her cheek vibrates against my skin. The baseball bat falls from her hands and bounces three times, tip to bottom, against the blacktop. Each hollow crack of the wood heightens my senses. It settles on the ground and rolls toward my feet.
He yells at her. All curses, but his words blend into a buzzing noise in my head. He hit me last year. He hits Mom. He won’t hit either one of us again.
He raises his hand. Mom throws out her arms to protect her face as she kneels in front of him. I grab the bat. Take two steps. Swing it behind my shoulder and…
“Police! Drop the bat! Get on the ground!” Three uniformed officers surround us. Damn. My heart pounds hard against my chest. I should have thought of this, but I didn’t, and the mistake will cost me. The cops patrol the complex regularly.
The asshole points at me. “She did it. That crazy ass girl took out my car. Her mom and I, we tried to stop it, but then she went nuts!”
“Drop the bat! Hands on your head.”
Dazed from his blatant lie, I forgot I still held it. The wooden grip feels rough against my hands. I drop it and listen to the same hollow thumping as it once again bounces on the ground. Placing my hands behind my head, I stare down at my mom. Waiting. Waiting for her to explain. Waiting for her to defend us.
Mom stays on her knees in front of the asshole. She subtly shakes her head and mouths the word
please
to me.
Please? Please what? I widen my eyes, begging for her to explain.
She mouths one more word:
probation
.
An officer kicks the bat from us and pats me down. “What happened?”
“I did it,” I tell him. “I destroyed the car.”
Acknowledgments To God: Psalm 62:6
For A, N, and P: Someday you’ll have to face leaving home and I hope by then your father and I will have shown you enough about life and love that you’ll see the leap as the beginning of a grand adventure. I love you. Always.
Thank you to...
Dave—For being the guy that catches me when I fall.
Kevan Lyon—It’s amazing how one phone call from you can help brighten my perspective. Thank you for all that you do.
Margo Lipschultz—I wasn’t sure I was capable of writing something “short.” Thank you for believing in me and for helping me along the way. Your guidance and suggestions never cease to astound me.
Angela Annaloro-Murphy, Kristen Simmons, and Colette Ballard—You are three of the most amazing women in my life. Thank you for helping me figure out Lincoln and Lila.
Playlist for
Crossing the Line
The song that inspired me to write Lincoln to drive ten hours to see Lila:
“Wagon Wheel” by Jeremy McComb
My inspiration to write Lila and Lincoln’s relationship: