Authors: Brooklyn Skye
Chapter Eighteen
“Hand me that screw, would ya? The one next to the wheel head.” In the kitchen, Dad’s lying on the floor, Wrenn’s wheel propped over his face. A crisp pair of jeans hangs over his bare feet, a creased T-shirt rests above his belt. Dad’s never been overweight, but by the looks of the muscles in his stomach, he’s been working out in the jail.
I drop the screw into his hand then pull myself onto the counter. My
brain feels like it’s being yanked in two directions. I want to hate him for what he did, for the shithole my life’s become, but then he goes and does something like this—act all normal, like the father I once had.
He tinkers quietly for a few minutes then scoots out from under the wheel, sits on his feet
, and looks at me. “How’s that girlfriend of yours?”
He means Jess. Last he knew, she and I were pretty involved. But that was before his “accident,” and her accident.
I find a penny on the counter and spin it on its edge. “Not my girlfriend anymore,” I say, watching the penny instead of him. His expression will change, but whether it’s pity or remorse or disappointment, I’m not sure. And I don’t want to see how my life changing affects him. Or doesn’t.
“Any others?”
Yes. The daughter of a woman you killed. Who’s thought about killing herself because of what you took from her.
“No.” The word glides out like a drop of water. Fluid. Detached. And I don’t look up to see his reaction. Thinking about Cambria, and the hurt he’s caused her, sours my mouth like rotten milk. The penny stalls for a beat of a second then falls.
“Wrenn told me about one of your professors calling…and all your absences. Do you want to explain what’s been going on at school?”
“Really, Dad? No, I don’t want to talk about the shitty job I’ve done trying to live this life
you
created for me.”
His face hardens. “You haven’t been going to class. School is
your responsibility, Krister.”
Says the man who was
ir
responsibly texting his girlfriend instead of paying attention to the track ahead of him. I don’t say anything.
“
Wrenn said you quit your glassblowing internship, too.”
Reflexively, my fingers smooth over the scar on my hand. “Two thousand degree molten glass and a dad in jail didn’t really mix well.” It’s a dig. He knows it. And suddenly I don’t care.
“Listen, son, I know what happened is affecting you—”
“What
happened
? Don’t you mean what
you
did? Shit like train crashes don’t just
happen
.”
His mouth opens. No words come out. My face grows hotter with the feeling that I’m going to explode. So I pounce.
“And to say it’s
affecting
me is a fucking understatement. You have no idea what my life is like now. How it feels to be stared at, talked about, pitied. Or attacked when people find out who I am. To hear the words ‘Everything will turn out fine’ when deep down I know pigs will have to fly before anything is
fine
.” I jump off the counter, hands balled at my sides. “What it’s like to stand here before you and convince myself that I will be nothing like you!” I snatch my hat off the counter, storm out of the room and through the front door, get to the liquor store at the corner and call Ditty.
Ten minutes later I’m crammed in the jump seat of Ditty’s pickup, inhaling the secondhand smoke that remarkably floats through the gigantic holes in Sam Weatherly’s earlobes before smothering me.
“Do you want me to drop you off anywhere?” Ditty says with a glance over his shoulder at me. He turns off Fair Drive, the evening sun smearing the grimy windshield. I shrug.
“Nowhere to go, really. Can I just tag along with you two?” Jesus, when did I turn into such a loser—
being a third wheel by choice?
“Uh…”
Ditty and Sam share a calculating look. Then Sam peeks back with the cigarette dangling from her lips. “Yeah,” she says. “That’s totally fine, Krister.” Ditty’s hand tightens around the steering wheel. He doesn’t like the idea. Maybe he wanted to be alone with Sam. Maybe he’s still holding a grudge against me for ditching him at Jess’s and stealing his truck.
We pull up to the
movie theater and park. Ditty takes Sam’s hand easily, like it’s something he’s been doing for years, and it hits me that I didn’t even know they were together. Not like that.
We pay for our tickets to see
Arms and Legs
, some zombie flick according to Sam, load up on popcorn and chocolate, and make our way to Theater 5. Not many seats are filled, and we head to the top of the dim room where another couple sits. It takes me all of three seconds to recognize the cropped, blond hair and glaring eyes.
Jess. Sitting next to someone I don’t recognize. Same build as me, and that’s where our similarities stop. His hair’s darker than mine—almost black—and cut all over in different lengths. Pushed every
direction, it’s like he couldn’t decide which way to style his hair this morning and just left it. Only, it looks sort of planned. He’s got a gray vest buttoned up over his tight, black T-shirt and a hand on Jess’s bare knee.
“Who’s that? With Jess?”
Ditty glances up the stairway, tugging at the collar of his button-up shirt. “Some guy she met in Valenzuela’s class. From New York, I think.” His voice is low, hesitant, most likely wondering how I’ll react. “Name’s Shawn Madden. Hung out with him yesterday at the arcade. A little weird, but he’s all right.”
Obviously, Shawn doesn’t know who I am or my history with Jess because anyone else from our school would have half a mind to remove his hand from my ex-girlfriend’s knee the moment I enter the room. Preoccupied in conversation with Jess, Shawn nods nonchalantly to Ditty and Sam without
so much as a glance at me.
There was a time when this would’ve bothered me. Now, though, I can’t seem to find the feeling that I care.
Ditty and Sam shuffle past the happy couple. I follow, making myself bigger and more clumsy than normal. I “accidentally” step on New York’s black boot, bump his knee, apologize with a smile, and then hold my hand out to him.
“New g
uy from New York, I’m Krister.”
His hand is forced to leave Jess’s knee to shake my hand, and I silently laugh to myself. “Shawn Madden,” he says in a smooth, unshaken voice. Beside him, Jess is burning my face and chest with a laser-beam stare. I wink at her and push past to the next open seat opposite Ditty and Sam.
“Don’t sit,” Jess spouts. I turn. She’s standing, her back to New York and a dirty look plastered on her face. To the new guy she probably sounds cheerful, but there’s a hint of something else. Something harder. “Can I talk to you?” She points to the end of our row, to the empty aisle of stairs.
I shrug—indifferent, set my snacks down at my seat and start for the aisle. Her stare scalds my back, and when we get to the end she folds her arms over her stomach, pink nails biting into her skin. “Are you spying on me?” she says in a sharp whisper. A halfhear
ted laugh bursts from me.
“Get over yourself, Jess. I didn’t even know you were going to be here.” I
could tell her about my dad, the fight we had. She might understand. But I don’t feel like talking about him again. “So,” I say with no amusement at all. “You and New York are a thing now?”
“His name’s Shawn. And since when does it matter to you what I do or who I’m with? You haven’t cared since—”
“Don’t you mean
who
you do?”
Her nostrils flare. “Go to hell,
Krister.” Ditty and Sam are entertaining Shawn—distracting him, if I know them the way I think I do. Shawn laughs at something Sam says, covertly stealing a glance at us. At the same time, Jess lets out a low huff. “And I’m not—” She shakes her head, eyes glistening with tears. “God, why am I telling you this? I don’t even care what you think anymore.”
“You don’t?” The words come out soundi
ng bemused, but the idea is relieving. She’s moving on, which ultimately means there’s no chance of me hurting her anymore.
“
No.” The lights dim and, without another word, she drags her feet back to her seat between New York and Sam. The movie is a blur of gray faces and detached limbs, and I don’t concentrate on any of it because the whole time I’m waiting—and then searching—for some sign within myself that I give a shit.
After the movie, Di
tty drops off Sam and then we head to his studio apartment—through the garden-like courtyard and up the flight of stairs. If I wouldn’t have quit the internship I might have a job by now. And a place of my own.
“Did you like the movie?” he asks as he makes a path through the strewn-about clothes and splayed-open books from the door to his bed. I shrug.
“Zombies aren’t really my thing.”
With about as much grace as a newborn giraffe, he shoves a few dresser drawers closed, not bothering to stuff their contents in first then looks over at me. I sit at his metal desk. It’s surprisingly clean compared to the rest of his room with only a few schoolbooks stacked up on the side and a half-whittled chunk of wood shaped like a pineapple. I have n
o idea what he’ll make it into.
“They used to be,” he says, pulling the covers straight on his bed. “Remember last summer when you insisted on going to the LA Film Festival because that chick who played the half-naked zombie in
Rule of the Dead
was going to be there? And senior year you were one for Halloween.”
My mind is turning. Sure I remember those things, but not like they’re memories of mine. More like they belonged to a scene on TV or a page in a book. The image
of someone telling them to me.
Ditty collapses onto his bed and tosses a pillow at me. I catch it.
“You’ve changed.” His tone is controlled. Not accusatory or spiteful or critical. A simple observation.
I rub my face. “Can we not talk about this tonight?”
“Why? Because
you
don’t want to? Well, what if I do?”
“I don’t care if you do.”
“And there you go again thinking the world revolves around you and
your
life.” A line draws across his forehead. “Let me ask you something. When’s the last time you asked about me? About why I’m spending so much time with Sam? Asked how far we’ve gone?”
“Jesus,
Dit, you sound like a girl.”
“I’m serious.”
“Fine,” I snap, jamming my hand through my hair. “Have you bagged Sam yet?”
“Fuck you,
Ledoux. My point is you’ve been so wrapped up in your feel-sorry-for-me shit you’ve totally forgotten about all of us.” All of us, as in him and Jess. There’s never really been anyone else. “You didn’t even care that Jess has been seeing someone else.”
Without look
ing at me, he tosses the folded-up blanket from the end of his bed my way and shuts off the light. It’s dark. And suddenly I’m cold. I curl up on the floor beside the desk, still dressed, and watch as strands of moonlight tangle with the blades of the ceiling fan. Ditty lets out a weighted sigh, and my first thought is that he’s asleep, but then he says with no inflection in his voice at all, “The old Krister would’ve cared.”
But I’m not him.
And I don’t know how to be him.
I let out a heavy breath. Maybe he’s right—Jess or not, I haven’t exactly made an effort with him lately. “
Do you like her? Sam?”
Even though it’s dark, I can see his eyes
open at the sound of my voice. “She’s different. Kinda like one of the guys, but kinda not. Like Jess was.”
I don’t know if he meant that as a dig or not.
I nod, anyway.
“What about you
? Still with that chick from SkyTown?”
“Cambria, yeah
. She’s cool, too.” Even though it seems like there’s so much more to say, we end the conversation there. Guess it’s a start.
Unable to sleep,
I wait until Ditty crashes out then quietly slip out of his apartment. It’s far, but I stroll along the lamp-lit streets until I’m standing in front of Cambria’s house. She didn’t know the old me, and she doesn’t expect me to act like him. It’s the most refreshing thought I’ve had all day.
Around the side of the house, I spot a window with lace curtains. Considering Cambria’s the only girl living here, I take my chances and tap. When nothing happens, I knock. A moment later, a light switches on and the curtains divide, revealing a stunning face staring
back at me.
I wave and smile like I didn’t just pull a creeper move and wake her up in the middle of the night by playing pat-a-cake with her window. “Greetings from the other side.”
A wide grin spreads across her face before taking a quick glance over her shoulder. She moves the curtains aside and slides open the window, at the same time straightening her finger over her lips to tell me to be quiet. Watching me remove the screen, she tugs at the hem of her worn U of C T-shirt. I want to tell her she looks beautiful, even with her hair knotted at the top of her head and wrinkly, yellow, cotton shorts. I want to…but I also want to be quiet so my time with her doesn’t end before it starts.