by Kate Avelynn
James nods, his gaze still fixed on Sam. “Sure.”
I want to tell Sam we’ll continue this later, that I’ll never be able to eat a cinnamon mint again without thinking about him, but I can’t. Not with James right here.
Without waiting for either of them, I pick my way back down the hill and hope to God I don’t step in a pothole or trip over a wayward root. The shadows up here are thicker than puddles of spilled ink. Maybe I should have asked Sam for his flashlight.
Heavy footsteps follow me, thudding closer and closer on the pine-needle-strewn dirt trail until they’re so close, I can hear my brother’s uneven breathing.
“Sarah, wait up.”
I keep my head down, picking up my pace while I try to acclimate my eyes to the filtered moonlight streaming through the misty tree canopy. It doesn’t matter that I’m headed for a truck I won’t let him drive—if James and I get into this now, it’ll ruin the memory of my almost-kiss with Sam.
“Damn it, I said wait!”
He grabs my arm and yanks me around to face him. I slam into his chest with a thud that jars my bones and knocks the fight right out of me. I stumble back, away from him, and fold my arms across my chest to cover as much of Sam’s sweatshirt as I can.
“Why weren’t you at the party?” he demands. “I’ve been looking all over for you!”
“Sam was showing me the trails.”
“It’s not safe to hang out with random guys in the middle of the forest.” He waves his arms at the trees on either side of us, as if they’re hiding an army of rapists and murderers.
“Sam’s not a random guy,” I remind him. “And what did you expect us to do while you were off getting high? God, I can’t believe you’ve been taking that crap!”
His gaze drops to my chest. To Sam’s sweatshirt. He doesn’t flinch when I hurriedly move my arms higher, but I see the flash of shock that morphs back to rage.
“What did I expect?” He gives me a frosty laugh. “I expected you to be grateful I brought you along so you didn’t have to hide in our room all night. Not sneak off and fuck my best friend.”
A lump of fear rises in my throat. “I didn’t—”
“Shut up!” He closes his eyes and rolls his shoulders, trying to shake off his anger like the boxer I know he wants to be. When he finally looks at me again, his eyes are dead calm. “You know what? Go home and have fun with Dad. I’m done.”
He stalks off into the thick trees, disappearing in the darkness. His rage I could have handled. A screaming match over how badly he’s overreacting would have been a nice release. But to be deserted by the only person who cares whether I live or die…
One foot in front of the other. That’s what I tell myself as I resume my trek down the trail to the driveway. He didn’t mean it. He never does. If I wait in the truck, he’ll eventually calm down and drive us home. It might take awhile, maybe an hour or two, but we’ll be fine. We’ll go home and lock ourselves in our room, then he’ll crawl into my bed just like he always does when he hurts my feelings. We have a pact. Nothing will ever come between us. I have to believe that or I’m going to start crying.
Someone falls into step beside me.
“Are you okay?” Sam asks quietly.
I nod, even though I’m not, and scrub away my tears. As long as he doesn’t turn on his flashlight, my lie will be safe.
“You know you can talk to me, right? About anything.”
Tremors of hope and relief shudder through my body, but I quickly shove the feelings away and shake my head. If I open up to Sam and my brother finds out, he’ll never forgive me.
“Then, can I at least give you a ride? I’m heading home anyway, and it’ll probably be a while before James levels out.”
I hesitate. Riding with Sam will make my brother even angrier, but I don’t know if I can face two hours of waiting in the truck. For the first time ever, I just want to go home.
“Okay. Thanks.”
As we walk down the hill, Sam reaches for my hand and laces our fingers together. It’s nice. Comforting.
Too nice. Too comforting.
As wonderful as it felt to almost kiss him, Sam and me…it can’t happen. I’m not worth ruining his friendship with James. My place is in the kitchen, fishing recyclable beer cans from the garbage and cooking lame boxed dinners for my father and brother. If not there, then locked in my bedroom, listening to my mother and father fight when he stops by her room to “visit.” Hoping he doesn’t try to “visit” my room as well.
Mine is not a world Sam belongs in.
Before we reach his car, I wriggle my hand free. I feel his searching gaze on my face, but I won’t look at him. I refuse to see any more disappointment directed my way.
Sam holds open the passenger door while I slide into the seat, then closes it carefully behind me. His car may look like a junkyard reject on the outside, but the floors are clean and the smooth, charcoal-colored seat covers beneath my fingers feel new.
I jerk my hand away. Charcoal-colored seat covers, charcoal-colored eyes. I need to forget those eyes.
He opens his door far less gingerly and folds his long body into the cramped seat. For several excruciating moments, we don’t do anything but sit and stare at the shadowy forest in front of his car. If this is how the entire one-hour drive is going to be, my disaster of a night just went from bad to worse.
“Do you mind if I sleep?” I ask. “It’s been a really long day.”
“Was it that bad?”
His disappointment makes me feel worse. Irritated, I wrap the drawstring of my—no, his—sweatshirt around my finger and mumble, “Not all of it. Some of it was…nice.”
When he doesn’t say anything, I chance a quick glance in his direction. The way he’s staring at me—like he’s five seconds away from dragging me into his arms—sends tingling zaps of light shooting through my body. There’s no way can I break eye contact when he looks at me like this.
He leans closer, one hand plucking my fingers from the noose I made of the drawstring while the other moves to cup my cheek. “I almost didn’t come tonight. For the first time ever, I almost didn’t come. But James called while you were at the hair place and said he might be bringing you, so…”
His gaze roams over my eyes, my lips, my cheeks. We’re going to kiss—I can feel how much he wants to straight down to my toes. And judging by the heat in his eyes, it’s not going to be as simple as what almost happened in the forest.
Despite the logical part of my brain screaming at me to run and hide in the trees—seriously, what does he see in me?—I melt into his touch, face upturned, waiting for the moment Sam knocks my world off its axis.
That moment never happens.
An explosion louder than a dozen shotguns blasts through the trees and nearly sends me scrambling into Sam’s lap. Cheering and laughter cuts through the dim ringing in my ears. A string of shrieked curses that sound very much like Leslie quickly follow.
Sam closes his eyes and lets out a frustrated cinnamon-tinted groan, but he doesn’t pull away. Even when another blast rocks the forest, he holds me close, a mere breath away from kissing, his gaze boring into mine.
That’s all my logical side needs to take over.
I recoil, removing Sam’s hand from my face before curling in on myself in the passenger seat. What the hell am I doing? James could have seen us. Even now, he might be in the woods watching.
“We should probably go,” Sam says. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the cops all the way back in town heard those.”
Maneuvering a small sports car through trucks and SUVs wedged together like a twenty-car pileup is a nightmare. Sam curses a lot, mainly at the latecomers who boxed him in and the people streaming out of Leslie’s trailer who don’t seem to care if we run them over. Eventually, after a twelve-point turn that includes a pass over an ill-placed mound of dirt and branches, we get free.
As his car bumps and bottoms out along the winding gravel driveway, I close my eyes and try to g
et comfortable. It’s not easy. Every time Sam hits a pothole, my forehead and elbow smack into the glass.
“Here,” he says when we’re halfway down the driveway. “This should help.”
A warm, balled-up t-shirt lands in my lap. I stare at it in the darkness, horrified at the possibility he took off his own shirt to make me comfortable, despite how I blew him off.
Upon closer inspection in the dim light from his headlights, the soft fabric is red, not the gray that I noticed matched his eyes earlier. I tuck it between my cheek and the window and offer him a small smile. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Pine trees, dryer sheets, and a hint of musty car smell soothes me. I burrow deeper into the t-shirt and let the weight of what’s turned into a very long day shut down everything—my eyes, my hearing, my heart—and drift off into blackness.
Nine
Sam walks me to the door, though I ask him not to. I don’t want to do the what-might-have-been thing with him tonight, and standing on my front porch in the dark with him only makes the way the night turned out worse. In my Sam fantasies, I’d wrap my arms around his neck and thank him for the evening with a kiss. A long one. He’d kiss me back and I’d go to bed with a happy smile on my face and plenty to dream about.
But this isn’t one of my fantasies, and I can’t even meet his eyes, let alone kiss him.
“About tonight—” he begins.
I shake my head. “Don’t.”
There’s no way I’ll let him apologize for something that’s my fault. Sam doesn’t realize how lucky he is my brother didn’t see us on that log. No dating, James always says. I’m pretty sure “don’t kiss my best friend” is implied in there somewhere, especially since I’m not even allowed to talk to his friends. He’ll turn Sam into a limp pile of flesh and bones if he ever finds out.
I’ll never be able to live with myself if that happens.
One by one, I force my newly formed daydreams of Sam and I holding hands in the forest to shrivel and die. What was I expecting to happen? He doesn’t know anything about me. And no way does he like me enough to face off with my brother.
But when I reach for the doorknob, Sam grabs my hand. “Wait. I’ll see you again, right?”
He’s just being nice. Nothing more. I am invisible.
But the heat of his hand enveloping mine and the worry in his voice still stings, no matter what I tell myself. “I don’t think so.”
His stormy gray eyes bore into mine, imploring me to do…something. I don’t know what. I don’t think he does either, because after a long moment of staring at me, he lets go. Shoulders slumped, he turns away and heads back to his car.
I can’t see him drive away. Won’t. I stumble through the front door into the dimly lit kitchen, fist pressed into my stomach again, and collide with the open refrigerator door.
The door slams into my father’s side, knocking the can of beer he just opened out of his hand. It sloshes all over the ketchup and mustard bottles in the door and hits the linoleum with a dull thud-fizz. Sour yeast and hops taint the air.
“Damn it!”
Cursing my carelessness, I throw myself against the wall, out of his reach, and inch slowly toward the hallway like a shadow. The only light is coming from the open refrigerator and the television in the front room. Maybe he won’t see me. Maybe he’s too busy swearing at the condiments. Maybe he didn’t hear Sam’s car outside.
In the living room, a loud bratwurst commercial dissolves into the same cheering and jeering I’ve heard all my life. The Armory announcers are all racked up over the match they’re calling. The big name is either winning by a landslide or getting his ass handed to him. Since I’ve been forced to watch this particular video hundreds of times, I know the big name is winning by a landslide.
My father never lost in his prime.
He slams the refrigerator door and glares at me with bloodshot eyes.
Oh, no. I try to melt into the wall, but it’s no use.
“Don’ jus’ stand there, clean it up!”
I dash down the hall to the bathroom and grab my shower towel. He’s waiting for me, arms folded across his chest, still standing in the middle of the beer puddle in his holey tube socks. I drop to my knees at his feet and mop the spill up as best I can, trying to ignore the fact that James stood with his arms folded the exact same way an hour ago on the trail.
My father’s socks soak up a lot of the beer, but he makes no move to take them off. Maybe he’s waiting for me to offer? I won’t. No matter what he says, I’ll never touch him willingly. With the floor mostly dry and all the condiments cleaned off, I scramble to my feet hoping to escape to the garage where I’ll toss the dripping towel in the washer.
His hand snakes out and catches my elbow, bloodshot eyes fighting to focus on my hair.
“So, you’re tryin’ to look like your slut ma now, huh?”
I’m close enough to the living room to make out his rust-orange armchair and the pyramid of crushed beer cans on the coffee table in front of it. I can always gauge his mood by the number of cans in the pyramid. He’s already through two six-packs.
This is going to be very, very bad.
“It’s summer,” I say feebly. “Short hair is comfortable in the summer.”
The fifth round begins. Pausing in the foyer, my father watches his younger, blonder self land a wicked right hook that sends the other guy, a sinewy Hispanic that looks way too small to be fighting my father, to the ground in a shower of spit and blood. Shortest final round ever, my father always brags. I mouth the words along with him and hope he leaves it at that tonight.
He doesn’t.
Deceit, loss, rage. It’s all there in his glassy eyes when he turns to me. “Your ma used to keep her hair short like that.” He reaches for me, his meaty fingers digging into the soft flesh of my upper arm. If I try to run before he’s gotten in his first blow, or do anything to draw attention to the fact that I’m wearing a boy’s sweatshirt, this will be much worse. “She’d do anything to get a man to look at her.”
Coppery blood explodes inside my mouth when he knocks me to the ground. I’ve bitten something—my tongue, my cheek, my lip, probably all three. Now I can try to escape because he loves the chase. It’s like I’m a little girl all over again, scrambling backward across the faded carpet into the dining room as he stalks toward me and I plead for mercy that’s never going to come. He loves it when I beg.
I’m sick of begging.
Staggering to my feet, I focus all my fear and anger on his grim face. “Leave me alone, Daddy. I’m serious.”
He ignores me. “So where’d you whore yourself out tonight? The Armory? Those little shits they got fightin’ might talk big, but they ain’t never gonna be as good as me. How much they payin’ you girls nowadays? Twenty bucks? Thirty? Your ma used to let me screw her for a pack of cigarettes.”
The thought of him paying our mother for sex in cigarettes sends me over the edge. “I would never whore myself out to an Armory loser!”
My words hang like fumes in the eerily silent room.
I forget to breathe. My heart forgets to beat.
There are no bratwurst commercials to save me—the video is over.
My father already won.
When his eyes narrow and he takes a hesitant step closer, I know I’ve provoked the monster that lives inside of him. He follows when I back away.
My back hits the wall. In my frantic scrambling across the kitchen, I missed the hallway by three feet. Instead of the relative safety of my locked bedroom, I’m in the shadows of the entryway. Shadows that aren’t dark enough to hide the way my father’s eyes flash when his hand moves to his belt.
“Seems to me we’ve got a problem,” he says. “No way am I gonna let you sass me, and no way are you gonna ruin my reputation whorin’ yourself all over town. Maybe I oughta teach you a lesson. That’d be the honorable thing to do, and I’m honorable head to toe.”
No. No, no, no. I’ve hea
rd him say the same thing to our mother. Heard the “lessons” he’s taught her.
I don’t want to lose my virginity to my father.
When he grabs me and drops to his knees, I fight with everything I’ve got and wail for James, for the mother who’ll never come, for Sam.
The front door slams open. My father rockets to his feet and spins around, fists cocked and ready to take out whoever had the nerve to interrupt.
James is faster.
His solid left hook sends our father staggering into the hallway. I watch, horrified, as he regains his footing and lurches toward my brother, a bloody grin on his face. “You’re gonna regret that, boy.”
“Get up, Sarah,” my brother urges.
I don’t know how he got here, or why he came at all. I just know when the warmth drains from James’s voice, he sounds exactly like our father. For a moment, I curl even further in on myself, shaking and clutching Sam’s sweatshirt to my body.
James throws another left hook, but our father ducks out of the way and laughs. Gritty determination fills my brother’s face. “Get up, Sarah!”
Sobbing, I get up and run.
Ten
There aren’t enough pillows. Not enough blankets. I wedge myself into our tiny closet and try to smother the sounds with James’s rumpled coveralls and soft white t-shirts, but their muffled curses bleed through. I cover my mouth and scream to fill my ears with something other than the dull thud of bodies slamming into the walls.
How could I be so stupid?
The closet blurs as I pass out and slip into the all-too-familiar nightmares. My father punching James in the mouth, the sharp thwack of a leather belt against naked flesh, my mother’s ear-bleeding scream as my father drags her across the living room by her hair.
And then new images pour in—ones I know aren’t real, but destroy me all the same. My father, swollen and bloody, shoving his tongue into my mouth, Sam lying on the floor limp and unblinking, James forcing me to swallow handfuls of our mother’s pills.
Weeks pass in a span of minutes. I feel his warmth and love before he touches me. Rough hands gently pull me out from beneath his bed where I somehow wound up with Sam’s sweatshirt wrapped around my head.
