by L. B. Carter
“That was wrong. You panicked and made it easy for me by impairing yourself. Pain will slow your reactions and cloud your thoughts. I said protect it.” Nor didn’t visibly react to the criticism. “Again. This time, compensate. You still have other functioning defenses. Use them.”
Again, and again, Nor defended himself against his father’s blows, more often than not ending up with aching impacts jarring his already fractured arm. Finally the pad glanced off him as he kicked out and quickly spun away. He’d eagerly looked to his tutor, but Father had only nodded once, then brought his other hand into the mix. Nor got no break, even when Mother stopped by to scold Father for tiring Nor out after his ordeal. “He needs to learn,” she’d been told. “For his own safety.”
“Now for offense,” Father had said when Nor’s kick sent his arm swinging wildly out to the side. “Imagine you see an innocent being threatened. You can’t let your weakness prevent you from removing them from danger. Get me to retreat.”
This wasn’t a new game, but the challenge was elevated. Nor had tried to channel the tactics he’d learned before, nonetheless quickly finding himself on the defensive again.
“What are your advantages?” Father had pressed.
Nor had thought about it, blinking the sweat from his eyes, breathing heavily. His arm had been throbbing again, making it hard to focus. He had wrenched back from the bear grip he’d let himself be taken into, his father’s belt clasp clinking against his cast. Nor had stared, eye-level with the heavy leather belt, a thought materializing in his head, giving him purpose and momentarily distracting him from the pain.
“Got it?” His father had said. Nor had nodded.
They both bent their knees, at the ready again. Nor had lurched forward, shifting to his left enough to use an upper-cut with his left fist on one pad, kicking backward with his free foot to shove away the second pad. Before his father could pull his arms back in, Nor had used momentum to swing his still lifted leg around and shoved his toes on the cold metal. He had used what little leverage he had to push up, straightening that leg and pulling simultaneously with desperate fingers clamped around a fist-full of soft cotton shirt, like a rock climber. When his leg snapped straight, Nor had looked directly into Father’s startled eyes from slightly above, then used his advantage: his cast was flung away from where it was braced on Nor’s chest, the rigid plaster smacking directly into the sharp roman nose that Reed had inherited. Ha!
He’d pushed himself backwards, launching off Father’s torso, the combined effect of the stunning blow and shove causing Father to stumble ungracefully backwards into the wall. Nor had staggered on his landing, but managed not to fall on his arm again. He’d caught his breath and turned to face the rebuttal. However, Father had leaned still against the wall, a proud gleam in his eyes. He’d given a nod of approval and Nor could no longer contain the proud smile encompassing his face. Father’s lips had twitched in a ghost of a smile, a fraction of his son’s. Nor would’ve pumped his fist if that arm wasn’t a lead weight, throbbing like he’d fallen out of the tree a hundred times over. The pain had been inconsequential to the euphoria flooding his tired frame. He’d figured out how to be useful through a handicap. He’d done what Father wanted.
“Hey, man. Hello. Dude. Earth to the newbie.”
Nor came back to the present, 10 years of training later, on his first independent mission. Well, nearly independent, Nor dismissed Reed as more of a hindrance than help at the moment. His gaze unblurred, and the group huddled on the floor by the library came into focus. Sirena was conversing with the chatty redhead, scribbling ferociously in a notebook, her anger still palpable even from across the cafeteria. The other girl nodded and turned to confer with the three others in their group conspiratorially. They all turned to look at something on the other side of the room before erupting in laughter. Nor glanced that way too, finding Shayna who was somehow completely unself-conscious of the ridiculous paisley tie she’d scrounged up to cover the clay stain. Perhaps by the end of the week, others would be sporting the skirt-and-tie look too. Royalty made their own rules. He looked back at Sirena’s group who were giving her various gestures of approval. Sirena raised an arm to return a thumbs-up; her punching arm, her throwing arm, her advantage.
“Dude!” Surfer dude’s palm shot out and waved in front of Nor’s face, forcing him to turn back to his own lunch-mates, who all guffawed at his inattention, even Andrew.
“I know she’s smokin’—who doesn’t love a redhead?—but can you focus for just a second here, man?” Justin chucked, shaking his head. “We’re trying to plan our first practice.”
“Sorry,” Nor apologized. “What’s the plan?”
“Since it’s first week of classes, we won’t start gym shit with Coach till next Monday, but… Drum roll, please.” The others, except Nor, obliged using the table. “Friday’s the pep rally. Get pumped!” Justin crowed. Everyone cheered, except Nor.
“Pep rally?”
“Hell, yeah. End of first week of classes, they like to kick off the sports season, build school spirit and all that. They always make a big fuckin’ deal out of it, too, shoving us all in the gym to listen to the principal talk some shit about how great all our players are, and how we’ll win over the next town over, which is bull. Except for the sailing team, of course. We’ve only lost to them once in the last five years,” he boasted. There was more hollering and cheering. It was a wonder their boats didn’t sink under the team’s egos.
“Don’t forget the cheerleaders will be there,” Surfer added with an eyebrow waggle, taking a huge bite of his dripping pizza slice. He wolf-whistled through oily lips around the half-chewed gob in his cheek.
“Shayna’s with JT, you idiot.” Andrew rolled his eyes.
Nor couldn’t stop himself from looking over Surfer’s shoulder at Shayna who, at the moment, was draped all over JT who, equally haughty, was regally surveying his table-mates like a king on his throne. Despite trying to avoid seeing the dick even more than Sirena today, the only seat left at the table gave Nor an unfortunately perfect viewing angle. He’d have much preferred a corner seat where the doors onto the patio weren’t behind him. Justin had the privilege of that position and had given him a scathing look when he’d deigned to ask to switch.
“I heard she’s pretty open to other players.” Another bite of pizza disappeared under a cocky smirk. “Seems like she’s a little unsatisfied with the ones she’s had.” He nodded his head toward Shayna. She was still wrapped around JT, who was boasting away about something to his cronies, while her attention honed in on a guy at another table. She licked her lips and winked at him.
Justin bristled at Surfer. Ah, shit. Nor’s new captain was clearly one of those who partook in the ‘down for whatever’ with JT’s girl. Double the reason to avoid the history wing restroom. Nor wouldn’t be able to restrain himself giving a lecture to his captain. “Good luck trying to get her attention from our section anyway,” Justin responded coldly.
“Section?” Nor cut in. He was hoping for another chance to do some recon, unnoticed in a big assembly. “We have to sit with our teams?”
Andrew shook his head. “Not sit; we’re part of the rally,” he corrected. Damn. “The cheerleaders line up in two lines. As each team is announced, we process between and stand to one side at the front of the whole school.” Double damn.
“Sometimes they make a tunnel with their arms and we go through that.” No sooner had the last of the crust disappeared when Surfer’s greasy fingers were grotesquely suckled. Whatever he was going to say next, wasn’t going to be good. “Great view of their tits.” Surfer made a loud sucking sound, popping his thumb from his mouth. Hell, this kid wasn’t much better than JT. He was probably all talk, at least.
“Coach will probably announce you specifically,” another guy threw in from the end of the table. Frank, was his name, maybe? He shrugged when Nor stared at him, taking a sip of milk. (No caffeine for students, Nor had been disappointed to find out
on the first day.) “They like to welcome the new athletes.” Fuck.
Not only did that separate him from the rest of the student body, killing any chance he had of secretly asking around about the accident, but that put Nor directly in the spotlight. Father was going to kill him if Reed didn’t first.
Chapter Nine
For a ghost, Rena felt appallingly visible. Liam, Tilly and Kayna flashed her another thumbs up, then veered off. Rena headed down the hall toward math feeling suddenly less righteous as the heat of the moment faded. Basking in their camaraderie was not sticking to the plan.
Rena had spent Sunday alone in her room, refusing to come downstairs to eat after their short jaunt to the police station—even uncaring enough to go help Grandpa with a frozen dinner when she heard the microwave followed by a few modified curses.
Officer Jones had been very serious and asked her several times if she was sure she was remembering everything that happened correctly, reiterating that he needed all the details and unwavering allegations for what she was “inferring about that Williams boy”. Clearly he knew JT’s girlfriend’s lawyer father. He’d even taken her into an interrogation room ”just for privacy,” her chair squealing across the cement floor when she shifted to ensure his frown blocked her reflection in the two-way mirror behind him, not knowing if someone else was watching and listening. Sat at the cold metal table in front of a blank piece of paper and pencil, a feeling of nervousness had splashed on top of the helplessness and shame already drowning her after a night of nightmares.
Before she’d reiterated and confirmed her statement on the report, she’d had to take a minute in the bathroom, sat on the toilet with pants on and all, trying to coax herself into doing it, with her locket as a sort of grounding tool.
JT needed to be punished for what he’d done. Yet, accusing anyone—let alone the town golden boy—of sexual assault was a big step, and contradicted everything in her plan. This would draw attention, it would force her to be more vocal, so to speak. And, she thought grimly, hadn’t he been terrorized enough by her own actions?
She wasn’t sure how long she’d been in the little tiled room, the snap of the rubber band echoing off the tiled walls every time she started to panic, before Grandpa knocked on the door and asked if she was okay.
They’d signed a waiver and walked out only a few minutes later—evidently dropping charges was much faster of a process than filing them. Then she’d shut herself in her room, going cold turkey with the whole cutting-herself-off-from-people plan all through Monday.
Tuesday, Grandpa had sent her to school, probably in the hope that if things went back to normal, so would she. He didn’t realize it wasn’t just an involuntary reaction, it was an intentional plan. Yet, there she was starting conflicts and conspiratorially joking with her friends. Even though it had felt rewarding to watch her clay smack directly onto the head SUAR’s perfect outfit, getting revenge for Shayna’s witchy comments—and as a proxy for her boyfriend, if Rena was honest with herself—also went against the plan. Rena’s wrist stung with the snap of the elastic as she turned into her classroom, chin tucked.
Then again, the limelight had been diverted and she’d accepted it, let Nor be her scapegoat. Hero, round three. Sort of. He hadn’t actually said or done anything, but he’d been complaisant. Sure, why not, just add some more guilt where Nor’s concerned. Not that it mattered.
She wasn’t associating with him anymore. She wasn’t associating with anyone anymore.
Rena slid into a seat at the back of the room and made another promise to herself, one she was going to stick to if it was the last thing she did. Rena was invisible; a ghost. She had to be. This time the sting of her rubber band was intentional, a symbolic gavel to solidify the sentence she’d bestowed upon herself.
◆◆◆
Ghosting ended up being more effort than Rena anticipated by that evening. She had focused on teachers, kept her eyes down in the halls with her hair acting as a periphery curtain, and managed to sneak out at the end of the day by going out the back door and walking a longer way home with a mixture of relief and desolation. She mourned the absence of her friends, but a sharp snap to the wrist sobered her.
Kayna, however, messaged her phone that evening to ask if Rena was okay. Stirring chili, absent-mindedly, Rena decided she needed a different tactic. She was wavering, facing the pain she was causing her friends. Maybe avoidance, and a good excuse that would appease Kayna’s worries, was in order. Snap.
So, as soon as they’d finished eating, Grandpa regaling her with more work stories that she barely heard, she cleaned the dishes and then meandered into the living room with a note. Grandpa had nearly finished his seascape, just adding the details in delicate touches on the lighthouse and rocky cliffs, so he was hunched close to the buoy, his glasses inches from the sharp end of his whittling knife gripped tightly in slightly unsteady fingers. Rena gently tapped the coffee table to get his attention, before handing him her notebook.
His face quickly contorted into one of concern as he read. He looked up at her over his glasses, eyebrows drawn together. “Is it. . . anything from Saturday?” he managed, uncomfortably.
Rena was quick to shake her head assuredly, waving her hands as though to erase the idea from his head. Kayna had asked the same in her message. Kayna was very careful in her wording, skirting gently around what had happened Saturday night. Since that wasn’t the issue behind Rena’s new lifestyle, not really, she wasn’t lying when she’s said that she just wasn’t feeling herself. That event needed to stop being brought up. It had been the clincher for her decision, but it’s connection wasn’t something others needed to know; she couldn’t be a spectre if they kept making her a victim to coddle.
“Not something you ate, I hope.”
She shrugged and gestured at him.
He nodded. “True, I’m feeling all right. Hmm, either that horrible junk they feed you at the school, or something going around then.” He looked to her for affirmation of either hypothesis.
She just shrugged again, since either option was fine with her.
“Well, why don’t you go lie down then, Guppy? I’ll check on you in a bit. Do you need anything?”
Rena headed up the creaking stairs after another firm no. She knew Grandpa’s wary eyes followed her out of the room, the scratching of his whittling knife against the tough Styrofoam absent. She took a quick shower and then curled up in her pajamas, turning on her computer to play whatever movie she first found.
That’s where she still was, glued like a barnacle to her bed by Friday morning, successful both in convincing Grandpa she was still unwell when he checked on her early before work and in only permitting part of her mind to be engaged—the imaginative part that allowed immersion in the world that movie three in the series was building. That part essentially plunked down atop the lid of the box overstuffed with social cravings and haunting memories, forcibly confining it and keeping that part of her brain firmly dormant.
She was awoken several hours after Grandpa left, however, by incessant knocking on the front door. She pried her dirty and groggy self up from her current haphazard sprawl on the bed with a scowl, worried Officer Jones was back.
She felt a bit like an unwilling starfish as she peeled her arm from the empty plate that had dropped off her stomach at the same time her eyelids had drooped in a spontaneous post-lunch nap. The plate fell to the floor as she rolled off the bed, splaying crumbs across the wood and among her dirty clothes. Maybe it was time to do some cleaning.
She stumbled to her door, wrenched it open, and trotted down the stairs, still half-asleep. Rena grabbed the front door handle before pausing a moment to check that she was decent.
Pajama shorts—a little short—and long t-shirt—with no bra. So far, not great. It at least covered. She reached up and felt a nest of hair curled atop her head. Whatever, it’s not like she was trying to impress anyone; quite the opposite.
So she pulled the door wide open without any f
urther concern, one eyebrow raised at the intruder to her peaceful hermit life.
“About dang time, girl!” Kayna snipped, brushing past, somehow grabbing Rena’s shirt front as she flew by. Rena barely managed to stretch out a leg and kick the door shut before she tripped to catch up, towed into the living room by her unstoppable friend. Between Kayna and Nor, all Rena’s shirts were going to be stretched out in the stomach.
“Now you sit your sorry butt down and explain why you’re hiding from me.” Kayna let go of Rena, propelling her onto the couch. “I texted you like a million times!” Kayna’s dark eyes blazed, her mouth pursed, and her arms rested akimbo with legs braced in a wide stance of accusation.
Rena glanced guiltily at the ceiling as though she could x-ray vision see the messages. Rena had turned the sound off her cell phone, preventing any noise from snaking into her isolated room sealed with denial.
“I was gonna come over and check on you, but was told you were horribly ill and contagious and that you’d hate company, and then, hello! My mom ran into your Grandpa at the gas station this morning when she was leaving her overnight shift, and she told me he said you were just tired.”
Rena blinked some more.
“What gives? If you don’t want company, fine. I get that. I hate when people see me in my worst state,” she confirmed that Rena looked as bad as she thought. “But no text to at least let me know you’re alive? That’s just rude. You’ve been out of school for days!” she exclaimed. “I was worried!”
More remorse. Rena tried to keep it at bay, tuck it back around the gaping edges of the box lid in her mind.
She’d known Kayna wouldn’t like the cold shoulder. She’d also kind of hoped to keep avoiding seeing her face-to-face, which, in reality, was ridiculous. If Rena wanted to make it out of this town, she had to at least finish her stupid English credits; school was going to have to happen.
