For me, it was always the random days.
I was at Margaret’s house on a Wednesday.
Dr. Bill was home to have dinner with his family, and I guess that included me.
We were eating some kind of fancy steak - London Broil - while Dr. Bill and Donna sipped wine and listened to classical music. Margaret and I stared at each other from across the table and giggled when the music got faster, and Dr. Bill waved his hands in the air as though he controlled the music.
As much as I enjoyed myself, I felt really jealous.
Jealous that Margaret got this every night of her life. Even the nights Dr. Bill wasn’t home because he was at the hospital doing surgery, she still got to live in this house. Margaret had her own living room, toy room, computer room. Her bedroom was bigger than half my house. And on the third floor was a giant playroom for her.
But I refused to be angry at Margaret. It wasn’t her fault.
I wanted to be her friend forever.
Not because she was rich.
But because she was nice. And her parents loved each other. And they were nice.
“Would you like another helping, Amelia?” Donna asked me.
“I couldn’t,” I said.
“Says who?” Dr. Bill asked.
My cheeks turned red. “I…”
“Are you still hungry?” he asked me.
I nodded.
“Then eat,” he said. “Feed that brain of yours.”
I smiled. “Okay.”
“Here, let me get you more,” Donna said.
She leaned across the table and cut another piece of meat.
My eyes moved left to right watching the way Dr. Bill stared at his wife. It was the only time he seemed to forget about the music. It was really sweet to see. Because the opposite end of that…
There was a pounding on the back door next to the kitchen.
I cringed.
My mother never used the front door.
She refused to walk the steps so she would go alongside the house, up the massive driveway and park at the back door, which was next to the kitchen.
She never rang the doorbell out of habit because our doorbell didn’t work.
“That’s my mother,” I said. I jumped up. “I’d better go.”
“You’re eating,” Dr. Bill said.
The pounding kept going.
Donna made a move toward the door.
My entire body started to shake.
I glanced at Margaret.
She knew bits and pieces of my life.
I saw the look of sorrow climb across her face.
Donna opened the door. “Well, hello!”
“Where’s Amelia? We have to leave.”
“She’s in the middle of eating,” Donna said. “Say, have you had dinner yet? I don’t think we’ve formally-”
“Fly, baby, fly!” Mom’s voice carried through the house.
“Oh, a singer?” Donna asked with a laugh. “You’ll love the way my husband orchestrates music that he knows nothing about!”
“I studied classical music in college!” Dr. Bill called out.
They were all laughing.
I wasn’t.
Things were bad.
Things were really bad.
Mom’s car growled thanks to a busted muffler.
I never understood why she went back home when things were bad.
She had gotten into her car and had gotten away.
I had been safe at Margaret’s house. My father didn’t know a thing about her. I could have stayed at Margaret’s. My mother could have left for good. She could have driven somewhere else and changed her name. She could have started over. Dr. Bill and Donna could have adopted me as their second daughter. And I could have lived in that big house. With the big rooms. With the good food. With Dr. Bill waving his hands at the weird music.
But that didn’t happen.
Mom picked me up. She took me away from my happiness.
And even then she could have driven us away.
But no.
She drove us home.
She parked the car and turned to look at me. “Fly, baby, fly.”
“Then why are we here?” I yelled at her. “Why do you do this? Huh? What do you think is going to happen?”
“Maybe he’ll see you as a baby again,” Mom said. “That was the last time I saw him happy. Okay? If he sees you as baby Amelia it’ll help. Him. Us. Everyone.”
“That’s not going to happen,” I said. “Take me back to Margaret’s house. Right now.”
“This is your home.”
“No, it’s not!” I yelled.
“Amelia…”
“I hate this shit hole!” I yelled louder.
Mom swung her hand and slapped me across the face.
The sound echoed in the car and I let out a yell as a stinging pain climbed through my cheek. My right eye watered. I was frozen.
“Oh, what have I done?” Mom asked.
“You’re just like him!” I yelled, which was probably the worst thing I could have said to her.
I ripped at the door handle and the door flew open. I stumbled out and kept on my feet.
I knew what I was going to do next.
Run.
Leave.
I couldn’t get back to Margaret’s house though.
But I knew I could find someone else to save me.
I made it two steps before a figure stepped from the darkness and consumed me.
It was my father.
“Fly, baby, fly!” Mom yelled as my father reached for me.
I was frozen.
Too caught up in what Mom had done to me.
My father grabbed my shoulder.
“I was looking for you,” he growled.
Reality came back to me and I dropped my shoulder. I was out of his grip and I stepped back. But I needed to move faster and smarter. If he pinned me against the car, I was in big trouble. So, I made a twisting move and hit the car, rolled along the hood, and fell to the ground.
“You can’t run away from me,” my father yelled.
I got to my feet and started to run.
His grubby fingers touched my hair and he tried to pull.
I shook my head and screamed.
I turned, needing to now protect my hair.
My feet shuffled and hit one another.
“You fucking run, you fucking pay,” my father said.
I watched as his fist sailed through the air.
He was going to hit me.
He was actually going to hit me.
And if that fist hit me the way he intended, he was going to knock me out.
And then what?
I moved faster than him.
His fist tried to hit my jaw, but the only thing that caught me was my father’s gigantic middle knuckle. That thing was the size of a golf ball and one time when he was sober and in a good mood, I took the chance and asked him why that knuckle was so big. He said it was from smashing it so many times when working on cars.
That big knuckle hit the corner of my lip just enough to draw blood but not enough to actually hurt me.
Which I took as some kind of sad win. Because as he spun from throwing the punch, he fell to the ground. Mom opened the door to the car and stood there, completely unsure of what to do.
I looked at her.
I looked at my father on the ground as he started to get back up.
Mom had the chance to start the car again. To tell me to come with her. The two of us could have gotten out of there for good.
But she didn’t do that. She didn’t say that.
Which meant I was on my own again.
So, I had no choice.
I ran.
Chapter 27
Burn It With a Kiss
THEN
(Josh)
Murph brought a girl with him. She wanted to be called Cassie, but I knew that wasn’t her real name. Which was cool with me. I understood what it was like to want a new name and what
it was like to pretend to be someone else.
Murph couldn’t keep his hands off Cassie, just as she couldn’t keep her eyes off me. Which wasn’t cool with me. I would never go near a girl claimed by someone else. Not that I gave a shit about Murph, Nash, or Abel. They were just people to me. Not even friends anymore. The roads they were starting to go down weren’t ones that I wanted. Which meant I knew there was a timeline on our time together. So, we’d keep raising hell, run from the cops, and eventually figure shit out.
“Hey, bro, check it out,” Abel said to me as he elbowed me.
I looked to my left and saw Murph making out with Cassie.
He looked like he was eating her face.
I shook my head.
By our age, we should have known how to kiss a girl. Especially if we were looking for something more than just a kiss from her.
Cassie looked uncomfortable with her hands at her sides. Murph started to move his hands and I looked away from them.
I grabbed Abel by the shirt. “Let’s walk. Give them privacy.”
“Hey, speaking of, where’s your girl, Josh?” Nash asked me.
“Don’t worry about her,” I said.
“We never see her. And we never see you two hooking up.”
I stopped walking and went nose to nose with Nash. “What the fuck are you suggesting?”
“Nothing,” Nash said.
“Hey, take it easy,” Abel said.
He grabbed my shoulder.
I turned and kept walking.
I went over to the edge and looked down the street at my father’s house.
I wondered what kind of hell I could cause tonight for him. It surprised me that he didn’t have the police circling his house yet, looking for the asshole who kept messing with him. Or maybe he knew it was me doing it. And he just didn’t have the balls to face me. To come up to me and take me on. Man to man. Father to son. The piece of shit who created me. The piece of shit who abandoned me. The piece of shit who dropped off a baby and left. For good.
My stomach gurgled with anger.
Too young for this shit.
What he did.
What happened to my best friend.
And now look what I had…
“Let’s burn it down,” I said.
“What?” Nash asked.
“The house. Tonight. Let’s do it. Let’s burn it down.”
“Jesus, man,” Abel said. “That’s crazy.”
“I’m in a crazy mood,” I said. “You with me?”
They both looked scared to death.
They could pussy out. That was fine. But I was going to do it.
Burn that fucking house down. And everything my father had inside it.
“Josh…,” Nash said.
“Fuck you both then,” I said. “Go watch Murph make out with Cassie then.”
“Hey, wait a second,” Abel said. “Someone’s coming.”
We all dipped from the sidewalk to the bushes as headlights approached.
The headlights turned and I watched a vehicle park.
When the headlights died, I saw it was a minivan.
My father’s minivan.
He got out of the driver’s seat.
Tall, skinny, a hat on his head. Looking the same as I remembered. The ghost and the demon that never left my soul.
He opened the side of the minivan and out came two kids.
They were maybe seven or eight.
A boy and a girl.
He high fived the boy and then messed with his hair.
When the girl got out, she offered her hand to him and he took it.
They walked across the front of the van where a woman waited for them.
She was as tall as him, with dark hair.
He stopped and kissed her.
He put his arm around her.
She put her head on his shoulder.
Then they walked to the front door of the house.
As one happy fucking family.
“Jesus, Josh,” Nash said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Do you know who they are?” Abel asked.
He was referring to the kids.
I shook my head.
That was a lie.
Their names were Danny and Amber.
They weren’t his kids. They didn’t come from him. He had two kids of his own. Well… back to just one now.
“Stay the fuck away from me,” I said as I walked away.
“Don’t burn the house down,” Abel said. “There are kids…”
I ignored them.
I wanted to burn the house down. I wanted them all to feel what I felt.
All I lost. All I never asked to have happen.
It was his fucking fault.
My hands were balled up into fists and I needed something.
A drink. A pill. Turn around and go back to Murph and steal Cassie from him because he didn’t know what he was doing with her.
Before my head could make up its mind, I saw a figure in the distance.
The silhouette of an angel that was all black.
It was Amelia.
We met each other and normally she made me feel relief.
But not tonight.
She was crying… and her lip was bleeding…
“He did this?” I asked.
“Josh… just hug me.”
I threw my arms around her and felt her crying into my chest. The anger overwhelmed me, and my eyesight went blurry. This wasn’t me though. I didn’t get like this. I took action. I didn’t just sit around and cry like a baby.
All that shit was left for at home. I had been there before. I’d watched it over and over. And it changed nothing.
Amelia broke the hug and looked up at me. “It’s not what you think.”
“It looks exactly like what I think.”
“I got away.”
“But you can’t stay away.”
“I can live somewhere else.”
“You deserve better than this shit,” I said.
“Just walk me home. Like you did before.”
“What if he’s there?”
“He won’t be,” Amelia said. “He does this all the time. He gets worked up and then leaves. Mom says it’s his guilt. I think that’s why she stays. She thinks his guilt is some kind of sign of love.”
“Fuck that.”
“I agree,” she said.
I grabbed her hand. “I’ll take you home.”
We walked in silence all the way back to her house.
It was the same as before.
Sneaking through the dirty and smelly house.
It seemed worse than before.
Up the stairs and into her bedroom.
She got into the bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. I took my spot on the corner of the bed and sat there. My mind swirled with the kind of speed that started to make my stomach sick. The sight of Murph trying to kiss a girl. The sight of my father with his new family. The sight of Amelia with blood on her lip. She didn’t want to tell me the story and I wasn’t going to ask her to tell me either. There was no need. I knew the story.
I had lived that story before…
There was a noise downstairs. Outside.
I checked to make sure Amelia was asleep before leaving the room.
I moved through the house with speed and went to the front door.
When I opened it, I saw Amelia’s father.
Stumbling and struggling to get up the concrete steps.
It took him a few seconds to realize I was standing there.
“Who the fuck are you?” he growled, his eyes rolling in their sockets.
“You fucking hit them?”
“What? I’m calling the cops. This is my house.”
“You touch Amelia again and I’ll kill you.”
He grabbed the railing with both hands and was on the second to top step. “The fuck… you’re just a boy. A boy in my house? She’s a slut like her mother.”
That was all I needed to hear.
<
br /> I lunged forward, ready to do what I said I was going to do.
“Josh, don’t!”
I looked back and Amelia stood at the open front door.
Her father started to laugh. “Fucking useless. All of you. I never wanted this. So, I’ll fix it.”
“Please, don’t,” Amelia said. “He’ll hurt himself.”
“Fine,” I said. “Goodnight, Amelia. But he can’t keep this up. I won’t allow it.”
“Goodbye, lover boy,” her father said in a slurred voice that sounded like luuhherboiii.
I took one step forward and as I stepped down, I accidentally bumped my shoulder into his.
Almost instantly, his hands broke free of the railing and he was falling backward. He tried to hit a step and missed. He crumpled down the concrete steps, hitting them one at a time until he landed down on the sidewalk. On his side, groaning in pain, his eyes shut.
“Is he dead?” Amelia asked.
“No. Just dead drunk. He won’t remember a thing in the morning.” I looked back at her again. “Do you want me to bring him inside?”
“No,” she said. “Let him sleep out here.”
“You deserve so much better than this life,” I said.
I made it down one step before Amelia said my name.
I turned one more time and she was right there. Almost my height because I was down a few steps.
The look in her eyes was the only hope I was able to feel in a long time.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Amelia leaned forward and kissed my cheek.
She gasped, quickly turned and ran back into her house, shutting the door behind her.
I grinned and walked down the steps and stepped over Amelia’s drunk father.
I touched my cheek.
How the hell could a girl leave me this happy in a world of hell?
Chapter 28
The List and the Heart
NOW
(Amelia)
“Did you see your article online?” Grace asked me as she dipped a tea bag into a steaming mug.
“No.”
“Didn’t Bel email you?”
“Probably. I didn’t check it. I don’t check it.”
“You don’t care?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “It’s just… I don’t know.”
A Letter to Delilah Page 17
