Nightfall

by Douglas, Penelope

  “Where are you going?”

  I turned my head toward the teacher. “To finish the book and the constructed responses in the library.”

  I kept walking, blinking away the tears hanging in my eyes.

  “Emory Scott,” the teacher called.

  “Or you can explain to my brother why my SAT scores will be shit,” I said, walking backward with my glare on him, “because they’re dominating ninety-eight percent of every conversation in this class.” I gestured to the Horsemen. “Text me any additional assignments, if we have them.”

  I pushed the door open, hearing whispers go off in class.

  “Emory Scott,” the teacher barked.

  I looked over my shoulder at Townsend, seeing him hold out a pink slip.

  “You know what to do,” he scolded.

  Strolling back in, I snatched the referral from his fingers. “At least I’ll get some work done,” I retorted.

  Dean’s office or library, it made no difference.

  Walking out of the room, I couldn’t help but glance back at Will Grayson, seeing him slouched in his seat, chin on his hand, and covering a smile with his fingers.

  He held my eyes until I left the room.

  • • •

  Walking down the sidewalk, I didn’t raise my eyes as I turned left and headed up the walkway toward my house. I blinked long and hard for the last few steps, my head floating up into the trees as the afternoon breeze rustled the leaves. I loved that sound.

  The wind was foreboding. It made it feel like something was about to happen, but in a way that I liked.

  Opening my eyes, I climbed my steps and looked right, not seeing my brother’s cruiser in the driveway yet. The heat in my stomach cooled slightly, the muscles relaxing just a hair.

  I had a little time, at least.

  What a shit day. I’d skipped lunch and hid in the library, and after classes were done, I struggled through band practice, not wanting to be there, but not wanting to come home, either. Hunger pangs rocked my stomach, but it took the edge off the pain everywhere else.

  I looked back at my street, taking in the quiet avenue, decorated with maples, oaks, and chestnuts, bursting with their finale of oranges, yellows, and reds. Leaves danced to the ground as the wind shook them free, and the scent of the sea and a bonfire somewhere drifting through my nose.

  Most of the kids like me were bussed to Concord to attend the public high school there, since our population in Thunder Bay was too small to support two high schools, but my brother wanted the best for me, so TBP was where I stayed.

  Despite the fact that we weren’t wealthy, he paid a little, I work-studied a lot, and the rest of my tuition was waived as my brother was a public servant. The wealth and privilege my private high school matriculated was supposed to be a better education. I wasn’t seeing it. I still sucked at literature, and the only class I really enjoyed was independent study, because I could be alooooooone.

  On my own, I learned a lot.

  I didn’t mind that I didn’t fit in, or that we weren’t rich. We had a beautiful house. Turn-of-the-century, three-story (well, four if you counted the basement), red brick Victorian with gray trim. It was more than big enough, and it had been in our family for three generations. My great-grandparents built it in the thirties, and my grandmother has lived here since she was seven.

  Opening the door, I immediately kicked off my boots and jogged upstairs, throwing the door closed behind me as I went.

  Passing my brother’s room, I pulled off my school bag and dropped it just inside my door before continuing down the hall, softening my steps just in case.

  I stopped at my grandmother’s door, leaning on the frame. The nurse, Mrs. Butler, looked up from her paperback, another wartime thriller from the looks of the cover, and smiled, her chair ceasing its rocking.

  I offered a tight smile back and then looked over to the bed. “How’s she been?” I asked the nurse as I stepped quietly toward my grandma.

  Mrs. Butler rose from the chair. “Hanging in there.”

  I looked down, seeing her stomach shake a little and her lips purse just slightly with every breath she expelled. Wrinkles creased nearly every inch of her face, but I knew if I touched it, the skin would be softer than a baby’s. The scent of cherries and almonds washed over me, and I stroked her hair, smelling the shampoo Mrs. Butler used for her bath today.

  Grand-Mère. The one person who meant everything to me.

  For her, I stayed.

  My eyes dropped, noticing the wine-colored fingernails the nurse must’ve painted today when she couldn’t convince my grandma to go with a nice, gentle mauve. I couldn’t hold back the small smile.

  “Had to put her on oxygen for a bit,” Mrs. Butler added. “But she’s okay now.”

  I nodded, watching her sleep.

  My brother was convinced she’d go any day now, the occasions she was able to get out of bed fewer and fewer.

  She was sticking around, though. Thank goodness.

  “She likes the records,” Butler told me.

  I looked over at the stack of vinyls, some stuffed haphazardly back into their sleeves laying alongside the old turntable. I’d found the whole lot at an estate sale last weekend. Thought she’d get a kick out of it, fifties baby that she was.

  Well, she wasn’t born in the fifties. She was way older than that. But she was a teen in the fifties.

  Mrs. Butler gathered her purse, pulling out her keys. “You’ll be okay?”

  I nodded, but I didn’t look at her.

  She left, and I stayed with Grandma for a bit longer, making sure I had her pills and shot ready for later, and I opened the window a few inches, letting in some fresh air, which Mrs. Butler asked us not to do, since the allergens in the air could aggravate her breathing.

  Grandma said, “To hell with it.” This was her favorite time of year, and she loved the sounds and smells. I didn’t want to make her miserable merely to continue a life of misery.

  Bringing up the room’s camera on my phone, I left the door open a crack, grabbed my bag from my room, and headed downstairs, starting the water boiling on the stove. I set the phone on the kitchen table, keeping an eye on her in case she needed me, and laid out my books, going through the easy stuff first.

  I logged onto my laptop, requesting all the books I’d need from the public library, a few from Meridian City that Thunder Bay didn’t have, all for my history report, and drew up my outline. I finished the WebQuest and packet for physics, completed my reading for Spanish, and then stopped to chop and sauté vegetables before starting literature.

  Literature… I still hadn’t done the constructed responses and they were due tomorrow.

  It’s not that I didn’t like the class. It’s not that I didn’t like books.

  I just didn’t like old books. Third person, wonky paragraphs a mile long, and some dumb academic trying to force me to believe there’s profound meaning in the author’s overwritten description of a piece of furniture I don’t give two shits about. I’m pretty sure the author doesn’t even know what they were trying to do in the first place, and they were probably just high on laudanum when they wrote it.

  Or soothing syrup or absinthe or whatever the kids were doing in those days.

  They push this shit down our throats as if there were no quality stories being written anymore, and this was it for us. The House of the Seven Gables is what Caitlyn the Cutter, who sits three seats down from me, was supposed to find relevance in? Got it.

  Of course, Lolita wasn’t that old. It just sucked, and I’m pretty sure it sucked in 1955, too. I’ll ask my grandma.

  I soaked the pasta, cooked the peppers and onions, and fired up the meat, mixing everything together before popping it in the oven. After making a salad, I set the timer and pulled out the worksheet, reading the first question.

  But then lights flashed, and I shot my gaze up, seeing a car turn into our driveway from out the window. Rain glittered in front of the headlights, and
I jumped to my feet, closing my books and piling my papers, stuffing everything into my bag.

  Heat curdled my stomach.

  Shit. Sometimes he pulled a double shift or got caught up with a matter or two, and I was blessed with a night without him.

  Not tonight, it seemed.

  I pinched my thighs together, feeling like I was about to pee my pants, and threw my bookbag into the dining room where we never ate. I quickly set the table, and as the front door opened, I spun around and pretended to fluff the salad.

  “Emory!” Martin called out.

  I couldn’t stop my stomach from sinking like it did every day, but I plastered a bright smile on my face and peeked my head through the open kitchen doorway and down the hall.

  “Hey!” I chirped. “Is it raining again?”

  Just then, I realized I’d left my grandmother’s window opened. Dammit. I’d need to find a minute to run and close it before it soaked the floor and gave him an excuse.

  “Yeah,” he sighed. “’Tis the season, right?”

  I forced a chuckle. Droplets flew everywhere as he shook out his coat, and I watched him hang it up on the coat rack and head down the hallway toward the kitchen, his wet shoes squeaking across the wooden floor.

  I had to remove my shoes at the door. He didn’t.

  I pulled my head back, straightening and blowing out a steady breath. Picking up the salad and tossing forks, I spread my lips in a smile. “I was thinking of going jogging around the village later,” I told him, setting the bowl on the table.

  He stopped, loosening his tie and giving me the side-eye. “You?”

  “I can run,” I feigned, arguing. “For a few minutes.”

  He breathed out a laugh and walked to the fridge, taking out the milk and pouring himself a glass.

  “Smells good.” He carried his glass to the table and sat down. “Is your homework done?”

  His silver badge glinted under the light of the overhead bulbs, his form in his black uniform seeming to grow larger and larger by the second.

  Martin and I were never close. Eight years older than me, he was already used to being an only child by the time I came along, and when our parents passed away about five years ago, he’d had to take care of everything. At least he got the house.

  I cleared my throat. “Almost. I have some lit questions to double-check after dishes.”

  I hadn’t completed them at all, actually, but I always embellished. It was like second nature now.

  “How was your day?” I asked quickly, taking the pasta out of the oven and setting it on the table.

  “It was good.” He served himself, while I doled out salads into our bowls and poured myself some water. “The department is running smoothly, and they offered to move me up to Meridian City, but I—”

  “Like it clean and tidy,” I joked, “and Thunder Bay is your ship.”

  “You know me so well.”

  I smiled small, but my hand shook as I picked up a forkful of lettuce. It wouldn’t stop shaking until he left for work in the morning.

  He dug into his meal, and I forced a bite into my mouth, the silence filling the room louder than the sound of the drops hitting the windows outside.

  If I weren’t speaking, he’d find something to say, and I didn’t want that.

  My knee bobbed up and down under the table. “Would you like more salt?” I asked, lacing my voice with so much sugar I wanted to gag.

  I reached for the shaker, but he interrupted. “No,” he said. “Thank you.”

  I dropped my hand and continued eating.

  “How was your day?” he inquired.

  I looked at his fingers wrapped around his fork. He’d stopped eating, his attention on me.

  I swallowed. “Good. We, um…” My heart raced, the blood pumping hot through my body. “We had an interesting discussion in lit,” I told him. “And my science report is—”

  “And swim practice?”

  I fell silent.

  Just tell him. Get it over with. He’ll find out eventually.

  But I lied instead. “It was good.”

  I always tried to hide behind a lie first. Given the choice between fight or flight, I flew.

  “Was it?” he pressed.

  I stared at my plate, my smile gone as I picked at my food. He knew.

  His eyes burned a hole into my skin, his voice like a caress. “Pass the salt?” he asked.

  I closed my eyes. The eerie calm in his tone was like the feeling before a storm. The way the air charged with the ions, the clouds hung low, and you could smell it coming. I knew the signs by now.

  Reaching over, I picked up the shaker, slowly moving it toward him.

  But I knocked his glass instead, his milk spilling onto the table and dripping over the side.

  I darted my eyes up to him.

  He stared back, holding my gaze for a moment, and then shoved the table away from him.

  I popped to my feet, but he grabbed my wrist, yanking me back down to my seat.

  “You don’t rise from the table before me,” he said calmly, squeezing my wrist with one hand, and setting his glass upright before taking my water and moving it in front of his plate.

  I winced, my glasses sliding down my nose as I fisted my hand, the blood pooling under the skin because he was cutting off my circulation.

  “Don’t you ever leave this table without my permission.”

  “Martin…”

  “Coach Dorn called me today.” He stared ahead at nothing, slowly raising my water to his lips. “Saying you quit the team.”

  The unbuttoned cuff of my white uniform shirt hid his hand, but I was sure his knuckles were white. I started to twist my wrist because it hurt, but I immediately stopped, remembering that would just anger him more.

  “I didn’t say you could quit,” he continued. “And then you lie about it like an idiot.”

  “Martin, please…”

  “Eat your dinner, Em,” he told me.

  I stared at him for a moment, reconciling my head, once again, to the fact that it was going to happen no matter how hard I tried to stop it.

  There was no stopping it.

  Dropping my eyes to my plate, I lifted the fork, less sure with my left hand than with my right, and scooped up some rotini noodles and meat sauce.

  “You’re right-handed, stupid.”

  I paused, still feeling his fingers wrapped tightly around that wrist.

  It only took a moment, and then I felt him guide my right hand over, prompting me to take the fork. I did and slowly lifted it to my mouth, his hand still wrapped around that wrist as the dull points of the silver utensil came toward me like something I’d never been scared of until now.

  I hesitated, and then… I opened my mouth, almost gagging as he forced the silver in deep, almost brushing my tonsils.

  Taking the food, I pulled the fork back out, feeling the resistance in his arm as I did.

  We refilled the fork for round two, my lungs constricting.

  “What is the matter with you, exactly?” he whispered. “Nothing can be done right. Ever. Why?”

  I forced the bite down my throat just in time for another forkful to be shoved in. He jerked my hand as it entered my mouth, and my heart stopped for a moment, a whimper escaping at the threat of the prongs stabbing me.

  “I thought I’d walk in the door, and you’d sit me down and explain yourself, but no.” He glared at me. “As usual, you try to hide it like the candy wrappers under your bed when you were ten, and the three-day suspension when you were thirteen.” His words quieted even more, but I almost winced at how it hurt my ears. “You never surprise me, do you? There’s a right way and wrong way to do things, Emory. Why do you always do it the wrong way?”

  It was a double-edged sword. He asked questions he wanted me to answer, but whatever I said would be wrong. Either way, I was in for it.

  “Why is nothing ever done how I taught you?” he pressed. “Are you so fucking stupid that you can’t learn?
”

  The fork moved faster, scooping up more food and rising to my mouth, the prongs stabbing into my lips as I opened them just in time. My mouth filled with food, not swallowing fast enough before more was pushed in.

  “Dead parents,” he mumbled. “A grandmother who won’t die. A loser sister...”

  Dropping my wrist, he fisted my collar instead and rose to his feet, dragging me with him. I dropped the fork, hearing it clatter against the plate as he backed me into the counter.

  I chewed and swallowed. “Martin…”

  “What did I do to deserve this?” he cut me off. “All these anchors pulling me down? Always constant. Always a weight.”

  The wood dug into my back as my heart tried to pound out of my chest.

  “You wanna be ordinary forever?” he bit out, scowling down at me with my mother’s green eyes and my father’s shiny, dark brown hair. “You can’t dress, you can’t fix your hair, you can’t make friends, and, it appears, you can’t do anything impressive to help yourself get into a good university.”

  “I can get into a good school,” I blurted out before I could stop myself. “I don’t need swimming.”

  “You need what I tell you that you need!” he finally yelled.

  I tilted my eyes to the ceiling on instinct, worried my grandmother could hear us.

  “I support you.” He grabbed my hair with one hand and slapped me upside the head with the other.

  I gasped, flinching.

  “I go to the teacher conferences.” Another slap sent my head jerking right, and I stumbled.

  No.

  But he pulled me back by the hair. “I put food on the table.” Another slap, like a wasp sting across my face, and I cried out, my glasses flying to the floor.

  “I pay for her nurse and her medicine.” He raised his hand again, and I cowered, shielding myself with my own arms as he hit again and again. “And this is the thanks I get?”

  Tears filled my eyes, but as soon as I could catch my breath, his hand would come down again.

  And again. And again. And again.

  Stop. I wanted to cry out. I wanted to scream.

  But I clenched my teeth instead.

  I hissed at the pain, I winced, and I cowered.