The waitress brought us both a Coke and a glass of water, which I inhaled. Pixie just let me sit, looking out the window until our food arrived.
I was starving. Pixie and I ate like animals in the zoo. Our stomachs both ached and we rocked back on the bench with our hands on our bellies like we were pregnant Santas.
Pixie asked for the bill like she ate out every night of the week. She even showed me how to double the tax and add two dollars for a tip, which I didn’t even take into account. I let her know that her math was right.
By the time our bill was settled, the night had descended in Poughkeepsie. Pixie wouldn’t be in trouble, but there was a very real possibility that I would be. Bruce would either be hateful or unconscious. I was hoping for the latter.
After walking from the diner over a beaten down path in the grass, we arrived at the train station. Pixie and I figured out that the next train was five minutes away. We were playing fast and loose with the curfew. But in my defense, Bruce changed what he expected on the regular. It was all mood-based. Eggshells and flaming swords. You never knew what battle you faced as you opened the door.
Pixie put our tickets in her backpack. At the train station, the dark seemed to brighten a little more every few seconds. The start of a full moon. Pixie’s backpack slid from her shoulder to the crook of her elbow and she gaped at the sky.
“It’s so…” She reached up her hand and seemed to try to touch each pinpoint of white light with her fingertips.
“Big?” I offered.
It was the night sky of my childhood before the city, but I was betting it seemed wildly unreal to Pixie right now.
“Crisp? Maybe that’s the right word. I feel like I’m drowning in stars tonight.”
“Drowning? I guess there are a lot of them. I never thought about how different the sky was in the city. It’s really bright there. You can’t see all the stuff up there.”
I showed her how to find the Big Dipper and his friend, the Little Dipper. She was thrilled with the North Star and the craters on the moon. It made me wish I had more time to show her around. In my old neighborhood, we had a tire swing and a treehouse at the end of the block. It was officially no man’s land, so it belonged to us kids that lived nearby.
Pixie would love that. And maybe some of the trails behind my house that sometimes had families of deer that you had to wait to cross before you could continue.
Maybe some other day. Tonight, the stars seemed like more than enough.
“It’s crazy how this night sky makes the city seem so tiny.”
It was pretty impressive. The inky black roundness was impossibly large.
The train whistle blew in the distance and Pixie gathered up her bag. “Well, back to our business, I guess. Today was sort of a success. Don’t you think?”
It was hard to label it as that when my grandfather ripped out my hopes and dreams, but she was right. A lot of things had gone correctly.
As the train pulled to a stop, we waited for the passengers to exit before finding our seats. It was far less crowded on the return. Pixie put her head on my shoulder after the conductor punched our tickets. I didn’t nap, though. I watched as the lights and the river that flowed next to the tracks flashed by me. I had a lot to think about. Fake scenarios in my head where my mother hadn’t died. My father hadn’t lied. My grandparents were able to welcome me home. Reality was a real kick in the balls.
I pressed my cheek on the top of Pixie’s head. At least I had her. She made everything more bearable.
Chapter 22
Pixie Rae
WHEN THE TRAIN came to a squeaking stop, Gaze touched my shoulder. I pulled away from him and blinked as the bright lights came on. We were just a few blocks from our regular stomping ground, though we were getting in later than I had wanted to. There would be a few dicey intersections that didn’t have great reputations. I felt very young as Gaze and I slipped into the flow of humans getting off the train.
I wore my backpack on my front with my arms sticking through the straps. I didn’t want to make myself easy for any pickpockets.
Gaze and I walked side by side, and luckily didn’t encounter anyone that was creepy. We popped by Tapps, which was full and loud. From the front window, we saw Mr. Jones dancing on a table, so chances were Gaze would not be in trouble for staying out late.
“Want to stay with me?” I was always happy to have company, and knowing that Gaze could walk across the ramp anytime really opened up some options for us.
“Yeah. I think that would be good. I’ll jump into new clothes and be there as soon as I can.” We each walked to our own building and entered at the same moment. We waited at our windows until we could see each other—our way of ensuring the other was home safe.
It was good that we could do something. For him. For us.
Chapter 23
Pixie
Eighth grade . . .
WE HAD A good thing going for the shape we were in, Gaze and I. We were glued to each other’s side for the rest of seventh grade. Tocks loved having Gaze on the team at pick-up basketball, and encouraged him to try out for the team in high school.
Gaze used the ramp back-and-forth to my room and his mostly at night. I tried twice to get across it but didn’t get very far at all. The drop was too much. Gaze told me to focus on the ramp and keep moving forward, but it froze me in place. So that was that. We had holidays together. We did our homework on the stoop of his building if the day was nice. Seventh grade was good. Except, of course, for the stuff we tried not to talk about. Tried to escape. I knew what Gaze faced, and he recognized that Bic was not okay. As a human, he was fake and loud and boisterous. As a monster, he was touchy. Needlessly close to me. Mom was so happy with Fake Bic, she never even saw Monster Bic.
But Gaze saw. He said guys just knew with other guys. I’d lock my door at night and anytime I was changing. But Bic draped a layer of uneasiness all over my home. Luckily, Mom would tell him that I was a teenager and that I needed to be alone when he complained that I didn’t spend time with them as a “family”. He’d never be my family. Just a parasite. He would go with Mom on her travel trips for work, so that was a blessing. Our utilities stayed on, so maybe he was doing what he said he would do. I never saw him go to an actual job, but he always seemed to have a scheme going somewhere. Investing in stuff. Gaze thought that was code for gambling.
Gaze’s grandfather came through on his promise to pay for expenses for Gaze’s dad and Gaze. We went to the bank and handed them the bills and some of them were deducted straight from the one checking account. I knew the teller. She lived in Gaze’s building, so she read between the lines about what we were trying to do. She set up the checking account attached to Gaze’s dad’s credit card to have the drinking budget set up.
The few bills that Gaze had to pay himself, I’d gently remind him and make sure I had a few stamps. He had a roof over his head. His dad tried to go clean a few times. Gaze could look at the statements and see if he was being serious or not. If there was a bar tab, his dad was not serious at all.
Gaze was hit by his father four more times that I saw through my window during the times that he was back on the booze. Gaze was able to come over to my room after. I got him ice and water and cleaned up any blood. But he told me it wasn’t bad and had been worse in the past.
The reasons for the beatings were as follows: the mail was missing when he checked the box, Gaze had an attitude when Mr. Jones asked him about not vacuuming the floor, Gaze chewed too loud, and the last time was the most recent, when he decided to be angry that Gaze would walk across the ramp to my room.
But mostly, we were safe. Sort of like we were in a den of rattlesnakes that were hibernating.
Seventh grade summer was a nice repeat of last summer. Hydrants, basketball, reading, and Creamsicles.
The bullies left Gaze alone, and I wasn’t surprised. Both Tocks and I had him next to us, so the neighborhood kids knew to leave him be.
But eighth gra
de year was something else. It was the year everything changed. If we were living in a bubble, that was when it burst.
Chapter 24
Gaze
MY FATHER WAS back to drinking. The account I had set up showed me a zero balance. And that’s when I knew my time was up. The switch had turned.
“Where’s the money coming from?” Bruce’s eyes were glassy.
“I learned how to budget stuff from Pix. So, I was just helping us out.” I wish I were taller. My arms were pretty strong from all the basketball, and sometimes I lifted free weights at the park with the boys.
“Well, la-dee-fucking-da, I’m the head of this household, not you. I want to know where this money is coming from.” He jammed his thick index finger on the table.
My father and I were were living in a lie zone. It was like this when it was bad. He pretended he was a fully functioning adult, and I usually didn’t call him out on it. But paying the bills and setting him up with a drinking budget gave me a big head. That I rightfully earned, but still. Acting like I knew better than he did when he was like this was a quick way to make my face more colorful and more painful pretty damn fast.
“Just tell me what you need and I can get it for you.” I made sure not to have attitude in my voice.
“What do you mean, get it for me? I’m your father! What, are you selling drugs or something?”
“No. I just have a couple hundred that I found on the ground at the park. If you need it, you can have it.”
Bruce’s eyes went wide. “You just find money? I think that’s pretty hard to believe.”
“Nah. I got your talent of finding stuff, Dad. I was saving it for a moment like this.” I glanced at the door to my room. It was closed, as usual, and it had an escape. To Pixie.
“Well, cough it up then, son. Because I need it.” He held out a hand to me, shaking, palm up.
Now, he would get even more pissed because I had to get the money from the bank. “I have it hidden at Pixie’s place. I can get it to you tomorrow.”
The unspoken truth. My father knew I creeped over there to her place. That I spent nights there as well. We didn’t talk about it. He made a few snide remarks in the beginning about her being my girlfriend, but he ignored the plank under my window because it was easier than facing it. Of course, money to drink while not having a job had made Bruce generally more easygoing. But that was the thing with the drinking. Eventually, there was never enough. Never enough in his mouth, never enough money to buy it. It wanted him dead, even if it had to kill me along the way to do it.
“Fine. But first thing in the morning. I need it.”
_______________
It was just a Thursday. Nothing special. Nothing new. Stuck in the routine of it all, for as unpredictable as my dad was. I’d made myself pizza bites and swirled them down with a Coke. Dad didn’t really eat much anymore. If he did, it was what he could get down at Tapps. He was looking skinny and bloated at the same time, which was some sort of horrible miracle. The blood vessels in his nose were exploding close to the skin. If you didn’t know better, you would think he was cold. But he wasn’t. The only part that was cold now was his heart.
I had a paper due, and Pixie and I were going to read each other’s assignments. We had the same class, but hers was tougher. They did more problems and more intensive questions. It was just like math and me. My class was harder, and hers was less so. We’d be able to swap papers because we recently rigged up a pulley system with an old laundry container and a string. I could loop the bottle through and then secure it, then I could toss it to Pix. It was consistent and quiet, our two favorite things.
I was looking forward to pizza at school tomorrow and I bit into my pizza bite. I freaking loved pizza.
My desk was set up by my window, and I used it to get outside easier when I visited Pix. I was an ace at walking the ramp. I did it like I was walking on a regular sidewalk. Pixie said I had stupid good balance. She blamed it on my natural athleticism.
I turned on my desk light and saw Pixie across the way sitting on her bed. She was painting her fingernails. It was like this for us. Just being there for each other. I was pretty much going to her room to sleep every night. She was thrilled to have me, because she hated the dark. And she hated Bic.
Somehow we got away with the whole scheme. Ms. Stone and Bic knew I slept there, but Pixie’s mom seemed to know how much Pixie and I needed each other. Pixie told me about a conversation between her and her mom, saying how much we looked out for each other when she and Bic were away. That I was family to her. I was pretty sure she’d told her mom that I wasn’t safe either. I was just guessing at that part, but it seemed implied.
“You’re taking money from your mother’s family?”
I couldn’t answer. Dad didn’t give me time before the hits fell on my shoulders and neck. He had me trapped by my chair. He was pressing against it with his leg, and my chest dug into the faux wood that I normally used as a step to get out of my window.
“Fuck. Dad. What the hell?”
His fury was untameable, unstoppable.
The blows kept coming. I was having trouble breathing, with my chest pressed against the desk so hard. I was seeing flashes, the sounds echoing like I was underwater.
He was pissed about Mom’s family paying the bills. It had been going on so long, I’d reasoned that he’d already figured it out and was okay with it. I mean, he’d been laid off almost a year now. And we were still in the apartment. Still had the lights on. He had drinking money.
I forgot what I was thinking about and the blows made me weak. This was breaking me. Being trapped by him. I used my growing strength and agility to get away from him usually. But like this there was no getting up. No slipping under the table with him cursing about how I needed to stand my ground like a man.
I wanted to say that a man didn’t hit his kid, but my mouth was numb and in pain. God, I hated this. Hated him. Hated that Pixie was seeing this. I prayed she had tucked herself away like I’d always asked. Pretended I had a normal dad. A normal life.
Pain bloomed up the back of my skull, shooting out sparks in my nervous system.
Maybe he wouldn’t stop. This would be the time where he was the perfect combination of sober enough to coordinate his strength and pissed enough to let it be completely unleashed. Combining that with my current trapped position and things were looking like a surefire ER trip with my favorite excuse, “The basketball pick-up game was rough, and you should see the other guys.”
I felt like my pupils were coming out of my eyes, leaving the whites like pitted olives, unseeing in the night.
I was choking now, and when my pizza bite plate went red, I knew it was the blood coming from my mouth. My lungs struggled to give me more air. I started to see only white and hear only static.
Every blow echoed through my body.
And then it stopped. Thank fuck out loud, it stopped. Pixie’s hands on my face, her murmured words. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
I couldn’t see; maybe I was permanently blind. The adrenaline of being beat along with the fear of losing a sense made me shiver.
“Move. Your. Huge. Ass.” Pix was pushing at something on the floor. When I heard the moan, I knew it was an injured Bruce. Then she pulled out my chair, finally my lungs filling all the way with clean air, unrestricted.
I choked on more blood. Pixie was back, placing her soft petal hand on my cheek while she held a towel out for me to cough into.
“You need a doctor. This is bad.” Pixie let her fingertips graze my neck and head. I winced. She apologized. From the floor, more moans.
Bruce was coming to, or around from whatever had happened. I heard a sickening thunk of what sounded a hell of a lot like a head bouncing off a floor.
Pixie’s voice. “You stupid fuck. If you killed him...” she trailed off before she could finish. She had her hands under my armpits and pulled my chair back even farther. The sharp pain in my side was a knife. Maybe he broke my ribs thi
s time. Why did I have my back to him? Why didn’t I see this coming? The anger over going to Mom’s family to pay our bills? I should’ve known.
Pixie again wrapped her arm around my waist and carefully placed my arm around her shoulder. “Are you okay to walk? I want to get us downstairs for the ambulance and I’m afraid your dad will wake up.”
I wasn’t sure she could hear me. “No. No doctor. They’ll investigate. No. Can’t afford.”
I wasn’t even sure I said it out loud. My life had changed in an instant. One angry, stupid instant. But my sight was returning, and that was good. Maybe because I had more oxygen and was able to take full breaths.
Pixie took me down the service elevator, the key was jammed, so it worked for everyone. It smelled awful. In the lobby she recruited help, and then I wasn’t trying to walk at all. Maybe a guy from the building? Maybe a cop? All of a sudden I was being carried like a baby with my whole body aching while the ambulance siren bounced off the buildings, coming closer to me.
Pixie said in my ear, “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”
And then I faded out.
Chapter 25
Pixie
IN THE AMBULANCE, I was sitting in the back, trying to find moments to tell Gaze that I was here. The paramedics stuffed me in with Gaze because I was answering all of their questions. I told them where he had been hit, that he wasn’t allergic to anything that I knew of, and before I could tell them about him not taking any medications, the doors were shut. There were two paramedics in the back with Gaze and me and the ambulance driver.
Now, they were working on Gaze and I couldn’t even reach for his hand. As we snaked our way through the city streets, they gave him oxygen. Or what I assumed to be oxygen. The paramedics were not frantic, but focused. At one point, the female medic that I was sitting next to spared me a glance.
“Did your father hurt you?” She looked at me from the top of my head to my toes. I was confused for a few seconds because I didn’t understand where the question came from. And then I figured out that she thought I was Gaze’s sister.
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